The paid content (blogs) debate

Quite a number of bloggers are discussing the idea of charging readers to access content, particularly blogs. Sahar Sarid's mindful research and analysis of the trends in the business models of Newspapers, Radio and Television boil down to the point that a subscription based revenue model is "inevitable" for the blogosphere.

However, as Scott points out, one cannot generalize on such facts in the case of blogging or for that matter any online service that provides content in the form of text, images, audio or video as the Web has been around for more than a decade and most content online is still free. Also, the paid media business models such as newspapers and magazines have lost considerable amount of audience to the free ad-supported online media.

According to Scott, only those content providers such as Seth Godin and Darren Rowse, whose content is equivalent to what one may get from a paid consultant, can take advantage of the subscription based business model.

Also, only those blogs/websites with a decent amount of popularity can take advantage of this business model as content behind pay walls are hard to get linked to from other websites/blogs and definitely impossible to get indexed thereby resulting in a poor readership. » Continue reading

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Deceiving the camera to get the desired color balance

White balance set to 'Daylight'-Neutral color balance

White balance set to lower color temperature, resulting in cooler color balance.

White balance set to a higher color temperature, resulting in warmer colors.

Higher Kelvin temperatures give 'Cool' colors whereas lower color temperatures gives warm colors. Yet, it is suggested that we set a higher color temperature on a digital camera to get 'warmer' colors.

We set White Balance on a digital camera to compensate for the color of the existing light source. If the color of the light is orange (as with incandescent bulbs), the subject will take on a orange color cast.

Since we don't want the color cast, we set the White Balance to 'Incandescent', thereby telling the camera that in this orange colored light, we want our whites as white. Once that happens, all other colors will reproduce correctly.

During daytime (say 11.00am), by setting your digital camera to a higher Kelvin temperature you are deceiving the camera in to believing that the available light is 'cooler' (that is, 'bluer') when actually it is not. So the camera, assuming that the light is 'bluer' (that is, 'colder'), compensates in the opposite direction by making the image 'warmer'. » Continue reading

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