Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Burton's Alice In Wonderland Trailer | Burton's Artwork to Debut at MOMA
{ Courtesy of Fastcompany.com }
" A European journalist at New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) this morning asked filmmaker Tim Burton, "What was it like growing up in Burbank, California?"
"Have you ever seen Dante's 'Inferno?'" he shot back.
Actually, he said, the monotonous suburb was a boon to a kid with a fertile imagination: "It had no weather, no seasons, no culture. You had to make it up."
What he made up is an astonishing body of work: Edward Scissorhands, Beetljuice, Mars Attacks!, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and, soon, the much anticipated Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter.
Burton fans, then, will be in their glory this fall when MOMA launches the first major retrospective of Burton’s work--more than 700 drawings, paintings, storyboards, puppets, costumes, and cinematic ephemera. Some 550 pieces are from his own private collection, and thus have never been seen before.
The show will include screenings of film snippets, some from Burton’s years as an amateur--like the weird (OK, a redundant word when discussing Burton’s work) Doctor of Doom, a spoof of old time horror movies, featuring Burton himself in a starring role.
The show opens November 22 and runs through April 26, 2010. The museum will also screen Burton’s entire cinematic oeuvre--14 feature films--during the course of the show. Additionally, MOMA will feature a series of films that inspired Burton, grouped under the title "The Lurid Beauty of Monsters." They include Frankenstien, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Pit and the Pendulum, and Nosferatu.
Burton seemed a little awe-struck to be the center of attention in such an arty august venue, particularly given his background. "I didn’t grow up in a museum culture," he said. "The Hollywood Wax Museum was my first exposure to a museum."
All the more surreal, then, was MOMA director Glenn Lowry’s introduction, in which he called Burton "among the foremost auteur voices of his time," and compared his body of work to Andy Warhol's.
I asked Burton: What would your mother make of such a comparison? "She’d say, 'Who was Warhol?'" "
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
The 12 Most Polluted Beaches In The US...
....Just when you thought it was safe to go in the Ocean...unfortunately, all, or almost all are on the East Coast. :(
{ Click on BusinessInsider.com link under picture for full list. }
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
New Study Compares Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, & Myspace Use by Age Groups
" Marketers that are frustrated with targeting specific age groups or demographics in Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn could glean insight from a recent study by Anderson Analytics.
The study suggests that Twitter has become more popular than LinkedIn, more than half of U.S. consumers who tap social networks belong to more than one, and that those who belong to a social net are four times more vocal about products and services than those who don't.
Anderson Analytics CEO Tom Anderson says the biggest surprise from the study reveals that Twitter has become more popular than LinkedIn among social network users in the United States.
Aside from posting tweets, Twitter users tend to blog frequently. In fact, more than 20% have their own blog, many of which trumpet social causes. These consumers make good evangelists for brands, he says.
Anderson's study aims to help marketers understand the type of people who frequent each social network. For example, it debunks the myth that Facebook attracts only kids. In fact, the Anderson study suggests that the ideal age group for Facebook spans from 15 to 34, but 44% of 35- to 44-year-olds and 30% of 45- to-54-year-olds say they have profiles, too.
And while more people are experimenting on social networks, only 10% of users report having ever created a duplicate or experimental profile. More than half of social network users have associated their profiles with a brand, company or product. While much has been written about negative nature of Web 2.0 and blog posts, social network users are more likely to say positive things about brands, companies or products.
The average user logs into a social network account about four times daily, five days a week, and spends about one hour per day on the network. About 31.8% are business users; followed by 26.3%, fun seekers; 21.8%, social media mavens; and 10.1%, leisure followers.
"Baby Boomers and the World War II generation are getting on Facebook, mostly prompted by their kids or younger relatives," Anderson says. "These folks tend to buy things online more often, as well."
About 90% of those surveyed from the WWII generation on a social network say they use Facebook; compared with 23% on MySpace; 17%, Twitter; and 4%, LinkedIn. Females comprise 63%, compared with 37% men.
The study suggests that advertisers looking to connect through social networks will likely find consumers ages 15 to 24 on MySpace, versus 18 to 34 on Facebook, 15 to 34 on Twitter, and 18 to 44 on LinkedIn, according to Anderson.
The Anderson Analytics study tracked U.S. user behavior for 11 months. In May, the firm surveyed 5,000 users, and then conducted a 15-minute survey of more than 1,000 users and 250 non-users, age 13 and older. Users were defined as signing on to a social network within the past 30 days. "
Sunday, July 26, 2009
" Tron Legacy " HD Trailer
Great HD trailer from "Tron Legacy", due in theaters in 2010.
Iron Man 2 Blasts Into Comic-Con, Badder Than Ever
" SAN DIEGO — How do you top a movie that took a lesser character from the Marvel Comics universe and turned him into the most badass big-screen superhero to date? That’s the dilemma faced by Iron Man 2 director Jon Favreau, whose 2008 movie turned Robert Downey Jr. into billionaire playboy Tony Stark, the man inside the Iron Man armor.
Favreau’s strategy: Bring in more top-shelf actors to play a handful of new characters, and bring kick-ass footage to show at Comic-Con International in an attempt to wow the world’s biggest fans for a second time. "
Apple's Much-anticipated Tablet Device Coming Early Next Year
{ Appleinsider.com }
" Exclusive: After four years of meticulous developmental riddled with setbacks, Apple is now racing toward an early 2010 launch of a device that may see the electronics maker redefine the portable computing market for the second time in twice as many years. "
Friday, July 24, 2009
MySpace Going Into Gaming? - News Corp.'s Chief Digital Officer Jonathan Miller Video Interview
Great video interview with Jonathan Miller as he lays out the future for MySpace, courtesy of Foxbusiness.com
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Joan Miró
" Twits " ~ What Are You REALLY Doing on Twitter?!
Never take yourself so seriously, and...never believe everything people tweet!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
CHART OF THE DAY: How People Share Content On The Web
" Mark Zuckerberg says people use Facebook "to stay updated on what's happening around them and share with the people in their lives."
Turns out it's true.
According to AddToAny, a company that provides Web publishers tools to let their users share content, more people use Facebook to share links than any other service -- including, to our surprise, email.
But watch out, Facebook. As a means of sharing content, Twitter is already about half as popular with only about one-tenth as many users.
This matters because content-sharers are the human crawlers that power both Facebook and Twitter's real-time search engines--which could turn out to be the way both startups end up making big money. "
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
July 21st Solar Eclipse
Advertising Will Change Forever; "...We Are All Digital Marketers Now..."
From:
Here's one of the things we do at Forrester Research: we interview as many marketers as we can about their plans, identify trends and project future likely conditions, and then we put together some numbers to make a projection. If you've ever seen a Forrester projection, it comes from a process like this.
This means that inside every projection is an idea or ten about the future. Those ideas can be powerful, and they come from research with marketers and consumers.
My colleague at Forrester, Shar Van Boskirk, just published our five-year interactive marketing forecast. The idea inside it is the real kicker.
In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased, they decreased less than other budgets. Six out of ten marketers we surveyed agreed with the statement "we will increase budget for interactive by shifting money away from traditional marketing." Only 7% said "we have no plans to increase our marketing budget."
Unlike the last recession, digital marketing is no longer experimental. Now it looks more like advertising is inefficient, relative to digital. More than half of the marketers we surveyed said that effectiveness of direct mail, TV, magazines, outdoor, newspapers, and radio would stay the same or decrease within three years. In contrast, well over 70% expected the effectiveness of channels like created social media, online video, and mobile marketing to increase.
The result is that digital, which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years. Along the way overall advertising budgets won't grow much.
This is huge.
It means we are all digital marketers now, since digital is at the center of many campaigns anyway.
It means media is in trouble, or at least in the middle of a transformation. For example, online video ads, which will be about $870 million this year, will grow to over $3 billion in 2014. What will this do to networks plans to put more of their shows online in places like Hulu. How will it accelerate some newspapers plans to become more and more centered around online?
And it means that social "media," which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years. And this doesn't even count displays ads on social networks (which are in the display ads category.) Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth.
Pundits have been declaring the end of mass media and advertising for years now. From my 14 years of experience analyzing this stuff, I've learned that things die very slowly, but there are real trends you can see. If you're in advertising, you'd better learn to speak digital, because that's the way the world is going. "
Monday, July 20, 2009
ESPN Aims to Be the Home Team, All Over America
" Not content with being a sports colossus with broadcasts in 200 countries, ESPN is taking aim at hometown sports coverage, threatening one of the last strongholds of local newspapers and television stations. "
Friday, July 17, 2009
5 Reasons Your Customer's Age Doesn't Matter
" There was a time when age used to matter for marketers. We would buy media based on presumed age ranges of audiences in the hopes that this bit of demographic information would help us reach the right people. In fact, this is one of the most time-honored traditions of marketing planning. It is also one of the dumbest. The thing about age is that it was always used as a proxy for interest. If you knew that someone was a male between the ages of 18-34, you could make a guess that they might like sports, or need deodorant, or drink beer. "
Great blog post by Rohit Bhargava from Fastcompany.com.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
According To Nielson, Users Spent A Billion Hours On Facebook In June
" According to Nielsen, the average Facebook visitor spent more than 4.5 hours on Facebook in June. That's over an hour more than the average Yahoo user spent using Yahoo. Facebook says it has 200 million active users. That means users spent more than a billion hours clicking around the site in June. "
Wow. That's a lot of pokes.
"If Opportunity Doesn't Knock, Build A Door." ~Mr. Television, 'Uncle Miltie'
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Milton Glaser’s ( "I ♥ NY" Creator) Graphic Influence: 14 Iconic Images Slideshow
Great slideshow from FastCompany.com highlighting the iconic work of Milton Glaser, pride of New York City.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Ahh!..Monster Jellies!! Possible Massive Jellyfish Invasion!
" Japanese researchers monitoring the activity of giant jellyfish in Chinese waters are warning of a potentially historic and catastrophic invasion this year.
Marine surveys conducted in late June have revealed alarming numbers of Nomura’s jellyfish — massive creatures that grow up to 2 meters (6 ft 7 in) in diameter and weigh as much as to 220 kilograms (about 450 lbs) — lurking in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea. The researchers warn that ocean currents may bring swarms of the monster jellies to Japan, which has been plagued by similar invasions in recent years. "
Thursday, July 2, 2009
1st Pics + Video of U2's Insane 360 World Tour Stage #U2
Even if you don't like U2...that is one sick stage! ;O)