hotDiggityBlog

Film made for $15000 hits number one.

With weeks of viral marketing and a promotional campaign driven by social networks like Twitter and Facebook behind it, Oren Eli’s Paranormal Activity (Paramount) expanded into just under 2,000 theaters on Friday and successfully took the box office with an estimated $22 million and an astounding cumulative gross of $62.5 million after less than a month in theaters. It’s surely going to be considered one of the memorable phenomena of 2009, having cost less than $15,000 to produce, the rights sold to Paramount for roughly $300,000 and then being distributed by one of the most unique and unconventional methods we’ve seen in some time.

See the full story here.

I didn’t see it. I was too afraid. But the social media component is worth close examination.

Why does social media carry the message so quickly and efficiently? It works on many levels, making it a strong communication tool in building relationships.

Free exposure.
Social media is highly rewarded in the search engines.
It’s a way to renew each moment, as you wish.
Segment audiences, if appropriate, aggregate data at will.
Demonstrate history, credentials, samples, process, etc.
Trackable.
Logs of detailed information about visitors, from where visitors are to what page directed them to your page, much data is available.
Easily audit ad effectiveness, editorial reach, competition, etc.

More to come … bird wants to eat my monitor.

I mean to say, it’s late, almost 4:30 AM on Saturday morning. I need to finish this quick post and go to bed before I see the sky turning blue.

I recently talked to a client that lives a tv show. He really does. He and his family are touched with Hollywood Magic. He doesn’t know he’s this marketable, he thinks he’s a starving artist, but he is what I’ve been saying we all are now, he’s real and his story is fantastic. We are the new tv.

It’s too late to blog now, but let this be a reminder to all of us that I need to finish this conversation. Later.

<Woof !>

Tired dog warning | I may read this tomorrow and think I’m absolutely nuts. But, it’s late and I’m putting it out there. I will edit it. Tomorrow.

There are so many positive things that come from blogging, the blog’s architecture forces you to organize. It allows you to be creative – with pages, images, text … video, audio. It’s just amazing. AND, IT’S FREE !!

organization of thoughts | material (writings, notes, links to off-site stuff, images, videos, audio files, etc.)
use it for this purpose alone, and you have a free information management tool

therapy | yeah. it’s true. the best part of this blog is it’s therapeutic value in calming my monkey mind (or my bunny butt)

entertainment| it is so much fun

accountability | if you put your weight online, daily, you will eat less ice cream

revenue | you can make money with your blog  (ad revenue, sell stuff | sponsor stuff | recommend stuff | promote stuff, etc. )

This entire process fascinates me. All those benefits, and there’s more!

We are the new TV. We are. We are all on TV now. The Internet and TV are merging. We see it before our very eyes. Use that. Put you out there. Transparency True is the name of  my first book, it’s highlights the need people have to hide so much of their lives, from friends, family, kids ! It’s not that we want to betray, but the context from one section of our lives to the next is not always aligned neatly. It’s transparency that brings us closer. Even if it’s unsightly to some. Uncomfortably transparent. Show the seedy underbelly of yourself. Of your company or product. What’s the real story? Tell it with a blog, or call it whatever you like. A journal. A diary. A TV show. Call it your information management system. The power of a blog is limited only by the imagination of it’s creator.

This is true. As you know, or maybe you don’t, I don’t use this space for revenue generation per se. While I welcome readers, and if they click on ads that interest them, I’ll take my cut of the pay per click model, but I’m not in this for that reason. Not here.

… Marco just popped online, maybe he’ll do the column for me …

Something like Marco from Bologna or Bologna from Marco, or … I don’t know, but I’d like to highlight how people can make a very good living sharing their story.

If you want to blog, you can do that yourself, by going to Wordpress.com, or Blogger.com … or use your Google account to create a blog. Or, hire a company – mine or someone else you trust to build your brand in this critically important space. The Internet is driving tv now, so let’s give it the respect it deserves. Ad dollars are emptying out of tv budgets as fast as internet broadcast profits are piling up. Whew. Thank God!

Some of my notes What’s A Blog. And, here for posts covering How To.

It’s not unlike what happened in the music industry, where Apple realized people will pay a reasonable price, and they came out ahead, the studios are still suffering bad decisions. Independents, however, have more power than ever. This is the same way tv is working … they are not all doing it wrong – Hulu is awesome ! … but, we are it. We are the new TV. Right now. Here.

It’s been a very fast long week. Thank you to all of my friends, my family and my clients that pulled together and made some crazy-wonderful things happen very quickly. We are going to Kansas City, and we are going to rock!

We booked two Chatter Box accounts and we sold three or four Tweeter Tops. Four web sites and two blogs. We built an awesome logo for a good cause and stuff I can’t remember. Oh yeah, we were interviewed by __________… that’s HUGE ! Can I tell ? I don’t know. But, CC is just adorable, and if that’s what being interviewed is like, bring it on. Loved her !

Thank you, everyone ! For so much happy.

I look forward to putting these and other projects on display – right here at hotDiggityBlog.

Stay tuned.

Thank you … fire is almost out.

Thank you Greg. Thank you Monica. Thank you Jay. Thank you Eric. Thank you Dave. Thank you Sandie. Thank you Julie. Thank you Richard. Thank you James.

Too much emotion today. I am absolutely in love with life. THANK YOU to all those lovely friends (clients mostly) that put the fire out.

Thank you Tom. Thank you Val. Thank you mom.

Here I come, Kansas City.

I’m ending this week with a FIRE SALE. As you may know, for several years I’ve been trying to sell Remembering.com Share Your Life | Silly-Easy Photo Sharing (it’s at alpha with beta in 4-8 weeks).

Today’s bloggers are entertaining the new world. We get our latest breaking from the people on the street, and why not. Are they not positioned where it’s at? Literally.

With the help of the world the job of the journalist, the anchor and the actor is changing. I respect the job we do, and give those before us a chance to catch up, have they the forethought to do so. Get on board, or swim along side. It matters not to the flow, only to the quality. Bring it.

Want to publish yourself? Do it. Today. You are the new TV. We are all watching us.

the hotChickityDog Show

Twitter has been down, or working intermittently, all day. Just on the heels of my TweeterTops launch. Just yesterday. Our first TweeterTops branded Twitter background is below. You could try linking to it on Twitter, but you’d be denied. Or, at least you have an 85% chance to be denied. Who wants to risk those odds. More importantly, Twitter was hit with a denial of service attack (DOS) – which means too many computers are trying to access the site, due to the malicious activities of a clever hacker. So, don’t go there, you will only make her sicker.

We’ll be patient, while Twitter unravels a hacker’s accomplishment.

Below you’ll see the custom Twitter background we did for Orange County Drum & Percussion. OCDP is one of my favorite clients and are perfect for the first-ever free TweeterTops background … TweeterTops will give a free custom Twitter background each day to the Tweeter that posts the best tweet about TweeterTops. Simply use @TweeterTops in a tweet, and you are in the running for that day’s free TweeterTops custom background. Make it good. This is worth $100. (If no tweets post, TweeterTops will find a worthy Twitter account that day.)

Here’s a link to Twitter’s blog … they are on this outage, in the meantime, stay away from Twitter, let her heal.