All The S*** Around The Net
Three original Blue Collar Comedy comedians — Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Larry the Cable Guy — talk about a decade of success, rednecks and what’s next for one of the most successful franchises in entertainment history. (March 12)
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Blue Collar Comedy Celebrates Ten Years
With over 26,000 followers, West Hollywood’s Roxy Theatre is the most popular club on Twitter. Just short of half a decade earlier, however, the fortunes of the historic venue and many of its neighbors on LA’s infamous Sunset Strip were waning and in need of serious attitude adjustment.
We had a chance to talk with Nic Adler, owner of The Roxy and the man behind the club’s transformation from “castle on the hill” to social media juggernaut, about how Twitter and other tools helped not only reverse the fortunes of businesses on the Strip, but build up a stronger, more vibrant local community.
If you’re a small business wondering how social media can be relevant to you, someone in public relations looking for creative ideas, or an organization looking to take your first steps into the waters of social media, you’ll want to read on for a resounding success story and a number of practical tips. If you’re a music fan, don’t touch that dial or miss a slice of history.
The Roxy Theatre has been graced by numerous musical legends in its 37-year history, from Motley Crue to Nirvana to Bob Marley to a venerable pantheon of who’s who in rock history. The Rocky Horror Show and Pee-Wee Herman were launched there, and the upstairs bar was a regular hangout for folks like John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Keith Moon, and John Belushi.
Fast-forward to the mid-2000s though, and the grunge scene had come and gone, displacing a good chunk of what was once perceived as an unstoppable draw to the Strip — one that had easily brought in locals and tourists alike. “The Strip has always been busy and always had relevance, but in the last 10 years we hadn’t had our best 10 years,” says owner Nic Adler, son of one of the club’s founders (Lou Adler, legendary manager and producer of artists including The Mamas & the Papas, Carole King, and Sam Cooke).
Part of the problem? The “velvet rope” mentality. “We on the Sunset Strip just thought we were on this golden hilltop, that we don’t have to listen. And we just created these walls around the venues, almost like these castles on the hill, and stopped talking with each other, and didn’t really participate with each other.”
What ended up turning the fortunes of not only The Roxy but a good chunk of other businesses on the Strip? A creative and unique social media campaign that began to build offline community using online tools. “We switched over to a blog format about three and a half years ago, and started to understand that there was this conversation going on. And that we could participate,” says Adler of their first steps into social media.
Early on, the club faced the question of how to approach their nearby neighbors and ostensible competitors for the time and dollars of Sunset Strip clientele. “We got on Twitter pretty early, May 2007, and we got up to about 10,000 followers. The Viper Room had just gone through some new ownership and they popped up and started tweeting. We had this conversation in the office, wondering ’should we retweet them?’ We have these 10,000 followers who would probably be into the Viper Room — do we do this ‘coopetition’ thing?”
Deciding to retweet them ended up being the best choice, because shortly afterward, a new bond was formed and other clubs on the Strip began to take notice. The Comedy Store down the street got on Twitter and joined the conversation, and “from there it just went from one business to the next, and it just grew. And because we had started this new relationship — a clean slate — it didn’t have anything to do with the bookers, or who had more people at their show, or anything. It was a whole new relationship that was created online with the clubs.”
Beyond revitalizing an audience of patrons (which we’ll talk more about in a bit), the Sunset Strip’s embracing of social media led to a regrouping of business owners who are taking a fresh approach to their local community. From creative adoption of Twitter and other tools, The Roxy and its neighbors discovered “we can revive ourselves and take a fresh look at what’s happening out there and not only get the actual customers back, but even affect the government — I know that sounds crazy, but literally, we go down to the city council meeting together and there’s 40 business there. And we’re all talking together and we’ve become a really strong voice within our city to get things done.”
From rewarding loyal club fans to transforming customer service, Adler relayed some creative and unique initiatives that The Roxy and other businesses on the Strip have employed to great effect. A “Tweet Crawl” event was first held in July 2009, where several businesses partnered up to invite the Twitter community for an all-night mosey down Sunset Boulevard with free access to clubs, food and drink specials, and hidden prizes and giveaways handed out via clues on Twitter. Now in its third incarnation, the most recent Tweet Crawl grew the participating crowd from 40-50 up to around 100 crawlers. “Something I miss from my youth is seeing people walk on the Strip and go from business to business. So not only are we doing this community thing online, but we’re actually getting these people to go to these places.”
Another initiative, Club Rox, sold 100 “all-you-can-eat” annual passes to the club for $100 each. Buyers get as many shows per year as they want to attend, front-of-the-line access, a special custom drink menu, and half price deals on everything at the bar. The passes, only advertised on Twitter, sold out in three days and had a far more positive effect than Adler and his team expected. “It created this group of 100 people who are so passionate about The Roxy, and there are people who have come to over 20 shows already this year. We thought we were getting something maybe financially, but we ended up getting this voice of this group of people who are super positive about The Roxy and love music.”
The group avidly uses the Twitter hashtag #ontherox to represent themselves. “They’re one of our greatest assets. They talk about the shows all the time, they always tweet when they’re here,” says Adler.
Also just launched is the Sunset Strip VIP Pass program, which gives any customer staying at participating Strip hotels free front-of-the-line access to participating clubs. The initiative runs for the next six months through the summer, and encourages tourists on the Strip to stay in the area instead of hopping in the car to drive over to Hollywood or Universal City. “Personally I’ve done it a million times and it’s one of my favorite things to go see three or four bands in a night and hang out on the Strip,” says Adler of the VIP program.
The Real Sunset Strip is a weekly weekend Ustream show that aggregates the news and events of the week from around the various venues on the Strip. Photographers send in photos from the week’s events, celebrities come down for interviews, and Adler et al grab passersby on the street for short segments. Sometimes they’ll broadcast right from within the venue. “The club is going on but there’s a TV show happening right in the middle of it. That’s been a great way to tie the different businesses together.”
Adler had a robust Wi-Fi system put into The Roxy specifically to encourage patrons to livestream during shows, share photos from the club, and generally get content out surrounding what’s going on at the venue. Licensing issues prevent the club from doing the official livestream events it has long been interested in. Lots of companies are also interested in partnering on livestreams, but “you can’t get any bands to do it because they don’t have the right to give away their own music when they show up here, and who’s going to get a lawyer to go through contracts with all these bands?” So instead, the in-house Wi-Fi provides a platform for the audience to do their own livestreaming, and The Roxy will retweet the links. Adler says, “I’ll go down during the soundcheck and do 10 minutes of Ustream on the phone and people love it. They eat it up.”
And of course, giveaways are also a popular and frequent method of both bringing in repeat business and giving something back to loyal customers. Offers like “the next 5 people to hit us up get two pairs of tickets and VIP passes,” or “the next person to hit us up gets a month of Roxy shows,” often do well. The people who win are the ones who actually show up. They’re happy about the experience, and they tell their friends. “It’s a positive cycle that’s starting to happen not just at The Roxy but all over the Strip,” said Adler.
While Adler doesn’t see more traditional methods of marketing going away any time soon — “We still have a publicist, we still have a street team that comes and picks up their fliers on Tuesday to distribute them. I don’t think you can totally write it off,” — he sees social media as essentially a no-brainer for businesses to get into. “It’s a [much] better way to do business. Be honest and keep that conversation going.” Nevertheless, it might not be any singular tool that will do the trick, and it behooves companies to investigate what methods their audience uses to find them and make sure they have a presence there. “People find you in many different ways, and you have to find out how people do that — it’s constantly changing.”
Tools like Foursquare are becoming more relevant especially to local business, although Adler still sees that as something “on the horizon. I would love that Foursquare were stronger.” Nevertheless, depending on the nature of your business, diving into emerging tools might help you reach the right audience. “With LA, it’s a different kind of market than Main Street America. If you have that person who’s on Foursquare, it’s usually someone that’s a first-adopter — someone that other people are listening to and watching to find out the next thing.”
Facebook is another staple these days, and Adler had great things to say about the social network’s ad platform and its ability to finely target a desired audience. “I discovered how amazing the ads are on Facebook. If I can get that target number down to 5,000 people, that’s who I want to be advertising to. I don’t think it really helps to go to 100,000 people; I think your ad gets lost. Getting very specific works.”
Still, Twitter remains a primary tool for The Roxy and other clubs on the Strip for a number of reasons, one of which is immediacy. A patron’s tweet about a weak gin and tonic earned her a visit from Adler and a complementary drink refresh. “It was kind of an awkward moment because she’s like, ‘Oh, are you stalking me?’ [laughs] But it turned into a good thing because she ended up being happy. It’s actually brought [customer service] at The Roxy to an amazing level … Having that relationship will really bring people back.”
Having a large number of followers and clout on Twitter also becomes a draw for the bands that play at The Roxy. “Our social media is starting to be a reason for bands to play here because they want that Twitter contest, or whatever influence we might have out there on Twitter — they want a piece of that. That part makes Twitter important.” Twitter is used to knit together the entire experience of a show as well. These days, many bands and their individual members are on Twitter, in addition to the audience. “We do maybe two or three actual tweets [per] day, maximum, and then the rest of them are really using other tweets to tell our message — whether it’s a fan that’s talking about the band, or the band talking about their experience, or connecting up the people who are thinking of coming to a show. It’s a little easier and faster to connect on Twitter than on Facebook.”
Mobility is also key, and access to Twitter from almost any phone, whether smartphone or not, simply makes it more accessible in that regard. “Facebook to me is someone at home, whereas Twitter I feel is someone on the go. They’re either coming to the venue or figuring out where to go — it’s more mobile.”
What if you’re a small business just trying to get started with social media? Adler had some good advice on how to dive in, and primary among the concepts is to start slowly. “It almost sounds old school now, but just starting with a blog was a huge step into everything. It’s like Twitter in slow-motion. For someone that is just coming into this, it teaches you about content.” It’s also a great introduction to bi-directional conversation for brands. “…the comments on the blog — it was my first time listening to what people had to say about what I was putting out there. It’s an awesome moment.”
Adler also speaks to defining your business’s personality as a key component in developing a voice online. “The personality — whether it is on your blog or Facebook or Twitter — make sure that the personality of your business is apparent. That’s a huge step for a lot of businesses because a lot of them don’t even know their personality … What if your business was a person? How would it act and interact with people? Most businesses probably couldn’t give you that answer. But I think defining that and learning what that is was a huge part of our growth here.”
Using Twitter to gather information is also a powerful way to bring the huge amount of new data that’s out there to bear on your business knowledge. “Being able to track the bands in the weeks coming up to the show is great. You can learn a lot about a band and their fans: What kind of drink specials should we have? Is this a Dewar’s crowd or a Bud Light crowd? There’s a lot of data out there we collect. Also when people leave, we want to hear that exit comment. And we’re the first to do something about it — if it wasn’t a positive experience, we want to fix it.”
Building an audience online also helps solve one of the problems that’s often referred to as a business’s number one fear about embracing social media: What happens if and when people are making negative comments? Building up a supportive community can help crowdsource a way of dealing with that. “If someone tweets something like ‘The Roxy is old,’ I can’t wait to retweet them and say, ‘anyone want to tackle this one?’ because literally 40-50 people will tweet back with supportive messages. So you have this awesome community that starts to back you once you define yourself.”
Overall, for businesses just getting started with social media, the key point is to start slowly. “Starting small was key for us. We went from a calendar-style website that was one page and hadn’t been updated in 2 years, to a blog and all of this.” At first, “I thought it was advertising — that doing the blog was an advertising tool. It turned out to not be that. It turned out to be more of a roadmap of what we should be doing and who we are.”
Nic Adler joins The Comedy Store’s Alf LaMont and The Viper Room’s Nathan Levinson at SXSW 2010 for a panel entitled “A Social Media Case Study of L.A.’s Sunset Strip” on Thursday, March 18 at 3:30pm.
Connect with The Roxy:
[Image Credit: Totallylikeduh!]
Tags: blogging, BLOGS, business, interview, live music, MARKETING, music, roxy, small business, social media, twitter
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How The Roxy Became the #1 Venue on Twitter [INTERVIEW]
Product Description
From Preface: This, the “Aldine Edition” of “The Arabian Nights Entertainments,” forms the first four volumes of a proposed series of reprints of the Standard works of fiction which have appeared in the English language…. More >>
Sony has named its forthcoming PlayStation 3 motion controller “PlayStation Move.” The controller is Sony’s answer to Nintendo’s Wii Remote and Microsoft’s Project Natal for Xbox 360 — a way to use motion to play video games instead of (or at least in addition to) buttons.
The controller was originally announced at the E3 interactive entertainment conference last year, but it was not named. Since then people have simply called it “the PlayStation motion controller.” It’s good to have a name to work with even though it’s a straightforward one.
Move is expected to launch in Fall of 2010, right next to Microsoft’s competing Project Natal peripheral for the Xbox 360. Both devices will use cameras to track movements, but the similarities end there. Move uses a spherical light which is tracked by the camera in concert with internal sensors. Natal on the other hand uses 3D camera technology to track the entirety of the player’s body without a controller.
Sony plans to charge under $100 for a package including Move, the PlayStation Eye camera and one game. The pitch: It’s far more accurate than Nintendo’s Wii remote, so it will appeal to hardcore gamers who play difficult games, not just casual gamers who enjoy party games.
Move will be supported by new games Ape Escape, Echochrome 2, and Tiger Woods PGA Tour 11, plus old games LittleBigPlanet, Flower, and Resident Evil 5. Others are planned too.
[img credit: Kotaku]
Tags: GDC, gdc-2010, motion controls, nintendo wii, playstation 3, playstation move, sony, video games, wii remote
Excerpt from:
Sony Answers Wii Remote With PlayStation Move
Google has just released an alternative player for Google Reader that gives those with a penchant for browsing news the ability to do so in an image-heavy, TV-like fashion.
Dubbed Google Reader Play, the new tool is an experimental Google Labs project that presents stories one by one — based on their Recommend Items technology — using enlarged photos and auto-playing videos (in lieu of text) on a black backdrop. Viewers can redefine categories and star, like or share stories, with those behaviors further contributing to what Google displays.
Google Reader Play could be both an entertainment utility for browsing the web and a complement to your Google Reader experience. Actions that you take in Reader or Reader Play are shared between the two products, and the recommendations in Reader Play are personalized based on the people you’re following in Reader.
Google Reader Play is certainly eye-catching, but it’s more pop than it is substance. In fact, given that Google Reader appeals to fairly narrow audience today, we believe the product was intended to up the entertainment factor and introduce Reader-esque features to a much broader set of users.
It’s nice to look at and worth a try; whether or not that’s enough to attract the attention of those outside the web/tech realm remains to be seen. We do, however, think that Google Reader Play on an iPad or actual TV set, say via something like Boxee Box, would be worth watching.
Tags: Google, google reader, google reader play, tv
Link:
Google Reader Play Transforms Feeds into Entertainment Experience
This evening needed every square inch of football heritage to conceal the drabness of the match. Manchester United overwhelmed inept and ageing visitors. David Beckham eventually took the field as a substitute against his old club and was a tactful guest. The veteran won cheers for a volley that did no harm as the attempt was tipped over the bar by Edwin van der Sar. The drubbing administered at Old Trafford fell just short of the 5-0 margin by which Arsenal had swamped Porto the night before. Perhaps the recent Premier League ascendancy in this tournament is not destined to end shortly after all. It will be a relief to Sir Alex Ferguson and others that Real Madrid, following the 1-1 draw with Lyon, have yet again been eliminated in the last 16 of the Champions League. United were never confronted by that sort of risk and the sheer energy in their ranks prevented Milan from disguising the elderliness of some and the mediocrity of others in their line-up. The contrast between the teams was all the more pronounced because Wayne Rooney, who began his professional life as a phenomenon, seems now to be getting better still. There were to be two strikes from him, but he had confirmed United’s passage to the Champions League quarter-finals as soon as he notched the opener. The entertainment continued to the 88th minute when Darren Fletcher headed in a cross from the substitute Rafael da Silva. This emphatic beating will not have taken Milan wholly by surprise. The fuss over Beckham’s return to Old Trafford overlooked the fact that the coach, Leonardo, would have been a sentimental fool to include him in the starting line-up. His mediocre outing in the first leg indicated that the inevitable decline of a veteran is getting steeper. At least Beckham showed nice touches and a fellow substitute Filippo Inzaghi might have forced home one of the deliveries in stoppage time. The 34-year-old Beckham was introduced with the score was 3-0 and there had been nothing to distract the crowd from lauding him. “Fergie, Fergie sign him up,” chanted the fans. The intention was kind, but it must have hurt a veteran who knew he was being patronised. At least he was not alone. This had been a chastening night for Milan. Nothing could have stopped them from being outclassed but the aggregate score might not have reached 7-2 if Alexandre Pato and, more relevantly, the centre-half Alessandro Nesta had been fit to play. Any suggestion that the tie was in balance at kick-off was pure fiction, even if Ferguson had been in charge of the story-telling. On the eve of the game he had regretted the late goal by Clarence Seedorf at San Siro. That had done no more that trim the margin of United’s win to 3-2. At the very least, Milan would have had to score twice at Old Trafford and the task of keeping a clean sheet had always looked an impossibility. There could have been some tension when a free-kick from the right glanced off Nani and went straight to Ronaldinho after eight minutes but the Brazilian’s header ran wide with the goalkeeper Van der Sar almost motionless. Rooney is more practised at that art and his opener was the seventh consecutive goal he had nodded home. The attacker got in front of the centre-half Daniele Bonera to glance the ball past a helpless Christian Abbiati. The visitors had come with attacking intent, but they also brought to Manchester the same basic vulnerability that had afflicted them in Milan. Even if they had been rigorous, Rooney might still have been their undoing. The string of goals highlights the movement essential to a striker who is not all that tall. Often there is no marker to outjump him because Rooney has left him trailing. The opener dismayed Milan, but there was also collateral damage to the fixture itself.No one could pretend that a grand drama was unfolding. Leonardo’s side did not get much encouragement although they had bouts of possession. Before half-time excitement was restricted in their efforts to counter Rooney’s goal. Milan had to seek a lot more than that. They sent on Seedorf for the second half, but the removal of Bonera proved more relevant because the middle of their defence was disturbed. Massimo Ambrosini, a midfielder, had been reassigned to that post, but the back four were left helpless when possession was surrendered cheaply. Nani, from the left, crossed precisely with his right foot in the 46th minute and Rooney shot past Abbiati. A finish with boot rather than brow was the sole element of surprise. Uncertainty involved nothing more than the ultimate margin of victory in the tie. United, with the match won, were too composed to be lenient. After 59 minutes, Paul Scholes slid through a pass that Park Ji-sung converted for the third goal. A crowd that relished the display and remembered to protest lustily against the ownership of the Glazers had an ideal evening. Manchester United Milan Wayne Rooney Champions League Kevin McCarra guardian.co.uk
If you’re seeking a job in social media, we’d like to help out. For starters, Mashable’s Job Lists section gathers together all our resource lists, how-tos and expert guides to help you get hired. In particular, you might want to see our articles on How to Leverage Social Media for Career Success and How to Find a Job on Twitter.
But we’d like to help in a more direct way, too. Mashable’s job boards are a place for socially-savvy companies to find people like you. This week and every week, Mashable features its coveted job board listings for a variety of positions in the web, social media space, and beyond. Have a look at what’s good and new on our job boards:
We are seeking an exceptionally ambitious .NET Software Engineer with a passion for programming and an insatiable desire to develop products that will impact users around the world.
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Strategist: Develops digital/social media strategies and weaves them into public affairs, crisis and corporate communications plans to meet clients’ needs and goals.
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Must have strong writing & communication skills for launching a social media platform for 7 stores.
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Experience developing object oriented applications, software and software systems in order to meet customer requirements
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In this role you will bear considerable responsibility for driving forward the continued growth of United Domains’ business in multiple strategically critical areas. These include:
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We are currently looking for an Operations Engineer to join our Mobile team in our San Francisco offices.
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In particular, our team is looking for an engineer who has experience and ambition in developing mobile optimized websites.
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In particular, our team is looking for an engineer who has experience and ambition in developing software using the Blackberry platform.
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In particular, our team is looking for an engineer who has experience and ambition in developing software using the Android platform.
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The ideal candidate will possess an understanding of traditional as well as online PR strategies, a proficiency using Web-based social media tools and experience developing and executing successful marketing programs.
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The position offers complete account responsibility from first contact to end negotiations, and account management.
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We are looking for an experienced Account Executive to recruit and retain Media Partners to work with Advertisers on a performance basis.
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The position offers complete account responsibility from first contact to end negotiations, and account management.
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In this role, you’ll be the primary point of contact between our VIP clients, select partners and various internal departments.
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We’re growing here at Citysearch and we are Seeking: Consummate person-about-town for a full-time position as Citysearch New York City’s local City Editor/Community Cruise Director.
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Senior Account Executive serves as primary day-to-day client contacts.
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You will play a key role to contribute in our fast growing technology focused social community platform business working directly to deliver great ideas and results to hundreds of thousands of consumers and for the best known Fortune 500 brands.
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Two of our entertainment clients require a marketing, PR and social media superstar who will support some of the hottest shows on cable with online marketing, PR, social media and promotional initiatives.
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The Web/Multimedia Designer is responsible for design, project management, usability, and implementation for assigned parts of the official Colby website and for ancillary sites, and for being an active contributing member to the College’s multimedia efforts.
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We are looking for an entrepreneurial tech leader to drive the technical train at CreativeFeed.
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We are looking for a confident, enthusiastic account executive with 5+ years of demonstrated experience to generate new business across multiple platforms – print, online and video.
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You’re a frontend capable developer whose true skills are backend.
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The right candidate will be able to provide strategic counsel to the agency’s internal teams and to our clients who are looking to create conversations with consumers and influencers online.
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We are looking for Account Executives to build relationships and win business from large, well-known agencies and brands.
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We are looking for Account Managers to provide the highest level of customer service to our largest customers.
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We’re looking for folks with a passion for creating great products.
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Interactive One is seeking a MySQL DBA/developer with a minimum of 3 years experience.
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The Social Media Manager will lead Web 2.0 strategy for all casino/hotels nationwide.
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The ideal candidate will help increase uptake of HFM traffic, content and other digital assets via social media activity.
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The right person will get an opportunity to shape all aspects of our marketing business: communications, materials, online, social media and client products.
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Common Cents seeks a Creative Strategy Consultant, for immediate hire, to develop an online strategy that will create a compelling user experience to highlight the Common Cents brand and spawn a devoted network of supporters who provide needed revenue to operate the program.
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This is an opportunity to join the Windows Live Consumer Product Management team as our lead for driving the strategy and execution for how we get our core stories infused and landed with press, analysts, bloggers and other key players in the industry.
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In this newly created position you’ll be responsible for delivering against US brand awareness & engagement goals, leveraging PR, social media, existing and new strategic partnerships and other resources, across a portfolio of online travel brands.
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As a web developer, the individual is responsible for developing innovative, reusable web-based tools for progressive websites and community building.
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An online content development and social media company in San Diego is seeking a contractor based Social Media Administrative Assistant to help with its growing list of campaigns and clients.
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The Project Manager is responsible for managing custom digital media production’s initiatives in a dynamic publishing environment within TMG.
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Working with top names clients in media and entertainment, consumer package goods, and retail (like NBC, MTV, Ralph Lauren, Coca-Cola, and JC Penney), the Digital Brand Strategist will be responsible for leading the overall strategic vision, working across creative, media and emerging media to establish a brand road map that starts with social or digital marketing and cascades through all customer touch points.
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Our Software Engineer will be responsible for integrating with third party APIS (application programming interfaces) and producing high quality code in a LAMP (linux, apache, mysql, & php) environment.
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This St. Louis, Missouri based position is responsible for strategic planning, creating and implementing online campaigns for multiple clients in diverse industries.
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The right candidate must provide the structure and support for the overall vision for assigned projects (e.g. web development, strategy, technology, etc.).
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Mashable has a variety of web 2.0, application development, business development, and social networking job opportunities available. Check them out at Mashable’s Job Board.
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Mashable’s Weekly Guide to Social Media Jobs
When it comes to competition, CNN President Jon Klein fears Facebook. The man at the top of the news network believes that the social network is more of a threat to his business than other broadcast media organizations.
In a recent question-and-answer session with BusinessWeek, Klein specifically states, “We want to be the most trusted source,” and, “I’m more worried about the 500 million or so people on Facebook versus the 2 million on Fox.”
The intriguing statements come just weeks after Hitwise released data showing that Facebook’s new role is becoming that of a news site. As a news portal and discovery engine, Facebook has the power to make or break a story, a power that clearly threatens the rank and file of the old media elite.
Where we discover news is no doubt changing, but that’s not all bad news for CNN. We tend to think that the power wielded by newsies on Facebook could prove to be an advantage for CNN should the network really cater to the social networking crowd.
For example, in recent months we’ve seen the ratings of award shows skyrocket; part of the ratings bump correlates with web denizens experiencing the televised broadcast with their friends, family and followers online. It would seem logical then that TV and online can coexist in a mutually beneficial relationship.
As for CNN’s immediate future, Klein’s comments also indicate distinct strategies for web and broadcast. Moving forward the company plans to continue with video content on CNN.com and ramp up affiliate deals with the likes of HBO and Time Inc.
So where do you get your news: CNN or Facebook?
Disclosure: Mashable has a content syndication partnership with CNN.
[img credt: Pragmagrapher]
Tags: cnn, facebook, media, News, trending, tv
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CNN Sees Facebook As Major Competitor
Corey Haim, best known as one half of “the two Coreys,” was found dead in his home this morning at the age of 38, apparently from an accidental drug overdose.
The actor was a teen icon and heartthrob in the late 1980s, known for his roles in films like Lucas, The Lost Boys, License to Drive and Dream a Little Dream. While his more recent work has been more limited, that hasn’t stopped fans from flooding Twitter and Facebook with responses to this news.
Because Corey Haim and Corey Feldman were frequently associated with one another, it’s not surprising that for a brief period of time, “The Goonies” became a trending topic on Twitter as well. However, it was Feldman, not Haim, that starred in that classic.
Facebook groups like “R.I.P. Corey Haim (The Lost Boys)” are also sprouting up.
Haim, who suffered from drug addiction throughout the 1990s and 2000s, gained Internet attention in 2001 when he attempted to sell his hair and teeth on eBay (these auctions were eventually pulled down because they violated eBay’s TOS, which states you can’t sell body parts). He also starred in a reality show called The Two Coreys alongside Corey Feldman for two seasons on A&E.
What was your favorite Corey Haim movie? Let us know in the comments!
Tags: #ripcoreyhaim, corey haim, death
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Corey Haim Dies: Fans Pay Tribute on Social Media Sites
Welcome to Act III of the OK Go/EMI drama: According to EMI, the pop band has decided to leave the record company and form their own independent label, Paracadute Recordings, under which they will take over control of their third album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky.
Here is the full statement from EMI:
“OK Go, the band whose inventive internet campaigns and self-directed music videos have set records and won the band a GRAMMY® Award, and EMI Music’s Capitol Records, the band’s label since 2001, have agreed to part ways by mutual agreement. OK Go has formed their own independent label, Paracadute Recordings. They will take on all distribution and promotion functions for their latest album, Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky, which was released in January. ‘We’d like to thank the people at EMI Music who have worked so hard on our behalf,’ said OK Go singer Damian Kulash. EMI Music said: ‘We’ve really enjoyed our relationship with OK Go. They’ve always pushed creative boundaries and have broken new ground, particularly with their videos. We wish them the greatest success for the future.’”
As we have reported in the past, OK Go took arms against the sea of troubles that arose back in January when EMI and YouTube disabled embedding on a video for one of their new singles, “This Too Shall Pass.”
The band has built its reputation to some degree on the popularity of its viral videos, and Kulash and the rest believed that the lock-down version of “This Too Shall Pass” was hindering fans’ enjoyment of the video as well as any publicity the band might garner from sharing. Kulash released a public statement on the band’s site and even wrote an op-ed in The New York Times on the issue.
An interesting tidbit from the op-ed:
“When EMI disabled the embedding feature, views of our treadmill video dropped 90 percent, from about 10,000 per day to just over 1,000. Our last royalty statement from the label, which covered six months of streams, shows a whopping $27.77 credit to our account.”
Blogs, fans and news outlets were buzzing, and it was clear that people were interested in the issue of ownership and the battle between achieving virality and making money. In fact, according to a release from Big Hassle Media, who represent OK Go, Kulash’s blog post about the issue went viral itself, garnering more than 500,000 hits in just two days.
Therefore, the band had the world’s attention when they released another video for the same song last week, this time featuring a Rube Goldberg machine and fully embeddable, thanks to sponsorship from State Farm Insurance. Just for point of reference: At press time, this video, which was released on March 1, has nearly seven million views. The first video, featuring the Notre Dame marching band, was released on January 8. As of now, it only has 1,181,070 views.
When asked whether he thought the controversy surrounding the first video contributed at all to the success of the second, bassist Tim Nordwind said, “It’s hard to know if Damian’s op-piece has made a huge difference, but for people who pay attention to it, yes, I think that it’s one reason that people are paying attention. Or maybe even possibly rooting for us… I think what people are responding to is that it’s just kind of an awesome video. I think people are reacting to the Herculean effort that it took to make this thing.”
According to State Farm Advertising Manager Todd Fischer, the band and the insurance company had been in talks since the fall of 2009 about the possibility of making a sponsored video. “Both of us kind of looked at each other as iconic brands in our own sense — the OK Go guys liked what State Farm has been doing in the music and entertainment space… On the flip side, we obviously — like so many other people — had great respect for what OK Go had done in the social media space and how they had used their videos to connect with young adults and with music fans along the way.”
Although the insurance company has done branded integration with movies and TV before, this the first time they’ve been involved in a viral music video, an avenue by which they saw an opportunity to connect with a whole new market. We’ve reported in the past on several viral video campaigns that made use of this growing medium as a way to grab the attention of the Internet-savvy set — the Ray-Bans tattoo commercial and the Chuck Liddell Reebok spot spring to mind.
Fischer says that the partnership speaks to the evolving manner by which we consume media. “You see a lot more brands starting to play in the space [of viral videos]… I think it’s changed the way people look at a 30-second television ad spot because they also think of how it will translate to the online space, because of the power and the influence that online has in reaching so many more people these days.”
On OK Go’s side, the band was able to create the video that they wanted, while also attracting tons of media attention. “We had this idea to do a Rube Goldberg project and it was a slightly more expensive idea than what we had had in the past and they were willing to sponsor it, but also let us do whatever it was we wanted to do,” Nordwind says.
According to Fischer, the company would also be game to partner with the band again, as well as other bands that might have similarly innovative ideas.
This chain events, as well as the most recent chapter in the drama, raises the question that everyone’s been asking as of late: Does OK Go — or any band for that matter — require a relationship with record company in order to survive?
According to an representative from EMI, the label was instrumental in setting up the partnership with State Farm. EMI has a unit called Brand Partnerships, Licensing and Synchronization that basically brings bands and brands together — they’re the ones who get songs into commercials (which is becoming a more and more common way for a band to make money). According to a rep from EMI, the label approached State Farm and pitched the idea to the company.
“Basically our label sort of worked as a middleman,” Nordwind says, “but it was basically us sort of dealing with State Farm. But to be really honest, the label and State Farm were very hands-off with us. They really just let us do what we wanted to do.”
Therefore, the question becomes: Is the band/label situation a kind of Rube Goldberg machine in its own right — an overly elaborate system built up to achieve a simple outcome? Can OK Go achieve the success on their own? It will be interesting to see what results from their breaking away from EMI, and how they continue to use the medium of the Internet to spread their music.
We’ve reached out to the band for further comment and will update this post if we hear anything more.
Tags: EMI, music, OK Go, State-Farm, youtube
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YouTube Darlings OK Go Say Bye-Bye to EMI
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