Further proof that awesomeness is a key factor in virality, from a study on what kind of New York Times articles get shared by readers the most:
“People preferred e-mailing articles with positive rather than negative themes, and they liked to send long articles on intellectually challenging topics.
Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe.”
We find that when the social object (say, Dorm Life) and the folks interacting with that social object (say, the Dorm Life fans) are both awesome, the effect is an exponential increase in content-sharing.
Apparently, it is hard to find a name for a band. Problem is, as the Wall Street Journal reported today, all the good names are taken.
We ran into this problem too, and wrote about it – and our unique, rigorous, iterative solution – when trying to come up with a suitable title for a music project in the skunkworks. See the exerpts from OUR PREEMPTIVE BLOG POST below.
Excerpted from the WallStreetJournal, February 18, 2009:
“….Every other name is taken,” Mr. Jones explains. “Think of a great band name and Google it, and you’ll find a French-Canadian jam band with a MySpace page.”
The available supply of punchy one- or two-word band names is dwindling. So, many acts are resorting to the unwieldy or nonsensical.
The following internal email thread provides a peek into Attention Span Media’s rigorous and highly scientific project-naming process…
[10am] GARRETT: We need to decide on the name for the show. Let’s get it done by the end of the day and register the domain.
[3:14pm] JIM: After looking at our available name options, the favorite and therefore winner of the long, drawn-out Music Blogger naming process is “Every Good Name Is Already Taken”. Garrett, can you registereverygoodnameisalreadytaken.com? Thanks. By the way, there is something poetic about the fact “Every Good Name is Taken” was already taken.
[3:30pm] GARRETT: As of 3:28PM PST, Every Good Name is Already Taken, officially, now that EveryGoodNameIsAlreadyTaken.com is taken…….
It seems Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are everywhere lately. Possibly because they just finished a nationwide tour. Or perhaps because they are simply excellent. Or maybe because they have a great accordionist. Congratulations to Nora Kirkpatrick – who plays Courtney Cloverlock on an ASM show called Dorm Life – and her bandmates on their success! (Also Nora, congrats on the pan-hellenic president role on ABC Family’s Greek.)
It was interesting to notice too that the band also seems to be the hit of the VC party, with at least 2 big props lately:
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures (Twitter, FourSquare, Zynga) in New York – 2nd most played artist week of December 14according to his blog
Plus, in a true small-world moment, Boxee recently released their new box. We recently released Dorm Life on Boxee. What music did Boxee choose for their gala unveiling? Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, of course!
It occurs to us that E. Sharpe & Co. should use some of their tour-bus time to produce a 10-slide Powerpoint pitch for VCs, and make a few extra (daytime) stops in NYC and Boston (it’s unclear whether the Sand Hill Road VCs have an ear for bands newer than U2). They would undoubtedly emerge with a fresh round of capital. Seriously: think about what a really well-capitalized, red-hot new band could accomplish.
Watch their network debut from the Letterman Show back in September ‘09.
We knew Dorm Life was popular. We knew Dorm Life was influential. But did we know it would start a push for a new national ‘holiday’? Maybe. And it has – a new facebook group has created a virtual-cum-real National Hug Your R.A Day on Wednesday, December 3rd.
According to a recent article in “The New Hampshire” paper, the Facebook Group was started by Utah State undergrad Trisha Deem, who was organically inspired by the show Dorm Life and by her own RA.
The group has 92,000 confirmed guests as of today and counting, including Marshall Adams I, who is pictured along with co-star and rival RA Yassi in the group’s profile picture.
We’re all for petitioning congress for a national RA day. Especially if it helps Dorm Life become even more popular (e.g. sell more DVDs). As for what it will do to Marshall’s ego, well, you’ll have to stay tuned for more Dorm Life updates.
ASM has created and produced the first season of the trucking industry game show “Maxx IQ,” in partnership with Fathom Communications, for Navistar International (NAV) . Hosted by Joe Elmore of Spike TV’s HorsePower series, the show lets real drivers at real locations across the country test their engine smarts for a chance to win cash and prizes.
Download the MaxxForce widget (above) and test your MaxxIQ – the true measure of your trucking know-how.
For Dorm Life fans accustomed to kicking back on the common room couch and watching the show on a laptop, a new day has dawned.
Now – thanks to Boxee – you can kick back on the couch, close the laptop, and watch Dorm Life on the widescreen TV, perhaps with a buffalo wing in one hand and the beverage of your choice in the other. ASM’s intrepid scholar/blogger/hacker Matt Copenhaver provided the spark, and the folks at Boxee made it easy.
Boxee is the first “social” media center, whose free, downloadable software is changing the way consumers experience home entertainment. Boxee gives users a simple way to experience all of their entertainment in one place (in this case, the pimped-out common room HD entertainment center): movies, TV shows, music and photos from websites like Netflix, MLB.TV, Comedy Central, Pandora, Last.fm, and flickr.
Here are a couple of serious quotes from the press release:
“Boxee is a great distribution partner – they’re intensely focused on their audience, but they respect the rights of content owners,” said Peter White, CEO of Attention Span Media. “Boxee brings entertainment and social technology together to create a profound experience for viewers. It was an easy decision to use their platform to help Dorm Life fans get the show on their big screens.”
Boxee co-founder and CEO Avner Ronen chimed in:
“Shows like Dorm Life prove that original web content can be successful and profitable. In addition, Attention Span Media has shown itself to be a pioneer in social entertainment, creating rich engagements in important online communities like Facebook and Twitter.”
One of the things we like best about Boxee: it lets you easily share what you’re watching with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and other social platforms. More than half a million people use Boxee to get their entertainment. Now those half-million can experience Dorm Life from the far side of the room. Learn how you can join them at www.boxee.tv .
ASM writing ace Jim Brandon is so good at, well, making things up, that we assumed he was taking some creative liberties when he emailed ASM HQ about the 40-pound Chinook salmon he’d caught on a fishing trip in British Columbia.
Attention Span Media and CBS Interactive have partnered to bring Semester 1 and Semester 2 of Dorm Life to TV.com.
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That’s good news for a bunch of reasons, perhaps the best one being that Dorm Life fans can now experience the show on TV.com’s slick iPhone app (click here to download).
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Also excellent: TV.com’s seamless Facebook Connect integration, which lets you comment using your FB credentials and publish your thoughts to your friends’ FB news feeds.
The long-awaited second installment of ASM’s Whaaaaat?! branded entertainment series for Carl’s Jr. is now up at http://www.youtube.com/carlsjr, including the first video in the series, “The Hunt.”
See if you can spot the cameo by ASM cofounders Peter White and Garrett Law in “The Archaeologist.”
Hulu – taking over your entertainment life, one awesome show at a time
Earlier this week, ASM’s Josh and Brian sat down for an interview with Rebecca at Hulu – Thanks for the opportunity Rebecca! You can read the whole post here.
There are a few points from the interview worth teasing out:
Be Intensely Audience-Focused- As Brian mentions, “We want to…give [our fans] a sense of ownership over the show, the theory there being if we make a real connection between one of our characters and a possible fan, then that fan will enter the realm of ’superfan’ and bring along a lot of their friends as well.” We’re always looking for new ways to create the “wow” experience with our viewers.
Respond to Evolving Tastes – Josh points out that “People have gotten used to watching longer-form content online, and they want more of what they like. It turns out, probably a large part of the reason that people only watched things that were short before was that the user experience wasn’t there yet. Hulu’s kind of taken it to a place where people can really enjoy the longer length.” Viewers’ comfort with, and demand for, longer online content – largely because of Hulu, in our opinion – helped drive our decision to extend the length of Dorm Life episodes in Semester 2.
These factors were key in propelling Dorm Life to the #8 spot among Hulu’s most popular TV shows on Monday. The show we most enjoyed being ahead of, if only for a day: The Office.
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