Don't Get Carried Away Now...

Two weeks ago we discussed the National Geographic website following in the footsteps of Red Bull and getting into the adventure/extreme sports world. This week I want to dedicate a brief blog to Nat Geo's interest in the world of the extreme.
    
  With sections in the website dedicated to such fine subjects as extreme photo of the week, 20 extreme adventures, surfing photos, climbing photos... and so on and so forth, Nat Geo is plumbing the depths of the adventure sports arena.

  There's advice on where to do some of the finest base jumping, where to find the most shark infested waters where a fella can have a dive, or where the to try you're hand at riding the most life threatening waves. The blog is crammed with fantastic ways to wile away an otherwise humdrum weekend.

  My favorite thing I found when perusing this portion of the site was the extreme photo of the week, and I think I'm going to leave you fine people with a selection of the most badass shots from the last few months... so mind yourselves and keep a close eye on each other.

Shell Shucked on Salem Street

Mercato Del Mare (or the North End Fish Market) is a small fish shop tucked into a side street near Government Centre where, on Saturday of every week, the man on the street can learn how to brutally extract the fleshy goodness from a freshly caught oyster. For 75 cents an oyster and no extra charge anyone is free to join an oyster shucking class where a trained professional will talk you through, in thick Bostonese, the mechanics of knifing the oyster out of its shell.

Oysters are considered a delicacy the world over and Boston is lucky enough to be surrounded by seas rich with these delectable crustaceans. Throughout the shucking experience the guide talks the group through the various different types of oyster, how they are harvested and eventually end up on our table, what types of sauces or spices to cover your catch in… and various other pearls of wisdom.

Last Saturday there was a huge turnout and the groups were varied and interesting; many came to try their hand at shucking but stayed for the fresh fish on sale or the reasonably priced made to order sushi. We got talking to Emily from Ireland and Alfonzo from Mexico who, far from having shucked before, had hardly eaten an oyster before in their lives – though they both seemed pleasantly surprised.

Oysters aren’t for everyone; in fact on paper the oyster doesn’t look all that appealing whatsoever. The oyster has an almost overpoweringly briny taste with a bit of a fishy hint, the texture is both slimy and rubbery, it looks like something that could come out an unhealthy nose mid-February and to top it all off you don’t eat it, you tip your head back and let it slide down your throat. Though despite all these slightly negative attributes the oyster has found its slippery way into the hearts and minds of the culinary elite – and for that alone one must tip his hat to the oyster.

In Mercato del Mare blades are flashing and brine is flying as Emily and Alfonzo begin splitting shells. The cries of the experienced guide can be heard telling them to “dig the knife into the hinge, THE HINGE!” and “you’d wanna get the grit outta that thing before ya eat it” – everyone seems to be having a fantastic time of it.

Despite the ominous sounding taste, texture and appearance of the oyster you’ll never know what you think until you try one, and if you’re already a fan then these amazingly fresh and reasonably priced offerings can’t be missed. All this teamed with the action of wrestling the oyster from its shell with your own two hands has all the makings of a great afternoon out.   

Pop Quiz, Hot Shot

Another part of the National Geographic's homepage that endears me to the website is the pop quiz window; this is a, hitherto undiscovered by me, gem of interactivity available free of charge. Essentially what it does is fire a barrage of multiple choice questions at the willing participant and then submit their answers to be compared to other, better people's results - as is the case with myself who got a paltry 11 correct out of 25.

 It is, of course, all in good fun. The trivia is varied and fascinating, ranging from such subjects as South Africa's seal colonies to the Earth weight of an astronaut's spacesuit, and a new quiz is available every few weeks. The beauty this quiz featuring on Nat Geo's website is that each answer, whether correct or humiliatingly wrong, leads to a hyperlink that will whisk you away to a series of articles, videos and pictures that will tell you all about the subject - so that you will never again be subjected to the humiliation of not knowing that the way to tell the difference between a wasp and a bee is to examine the thickness of their waists.

  So it's yet more interactivity on the part of the Nat Geo website. The promise of beautiful pictures and silken prose draw the browser to the website, but it is the clever little touches such as this quiz that kept me glued to the site and had me exploring (without even noticing it) the vast depths of information it has to offer.   

Journey to the Centre of the Earth

It seems that the enterprising people at Nat Geo have taken a leaf out of Red Bull's ingenious book and turned themselves into an adventure sponsoring machine. In the manner of Red Bull's Stratos adventure in which Felix Baumgernater will leap out of a capsule a dozen or so miles above the earth's surface; Nat Geo is planning to send a Hollywood movie director the other way - this time to the bottom of the sea... exciting stuff.

National Geographic's Deepsea Challenge is basically sending a man by the name of James Cameron (who's taken a few days off from his burgeoning directorial career) to the hitherto only once before explored depths of the Marinas Trench. This mirrors Red Bull's ingenious publicity stunt in many ways, most notably the fact that both present day missions had been carried out only once before in the 1960's.

 

Nat Geo's efforts to study the darkest depths of the ocean is of course a fantastic step in furthering scientific knowledge and helping quell humanity's insatiable thirst for knowledge... buuuut it is also a fantastic way of generating traffic for the website. If one is to take a leaf (or in this case the bones of a chapter) out of someone's book it may as well be Red Bull's. They have managed to transfer themselves from purveyor of slightly toxic canned drinks into one of the foremost international sports/adventure/lifestyle brands in a matter of only a few years.

      

A Photo a Day...

In light of our class this week focusing on the development of our photography skills, (I'm going to stop exposing you to these dodgy jokes now... ahem) I want to take a brief look at the National Geographic website's photography section, most notably the site's 'how to' subsection. This is a fantastic resource for burgeoning photographers as it lets the lay man in on the tricks of the trade, at least according to Nat Geo.

 The 'how to' area basically teaches how to make the most of your photographs, not only by altering technicalities but also by making sure you're in the right place at the right time. The advice ranges from well known tricks such as shooting nighttime traffic with a long exposure, to inspired tips such as making sure to shoot a newly rising moon to ensure that it's still a huge orb and not shining too brightly. There is also advice on capturing the best shot on an i-phone, how to make your photos more magical and even how to break the rules... sensibly. It could be said that this adds an educational feather to Nat Geo's interactive cap.

This special techniques 'how to' caught my eye the most but there are a few more handy little aspects to the website's photography section. One thing that I have used myself, and encourage everyone to as well, is the downloadable wallpaper option. Some of the most stunning photography the world has to offer is available free of charge to download in high resolution. The only price a downloader has to pay for this privilege is to bear a National Georaphic logo across the bottom corner of their screen, which I for one believe is a pretty good deal.

For those who want to take these fantastic shots out of the virtual world and into their living room there is of course the art store. Here you can buy high quality prints and have them sent out, the prices are reasonable enough at $17 for a 16x24 unframed print but there is always fancier options for those who like fancy things - for $90 one can purchase a splendid canvas print, or a selection of gilded and non-guided frames for all sorts of money.

There's a lot more to the photography section; shot of the day, best picture of the year - even entire areas devoted to underwater or travel or any other sort of photography you care to mention. This is all fantastic but for me the tips are this section's piece de resistance, it is something of a crash course in photography entirely free of charge... and that's what will keep me coming back.

TV or not TV?

National Geographic, along with its Magazine, Website and numerous other ventures, is also the proud owner a T.V channel filled with weird and wonderful documentaries. The subjects of these specials range from a close look at the legal marijuana business in California, to a week in the life of some deeply paranoid people from the northern states preparing for the Apocalypse. A fine mixed bag of the strangeness the world has to offer.

There is a section of Nat Geo’s website called ’Nat Geo TV’ in which it has photos, blurb and schedules advertising what’s on going to appear on the channel over the next few days. The descriptions of what are on offer are thorough and there is an ample amount of videos to be perused; but unfortunately this is the first section of the website in which I’ve become a little confused about what’s going on.

It seems that a variety of videos from different corners of the site have been thrown in together in a sort of haphazard fashion. There’s no real rhyme or reason to the bunch of videos available, it’s difficult to tell if one of the videos is a taster for something that will appear or NatGeo TV or just a random upload. So far it’s the first part of the site that hasn’t adhered to the policy of “balanc(ing) high impact visuals with uncluttered typography”. The whole thing is quite cluttered, fairly confusing and the visuals had an impact akin to a left-hook off an eight year old.   

Reassembling Crocodiles and Other Welcome Distractions

13 minutes and four seconds. That’s how long it took me to put a salt water crocodile back together… and I enjoyed every moment of it. This week, to my delight, I discovered the wealth of interactivity National Geographic offers on its website - and spent many a happy hour deep in research. 

 
The crocodile happened to be the subject of a jigsaw puzzle that I found in this interactive part of the site. The games and puzzles tend to be based around the website's vast reserves of photos in what appears to be a successful bid to get users to engage more with the images - and I found myself doing just that.

  Aside from jigsaws there are a handful of other enjoyable time-fillers to get involved in - including a match game in which you have to test your memory by clicking on two of the same photo and a slide puzzle that is, in my jaded opinion, very difficult indeed.

All this is, of course, lovely but the feather in Nat Geo's interactive cap must be what they've called the 'Infinite Photo'. This is essentially a photo that's made up a thousand photos, and each one of those photos is made up of a thousand photos, and each one of those is made...  ahem, I'm sure you get the idea. This is a genuinely spellbinding experience and it really forces the user to see the subtleties and fine detail of these beautiful photographs.

The thing that makes this this whole section of the website so interactive though is the fact that it's the public's photos that we are engaging with rather than those of professionals. The interactive section is located in a larger area of the site called my shot. This is where the members of the site upload their photos and, if they make the cut, they'll be displayed for all to see - and even possibly transformed into a jigsaw or some other bit of interactive tomfoolery.

           

  

Back to the Future... Via Hyperlink

It came to my attention this week while perusing the National Geographic website that the entire site was subject to a major overhaul two years ago. The official line National Geographic is taking on the change goes something like this: “The new aesthetic balances high impact visuals with uncluttered typography to provide a new standard in usability as well as a larger canvas to view National Geographic’s world-renowned photography”… and it’s difficult to argue with them on this point.

Breaking on Through to the Other Side

Upon my first arrival at the National Geographic website I was extended a kind invitation of membership by those in charge –and partly the interests of good well rounded reporting, and partly in the interests of stopping irksome popups (see right), I readily accepted.

In my first tentative step in the sign up process I was asked whether I wanted to sign up with my Google, Facebook, Yahoo or several other accounts that I may possess. What alarmed me was the fact that if I wanted to become a member of Nat Geo’s site I had to expose part of my online life to the publication – thus adding another tangle to the web of interlinking sites in which I’ve managed to get myself embroiled.

Though, in what I told myself was in the name of technological advancement, I persevered in the sign up. Almost instantly I began getting attacked with special offers on items from Nat Geo’s shop or chances to win a holiday to somewhere far flung, or whatever else might coax a dollar or two out of me. 

So I decided to explore the other gainful avenues my new membership of the website might offer me, and upon closer inspection I was met with a cul de sac. Aside from the chance to set up a profile page I could find nothing extra opened up to me. There is no denying that the amount of information on the site is bountiful, but I felt I was due more for handing over most of my personal life… even the bloody popups were still there.

I can see the obvious benefits for the website in having people sign up; there is the revenue that can be created from members through offers sent via email, not to mention the money that comes from advertisers knowing that the site has a large and dedicated fan base. A better tactic for encouraging people to sign up could be the promise of behind the scenes access unavailable to the great unwashed.

Websites such as The Boston Globe’s or The New York Times’ offer minimal information until membership is agreed. Granted the fact that these sites charge money for the privilege changes things, but it might be a good idea for Nat Geo to take, if not quite a leaf, at least a few paragraphs out of their respective books.

While obviously not putting huge limitations on the information available on non-member’s pages maybe it should be taken back a bit – the website can then paint a tantalizing picture of life on the other side of the sign up process, raising the incentive for membership. By changing very little it may be possible for the both the company and the viewers to gain from the wonders of exclusivity.                    

It's News, Jim, but not as we Know it

News on the National Geographic’s website is obviously an entirely different animal from what we get on ordinary news sites. We aren’t subjected to the usual everyday tales of political misadventures, sporting dramas and various stories of death and misery from around the world.

 Instead we are given a rich selection of stories that would otherwise, at best, be given three sentences in a dusty corner of The Globe or New Yorker’s websites. The News on National Geographic’s site ranges from the huge solar storm that’s hitting earth this week to the discovery of popcorn that was prepared 6,700 years ago.

The reason I bring this up is because it’s these types of stories that lend themselves so well to multimedia convergence; clearly 15 images of a coral reef created out of sculptures of humans are going to be far more interesting than 15 shots of Mitt Romney giving a speech in Florida.

 The fine people at the helm of the Nat Geo website appear to be well aware of this, and with many of the news stories the emphasis is on pictures and video more so than text. 

The daily news section of the website is separated into a dozen links under headings such as: ‘Animals’, ‘Travel/Cultures’, ‘Space/Tech’ and ‘Weird’. Though all of these links lead to stories that are complete with audio visual content, there is a separate link entitled ‘News Photos’ and another dedicated solely to ‘News Videos’.

 What Nat Geo have done is find themselves an interesting niche between newspaper and magazine; essentially providing a roundup of news and current events in the style of the news website - but focusing heavily videos and images in the style that’s normally associated with a magazine’s site.

The system used for scrolling through the photos is a pleasure to use, rest your clicker over the image for an instant and a brief summary of the content emerges. In this age of the severely stunted attention span potential readers want to decide whether their interested or not at a glance. Also the news videos come without text, which can be nice change from the veritable assault of information we’re used to.