Bruce Winterton's Barbarian Blog

TV ads are so easy!

bruce@barbariangroup.com(Bruce Winterton) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 19:14:23 -0400

It’s so easy to buy TV media these days even a child can do it. My son Brian spent $2 on Google AdWords to promote his webseries Guitarings (a collaboration with Kyle Gass of Tenacious D) and, after picking his programming schedule and demographic mix, sure enough, on Monday night at 3:19am on Versus, his 30 second TV spot ran, nationally. Haha. Awesome.

Here’s the spot:

I wonder at what point clients are just going to set up an account with Google and make their own media buys?

And ok, so at 24 my son’s not exactly a “child.” But it made for a better opening line to this post.

The (Not) Happening

bruce@barbariangroup.com(Bruce Winterton) — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:32:48 -0400

Watched The Happening today for 20 minutes. My wife Caroline had not seen it and I had told her how absolutely terrible (and irresponsible, because of the suicides) it is and she was mildly curious. So, we caught it midway on Showtime. It started with the so-bad-it’s-funny scene where Mark Wahlberg talks to the plastic plant. Here’s a clip of it. Oops, Twentieth Century Fox pulled all uses of this clip for copyright reasons. Why? What’s wrong with these people? When will Hollywood learn that YouTube and all of its friends (like, in this case, reddit) are EXCELLENT promotional mediums for copyrighted content? No one is going to watch an entire movie for free on YouTube but people will certainly watch a bunch of scenes from a movie for free on YouTube/friends and then, more interested than before, would be more likely to watch the ENTIRE MOVIE in the theater, or on DVD, or on Showtime. Right?

When I make my movie (I am writing an excellent horror movie with Caroline) I will release almost every scene on the Internet ahead of time and then people will want to see it all put together on a glorious big screen. Done.

I Hate Email

bruce@barbariangroup.com(Bruce Winterton) — Sat, 30 May 2009 15:02:30 -0400

It’s time for a new email system.

I don’t know if Google Wave is it but please, someone, make something new. I like multi-tasking and instant information and interactivity and I find email too linear, uncomfortably transactional, increasingly dull and, well, old-fashioned. I want to know everything important now and I don’t want to “see below” or “scroll down for details,” particularly now that I read on my phone.

That’s it.

Send me an email (bruce@barbariangroup.com) with your thoughts.

Slippery Slope

bruce@barbariangroup.com(Bruce Winterton) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:04:35 -0400

Hahaha. I did an interview on behalf of my landlord for the Boston Globe and a story about smoke free apartments. Then the dude wanted a photo and I was supposed to leave at 7am to take a train to NYC so, lo and behold, at 6:45am, they take of picture of me making coffee. And it’s the sole photos of this piece. Hahaha.

Those are juggling balls inexplicably in the margarita vase.

Oscar Snub

bruce@barbariangroup.com(Bruce Winterton) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:27:11 -0500

I have been wrestling with how to write-up my completely uninspiring Oscar night. I was on Oscar.com using what was supposed to be an online, updated instantly, running poll amongst fans. (The Oscars are kinda like the Super Bowl in my household. I acutally picked 21/24 this year. An easy year.)

Anyway, here is what I got, for about an hour. I guess I am speechless because it’s been over a week since the show ran.

When is someone going to give me some kick ass companion content?