new on @TMIweekly: @juliaallison's offers a do or die guide to getting your guy the perfect gift for the holidays http://tinyurl.com/6xrkc6 2 hrs agoDidn’t get your “I Voted” sticker because of record turnout at the polls? Show your support for 4 More Years of Obama Girl. Choose your favorite badge below and embed on your site, or right-click and save the image and use it for your Facebook or Twitter avatar! Thanks to Lee for the quick workup!
We don’t blog all our press (that’s what the Next News Feed is for), but in the last week we got some really great coverage, not just linked around the Web, but on TV, too, and in glossy print magazines that we could buy and share with our folks. Here’s a quick roundup of some of our favorite stories, before tomorrow’s election buries all other news forever.
Our own Steve Nelson (Bull), Ian Jenkins, Tom Small and Rusty Ward (Bear) in the latest Fortune.
This month’s Fortune Magazine featured a two page spread in the print edition, and an online photo gallery about Barely Political and Next New Networks, including the photo above, taken in our conference room.
Meanwhile, this month’s GQ featured Amber Lee Ettinger, aka Obama Girl, in their photo portfolio of the key figures of 2008’s election, alongside people like will.i.am, Rosario Dawson, Rachel Maddow, and Maria Shriver.
And if that’s not enough, both Politico and FOX News chose “Crush on Obama” as one of the top moments of the 2008 campaign.
Not to be outdone, Erik Beck and the gang at Indy Mogul showed up in Popular Mechanics last week, in a roundup of Halloween costume tips, as well as a profile on G4’s Attack of the Show, embedded below.
Great work and congratulations, everyone!
Autoblog writer Alex Nunez obviously had a great time at the Garage 419 Invitational, as you can read in some of these excerpts from his coverage. Congratulations to the whole G419 team!
So, exactly a week ago, I was in Mt. Kisco at Grand Prix New York for the first annual (hopefully) Garage419 Invitational. Put simply, it was great. Big props to Matt Farah and the crew at Next New Networks for organizing the whole shindig, which put a big, fun group of guys (and one gal) together for an afternoon of karting and comraderie for a good cause — Racing 4 Research and the Children’s Tumor Foundation.
Farah had some fun with the field, making sure the course was nice and wet during qualifying to ensure that slippery fun would be had by all.
Happy Frederween! from justin on Vimeo.
We love Fred. He wears the same thing every day, and has a couple catch phrases. At every place he’s worked at, his employees have dressed up like him as a joke — this was our year, and here’s our little video celebration of the man himself.
(reposted from Vimeo)
From Lindsey:
Just a reminder that tonight is Threadbanger’s Handcrafted Halloween Costume Party! (aka the best party of the year that you will NOT want to miss).
Where: Mercury Lounge, NYC (217 E. Houston St, between Ludlow and Essex)
When: 8pm-12amWe’re kicking off the night with DJ’s The Delyle Sisters, and then there will be a fashion show/costume contest, starring the party goers with the best costumes (we’ll be handing out numbers to people at the event who have the best most creative costumes). The grand prize winner will be receiving a ThreadBanger sewing machine. THEN, our very own Steve Nelson (and co) will be performing a few songs, including a Halloween song and then the band Midnight Fistfight goes on. (YAAAAAAAHHHH)
Also, if you don’t have a costume, there will be a Zombie Cloak room (sponsored by Zombie A Go-Go) with professional makeup artists to do your Zombie Makeup for FREE (so you don’t have an excuse to not come)! We’ll also have free organic treats including cupcakes, brownies and cookies. And last but not least, if you noticed the awesome goody bags in the office, we are giving them to the first 100 party goers, so get there early.
Thanks to everyone who helped make this every possible especially Rob and Corinne (obviously), Erin, Lee, Jeaux, Kendra, Nina and Jacob! Also, a huge thanks to everyone that sponsored the event: Tumblr, Disqus, American Sewing Expo, Instructables, HowCast, PONO, Coats and Clark, Simplicity, Craft, CraftStylish, Zombie A Go-Go, Nature’s Shea Butter, Kreinik Metallic Thread, Dritz, and M&J Trim.
Next New Networks is thrilled to announce that ThreadBanger has an additional sponsor that launched this month, Cotton’s new online web series, Inseam.
Inseam profiles three emerging female designers with one thing on their minds: fashion! In true DIY fashion, the show emphasizes how the individual designers connect with the material as a tool in the artistic process. Irrespective of vision, the material is what designers all have in common, making Cotton another great endemic sponsor and a particularly relevant fit for Threadbanger.
So check out Inseam here, and let’s thank them for supporting ThreadBanger!
Brigitte Dale, Felicia Day. See more photos by Techzulu.
Thanks to everyone who came out to the Vlogfest reunion party last Monday. Thrown together by Next New Networks’ Felicia and Toni when we realized that Felicia, Michelle and I would be in town last week, we hoped maybe a dozen of our friends from the LA video world would show up. I guess everyone really needed a chance to get together, because we had about a hundred of LA’s best online video creators come through Renee’s in Santa Monica, making the courtyard look like our iTunes and YouTube subcriptions come to life.
Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan. See more photos by George Ruiz.
Michelle DeForest and Zadi Diaz. See more photos by Techzulu.
Roll call included Steve and Zadi from Epic Fu, Project Pedal’s Mike Ambs and Amanda Walker, Ask a Ninja’s Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, Zaproot’s Sarah Szalavitz, Noodlescar’s Bonny Pierzina, Rudy and Casey from Galacticast and Pulp Secret, Felicia Day from The Guild and Dr. Horrible, Rick Rey and brother Eric, ABC Family’s Brigitte Dale, and videoblogger super-agent George Ruiz, as well as gangs from Strike TV and Tiki Bar TV, and our good friend Micki Krimmel.
Tiki Bar TV’s Tosca Musk, Jeff Macpherson. See more photos by Techzulu.
We intended the night as a chance to celebrate how far we’d all come since the Halloween Vlogfest party two years ago, and everyone did have a great time together, but after several weeks of bad economic news, some of the conversations were pretty sober, despite the open bar. The next year is looking daunting for independent creators as advertisers rethink their spending, studios are trying to conserve their funding, and competition is still growing — all while the mainstream Hollywood business many LA videobloggers rely on for day work has been cutting back since before the writer’s strike.
At Next New Networks, we’re fielding intense advertiser interest, with major new sponsors contacting us daily, and I believe strongly that the low-cost value and growing audience of online video will be a beacon for sponsorship, so there couldn’t have been a better time for us to get together with our friends on the West Coast and tell them that we’re feeling better than ever about online television, and that we’re seeing lots of opportunity for people like them, who have proven again and again that they can create great entertainment on budgets that would barely cover craft services for network TV.
In the coming weeks and months, we’re going to be rolling out more opportunities for independent creators backed by major sponsors who really believe in this space. We’re grateful for their support, and know from the two year track record that we and everyone at that party have amassed that we can deliver value unmatched by any other media, which is the best thing you could possibly offer in times like these.
Kent Nichols, Felicia Day and me. See more photos by George Ruiz.
Some related posts from the party: Expert Insight on the Economic Crisis…From Online Video Elite! by NewTeeVee’s Liz Shannon Miller, and Despair and New Media, by Ask a Ninja’s Kent Nichols.
Two years ago, in a nondescript office park in Santa Monica, many friendly LA online video faces met for the first time. The original cast of characters included Steve and Zadi of Epic Fu, the Amanda Across America team, Alex Albrecht from Diggnation, Ask a Ninja, French Maid TV, Big Fantastic and other rockstar videomakers like Noodlescar, Invisible Engine, Mickipedia, The Rey Brothers, and Steve Garfield.
Wow, look how far videoblogging has come.
To fit with the reunion theme, many of original party-goers are invited to drink on us and our co-hosts and we hope all our new LA friends will join the fun as well! So stop on by and find your favorite friend from years past or come make some new ones. The location is still TBD. No costumes necessary unless that’s your thing.
Please let us know if you’ll be there, and here’s a Facebook page for the event.
The Associated Press put out a story today highlighting ThreadBanger’s great tips for making your own Halloween costumes, which has already shown up on no less an outlet than ABC News, complete with photos of Rob and Corinne.
Make Your Own Halloween Fairy or Mummy Costume on ABC News.
This story grew out of ThreadBanger’s growing work with the Craft and Hobby Association, who have been championing ThreadBanger as the future of crafting, including featuring ThreadBanger recently at the American Sewing Expo. Congrats to Rob, Corinne and Erin for cultivating such a great relationship.
As a new feature here on the blog, we’re ripping off the great Jason Kottke and running recent excerpts from our Twitter feed (and the occasional tweet from someone on our our team). Are you following Next New Networks on Twitter? We used to use it simply to publish links to new episodes, but now we’re using it to talk more directly to our fans, highlight standout programming, and post links to news articles and blog posts about the company.
Recently on twitter:
More to come. If you’d like to follow Next New Networks people on Twitter, here’s a roundup:
In the News