Charles Apple

You guys remember John Telford, right? Worked for years as a news artist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch? He left the P-D, returned to Florida and is putting all his energy, now, into the graphics and information design firm he runs with his pal Brian Williamson.

John Telford of Bing! Information Design
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John is extremely good at what he does and Bing! has been an awfully successful business. [Full disclosure: I consider John a good friend. He even sub-contracted a little work to me last winter when he ran into a time crunch.]

But you’re about to read a lot more about him, I suspect. David Richards of SmartHouse.com reports:

Microsoft faces legal action in the USA from a small design Company who have accused the global software Company of unfairly using the name Bing for their search engine.

Bing! Information Design, launched a legal action alleging that the multibillion-dollar software corporation “had knowledge of the mark” and “intentionally interfered” when it relaunched its search engine using the Bing name earlier this year.

The court case is set to be heard in the New Year.

John’s Bing! site:

Not John’s Bing! site:

Bobbie Johnson of the Guardian reports:

Lawyers for the Missouri firm said that the action damaged the smaller company’s business, and would seek punitive damages to “punish” Microsoft and deter other companies from acting in a similar manner.”For nearly 10 years my client has been using the Bing! mark,” said lawyer Anthony Simon in a statement. “My client selected this unique mark to distinguish itself in the marketplace and invested substantial time and effort promoting its business using Bing!.”

“Microsoft’s use of the identical mark and its aggressive advertising have gutted all of my client’s efforts to distinguish its business and created confusion that must be remedied.”

The St. Louis Business Journal even illustrated its version of the story with amusing little Photoshop cutouts of John and Bill Gates.

Very cute.

Seattle-based trademark lawyer Michael Atkins posted in his blog:

I see a little overlap in the parties’ services descriptions, but I still don’t see much of a chance that consumers are going to think that Microsoft’s search engine services come from a St. Louis ad agency, or that a St. Louis ad agency is responsible for Microsoft’s search engine.

Surprisingly, Atkins missed a major point. As one of his readers commented:

What about trademark owners’ duty to police their marks? You mentioned above that there is a little overlap in the companies’ services. Is it possible that BID is bringing suit now to prevent a defense of laches by Microsoft should the marks be used in the same service areas in the future? (Since BID does advertising and the Bing! search engine incorporates ads, this doesn’t seem that far fetched.)

Let me quickly point out an error here. “Goldenrail” used an exclamation point with the Microsoft search engine. In fact, only John Telford’s company uses the punctuation.

Find the Business Journal story here. Read the Guardian report here. Find the SmartHouse report here. Find John’s Bing! homepage here.

Find an enormous compilation of news posts about the suit here.

I presume you can find Microsoft’s Bing page. Just Google it or something.

I’ve not tried to sell a free-lance graphic since last year’s Super Bowl project. I enjoyed putting together the pieces, but they really haven’t sold so well. Other than the first one, I mean.

Editors have told me repeatedly they like the work I’m doing and they like the fact that I’m giving them choices — and, better yet, taking approaches not covered by the Associated Press or the other wire services. However, editors have said they have neither the newshole nor the free-lance budget to consider my pitches.

Which is fair enough. After four free-lance offerings last winter, I turned my attention to other matters so it was no great loss.

When I returned from Africa on Dec. 1, though, I immediately dove into assembling what’s an annual project for me: A pull-out guide to the college football bowl games.

In 1997 — I was in my second year at the Chicago Tribune – I was suddenly struck by the silliness of running a huge page of dry, text-driven capsules on an interesting topic like college bowls. So I suggested we try it as an easy-reference grid instead, so readers might pull out the page and keep it around for a while.

To my delight, someone — as I recall, it was Joe Knowles, who’s now AME of design and graphics at the Trib — said yes:

The idea is pretty simple, as you can see. The dates run down the left side. All the games are listed in chronological order. You get the game time and TV information as well as team logos, records and a nice writeup on each game.

Notice there were “only” 21 bowl games back then. This gave me room for tiny little photos and mug shots.

After two years of building this page for the Tribune, I became graphics editor of the Des Moines Register. Naturally, I took my idea with me and Randy Brubaker — at the time, the Register’s sports editor — was delighted use it.

And we did use the idea. For five years, beginning in 1999. Here are the pages from 2000 and 2002:

When I moved to the Virginian-Pilot in 2003, I ported over the idea yet again. Here are the bowl pages from 2003 and 2005:

Note how as the number of bowls increased, the page got a little more dense. Good-bye photos.

Last year — my first in 22 years not on staff at a paper somewhere — I offered up the page on a free-lance basis. Three papers bought it. Left to right: The Rockford (Ill.) Register-Star, the Baltimore Sun…

…and the tabloid-sized sports section of the Harrisburg (Pa.) Patriot News:

As you can see, I tried to break up some of that denseness with white space.

After twelve years of building these puppies, I hated to not even try to get someone to run this graphic. I feel strongly it’s still a great way to present this information.

So willing to sacrifice price-per-piece for more individual sales this year, I lowered my price — really, to get a better feel for the free-lance market — and sent out a few dozen e-mail solicitations.

The result: Five papers — so far, anyway — are running this year’s bowl guide.

The Gazette of Gastonia, N.C. and the Shelby, N.C. Star were the first. They ran theirs this past Thursday:

Notice how I left space for a strip ad across the bottom. I think Shelby and Gastonia put a small story there instead. That’s the six-column version.

Two papers are running the four-column variant today, and both are papers where I once worked: The News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. and the Des Moines Register. This is the N&O version, with fonts converted to Interstate:

And a large paper out west is scheduled to run the four-column version on Sunday.

In addition, I’ve suggested to editors they could slice off the expired games and run a portion of this piece on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, when papers typically have huge chunks of paper to fill with holiday staffing. We’ll see if we have any late customers this time around.

As an exclusive for my blog readers, though, here’s a handy PDF version that’s optimized for easy printing on two horizontal letter-sized pages. Just in case you live in an area where the local paper didn’t buy my graphic.

Last we heard of artist/illustrator/3D whiz/evil genius Kevin Hand, he was taking a buyout after eight years with Newsweek.

While most of us stumble around, after buyouts or layoffs, looking for something to do, Kevin managed to dive directly into a new project: Animation for a TV show debuting this weekend on MTV.

The show is called DJ & the Fro. The official debut isn’t until Monday, June 15. But MTV will show the first episode Sunday night, immediately following the MTV Music Awards. Look for it around 11:30 p.m. EDT.

Remember Beavis and Butthead? That show was basically a series of brief comedy bits designed to link music videos. DJ & the Fro is similar: It’s about two lifelong buddies who work in a cubicle farm and spend nearly every waking moment watching viral videos via the internet. On company time, naturally.

Here’s a trailer. Warning: Some viewers might find some of the material a little, um, tasteless. Meaning this will probably be a huge hit on TV:

The job came as a result of “sheer luck,” Kevin says.

Kevin tells us he found an ad on Craigslist requesting Flash animators. Having done a bit of animation — but not much — he dove into the 40-second test they assigned him, pulling an all-weekend shift to polish it off. Despite his efforts, the studio eventually called to say they’d have to pass him by.

Two hours later, Kevin says, the producer called him with an offer. They flew him to Hollywood and put him up in a hotel until he could find temporary housing for the two month gig.

MTV bought 20 episodes from Titmouse Productions, the company actually producing the cartoons. Kevin says if the network funds a second season, he’s up for another trip to Hollywood.

Kevin began his newspaper graphics career straight out of high school in 1982 at the Fort Pierce (Fla.) News Tribune. In 1986, he moved to Gannett’s Florida Today and then to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1988.

After nine years in the land of McGarrett, Kevin moved to the Chicago Tribune in 1997, where I had the pleasure of working with him. He became assistant graphics editor at Newsweek in 2000.

A few samples of his print work (click for a larger view):

DJ & the Fro debuts Monday, June 15 on MTV, at 5 p.m. Eastern and Pacific times. Watch a preview episode Sunday following the MTV Music Awards, around 11:30 p.m. Eastern.

Go here to read more about the DJ and the Fro series. Go here for more about Titmouse animation studios (Warning: A video will automatically play).

Go here to see Kevin’s personal portfolio.

We wanted to post a reminder late this week about the exciting SmartNews co-op designed to bring free-lancers together with publishers of small — and perhaps not-so-small — newspapers. We wrote about it at length last week.

But we spent all our time Wednesday blogging news and tweaking our slideshow for today. So instead, we thought we’d hand over the blog to our good friend Jim McBee, the managing editor of SmartNews.

Take it away, Jimbo…

If you’re an editor or publisher who’s under the gun to cut costs (nah, none of those around), it’s time to check us out. Not because we’re going to save you $100,000 a year right away, but because Smartnews is a medium-term strategy to lower costs while we brave this brutal storm of technological change, ridiculous debt, and just plain old recession. We’re an experiment that’s worth trying out.

Publications have slashed their staffs. Even with cuts in news hole, publishers still need good “stuff to fill in around the ads.” And that’s where Smartnews comes in.

We’re starting to get a pretty good batch of contributors (25+ and we hear from more each day at Smartnews). Now it’s time to make some sales.

1. We’re cheaper than wire. If you’re a small publication (fewer than 100,000 impressions a week), your cost for content will be $1.20-$6 per item. A payment matrix crosses an author’s rating against the circulation of the publication. Go back and compare that to your wires and syndicated content. You start with as little as $120 to get your feet wet.
2. You buy everything a la carte. You don’t have to subscribe to a bunch of stuff you’ll never use in order to get the handful of things you will. A wire service or syndicated package is kind of like cable TV — you buy a bunch of channels you’ll never watch in order to get ESPN. We understand why people play that game, but we’re going to let the market sort out what pays and what’s niche.
3. You can sell as well as buy. With a wire service, if you contribute content, you don’t see a dime — even if half the newspapers in the country run it. At Smartnews, your content’s just as valuable as anyone else’s. And you’re not competing against our staff writers and photographers, because we don’t have any. If I want to upload something I’ve written or designed, I’m just the same as any other freelancer.
4. We’ve got quality. We’re not talking about a bunch of hacks, here. Newspapers have laid off some of their best and brightest, and we’re snapping them up as fast as we can.

We go live on April 1. What better way to enjoy April Fools’ Day than to start a news venture during a recession?

Thanks, Jim.

Find the SmartNews web site here.

Randy Foster and Jim McBee are launching a new cooperative to help match up free-lance writers, photographers, artists and designers with newspapers that need help while their in-house resources are diminishing.

Randy Foster and Jim McBee of SmartNews.
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It’s called SmartNews. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because Randy and Jim used it for a tabloid that published for about a year in Fayetteville, N.C. Those of you who have seen my slideshows have seen a number of old SmartNews pages.

They first pitched this co-op idea — and we covered it — last year. They’ll be ready to launch on April 1, they say.

We’re convinced this could be a great help to small newspapers around the country. Along with 22 other journalists, so far, we’ve signed up to contribute content. Randy’s hoping for another seven to sign up this week to give him an even 30 when he begins his pitch to newspaper publishers.

SmartNews‘ members will post their articles, photos, graphics and whatnot to a bulletin board-type web page. They’ll be paid via micropayments, Randy says:

A creator (writer, photographer, artist) posts an item that sells for, say, $3 per download. That’s the base rate that small publications pay if that journalist has a rating of 3.

Medium publications pay $6 to download that same item. Large publications pay $12.

Let’s say 30 publications buy limited use of that item (they can use it only once) — 12 small, 4 medium and 4 large.

12 x 3 is $36 from small pubs; 4 x 6 is $24 from medium pubs; and 4 times 12 is $48 from large pubs. Total income from that round of downloads is $108.

I’ve been browsing the freelance sites and see them paying $15 to $80 for articles. Small to medium newspapers seldom pay more than $50 for a freelanced piece. It is uncommon (not unheard of, but uncommon) for freelancers to sell a piece to more than one publication.

If you write a great weekly column, you may find yourself in great demand and make a pretty decent living. If you cover a big news story, your piece may wind up getting lots of downloads. It’s a matter of picking and choosing your efforts wisely.

As my friend and colleague has said, SmartNews needs a good number of members — both creators and publishers — to work.

Sounds like a really good concept. We’re glad to pitch in.

Find the SmartNews web site — and learn more about the project — here. For those of you on Facebook, Randy created a SmartNews group that currently has 116 members. Randy has been sending out daily memos that explain how he sees SmartNews working and keeps folks posted on where he is in the setup process.

In addition, Jim has been hitting the subject pretty frequently in his own blog. Check it out here.