A million congratulations to all the nominated Lortel shows and artists, most especially those closest to AMC’s heart, our cool clients:
Fela! (5 total: Outstanding Musical, Outstanding Choreographer for Bill T. Jones, Outanding Lead Actor for Sahr, Outstanding Scenic Design AND Costume Design for Marina Draghici)
Vineyard Theatre: Outstanding Musical for This Beautiful City, Outstanding Scenic Design for James Schuette, Wig Out!
Woohoo, way to go!!
Here’s a great article that reports on how Facebook didn’t allow for the Batmans, Kissers, Supers, Yodas and Pancakes of the world sign up for a Facebook account.
Facebook blocks the registration of a number of names that are frequently abused on the site. The name “Yoda,” also being the name of a popular Star Wars character, is on this list of blocked names. I apologize again for the inconvenience. Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.
With the rise of bizarre first and last names, how will Facebook accomodate?
Rotten Tomatoes posted a video celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Blair Witch Project, the brilliant and terrifying horror movie that opened back in 1999 ( I saw the movie twice in the theater the first weekend it opened. I was twelve at the time. I remember going to see it with my older brother and I can’t imagine my parents knew he was taking me to see it).
What makes this post relevant to Art Meets Commerce is that The Blair Witch Project was really the first movie to use full advantage of what the internet had to offer (and this was well before web 2.0!). I remember sitting at my computer (Windows ‘95! AOL 7.2!) and watching whatever new video would be posted on the website and follow the story of the three missing film students. Not only was the preview terrifying but people thought that it was in fact a real documentary and three students did actually go missing.
By creating a very comprehensive website with maps, footage, and stories about the witch that haunted the woods outside Burkittsville, Maryland, The Blair Witch Project marketing team managed to capture the attention of an audience. They were able to keep them coming back for more and blur the lines between fiction and reality. Brilliant.
That’s what Charles Dickens wrote about money and budgeting in David Copperfield. Simplistic, but true. Unfortunately, as we know, theatre and arts organizations of all kinds are contemplating a pretty miserable forecast for this year, and next, and . . . oh, who can say when it will end?
Necessity being mother of fundraising, people are starting to get creative about using the power of the internet to expand on the usual (and ubiquitous) year-end appeal. AMC client, Terry Greiss, Executive Director of the Irondale Center, created a video appeal in an effort to shore up their faltering finances, blasted it, posted it on Youtube and uploaded it to their website. The campaign got picked up by the Daily News and the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which we’re all hoping will help get the word out and the dollars in.
In other news, the Times ran an article the other day on the bigger (BIGGER!) picture in arts funding, i.e. the American Recovery and Reinvestment bill, which includes a $50 million supplement for the N.E.A. to distribute directly to nonprofit arts organizations and also through state and local arts agencies. No way is this enough (is there ever enough?), but at least it offers a ray of hope that the arts will reclaim some part of the national agenda. Lord knows, they’ve been absent from the national political stage (except as a punching bag) for far too long.
Barack Obama made history yesterday by becoming the first African American President. His entire campaign was flawless and can easily be a case study for a marketing and advertising class. His internet marketing was especially brilliant. His YouTube page has had over 20,000,000 channel views (John McCain’s page has just over 2,000,000 views), and his Facebook Fan Page kept supporters (over 3,000,000) up-to-date with daily updates on the his upcoming events, appearances and speeches.
Barack Obama was lauded with having an amazingly seamless and beautiful website, far superior to any of his rivals. Obama is so web 2.0 that he instantly connected with the youth of our nation reaching out for support in very nontraditional ways. Obama has also started a new site, Change.gov allowing ordinary people to feel included into the happenings of the government.
This brings me to the new whitehouse.gov website. Obama and his team certainly understand the importance of branding because the new White House website matches the look and feel of change.gov, his youtube page, facebook page and campaign website. CNN.com posted an article about the website this morning. The website is very interactive including a blog and allowing people to contact the president via email (500 characters max. meaning you can only say “I love you” so many times). The website is so clean and sophisticated to puts past websites to shame. Here are a few screen shots from past Whitehouse.gov home pages.
December 1998 (Remember the internet was still new)
July 2002
June 2007
The New Website – January 2009
Ready for your close up? The cast of ROCK OF AGES proved they were BORN ready when we asked them to create their own footage for the production’s exclusive video diary. They performed like true troupers, providing hundreds of handmade videos chronicling all kinds of backstage folderol and giving fans a peek into what it’s like to be in a hit show. They took their cameras on the town, too, filming in restaurants, at the closing party of HAIR in Central Park and Lauren Molina even took viewers on surfing safari to Far Rockaway beach. “I had a blast using the cameras,” says Molina. “It was fun and easy. Fans at the stage door told me how much they loved watching the videos, too. Certain women didn’t want footage taken in the dressing room, though, because people get naked in there!”
We gave the ROA-ers Flip cameras (www.theflip.com), which cost a little more than $100 apiece. They’re small, light and hold up to an hour of footage; plus they’re simple to use—just point and push record. We ended up posting about 40 videos, uploading them to Youtube and embedding them on the official site. At AMC, we’re starting to include Youtube videos on sites, rather than creating custom players: They’re cheaper, load more easily, are more reliable and have all those nifty “social” features like sharing, rating and auto-loading related videos built right in. It’s also a user interface that people already know how to use, which helps increase functionality—never a bad thing.
The fan response to videos from cast members Molina, Constantine Maroulis, Tad Wilson and Will Swenson was amazing. In fact, the Diary quickly became the most popular feature with users, garnering 35,620 views since the campaign launched last October.
Video Diaries are an easy, fun way to build brand loyalty for a show, to keep people on your site and generate viral attention for your production—and your cast. Best of all, they’re CHEAP! What’s not to love, right?
I wonder how many people are going to call in sick on January 20, 2009. I can not imagine too many people, whether they love or hate Obama will not watch this historic event in American history.
CNN.com and Facebook are joining forces to let you tell your friends (who you will probably be with watching the inauguation) that you are watching the inauguation. If you visit www.cnn.com/live on January 20 you will be able to update your facebook status, and follow your friends updates directly from CNN.com , now you don’t have to worry about missing anything to update your facebook status!
Ahhh…the internets! Where did it come from? Turns out It wasn’t all Al Gore’s idea, but a series of communication milestones beginning as early as 1957.
Here is an animated short doc that explains it (with a charming British voice-over, of course):
History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.
A recent NYTimes Article stated that Obama has the opportunity to push the US into the position of being the leader in new ways to explore how the internet can build communities and improve American lives.
In a speech this month about his economic stimulus plan, he said that he intends to ensure that every child has a chance to get online and that he would use some of the stimulus money to connect libraries and schools. It is a critical goal. Children trapped on the wrong side of the digital divide are deprived of a fair chance to educate themselves and to compete for high-skill, high-paying jobs.
Mr. Obama has also been a strong supporter of “network neutrality,” the principle that Internet service providers should not be able to discriminate against any of the information that they carry. Net neutrality laws are necessary to ensure that Internet service providers do not block content they disagree with or give financial breaks to big tech companies, squeezing out smaller competitors and stifling innovation.
Read the full article here.