The VCs have spoken: Edward Sharpe is killing it. Congrats Nora from Dorm Life!

January 5th, 2010 by Garrett | Posted in current events | Comments

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 14 according to his blog
• Mo Koyfman and Bijan Sabet of Spark Capital in Boston dig them, too.  See Bijan’s 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.

Dorm Life inspires Facebook Craze. Can a web series spawn a new Holiday?

December 1st, 2009 by Garrett | Posted in awards, comedy, media coverage, video | Comments

National Hug Your RA Day! Inspired by Dorm Life.

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.

Facebook Event:  NATIONAL HUG YOUR R.A. DAY

MaxxIQ: Now Rolling

October 7th, 2009 by Josh | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

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.

Boxee Brings Dorm Life To Your TV

September 10th, 2009 by Josh | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

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 .

Fish Story

September 3rd, 2009 by Josh | Posted in Uncategorized, current events | Comments

66-lbs-of-salmon

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.

The twist turned out to be… that the whole thing was true. Have a look over here for the full account of the battle.

ASM + TV.com = Dorm Life on the iPhone!

August 18th, 2009 by Josh | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

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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.

ASM’s Lost Carl’s Jr. Whaaaaat?! Spots Up Now

August 14th, 2009 by Josh | Posted in branded entertainment, video | Comments

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.”

Link to full playlist: http://www.youtube.com/user/attentionspanmedia#grid/user/5BDFB4339017045E

Hulu Interview

July 24th, 2009 by Matt | Posted in media coverage | Comments

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.

SRD.

Dorm Life on last week’s Entertainment Weekly Must List

July 13th, 2009 by Josh | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

Entertainment Weekly taps Dorm Life for weekly Must List

5 Reasons We Love Boxee

July 6th, 2009 by Matt | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments

Boxee – fun to say, more fun to use.

For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure, Boxee is a media browser for PC, Mac, and Ubuntu computers optimized for the 10-foot viewing experience.  Whether your computer is connected to your TV or just your desktop display, you can

• Watch full episodes of The Colbert Report on the Comedy Central app,
• Learn the etymology of the word Lollipop on the HotforWords app, or
• Browse your friends’ pictures on the Facebook Photos app.

Yeah, but why is using Boxee for this stuff better than using a web browser like Firefox?

1. Remote Controlled - Yes, you can use a wireless keyboard and mouse, but why would you – when you could use your iPhone and the Boxee Remote App, or the Apple remote?  Boxee is all about consuming web content from across the room, in the supine position – my personal fav.
2. Slick Interface - Part of the reason Boxee is navigable with a remote is because of its clean interface.  Want to watch Chappelle’s Show on Boxee?  Comedy Central App -> Chappelle’s Show Stream -> Choose your clip.  Try doing the same thing on ComedyCentral.com, and you’ll be waiting for banners to load and sifting through hundreds of links to find Dave’s impression of Howard Dean (byah!).
3. It’s Social – See what your friends watched recently, and recommend content to them.
4. Innovative Apps – Something cool happened a few weeks ago.  Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures suggested an app that would allow you to tag your favorite videos to Watch Later.  Just a few days later, Daryn Nakhuda launched L8R, which allows you to tag your videos in Delicious, then watch them on Boxee – supinated, of course.  Several other apps, such as BoxQueue, are rocking this space as well.
5. They Made Their Alpha Version Public – Not everyone has the juevos to release an alpha version for public consumption (and criticism).  But Boxee is launching early and iterating often.  Love it.

So make your way over to Boxee.TV and download it.  We guarantee you’ll have fun.