You've probably figured-out that I'm a huge "Weeds" fan. I think the writing is brilliant, and I love that the writers and the actors aren't afraid to take things "over the edge". It's just a television show, after all! And in a motion of brave casting (actually, I think it's one of the most brilliant casting moves of any show recently), I think many, many "Weeds" fans are waiting for this:
The Star Wars franchise is unarguably one of the most famous--and popular--in existence. I do enjoy the films, although I'm not a hardcore fan. Still, I found this post today on Oh Gizmo! and thought it would be a valid tie-in with the pop culture & social media themes often found throughout my blog. (I know some folks who are probably drooling over this right now.)
Here is the post: R2D2 Is Now a Remote Control, Wireless Webcam.
I'd not been made aware of the "spectacle" of the Miss Teen Pageant that occurred this past week, until a friend of mine was talking about it at lunch day-before-yesterday. So I decided to do a little research. As someone who's typically up-to-date on all the "goings-on" in the media I was a bit taken aback that I'd not heard of this story of the Miss South Carolina debacle last Friday. So I decided to do a search on YouTube.com. Here's what I came up with:
Regardless of whether or not you agree with the bold & frank nature of this show, you can't deny it changed the face of television. And now this:
http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=22313ff9-6761-4926-a35e-ff035da84f01
Should be interesting to see how well it does at the box office!
Did radio kill the video star? Ummm, I don't think so. If anything it made them bigger stars! Madonna, Michael Jackson, Janet Jackson, and Prince? These are a few of the pop icons that come to mind when I think about videos. As I talked about in a previous post, I love watching people creative. And there is unarguably lots of creativity saturated in music videos. Of course, the level of that creativity is certainly debatable.
There's a fun discussion going on over at BlogCatalog.com where users are posting links to some old-school music videos! What a great idea! Here's the link to the discussion:
http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/old-school-video-party-come-on-in
This discussion inspired me to leave one of my favorite "old-school" videos, and one of my earliest memories of MTV (back when they actually played music). It is from the aforementioned "Queen of Pop", Madonna:
While I wouldn't necessarily say I have a reputation as being the most creative individual, I love, love, love watching other people be creative, and I think I have a pretty good eye for "innovative" creativity. This includes companies. One of my most favorite things to do is watch commercials on television. Some commercials are crap, but others are brilliant...at least in my opinion.
One of my current favorite advertising spots is Dell's "Inspiron 1420". Haven't seen it yet?
Well, I haven't exactly traveled the world in the exact sense you might be thinking (although someday I hope to) but I have journeyed across the planet at Travel Channel's side. I've been to Europe, Latin America, and parts of the United States I never even knew existed. I find Sunday mornings are particularly a great time to pack-up and make the trek. Sitting down with a cup of coffee and joining bubbly Samantha Brown around the world is a chilled, relaxing time for me. Whether or not you actually watch and of her shows, Samantha's global excursions are all tightly packaged at TravelChannel.com/SamanthaBrown. The site is an extensive resource for all your travel needs.
I love any website that truly takes the user on an experience, and Samantha's interactive features do just that (OK, I know Samantha doesn't actually build the website, but humor me). A few of my favorite features on the site are:
- Samantha's Travel Guides. This is the PERFECT resource for any traveler looking to maximize their trip. Samantha shares all of her experiences here, from hotels, to restaurants, to popular tourist sites. Hey...Samantha does-it-up-right when she travels, so why not take tips from her?
- Travel Journals. The journals are more extensive than the travel guides, and share with the user travel experiences through the eyes of Samantha.
- Podcasts. The video podcasts are available via iTunes so you really have no excuse not to watch!
- Fan Wiki. A "new" feature on the TravelChannel.com site, this area provides a forum for fans of the show to not only contribute content, but to also connect with other fans!
Well, that about wraps-up my plug for Samantha Brown and the Travel Channel! Perhaps by some magical chance someone from the channel will run across my post and send me around the world...and blog along the way! *OUCH, I had to pinch myself to stop dreaming!* I suppose the best chance I have is to win their current sweepstakes -- a trip for two to Jamaica.
A few days ago I was driving into work, listening to my daily morning talk show (only because Central Florida radio completely stinks...and I have no options). One of the topics of conversation was over-saturated, "what does he really do?", media-whore Ryan Seacrest. Apparently he has been tapped for several upcoming hosting gigs that have many people scratching their heads. Now, it's not that I loathe Ryan Seacrest. Heck, the guy has made a gigantic name for himself for really doing nothing. Ooohhh, maybe he, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richey, Tara Reid, and Nickelback should start a club. Yawn...stretch...rub eyes...oh wait, I'm sorry, I was just having a nightmare. Anyway, I don't dislike Ryan as much as I might be letting on. I simply choose to not watch anything he's associated with.
So here are the shows he's going to be hosting later this year and next. You make up your own mind:
- Daytime Emmy Awards. This one doesn't seem so "out there" to me. He is a decent host, but I think he'll get boring REALLY fast. Apparently show producers are hoping Seacrest will be a "magnet" for a larger audience.
- Superbowl Red Carpet/Half-Time Show. Um, why don't I just host it instead.
Is Ryan Seacrest in danger of losing his career, because people are going to get so sick of him? You tell me what you think.
I don't mind admitting that I have an addiction to the Showtime Original Series "Weeds." The award-winning show premiered its third season this past week, on August 13th. Made of ticky-tacky, the compelling cable dramedy follows the life of widowed Suburban housewife Nancy Botwin. To maintain the life her family is accustomed to, Nancy--played effortlessly by Mary-Louise Parker--becomes the prime marijuana dealer to the residents of sleepy Southern Californian suburb Agrestic.
One of the primary reasons I'm drawn to the show is for the clever writing. Not only is it witty and edgy, the writers approach the subject matter in a way that--whether or not one agrees with Nancy's illegal practices--viewers arrive in a place of non-judgement. You can watch the show and almost understand why Nancy makes the decisions she does. While I'm certainly not a television writer, it would seem difficult for any writer to actually achieve this level.
Did someone catch-on to the greatness that is the "Brenda Dickson" parody, and have it removed from YouTube? I was in the mood to laugh so I wanted to watch it again, and when I did it was gone! Gone, I say! Gone! I'm so upset that someone chose to remove this fantastic video from the online world!
...so wrong....
Well, fine then! Here's another snippet of Brenda...that's still available (for now):
User-engagement on blogs is very important, in my opinion. It's a true testament of just how intersted your readers are in the content you provide, and is also a great gauge of how they respond to what you're writing. A fantastic way to encourage reader involvement is by hosting a poll or a survey.
Recently, I discovered a fantastic site that helps you create polling and survey widgets. Winner of a CNET WebWare 100 Award, the site is called Polldaddy.com, and I found it via a Google.com search. I was actually looking for a great site for poll/survey widgets for the company I work for, and ended-up using one of the Polldaddy.com widgets on our company blog, for a promotion we're running.
A couple of days ago a friend of mine left a video comment on my MySpace profile. I hadn't actually ever seen this before on YouTube; at first I was taken aback but then I couldn't stop laughing! I don't know how long the "parody" video has been around, but if you haven't seen it before, watch it and then forward it on to as many people as you can! I'd love to get a viral video chain going:
Over the past few days I have really been thinking about blogging. It's such an interesting concept, and all Bloggers have a different motivation for blogging. For me, I recently started blogging as a creative outlet...and an opportunity to brush-up on my writing skills (I was always told growing up that I was a "good" writer). Since launching my blog back in March I've quickly realized managing a blog is not only tricky but also time-consuming.
Authoring a blog is really two-fold, in my opinion: the author is writing for himself, as an outlet for whatever platform he's representing, yet the author must keep in mind his readers. Obviously without readers there's not much point in maintaining a blog, unless the author is completely in it for the creative aspect. I suppose you could use the analogy of an artist painting but nobody ever seeing the masterpiece. Is it really art if it's never seen? *wink wink*
Just as I was having these thoughts and contemplating a blog post, an article made its way to me. Originally found on PureBlogging.com, the aforementioned article is titled Your List Versus the A-List. Originally authored by Chris Garrett from chrisg.com, the post raises some interesting points about whether it's more valuable to link to A-list blogs/bloggers, or if you should spend more time making your blog relevant and interesting to your readers. It's really a no-brainer, I think. Besides, like Chris mentions, just because a Blogger is labeled as "A-list" doesn't necessarily mean their content is quality...it just means they are well-known and recognized. Here's a great quote from Chris, that I think should resonate with Bloggers, and be something that is constantly top-of-mind:
"Your readers are your priority, they are who you write for, don’t let them down by linking to sub-par content!" If you create interesting content, readers will find you. It might take some time, but they will come. My blog has been up nearly five months, and both my readership and comments (I often gauge a blog's quality by the number of comments it has, although I know that's not a standard practice) are somewhat low. Sure, I know my blog is being seen, but I also understand it may take a really long time to establish my audience. They are out there -- they simply must find me! And they will....
While browsing through entertainment gossip(?) site TMZ.com I read an article that made me chuckle. It was accompanied by the image below, which made me chuckle even more. Now, I don't know if this is someone's idea of being cheeky, or simply a coincidence, but it's kinda funny either way:
As I've written before, everyone has an opinion about social media. I think it's captivating. Perhaps I feel this way because social media & networking is such a product of my generation; perhaps it's because I love the feeling of connectedness it brings; perhaps it's because I'm completely fascinated with how quickly it allows news and information to travel. No matter the reason I'm always looking to consume as much as I can about current and future social media.
MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube are unarguably the most well-known and most mainstream of the social networks. Yesterday I stumbled across a great site, educating online marketers the value of using these three sites. Aptly titled "MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube Marketing," Nick Jag offers-up some very valuable information about playing "smartly" on these sites. I'm definitely going to have to spend some time sorting through his site, and certainly take advantage of his "Resources."
Yet again my daily TechCrunch newsletter brings about some interesting information:
Apparently Republican Presidential Candidate Rudy Giuliani's daughter, Caroline, has generated some controversy via her Facebook profille. TechCrunch reports that Caroline's profile shows that she supports Barack Obama as the 2008 Presidential hopeful. What? And this is news? Seriously...I find this story pretty ludicrous. Firstly, the girl is only 17-years-old. Granted, she'll be 18 by the time the elections roll-around, but she's still merely a teenager.
Secondly, this is America, right? Sure...it's not the most ideal situation when an individual is running for President of the United States of America and their offspring doesn't openly support them, but I don't see why it's making major news. Perhaps that's just my apathy for news & politics in our country right now.
What's most entertaining about this story--in my opinion--is that Caroline's participation in the Obama Facebook group (find out more here) was immediately removed (by herself). Go figure!
P.S. As you probably figured by this blog post title, I'm not the biggest fan of Facebook. Mainly because I hate "trendy" things (and Facebook is definitely trendy right now) but also because I don't necessarily think Facebook is the big deal people are making it out to be right now.
Social networking site Pownce has surfaced in various online media outlets over the past few weeks, so I'm eager to keep a close eye on it! Actually, the network is still in Beta and currently invite-only but The Wired Kayaker was kind enough to extend an invitation to me. Thanks, Drew!
As I mentioned, I'm keeping a close eye on Pownce to see how it grows, and also how its covered in the media. Like Twitter, Pownce offers functions like "notes" (i.e., personal messages) and friendship capabilities that help online users keep-in-touch with one another. One of the noticeable differences between Twitter and Pownce is the latter allows the profile owner to segment out the messages they send to their friends. For example, I recently requested one of my favorite vloggers to be a friend, so once she accepts my invitation I can send messages directly to her...that only she can see!
Here's a screenshot of my profile:
I'm looking forward to connecting with friends on Pownce!
The more time I spend online--particularly in the blogosphere--the more opinions I hear about social networks and social media. Everyone has a take on what sites "work" and what sites "don't work," which ones are more reputable and such.
Honestly, I don't may too much attention to these "opinions." I'm going to be active on the sites I like and enjoy; not only that, I want to be where my friends and blog readers are. So I'm pretty active on the following social sites and directories:
- MySpace
- BlogCatalog
- MyBlogLog
- Twitter
- Wink
- more
I'm curious to know...what sites are you active on? And if you are active on various sites, why aren't we friends?!?!
As I've mentioned various times here, because of where I work I'm afforded the opportunity to learn about blogs, blogging, and blogging tips everyday! I love hearing about blog networks, social networking sites, unique blogs, and even more unique bloggers...and probably get way too excited when I do!
One of the things I think every blogger finds appealing about not only blogging but the Internet in general, is being provided a platform to easily connect, engage, and converse with other individuals. I just enjoy watching all the information that is exchanged...and so quickly! Given that, I was stoked to run across a blog post on a site called PureBlogging.com, with tips about expanding your blog reach. Simply titled "Expanding Your Blog Reach," I think it's a great snapshot of the "right" things to do to expand your blog's audience.
I'd love to connect with any other Bloggers using these methods, or who is familiar with PureBlogging.com.
Blog on!
