TomMannino.com

[Also just found this in my drafts... not sure why this didn't get posted... it's over a month old I think...]

YouTube – Introduction.

Very , very cool stuff.  Simple, but effective.  My friend Del said that this spawned on the SA forums, it’s a series of videos.  The first one explains the situation, and they are putting up more what looks to be pretty frequently.  I love this stuff.

I know it may be cliche at this point, but the Blair Witch thing has always stuck with me.  I love the concept of the narrative of the story being seen through the eyes of the protagonist.  At this point it could probably be considered a genre in it’s own way.

They are like zombie movies; each zombie movie sets up ‘how’ the zombies came to be.  Some spend a good amount of time on it, others glaze over it.  These ’shakey camera movies’ have to justify why someone needs to film themselves or their surroundings.

[Note: I just found this in my Drafts section of my Wordpress... not sure why I didn't finish it and post it..]

I favorited a video the other day, and it told me CLICK HERE TO TRY OUT THIS COOL NEW FEATURE WHERE YOU CAN HAVE US AUTO TWEET STUFF OR W/E  (in fewer words).  I did it and it worked and it’s rad.  I set it up so that whenever I favorite a video it tweets it, which in turn then updates my facebook status.  Lucky for you all!  I tend to favorite most of the weird/rad videos I see, but lately I haven’t had the time or desire to regurgitate them all to you.  I don’t get to add my WITTY COMMENTARY, but you get to see the oddity.  This is a happy enough medium.

Then a bunch of people asked me how to make it do it, and I realized I didn’t know how to get to those settings ‘manually..’  I looked around in my personal settings and couldn’t find it.

Just now I randomly stumbled upon it, trying to walk down a different line of logic.

If you want to configure your YouTube account to auto-update status stuff on other sites or social networks or whatever, do this:

• Make sure you’re logged in
• Go to your own user page. i.e. http://www.youtube.com/user/evilzug
• On the left-hand column, find the section headed “Recent Activity”
• Click on “Privacy Settings”
• GET TO LINKIN’ YOUR ACCOUNTS!

Now here is where I see the info that I can update and edit.  Obviously I’m not sure what it looks like if you go here without having set it up, so let me know if it doesn’t work or you see something else.

FYI, this service is very much not instant.  It takes a while for it to get around to your Twitter or whatever, so don’t go refresh happy.  Just do it knowing it will be shared!

I have a theory why Dollhouse was cancelled, as well as why Fox cancels ‘good shows,’ possibly just Joss Wheadon shows.

The way TV works is actually very ugly but simple. The people who actually determine the fate of a show even getting made, as well as existing, are usually the advertisers that sponsor the shows. During pilot season, the networks parade their new show ideas to a panel of advertisers. The shows that get picked up are the ones that the advertisers think they can make some money off. I.e. “I think people who watch this show would probably like to buy the cars or toothpaste or fast food or music we sell, as they share the same demographic.” This reason alone was what helped me make my decision to never get involved with television. The brutal reality of the world is that no matter how awesome your idea actually is, it won’t ever make it into the commercial television world if people don’t think they can make any money off of selling commercials around it.

Now these ‘good shows’ are in my face a lot more then other shows that don” get cancelled are, I think that’s because my circle of friends/my monkeysphere/my internets are people who like these quirky shows.

I think these shows that get cancelled because the advertisers don’t know who the hell the show appeals to. The ‘good shows’ we look at, they look at with a different eye. How do you determine the demographic of a show that is about Space Cowboys, or re programmable people? The shows have underlying science fiction elements but are more about the drama and interpersonal relationships then the science. I admit I’ve only seen the pilot of Firefly but I think it’s REALLY GOOD. I get it, it’s good in a new and refreshing way, but it’s good in a way that takes more then one sentence to explain; for this reason, I think, oddly and sadly enough, is why these shows fail to stay on the air.

I just picture a boardroom of old guard advertisers going “Do people who like Space Cowboys even like toothpaste? Would they use space toothpaste or cowboy toothpaste? I don’t even understand. My kid plays Atari Wiibox, she’s usually pretty hip with these things, I’ll ask her.” And then they eat their Boiled Goose and dance to a boombox.