E3 is the biggest gaming expo in the industry, and our Executive Integrated Producer, Tommy Liu, tells us all about it. “A picture is worth a thousand words, and I can’t shut up.”

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The other day, I was traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco, and I finally understood the amazing impact of social media.

I find that I meet so many business contacts on airplanes, at bus stops, on trains, etc.  How do you maximize your interactions within such a short window of time?

Let’s use the analogy of a five-course meal, because let’s face it: it’s the only kind worth having.

1^st Course—Soup:
This is that awkward moment when you’re sitting before the airplane takes off.  You’re surveying the landscape.  You look at who is sitting around you and scope out potential connections.  If there’s a baby nearby, you know you’re in for a fun flight…

2^nd Course—Salad:
Here’s where you smile at the person next to you.  If they smile back, you introduce yourself, “Hi, my name is Jessica.  What’s yours?”  Simple.  Casual.  At least you’re not complete strangers now.  There’s a flight announcement letting you know it’s safe to turn on your electronic devices.  Two hours until landing.

3^rd Course—Appetizer:
If you’re going to get to know anyone, here’s where you’ll start.  You glance over and notice the person next to you typing up some kind of agenda.  You nod in the direction of the screen and say, “—That for work?”  One hour until landing.

The Internet is undoubtedly a constantly-evolving medium that goes through changes at almost light speed. As marketers, it is our job to keep up with these changes, stay informed about the latest trends and technologies, create some of our own, and anticipate where our users are going next. If you need proof of this rapid evolution, just take a look at how the Internet was five or ten years ago, or even just last year. I can’t say I’m sorry to see some of these past trends go, but it does make me feel all warm and fuzzy reflecting on the Internet of yesteryear. Take a trip down memory lane with the ghost of Internet past and remember 10 of our favorite bits of Internet nostalgia.

1. Geocities
   Ah, Geocities, where would we have been without you? Many of us got our start with PageBuilder, crafting stunning sites complete with neon colors, strangely aligned images, and animated gifs. We deeply mourned its passing in October 2009. The world will never be the same again. Be sure to check out what Supercool Creative would have looked like on Geocities thanks to the brilliant Geocities-izer.
2. MIDI
   The tinny renditions of popular songs, the racing to shut off your speakers when one of them auto-plays on a page. What would websites from the 90s/early 2000s have been without MIDI?

Filmmakers, drinks, shorts screenings, and Supercool Creative

The Shorts ‘N Spirits Showcase LA was held at On the Rox in West Hollywood yesterday night. It was a great networking event—filmmakers, marketers, and movie buffs alike came to mingle and meet.

Three shorts screened: Manipulation by Frank Zanca (Co-Founder of Visions Media, LLC which manages the ITV Fest), Supa Pirate Booty Hunt by Dahveed Kolodny-Nagy (Creative Director of Smorgasbord Productions), and The Dungeon Master by Shiloh & Rider Strong (Founders of The Strong Brothers Magic Show).

The headlining short was the Strong Brothers’ The Dungeon Master, a quirky, laugh-out-loud comedy about men who revisit their nerdy childhood days by striking up a game of Dungeons & Dragons with an eccentric Dungeon Master.  But the game soon leads them down a path they would have never expected. 

Supercool Creative’s Executive Integrated Producer Tommy Liu is at E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, at the Los Angeles Convention Center this week, getting the latest news on computer and video games and technology and networking with other industry professionals. He sent us this postcard today from the Disney booth, where they were promoting their new game Disney Universe, showing us just how tough his job truly is.

Poor guy.

It should be obvious by now that we’re moving towards a completely digital age. With the boom in social media sites, face-to-face interaction is decreasing rapidly.  Users now have the ability to socialize, network, or creep on an ex-girlfriend without having to leave the house. The same trend has leaked into our music taste as well. The music industry is becoming more and more about your technological knowledge rather than your natural-born musical talent. I guess we should have seen this one coming. Naturally, fads that start in Europe make their way over to us in about 2-5 years, the latest one being the explosion of electronic music onto the scene in the US.

Electronic music has different subcategories of music that are differentiated by their rhythm and tones—house, electro, and dubstep being the main ones. These have taken the music industry by storm. Traditional hip-hop artists are even growing weary of the future as more and more of them are being forced to use minimal lyrics on house beats that have already been released by major names in the electronic arena. The future promises fewer lyrics from your favorite rappers and hip-hop artists and heavier drops for dubstep fanatics.

In the marketing industry, we are always curious about our consumers. With just a little bit of in-between-the-lines thinking, we can decipher Facebook’s most infamous profile pictures. Think of it as client research.

1.     Flying Solo: The person that is always in the picture alone.  Could it be that they derive pleasure from being narcissistic?  The only time you see them in a picture with anyone other than themselves, is when they are holding a puppy up to their face and smiling oh-so-brightly.  Isn’t that cute?

2.     Two Peas in a Pod: The person that is always seen with a significant other.  You feel like you have lived their entire relationship inside and out.  You went on their first date together.  You were there on their anniversary.  When they bought a puppy.  When they moved in together.  Are you ready for the wedding?

3.     Lost in the Crowd: The person that you can barely see in the profile picture.  You could swear that the girl on the far right-hand corner is the girl you met in the bar yesterday night, but then again, could it be the girl in the middle?

4.     Animate This: The person that puts clip art as their profile picture.  Are they trying to say something about their personality?  Is it an inside joke?  Or maybe it’s just because that person can never seem to take even ONE decent looking picture!

Originally published on MediaPost, written by Supercool Creative Director David Murdico

I recently spoke at a social media marketing conference at my alma mater, The University of Southern California, on the topic of how social media and other marketing professionals can best get their C-level executives involved in, invested in, and taking leadership roles in video and social media marketing. I identified three areas that I feel are most important: education, integration and return on investment (ROI).

Many senior-level executives are reluctant to make the jump into video and social media marketing, and with good reason. Launched without proper planning, expectations, or without full support, social media campaigns can carry risks to the success of their brands, products, services and to their very jobs.

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Originally published on ReelSEO, written by Supercool Creative Director David Murdico

Supercool Creative recently had the opportunity to shoot night two of The DigiTour, the first ever YouTube sponsored live tour featuring some of YouTube’s top musicians including Dave Days, Savannah Outen, DeStorm, Joe Penna aka Mystery Guitar Man, Ricky Ficarelli, The Gregory Brothers aka Auto-Tune The News, David Choi and more. So, we sent our crew down to the Galaxy Theater in Orange County to be a part of internet history in the making.

In and of itself, the idea of a bunch of musicians packing into a tour bus and doing shows around the country for a couple of months is not that unusual. In and of itself, the idea of music acts posting their videos on YouTube is not that unusual. What makes this scene unusual is that most of these acts are becoming famous in their bedrooms and living rooms, developing and reaching larger and larger audiences on YouTube and other social media sites first, before ever hitting the road.

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Supercool Creative went behind the scenes at the very first YouTube DigiTour, which brings your favorite YouTube stars from the screen to the stage. We interviewed Dave Days, Savannah Outen, DeStorm, Joe Penna aka Mystery Guitar Man, Ricky Ficarelli, The Gregory Brothers aka Auto-Tune The News and more. Check out the video below for interviews, live performances and fan reactions, and visit thedigitour.com to see when the show will be in your town. You don’t want to miss it!