Legitify agrees that communities use new information technologies to strengthen community connections and that decisions are changing the face of our community forever.

The Changing Face of Chittenden County makes the connections between  complex issues, tells the stories of people embracing these changes, and provides resources to take action.

Visit http://www.champlaininitiative.com to learn more.

Check out Legitify produced websites with links to videos empowered by Studio: 

Jason Lee and Chris Pastras Co-Captains of Stereo Sound Agency.  You might recognize Jason from My Name is Earl, Almost Famous or elsewhere.  Tour the set of My Name Is Earl with Jason and Co-Captain Pastras.  Stereo uses our licensed video player and enjoys a simple to manage video gallery format.  Stereo also manages a gallery of their YouTube embedded videos in Studio. 

Stowe Mountain Resort is where I ride on weekday powder mornings before work and teach my kids to ski and snowboard.  Legitify shot video for Stowe in the past but Legitify Studio has empowered Stowe's Video Podcast for two years. Check out the Stowe Mountain Resort Videos in Itunes.

Green River Pictures is a Vermont based High Definition video and digital photography production company.  If you are looking for a Vermont Web Video production company, contact Derek.  Green River Pictures features five videos right on the home page by easily uploading to the home page.  The order is easily sorted via drag and drop.  They also have an easy to navigate and manage video gallery.

Meathead Films is dedicated to creating innovative movies based exclusively in the East.  They feature their upcoming video trailer right on the homepage, have the video podcast that serves as a video gallery on their site and you can subscribe in Itunes.

Rightside Productions is a digital media production company based out of Burlington, VT.  Rightside Productions is the brain child of Joe Gaetani, a digital media producer for Legitify.  Check out his reel on his homepage.  He also uploads, inserts and displays video on his blog posts.

Crash Cart Productions is producing a documentary with a working title called Heal Thyself. Their first feature length film is borne out of the dark frustrations of a Boston doctor who refused to ignore that, every day, we are losing good doctors. Crash Cart features a video on the homepage and is sharing clips through a simple video gallery.

Expect more words about website video creation, production, publishing and distribution.

Check out:
Burlington Free Press Web Link

Burlington Free Press PDF

Place Creative Blog Post 

Legitify has been designing and producing websites since 2002.  Legitify Studio has been in development since February 2007 with the first sites launching in May 2007.  As a hosted application, it will continue to improve, evolve and prove to be the intuitive website publishing platform for Creative Professionals and Businesses. 

We offer affordable packages, payment options and professional service for small businesses.  We also offer strategic, collaborative and customized services for Agencies, Businesses, and our new "top secret" Studio Partner Network.

It is not meant to be a true Industry Index, Business Category Index, and I'm sure we will change it soon.  It is simply easier to look at then the general list. 

We'll keep adding ways to learn about sites in Studio and Studio Features.  A new website dedicated to Legitify Studio will be launching at the end of September.  Stay tuned.

Check out some Studio empowered websites in the following Categories:

Architecture, Landscape Design and Real Estate
Art, Design and Digital Media
Business and Finance
Education
Fashion
Food
Non-Profits
Sports

Legitify worked closely with CarShare Vermont Executive Director Annie Bourdon to produce a site that will help the organization launch the new car share service in Vermont. Annie felt Legitify Studio was the perfect platform to manage all content on the CarShare Vermont website.

Place Creative Company provided branding and logo development. They participated in our interface design process as Legitify created an interface that met the organization's goals and was an extension of the CarShare Vermont brand.

Put simply, car charing is when a group of people have access to a pool of cars that they share.

Here is what Annie has to say:

"When we began shopping around for a web design firm Legitify came highly recommended, and for very good reason. Mike, Margo, and Ben are not only incredibly savvy at what they do and a lot of fun to work with, but they're also personally invested in their projects. It really mattered to me and to CarShare Vermont that we selected a firm that would get behind our mission and help us share it in the most meaningful way possible. Legitify achieved that, and we couldn't be happier. I also can't overlook how easy the Studio platform is to use and how much I appreciate being able to manage our site with ease."

Blotto found out about Legitify from an old friend and former business partner, Vince LaVecchia. Right as usual, Vin thought Legitify Studio would be a good option for Blotto's website: BIG images, a gallery/ store, blog, etc.

Check out BlottoPhotto: http://www.blottophotto.com

We hope to reduce our impact on global warming due to our server's electricity use by supporting new renewable energy projects. We also hope that someday soon our servers will be powered by renewable energy. Until then, the best thing we can do is offset our estimated server emissions.

Check out a past blog about why Studio Is A Socially Responsible Web Application or visit our Greener Website Hosting page to learn more.

Our Studio is in the Wing Building at Main Street Landing and we have been on the waterfront for almost five years. I live a little over 2 miles south just off of Route 7. I've biked to work, but never fully committed to make it happen frequently.

While the benefits of not driving by myself and biking instead for me were obvious - money saved, less gas consumed, less cars on the road, no emissions from my Blue, not Green, Jeep, etc. The unforeseen benefits in participating were TIME BETTER SPENT and a new ongoing COMMITTMENT.

Here are some high moments and realizations from my TIME BETTER SPENT commuting to and from work by bike during the commuter challenge:

• Enjoying a new appreciation for the familiar beauty of Lake Champlain on the Bike Path
• Feeling more connected to Burlington, Lake Champlain and Vermont
• Towing my 2 1/2 year old son in the bike trailer to school on his new way to bikepool commute to school
• Recognizing an increase in bike commuter traffic and feeling that there was a heightened awareness on the bike path with Way To Go Participants sharing friendly smiles
• I was happily surprised to find a short cut for my commute to access the bike path off of Pine Street and realized that biking to work can be faster than driving
• Getting home from work with renewed energy
• Biking alone is way more fun than driving alone
  

Congratulations to the success of this initiative! View Press Release

Special thanks to those who inspired me to participate, including:

• Bryan Davis who is a Transportation Planner for the Chittenden County Metropolitan Planning Organization - I met Bryan recently while discussing Legitify's role in a transportation related project and he turned me on to the Commuter Challenge
  
• Local Motion and their team
• Steve Crafts of Place Creative Company - Aside from being a personal friend and working with Place on projects, I see Steve out the window daily skiing or biking on his daily commute

Legitify recently launched Minadeo Partners and the website design matches the Firm's simple and elegant approach. The Firm has full control over of website content and can add projects, photo galleries and news updates with ease.

A new application was born, developed and deployed in the real world. Ben became a Legitify partner in March 2007 with the common vision to build the best hosted media management tool out there. We've done that and now are taking what we've learned and plan to roll out some amazing features later this spring. Keep an out for new features and plans.

After a strong push to move the entire site including videos, 1000 photos, 70 blog entry updates into Studio, the Meatheads are now reaping all the benefits of Studio including Flash Video encoding on the fly, quality and performance tuning- and the ablity to publish their videos seamlessly in an iTunes podcast. Along with a few other aesthetic alterations to the website, there is a new theater template sporting a high quality (HD 1080i encoded into .flv)

The new store hooked in to Studio will be launching soon. I got sidetracked by creating the intro animation to the new film - Wanderland.

Studio Is Affordable

Studio Is Easy To Use

Studio Is Innovative

Studio Will Be A Useful Tool For A Long Time

Legitify Studio is the perfect platform for Cloudsplitter to create, manage and publish fresh content for activity and conditions reports, new photo & video galleries, and updates on construction of their new unique Riverside Basecamp yurt in Keene Valley.

The site launched on July 10th and within one week is already yielding excellent search rankings in Google for a variety of key search terms including Adirondack Summit Climbs, Certified Private Guiding, and Adirondack Rock Climbing (currently page 2, but should improve). The code delivered by Studio is optimized for search engines.

It will be fun to watch the content grow on this site with real "you are here" videos, photo galleries and reports from the guides.

Exibit A: While watching a podcast about cooking we decided to visit the producer's website.

Notice the first AdWords link "Enema Recipes". Clicking the link:

What we offer:
Simply put, we provide experiences that are always on. Whether these experiences are delivered through text, imagery, interaction, video, or a combination thereof- we create them with your business and communication goals in mind. When it comes to driving traffic it's not about quantity, it's about quality.

At least Betty got paid for our click.

Here is a screen shot of the Listings Publishing Interface:

After using and developing proprietary and open-source CMS tools as well using recently matured publishing tools such as Blogger, Flickr, and YouTube, I began to wonder: "Why am I managing my website, writing, photography, and cinematography in four different places?" While certainly there are social media marketing benefits associated with the popular communities (Not to mention the fact Google owns both Blogger and YouTube) I was convinced that bringing everything under one roof would not only be appealing to publishers and clients, but also helpful in organizing media on a timeline.

So I set out to build a consolidated, simplified, and highly usable tool with key features the big players have. Using my own PHP framework similar to Ruby On Rails (to be released soon), I was able to recreate these features within two months. Features included in the first lanch are:

• Information Architecture & Page Attributes Management
  
• Articles & Photo Content Management
• Blog Management and Publishing Similar to Blogger and WordPress
• Photo Management with Gallery and Gallery Grouping
  
• Video Management and flash encoding on the fly

Look for these features to become available soon:

• Podcast Management
• Document Management
  
• Contact & Lead/Notifications Management
  
• Tagging for easy search in the future
• Email, Mailbox, and Alias Management
• Locations Management for Store/Dealer Locators and GeoTagging

I have also started in on some ideas for a common front end interface to a media life stream uploaded via publisher. Currently it only pulls from the photo tools, however you can see where this is going here.

For more information about Studio or to schedule a private demo contact us.

Check out a screen shot of the photo management section of Legitify Studio:

Popular uses of Legitify Studio under develoment include:

• Website Redesigns
• New Business and Portfolio Websites
• Using Blogs to create and categorize journal entries and share life stories, travels, family history and photos with family and friends
  

Ben and I recently got back from a trip to Maine. On our way back to Vermont we visited the new Grain Surfboards Shop and an old friend and talented artist Randy Gaetano. Randy has recently returned to the country after building his dream home in Costa Rica over the last two years. He is now busy building wooden surfboards with Grain, immersed in the next step of his art path and reconnecting to the Northeast.

Among others, the Legitify brand is one strong part Randy Gaetano. I won't spell out the connection, intention, or higher meaning of Randy's art and Legitify. Randy's art is a daily inspiration to both Legitify and our clients.

Randy's Futuristic Heirogrlyphics Series (t.v. man) has been a part of the Legitify Brand System since 2005. Here are some views of Randy's art in Legitify history:

Legitify.com Website Header Graphics (2005-2006)

Legitify Street Signage at 209 Battery Street Office, Burlington Vermont

Legitify Business Cards

Contact Legitify to inquire about working with Randy and Legitify for your next creative project.

Check out Randy's art and Explore the Futuristic Heirogrlyphics Series on his website!

The website is expected to launch this fall and will utilize Legitify Studio as the multimedia management platform along with custom maps and applications produced by Legitify.

On April 6, 2007, Pete from Tamarack did an interview for news Channel 5 WPTZ as they caught wind of the project so they swung by the Legitify Studio for some shots. The early coverage of this project planted seeds for interest, particpation and success!

The project is partially grant funded. Check out The Institute for Interactive Journalism Press Release: View Press Release

Channel 5 news video clip coming soon.

View to Smugglers' Notch From the Summit of Mount Mansfield.

After "three feet" of St Patty's snow, we are now three weeks deep in to the development of our new publishing tool expected to launch this spring. Yes, we are planning for a rapid development cycle.... but hey, this thing has been in Ben's head for 5 years, builds upon the earlier Legitify CMS and is the perfect tool for Legitify clients. Now called Legitify Studio, it will have elements of a traditional website CMS but be more focused on media. Imagine that...

Here are some key features:

• Manage websites and website content.
  
• Create website pages, edit pages, drag and drop pages to change the order in the navigation and control the site structure.
  
• Manage photo galleries and integrate photos into web pages or blogs.
  
• Blogging tools and website integration. Manage your blog or however many blogs you want.
• Video Galleries and Website Integration.
• Rss aggregator
  
• More coming soon, but needless to say, we are excited.

Over the last few years, Legitify has provided a range of Internet services and developed original digital content for companies of all shapes and sizes. We specialized in building websites and producing digital content. Legitify wrote brand and product copy for brands such as Burton, Helly Hansen and W.L. Gore Windstopper focused on the core messages a brand needs to communicate in order for their customers to believe with former partner and Marketing Director Vince LaVecchia. Legitify produced quality websites with clean interface designs and innovative technology with former partner and Creative director Justin Lewis. Legitify offered internet and brand marketing solutions with the efficiency of a small, adaptable company and the high operating standards of a larger firm. Vince LaVecchia and Justin Lewis are now operating Instrument Marketing, an interactive design, development and marketing firm in in Portland, Oregon.

As Vince and Justin began to (re)develop Instrument in Oregon, Legitify began to work closely with EpikOne, an online consultancy focused on website analytics and optimization. I served as the User Experience Director for EpikOne and with the EpikOne team Legitify continued to optimize websites and marketing efforts with a focus on analytics and usability. After developing a tight partnership with EpikOne, I am excited to be back on the Burlington waterfront one block up the bike path from the old Legitify office. Legitify continues to work with the EpikOne team and we are excited about the opportunity to focus on digital media for websites.

Our new location is studio 110 in the Wing Building located on the Burlington, Vermont waterfront and is part of Main Street Landing. It is great to be back on the waterfront and part of a "green" development. While internet video and digital content continues to evolve with internet technologies, the Legitify plan is to offer professional digital content production services and develop useful content creation, management and publshing tools.

For the Record

While the last version of the Legitify site certainly could have been considered more of blog than a corporate website, this is the first official Legitify "blog" post. My opinion of blogs and their uses will come out over time. I wouldn't be suprised if this is not called a blog, or if I choose to not call this a blog soon enough.