Fan To Pro - The Blog of Professional Geekery

Yahoo Shuts Down Four Entertainment Sites

I completely missed this news.  Not that it surprises me as, well, it's Yahoo and they've been having their problems lately.  I'm not sure it means anything except likely more unemployed people, and makes me wonder how their talks about acquisitons are going - and Microsoft is a possible suitor.

With so many sites on the web I'm not sure Yahoo's offerings will be missed, though people writing in similar entertainment venues might want to be a bit concerned about A) a bit more competition, and B) they may be seen as unnecessary as well.

Also, if a buyout is coming, yahoo may be streamlining themselves . . .

- Steven Savage

Making Stuff That People Will Want To Share

If you’re promoting your video/comic/whatever online, you’re probably hoping it will go viral.  Here are some things to keep in mind that will help it along.

1. It’s About The User
Think of the last few links you forwarded to your friends.  Were they cute kitten pictures that showed you have a softer side?  Was there a funny video that implies you have a great sense of humour for appreciating it?  Maybe it was an article about something complicated yet important, thus showing you’re on the ball about current events.

Make your video say something good about those who like it.  That is, make it funny or clever, so people will want to affiliate those characteristics with themselves.  Forwarding a kitten picture doesn’t just say, “here’s a kitten.”  It says “my name is _____ and I like cute kittens.”

2. It’s About Being Useful
We forward things for a reason.  We want to entertain, inform, or cheer up our friends.  If your video does not do any of those things, it is less likely to be forwarded.  This is why simple things like, “I have an owl, so your argument is invalid” will come up often enough in chats but indie film trailers do not. 

Your video can’t just be good in and of itself.  It has to relate to other things that people will do.  That’s the only way the link will be repeated.

3. It’s About Association
Does your video have a signature image or catchphrase that will be repeated later?  It couldn’t hurt.  I’m not saying you have to force a silly word into your video for its own sake, but it helps if people have something to remember your video by.  If you can incorporate a phrase that people would want to repeat, then you have a better chance of making it go viral.

4. It’s About People
If one person tries to start a meme all by themselves, it will probably fizzle out.  If several people pick it up right at the start, it stands a much better chance.  Therefore, you can ask your friends to pass it along. 

-Tamara Hecht

Launch or Be Lunch, Day 2 - Oh Shi---: Tweaking (the Way You Want to Go)

We're now in launch week.  Needless to say, this is a terrifying exciting time.  But hey, we're consumate professionals, so we'll take it in stride, bravely moving along with a dance and a song.

Launch or Be Lunch, Day 9 - Crunchtime Continues: Rendering

Okay, can I let you in on a little secret?  Neither Ayne nor I know how to do technical illustration.  What that means is either she or I are trying to draw a helicopter, it tends to look less like a fully armed Apache helicopter and more like a bulbous sausage with a plate above it and snow skis below.  That's not saying that I don't know how to draw, nor does that say anything about Ayne's skills (especially since she's the artist).  What it means is that our skills lie far more in figure drawing, curves vs. lines (or what we here at Megami tend to refer to as "organic" drawing vice the technical "inorganic" drawing).

Okay, now that I've gotten that off my chest, are you ready for the rest?  Neither can anyone else.

Launch or Be Lunch: 30 Days to Production

Hello, all, this is Rob Barba of Megami Studios.  I'm writing this article series for the wonderful folks here at Fan to Pro detaililng the launch of our primary series Claude & Monet.  After all, what better way to show moving from fans to professional geeks than to do it right before the cameras?  During the next 30 days (okay, well, 29, since we started late), either myself or Ayne Hart (the studio artist) will be presenting what we're doing while prepping for launch, from the high points to the low, from the scars to the bottles of aspirin, and everything in between.  You'll also get to see some of the behind the scenes look at what it takes to launch a work; even at the end of the 30-day-period, when there's just one starting page on the screen, it takes a lot more than people tend to realize, and we're putting that out there for you.

Now, one bit of warning: we're showing you all the ugly sides.  Which means that oftentimes, we're going to have opinions that may be different than the standard (because when you really want to make a good impression, start insulting people...right.....) and that many might vastly disagree with.  Well, that's what the comments section below is for.  Voice your opinions!  Let them fly!

And with that....

No Soap: The Disappearance of Television's Great Training Ground

To people of a certain age, the news earlier this week that ABC could cancel General Hospital to make room for a new talk show hosted by Katie Couric was near-unthinkable. After all, the show has been a cultural icon for decades. In the early 80s, it was a flat-out phenomenon - it made household names of Luke and Laura and launched the music career of cast member Rick Springfield.

This follows, of course, a long stretch of bad news about the genre, including the cancelation of another landmark ABC show, All My Children (aka The Susan Lucci Show). Which begs the question, is one of the longest-running forms of media storytelling ever dead?

Usage Based Billing is an Unfair Bad Bargain

And now, News from the North* with regard to Usage Based Billing and the coverage thereof.  First, a long and boring intro for those who are unfamiliar with the situation.

All of the radio, TV, Internet, etc in Canada is run by the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, or CRTC.  That is, if it involves using electricity to send information a long distance, it’s the CRTC who manages the connections.  Why is it set up like that?  The same reason that everything in Canada is set up as a Crown Corporation and not a bunch of small competitive businesses.  Because, in the early days when Canada was just getting itself together, there was this massively powerful emerging country to the south whose competitive businesses could easily stamp out our own.  Therefore, Canada stuck whatever resources it had all together, so we would have something that would survive and remain Canadian.  The fact that we use our Canadian media to tune into American content anyway is one for the Irony Files. 

Fear not that I have painted a picture of Soviet Canuckistan as a socialist wasteland.  It is required, by law, that our big ISPs (Bell, Rogers, and Shaw) must lease some of the infrastructure to smaller companies.  Even though it’s the big guys who built our infrastructure, they have to allow for some competition.  Now, these little guys often offered better deals and lower prices, until one day...

Dun dun dunnnnn.

Hands-On With the iPad

Apple sold 7.33 million iPads in the fourth quarter of 2010. One of them was mine. Yes, I, like untold numbers of other people across the world, became a new iPad owner this past December 25. (And promptly saw the approach of the Blizzard of 2010 on its Weather Channel app, but that's another story).

So, I'm sure the big question you have - at least if you're among the iPad-uninitiated - is, "Does it live up to the hype?" Well, I've had about a month to play around with it now, and I can tell you it has a lot to offer the progeek on the go.

Bad Disney Ripoffs And The Future of DIY Animation

We're all familiar with the concept of viral videos. Usually, they're harmless time-wasters, something that's passed onto you by your friends, you have a laugh at, and you move on to the next one. Occasionally, these mini-productions will find their way into our pop culture vocabulary (I'm looking at you, Old Spice Guy. Or rather, I'm looking at my monitor, then back at you, then back at my monitor, then back at you).

But occasionally, a viral video will pop up that throws a spotlight on an emerging trend and points out something that may be a part of our geeky career landscape in the future - and I don't just mean as the basis of parody sketches on Sesame Street.

Such is the case with the Thai Beauty and the Beast.

IBM, Boston and Hidden Geek Hotspots

When it comes to geek meccas, the first thing that usually comes to people's minds is the Silicon Valley. Biggest concentration of tech companies, liberal California lifestyle, and hey, they've got a Japantown complex in San Francisco!

What people don't realize is that there's geeky hotspots in unexpected places. Clusters of tech and creative jobs, not to mention divserse lifestyles, are found in almost all the "mega-regions." And sometimes, an area will suddenly rise to prominence, prompting people who keep up with these things to say, "Why THERE?"

Such was the case, this past week or so, with Boston.