Author: Amo

It appears Skeletor has started a video blog – one that’s already captured the imagination of other viralists (yes, I did make up that word, maybe I should copyright it – ah well), a video blog that documents his life post-He man. And boy he sure let himself go. Complete with “man boobs” and a fat belly, watch as Skeletor tries to fill in the void left by being unemployed.

Quote from blog:
“Each week, expect to hear from your ol’ pal skelly.He will talk to you about all sorts of stuff,like giving you updates on his documentary ‘The Unexciting Adventures of Unemployed Skeletor’”.

There are well over 20 episodes of Unemployed Skeletor; with one episode where he’s at some function and sings “My Cherie” and dedicating it to Evil-Lynn.

Link:

• Unemployed Skeletor’s Video Blog (Episode #1)

Tim Malbon of Daily Social has recently posted an excellent article on how viral marketing, especially via the medium of YouTube can backfire for brands and their marketing executives.

As Malbon reports, someone within the marketing department of the supermarket chain “Somerfield” decided (probably in a brain storm) to allow their employees to use Youtube as a sort of viral marketing platform, or, as Malbon puts it, “a social media experiment” – but it went wrong because for the last 8 months or so, the bored nightshift Somerfield employees have been uploading subversive content to the Youtube website – much to the embarrassment to the company.

Viral marketing is getting bigger all the time – politicians, marketing gurus and big firms are all trying to use the social aspect of Youtube to market their products, often using funny commercials – or presenting a human face to a lifeless corporate body. I think Youtube and it’s rivals are great for small time businesses trying to get their name out there, but trying to ad-hoc a marketing message via a platform where you know it will be abused is just asking for trouble.

Link:
Daily Social: War on Brands

I’m not commented on the whole “Celebrity Big Brother” thing (Shipla vs Jade). Mainly because there was so much blanket coverage on the media about the situation, it almost became farcical, stupid and just plain dumb.

Fortunately, some guys have made some funny post-celebrity big brother posters, in the same vain as the Patriotic posters from Whitehouse.org

Enjoy.

Links:

• Celebrity Big Brother posters(yidaho.net)
• Patriotic posters (Whitehouse.org)

The BBC had an item this morning about a hydrogen motorbike that “accelerates like a 125cc scooter. It’s smooth and easy to control, will do 50mph and has a range of 100 miles” and its only by-product is “water vapour”.

However when I saw the video of the reporter riding the bike, I couldn’t help thinking I’ve seen that bike design before.

Then it hit me….

The bike sure looks like the motorbike from 80’s Hit TV show Streethawk.

See for yourself.

• Hydrogen bike (BBC Video)
• Streethawk (Youtube)

Is it me, or is the amount of management doublespeak jargon increasing with every new web 2.0 website? Probably. But I found this viral to be quite funny about the whole web 2.0 doublespeak jargon being sprouted from “marketing experts”.

Hak.5 Microshaft Web 2.0 Framework

Hot on the heels of sites like Revver and Metacafe, Youtube has recently announced that it will attach advertising to user-submitted videos and give their creators a cut of the profits.

Joe Eigo of MultiLevelMovies is one benefactor of the recent pay-for-virals/cut of advertising model that Metacafe employs. Joe Eigo of Toronto has made nearly $26,000 posting his ‘freestyle’ martial arts videos on the Internet (Metacafe), however his main aim was to raise his profile not only on the Internet, but onto TV and into the film industry.

The essential details are scarce: the Youtube revenue sharing system will not be rolled out all at once, but instead will come over the next several months. There’s no word on who would qualify for revenue sharing, or how much that might amount to.

Nevertheless, some believe that the revenue share will be tied to advertising exposure, and will only be available to people who upload videos for which they own the entire copyright.

But they are playing catchup with sites like Revver and Metacafe, whom over the past year have differentiated themselves from YouTube primarily by offering compensation for content creators.

Revver shares “in-stream ad revenue” with users and Metacafe offers “Producer Rewards”, which functions in much the same way. Metacafe manages to set itself apart from YouTube a little bit more by reviewing and filtering content and catering more toward semi-professional video producers.

In my opinion it’s great to see that so many people are benefiting from virals, and they have moved on the from the Flash movies of the early 2000’s to the mash-up, full-blown movies that we see today; not only that – but they are getting paid for it. My only concern is that the spate of viral punch ups, fights and brawls as well as sexual content will be paid the most (well it seems to be very popular with today’s youth), and that would be a very sad thing.

If I had the time, creative output and could convince friends to do it, I would try to have a go at the whole viral scene, and I would – like so many others, go for the whole paid-for-content route – personally I’ve always wanted to make an over-the-top “fight” sequence much like that one in “Police Story 2“, or an out-and-out comedy much like “28 Days Slater” – but that’s a pipe-dream and probably never happen.

I personally enjoy the whole concept of virals, making them, directing them, producing them – it all fascinates me; I wonder how things were done and how things were shot, perhaps this growth of small online virals is the start of something big.

Links:

• Matrix – For Real…Joe Eigo
• YouTube Shows You The Money — Maybe.
• YouTube and LiveDigital to Share Ad Profits
• YouTube tips hat on advertising plans with ingenious “Robin Hood” misdirection

“Give a man a gun and he’s superman. Give him two and he’s god.”

It’s hard to believe that almost 15 years ago (1992), John Woo’s classic “Hard Boiled” hit the cinema’s and our respective TV screens (If you’ve not seen Hard Boiled, I seriously suggest that you do!)

I remember back in 1995/1996 when I first hired Hard Boiled from a video rental store under the tag line “Better than 10 Die Hards!!” – at that time I remember I only ever rented a movie depending on the number of exclamation points, and whilst Hollywood’s Die Hard clones and the usual Schwarznegger or Stallone feature had one, this movie had two! – So naturally I hired it right there and then.

Back then of course I, like many of my peers, were so into Hong Kong action movies from the ilk of Jackie Chan and to a lesser extent, Jet Li. Naturally, Hard Boiled – much like John Woo’s other movies, literally blew me away. The ballet of action, guns, bullets and Chow Yun Fat’s natural charismatic appeal just won me, and many fans over – and we went on to watch similar films such as “The Killer” (also directed by John Woo) and “God of Gamblers” as well his many Ringo Lam movies.

Although Woo, in my opinion, never recaptured the form of Hard Boiled once he went to America – even with films like Face/Off and the craptacular that was “M:I-2” – I felt that this was mainly because studio executives basically told him to redo “Hard Boiled” over and over again, and thus he lost his competitive edge through constantly rehashing ideas from the early 90s – and of course, nearly ever Woo movie had the same repeating of flying pigeons, or in some cases; doves. But this only de-credits what Woo has done for action, and what Chow Yun Fat has done for acting.

Now almost a decade and a half later Chow Yun Fat reprises the role of “Inspector Tequila” from John Woo’s influential action film, and you get to play him in the action game “Strangehold”

Much like “Max Payne”, “Strangehold” is a hyper-kinetic shooting game, complete with “Tequila Time” and features much of the hyper-kinetic, choreographed action and freeze framed sequences that Woo is known for.

The game looks great, all out action much like Max Payne; There are tons of trailers which are below – I only wonder though if the haunting music from the Hard Boiled Trailer will make the game – I sure hope so!

“Strangehold” Preview Trailers, and Resources;

• Stranglehold Live Gameplay Footage @ Games Convention 2006
• Stranglehold E3 Trailer
• Another Stranglehold Trailer
• Hard Boiled Trailer
• Hard Boiled on IMDB
• IGN: Strangehold Previews & Interviews

In December of last year, a war of words between Rosie O’Donnell and Billionaire Donald Trump erupted and was widely reported across the Internet. But what started the feud? And what’s happened since?

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