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Family, noah

Trotz 2.0

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babyno2

So we’ve been keeping this somewhat quiet, but we’ve passed a major milestone and are ready to let everyone know. I am so happy to announce that little Trotz #2 is expected to arrive this October (31st, to be exact), and both mom and baby-to-be are doing very well as we finish up our 18th week. Amy has been a bit sicker than the first time out, but it’s certainly helped to know more-or-less what we were expecting. We’ve had several advanced ultrasound sessions and this baby is MUCH more active than Sam was – flipping around, moving arms and legs, etc. Sam has decided that he’s having a sister – but for now, we are declining to find out that tidbit of info in advance. We’ll see if we hold off or not. Look for more updates here as we progress.

Family

eager readers

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The Family of Readers

After a long day at Zoo Atlanta (it was a free Turner weekend), we all ended up on the couch reading our books. Amy took note of how sweet it was that we were all reading together – a perfect rainy Saturday afternoon activity. I was reading the umpteenth John Sanford novel, Amy was reading some trashy Oprah novel (While I was Gone by Sue Miller), and Sam was reading his favorite of late – his Sesame Street Dictionary. I promise – this picture is unstaged, other than my having to run and setup the camera on self-timer.

work

CNN 2.0

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CNN Beta

It’s been a busy few days for us at Turner Broadcasting. Today, CNN.com took the wraps off a beta preview of their new design coming on July 1st (as reported earlier). Full disclosure – I work for Turner Broadcasting, and my ad services team has worked extensively on this project, but the views herein are my own. But as one blog put it:

Something strikes me as… different. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It looks cleaner. Brighter. Cleaner. Grayer. Whiter. Redder. Bluer. Nicer.

The blogs seem to have welcomed the new video treatment (no popup player, and now in Flash!), the Amazon-like ‘We Recommended’ feature, the intelligent use of Ajax, the tabbed presentation in stories highlighting multimedia elements and even, daresay it, the cleaner ad presentation. Some comments do opine for the ability to embed videos on user sites, however. I do think the new site embraces the spirit of Web 2.0, emphasizing the blogosphere on every story (via Sphere) and utilizing Topix for local coverage. Another very cool feature are the new Hot Topics pages, which are being autogenerated for pretty much any story, personality or subject you might dream up; here are a few examples: tuberculosis, Lindsay Lohan, Vioxx, and George W. Bush. As an added bonus, all of these are also available as RSS feeds, huzzah!

As with Gametap 3.0 that launched yesterday, my team has been working on the advertising portions of this project for many months. I’m encouraged to read in some blogs that the ads are less obtrusive, and on the technology side, we’ve really broken what I believe is new ground with some of the underlying approaches, especially around the new video players.

Please do check it out, and be sure to add your comments – there is a handy ‘+Feedback’ link on most pages, and the site wants to hear your opinion. More coverage of the beta can be found here.

technology, work

Gametap Reborn

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Gametap 3.0

Yesterday marked a major milestone for everyone’s favorite broadband gaming service. Launched back in 2005, Gametap was born out of the concept of doing what Turner Broadcasting has done for other businesses – acquiring rights to libraries of content, then programming that content in new and lucrative ways. Now, with yesterday’s launch, Gametap is adding to that subscription model by offering a rotating selection of free games to play from their web site, as well as simultaneous access to new releases (Lara Croft’s latest). There is now also a direct digital download service  where you can download to own games. David Reid, Gametap’s VP of Marketing, sums it up this way:

It’s really hard to explain to someone what 900 of the greatest games of all time in one place means.

My team has been working with Gametap for several months now integrating advertising into both their new and improved web site as well as their new lite and existing deluxe player. It’s been an exciting project – it’s always fun to do work where it involves gaming! And did I mention that there will soon be a Mac client too – said to be by late Summer according to one of the Joystiq articles! Woohoo!

More coverage here: