So, it has been a crazy week for my friend and I can’t get over it. I’ve been trying to help her field all of the messages she has been receiving from Yahoo! and people saying they’re with Google. It’s so funny that she made this video out of boredom and it’s now entertaining the country. I’ve watched viral videos explode before, but seeing it from the other side of the equation is wild. She’s gotten hundreds of friend requests on Facebook, around 6,000 people have rated her video, and has received close to 700 comments and the video is only at half a million views as of now. Somebody has even created t-shirts about her! Since she was on her way to an audition when she got snowed in the airport I think we should start a campaign to get her more auditions. More auditions = more videos. I’m going to do a follow-up to this with an analysis of all the Google Insight data from her video. Behind the scenes of a viral video: Ashley Klinger.
Tapping in to the Past
I stumbled on to a gold mine of Frank McDade media! Freshmen year in college, my roommate and lifetime song collaborator David Zihmer and I set out to change the way that Gannon University looked at one of their valued students, Justin Bacon. Justin had a very interesting outlook on what he could accomplish with young college women on the intellectual level and in doing so drew in a slew of crazy women. After our first major hit “Crazy Bitch” went platinum and after endless lounge room performances, David and I set our heights to something greater. We were looking for something that truly captured the horribleness that lay within some relationships. Thus “Mom Fucker” was born. The song is all over the place really (not to mention that I don’t come in until the end and I make no reference to anything in the song and basically do song parodies). Have fun with those. And oh yeah, my latter roommates were cinema and digital arts majors so I added some of the videos I helped them out with. The songs are on the right rail and videos under the video section. Enjoy.
Funny Google Videos
Here are a few funny Google videos from UCB Comedy. Take note of a profile picture at the beginning and ending of the Google Buzz one. Just saying. It’s not a big deal or anything.
Current.com Adds Trends to Front Page
Current.com has recently added a trending topics feature to their website which is an interesting approach to showcasing “top viewed” articles and videos. On the right side of the homepage, they call out trending topics that click through to a more in-depth list. The page for specific trends has a thumbnail results page with a live twitter feed of that trend on the right. I think this is a great way for them to tie their website’s community in to off-page topics and social networks. Kudos to you Current.com and keep on building this out!
People Want Conan’s Hair, Not Leno’s Chin
I constructed the following graph to show the trend in conversation around the current late night debacle. You will find that Conan O’Brien’s demand hit a carrot top high, while Jay Leno has led down to a deep chin dip. Each of these trends are based around the online communities’ response to the current entertainment world scandal, “Late Night Gate”.
Alliances have formed in support of #teamconan and #teamjay. We see from the buzz that the mass is leaning towards the support of Conan O’Brien. NBC’s volume of mentions has shot up which is not too shabby for the media company who has been struggling to compete within the “Top 4” networks for some time. At an unfair advantage, Jay Leno and NBC seem to be on the same team and ultimately, NBC will be making the programming decisions. With that being said, I wanted to offer NBC a few recommendations that may help.
Recommendation #1: Ratings aren’t everything and online conversations shouldn’t be ignored. With the use of social media monitoring technology this can be done within minutes. Tens of thousands of online supporters are on Facebook in the “I’m with Coco” group and bickering back and forth with the #teamconan and #teamjay hashtags.
Recommendation #2 : Take a look at Conan and Leno’s Web analytics for on-site performance and insight in to which property users engage with the most. View the top performing pages along with the average time spent on site to find out if the trend in conversation that you’re monitoring coincides with site performance. From looking at historic data from Compete.com, my story seems to be backed up by TonightShowwithConanObrien.com seeing a 19.87% increase in visitors while TheJayLenoShow.com saw a 19.46% decrease. That looks like people are less interest in Jay’s site. Am I right?
Recommendation #3: Dive deeper in to NBC’s niche show communities and monitor the number of comments on Conan’s blog to Leno’s. As of now, Conan is seeing far more engagement with the average number of comments on blog posts around 300+ while Leno’s is only around 90. The people leaving the ease of their favorite top social networking sites to engage in these smaller communities are probably the most influential audience members. Embrace them.
Not looking in to the wants and needs of the public is what got NBC in to this predicament in the first place when they gave Jay Leno a prime time show. Top executives at NBC who are on the Jay Leno bandwagon shouldn’t be ashamed if #teamconan is more convincing than #teamjay. A more Web savvy user base is what will drive NBC in to the future and from the looks of my data, the future is with Conan.
Nine Touched Me! (but not till the end)
I rarely have high expectations when I walk in to a movie theater, but for some reason I had set one for Nine. Nine is about a movie director named Guido who is about to start filming his latest movie when he’s caught in a debacle because he hasn’t written a word of the script yet. Guido is surrounded by a production staff that is working vigorously to make the movie come together while he runs around trying to “find” himself.
I had a hard time connecting with Nine. It had many of my favorite aspects for a movie in it – talented performers and great music, so it shouldn’t have been so hard. It wasn’t until the end that I really connected with the film. The scene was with Guido setting up two actors in a scene in his latest movie that he wrote to win back his wife. During the scene, people from his past are brought in behind him and his childhood self runs out and sits on his lap. This all happens as he carry’s on normally, without notice. It was touching to see everything that he struggled with throughout the movie finally serve as a sense of inspiration as he moves on with the “simple” outlook of a child.
Overall, I will stick to listening to the soundtrack rather then watching this. It seemed like a stretch to make this theatrical piece in to a movie but I believe it was well done for what there was to work with.
2009 MTV Video Music Awards
MTV has been quite questionable when it comes to actually televising music, but there are still a few entertainment factors in their award shows that make them worth a watch. I headed out to Radio City Music Hall tonight to capture the excitement showcased in the lights.
I want to also give MTV props for their Twitter use. They had iJustine on spot monitoring the number of tweets generated around the event. With use of Radian6 Social Media Monitoring technology they were able to create this great tweet visualizer below.
SNL Hires and Fires
As NBC’s late night sketch comedy variety show approaches it’s 35th season, head honcho Lorne Michaels makes alterations to this season’s cast.
News broke yesterday via a press release from the Upright Citizens Brigade that Jenny Slate and Nasim Pedrad would be two new [additions] to the cast. In the mean time were they really additions? Nope. Having glee that SNL may return to having more than one woman within their regular repertoire was a bit too overzealous.
Jenny Slate has most recently appeared as Jenny, Jimmy’s ‘new’ assistant on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon’s own reality show “7th. Floor West.”
And other newbie Nasim Pedrad’s one-woman act Me, Myself & Iran was chosen for the 2007 HBO Comedy Festival.
Meanwhile, we are saying goodbye to short lived newcomer Michaela Watkins and can’t-quite-break-from-featured-player Casey Wilson. Michaela has already offered interviews to various sources stating her surprise in the decision and states that she was told that she deserves her own show. …and on that note?
Casey Wilson recorded a video for Funny or Die a few months back and it seems all too appropriate for this latest news…
The Del Close Marathon: A Retrospect
This past weekend was a blast. The Upright Citizens Brigade played host to the 11th. annual Del Close improv marathon. I was able to sit in on a number of great, and not so great, comedy acts from people all over the country. It really helped put my mind in to perspective around what it is that I am trying to do out here.
By talking to people in line, I was able to gain insight in to the various improv classes offered throughout the city. I really don’t want to wait until the UCB opens up classes that I would be able to take, so in the mean time I now know of other options that are available to me.
On top of the performance aspect of it all, I followed all of the Twitter-chatter. Social Media is a hot topic in every industry, comedy not excluded. For how many bits and references there were to these online communication giants, there wasn’t any ongoing promotion around asking those in attendance to actually use them in connecting with others.
So, I provide to you a list of random insight around the event as well a recommendation around where DCM can take online interaction in the years to come.
- Watching multiple performers from various locations across the U.S. stimulates your passion for the art.
- Ranging Smells: The UCB Theatre was the biggest culprit here. Within the time period that I sat in one location, the smell of the theatre transformed from spaghetti-o’s to tuna, finally ending with a mixture that was recognizable as Big-Mac.
- Some performers you fall in love with and others you dread. I found myself mixing and matching individuals from different groups in my head.
- Great mixture of Raw, Fresh, Talent and Season Professionals.
- Apparently bed bugs are a NYC issue.
- Don’t rely on technology to take notes. Throughout the weekend I just entered any and all thoughts that I had in to my iPhone. When I went to sync it with my computer it deleted all of them. FML.
- Sweat in line just to sit in a sweaty theatre. It’ll be worth it.
- If you’re tired and are a snorer, it’s probably smart not to fall asleep in the auditorium.
- I ate a lot of Pizza. And that was by choice.
- Grandmothers should not take their 2 year old grandson to an improv marathon, no matter what the situation may be.
- You just gotta do it.
More Social Integration at Future Del Close Marathon’s
The Del Close Marathon website is great because it is a reference guide. That is clearly established and you can’t get lost. It offers an ongoing list of performances by time, location, actor, etc. and also provides a description of each of them.
One of the largest improvements that I believe should happen for the Del Close Marathon in future years is to promote social networking. Both on their webpage, through promotional materials and some how throughout the course of the event. Personally, I know I met a few people by following the hashtag #DCM11 on Twitter so there is ample opportunity to connect with others. Towards the beginning there were tweets going out about using the aforementioned hashtag, but that should have been established beforehand.
It’s not a whole lot of work, it just takes someone to spend the time to keep Social Media on top of mind. The UCB already had a dedicated twitter handler @UCBTheatreNY and DCM had on-site photogrpahers who often sent out a twitter message directing people to their photos. All these need to be fed in to one centralized location so that the attendees can revel in the public documentation that occurred.
Below is the trend of the hashtag DCM11 on Twitter, with the most number of tweets peaking on Saturday with 148.
#DCM11 Twitter Trend
I’m sure this graph would be about the same but with a higher volume in tweet counts (378 total to date), and probably with a spike earlier on rather than a gradual hump from anticipation of the event. As time passes within the next few days, YouTube and Blog activity will probably increase, as of now there is a total of about 5 collective mentions in platforms outside of Twitter.
There may be a central location with a social feed but I haven’t heard of it. So, next year let’s incorporate it. I’m ready and willing to help!
