While the Volcanic Ash has grounded thousands of flights, there are so many people stranded outside of New York City that couldn’t make it into town to see a Broadway show. Similarly, there are many visitors of New York City unable to get back home. For those of you “stuck” in NY (as though, there was such a thing), go see a Broadway show. If you are waiting patiently at the airport or in the city waiting to hear about possible flights, here are a few options to get you in the Broadway spirit and keep your hopes high!

10. Listen to the new soundtrack of A Little Night Music on your computer at the airport.
9. Do your favorite Come Fly Away dance in World Wide Plaza!
8. Download the Finian’s Rainbow soundtrack on iTunes, and think happy lucky thoughts.
7. Put on your favorite Rock of Ages YouTube video! We recommend the Anniversary Video.
6. Enjoy the new Avenue Q Slice at Two Boots Pizza at their Hell’s Kitchen Location on 9th Avenue and 44th Street
7. Sing Happy Birthday to Stephen Sondheim. Did you know he just turned 80?
4. Rent Chicago on DVD, or even better yet, rent Cabaret.
3. Go to the new Housing Works on 9th Avenue and 50th Street and try on some amazing dresses to get in the spirit of La Cage Aux Folles’ Cagettes
2. Visit FelaOnBroadway.com and watch the new commercial over and over and over again
1. Hit Like next to iBroadway on Facebook!

Anyway, until that happily mobile day, here are the highlights. The weekend began with a bang, but not the good kind, with poor reviews for the $16.5 million musical adaptation of The Addams Family. It’s been widely reported that the ghastly notices aren’t phasing the box office, though. Go figure. Friends tell me the show isn’t half bad, or was it that half of it is bad?

Million Dollar Quartet opened to quite different reactions, with praise from most critics. The story of Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins jamming together for one memorable day is now playing at the Nederlander Theater. I thankfully did get the chance to see this show, and the energy on stage is great, even though the storyline falls flat at times.

Yesterday it was announced, that the Tony Award-winning show, Next to Normal won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. I hear that’s pretty hard to do. But seriously, this is a great achievement and a joy for original musicals on Broadway. I’m sure the next Next to Normal is waiting in the wings somewhere, so keep on writing.

Stay tuned for more Broadway info, events, stories, etc. as we approach our launch. Join our Facebook and Twitter sites and sign up for the e-mail list as soon as you finish reading this. Now. Go on. Shoo!

Platforms like Facebook and Twitter are an extremely effective way to not only capture a fan base, but also to start a dialogue between your fans and the product associated with your fan page. For example, Rock of Ages (full disclosure: Art Meets Commerce runs the fan page) posts new status updates like  YouTube videos of old 80s commercials, and other similar articles to keep fans entertained and informed. Posting song lyrics, fun facts, etc. creates an instant conversation. That interaction not only occurs between fans and the show, but between fans themselves: some ask questions, others answer. The goal is to create a sense of community with the show and let people voice their thoughts and views. In addition to a lot of fun–and positive–comments about the show,  people also talk about things they didn’t like (an understudy played in the performance they saw, for instance). Although we have the opportunity to delete posts at will, we don’t. The point is to facilitate conversation, not control it.

I bring this up because I am a fan of  a lot of pages, many of them theater related. One, The Tony Awards, posts videos, links, articles, anything and everything relating to the awards and theatre. It really is a great resource. I noticed  something recently, though, that gave me pause.

The Tony Awards page posted an update announcing that the touring companies of Jersey Boys, Legally Blonde and Mamma Mia would be performing on this year’s show (along with the currently nominated musicals). Several people commented negatively, asking why Jersey Boys would be performing once again at the Tony Awards or saying that Mamma Mia is “stupid.” All negative comments were deleted.  In my opinion, unless a commenter makes a threat, engages in hate speech or posts spam, the post  should be allowed to stand. To use social media well, you must be authentic, open and transparent. Deleting negative (but not harmful) posts sends a message to users that they are partipating in a “canned” discussion, i.e. an extended advertisement, which not everyone wants to do. This kind of Pollyana editing will, in my view,  ultimately diminish the brand and will cause users to turn away.

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?

Skittles made a widget at the corner of the site, and built the navigation around that. This menu-overlay box allows the user to interface with their already existing social networks, thus allowing for the candy brand to spread through the normal daily actions of the user. It’s working, I love skittles, and I totally made it a fan on my facebook.

Instead of photos, it directs to their Flickr page. They hooked ‘Chatter’ to Twitter. Instead of the normal everyday about page, they hooked it to Wikipedia. It’s a social networking rainbow!

There are still some quirks to this campaign. The menu overlay blocks a lot of the content on my smaller laptop screen. Also, originally they used the homepage as their twitter search, but everyone was using it as a way to knock the brand (haters) so they switched it to their Facebook fan page. This comes with the territory when you allow anonymous users to run the content of your website.

Overall, it’s a lesson in how important the big sites (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and Wikipedia) are to major brands and how they will continue to change the way we market.

I caught this article on TIME.com entitled “Congress’s New Love Affair with Twitter.” Pete Hoekstra (Twitter account: http://www.twitter.com/PeteHoekstra) has almost 3,000 followers on Twitter. He is the representative for Michigan’s 2nd district in the US House of Representative’s. He  Twitter’s often to let his followers know what he is thinking and doing.

The article mentions, since Obama’s (amazing) social networking outreach during the election, many politicians have jumped on the bandwagon and signed up for Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites. Some crtics of this worry about security issues. Hoeskra twitter constantly on his last trip to Iraq sparking concerns that he may be giving away location or any other sensitive information.

Politicians taking on activities normally reserved for their children or grandchildren brings up some interesting issue that national security officials have never had to deal with before. How do you stop politicians from twittering? Also, if 70 year old congressmen and senators are representing themselves (even though the pages, interns or secretaries are the one’s actually dealing with the networks) will it turn the younger generation off? I mean, how many high school students would want to be Facebook friends with their grandparents?

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

I caught this article on CNN.com entitled “New Zealand police use Facebook to stop crime.”

The Queenstown police set up a Facebook fan page for their office where they post footage of criminals who have fled the scene of a crime. On Monday morning a masked man broke into a pub through the roof and tried to break into the safe, because the criminal was hot he took off his mask and continued his task. When he failed to open the safe he got up to leave and managed to look directly into the camera as he was leaving.

The Queenstown police took that photo, along with video footage and posted it on their Facebook fan page. The next day the criminal was in custody because of Facebook users who recognized the man in the picture.

Social Networking at its finest. You can become a Fan of the Queenstown Police department here.

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!