JacobNahin, Freelance Journalist

Note: Recently, I met up with @HardlyNormal, aka Mark Horvath, founder of Invisiblepeople.tv, a man for whom I have developed a deep level of respect. Mark doesn’t just talk, he acts. When people hurt, he helps. When children starve, he feeds, he clothes. Now, Mark would be the first to tell you that this mission is not about him, but I felt that revealing his rough past under a bright light through a profile-piece would be the best way to, as Mark would say, open blind eyes to the epidemic of homelessness.

Thank you to Mark Horvath for his time, meeting me at the Hollywood and Highlands Center. Also, many thanks to Ann-Marie Welsh (@padschicago), William Marc Salsberry, and Pastor Matthew Barnett (@matthewbarnett) for lending their voices to this piece. May they be heard by all who read it.

For publications interested in running this article, please Contact Me. All photos were taken by Wm. Marc Salsberry.

With that, here is…

“The Untold Story of @HardlyNormal”

He stands on the matte black stage of the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, Calif., surrounded by fans and followers seated in padded, red seats, a guest and lauded speaker. It’s Oct. 27.  The event: a Twitter conference called 140 Characters, is casual in nature and stands in sharp contrast to the Academy Awards. Dressed in blue jeans and a cream-colored collared shirt with black pin-stripes, this 6-foot, gray-haired, green-eyed man loaded with charisma stands straight and seems well-fitted to the building where celebrities like Jack Nicolson and Will Smith pass out gold-plated statues each year.

But this theater, next to famous landmarks like Grauman’s Chinese Theater and the “Hollywood Walk of Fame,” is not that unfamiliar to the man on the stage. More than 14 years ago, Mark Horvath called the loud, dirty street of Hollywood Boulevard home.

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This past week, like many Southern Californians, I experienced something rare for the dry state: rain, little droplets of it splashing on sidewalks, side streets, and freeways. I even witnessed two, simultaneous accidents on the 405 while on my way to Orange County.

In a similar manner, I also experienced a #CloudFail of a different kind. Continue reading

Web TV. So young, yet you’ve come so far. Millions of eyeballs scour your content and lift a special few to somewhat of a celebrity status. But who are these people? Where is that E! angle?

Enter: The Web Files, a web series hosted by Kristyn Burtt and directed and produced by Sandra Payne, puts the spotlight on web celebs and gives them the star treatment. The show is all quality and class. No pot-shots, no paparazzi, just admiration for those whom the mainstream media has considered second-rate stars.

This isn’t a gut-punch to mainstream media;  they have to aim their lens at the big stars who draw the most views. It’s a money game. With The Web Files, it’s all about appreciation and information. I, for one, didn’t know the origin of Tay Zonday’s name or that he didn’t eat cupcakes. What a shame; cupcakes are my favorite, but oh well.

According to a tweet by @TheWebFiles, the show’s first video has already seen more than 1,000 hits. The next episode, set to be released sometime next week, will feature the cast and crew of The Crew.

Clap, clap, Burtt and Payne, well done.

Everyone from kids to adults use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace. We’re talking millions and millions of eyeballs, many of which walk by your business everyday.

They access their social media from home, from work, and from their cell-phones. The best part: many big-name competitors still don’t have a social media strategy, giving you, the small business owner, the opportunity to capture some of that cash while pleasing your customers.

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Here are a few articles I wrote recently for Tubefilter News.
All pictures are linked from tubefilter.tv.

Jason Calacanis Covers Startups With a ‘TWiST’
“The show is a simple, easy watch that delivers compelling interviews without dumbing it down for the audience.”

Alloy Goes ‘Private’ School, Makes Open Casting Call
“The marketing company has also done something rare: it has posted an open casting call for the part of Kiran aimed at fans of the book series. Those who want to audition for roles in the web series may download one of three available 60-second scripts, film the video, then upload the short to the website.”

‘Ten Sundays’ Still Stuck On Couch
“The entire ten-episode series takes place on the pair’s living room couch and kicks off when David falls for a bossy girl and Jesse forgets his reason for living after messing up a critical job interview”

‘Comics on Comics’, Geek Idols Served Over Funny
Geeks, hold your breath, because you are going to need that air to cheer on Comics on Comics, a pop-culture video podcast in its second season with a cape-load of comic-book guests and a colorful pool of knowledge.

Acute T.V. has released the first set of episodes for its mockumentary reality t.v. series, Whorified! The Search for America’s Next Top Whore.

No, I am not kidding, but while the name and some of the content may be too edgy for some, packed inside is well-written dialogue, great comedic timing, and an intriguing premise.

Here it is: take a bunch of women and pit them against each other as they compete for the position of top prostitute. Viewers get to watch that drama unfold while seeing the producers and crew struggle to make the series a success.

Whorified! was put online May 1st and comes from the minds of Ann Marie Lindbloom and Jeff Venables who are both known for the improve-web show, Two Peas in Your Pod. Both wrote, directed, and produced the Whorified.

I had the opportunity of interviewing Lindbloom before the premiere of the show.

Lindbloom said while some reality T.V. isn’t bad, Whorified! is meant to be a commentary on other reality shows like the closely named, America’s Next Top Model.

“Whorified! is an edgy send-up of reality T.V.,” said Lindbloom. “You call it train-wreck T.V. because you can’t look away. You get horrified and that is how we gave birth to this idea.”

There will be 10 episodes this seasons and each episode is around 5-minutes.

“We wanted to create a web series that was like no web series that had gone before … [and] create a show that we thought could be on broadcast television s well as the web,” said Lindbloom.

Lindbloom said while the target demographic of Whorified! was 18-35 year olds, women in their 50s have also expressed a lot of interest in the show. She said a lot of marketing buzz has been created using social media like Twitter.

The show was very affordable to produce and according to Lindbloom came in at under $10,000 including props, equipment, and payment to the cast and crew. The crew worked about two days a week and took around seven months to shoot the show.

“This whole show is sort of an example of what two people can do by tapping into the Internet and all the things it offers to filmmakers in terms of creating, marketing, and putting your product out there,” said Lindbloom.

Around 150 showed up to the premiere at the Cinespace in Los Angeles.

Whorified! can be found at http://www.whorified.com.

Recently, there has been a lot of buzz on twitter about the swineflu. No surprise there. When something big happens, word of mouth spreads on twitter so fast, most are somewhat informed before any network broadcasts the news.

I have observed a different kind of disease on twitter. That is, the very nature of twitter leaves itself open to misinformation. First, many twitterers (tweeters?) pass along a story both without retweeting and without including a link. This results in that telephone game we all remember back in school. Second, old tweets can be picked up and retweeted as current information. This happened recently with Mashable’s
Pete Cashmore. Now, this isn’t anything new for the Internet. A search on Snopes reveals that many myths are the result of old information being propagated as new information.

To reiterate a few good twitter tips: include links if you are posting information, fact-check tweets to see if the information is relevant and recent, and, finally, try to add something to the conversation. Comment on the retweet.

Another thing I noticed about twitter is how reliant everyone is on big media organizations such as NewsCorp owned Fox News or CNN.

One thing I hope to see soon: new media take on traditional media in terms of comprehensive news reporting. Imagine a new-media news organization that regularly posts webcasts with context-specific links… all available on the iPhone, Blackberries, etc. The big media news organizations do this a little bit, but not to the extent they could.

To have a successful new-media news organization, a few things will need to happen first:

1. New media will have to find a way to make this type of reporting profitable.
2. Reporters and new media news organizations will need the funding to travel to the site of the story and provide nice visuals of their own (rather than use stock footage).
3. The news media organization will need the labor-force to pull it off.

Ironically, a good, profitable business model outside of advertising has yet to emerge and make this type of reporting feasible. Internet advertising has slowed along with the rest of the economy. Hopefully, with the next economic boom, another round of advertisers and investors will take the risk on a new media organization.

Lastly, that new-media news organization will need to continually update itself to remain relevant as big media broadcasters play catch up.

What do you think?

Recently, NewTeeVee posted an article that highlighted some announcements made at a recent Netflix meeting. The most interesting, as demonstrated by the article’s headline, is that Netflix’s biggest competitor will be dvd kiosks. What? Yes, kiosks, those (usually) red-and-white boxes that rent out movies for a buck a piece. That equals about nine movies a month when compared to Netflix’s 1-at-a-time subscription plan.

Now, I know that these kiosks must have low overhead because the owners of the kiosks don’t have to pay what a brick-and-mortar like Blockbuster does. Things like full-time employees, air conditioning and electric bills, and the actual rental cost of the building itself. So, it must be pretty easy to make money with these machines.

But what does it say about the brick-and-mortars when they aren’t even mentioned as a top player? This tells me that they are out of the game. They can’t compete with Netflix’s online-streaming and let’s face it, they barely try. Heck, for the price of two ro three blockbuster films ($4.99 last I checked in the L.A. area) I could get BOTH Netflix’s 1-at-a-time and a dvd or two from one of those kiosks.

As for the kiosks themselves, they sure have great profit potential. I’m not sure what their margins or start-up costs are, but I don’t see why they wouldn’t bring in a good return. As for the kiosks actually beating Netflix? Not a chance. So then, who else will compete with Netflix?

Consumers need competition in the marketplace. The only place that competition is likely to come from is other streaming video and content providers. More on this later.

There’s this internet television show called Goodnight Burbank and it is part of Hayden Black’s dream. Black describes the show as a combination of NBC’s The Office and Comedy Central’s The Daily Show. Black is an immigrant from the UK and for years he wrote promos for Warner Bros, ABC and NBC, working on such TV shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Black wanted to do more with his life.

He decided to quit his job three years ago and give up a six-figure salary to pursue his dream of writing and acting. Black said he took some improv classes which led very quickly to the world of internet TV when someone talked to him about podcasting.

“I had never acted in my life. I’d never even been in a high school play or anything like that,” said Black. “I thought, you know, I’ll try it, and it went from there.”

Then Black started his own production company Evil Global Corporation and started work on Goodnight Burbank. He writes, produces, acts in and sometimes directs the show. Black fights hard for his dream and has had to take loans from friends to keep the show going. Recently, Babelgum – a video portal website – came on board and funded 20 episodes of a spin off, the Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report. The show was also shot on a Disney sound stage with a bigger budget. Black directed this series himself (previously it was in the hands of Bry Sanders).

Except for his dog Salford, Black also lives alone. But things are looking up for Black and his brand is becoming something of a success. Evil Global Corporation-produced shows have seen multi-millions of views for several of its series like Goodnight Burbank and Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary, a show about the struggles of a 13-year-old girl who has a (fictional) genetic condition that makes her look like a 30-something guy.

Black said that Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary was a real change in his acting style compared to Goodnight Burbank.

Black plays the main character on the show.

“You either go all the way or you just don’t bother at all … so I had to throw myself into this,” said Black.

Black is also getting ready to start production on his latest Internet show, The Cabonauts. That show is a sci-fi musical comedy about cab drivers in space and Black has built a green screen studio in his garage to shoot the show, and will edit it from his own editing suite. Black will also write, direct, and act in the show just like in Goodnight Burbank.

Black said he is excited about The Cabonauts and that it could be larger than any of his other shows. His number one inspiration is Douglas Adams, the writer of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Those who want to watch Goodnight Burbank: Hollywood Report can find it at www.babelgum.com or any of his other shows linked from www.evilglobal.com.

(Photo courtesy of Hayden Black)