There was one bathroom and unknown to most of the occupants there was a camera in the corner of it  that was broadcasting onto a TV set, everything that happened in the bathroom. I saw everything from girls doing lines, to couples getting it on, all while the unsuspecting people in line waited to pee.

I’ll admit, the idea of being watched kinda excited me. Even though I was aware of the camera, I still made my way into the bathroom. I wanted to see what it felt like to be watched. Call me a voyeur, call me an exhibitionist, but there is at least some small part in all of us that likes that feeling. Otherwise you would be spending your time in front of the TV and not on the computer.

Photo from weliveinpublic official photostream

We live in Public, winner at this years Sundance Film Festival, is a must see. I attended the screening in LA and was absolutely blown away. I had never heard of Josh Harris or his crazy parties and experiments in New York, but watching it all unfold under the direction of Ondi Timoner really opened my mind to the dangers of exposure on the Internet. Some of us don’t realize what we are putting out there for the world to see, and others don’t care as long as they get recognition for it.

When I was offered the chance to see an online screening of the movie I jumped at it. Interloper Films had received permission from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to perform a live, private password-protected online screenings for press only. Never before had something like this been allowed. Academy eligibility rules dictate that for a film to be eligible for Oscar nomination, it mustn’t be shown to the public in any venue or medium other than in theaters for 60 days after the initial theatrical release. This was the first time in film history that the Academy  granted special permission to do so.

Eager to see it again, I sat riveted to my screen as I watched Josh’s life unravel in his quest for fame. Instead of trying to describe what the movie entails I thought it would be better for you to see for yourself. Here’s a look at what We Live In Public is all about:

*Some footage may be NSFW

We were given a chance to do a Q&A with the director, Ondi Timoner, after the screening. It was fascinating to hear her talk about Josh and the film and how it all came together.

“The internet is the most powerful invention in our lifetime. We are connecting to more people with less depth, this movie raises consciousness about how we raise our kids.”

This statement could not be more true. Everyday I see more and more people who spend their time trying to promote themselves on the Internet and get their 15 minutes of fame. Two recent examples would be Balloon Boy’s family and the solider who live tweeted the events at Fort Hood. These people were not concerned about how their actions would affect others, they just wanted to be noticed.

Photo from weliveinpublic official photostream

It took quite some time for this film to come to fruition. After viewing the rough draft of the film, Josh told Ondi that he didn’t like the way he looked. This was during the time when he was living in public with Tanya and it had all fallen apart. He had lost his money and his fans were turning on him. So he threw it out and left Manhattan. That was the last contact Ondi had with Josh until 2008, when she received an unexpected phone call.

It was Josh, he wanted to start the movie up again. He was offering 50% of the profits from the movie and full creative control, something that had not been an option before. Ondi was intrigued and took the bait. Josh was ready for the film to be made. He told Ondi:

“I dont care how you make me look just make a great film”

According to Ondi this was around the same time that Facebook status updates came out. She said that this made her realize she needed to make the film. The internet space had changed.

“I couldn’t have put this movie out without the internet and things like Twitter and Facebook.”

In August of 2008, they were able to get independent financing and won the Grand Jury Prize at this years Sundance Film Festival. An amazing feat for Ondi as she is now the only director that has a double win at Sundance, the other for DiG!. Josh flew out for the event and was supposed to be in town for just one week. Last I heard he is still living “off the grid” in Jason Calacanis’s pool house and driving his yellow corvette.

His house in Ethiopia is unoccupied and Josh has grand plans for it as well. He wants to lend out his house to people who need to get away from the Internet for a while. They can choose how much money they want to pay and then go stay in Josh’s house. More info regarding this endeavour should be on the website soon.

Josh’s next project is called Wired City, a studio of self surveillance. The idea is for a group of people to document themselves, then Josh would take the best bits of film and turn it into entertainment.  The group would consist of 400 hand-picked people at a time, then a new group would come in. Think of it like the Truman Show, it would be live 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Kind of a new wave for reality tv.

Personally this idea sounds just as damaging as the first two to me, but I doubt he will have any trouble finding people who want to be involved in something historic.

The movie is tentatively scheduled to be released on DVD and iTunes on 2/10/2010, and will contain tons of extra footage from the bunker where “Quiet” took place. Until then you can check out their website which is releasing a new 15 second clip each day with never before seen footage from the film.

Follow them on Twitter @wlip and check out video interviews and extras on the official website, weliveinpublicthemovie.com. If you’d like to help promote the film, there is a special widget featured on the site for you to use.

Usually you can read all about her latest developments in sex and relationships in her weekly column on Blogher, but now AV is giving you and herself another outlet and this one is for all things sex. Here’s and idea of what you will find on Sex and the 405:

“Here you’ll find news about the latest research being conducted to figure out what drives desire, passion, and other sex habits; reviews of sex toys, porn and other sexy things; coverage of the latest sex-related news that have mainstream media’s panties up in a bunch; human interest pieces about sex and desire; interviews with people who love sex, or work in sex, or work to enable you to have better sex; opinion pieces that relate to sex and society; a raunchier kind of celebrity gossip; and more…”

We happen to have an exclusive photo of miss Flox that was used to create the header image on her site. Yes, ladies and gentlemen that is her body riding high above the city. Yowza!

Header Photo used on the site

Original photo from the shoot

Congrats on your new endeavor AV.

Like a delectable piece of chocolate that you discover and just can’t help eating, your site is mouth watering. I have a feeling it will do wonders in bed for some, others will just continue to be vanilla.

Check out the interview she did last week with Melissa McCarty on KCal9 News about the site.

Thanks to Wm. Marc Salsberry, lalawag has 10 RSVP codes to give out at our discretion. To enter, just tweet out why you want to go. Be sure to include @lalawag and @undergroundpdc in your tweet so we can find it.

You have until Tuesday at 5pm to get your tweets in. We will pick a winner based off of how much we enjoy your tweet. Here’s a few tips, we like sarcasm, wit and humor. Good luck!

Details

The Underground @ PDC 2009 – An invite only event taking place after the PDC conference. Sponsored by INETA, Microsoft and local Southern California partners. We hear this is one party you don’t want to miss. See pics from last year’s event.

Date: Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Time: 7:00pm to 1:00am

Location:
The Conga Room
800 W Olympic Blvd
Stes A160 and A260
Los Angeles, CA 90015

(Photo from chelliepingree.com)

Monday, November 16, 2009

Digital LA- Sci-Fi Panel @ Star Trek: The Exhibition – Sci-fi movies rank at the top of the box office: Transformers 2 is #1 for the year so far, plus Star Trek, and Monsters vs. Aliens. Sci-fi TV shows includes remakes like award-winning Battlestar Galactica and highly-anticipated V. Join them for a discussion on online sci-fi communities and marketing sci-fi to the mainstream, on the day before the Star Trek movie DVD release and in the Star Trek Exhibition.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Star Trek: The Exhibition @ Hollywood & Highland
6801 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

Tickets: $19 advance registration required by November 16th at 4pm

Myspace Redcarpet Livestream of Twighlight New Moon Premiere – fans of ‘The Twilight Saga: New Moon’ can experience the Los Angeles premiere, exclusively on MySpace. Anya Marina, writer and performer of “Satellite Heart” on the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, will co-host the broadcast with the winner of the Red Carpet Correspondent Contest.

Time: 6:00pm

Location: anywhere with a computer and an internet connection

Tuesday, Novembers 17, 2009

GIT LA Presents: The Impact of Tech on Good & Green – taking a look at how the tech industry is jumping on the green bandwagon and what kind of impact it will have on the industry and on the good and green companies it supports. The panel will also discuss how we as business people can do some good and make money in the process.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
The Organic Panaficio
4211 Admiralty Way
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

Tickets: $10 RSVP
*A portion of the ticket sales will go to Free Arts For Abused Children

SMCLA November Corndog Social – Simply keep next Tuesday night open for a rockin’ good time.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:30pm
Location: To be determined
Tickets: No RSVP yet

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Underground @ PDC 2009 – An invite only event taking place after the PDC conference. Sponsored by INETA, Microsoft and local Southern California partners. We hear this is one party you don’t want to miss. See pics from last year’s event.

Time: 7:00pm to 1:00am

Location:
The Conga Room
800 W Olympic Blvd
Stes A160 and A260
Los Angeles, CA 90015

Tickets: Invite only, you must have an RSVP code to attend. Thankfully we were given 10 tickets to give out at our discretion. Details on how to enter are listed in a separate post on lalawag.

The Los Angeles MySQL Meetup Group - join them for an evening of networking and conversation regarding performance optimization for MySQL with InnoDB & XtraDB and updates on Infobright. Hosted by Joe Devon and Scott Metcalf with guest speakers Carl Gelbart and Morgan Tocker.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:30pm

Location:
Sun Office in El Segundo
222 N. Sepulveda Blvd
El Segundo, CA 90245

Tickets: Seating is limited, RSVP deadline is November 18th at 6:00pm

Digital LA – Video Game Marketing panel @ OTX – Join them for a panel discussion on console video games (xbox, PS3, Wii) trends and marketing. They’ll discuss marketing both hardcore (action/shooter) and mainstream (music, party) games, niche and portal strategies, social media, and more.

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
OTX Research
10567 Jefferson Blvd
Culver City, CA

Tickets: $22 Space is limited, Advanced registration required by Nov 18 at 3pm

Mindshare Event – Program for November 18th includes:

Alex Lightman / Executive Director of Humanity Plus – The Ten Minute Transhumanist
Jamie Zigelbaum / Oblong Industries – Augmenting Human Intellect
Alexandra Hall / CEO, Airship Ventures – Zeppelin Tourism Takes Off
Dr. Tristan Ursell / Adventurer & Biophysicist, Stanford – Off Silk Roadin’: A Rally Across Eurasia!

Time: 7:00pm to 1:00am

Location:
Downtown Independent
251 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, Ca 90012

Tickets: $25 Early bird $30 Regular

Thursday, November 19, 2009

DIY Days LA 2009 – an evening of talks and networking, with a mix of both structured and free form activities to encourage open discussion. Plus the night will end with a rooftop party.

Time: 6:00pm to 11:30pm

Location:
Downtown Independent Theater
251 S. Main Street
Los Angeles, California 90012

Tickets: Free but you must register in advance

Friday, November 20, 2009

Digital LA – Digital Drinks @ Janes House – Join the digital la folks for their pre-Thanksgiving Digital Drinks at Janes House. After last month’s Halloween party at MyHouse, they are continuing their Cozy House Party tour at new Hollywood “House” hot spot, Janes House. Citysearch says this house party lounge “keeps things modern with bold earth tones, moody lighting and a DJ, with plenty of plush retro seating on the front porch patio under the stars, or in the jungle themed Monkey Room.”

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
Janes House
6541 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA

Tickets: $10 advance registration required by November 20th at 4pm

Angels United Benefit – Stylit.TV is proudly co-hosting the Angels United Benefit to support Vitamin Angels, who supplies 10,000,000 undernourished children with vitamins to make them healthy. This is going to be a great night with celebs, a hosted open bar, a silent charity auction, gift bags, hors d’oeuvres, and more. All proceeds go to the charity, with the suggested donation is $35 (though if you give $100 you receive a special gift.)

Time: 7:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
Marrakesh House
The famous eco-green, sustainable living, Marrakesh House, built by Hollywood’s legendary filmmaker, Chris Paine.
6310 Tompkins Way,
Culver City, CA 90232

Tickets: $35 recommended at the door RSVP

Start- Up Weekend- November 20th to 22nd – Startup Weekend recruits a highly motivated group of developers, business managers, startup enthusiasts, marketing gurus, graphic artists and more to a 54 hour event that builds communities, companies and projects. lalawag founder Sean Percival will be speaking on Sunday afternoon, be sure to check him out.

Time: Full Schedule here

Location:
BLANKSPACES
5405 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets: $75

Here’s a video I had on my phone of the lalakitteh’s going crazy over catnip. I applied a few of the techniques they suggested and voila!

I can tell this app is going to be a lot of fun, though it does have a few drawbacks. You have the ability to do black and white, speed up the frames, and add piano music, but once you set the selections, you cannot edit them again. I would like to be able to preview how the video is going to look before saving.

Your completed video automatically saves in your photos section, which is great because you can then just email, MMS or send it to YouTube. It would be nice if there was an easy way to share it on Twitter, Facebook or YouTube directly from the app. Hopefully some of these features will be added in later.

Additional features of the app include 60’s style home video effects and the ability to adjust the speed of the frame however you like. Overall I think it’s worth the three dollars but before you rush out and download it you should know that you must have the iPhone 3GS for the app to work.

In fact, if I was a single man in Los Angeles, the GIT events are the ones that I would be sure to make an appearance at. Where else are you going to find a concentration of intelligent women who are interested in the same geeky stuff you are?

Girls in Tech is giving you another opportunity to meet new people and learn a little bit about going green and making green. This Tuesday, join them for cocktails and conversation at The Organic Panaficio, where they will discuss how going green and doing good is impacting the tech industry and the companies that it is embracing.

Because you’re awesome and you read lalawag, you have the chance to win a ticket to the event. Just send out a tweet with a few key pieces of into in it and tell us if you would rather learn how to do good or make green. For example, your tweet could look like this:

“Hey @lalawag I would rather learn how to make green at the GIT Good and Green Panel because you can’t buy Jimmy Choo’s with monopoly money.”

Be sure to include @lalawag, a reference to the Girls In Tech panel and if your’e interested in good or green. Other than that you are free to be creative with your remaining characters. We’ll pick the best two tweets and those lucky people will get a free ticket to the event. We will pick the winners by end of day on Friday, good luck!

Not funny or creative? No problem, just click here and purchase your ticket now.

(Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry)

Details

GIT LA Presents: The Impact of Tech on Good & Green – taking a look at how the tech industry is jumping on the green bandwagon and what kind of impact it will have on the industry and on the good and green companies it supports. The panel will also discuss how we as business people can do some good and make money in the process.

Speakers:

Sandra Sanchez – creator of orGLAMic.com, and Reality TV Host and Producer
Sara Townsend - editorial Director at Social Vibe.com, creator of TechDarling.com
Tracy Helper - Co-founder of Yourdailythread.com

Date: Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
The Organic Panaficio
4211 Admiralty Way
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

Tickets: $10 RSVP
*A portion of the ticket sales will go to Free Arts For Abused Children

(Photo from amctv.com)

When I first saw the new feature in my stream, I have to say I wasn’t entirely pleased. Tweets started showing up from users that I don’t follow, great more noise. But after reading @Ev’s post on his personal blog, Why Retweet works the way it does, I started to see why it makes sense for them to design it this way.

Ev goes into great detail about the current challenges that  ”organic” re-tweets have. Since re-tweets are something that grew out of the service naturally, there is no standardized way to re-tweet someone. Many have argued over the proper way to do it and some have even written guides on how they think it should be done. The team at Twitter took this and many things into consideration before rolling this new feature out and I have to say I think they did a pretty good job.

Here’s how it works. Once the feature is activated you have the ability to easily re-tweet someones message by clicking the button on a tweet. You are not allowed however, to change any part of the tweet. This helps ensure that attribution and the orgianl message stay intact.

Seeing the original poster of the tweet in your stream doesn’t necessarily create more noise, in fact it is supposed to reduce it. Instead of seeing all 10 of your followers RT the same message, you see it one time from the original poster but with a list of all the people you follow that re-tweeted it below.

This should encourage more people to re-tweet a message and hopefully affect Twitter trends in a more positive way. Right now most of the time the trends mean nothing to me. I don’t really care about things your girlfriend doesn’t do. What I do care about are things that matter and are news worthy.

Currently people use different verbage, different twitter names in a tweet, etc. so it makes it hard to not only see how far you are reaching into the twittersphere, but it then becomes more difficult to trend on a topic. If the original tweet is re-tweeted using this new feature, it should reach farther while staying intact and thus affect the trends.

One of the other great things about using the Twitter RT feature is you gain the ability turn RT’s on and off on a per user basis. So if someone has gone a little RT happy and you just want to see their regular tweets, you can silence them, hooray!

Personally I am enjoying the new feature, I’m sure there are some kinks that will need to be worked out but overall it’s a great experience and was well thought out.

Do you have the re-tweet feature yet? Tell us what you think in the comments.

(The term retweetarrhea is referenced from Evan Williams blog post, Why Retweet works the way it does.)

Maybe it’s because I’ve had so many jobs.

So when she asked me about a possible daily gig with Yahoo! I was concerned. Shira after all is typically all over the map, both figuratively and literally. With appearances on everything from CBS to Mahalo Daily, a heavy travel calendar, and afternoon massages, how would she ever find the time?

Well Shira assures me she can do it, and I don’t doubt her. So what if Tubefilter is calling her the Ryan Seacrest of Web TV, we know that’s not true. For one Shira is actually enjoyable to watch.

So now you can see her daily over on new Yahoo! show “What’s So Funny“. Sponsored by Conagra Foods, the series takes a look at the funniest moments from TV the night before. Shira and Co-Host Mike Bachman both present their favorite clip and viewers can vote on which one they liked the best.

You can watch the first episode below, and please, don’t make any more job offers to Shira, she’s now officially booked.

His birthday wish is to raise awareness and money for BlameDrew’sCancer. He set a goal of $600 and incredibly it has already been met. The auction of his Twitter name, @Drew, also ends today. It goes to the highest bidder that includes the hashtag #drewbid.

But the birthday fun doesn’t stop there. eGuiders is also trying to raise awareness and wish @Drew happy birthday in a big way. They want to help raise $20,000 today by encouraging people to follow @DrewFromTV and use the hashtag #drewbday in their tweets.

If we can get any one of these hashtags to be a trending topic think of all of the people we could reach. Reaching a new audience means more followers for @DrewFromTV and that directly results in donations for cancer research.

Happy birthday Drew, if there was an award for Tech Philanthropist of the Year you would be the hands down winner in our book. Thank you for opening so many hearts and minds.

Photo from Drew Olanoff flickr

Get Involved

Here are a few ways you can raise awareness and contribute to helping cure cancer.

1. Follow @DrewfromTV – just by clicking on that one little button you are essentially donating $1 to cancer research. For every person that follows him (up to 1 million) from now until the end of 2009, Drew Carey will donate $1 to Livestrong. No brainer, just follow him.

2. #BlameEthan’sCancer – Now that @Drew has royally kicked cancers ass, there’s another one we need to tackle. Ethan Zohn has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Raise awareness by tweeting anything you’d like to blame on Ethan’s cancer, just include the hashtag #blameethanscancer and it will show up on his site just like Drew’s did.

3. Bid on @Drew for Charity – Drew is auctioning off his sweet four character Twitter name and it ends today. To be considered, just tweet out your bid with the hashtag #drewbid. Highest bid wins, and all of the proceeds go to Livestrong.

4. Donate to BlameDrew’sCancer for Drew Olanoff’s birthday – Drew has already received his birthday wish of $600 being donated to BlameDrew’sCancer but why should we stop now? There is plenty of cancer out there that needs a good beating, you can still donate to Blame Drew’s Cancer by donating as a sponsor. This fund will go to paying $1 for every blamedrew’scancer tweet.

5. Donate Directly to Livestrong – By supporting the Lance Armstrong Foundation you are helping to provide grants, programs and services for survivors as well as making continued cancer research possible.

6. Tweet about it – You’re on Twitter anyways, why not throw in a tweet now and then that gets the message out there? Here’s a few hashtags you can throw in as well: #blamedrewscancer, #blameethanscancer, #drewbday, #tweetstrong, #beatcancer.

(Photo from Drew Olanoff’s flickr)

Web TV Prep Classes – The four-week long course will cover the four major areas of: creative development/casting, production, Post Production/Web Design/Technology, and Social Networking/Viral Marketing/Sales. Each week will be team taught by Damian Pellicione and Brian Rodda, pioneers of the on-line media movement in a supportive and creative space. Students be given the tools via handouts, homework assignments, contacts, etc…to immediately make their dream web series a reality. Additionally, a panel of expert guest speakers are brought in each week to give each student further perspective on the changing landscape of new media.

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Dogma Studios
4136 Del Rey Ave.
Marina Del Rey, CA 90292

Tickets: $125 for New Media Vault Members

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Digital LA – Movie Marketing: Publishers Panel – Join them for a discussion on the latest techniques and trends in movie marketing. With scheduled speakers from AOL, MSN, Rotten Tomatoes, Yahoo Movies, Fandango, Google, and Eventful.

Time: 7:00pm – 10:00pm

Location:
AOL
331 N. Maple Drive
Beverly Hills, CA
*Free parking in building parking lot

Tickets: $60 Advanced Registration Required

Media Leaders Networking Mixer – Bring your business cards to take part in a cutting edge junction of leaders in PR, media, marketing, advertising and tech while discussing current events and new ideas. Media Leaders is a group of influencers that come together to discuss, exchange and thrive on meeting new people and making lasting connections.

Time: 6:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
Bodega Wine Bar Santa Monica
814 Broadway (at Lincoln)
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Tickets: $12 for one, buy two and they are $9 apiece

Thursday, November 12th, 2009

Digital LA Comedy Panel – Join them for a Comedy panel on stage at the world-famous Laugh Factory on the Sunset Strip. Immediately after, will be the VIP reception to watch the night’s comedians, including scheduled comedian Tim Allen.

Time: 5:30pm – 9:30pm

Location:
The Laugh Factory
8001 Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90046

Tickets: Advance Registration Required by Nov 11th
$65 includes Panel, VIP Buffet and Show
$30 Panel only

Surge. An apple approved solar charger for the iPhone. No more are the days where you are stuck inside a building near an outlet. Talk or tweet for hours if you want, just not around me, without your battery draining, as long as you have a few rays of sun your in business.

Available in 8 colors, some with a metallic sheen, Surge claims to be lightweight and ergonomic. According to their solar planning on the site, you can charge your phone regularly before a trip and then never have to charge it again. Once on your trip you just need to have your phone in the sun for a few hours each day to keep up a charge.

It works with the iPhone 3G and 3Gs and they even make a case for the iPod touch as well. You can pre-order yours now to ship out once released.

If you are planning on getting one I wouldn’t wait to long, these might just sell out before the holiday.

Follow them on Twitter @solararcadia to get eco-friendly fact tweets.

(Photo from iphonefrenzy.com)

One very cool app that I have as a iPhone user that is also available for the BlackBerry is Twitvid. A video sharing app that works with Twitter and is the one and only video tweeting app available in the RIM store. Twitvid is the fastest and most reliable way to tweet video without compromising speed or quality.

I recently caught up with Mo Adham, one of the founders, to talk about Twitvid and find out how they started and their plans for the future.

1. Tell me about the app.

It’s a simple way to upload videos to Twitter. We built it to do robust uploads that way we could ensure that all videos would go up. We took into consideration flaky cell reception as well.

2. Have any other BlackBerry video tweeting apps been released?

No other apps that upload video for the blackberry have been released. We have partnered with others. Ubertwitter recently started using our technology in their app.

3. Do you have plans for any updates or changes for the app? Like integrating some of the features of the site where you can search other members videos and seeing celebrity and suggested videos?

Yes. We are working on making the experience better and improving the speed. We will also be picking a few features to implement and do updates to the app.

4. When did Twitvid launch and how was the idea born?

I met Adil Lalani, the co-founder, in college in Canada. We came up with the technology to make video faster in our dorm room. We started seeing the growth of Twitter and decided to apply the technology to it. We felt it was a good match with Twitter. It launched in July for iPhone and in August for the BlackBerry.

5. So you decided that San Fransisco would be the place to move to launch your app, eh?

Well, entrepreneurship is encouraged in SF. You get support from lawyers, advisors, venture capitalists and you can network with other entrepreneurs and get valuable advice. But we love LA, a lot of our users are from Los Angeles.

Check out their site Twitvid.com to see popular members and videos including ones from celebrities. Keep up with them on Twitter by following @Twitvid.

They have picked quite an interesting selection of men for you to vote on, many that you are probably quite familiar with, though not so intimately. The boys are not required to pose naked, though the site does have a bit of a reputation for being racy, I’m sure they would be happy with whatever the brave men are comfortable with.

(Photo from zivity.com by Corwin PrescottII)

Here’s the list of eligible men to vote for, I highlighted a few that I recognize:

Paul Carr
Enrique Gutierrez
Robert Scoble
Pen Jillette
Tim
Teller
Jason Kinkaid
Phillip Kaplan
Jim Fischer
Kevin Rose and Aston Kutcher in a bromance
Keane Li
Michael Arrington
Val Emmich
Jacob Mullins
Dexter Morgan
Mickey_77
Jonathan Joseph
Greg Kumparak
Rubin Starset
Jay Brannan
Tj Thinakaran
Sage666
Barack Obama
Peter Reeves
Sean Percival
Evan Handler
Lucas Nealan
Ashton Kutcher
Michael Shermer
Chris Saad
Brian Singerman
Gabe Rivera
Jay Adelson
Owen Pallett
Zev Ubu Hoffman
Kevin Rose
MG Siegler
Barney Pell
Terry Chay
Chris Messina
Pete Cashmore
Loren Feldman
Tantek Celik
MG Siegler and Paul Carr in a bromance
Andrei Zmievski
Tim Ferriss
Eston Bond
The Woz
rpreece
Adam Savage
Jeremy Pepper
Tom Kittenbomb
Andrew Mager

To vote for your favorite, just visit the site, select your hunk and click the vote button. My money is of course on the irresistible Mr. Sean Percival. Good luck boys!

The Magic Castle, nestled in the Hollywood hills, is an exclusive club for magicians and members only. I recently had the pleasure of having dinner there and meeting the founder Milt Larson. A charming gentleman that has added his castle of magic to Twitter and did his very first tweet that night from @adventuregirl’s account. He told us a little bit about an event they have coming up, and the best part is,  it’s open to the public.

“It’s Magic!” will give the general public a chance to see many of the magicians that perform at the exclusive private club. With an all star line up including Lance Burton and special guest host Neil Patrick Harris, this evening promises to be a memorable one.  Including magic for the whole family, stage illusions and slight of hand, I can see why this event is having their 53rd anniversary.

Keep up with the latest news and special promotions by following them on Twitter @MagicCastle.

(Photo from modernmechanix.com)

Details

Featuring Performances by:

• Lance Burton
• Mac King
• Rudy Coby
• Joseph Gabriel & Katalin
• Kevin James & Company
• George Blass
• Shimada

*Special Guest Host: Neil Patrick Harris

Date: November 8th, 2009

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
The Kodak Theatre
6801 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: Range depending on seating

The Tweeters’ Cup will mark the first time a Tweet-Up will be held onsite during a Championship event. It will have its own exclusive area in Santa Anita’s Seabiscuit Court, which also includes designated frontside seating for ultimate live tweeting of the races. Ticket price includes a betting voucher, buffet, gifts and chances to win prizes like a trip for two to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Churchill Downs.

Be sure to follow them on Twitter @BreedersCup to see the feed from both days of the championship races. Hope to see you there!

Details

Highlights of the day include:

• 11:15am – Betting the Breeders’ Cup Handicapping session with Joe Drape (@joedrape) of the New York Times, Ed DeRosa (@EJXD2) of the Thoroughbred Times and Tom Quigley (@Quigleys_Corner) of Horseplayer Magazine
• Q&A with prominent jockeys
• Appearances by ESPN personalities and jockeys from Animal Planet’s critically acclaimed reality show “Jockeys”

Tweet-Up will include:

• Betting voucher
• 2009 Breeders’ Cup gift
• Buffet (including non-alcoholic beverages)
• Two will Win a Nikon Coolpix camera – Perfect for a TweetUp

* Best Tweeter on-site will Win a Trip for Two to the 2010 Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Churchill Downs including airfare and hotel.

Date: Friday, November 06, 2009

Time: 11:00am to 5:00pm

Location:
Santa Anita Park
285 W Huntington Dr.
Arcadia, CA 91007

*Enter at Gate 3 or 5 proceed to Clubhouse Entrance

Tickets: $25 Tweet Up only, $15 If you already have a Breeders’ Cup Ticket

(Photo from zimbio.com)

If you know of an event that we didn’t include, please tell us about it in the comments.

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

Digital LA – South Bay Cocktails @ Twelve+Highland – Digital LA wants you to join them in Manhattan Beach for super-casual South Bay Cocktails, taking place at Twelve + Highland. Relax in this renovated bar/restaurant’s classy white beach house feel. Try its Thursday night specials: $3 beers + $6 calls + $9 premiums from 8-10pm.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Twelve + Highland
304 12th St
Manhattan Beach, CA

Tickets: No guest list or registration, just show up and look for the Digital LA nametags!

Where’s Waldo? Finding Social Influencer’s and Decreasing Your Costs – Find, connect, empower, then what? This panel will dive into the next step – discussing the value of key social influencer’s in action sports, where they are on your social network, and how targeting these potential brand evangelists will have a positive influence on your social media network and your return on investment.

Moderated by Denise Garciano -Social Media Manager for PacSun

Panelists Include:

Jonathon Rosen – luckyny.com
Cameron Olthius – 5ones.com
Scott Tilton – loopd.com
Emily Goligoski – federatedmedia.net
Jonathan Nafarrete – jonathannafarrete.com
Greg Cargill – bigmethod.com

With Special Guest – TechZulu

Time: 6:30pm to 9:00pm

Location:
BlankSpaces
5405 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets: Free, RSVP here

Friday, November 6th, 2009

Tweeters’ Cup – Spend a day at the races! This Tweet Up will include an exclusive area in Santa Anita’s Seabiscuit Court, designated front row seating for live tweeting of the races, food, prizes, guest appearances, a chance to win a trip for two to the Breeders’ Cup World Championships at Churchill Downs, and more.

Time: 11:00am to 5:00pm

Location:
Santa Anita Park
285 W Huntington Dr.
Arcadia, CA 91007
*Enter at Gate 3 or 5 proceed to Clubhouse Entrance

Tickets: $25 Tweet Up only, $15 If you already have a Breeders’ Cup Ticket

(They’re so cute!)

Meghan recently teamed up with ShopNBC during their Fashion and Beauty Week to debut the first style in her collection, an absolutely stunning suede ankle bootie with a throat-cut silhouette and bow detailing. Available in three colors, purple, brown and black, you can pick up a pair of these suese booties for under $40.

Meghan will be live on ShopNBC today at 4:00pm to talk about her collection and the new style she just launched. I suggest you get your orders in fast, these shoes won’t last long at this price. Congrats Meghan, I can’t wait to see what you come out with next!

Get to know her

Meghan Cleary, aka Miss Meghan, is America’s Shoe Expert, an internationally recognized resource on shoe trends, tricks and tips, cultural and societal footwear movements. She is  the creator of Shoe Therapy ™ and author of The Perfect Fit: What Your Shoes Say About You. Check her our on Facebook, Twitter and her site, MissMeghan.com.

Have other ideas? Please let us know in the comments.

(Photo from Adam Tow)

@Dom- Dom Sagolla impressed me with his words of wisdom up on stage during his panel, so as soon as he finished I immediately ran up to him to ask about a program he had mentioned. Dom was kind enough to take a few moments and talk with me. I learned that he helped create Twitter along with Jack and a team of entrepreneurs in SF.

Previously unknown to most of us, he is “coming out” in a big way. His new book “140 Characters; a style guide for the short form” just hit shelves last week and is a comprehensive guide on how you can best utilize the service. It also gives a very in-depth account of how Twitter was hatched, very cool.

(Photo by CuriousJosh.com)

@Drew- If you have ever met Drew Olanoff you will understand what I mean when I say you can’t help but love this guy and immediately want to hug him. He just radiates warmth and happiness despite the fact that he has Cancer. His story is one that has touched me many times and brings a tear to my eye every time I hear it.

During his panel, Drew used his time to get people to connect with each other. He encouraged everyone in the room to stop tweeting and take a moment to reach out to someone close them and share a message of love. It was great reminder that no matter how important the knowledge and information we are gathering at a conference is, the people in our lives are so much more important.

(Photo by CuriousJosh.com)

@Wmmarc – Wm. Marc Salsberry is LA’s resident photographer. He has shot most of the avatars you see the LA tech crew sporting on their profile pages. He got into this business to meet people and he figured the best way to do it was to make people look good, and boy was he right.

His speech, Passion + Cancer = The Perfect Wingman, talked about the overwhelming support he has seen from the community and the tremendous gratitude he feels towards everyone who took part and helped spread the word about his brother Robert. Marc touched so many people in the room with his speech that he got a standing ovation.

(Photo by CuriousJosh.com)

@JessicaGottlieb – There is definitely one word you will hear in a presentation from Jessica that you don’t usually hear from other speakers, Fuck. That’s right, this mommy blogger drops the f-bomb like there’s no tomorrow and we absolutely love her for it. If you think all mommy bloggers are sweet and innocent and talk only about diapers and soccer games you are in for a big surprise and a real treat.

In her panel, Jessica expressed the fact that she is not a marketer but a mommy and shared her tips on how to monetize your Twitter stream. She may have advertised or paid for tweets in her stream but she is up front and honest about it. Like she said, if you know her and trust her and an occasional tweet with an ad in it bothers you, then don’t follow her. Simple as that.

(Photo by CuriousJosh.com)

Please do enjoy.

So here are some of the best Twitpics I could find from the day. Please join me at the Kodak for my panel at 3pm where I hope to show you how to put 140 characters into a text field.

Buddy you lost @marlooz and @freakcast look pretty involved!

People barely showing up… Will this be the *real* jack nicholson ;-) this theater is so damn cool! #140conf

Nice pic of @allechristine and @madbm with sponsor backdrop at #140conf. So fun!

“While youre at your #140conf panels, @georgeruiz, Paul Alan Smith and I are donating platelets”

Behind the scenes of @tinker #140conf video with @allechristine and @diannarae

At the Wine Bar at #140conf with @benparr @jbruin @doctorparadox

Morning break w @ciaobella50 @BethFrysztak at #140conf #hotties

@wmmarc taking the stage at #140conf

Great picture of @allechristine under pic of Julia Roberts winning an Oscar. at the Kodak Theater during #140conf

Lunch time fun with @LoriMoreno @WeirdChina #140conf

Michael Jackson’s star on the Hollywood walk of fame. ( right outside Kodak Theater) #140conf

Dinner… #140conf

(Header photo by earthXplorer)

Monday, October 26th, 2009

The Perfect Pitch 2009 Entrepreneur and Investor Conference – Hundreds of influential entrepreneurs and investors will converge for a day of learning and dealmaking. Powerful speakers and panelists will show you what it takes to build a successful startup in 2009.

Time: 9:00am to 5:30pm
Doors open at 7:30am
Speakers begin at 9:00am sharp

Location:
The Ritz-Carlton
4375 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292

Tickets:
Full-Access Conference Ticket $295
Live Online Streaming Ticket $49

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

#140 Characters Conference – The #140conf is not an event about microblogging or the place where people share twitter “tips and techniques” but rather where we explore the effects of the real-time Internet on Business.

Dates: Tuesday Oct. 17th – Wednesday Oct. 18th

Time:
Doors open at 7:00am
Conference begins at 8:45am

Location:
The Kodak Theater
7080 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: Range depending on access

Girls In Tech Social Fashion and Beauty Summit Part Deux – Are fashion and beauty blogs the new magazine? Join them as they discuss the ever-changing face of beauty and fashion, touching on everything from the new FTC guidelines for bloggers to why the fashion industry should use social media at all. There’s going to be a fabulous cocktail party as well and they will be collecting gently used purses and shoes to help Dress For Success.

Time: 7:00pm to 11:00pm

Location:
LIVE! ON SUNSET
8801 W. Sunset Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA 90069

Tickets: $20 (a portion of ticket sales will be donated to Dress For success)

Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

140Conf Official After Party – Media Mixer LA – Demand Media and Mashable have teamed up for the 140Conf after party at the posh H. Wood lounge. With two floors, a full kitchen and large patio, it should be a great venue for networking with the tech and social media scene.

Time: 5:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
H.Wood
1738 N. Orange Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Thursday, October 29th, 2009

Startups Uncensored “Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs” –  This months installment will focus on what it takes to build a successful business and how to distinguish yourself as an entrepreneur. They are joined this month by Jason Calacanis the CEO of Mahalo, co-founder of Weblogs Inc and publisher of Sillcon Alley Reporter. Jason is one of the best known internet CEOs and hosts the popular show This Week in Startups.

Time: 6:30pm to 8:00pm (Townhall) 8:00pm on, Reception

Location:
Santa Monica Public Library (Auditorium)
601 Santa Monica Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401

Tickets: FREE but you must RSVP

Friday, October 30th, 2009

NeighborGoods Costume Share – NeighborGoods is throwing a Halloween Party with a twist. It is for members only and completely in the spirit of the idea behind Neighborgoods, sharing. Don’t wear a costume to the party, instead bring one with you to share and pick one out from the costumes in the share pile. Feel free to bring a snack or a bottle of something to share, this party is not catered. NeighborGoods members only. Space is limited!

Time: 8:00pm

Location:
Idyllic Nerd Commune
923 E 3rd Street #307
Los Angeles, CA 90013

Tickets: RSVP with your NeighborGoods’s username. Not a member, join here.

Saturday, October 31st, 2009  HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Mother of all Halloween Parties – Hosted by Francisco Dao. This time the stage will be all about strutting your costumes, NO Karaoke, just a party. Chippendales vs. Strippers vs. whoever else wants to strut their costume on stage! So get your costume appropriate dance routines ready because we’re going to battle!!

Time: 9:00pm to 2:00am

Location:
On The Rox – at The Roxy
9009 W. Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA

Tickets: Free but you have to RSVP if you want to get in. Drinks are up to you.

LACMA Muse Heroes and Villains Party - The Muse Costume Ball has quickly emerged as one of Los Angeles’s premier Halloween parties after just five years in existence, attracting more than 1,000 revelers for a night filled with art, music, drinks, and costumes. This year’s event takes its inspiration from Heroes and Villains: The Battle for Good in India’s Comics. Featuring installations and projections from Mindshare Labs.

Time: 8:15pm to midnight

Location:
LACMA
5905 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90036
‎
Tickets: $30 for Muse members / $50 for non-Muse members
Prices includes admission, entertainment, open bar, and parking

This coming Monday, October 26, the Perfect Pitch 2009 Entrepreneur and Investor Conference is taking place at the Ritz Carlton. Sir Richard Branson will be starting off the day as the Keynote Speaker. Next up is a series of panels and breakout sessions, followed by Christian Audigier closing out the day.

Some notable members of the LA tech community will be speaking, moderating, or presenting at the conference and we’d like to wish them all good luck. Mr. Tony Adam will also be in attendance, so if you didn’t get the chance to say goodbye before he whisked off to SF, now’s your chance.

Jason Nazar – CEO / Founder – Docstoc
Mark Suster – Partner – GRP Partners
Frank Addante – Founder / CEO – Rubicon Project
Jackie Peters – Founder – Heavybag Media
Tony Adam – Director of Search Marketing – BillShrink

Details

The Perfect Pitch 2009 Entreprenuer and Investor Conference - Hundreds of influential entrepreneurs and investors will converge for a full day of training and dealmaking. Powerful speakers and panelists will share the secrets on what it takes to launch and build a successful business… Your business

Date: Monday, October 26th, 2009

Time: 9:00am to 5:30pm
Doors open at 7:30am
Speakers begin at 9:00am sharp

Location:
The Ritz-Carlton
4375 Admiralty Way
Marina del Rey, CA 90292

Tickets:
Full-Access Conference Ticket $295
Live Online Streaming Ticket $49

Speakers:
Key Note: Sir Richard Branson – Founder – Virgin Group
Closing: Christian Audigier – Founder – Ed Hardy, Christian Audigier & Audigier Brand Management Group
See the complete list of Speakers and Judges

Conference judges represent the following firms:

• August Capital
• Cal Cap Partners
• GKM Ventures
• Price Waterhouse Coopers
• Rustic Canyon Partners
• Baroda Ventures
• Draper Fisher Jurvetson
• PerfectBusiness
• Qualcomm Ventures
• Virgin
• Tech Coast Angels

(Photo from Manolith.com)

It’s taking place on Wednesday, October 28th at the posh H. Wood lounge. With two floors, a full kitchen and large patio, it should be a great venue for networking with the tech and social media scene. We hear @Brett, the Events Director for Mashable, will be in attendance. So cougars, watch out! We hear he’s feisty.

Details

Date: Wednesday, October 28th, 2009

Time: 5:30pm to 9:30pm

Location:
H.Wood
1738 N. Orange Dr.
Los Angeles, CA 90028

*Valet parking available

Tickets: Free, RSVP

Conference Details

140 Characters Conference – At the #140conf events, we look at twitter as a platform and as a language we speak. Over time it will neither be the only platform nor the only language. #140conf is not an event about microblogging or the place where people share twitter “tips and techniques” but rather where we explore the effects of the real-time Internet on Business

Date: Los Angeles, Oct 27-28th, 2009
Location: The Kodak Theater
Tickets: Range depending on access
Highlights: 140 different “characters” that are speakers so there is a large amount of variety. This is the first #140 conference to come to LA, which makes it an experience in itself.

(Photo from H.Wood.com)

It takes place tonight at Largo, and promises to be three hours full of geeks and music. This event has previously only been in SF but now with the help of Eventful you can demand it in to your city. So spread the news to your friends and let geeks everywhere partake in the fun.

Photo from laughingsquid.com

Details

Special Guests: screenwriter Josh A. Cagan (Bandslam); singer/songwriter Molly Lewis; actor Jeff Lewis (”Vork” form webseries “The Guild“); several extra-special guests that we are not allowed to name, but we swear are awesome!

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Largo (At the Coronet Theatre)
366 N. La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, Ca 90048

Tickets: $25 (Call 310-855-0350 for tickets)

Get to know them

Adam Savage has spent his life gathering skills that allow him to take what’s in his brain and make it real. He’s built everything from ancient Buddhas to futuristic weapons, from spaceships to dancing vegetables, from fine art sculptures to animated chocolate — and just about anything else you can think of.

Wil Wheaton’s successful acting career began in 1986 with acclaimed roles in “Stand By Me” and “Toy Soldiers”. He continued to build his resume through his teen years as series regular “Wesley Crusher” on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and opposite Robin Williams in “Flubber”. But Wil is much more than just an actor; he’s an author, blogger, voice actor, Columnist for the LA Weekly and Suicide Girls, widely-followed Twitter user, and a champion of geek culture.

Paul and Storm have been writing and performing funny songs together for a long, long time, starting with their stint together in a cappella band Da Vinci’s Notebook. Their music tends to make people laugh and feel good, and Paul and Storm believe that this makes their pursuit noble, right and just

(Header Image and Bio info from paulandstorm.com)

The two companies worked together, along with NewTeeVee, to host the very successful Streamy Awards, which had over 40,000 people tune in over the course of the transmission. In the article posted by Marc Hustvedt on Tubefilter, he had this to say about the merger:

“This is a new chapter for Tubefilter as a company. We’re bringing onto the team a pair of experienced and passionate co-founders in Josh Cohen and Jamison Tilsner. These guys get it, and share our deep concern for the web creative community.”

Marc outlined some of the changes that would be occurring with the acquisition. Tubefilter will now be a bi-coastal media company, expanding their News coverage to include NY. Their Web TV Meetups will be signature events in both cities, and articles that were previously on the Tilzy.TV site have now been migrated over to Tubefilter News.

(Photo by Wm. Marc Salsberry)

With the merger comes new responsibilities and positions for our friends at Tubefilter. Brady Brim-DeForest will continue in his role of CEO, Mark Hustvedt and Drew Baldwin will take on the positions of Senior VP and EIC of Tubefilter News, and Senior VP of Product.

Congrats guys! With the future of online entertainment in your hands, I can’t wait to see what’s in store.

And now, PutItOn, along with the New York Film Academy is putting on the PiO Picture Show Annual Online Film Festival, which is now accepting short and feature films.

Per the rules, no works that are exclusively pornographic or that promote hate are eligible to enter. Each entrant is allowed to submit one film into the contest. Prizes will be awarded for Best Feature, Best Short and Best Achievement in Acting.

The first round of the competition for best feature and best short film will be, in grand web tradition, determined by viewer votes. The top 10 finalists in each category will then move to round two, where their work will be assessed by a member of The New York Film Academy, PiO’s co-founder Max Fraser, and another industry professional. The award for best achievement in acting will be decided separately by the panel of judges, with all submissions automatically entered for consideration.

Submissions will be accepted until December 31, 2009 and public voting will go on until January 28, 2010. The first-place winners will be announced on February 18, 2010. The prize? A scholarship to the New York Film Academy and $5,000. Second place winners get a HD Pro-sumer digital video cam.

Gear up, Los Angeles. Here’s a shot at the big time–or at least a few more months of rent.

Here are some pics of them in action:

Amanda Coolong being ridden by Fransisco Dao, Natasha Wescoat turns away in horror

(cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

Mike Prasad throws up signs with Ken Yeung

(cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

The Man – Francisco Dao as usual with his shirt half off

(cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

Serena Ehrlich shakes her money maker

(cc) Kenneth Yeung - www.thelettertwo.com

To see the rest, check out Kenneth Yeung’s photo sets on Flickr.

For more pics and comments check out the Whrrl BlogWorld Story.

However after using the feature for a few days, I can’t help but notice some ways it could greatly be improved. Since the slow roll out seems to show a buffer for feedback I thought I would offer mine. Off we go!

Listability

Right off the bat you’ll find it’s not that easy to add people to lists. You either have to be on their profile page or some type of followers/following list to add them. In other words, you can’t add someone directly to a list when viewing said list. This results in a lot of hunting around and digging to find everyone you want to add to a list. Would be better to start typing names here and quickly building out the list.

You Autocomplete Me

Autocomplete is probably one the greatest inventions, right up there with the Snuggie. I’d love the ability to not only start typing names on a list but also get a populated drop down as I type. You see this feature on sites like Facebook and Google but not so much on Twitter. I just want to quickly throw out names of people who are either smart or good enough looking to make my various lists and add them right there.

Suggested User List of Lists

While the SUL or Suggested User List is already a controversial topic, I’d love to see some suggested lists to get me started. Since you can follow other peoples lists, it would be nice to see examples right off the bat. In some cases it may even save you the trouble of building that ultimate (and not doubt social media related) list that already exists.

Rankings

One really cool feature about Twitter lists is how they expose not only who is following a list, but how many in total are following a given list. So it makes sense that Twitter or a 3rd party might want to rank this data in some way. It would be interesting to see which lists have the largest following and perhaps find some new lists to follow.

If you’ve been using Twitter lists what do you think so far? And what does this mean for some of the recent 3rd party Twitter lists sites like Twillist and Mixtweet?

Monday, October 19th, 2009

Digital Hollywood Conference – Four full days of sessions and workshops. For details check out DigitalHollywood.com, I can’t look at the blue and red text any longer.

Date: Monday, October 19th – Thursday, October 22nd

Time: Conference starts at 8:45am. Full Schedule

Location:
The Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel
1700 Ocean Avenue
Santa Monica, California, 90401

Tickets:
$685 – All-Access Registration
$365 – One Day Digital Hollywood Ticket
More options for Tickets here.

Hollywood Web Television Meetup: Going Live! – Tubefilter’s infamous Meetup is back for the first time this fall, and this time, it’s all about going live online. With a top-notch panel, high-end electronics giveaways, and the best networking in online entertainment, this is one Meetup you won’t want to miss.

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Busby’s East (Mid Wilshire)
5364 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets:
Panel & Mixer Ticket $14.95
Mixer Ticket Only $8.95

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

Digital LA – Horror & Entertainment Panel @ Magic Castle – Join them for a very special evening at the Magic Castle for a panel on Online Horror Entertainment: Communities and Marketing. Usually you can’t get into the Magic Castle unless you know a member so this is a pretty cool opportunity. If you have never been I highly suggest you go, it’s definitely worth seeing.

Time: 7:00pm to 11:30pm

Location:
The Magic Castle
7001 Franklin Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: $60 advance registration required, space is limited.

Social Media Club LA: Games Go Social – With all of the major console and PC video game companies in Los Angeles, it only makes sense to discuss how more and more games are bringing in aspects of social media to enhance game play. We’ll discuss this, the evolution of casual social games in Facebook (ex: Mob Wars) and Twitter (ex: Spymaster) and how social and mobile are key areas of development for game companies.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Rubicon Project
1925 S. Bundy Drive
Los Angeles, CA 90025

Tickets: Free (RSVP)

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

Digital Drinks – Trick or Tweet Halloween party @ MyHouse – Show your tweet with @digitalla to get candy at our Halloween party at the hip Hollywood club, MyHouse. MyHouse is designed to look, well like a house: huge living room to network, the kitchen is the bar, upstairs bedrooms are VIP, even a backyard jacuzzi (bob for apples anyone?). MyHouse is very velvet rope to get in usually, but you’ll walk thru walls with us, right on in for the fun

Time: 7:00pm to 10:00pm

Location:
MyHouse
7080 Hollywood Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90028

Tickets: $10 Advanced Registration Required

Check out Tubefilter Web Television Week Events.

We have two tickets for the meetup that we are giving away separately. To win, all you need to do is hit the little retweet button at the top of this article and type the words “I want to win” in your tweet. We will randomly pick two winners that will be announced tonight. Good Luck!

Details

Hollywood Web Television Meetup: Going Live! (Oct. 19)
Tubefilter’s infamous Meetup is back for the first time this fall, and this time, it’s all about going live online. With a top-notch panel, high-end electronics giveaways, and the best networking in online entertainment, this is one Meetup you won’t want to miss.

Time: 7:00pm

Location:
Busby’s East (Mid Wilshire)
5364 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036

Tickets:
Panel & Mixer Ticket $14.95
Mixer Ticket Only $8.95

The Line Up: Tubefilter Web Television Week Fall

Digital Hollywood Fall (Oct. 19-22)
This year’s Digital Hollywood Fall, held at Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, is primed to be the best one yet. Tubefilter readers are eligible for a discount on passes to the four day event. Make sure to register here.

IAWTV Prospective Member Meeting (Oct. 19)
Want a say in determining next year’s Streamy Awards winners? Make sure not to miss this informational meeting for prospective members of the International Academy of Web Television, hosted at Digital Hollywood.

Digital Cocktails (Oct. 20, by invite only)
A very special event brought to you by blip.tv and Tubefilter. Join us for a get-together of content creators, advertisers, journalists and digital execs and friends.

Digital LA – Digital Drinks (Oct. 21)
Don’t miss the October edition of Digital LA’s Digital Drinks at MyHouse, one of Hollywood’s hottest spots.

Open Entertainment Alliance at Digital Hollywood (Oct. 21, by invitation only)
The Open Entertainment Alliance will be holding a limited engagement event on Wednesday at Digital Hollywood.

iHollywood Forum Presents: Social Media for Hollywood (Oct. 21)
Join a panel of industry leaders to discuss social media applications for film, television, brands, games and music. Hear success stories from experts designing clever applications for social media, branded entertainment, audience tracking, interactive ads, and integrated marketing strategies.

Make sure to follow @tubefilter and @webtvweek for updates.

(Photo from digitalvinorge.no)

From the brilliant minds of icanhazcheezburger.com comes It Made My Day, a site that provides sweet little nuggets of goodness like this one:

In a recent interview with EntertainmentWeekly.com, Ben Huh, CEO of Pet Holdings Inc, described what IMMD is all about.

We have a new site called It Made My Day. It’s the opposite of FML. It Made My Day is either really cool things that have happened in your life, or things that happen to other people that you laughed at.

Like the douchebag who tried to bypass his truck over the median and got stuck. It’s like other people failing, the customer who complained about not getting the right change and leaving his wallet behind. Stuff like that. It’s schadenfreude. Laughing at the misery of others.

My how Ben knows his audience. I mean really, honestly, who doesn’t enjoy laughing at the misery of others, especially when those others are douchebags. The site is also full of random acts of win that really should be shared, like this one:

The site launched a little over a week ago and is steadily gaining traction. Already hundreds of people are using the acronym IMMD on Twitter.

Pet Holdings Inc, the parent company for IMMD and icanhazcheezburger, is consistently putting out new sites. One a week in fact, and they currently have 26. If a particular one doesn’t take off they kill it and move on to the next. With that kind of turnover and considering their history, soon enough they’ll  have a nice little nest of high traffic sites to play with.

Follow IMMD on Twitter at @itmademyday.

Being a social founder isn’t for everyone, but there are a few who have done it well. Let’s go through some of the best, look at their numbers and learn some of their secrets.

Who are some of your favorite social media founders, and what are their super powers? Let us know in the comments.

Neil Gaiman, known on Twitter as @Neilhimself, along with BBC Audiobooks America, have teamed up to make an audiobook using only tweets. Neil provided the first one and now it’s up to Twitter users to keep telling the story.

It all started on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 at 3pm PST, and the tweets keep coming in. They plan to log around 1,000 of them before they edit the material, compile a script and record and produce the audiobook. Once finished it will be available online to download for free from various audiobook retailers, iTunes and the BBCABA website.

To participate :

• Read the opening line of the story tweeted by Neil, and you should probably catch up with the story in progress by checking the hashtag #bbcawdio.
• Then follow them on Twitter @BBCAA and @reply the next sentence of the story
• Tweets should be formatted like this:@BBCAA Your Tweet Here #bbcawdio

They will be searching for entries based off of the @BBCAA and the #bbcawdio tags so be sure to include both if you want them to see your contribution.

Tell us what you think of this experiment in the comments. Will we see more projects like this in the future?

Get to know him

Neil Gaiman is the author of the novels The Graveyard Book (New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2008 Audie Award for Best Audiobook of the Year), Coraline, Neverwhere, Stardust, Anansi Boys, the Hugo-and Nebula-winning American Gods, the Sandman series of graphic novels, and several collections of short fiction. Visit his blog at www.neilgaiman.com.

Creating a list is very simple. On the Twillist site, you select create New List, name it and enter the Twitter names of the users you want in the list, then hit Create. Voila! You have an easy to digest stream of information. You can also make a list directly from Twitter just tweet out:

@twillist @name1 @name2 #list-name

Twillist will then tweet you back to a link to your list.

Because you have to sign into to Twitter when connecting with the site, you can easily tweet right from Twillist. You can also browse lists and sort them by newest, most popular and most active. Some of the other features of the site include:

• Browsing users by: Most popular, Most Influential, Most Active
• See what lists you’re included in
• Subscribe to a list and it’s added to your favorite’s section

When you are looking at a list it will not only show you the tweet stream of everyone in that list, but you can easily follow them on Twitter. Once the community starts building a base of lists this could be a great resource for finding someone with a special skill, someone in a specific location, etc. The possibilities are endless, if a list doesn’t exist you can create it. Then you can tweet about it so others know that it’s there.

As reported previously by TechCrunch, Twillist also plans to integrate with the upcoming Twitter list API.

Crafting that masterpiece of shared knowledge and attribution in just 140 characters is not always easy. Being a good retweetist takes practice and some discipline. Seeing as I have already mastered the art of the retweet, I thought I would teach you how to turn a child’s painting into a Picasso.

To get us started let’s look at a typical retweet:

It’s a real mess. A hodge podge of attribution, personal commentary and extra meta. It’s kinda like when you’re at a party or family get together and the most annoying person in the room walks up to you and says “So Bobby told me that Jennifer told her cousin that Tommy told her about something important, by the way I have a rash”. It’s like a horrible game of telephone with the interesting message diluted by all types of useless back story.

Now lets look at a proper retweet:

Ahh look at that, a thing of beauty really. I sorta want to print that out and hang it on my wall. Notice we haven’t really done much but strip out the extra junk and smooth out some of the formating.

For shits and giggles let’s break down each element of a proper retweet.

The Breakdown

Headline: In most cases the original headline of the article will do. Writers (bloggers too!) tend write a good headline already so don’t be afraid to use them. However there is sometimes room for improvement. If you want a high CTR (click-through-rate) make sure the headline conveys a message, asks a question or moves some type of emotion.

Short URL: Of course when you retweet you’re also sometimes inheriting a short URL from someone else. This might require you to re-create the short URL with something a little prettier. My personal favorite is Bit.ly which seems to be the most trouble free and useful. I would avoid any shortners that include a frame or lame top hat.

Source: I’m not sure who established the rules of thanking sources 3 levels down the line but it’s not necessary. At the most you should include one source, preferably with the Twitter name of the contents original creator. This gives the user an idea of what to expect from the link. Citing @mashable tells them it will most likely be a Twitter story, citing @joeblow tells the reader nothing. It may be a little snobby to not thank someone for introducing you to a story, but this is art we’re talking about here, not good housekeeping.

The Variables

To RT or not to RT: Do you preface each retweet with the text RT? My personal preference is to drop the RT and start of with the headline. Some programs will auto-insert the RT for you, and users sometimes find it helpful to know right away the tweet is a rebroadcast. If you drop the RT, you should cite your source at the end with a (via @name).

Hashtags: Including hashtags in your tweets and retweets is fine, within reason. The biggest value of the hashtag is to help people search and find related content. So let’s say you’re at an event or the retweet is about a trending topic, hashtag away. Trying to be funny by including ironic hashtags and you’ve changed the masterpiece into a velvet black light poster.

Now that you know the proper format, go ahead and retweet this. With feeling this time.

Wednesday, October 14th, 2009

Action Sports Entertainment Marketing Panel – Digital LA and the SoCal Action Sports Network are teaming up to chat Entertainment + Sports: Marketing & Developing Content with Athletes, Video Games, TV, and Movies to reach ages 16-25. Speakers include: Mayhem Miller (MTV’s Bully Beatdown), KP Anderson (E! Sports Soup), Activision, FUEL TV.

Time: 7:00pm to 9:30pm

Location:
The Parlor, Santa Monica
1519 Wilshire Blvd
Santa Monica, CA 90403

Tickets: $15 advance registration required

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

A Masquerade Mindshare – Open bar (8pm-10:30pm), music and a number of installations on display from the great brains from Mindshare Labs!

Time: 8:00pm to 1:00am

Location:
Lot 613
613 Imperial St.
Los Angeles, CA

Tickets: $35

Technology Council, Public Relations Workshop – This interactive workshop will cover working with Traditional and Social Media to help your company stand out from the crowd. Join the Technology Council along with industry-leading journalists and PR professionals for a series of breakout group sessions. Key Note speaker: Charles Proctor, Technology Industry Reporter at the Los Angeles Business Journal.

Time: 5:00pm to 9:00pm

Location:
Sheraton Four Points
5990 Green Valley Circle
Culver City, CA 90230

Tickets:
Technology Council Members $35
WITI Members $35
Non-members $60
Link here to become a member

Saturday, October 17th, 2009

Goodreads and Vroman’s Book Swap – join Goodreads and Vroman’s for a book swap! Bring all your summer reading and leave with some great stuff to carry you through the fall. All leftover books will be donated to Upward Bound House and the Library Foundation of Los Angeles. Let’s Be Frank Hot Dogs will also be onhand to sell their famous gourmet hot dogs and sausages.

Time: 4:00pm

Location:
Vroman’s
695 E. Colorado Blvd
Pasadena, CA

Tickets: RSVP

“You really should,” I tell him. Woolley is on crutches, and I’m convinced that if he did tweet, I’d know why. I ask him about it and he tells me he’s been on crutches for eight months following an accident on his Chopper. He’s in town for the Breeders’ Cup Challenge on Saturday, the qualifying races that precede the Breeders’ Cup happening on November 6th and 7th.

We’re at 30-1, an evening of cocktails and epic noms at the Thompson’s exclusive ABH bi-level rooftop bar, celebrating the second consecutive Breeders’ Cup at Santa Anita Park, and supporting The V Foundation for Cancer Research, founded by ESPN and the late Jim Valvano, former basketball coach of North Carolina State University and renown ESPN and ABC broadcaster. With me is Peter Rotondo (@retro411), VP of media and entertainment for the Breeders’ Cup, and directly across from us stands Bruce Jenner, the decathlon gold medalist of Keeping Up With The Kardashians fame.

ESPN’s Kenny Mayne just finished speaking and everyone is talking about the races—but there’s a lot of talk about Twitter, too. So much, in fact, that if you didn’t know this was a Breeders’ Cup soirée, you’d mistake the sports crowd for a group of enthusiastic members of L.A. tech.

That’s the idea—the Breeders’ Cup is organizing their first ever Tweeters’ Cup, a tweet-up front-side at the Seabiscuit Court by the paddock on the Oak Tree grounds at Santa Anita on November 6th. It’s going to be a day at the races—microblogging-style.

Greg Avioli (@GregAvioli), president and CEO of the Breeders’ Cup, comes over. He’s convinced he gives bad tweet. I outline some quick pointers about the art of conversation in 140 characters or less. He’s stumped by the balance one must learn to strike between being entertaining and keeping within a company brand. Ah, the dilemma of our times.

I tell him we’ll give him a crash course at the Tweeters’ Cup. Are you in?

30-1 at ABH at the Thompson Beverly Hills

Oak Tree Executive Vice President and Director Sherwood Chillingworth and Peter Rotondo.

The wheel of prizes--among them a $10,000 trip from Sentient Jet.

Chris Abramson won the $10,000 prize.

ESPN's Kenny Mayne.

With Chip Woolley!

Photo of horse by Suzy Holm, iPhone by Scott Beale.

Based off of the screen shots below, some of the features will be:

• Find the best restaurants
• Search by date, venue or category or use GPS to find what’s going on nearby
• Get the latest event and music listings
• Find our what happened last night in LA
• See the latest photo slideshows

Look for the LAWeekly iPhone app in the app store, and while you’re there you might as well check out the lalawag iPhone app. It’s free too!

A fun, visually pleasing free app from Warner Bros., Wild Things gives you a peek at the upcoming movie, Where the Wild Things Are. It has photos, videos and music, and will link you to a featurette with the author of the book, Marice Sendak.

But the most fun to be had is with Carol, a lovable monster from the film. Carol will dance, eat pictures and contacts that you have stored in your phone and throw giant rocks back and forth. The app is quite beautiful and fun to mess around with.

Here are the items you can do from the menu:

• Switch scenery from day to night
• Have Carol eat the contacts in your iPhone
• Have Carol eat the pictures in your iPhone
• Play a song from your library and Carol will dance to it
• Throw rocks at Carol
• Make Carol howl and wave

*If you get the monster angry enough, Carol will crack your iPhone screen.

Here are a few things we found you could do with touch and movement:

• If you shake the phone, leaves will fall down and so will Carol
• Rub the tummy with your finger tip and the monster will giggle and shake
• Tap him and he reacts as if you have poked him
• Tilt the screen to either side and he will stand on one foot

Directed by Spike Jonze, Where the Wild Things Are opens in theaters on October 16th, 2009.

(Photo from Wild Things app gallery)

If you’ve had the pleasure of getting to know Jason you’d probably agree. Sure he doesn’t have any super powers, and he needs to find his Lois Lane, but Jason is still a superhero to many.

The LA Business Journal seems to agree. They just awarded him with the 2009 Most Admired CEO of the Year Award. Check out the video below to see Jason accept the award and share his experiences of growing up in LA, starting Docstoc and his mentors.

(Photo (CC) Brian Solis. www.briansolis.com)

Users can setup profiles and easily list various items they’d like to lend out, sell or even give away. Transactions are then tracked through the site which adds a nice layer of security to your dealings. I don’t know about you, but lately Craigslist has been giving me the heebie jeebies. Having a feedback loop that shows a profiles transaction history is really nice to have. Being able to do deals with local friends who are already part of your social graph is even better.

Founded by local radtrepeneur Micki Krimmel, Neighborgoods has been in running in private beta for the last few months. Today however it’s open to anyone with a Los Angeles zip code. So our lalaland based readers you can now signup and get started.

Micki took some time sit down tell us more about the site. Lets see what she had to say.

Chamillionaire, Grammy award-winner and successful entrepreneur.

Marsha Collier, author of eBay for Dummies series, and radio show host.

Sean Percival, founder of lalawag, online and mobile experience consultant, SEO expert.

Heather Meeker, Director of Marketing and Corporate Communications at Pelago, makers of Whrrl.

Check out the rest of the videos on SingularCity.com.

(Photo from RocketGenuis.com)

Full disclosure has been a hot topic around the web lately with many bloggers being proactive about disclaimimg endorsements they received for blogging. Others are not so keen on the idea of having to disclose their relationships when newspapers are not required to do the same. The new guidelines have some bloggers afraid they will receive hefty fines, up to $16,000. Thankfully the FTC has stated they will be looking mostly at the advertisers when passing out fines and not at individual bloggers.

The revised Guides also add new examples to illustrate the long standing principle that “material connections” (sometimes payments or free products) between advertisers and endorsers – connections that consumers would not expect – must be disclosed.

These examples address what constitutes an endorsement when the message is conveyed by bloggers or other “word-of-mouth” marketers. The revised Guides specify that while decisions will be reached on a case-by-case basis, the post of a blogger who receives cash or in-kind payment to review a product is considered an endorsement. Thus, bloggers who make an endorsement must disclose the material connections they share with the seller of the product or service. Likewise, if a company refers in an advertisement to the findings of a research organization that conducted research sponsored by the company, the advertisement must disclose the connection between the advertiser and the research organization. And a paid endorsement – like any other advertisement – is deceptive if it makes false or misleading claims.

What is not clear from the press release is how this will apply to social networking. Will you have to disclose your endorsement in a tweet? According to an interview with the FTC’s Richard Cleland by Caroline McCarthy, this could be a real possibility.

Prominent users of Twitter and Facebook won’t be exempt from controversial new Federal Trade Commission guidelines that keep tabs on blogger freebies and giveaways, The agency absolutely plans to keep tabs on social networks as well as blogs.

The new guidelines go into effect on December 1st, 2009. How do you feel about this change and the way it will impact blogging?

Tuesday October 6th

Dealmaker – The Workshop

Brought to you by the team who produces Startonomics and Dealmaker LA, this hands-on “workshop-style” event will allow entrepreneurs to drill down on the key issues we face when laying the foundation to build and fund their company.

The Details:

When: Tuesday October 6, 2009 | 1:00pm – 6:00pm
Where: Microsoft LA | 333 S. Grand Ave. 33rd Floor, Suite 3300
How Much: $125 Members | $195 Non-Members
Bonus: $20 off with this link.

Thursday October 8th-Saturday October 10th

New Noise Santa Barbara

New Noise brings together music industry professionals, music technology professionals, entrepreneurs, artists, artist managers, agents, producers, lawyers, publishers, and fans. Anyone interested in the convergence of art, commerce and technology will benefit from the creative, educational, and networking opportunities that NEW NOISE presents. Plus: We like to party, so expect that too.

The Details:

When: Thursday October 8th to Saturday October 10th
Where: Canary Hotel | 31 West Carrillo Santa Barbara, CA 93101
How Much: $40-$199

Friday October 9th

Hollywood 2.0

The first panel will feature Alexia Tsotsis of the LA Weekly, Sean and Laurie Percival of Lalawag.com, and Alex Albrecht of Diggnation. The panelists will discuss (from their perspective, as journalists) new media/technology companies they have come across that are changing the face of Hollywood.

The Details:

When: Friday October 9th | 7:00-9:00pm
Where: UCLA Anderson School of Management – Korn Hall
How Much: Free

These are all important questions that can only be answered south of the border.

During one of these trips you may also notice that Latin America sometimes borrows from various American intellectual properties. Be it on a shirt, a mug or that wonderful pottery. For the most part its nickel and dime stuff, nothing too major. I’d assume even the most hardened Disney exec would get a chuckle out of the seeing Donald Duck across a T-shirt proclaiming “One Tequila, Two Tequila, Three Tequila, Floor…”

However the web is a different story. Here knock offs can reach millions and even make some serious cash. Companies like Google and Yahoo have fought almost to the death to dominate various International locations and spaces there. Now Twitter is getting its own Spanish “re-imagining”, this time from a 19-year-old Argentinian developer named Martin Lio.

His site Birddi is of course a complete lift of Twitter. Everything from the colors, the logo and more. They even put @Ev on their landing page! However for being just a clone it’s actually pretty impressive. Sure it lacks some of the polish the Twitter UI has received recently, but overall it’s not a complete hack job.

We can only assume Twitter will send some nasty letters about this. Martin will then re-skin the site to be less “stealy” and hopefully continue on building his little birdie.

If you like you can follow or seguir me on Birddi. I’m really trying to get ~salsasaturday trending over there.

(Via TechCrunch)

Since Violet is a little shy she hasn’t said much about this publicly. For us that represents a great chance to both embarrass and congratulate her. If you have had the pleasure of meeting or getting to know Violet well, lucky you. She’s one of the more genuine folks in the local scene and likely to have a bright future.

So please take the chance to send Violet out a tweet and make her feel loved. Just don’t fret if you don’t get a reply right away. Turns out she’s spending some time in Paris before starting the new gig. Rough life huh?

Writing your first blog post somewhere always feels like a big deal. How do I begin? It’s like making your grand entrance on your own red carpet or to a big meeting. Do you stomp in and make your presence known, be fashionably late (I guess I can’t do that on my own blog), or just play it super cool and casual?

Of course for those who know Shira, she is pretty much always fashionably late. Just don’t tell CBS that. Either way, we vote for cool and casual!

She also picked up an interview with Katie Couric. Let’s see what these two ladies had to say: