edit: don’t believe me when I say how badass it is? Check out this post about how much the segment rocks.

And, plus, we’ve hammered out a production schedule, stay tuned for…

5/16/08 - Opening Keynote & “You Can Get Paid For This?”
5/23/08 - Before the LOL
5/30/08 - LOLCats
6/6/08 - Pwning For the Good of Mankind
6/13/08 - Surviving Internet Fame (Jay Maynard, Matt Harding)
6/20/08 - Alice Marwick Keynote & “Making It Big”
6/27/08 - Incubating the Mindvirus/ Kid We’re Going To Make You A Star
7/4/08 - The YouTube Stars / Sleeper Hits of the Internet
7/11/08 - Work It Move It Bang It / Christian Lander From Wordpress to the
NY Times
7/18/08 - Anonymous Panel
7/25/08 - Internet Cult Leader/ Comment Thread / Closing Material

WEBJAM ‘08 is the first film festival dedicated to internet animation. You are invited to join Happy Tree Friends, JibJab, 30 Second Bunny Theater, Odd Todd, Joe Cartoon, Xeth, Low Morale, Its JerryTime! and many more of your favorite animated webtoons, all together on the big screen for the very first time. You can see LOLs, ROFLs, OMGs and even some WTFs. The first show is at the historic Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline MA, Thursday May 22-24.
Join us at this world premiere, star-studded event and see some of the breakout work being created in new media on the big screen. Hosted by Jerry & Orrin Zucker, co-creators of Its Jerrytime!

Space is limited so get your tickets early.

Event Details:

When: 7pm May 22, and Midnight Shows on May 23 & 24th, 2008
Where: Coolidge Corner Theater, 290 Harvard St. Brookline, MA

On Saturday afternoon, a few ROFLCon attendees had the privilege of learning about the history of dance crazes from Kevin Driscoll, the founding father of Soulja Boy Studies (SBS, pronounced Essbeezy). The slides from his panel, Work it Move it Bang it Bump it, are now up…as is the video of the snaps-on learning the attendees took part in!

To see ROFLCon crank it, click here for the Blip version or here for the crappier Youtube version.

YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

(Update: For those of you who remain unconvinced about the importance of Crank Dat Soulja Boy, I present: Mike Gravel, candidate for the American presidency)

(photo by remisser, CC BY SA)

Some of you who attended the final session of ROFLCon may remember the trolling (thanks Zotnix!) we got in our comment thread (not unexpected — what kind of internet culture conference would we be without it?) and the IRL flame war (like, punches) that ensued.

This “real” comment thread with the Anons may interest you.

[Videos of the referenced Anon panel here]

He knew about the design, but when I asked him if he had ever signed a pair, he said no. At this point, I’m not really sure what to do with them. I could: Auction them for charity. Ensconce them in a time-release pod that opens in the year 2199. Wear them to death. So many possibilities here. Thanks Jay!

(picture courtesy Dave Fisher, photo CC BY NC SA)

We’ve been getting lots of questions about video from the conference. Luckily, the various ROFLCon-Respectably French camera crews swarming around the event doing streaming also were simultaneously capturing the entire conference in hundred and hundred of delicious gigabytes of video for posterity. So if you didn’t catch a few panels you really wanted to, or need to show your lame friend who didn’t go something: rest assured, it’ll be available soon.

The good news: true to our Free Culture stripes, it’s going to be all released on a CC BY SA license, which means you’re free to share it, copy it, remix it, or use it for whatever gawd dang thing you please, so long as you credit it (and let people do the same).

The less exciting news: Dean and our video guys are meeting up over the weekend/next week to discuss the best way of posting this. Needless to say, it’s alot of material, so we’re working out hosting issues. Expect some delays (though we’ll alert everyone when it’s all good to go). There’ll be clips popping up over here in the immediate future, so stay tuned…

[Update: it’s also been pointed out to me right now that searching YouTube brings up a bunch of partial video recorded at the event (and almost the entirety of the Anonymous panel. And, of course, there’s always the odd clip or two on our flickr pool]

The press page will be updated pretty continuously, so keep your eye on it! There are some really good analyses and discussions of what went on during the weekend.

And do let us know if we left something off! It’s hard to track these things down sometimes.

Sleeper Hits of the Internet

• Title (Video Creator)
• Design Coding (Moserious)
• Losing You - Jan Terri (unknown)
• Birds - Vitalic (Pleix)
• Hitchcock - The Phoenix Foundation (Reuben Sutherland)
• America We Stand as One - Dennis Madalone (unknown)
• The Mercury Craze - Subtle (SSSR)
• Snoop Dogg as German Folk Singer Legend Roy Black (unknown)
• Alfa Romeo Sloth (Lorenzo Fonda)
• Super Cool Korean Ice Cream Commercial (unknown)
• Zoo York Roaches (davidandgoliath)
• Winner Takes Steve (The Wexley School for Girls)
• Bronze Age Orientation Day (That Mitchell and Webb Look)
• The Triple Tofu Tower (Goodie Bag)
• Designing Women Intro (unknown)
• Alternative Designing Women TV Intro (Fatal Farm)
• Japanese Bow (The Rahmens)
• Stompy Dump (Burning Village)
• Kid Show (Tom DesLongchamp)
• Please Say Something: Eps. 1 thru 3 (David Oreilly)
• 28 Years in the Implicate Order (Pascual Sisto)
• The Ride to Survive (The Jesus Horse)
• Portable Cellular Phone Booth (Nick Rodrigues)
• Abstractor Video Billboard - Ji Lee (Dean Jansen)
• Saving Our Children (Jonathan McIntosh)
• Special Report (Bryan Boyce)
• Sixes Last - Alias (1stAveMachine)

ROFLCon Premieres (these aren’t yet available online)

We showed these premieres first, but most of them aren’t yet available online.

• Flag Speech (Its Jerry Time!)
• Gunther Trailer (Respectably French)
• Selection of Yet-to-be-Released Material (JibJab)
• breadpig Live in SF (breadpig)
]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/sleeper-hits-session-the-playlist/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/goodbye/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/goodbye/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:16:50 +0000 dancarroll http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/goodbye/

So long and thanks for all the fish!

Be sure to email roflcon AT gmail DOT com if you’d like to comment on future plans.  We’ll post any updates to this blog!

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/goodbye/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-christian-lander-stuff-white-people-like/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-christian-lander-stuff-white-people-like/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:14:58 +0000 geoffreygolden http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-christian-lander-stuff-white-people-like/ This is the last Bonus ROFL, and we’re ending with Christian Lander of Stuff White People Like fame.  I nabbed him after his panel…

Geoffrey: You weren’t actively going out promoting your blog.  The popularity just sort of happened.  Would you recommend promotion to other bloggers?  Or would you just say to write it for a few months and if it doesn’t catch on, try something else?

Christian: The most disappointing bit of advice that I have is, “if you want to make it, stop trying.”  It’s the worst thing I can say, because there’s no better advice than that.

It comes up over and over again in all the panels.  Everybody keeps saying, “I wasn’t trying to make this happen, and it just did.”  You’ve got to be true to yourself.  It’s got to be funny to you and if other people share your sense of humor, it’ll take off.  If you find it funny, someone else probably will too.

I really wish I had better advice than that.   It’s so unfair to be like, “Oh, I always dreamed about writing a book.  ‘How’d it happen?’  Well, I wasn’t trying.”  It’s ridiculous luck.

G: Do you wish critics would stop over-analyzing your site?  Or do you like how much time and effort people put into dissecting it?

I went to graduate school, and it is a dream that someone’s going to write a thesis about this, then interview me.  I’m going to ask for a copy of the thesis before the interview and refute every point they make, so they have to start over again.

No, I think it’s fine.  I mean, people analyze The Simpsons, which is fantastic, but they’ll analyze a tree [in the background].  Discourse and analyzation is what people do in academia, and that’s great.  I just don’t want to have to read it.

G: Who are your influences as a writer?

David Sedaris, of course.  The Onion.  Bill Murray.  The Simpsons.  Anything that’s funny, really.  80’s movies.  “Back To School” starring Rodney Dangerfield.  That’s inspired everything I do.  “Revenge of the Nerds,” too.

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-christian-lander-stuff-white-people-like/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-rob-kris-and-matt-cyanide-and-happiness/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-rob-kris-and-matt-cyanide-and-happiness/#comments Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:14:48 +0000 geoffreygolden http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-rob-kris-and-matt-cyanide-and-happiness/ After their panel, I caught up with Rob, Kris and Matt — three of the four writers of Cyanide and Happiness.

Geoffrey: You guys have been creating a lot of animations recently.  Are you thinking about taking Cyanide and Happiness to TV or making a shorts DVD?

Rob: It’s definitely one step at a time.  We’re gonna take it slow, do some more shorts, definitely.  Just see what happens.  So far, people like the shorts.  However, I think a short gets about as much traffic in a week as a comic does in two hours, so there’s no real incentive to make a complete switch-over to that format.  But if people like it enough, maybe we’ll go that route.

G: I’m not trying to instigate a rivalry, but I know Randall Monroe (xkcd) is here, and you guys have similar art styles, but are so different personality-wise.  Has their been any back in forth between your camp and theirs?

Kris: We share a lot of the same audience with xkcd, and I’m glad to see that our simply drawn, mostly all-in-the-writing comics have floated to the top, as opposed to all video game references and story-based comics.  It’s kind of an unexpected takeover.

R: Our style is definitely similar, but our writing styles are polar opposites, which is why it surprises me so much that we share so many fans.  I made a direct reference to xkcd in one of my comics and got enormous feedback.  Fans were like “oh my god!”  Like finding out two people are related or something.

Matt:  I love xkcd.  It’s one of my daily reads.

G: Now that these Digg-friendly, minimally drawn “writer” strips are popular, do you see that continuing indefinitely?  Or do you see some other kind of strip coming on the horizon? 

K: We’re thinking of making the big move from being “Digg-friendly” to “boob friendly.”  Absolutely.

R:  I think there can be multiple waves.  So as long as people like what we do, and as long as we keep doing it well, nothing’s gonna take our slot.  We’re not gonna get canceled, you know?

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/28/bonus-rofls-rob-kris-and-matt-cyanide-and-happiness/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-andy-ochiltree-jib-jab/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-andy-ochiltree-jib-jab/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:41:02 +0000 geoffreygolden http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-andy-ochiltree-jib-jab/ Here’s our post-panel interview with Andy Ochiltree, head writer for Jib Jab…

Geoffrey: During the panel, you talked about the “perfect storm” that created the Jib Jab phenomenon. What does that mean? What were the elements of the storm?

Andy: People were really weary of this election — Bush and Kerry. The rhetoric was ridiculous. I don’t think there was a lot of respect on either side of the party lines. They were so ridiculous, and it was something a lot of people were talking about. The mudslinging and the name-calling. Gregg and Evan’s piece encapsulated that dialogue and it got out to America.

Other elements: a lot more people were using email. People like you and me have always been using email, but when it came to 2004, a slightly older demo started using it. People in their 30s and 40s. All of a sudden, it went mass, compared to the 2000 election when it wasn’t. That enabled us to spread it all over, through the people who helped us by sending links to their friends, by posting on their blogs and stuff.

That kind of explosion and mainstreaming of internet culture lead to its popularity, I guess.

G: Jib Jab did a very good job turning its meme into a corporation with major sponsors. How did that happen?

A: The founders were really smart and they knew how to leverage the audience they got into other forms of business. It’s about hitting the pavement. Gregg and Evan are networking constantly — aside from being brilliant, they get their ideas out there. They’re great promoters as well, and they should be promoting it, because it’s awesome stuff.

I think it’s just about seeing the opportunities that you’ve done has afforded you, and finding those areas you can really move into and capitalize. It’s about strategy and the founders know it.

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-andy-ochiltree-jib-jab/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-joe-mathlete-marmaduke-explained/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-joe-mathlete-marmaduke-explained/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:40:58 +0000 geoffreygolden http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-joe-mathlete-marmaduke-explained/ This is Geoffrey from Overtime Comedy, happily guest blogging about teh awesome ROFLcon. I interviewed some of the guests after their panels, to squeeze extra knowledge out of them.

Here’s some more wisdom from memestar Joe Mathlete of Marmaduke Explained, post-panel…

Geoffrey: The panel was about making money on memes/websites. Have you been thinking about other ways to profit from Marmaduke Explained, apart from Google Ads and shirts? Or is it really just a hobby?

Joe: It’s barely even a hobby at this point. I stopped selling the shirts because it kinda weirded me out a little bit, and I’m not very good with the post office. I thought it was funny that the Chuck Norris Guy said he was a poor college student. He’s written a book. I was able to quit my job for a couple months, but I do that all the time anyway.

Yeah, it barely qualifies as a hobby — more like a fun obligation at this point.

G: Chuck Norris Guy was legally threatened by Chuck Norris’ people. Have you heard anything from Marmaduke’s creator or publishers?

J: No, no. Not a single thing. My theory for the longest time was that the guy who writes Marmaduke was too old to have a computer on the internet, and that maybe I generated some interest in the strip, so the publisher doesn’t care too much. I’m pretty sure I’ve never infringed any copyrights with the things I’ve sold. Never used the artwork. Sorta careful about that. I was kinda hoping at one point that I’d get a cease and desist, so I can move onto something else.

G: Have your eye on any other strips you might want to do next? Or what’s your next project, if it’s not comic-blog related?

J: Gonna get drunk for the rest of the day, probably.

I drew a nipple on Ziggy’s nose for about a week, just cause everyone told me I should do more comic strip stuff. They thought I was serious about that. (It was for a week.)

My future plans have not a lot to do with comic strips.

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-joe-mathlete-marmaduke-explained/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-dino-ignacio-bert-is-evil/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-dino-ignacio-bert-is-evil/#comments Sun, 27 Apr 2008 04:40:54 +0000 geoffreygolden http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-dino-ignacio-bert-is-evil/ After his panel on “Pwning For The Good of Mankind,” I asked Bert Is Evil creator Dino Ignacio a few more questions…

Geoffrey: I’m not going to ask you any more questions about your secret, unfortunate encounter with the CIA, but did you ever have any interactions with Sesame Workshop?

Dino: The closest interaction would be the open letter they sent about the whole thing. They never contacted me directly, but I think they were cool about it. In the open letter, they asked the mirrors of the site to shut down, because they knew my site was down. They were very polite — I received no threat from them at all.

G: Your site was popular very early on. Do you consider yourself a grandfather to the meme movement?

D: If there’s a grandfather, I would say it was Mr. T Ate My Balls. That’s one of my biggest influences. That, and the Spam Cam.

G: Do you feel a “class of ‘96″ camaraderie with those memes?

D: Maybe, because we were all pre-celebrity status. I’m with that group, I guess. Back when a million hits meant something! <Laughs>

G: Can you tell me about what you’re doing for EA?

D: I’m working on Dead Space — it’s a survival, shooter game. I’m doing the user interface for the game. With a small team of people, we’re doing all the holograms and signs.

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/bonus-rofls-dino-ignacio-bert-is-evil/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-the-internet-cult-leader/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-the-internet-cult-leader/#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:01:12 +0000 Kevin Chiu http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-the-internet-cult-leader/
• Q: How did you achieve cult leadership status? Dino comics: I am happy to be here and be alive. XKCD: There is a mindset that people share, but aren’t aware they share. XKCD helps them discover each other. 4Chan: Images and Text. I just provide the framework.
• Q: Are comics based on actual events in your life? XKCD: It’s a mixed experience. Dino: Realistic fiction.
• Q: Which dinos are your ex girlfriends? A: Jereseus Mimus might have some lines… from real life… maybe. XKCD: If write something about a fictional relationship… while you’re in a real relationship… people ask fictions. Dino: It can be dangerous. XKCD: People take stuff seriously on the internet.
• Q: When have you been most afraid of what you’ve created? A: Right now.
• Anonymous enters the auditorium - ROFLCon staff holds them back.
• XKCD: My electric skateboard now goes 20mph. I was inspired to buy a helmet.
• XKCD to Moot: Can you do a barrel roll? (Moot does barrel roll)
• Q: How do you feel about interpretations of your comics? XKCD: You shouldn’t have to explain it. I just learn if they get the wrong message. I try not to second guess myself. I try not to take it too seriously. Dino: My opinion is just one in the chorus.
• Q: (from Reddit) To XKCD: Is the female love interest a real girl? If not, can I date you? A: I was tempted to say yes and give Ryan’s phone number. It’s actually not a particular person. Weird thing: Sometimes I meet people in real life who are more like my characters than I ever imagined.
• Q: Zombie defense plan? 4Chan: I live in the south. Everyone has a gun. XKCD: I have the raptor plan. Raptors are faster, jump higher… Inspiration: Jurassic Park. I am aware of the entrances to the room.
• Q: Randal, you are brilliant. Is there anything you want this entire room to do? A: A barrel roll. (room does barrel roll).
• Q: How’s your thesis? Dino: Computational Linguistics, done. XKCD: I’ve given Computational Linguists a hard time in the past… fuck you.
• Q: To Dino: Now that you are an advertising exec instead of an artist. Why do I see a bunch of white faces on stage? Dino: [dodge]
• Q: Why is today a beautiful day? Dino: I should have been prepared for this. A: Barrel roll?
• Q: Tron Guy: How do you feel about being the leader of such an “effective” group of people. 4chan: Yeah 4channers spare no one. They vandalize the 4chan wikipedia article… there’s only so much you can do. The hive mind has free will.
• Q: Coordinates? XKCD: I put up the coords up the first time. They were wrong. I fixed them. The wrong coords were a field in upstate NY. The fixed ones were in a part. Once I realized this would work, I wanted to make some really difficult coordinates — like inside the White House or on a mountain top.
• Q: Bizarre requests? XKCD: Signing a friendship. (two in crowd raise hands - crowd goes “awwwwww”)
• Q: Emacs or VI: A: VI
• Q: Users breaking rules? 4chan: Authorities come and get you. Dino: Some guy did real life Mario blocks. I made the website. Spread virally. 5 young women got arrested, the put the blocks on the ground in front of a gov’t building. Real terrorists don’t put question mark boxes around their bombs.
• Q: (from Anonymous) - When will you hand over 4chan to the head of Anonymous? A: 580 million or fuck off.
• Q: XKCD, you get your comics from a binder you found in a dumpster. You stole it. A: Yep, I’ll run out in Dec 2012.
• Q: Remap the web? A: Thinking about it. Facebook is bigger than Myspace now. Q: 4chan? A: I made 4chan a little island. Huge backlash.
• Q: Becoming too big, mythic? Dino: My parents didn’t like it until I started making money selling t-shirts.
• Q: Will you apologize for 4chan? A: No.
• Q: To 4chan: Is there anything you want to take responsibility for? A: …. No.
• Q: Do your parents know? A: 4chan isn’t exactly dinner table conversation. They figured out after 4 years of me not mentioning it. It’s like the awkwardness that happens when parents need to tell their kids about sex, but the other way. Dino: I knew they were reading it, but we have a silent agreement where they don’t talk to me about it.
• Q: To: XKCD Fruit graph? You were surprised how controversial it was. Is there anything that you made that wasn’t as controversial as you expected? A: I did a comic about the mathematics of cunnilingus… to kind of set the limit. I got thank you letters and letters of proposal for additional research. 4chan: We were called an internet hate machine, we were called terrorists. But people don’t care. Dino: I did a comic about the ninja turtles theme song and got one of the lyrics wrong…
• Q: When did you start 4chan? I started on Oct 1, 2003.
• Q: To Dino: Gender theory? Why are all the content producers men? Dino: I don’t think there’s anything on the internet that particularly makes it a great place for men. XKCD: It’s hard to be preachy and funny at the same time.
• Q: As people who are famous on the internet… is it weird when RL people recognize you? XKCD: The weirdest is when they’ve read the comic, but don’t like it. Dino: It’s tricky because they like you already, but it’s nice when you start on even ground. 4chan: One time a stranger asked me to do a barrel roll.
• Q: To 4chan: What’s your favorite meme? 4chan: Not Rick Roll! I like the song, but it’s getting old. XKCD: You need to strike a balance between how early you use the meme, and how many people in your target community are already bored of the joke. 4chan: I like weegee. It is awesome. Like 5 people know what it is. That’s a good sign.
• Q: To 4chan: Do you use 4chan? 4chan: Too much, but I can’t ban myself. I post as anonymous a lot.
• Q: Was society crying out for your communities? 4chan: Definitely. XKCD: It’s more like you’re just giving the crowd some tools or common points and they naturally form around it.
• Q: What is your personal relationship to the community? 4chan: It’s complicated. I hate it when the community ruins a random person’s life for no reason. I don’t control 4chan.
• Q: Where will you be in 10 years? Dino: Yeah, I could be doing the same thing. Each comic takes about 3 or 4 hours to write, but I like it. XKCD: I dunno. I enjoy my job now, it’s the most fun thing I’ve ever done. But the future is exciting and unpredictable. 4chan: For me, it’s kind of hard to leave on a high note at this point. I’m happy about providing the platform. I’m not sure about 10 years though. It’s hard to monetize. I can’t see myself breaking even at 37.
• Q: Who did page switching for april fools day (between XKCD and Dino)? We happened to just hack each other on the same day.
• Q: Pie or cake? Dino: They’re both good. XKCD: That’s a fire hazard.
• Q: Are you constrained or limited by the form of your comic. Would you try new art styles? Dino: I feel like drawing is really hard.
• Q: Have you ever held back on your swarm powers? Dino I’ve done constructive things, like distributed computation for curing cancer. XKCD: I got tired of seeing “There are no women on the internet.” In the comic, I had users’ computers who said that get destroyed in an EMP. I knew my audience had the tendency to make my comics a reality… I would have been fine with it.
• Q: Why do you stick with primitive art? 4chan: Text and images are all you really need. XKCD: Making it simple pretty much always makes things punchier.
• Q: Why are we obsessed with Japan? 4chan: It’s different. We’re outsiders looking in. We think it’s neat. XKCD: The urge to learn a system and play with it. That same mindset applies to cultures.
• Q: Which sites should people visit more? 4chan: My computer really sucks. I read the news. (claps) XKCD: Reviews of professionals, maybe like a wiki or web 2.0 thing. Dino: ytmd.com
• Q: Free software as model for free content on internet? Dino: I prefer opera to firefox. I do my comic in MS Paint. XKCD: I talked to Stallman etc. They were the beginning. They’re not the only source of geek culture now. 4chan is a huge source now. 4chan: We’re a really bad example of free software. We took free software and made it proprietary and haven’t released it. XKCD: You don’t want to create an obligation of contribution. Your grandma using Firefox helps Firefox even though she’s not contributing bug reports.
• Q: Your ideal woman? Dino: This is a very heteronormative question. Answer - My girlfriend Jen. XKCD + 4Chan: Ball pit!

[random comments] From Tim: This was cool. We might do this next year. If you’re interested, contact us. roflcon@gmail.com RFL staff gives Tim a poster. kthxbye,Kevin Chiu

]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-the-internet-cult-leader/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-kid-we%e2%80%99re-going-to-make-you-a-star/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-kid-we%e2%80%99re-going-to-make-you-a-star/#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 23:01:01 +0000 Kevin Chiu http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-kid-we%e2%80%99re-going-to-make-you-a-star/ [credit: see pic]
• Coke doesn’t need to beat Pepsi. Coke needs to beat everything else on the internet that can hold your attention for 5 minutes.
• Q: What do you when something doesn’t work? A: dunno. Aside: Aquateen hunger force got in trouble… it worked and failed at the same time. (Definitely worth the money). Would you do it again? No.
• Viral branding is difficult to time. The internet has no notion of time or space. You could be targeting the US, and it might be a flop stateside, but a huge success in Australia, for example. We sometimes accidentally make brands global. Clients don’t really know what to do with success in non-target areas.
• Q: Awkward marketing requests that just won’t work on the internet? A: 4 times a day, every day. Like “create a community.” Nope, doesn’t work.
• Q: What does authenticity in marketing mean? A: Un-authentic means pretenders or coopting trends. The most interesting stuff is when something has a life of its own apart from being an ad. A: I think of a brand as a personality. A personality at a party. Don’t go in with a megaphone. Have social etiquette. At the end of the day, you’ll be more authentic. A: Have fun. Example: Diet Coke and Mentos. A: Beer cannon + Spray and Wash. Made a bunch of non-business related brands into friends.
• Q: How would you remake something like CNN? A: Current TV is doing it wrong. They should have a bunch of micro-current-tv’s that fit different niches. A: We like to get involved with companies early; so, we can help them find meaning and position their website.
• Q: Do you have a dream job? A company you would like to completely re-image? A: Wall-Mart - we could make massive change by just changing a little piece. Not saying that we would want that job… but it would be a cool challenge. A: I’m in the middle of a dream job right now. We’re doing some work with Honda. In America, Honda and Toyota are interchangeable, in Japan, Honda has a completely different spirit. Honda’s kind of like Apple, and then Toyota is like Microsoft. Honda does all the innovative R&D, and Toyota copies and mass-markets. A: Tangent - I would prevent pharmaceutical drugs from advertising to consumers.
]]> http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/really-short-summary-kid-we%e2%80%99re-going-to-make-you-a-star/feed/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/post-roflcon-events/ http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/post-roflcon-events/#comments Sat, 26 Apr 2008 20:56:14 +0000 dancarroll http://roflcon.org/2008/04/26/post-roflcon-events/ I’m still trying to believe that this will never end.  But if it does and you’re…

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Help figure it out in the forums!  Canolis? Concert? Chaos?

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“MEEM CREEMZ” @ Great Scott in Allston (super-cheap cab ride if you split!)



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