DECA

Project Lore Host Alex Albrecht Wins Streamy Award

 by Chris Kimbell Honors & Awards, Project Lore Announcements March 30th, 2009 at 6:21 pm No Comments


This weekend, Alex Albrecht won the Streamy Award for Best Web Series Host for his work on Project Lore. This is a great accomplishment for Alex, the entire Project Lore team, and DECA. Congratulations to Alex on the win, and thanks and congratulations to everyone who has worked so hard to make Project Lore a great web property, especially General Manager Kory Klem, show editor Charles Ottaway, and site editor Brandon Sato.

Last but not least, thank you to the Streamys for putting on a great inaugural event and recognizing Alex and Project Lore. If you missed the ceremony on Saturday night, read about all the winners at Tubefilter and see the photos at Flickr.

Photo: TheBuiBrothers.com

Introducing the New Smosh.com

 by Barry Blumberg Smosh Announcements March 24th, 2009 at 12:58 pm No Comments

smosh
My first conversations with Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox - the guys behind YouTube and web success Smosh - were about how Smosh could be much more than two guys making videos. We imagined a unique brand responsive to the wants and needs of its youth audience, something like what they had already begun on their own, but bigger, broader, and better.

When I joined forces with them in early 2007, we had the talent and the vision to set our course and begin our journey. What we lacked were the resources to get there on our own. Enter DECA and a strategic partnership formed in October 2008 to help us along the way. Our first step with DECA was to build out the Smosh website into a destination for like-minded teens and young adults to gather, play games, consume content, and socialize with one another.

Now, after months of hard work by Anthony, Ian, and the amazing team at DECA led by Chris Kimbell, Christian Sanz, Matt West, and Jennifer McDonnell, we’re proud to present the new Smosh.com. (See the Smosh relaunch press release here.)

The first thing Smosh users will notice is the new design - it’s more polished than before, but we think the expression is still authentic to Smosh. We’ve added a carousel to our homepage, which has made the site easier to navigate and allows us to surface content more effectively. Users will also find a brand-new section of casual games that includes “Smosh Fighter,” in which Anthony and Ian battle each other.

Technologically speaking, the site will work more seamlessly, with vastly greater capacity for handling traffic driven by our announcements and bonus content. In addition, our user profiles, merchandise page, and video pages have all been improved and we have added a special section for contests.

On top of everything else, and perhaps most important, we have designed the site to accommodate our growth and expansion plans. Down the road, our audience will have the ability to enjoy more games, watch video blogs from selected personalities, participate via user blogs, and see video content from other talented creators and performers.

As one might imagine, this is a very exciting time for Anthony, Ian, and me. A lot of what we thought Smosh could be from the very beginning is starting to be realized. Our partnership with DECA and hard work on everyone’s part has made this possible.

So visit Smosh.com and enjoy the site. Let me know what you think, and if you are under 24, I just might listen.

DECA and the Streamy Awards

 by Chris Kimbell Boing Boing TV Announcements, DECA News, Honors & Awards, Project Lore Announcements March 19th, 2009 at 12:24 pm No Comments

the-streamy-awards
Congratulations to the two DECA properties that are being honored with Streamy Award nominations: Boing Boing TV and Project Lore are both up for “Best Hosted Web Series,” and Xeni Jardin and Alex Albrecht have each been nominated for “Best Web Series Host.”

The Project Lore team has also been nominated for the Streamys Audience Choice Award and is one of ten contenders that represent the most-nominated web series overall. As you might have guessed, the Audience Choice winner will be determined by audience votes. So please support Project Lore by voting for them once a day through March 28.

See you at the Streamys!

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How about birth by zipper?

by admin All Press, Cool Mom Press March 17th, 2009 at 5:03 pm Comments Off

Daphne Brogdon of Cool Mom contributed an essay about childbirth to the April 2009 issue of Pregnancy. Excerpt:

What’s with the superiority of vaginal birthers? I’ll admit it, I once was one of them. Of course this was before I’d given birth. When I was pregnant with my daughter, I envisioned a totally natural birth. I was all ready to drop her in an open field, cut the cord with a nearby branch, and wrap her up in a hemp blanket. It didn’t go like that. She was breech and late, so after much protest I succumbed to a C-section. Sure I felt like a truck had hit me for the first few days afterward, but at least I could still hold my pee in. Life is full of trade-offs.

YouTube Plays Partner

by admin All Press, Smosh Press March 15th, 2009 at 5:07 pm No Comments

Among the media companies with the most popular channels on YouTube are Universal Music Group, CBS, Showtime, and the National Basketball Association. Mixed in with those big names are a pair that you’ve probably never heard of: Mondo Media (currently the sixth most-viewed channel) and Smosh (No. 13).

Both are examples of a growing number of independent content producers that have built sizable audiences on the Google-owned video behemoth. These mostly born-on-the-Web players say that after a slow start, YouTube has become a far more collaborative distribution partner and is quietly becoming a consistent revenue generator…

Similarly, Smosh—which features a pair of 21-year-old guys who produce sophomoric comedy sketch videos—has noticed a shift at YouTube. “They have evolved,” said Barry Blumberg, general manager of Smosh. “Now we have an actual person [dedicated to our account]. They are better organized, and they call us with ad opportunities.”

Project Lore 1.5: New Features, New Content

 by Kory Klem Project Lore Announcements March 4th, 2009 at 10:53 am No Comments

I’m pleased to announce the launch of Project Lore 1.5! Watch Alex Albrecht explain some of our new features:

Over the past 7 months, the Project Lore team has focused on bringing our users the best WoW-related video content on the web, and we recently celebrated our 100th episode. But as our fan base continues to grow, we know that we need to continue growing Project Lore. Here’s what we’ve done with Project Lore 1.5:

  • New Design: We shifted some things around to make it easier for users to see what’s happening on our site each week.
  • More Content: We’ll have lots more blog content each day, coming from an expanded pool of some very talented bloggers, as well as new video.
  • Forums: Our users have been asking for them, and now they’ll be able to deepen their World of Warcraft knowledge and more easily connect with other Lore-ites on the Project Lore Forums. In the first 24 hours of Project Lore 1.5, users have already created more than 900 forum posts!
  • Big Red Kitty: One of WoW’s premier hunters, BRK will be lending his insights to the Project Lore blog as well as creating weekly, how-to WoW videos.

And we’re not done yet. Stay tuned, as we’ve got a number of great new initiatives launching over the coming weeks!