Music has long been a passion of mine. I have been writing about my favorite music on various sites for several years now, and last year I finally started my own personal music blog. Under the pseudonym Richie Styles, I began posting on a regular basis about indie rock, hip-hop, electronica, dance, jambands, and other genres. Earlier this year, I ditched the basic WordPress template I had been using and fully developed the site with a fresh design (pictured below). I also developed a social media presence for the site to help spread the word on Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, and other sites. Click on the image below to visit the site. Please peruse my posts and leave a comment, I love a good conversation about great music.
Two days ago, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of geeks, myself included, spent a couple of hours intently watching (sort of) Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveil his company’s latest “magical creation,” the iPad. By sort of, I mean that there was no live video feed, so I followed a live blog (literally a webpage that posts a few new pictures and comments every 30 seconds) and listened to a choppy audio broadcast from the iPhone of someone who was in the auditorium. Yes, it is as pathetic as it sounds. But I digress. What I want to talk about is the backlash, partially deserved, but mostly not in my opinion, against Apple’s launch of the iPad, which given the hype surrounding this event, was probably inevitable.
DISCLAIMER: Tumblr isn’t new and this is not a review. It is an analysis of Tumblr’s past, present and future, focusing on the site’s community, etiquette, and possible implications to copyright.
Tumblr is the future of blogging, and perhaps the future of art, and it’s going to change the world. It’s Twitter meets WordPress meets Flickr, not in terms of its technology per se, but in terms of community and popular usage. If you wonder how the next generation of artists feel about copyright, go to Tumblr. They are quietly starting a revolution while the rest of the world is busy tweeting like there’s no tomorrow. Do I think Twitter is a waste of time or that it’ll go the way of the dodo? (cough, MySpace) Absolutely not, but much has been made about the fact that teens don’t use Twitter, I suspect that they don’t because they find it boring (words only? seriously?) compared to a service like Tumblr. But I’ll get back to the kids in a minute.
“Zombies!” is a new music video by The Longwalls that was created by Rock Media. The video was directed by Louie Jannetty, produced by Josh Bethoney and myself, and was created with lots of help from the rest of the team in all facets of the project from pre-production to post. The video’s premiere, which coincided with Halloween quite appropriately, featured a screening at the Independence Mall movie theater in Kingston last night and a web premiere at the stroke of midnight (muhahahaha) on Hollywood East TV where we’ve been celebrating the occasion all week with special holiday treats like spooky new videos and a spiffy new design.
In June 2008, Plymouth Rock Studios launched Hollywood East TV, a broadband video channel, social networking site, and official online community for people interested in the growth of the Massachusetts film and television industry. I was the lead person in charge of developing and launching the site and have managed it since its inception. The site has grown to over 9,500 members (updated Jan. 2010) and is now home to “The Series: Plymouth Rock Studios,” our daily video series about the development of the studio, which recently celebrated its 200th episode.
The site has also featured “New Kids on the Rock” and “Neil Cicierega Presents,” two popular video series we created starring YouTube sensation Neil Cicierega (Potter Puppet Pals). The core team I have worked on this project with include fellow producer Josh Bethoney, web designers Jake Silva and Ken Monteiro, and various production staff and interns who have worked on content for the site or helped with viral marketing.
Several times over the last and year and half, we have tweaked the design of the site to reflect the changing of the seasons, which is a major difference between Hollywood “East” and Hollywood, California. Most recently, the site has been updated to celebrate Halloween and the release of “Zombies!” a new music video by the band The Longwalls that was produced by Rock Media. You can click on the image to visit the site.
UPDATE: As of May 2010, Hollywood East TV is no longer owned by Plymouth Rock Studios and may change drastically in terms of both design and content from the time when I managed it.
