Don’t Believe Your Eyes

This is the reason they still call it Hollywood even though half the shows look like they are filmed in New York City.

Virtual Backlot Reel

Also See: Why Doesn’t My Website Show Up in Google?

$300 YouTube video lands $30 million contract

According to CNN, the following YouTube clip named “Panic Attack” cost $300 to make (not including equipment) and helped land a $30 million Hollywood contract for the director.

Fede Alvarez’s short film “Ataque de Panico!” (Panic Attack!) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.
It is 4 mins 48 seconds long and was made on a budget of $300 (£186).
So far it has had more than 1.5 million views on YouTube.
“I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,” he told the BBC’s Latin American service BBC Mundo. via BBC

SEO Reading and Friday Link Finds

Get listed launches. Google is destroying the web? Should you sweat the small stuff with SEO?

1. Get Listed offers a great tool to manage local listings
2. How Google is destroying the web
3. Is your blog advertise friendly?
4. Six ways to get people to say yes I’m almost done reading the book this post is based on, and it is an excellent read.
5. Do the little things in SEO make a big difference?
6. Google to push semantic search in 2009

(video)

College Bowl Game Schedule 2009

Chris Matthews bias? Media at its worst.

I’m happy for Barack Obama, but the blatant “Obamamania” in this country is a little concerning when it occurs in the media so openly. See the video of Chris Matthews saying his job is to support the president? Then read the quote from Theodore Roosevelt.

“Every man who parrots the cry of ’stand by the President’ without adding the proviso ’so far as he serves the Republic’ takes an attitude as essentially unmanly as that of any Stuart royalist who championed the doctrine that the King could do no wrong. No self-respecting and intelligent free man could take such an attitude.” - Theodore Roosevelt

Hi (High?) traffic blog posts

I was looking over my web traffic stats for my blog this morning, and found the following posts seem to generate lots of discussion and traffic. I never thought they would.

Barack Obama, Cocaine Use and 60 Minutes - This post details why I think the news media never really covered the fact that Barack Obama admitted to snorting cocaine.

Obama/Palin Dancing with the Stars - This is a Photoshop mockery of Barack and Sarah Waltzing or doing the Tango or something.

Why you should vote - This was a collaborative blog post that a couple of other people agreed to write and post at the same time I did. See (Announcing my future candidacy, Chris Knudsen) and (Why you should vote, Connor Boyack).

Barack Obama is not black? - This is one of the most ridiculous claims I have ever heard, so I posted a video of the woman making the claim.

Hmmm… Maybe I should write more about politics.

Obama/Palin: Dancing with the Stars

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin in Dancing with the Stars… need I say more?

photo credit: Martin Rice

Proposition 8: Marriage in California

These Proposition 8 videos are worth watching as they discuss the marriage issue which will be on the ballot in California next month, an issue that was already decided on by 61 percent of voters and then overturned by four activist judges.

Protected: Why so serious? Trailer on the economy.

Salt Lake PR Job :: Body Worlds

COMPANY:
Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS 3 & The Story of the Heart (Downtown Salt Lake City)

POSITION:
Communications Manager

Email resume and cover letter to Georgina Gomez, g.gomez@plastination.com

DESCRIPTION
Seeking an experienced and intuitive communications professional with a minimum of five years experience and knowledge of the local media landscape. The Communications Manager is in charge of the day-to-day press related activities, promotion and integrated Marketing of the touring exhibition, Gunther von Hagens’ BODY WORLDS: The Original Exhibition of Real Human Bodies, at the Leonardo in Salt Lake City.

Candidates should have excellent communication, planning and tactical skills. Readiness to closely communicate with press and other departments and the flexibility to encounter new challenges every day is required. The ideal candidate will know how to single-handedly implement a PR campaign in the local market and should be able to incorporate marketing initiatives and promotions into media campaigns.

DUTIES & RESPONSIBILITIES
* Pitching to mainstream consumer, alternate, niche, and specialty media including trade and industry media
* Writing media releases and press materials
* Hosting media visits
* Scheduling press interviews
* Acting as a general spokesperson (when assigned the task)
* Cooperation on direct marketing campaigns
* Organization of online campaigns
* Collaboration on promotions and event management
* Initiating and following up of contacts to organizations and institutions
* Reporting of weekly activities
* Cooperation on Promotion planning
* Cooperating with museum partners and officials onsite
* Working within allocated budget
* Promoting group sales and educational initiatives

JOB REQUIREMENTS
* 5+ years experience in communications and PR, a must
* Proven success in PR and marketing campaigns with verifiable portfolio, a must
* Knowledge of the local media landscape, marketing and communications fields with an emphasis in art, entertainment or event marketing
* High level of communication, organization and computer skills
* Planning and strategic skills
* Internal communication skills
* Readiness to closely communicate with press and other departments
* Flexibility to encounter new challenges everyday

WEBSITE
visit www.bodyworlds.com to learn more about BODY WORLDS.

SEOMoz, Directories and the lowdown on linkfarms

SEOMoz is a great resource for keeping up with SEO, internet marketing and the general strategies and tactics of doing business online. The following is just one of the many reasons I’m a member. While this may seem like no-brainer at first glance, most of what he says is actually contrary to the common crowd wisdom of SEO forums.

“Any directory whose primary goal is to help you boost your search engine rankings should be looked at with suspicion. If the list is intended to serve human visitors, there’s a far better chance that search engines would want the links to count, otherwise, it would be very tough to argue that the site isn’t manipulative by nature. Here’s a good, general rule of thumb – if the directory owner is active on SEO forums, blogs & communities, attempting to market to the SEO audience, be wary. Not all of these links will be of low quality, but it should certainly raise a red flag.”

Utah Freedom Run

www.utahfreedomrun.com

Schedule:
10:00 AM Pick up auctioned vehicles at Luxe Automotive
11:30 AM Registration at Thanksgiving Point
12:00 PM Drivers Meeting/Orientation
1:00 PM Drink Break - Alpine Summit
1:15 PM Drive through Sundance to Park City
2:10 PM Arrive at Downtown Park City - Enjoy Snacks
3:15 PM Leave Park City. Drive through Emigration Canyon
4:30 PM Arrive at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele
5:00 PM Lead - Follow on track experience at medium speeds
5:30 PM Museum Tour
6:00 PM VIP Dinner in Executive Clubhouse
*Times subject to change

American Idol tryouts for Salt Lake City, Utah

Looking for American Idol’s Utah auditions?

Salt Lake City, July 29.
WHERE:
EnergySolutions Arena
301 W. South Temple
Salt Lake City, UT 84101
REGISTRATION DAYS: JULY 27-28 2008

Other Dates
San Francisco, July 17.
Louisville, July 21.
Phoenix, July 25.
San Juan, Puerto Rico, Aug. 2.
Kansas City, Aug. 8.
Jacksonville, Fla., Aug. 13.
East Rutherford, N.J., Aug. 19.

]]>

Pork and Beans YouTube/Weezer video

These guys are consistent. Like the sun coming up. Weezer’s new “Pork and Beans” video features many familiar YouTube stars from around the world . . . (Don’t believe the hype telling you this is leaked as though “leaked” means the record label didn’t put it out early on purpose).

Mr. T says “Treat your mother right.”

Mother. There is no other.

The media markets

Seth Godin said it better than I’ve been trying to say for months.

“The media markets. The product they sell is drama.”

He continues . . .

There isn’t media bias in favor of Hillary (my friend Jeff is the first to point that out). Nor is there media bias in favor of floods. There’s media bias in favor of drama.

Most of us are inclined to believe that government officials, doctors and the media are making an effort to tell us the truth. Actually, just like all marketers, they tell us a story.

photo via Flickr

Why doesn’t my website show up in Google?

My wife sent me an email from one of her friends asking why a website didn’t show up in a search engine.

It was kind of a fun exercise to see if I could explain to someone the “why” knowing they didn’t know anything about why. Here’s what I came up with. Anything you would have added? Anything you would have said differently knowing the person had zero knowledge of how a search engine works?

Name Withheld:

The site is probably not showing up because of a couple of reasons.

Your site may be too new.
(Google, Yahoo!, MSN) don’t actually scour the Internet when you type something into Google for example. A company like Google uses mathematic algorithms to look for web pages, but those algorithms (called spiders or bots) only visit a site every so often. When the spider visits the site, that information is then stored on a Google server that then points to the servers that your web site is hosted on. So when you type something into Google, Google shows you what its search engine spiders found the last time it visited your site.

The Site is Made of Images
Search engine spiders are also not very good at determining what is in an image. Spiders are excellent at identifying text. Your site is mostly images. I was able to look at the code to see, and you can look too. Every browser (Internet Explorer, FireFox, etc..) only shows a website because it goes to your site and pulls up the code that the programmer wrote and then displays the site in the browser for you to see. You should be able to look at the code by right clicking on the page and then viewing the source code. The code and the text are what the search engine spiders actually read so people know what’s on a site when they look for it in a search engine.

No Sites Link to Website.com (removed)
One way search engines determine how to “rank” sites when you search for something like “Shoes” or “Toys” is by the number of other websites that link to www.shoes.com or www.toys.com. A link is like a vote. 1,000 links to Shoes.com with a link that says “shoes” is like 1,000 sites saying to the search engine “this site is about shoes.” Sounds simple, but remember the second paragraph I wrote. Search engines are reading text, not images. This “voting” system allows Google to decide what site comes up first, second third, or thirtieth etc… when you search for shoes. I didn’t see any other websites linking to your site. One way to check this is to go to Google and type link:www.russpage.net(example). You can also do this at Yahoo! using linkdomain:www.russpage.net (example)

One thing you can start doing (instead of waiting for the search engines to show up) is to tell them your site is online.
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit (Yahoo!)
http://www.google.com/addurl/ (Google)

ABC News: Cheap on Charity

An interesting segment on charity by John Stossel.

Headline News Friday (full of misleading “news”)

When I logged onto CNN this morning the headline had a gut wrenching photo that had a big (-20,000) on it in reference to the loss of jobs for April. Minutes later, the headline read ‘Not as bad as we thought.’ Well, which is it?

The answer is … -20,000 will get people to read the story, and readers = dollars. News isn’t the driving force, but any half-brained capitalist would tell us that.

Jose Canseco Loses Home To Foreclosure
This headline is total baloney. If you read the story, Canseco didn’t “lose” anything. He walked away from his $2.5 million mansion when he realized he’d be better off just letting the bank take it.

p.s. Canseco played in the LA Division of the Men’s Senior Baseball League, the same organization I play in (www.utahmsbl.com)

Public Relations College Instructor - Weber State, Utah

The Department of Communication at Weber State University invites applications for Instructor in Public Relations beginning August 2008.

Teaching load of four classes per semester will include courses in public relations, graphic design, media writing, departmental foundation courses, or advising student media organi-zations. The ability to advise the PRSSA chapter is a plus. Appointment contingent on final budget approval.

We are seeking a colleague dedicated to undergraduate education, advising, and service. For appointment, candidate must possess at least a Bachelor’s degree with a minimum of ten years of full time professional experience in agency or corporate PR, and at least five years teaching experience at the undergraduate level with proof of teaching excellence. Screening of applications will begin May 8, 2008.

Position will remain open until filled. Applicants must complete the online faculty/staff data form at http://jobs.weber.edu and attach:
1) a letter of application that addresses academic/professional experience in PR
2) a statement of teaching philosophy,
3) vitae, and
4) contact information for three references.

WSU is an AA/EO employer. Women and minorities are encouraged to apply. Utah PR and Public Relations.

Utah Jazz: Where Amazing Happens

A friend made this Utah Jazz video in response to this Houston Rockets video

Cancer Benefit for Cory Alldredge

Many of you probably know someone who has had cancer.

I do.

My grandfather died of a lemon-sized brain tumor, and to say the least, it creates difficult times for a family not only emotionally but also financially. I’m sure Cory and his family could use your help. Details for a benefit are below as well as instructions on how to donate.

visit your local Wells Fargo and donate to the Cory B. Alldredge Fund.

or mail some financial assistance to:
Cory B Alldredge Fund
317 W Election Road
Draper, Utah 84020

Jazz fans unite

Obviously somebody made this before the Jazz went up 2-0 on the Rockets… poor sap.

KSL gets duped by Pew Survey

Headline: Group predicts rise in Utah foreclosures
First Paragrah: A new report says Utah’s housing bubble is forecast to burst in a big way, with one in 25 Utah homeowners projected to be in foreclosure in the next two years. (Don’t panic. They’re yelling fire in a crowded theater when there’s no fire).

KSL Readers point to the real facts and expose the dollar-driven media BS.

I do lead generation for real estate agents in Utah, and I can tell you first hand, things have picked up big time in the state the last two months. Utah real estate agents I talk to are saying the same thing. As one comment points out “24 in 25 homes WILL NOT be foreclosed upon.” (Caps added for emphasis).

As the other KSL commenter pointed out, “If you don’t spin it the other way, it won’t create that ad revenue pop that will make KSL more $$.”