Fabric Media - Public Relations

Public Relations

Public Relations for Media Companies and those Who Help Build the Media Industry

Fabric Media employs a relationship and business based approach to media relations. Because the foundation of our business is helping media companies collaborate to increase audience, generate revenues, cut costs, and leverage new trends; we only work with clients that can offer something in the value chain.

Unlike many firms in the PR industry, we do not spam people with press releases followed by uninformed calls. We leverage existing relationships with members of the media and cultivate new relationships on your behalf. We know who we are calling, why it will interest them, and we position your brand as a helpful, relevant, and interesting resource for years to come.

Our track record for success comes from building client trust, maintaining integrity, showing respect, keeping solid working relationships, taking a relentless and creative approach, and having an eye for what will make news and benefit the industry. We do not seek the equivalent of “one write stands” for our clients. We do pursue opportunities to deliver recurring value to the media on your behalf and we are always mindful that all PR efforts must be aligned with your business goals.

But don’t just take our word for it, take a look at some samples:

Example of a launch, Pixorial, a collaborative online video service.

Brand Launch: Red Robot and Crocs

Clearleap: revolutionary TV technology platform (cable, web video, technology).

One year of Highlights; main stream; ad and TV trades: maniaTV and Dave Navarro

Social Media: Wiredset and Trendrr

International, benevolent: The Love Hope Strength Foundation

Gaming industry results: GGL Global Gaming


Here's what we've been up to this fall: More Results: July/August 2009 \| June 2009 \| May 2009 \| March & April 2009 Q1 2009 \| Q4 2008 \| Q3 2008 \| Q2 2008 \| Q1 2008 \| 2007

As Seen In Advertising Age
Happy Avatar Day, America! Wait, are you reading this at your office? What are you doing at work?! Don't you know that, if you live in the United States, this is an off-day? A bill was rushed through Congress earlier this week declaring today Avatar Day, a new national holiday, so that Americans can rush out to see matinees of "Avatar," the most-hyped movie of the year, before seeing it a second time tonight, because it's so amazingly good you have to see it twice. I kid. I think. Which brings me to this week's Trendrr chart. – Simon Dumenco, December 18, 2009


Break Media Looking to Crack Cable TV The Los Angeles, Calif.-based Break, which operates a slew of young male–oriented sites loaded with sophomoric videos (Break.com) and pictures of pretty girls (Chickipedia), has announced a partnership with Clearleap, a company which provides content distribution technology to various cable MSOs, including Atlantic Broadband and Bresnan Communications. As a result of the new partnership, these cable companies now have the option to begin including Break content within their existing video-on-demand channels, or to build out standalone Break-branded VOD channels. – Mike Shields, December 17, 2009


Quick Clicks: ‘If I Can Dream’, ‘Anyone But Me’, Break’s Leap, ‘Beautiful Life’ Break Media, which owns popular video site Break.com along with a slew of other male-focused sites, announced a partnership with VOD platform Clearleap via the Clearleap’s Content Marketplace, making selected videos and web series available to cable and IPTV providers for their VOD offerings. -Marc Hustvedt, December 17, 2009


Break Media Breaks In at Clearleap Clearleap, which successfully deployed its technology platform into the infrastructure of twenty cable and IPTV systems in 2009, will automatically make the content TV ready and deliver Break.com’s video offerings to operators within minutes, making the content workflow simple and seamless for both TV operators and Break. – December 17, 2009


Break Media Inks Video On Demand Deal Los Angeles-based Break Media, which operates a number of male-oriented video and other content sites, announced Thursday that the firm has inked a deal with IPTV firm Clearleap. According to Break, the deal calls for Clearleap to include a part of Break's video library in Clearleap's Content Marketplace, which is used by cable and IPTV providers for serving up their video on demand programming. – December 17, 2009


StatShot: Show Tunes and Face Punches Rule Twitter Sectionals! Regionals! Will the Glee madness ever stop? Not on Twitter, according to recent stats from Trendrr, where Glee continued to top the charts as the most talked-about show for what feels like the 100th week in a row. It’s so predictable that we don’t even publish the chart anymore, but all you Gleeks will be happy to know that you sent a total of 144,601 Twitter posts throughout the week. – Janko Roettgers, December 14, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Sue Sylvester vs. Don Draper: A Twitter Beatdown Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week Yesterday I called the Fox hit "Glee" "The Most Twitter-Worthy Sitcom of the Year" as part of Day 5 of my "12 Days of Holiday Giveaways," a round-up of my favorite media of the year. Today I thought I'd quantify the rather impressive impact of Gleeks (as fans of "Glee" call themselves) in the Twittersphere -- and, to put things in context, I decided to compare the "Glee" Twitter trendline with that of another media-world (and personal) TV favorite, "Mad Men," which of course gained its share of Twitter buzz awhile back thanks to its tweeting characters. A few notes and observations…-Simon Dumenco, December 11, 2009


A New Source of Stress: Feelings of Social Media Inadequacy It can sometimes be tricky to know whether a company representative should engage in a conversation that's happening about a product or service. The conventional wisdom is that you should jump in, but some experts urge caution. It's like "not being invited to a party but showing up with a gift; it doesn't make it any better," says Mark Ghuneim, CEO of Trendrr, a company that allows its clients to track what people are saying about their brand across social and traditional media alike. Ghuneim believes companies should instead break important information into bits that are easy to digest and share. This will subtly encourage their brand advocates and loyal customers to promote the information autonomously. – Josh Spiro, December 9, 2009


Play Need for Speed Shift, Win a Car? Darned Close Electronic Arts Inc., GGL Global Gaming and AutoTrader.com today announced the Need for Speed SHIFT Gaming competition whereby fans will have the opportunity to compete for $40,000 in prizes, a grand prize of $30,000 toward a car on AutoTrader.com. – Christopher Rick, December 8, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
And the Buzziest Billion-Dollar Brand of the Week Is... The buzziest billion-dollar brand of the week is also the most-embattled brand of the week. You saw this coming: It's Tiger Woods.Usually the Trendrr Chart of the Week focuses on one metric, but this week we're offering a three-course buzz buffet. A few notes and observations..-Simon Dumenco, December 4, 2009


How many tweets does it take to make a #spill trend? Real time tracking service Trendrr reported the #spill hashtag peaked at 2810 tweets per hour, or a little 45 per minute in an hour by hour analysis. – December 4, 2009


The Tiger Woods Scandal Digital Media Frenzy Reflected by Trendrr.com Trendrr is a cloud-based media monitoring service that allows users to track the popularity and awareness of trends across a variety of inputs, ranging from social networks, to blog buzz and video views downloads, all in real time. For a PR professional, this type of service is among the most valuable on the market. Trendrr provides intelligence, in this definition of the term. - Liliana Dumitru-Steffens, December 3, 2009


Glee Gives Thanks for Fan Tweets What can we say about Glee and Twitter that we haven’t already said? Not much other than fans of the show still Tweet about it even while stuffing their face with, well, stuffing. After losing ground to Oprah, Glee took back the Twitter crown with a total of more than 83,000 Tweets for the week, peaking at nearly 33,000. – Chris Albrecht, November 30, 2009


Thai companies join Twitter stampede Pawoot Pongvitayapanu, president of Thailand's largest e-commerce websiteTarad.com, advised that several tools were currently available that companies could use along with their Twitter accounts. For example, he said to evaluate marketing via Twitter, companies could use TwitterCounter.com, TweetStats.com or Trendrr.com, as well as Monitteer.com, Tweetgrid.com, Twubs.com and Twitdeck.com. Asina Pornwasin, December 1, 2009


~ WEBSITE OF THE DAY ~ Pixorial.com is new collaborative video sharing site that allows you to upload or snail mail video in virtually any format (VHS, VHS-C, Betamax, MiniDV, Super 8 - you name it,) digitize it, then make it available to friends and family. Send a link to potential collaborators to allow them to write goofy comments, create their own mash-ups or add their own footage to the mix. The online software is intuitive and idiot-proof, allowing you to easily drag-and-drop scenes, insert titles or even add fades into the video. It's also a perfect platform for e-cards. – Wayne Karrfalt, December 1, 2009


Goodies & Gadgets Pixorial.com is a Web site that helps you edit, share, back up, and create DVDs of your home movies, whether the movies are stored on your computer or on tape. With a Pro Membership, you have unlimited uploads, unlimited archival storage (as long as your account is active), and ad-free use of the applications on the Web site. In terms of digital content, Pixorial.com supports many video formats and lets you upload up to 768MB of video at one time. The Pixorial.com team can also convert video from your VHS, Digital8, Hi8, Betamax, miniDV, 8mm, and Super 8 tapes to a digital format if you ship the tapes to it. Your shared video memories are secured behind password protection on the Web site, and you can create DVDs and order digital copies of your home videos. – December 2009


Credit Canada ad wins Best Original Song award Holmes said the spot has translated into success for the Credit Canada brand. "Wherever the song has gone, the ad has gone with it," he said. The commercial is posted on Harding's MySpace page, along with the full-length version of the song. Last September, her page received as many as 125,000 hits per day, according to figures from Trendrr. – Kristin Laird, November 30, 2009


Collaborative Video Editing, Without Software A new company called Pixorial aims to change that by providing a simple way to convert, edit and share old videos online. A hallmark of the service is that it offers a collaborative viewer in which your friends and family can watch and comment on specific scenes of videos in full resolution. (The comments pop up in the lower pane of the viewer as the video is played.) - Rik Fairlie, November 30, 2009


Eat more to weigh less Dr. Michael A. Snyder, a bariatric surgeon at Rose Medical Center in Denver, is founder of Fullbar and leader of the Be Full, Eat Less movement. – November 28, 2009


Amazon Tops Walmart, Target, and Best Buy in Black Friday Twitter Buzz It’s Black Friday and while there’s plenty of offline deals to be had, and you can use social media to find them, one online retailer is dominating its offline competition when it comes to Twitter. Data from Trendrr is showing that Twitter buzz around Amazon leading up to Black Friday far surpasses that of the Twitter buzz surrounding some of the nation’s leading offline retailers, including Target, Best Buy, and even Walmart. Data also shows that Amazon Black Friday tweets accounted for almost 32% of all Black Friday tweets yesterday. – Jennifer Van Grove, November 27, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
What Does Black Friday Even Mean Anymore? Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week As I was contemplating this edition of the Trendrr chart -- the weekly dose of social-media buzz-tracking that normally runs on Friday, but which we've moved up because of the Thanksgiving holiday -- I began to think about the very meaning of "Black Friday" circa 2009. It's always been a weird marketing construct -- as if consumers ever really cared that the day after Thanksgiving is a chance for retailers to clear the red ink from their ledgers and go into the black (though who knows how realistic that expectation is this year). And while the supposed joy of frenzied bargain-hunting still gets celebrated in the media (shots of bustling mall scenes will surely open local newscasts across the country Friday evening), the darker possibilities, like last year's gruesome Walmart stampede, remain an unsettling subtext. – Simon Dumenco, November 25, 2009


People On The Move Clearleap tapped Peter J. Ansel as vice president of business development. Most recently, he was vice president of advertising strategy at Move Networks. – November 24, 2009


StatShot: Oprah Topples Gleeks on Twitter While the fall TV season has been all about Glee in terms of Twitter, Oprah proved that kids singing show tunes are no match for her mighty media empire. The queen of daytime announced last week that she was calling it quits on her eponymous syndicated talk show and focusing her efforts on her cable network. The move sent shock waves through the social media world, with Oprah mentions spiking at more than 48,000 tweets on Friday, though that trending topic quickly cooled over the weekend. (She’s not leaving until 2011, after all.) All said and done, more than 120,000 posts about Oprah hit Twitter last week. – Chris Albrecht, November 23, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Vampires Attack Oprah and Sarah Palin! Run For Your Lives! Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week What a surreal, epic week in mass media. On Monday, Sarah Palin appeared on "Oprah," then on Thursday Oprah announced she's quitting her talk show. (Apparently Palin wanted to make the announcement -- she's still mad she didn't get to make a concession speech a year ago -- but Oprah overruled her. I kid! I think.) Meanwhile, vampires rule the Earth. – Simon Dumenco, November 20, 2009


Fans seek midnight romance under light of “New Moon” “New Moon,” of course, has generated plenty of buzz. Tracking firm Trendrr said that in the last three months, more than 100,000 “New Moon” related videos have been added to YouTube.com. Trendrr also said that on Thursday, Twitter.com received more than 91,000 posts related to “New Moon.” – Alex Dobuzinskis, November 20, 2009


Oprah Ends Talk Show: Twitter Erupts with 8,000 Tweets Per Hour Not only does Oprah now dominate Twitter’s (Your browser may not support display of this image. ) trending topics across multiple terms, which is quite remarkable given the volume of New Moon noise, but Trendrr has alerted us to the fact that Oprah mentions, in just the first hour alone after the news broke, skyrocketed to more than 8,000 tweets. – Jennifer Van Grove, November 19, 2009


~ EXECUTIVE MOVES ~ Clearleap tapped Peter J. Ansel as its VP/Business Development, overseeing strategic partnerships, alliances and technology integrations. Previous to joining TV technology platform, Peter was VP/Advertising Strategy at Move Networks.- Wayne Karrfalt, November 19, 2009


What’s Clickin’ Thursday, Nov. 19th Today (Thursday) is the day thousands of twilight fans have been waiting for. New moon, the next chapter of the saga hits theaters at midnight. Trendrr.com , a research site say they were around 81,000 new moon tweets since word of the movie coming out. For tickets, just visit Fandango.com or movietickets.com. –November 19, 2009


Twilight New Moon Social Media Mania Nets 81,000 Tweets Per Day Data from Trendrr also shows that tweets, around the time of the premiere, peaked at more than 12,000 tweets per hour. And the hysteria is just getting started. As you can tell from the graph above, New Moon related tweets are now climbing at an exponential rate, with over 81,000 tweets on Tuesday, November 17th. – Jennifer Van Grove, November 18, 2009


Twitter Traffic Rockets into Space Along With Shuttle Atlantis Thanks to yesterday's NASA tweetup, in which 96 very lucky TwitterYour browser may not support display of this image. members got to view the launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from close up and live-tweet about it, Twitter traffic spiked at the hour of launch, with nearly 3,000 tweets mentioning NASA, according to Trendrr.com, a service that tracks social mediaYour browser may not support display of this image. trends. – Tony Hoffman, November 17, 2009


Clearleap Fuses Broadband Video and VOD in MaxPreps-Comcast Deal Gluing the parties together is Clearleap, a technology provider I last wrote about here. As Braxton Jarratt, Clearleap's CEO explained to me, MaxPreps uses a team of freelance videographers to shoot and edit the video. They're given access to dedicated Clearleap accounts so that they can upload the video for a local MaxPreps content manager to review their work. –Will Richmond, November 16, 2009


CKFree push leverages social networking apps In the past, Wiredset has helped COTY and Calvin reach out to Web forums and bloggers covering men's lifestyle and fashion. For the CKFree launch, the companies also debuted a Google maps smash-up application, which allows men to recommended locations for the best places to live free and to design postcards to send to friends. For example, Calvin Klein model Jamie Dornan notes that North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway is a destination where drivers can freely enjoy the open road. – Cara Wood, November 16, 2009


Swine Flu Related Appointments up 6250% [Web Data] One of the reasons swine flu has stayed top of mind in the collective conscious of the public is social media. In April we were seeing over 10,000 tweets per hour about swine flu, and while that number has dropped, we are still consistently seeing up to 800 tweets per hour, according to Trendrr graphs, during peak times (note: tweets for “H1N1″ are at approximately the same levels). Swine flu has clearly become a part of the regular daily conversation. - November 16, 2009


How Rapleaf Is Data-Mining Your Friend Lists to Predict Your Credit Risk Rapleaf is one of a multitude of innovative start-ups currently driving the burgeoning social media monitoring (SMM) space. Going by names like Trendrr, Trackur, and Sentiment Metrics, SMM firms use sophisticated algorithms to collect and analyze the vast amount of personal data consumers leave in their online wake. Post a comment about a book on Amazon? Review a restaurant on Yelp? Rapleaf's computers analyze your words and file them away in your "social graph."- Lucas Conley, November 16, 2009


MaxPreps.com in High-School Sports VOD Deal with Comcast The new service represents MaxPreps.com's initial foray into the cable VOD space. The company produces all its content in-house, and the content is then delivered to Comcast Houston by Clearleap, an Atlanta-based company which offers a technology platform for bringing Internet-sourced video content to television sets (note: earlier this year, Clearleap announced deployments with Atlantic Broadband and Bresnan--see the articles published on itvt.com, June 30th and September 13th). – Tracy Swedlow, November 16, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Instead of Tweeting About Twitter, Why Not Tweet About Your Smartphone? This week's Trendrr chart tracks Twitter buzz surrounding the iPhone, Blackberry, the Palm Pre, Google's Android operating system and Verizon's Droid. A few notes and observations…-Simon Dumenco, November 13, 2009


Out to Lunch These days, I’m wiser, and have taken what was my usual big lunch and divided it into two mini-meals. It works great; I highly recommend it to keep your metabolism revving and your energy up. For a perfect pre-lunch mini meal, I’ve been eating these FullBites, which are made by the same people who make the previously reviewed FullBar. I’ll have a package of the Bold Cheddar flavor (my fave of all the kinds offered) with a big apple, and it’ll tide me over for a couple hours. – November 12, 2009


Pixorial - Ushering back the return of the Betamax Pixorial is the kind of service you need if you've got an old skool media library - they'll convert your VCR tapes to DVD - and also 8 mm or Hi8 or, yes, Betamax video cassettes - and film too - then store your photos, video and audio for you on their servers. It's a smart way to preserve those memories (cassette tape doesn't last forever you know) but even better, you can then upload your converted digital video back to your computer so you can edit your own movies to share it with the world.- Liz Gumbinner – November 7, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Never Mind Virginia or Jersey. What Does Twitter Think About Brand Obama? All right, so the pundits have spoken about what the people were actually saying when the people spoke. Fine. Now, for this week's Trendrr chart -- make that charts -- let's dive back into the Twittersphere. A few notes and observations..- Simon Dumenco, November 6, 2009


Pixorial uses home movies to liven up your Christmas e-cards This is a pretty natural extension of Englewood, Colo.-based Pixorial’s video-editing technology, which may be be a better fit for non-techies than software like iMovie, because it’s simple to use, and if any video editing seems too hard for you, you can also send the Pixorial team members your VHS tapes and they’ll handle the online transfer. – Anthony Ha, November 5, 2009


Best of the Net 65: Pixorial Listen now: Download this episode Pixorial allows you to take digital video as well as analog video on old cassette tapes and cut it up! Edit things together, then distribute it to your friends and family in digital form or in a hardcopy form such as a DVD. - Dave Moyer , November 2, 2009


Damn, Yankees Top Twitter in World Series Mentions We may be veering off too far into sports territory here, but the World Series is a video event, so we’ll go ahead and post the news that not only are the New York Yankees up 3 – 1 over Philly, A-Rod and Co. are also being out-Tweeted over the Phillies. According to Trendrr, the Yankees dominated the social media buzz last week, averaging roughly 35,000 Twitter posts a day, and the Phillies have averaged just 20,000. New York peaked early in the week with more than 76,000 Tweets about the team (how many of them were from @om?). – Chris Albrecht, November 2, 2009


Weight Loss Journal FullBar Review: It turns out that Dr. Snyder had invented a product called the FullBar. The idea behind the Fullbar is to provide a healthy and delicious bar when eaten with a glass of water fills your stomach and provides the felling of of being full. Clever name right? So, the complimentary bars arrived Thursday. There were 3 flavors in my package: Cocoa Crisp, Penut Butter Crunch, and Carmel Apple Crisp. I can attest they all taste great and are made with great ingredients like Agave Nectar and Brown Rice Syrup. From a hunger control stand point they work too... I ate mine with lunch and had a hard time eating anything for lunch or dinner. – October 31, 2009


Fullbites, From Fullbar Fullbar, the makers of a fast-growing, best-selling weight-loss tool that naturally mimics the effects of bariatric surgery, has introduced Fullbites, a brand new hunger management snack that allows dieters to feel full while indulging in a savory nibble that curbs the craving for chips and other diet busting snacks. – October 29, 2009


Clearleap Intros New Content Management Platform Internet-based TV technology platform provider Clearleap has introduced Content Marketplace, a new customizable content management platform that leverages Internet technologies to provide acquisition and aggregation of local, traditional and Web video content. - Anshu Shrivastava, October 27, 2009


Clearleap Launches Content Marketplace, Secures New Content Partnerships Clearleap, an Atlanta-based company which offers a technology platform for bringing Internet-sourced video content to television sets (note: the company has announced deployments with Atlantic Broadband and Bresnan--see the articles published on itvt.com, June 30th and September 13th), on Monday announced a new offering called Content Marketplace, which it bills as a customizable content-management platform that leverages Internet technologies to enable quick and easy acquisition and aggregation of local, traditional and Web video content.- Tracy Swedlow, October 27, 2009


StatShot: Dollhouse Is a Doozy on Twitter Because the Gleeks have basically taken over Twitter with their musical Tweets, crushing the competition on the Most Twittered TV Shows list, the good folks at Trendrr decided mix things up this week. With Glee’s dominance out of the picture the remaining graph looks more interesting. – Chris Albrecht, October 26, 2009


Clearleap Delivers Web Video Clearleap, a venture-backed Atlanta company started last year to help pay-TV operators ingest, transcode and manage content, thinks it has solved the problem. The company has developed a turnkey system for making popular Internet video available on cable operators' video-on-demand systems. – Glen Dickson, October 26, 2009


Clearleap Adds Content Partners Clearleap, the Internet based TV technology platform, today announced Content Marketplace, a new customizable content management platform that leverages internet technologies to provide quick and easy acquisition and aggregation of local, traditional and web video content. The Marketplace was designed to give cable and IPTV providers greater programming flexibility, volumes of more content and the ability to deliver fresh programming to VOD daily, without any work required. – October 26, 2009


Broadband Briefs for 10/26/09 Providers can package Web content with Clearleap system Clearleap is introducing a customizable content management system designed to provide quick and easy acquisition and aggregation of local, traditional and Web video content. Content Marketplace includes best-of-the-Web video that is vetted, scouted, licensed and pre-packaged by genre. Cable and IPTV operators can deploy an entire genre of programming, Clearleap claims, with one-click acquisition. – Brian Santo, October 26, 2009


CTAM Summit 2009: Clearleap Adds Content Partners For Web-To-VOD Platform According to Clearleap, cable and IPTV operators can use Content Marketplace to deploy an entire genre of programming with "one-click acquisition" and can filter and sort content by programmer, rating and popularity. TV providers also can preview content within the publishing and management platform, and dynamically adjust settings to ensure the content ingest is aligned with performance of a particular package. – Todd Spangler, October 26, 2009


Online Video Tech Firm Clearleap Rolls Out Self-Serve VOD Marketplace Service providers need to integrate Clearleap’s content and ad management system into their existing VOD programming platform to access the marketplace. The company added its first two large cable providers—Atlantic Broadband and Bresnan Communications—within the past five months; it serves both content and locally-targeted ads for both. Clearleap was founded in 2007; it raised $8 million in a first round of funding from Trinity Ventures and Noro-Mosely Partners. – Tameka Kee, October 26, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Twitter, Baby, Tell Me How You REALLY Feel Since my next Media Guy column (in print Monday, and available online this Sunday evening) is titled "Top 10 Lessons to Learn From NBC's Failing Leno Strategy," I've been particularly curious about Jay Leno's Twitter buzz. As it happens, the folks at Trendrr -- the social-media tracking service -- just introduced something called Twitter sentiment analysis. The idea is that, by mapping certain words against the feelings they are typically meant to convey, you can get a sense of not only how many people are tweeting about a certain subject, but how they generally feel about it. – Simon Dumenco, October 23, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Balloon Boy, Kanye West and Lady Gaga Walk Into a Bar ... Imma Let You Finish, Trendrr Chart of the Week, but ... For the latest Trendrr Chart of the Week, I thought about trying to parse yesterday's Twitter insanity, wherein "Balloon Boy," "#balloonboy," "Colorado" (where the boy is from), "#saveballoonboy," "CNN" (which was offering wall-to-wall Balloon Boy coverage), "Falcon" (the kid's first name) and other Balloon Boy-related terms dominated the trending topics list for much of the afternoon and evening as word got out that a 6-year-old boy -- later found, of course, to just be hiding in the attic of his family's garage -- had supposedly floated away in a homemade helium balloon contraption. – Simon Dumenco, October 16, 2009


Don't Be Afraid of Social Media Ghuneim believes companies should break the information they want to share about themselves into manageable, shareable bits. This allows their brand advocates and loyal customers to do the work autonomously. Citing an example of how easy sharing can do wonders for a company, Ghuneim says, "if YouTube didn't have a technological feature called embed, 50 percent of their audience probably wouldn't have been there."- Josh Spiro, October 16, 2009


Transcript: THE ALARM’S MIKE PETERS ON MT. KILIMANJARO For the past few years, The Alarm’s Mike Peters has been trekking to the farthest points of the Earth, all to raise money and awareness for cancer care. In the past, the rocker has brought along fellow musicians as he climbed Mt. Everest and ventured to Machu Picchu, Peru, performing at each location. In his latest adventure, Mike is ascending East Africa’s Mt. Kilimanjaro. There, he and members of The Fixx, Squeeze, The Gin Blossoms, The Stray Cats and others will climb to the top of the mountain and perform form the locals once they make it back down.


Verso store sells mostly charitable items There are more bracelets. The Brazilet, a $6 ribbon "wish" bracelet from Brazil, benefits rain forest conservation (make three wishes and wait for it to fall off). Tough $28 black leather bracelets come from the Love Hope Strength Foundation, a music-centric charity that raises money through concerts and snappy accessories. How about a scarf? Hand-dyed, super-soft wraps in vibrant orange and blue, recently marked down to $30, benefit a melanoma awareness and research charity. – October 15, 2009


Tweets Are Filled With Glee…Again If we haven’t reached it yet, the Glee backlash is bound to happen soon. Though even as tired as I am of both reading and writing about the show, even this old grumpy gus had to admit that Glee’s Halo/Walking on Sunshine mashup was pretty infectious. Infectious like Glee’s grip on Trendrr’s list of the Most Twittered TV Shows, where it bounced back after a mellow week to rake in a peak of more than 40,000 tweets at its peak last Thursday. – Chris Albrecht, October 13, 2009


18 Essential Tools for Every Word-of-Mouth Marketer 17. Trendrr lets marketers set up configurable dashboards to see where conversations about their brand are happening, and how their industry, sector, or topic is “trending” across the social media web. Free. – Clay McDaniel, October 13, 2009


Review: FullBars and FullBites That's Fit recently had a chance to review the FullBites and FullBars weight-loss snacks inspired by bariatric surgeon Michael A. Snyder, along with his quick-read book "Why Diets Don't Work." Yes, a bariatric surgeon promoting non-surgical weight loss snacks. An expert on stomach capacity, Snyder wanted to develop a product for those who do not want or don't qualify for surgery -- a small, fiber-packed snack to deliver satiety before two of your biggest meals of the day. – Bev Sklar, October 12, 2009


How to Edit Video Pixorial lets you easily edit your home movies online. You can upload your content from your own computer, or send old tapes to them and they’ll upload them for you. You’ll have your own password-protected account that stores all of your movies, right in one place. Some estimate the average lifespan of a VHS tape to be as low as eight years. Do you really want to chance losing all of those memories? - Chris Pirillo. October 8, 2009


Weight-loss truths: Be a realist, know yourself, use the right tools Dr. Michael A. Snyder, a bariatric surgeon at Rose Medical Center in Denver, is founder of Fullbar and leader of the Be Full, Eat Less movement. –October 7, 2009


Trendrr Trendrr allows you to track the popularity and awareness of trends across a variety of inputs, ranging from social networks (including Twitter), to blog buzz and video downloads, all in real time. – October 7, 2009


Rockers Reach Mt. Kilimanjaro's Highest Peak On September 28th, 25 cancer survivors, legendary musicians (including Cy Curnin of The Fixx, Mike Peters of the Alarm, Robin Wilson of the Gin Blossoms, Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Slim Jim Phantom of The Stray Cats, and Nick Harper), and supporters of the Love Hope Strength Foundation's Kilimanjaro Rocks! Team, assembled at the gates to Mt Kilimanjaro. On October 5th, ALL of the 25 climbed to the summit of Uhuru (which means freedom in Swahili) – the peak of Mt Kilimanjaro - to raise money and awareness for cancer care in East Africa.- October 6, 2009


Live From Kili: The Summit! We're back on the air! It's been a tough 48 hours, and this is one pooped blogger. After back-to-back alpine starts (that's 3:30 a.m., folks, in single-digit temps) we kicked, grunted, and clawed our way to the top. I have to confess, I am humbled. Kili is a very big mountain. Two days ago took us from Arrow Glacier Camp a whopping 2800 vertical feet through the Western Breach, where three American climbers were killed in a rock slide in 2006. Nearly half the team was blitzed with AMS that night, since we were all beat and trying to sleep at 18,500 feet. – Nick Heil, October 5, 2009


Pixorial - Digitize, produce and share your home videos Pixorial is an online video service where home movies and people interconnect. You can collaborate with others by adding and sharing full resolution home movies in the secure Pixorial service. You can edit and remix this online content to create unique, customized video products. The final products retain the full quality and resolution of the master movies regardless of media age, size or original format. - October 2, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
Watching Consumers Who Are Watching Themselves Get Watched Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week The gist of the study: Two-thirds of Americans "do not want marketers to tailor advertisements to their interests" -- and the proportion goes up when people find out exactly what sort of behavioral-tracking stuff marketers and media companies have been up to lately (see abstract below). Thus this week's Trendrr chart (or chart set, actually), which takes a look at online buzz -- among both mainstream media and blogs -- about the issue. – Simon Dumenco, October 2, 2009


Legendary Musicians Align Symbolic Trek with Lance Armstrong’s LIVESTRONG Day Today 25 legendary musicians (including Mike Peters of The Alarm, Cy Curnin of The Fixx, Robin Wilson of the Gin Blossoms, Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze, Slim Jim Phantom of The Stray Cats, and Nick Harper), cancer survivors, and supporters from the Love Hope Strength Foundation aligned their symbolic trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro with Lance Armstrong’s, LIVESTRONG day. Each member of the team stood holding yellow prayer flags to add to the power of his global message. – October 2 , 2009


Live From Kili: Altitude Woes After a rough night—we fell asleep to the sounds of vomiting, moaning, and various complaints of headaches and nausea—there were team-wide hosannas and hallelujahs that today was a relatively easy push up to the next camp. Lunch concluded with a Diamox Party, of which most of us partook.- Nick Heil, October 2, 2009


LHS Doing Free Bone Marrow Drive at Austin City Limits While one group of rock legends and cancer survivors are hiking Mt Kilimanjaro to fight cancer in East Africa in an event dubbed Kilimanjaro Rocks, the Love Hope Strength Foundation (LHS), a rock n' roll charity that uses the power of music to fight cancer, will also be joining forces with Livestrong at Austin City Limits (ACL) to make a difference in the fight against cancer. – October 2, 2009


The Internet sure likes talking about Google Wave Since Sept. 17, the number of tweets about Wave has increased by about 20 times, from an average of 821 per day to nearly 17,000 per day. Trendrr has also measured 27,671 new blog posts about Wave in the last couple of weeks (there had already been 277,859), and 452 news articles. That interest is particularly impressive since Google isn’t really announcing anything new about Wave, and most people who requested invites are still waiting. – Anthony Ha, September 30, 2009


Musicians, Cancer Survivors and Supporters Bring Love, Hope, Strength to People of East Africa This is Kilimanjaro Rocks…The Love Hope Strength Foundation’s latest musical journey, to the roof of Africa. 25 legendary musicians (including members of The Alarm, The Fixx, The Gin Blossoms, Stray Cats, and Squeeze), cancer survivors and supporters have embarked upon a symbolic pilgrimage to Uhuru, the 19,341ft peak of Mount Kilimanjaro.- September 30, 2009


Live From Kili: Climb On We suffered our first injury today when one of the trekkers bit into a peanut butter slathered sliced of toast and left behind a molar. She’s fine, it hasn’t slowed us, but it is a sign of the attrition that’s sure to take place over the next several days. Bitter cold tonight and 99 percent chance of rain in the forecast tomorrow. Still, the musicians cranked up a Beattles n’ Stones tribute set this evening. Right now, just after dinner (fish n' chips) I’m sitting in the mess with the team while Nick Harper strums a gorgeous rendition of “My Imaginary Friend.” Upward. – Nick Heil, September 29 – October 1


Live From Kili: Basecamp Jam Day Two: Basecamp We've become more musical, too. The team includes Mike Peters from The Alarm, Cy Curnin from the Fixx, Glenn Tilbrook from Squeeze, Robin Wilson from the Gin Blossoms, Slim Jim Phantom from the Stray Cats, and guitarists Nick Harper and Brien McVernern. I'm dating myself, but I grew up listening to these guys, and if you had told me 20 years ago that I'd be standing on a grassy knoll, listening to them play acoustic guitars in an impromptu episode of Kilimanjaro Unplugged, I would have laughed out loud. – Nick Heil, September 29, 2009


Rock Stars Prep For Kilimanjaro RHYL, Wales (Wireless Flash - FlashNews) – Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro takes lots of preparation – especially for rock stars. Just ask Mike Peters, frontman for The Alarm, and Gin Blossoms’ crooner Robin Wilson, who’ve started trekking up the mountain for a two-week expedition to promote cancer research for the Love Hope Strength Foundation. – September 28, 2009


StatShot: Gleeks Love Tweets Don’t stop believin’ in FOX’s musical comedy Glee. For the second week in a row the show is racking up impressive social buzz on Twitter, according to the latest stats from Trendrr. Glee rocked the week with a high of 71,555 tweets on Thursday. The ratings-challenged Heroes took second with a high of 34,734 tweets. –Chris Albrecht, September 28, 2009


Live From Kilimanjaro Day 1: Base Camp Writer Nick Heil is on assignment for BACKPACKER in Tanzania, where he's climbing Kilimanjaro with the cancer-fighting Love Hope Strength Foundation. Keep checking back for updates on the climb, and to learn more about the expedition, visit kilimanjarorocks.com. – Nick Heil, September 27, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
All the Fashion Coverage That's Fit to Tweet Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week This week's Trendrr chart (or chart set, actually) takes a look at the Twitter followers of one leading fashion title at each of four top publishers. As you can see, they've all been experiencing steady growth lately -- the trendlines above show growth from Sept. 15-24 -- but the bases from which they're growing vary dramatically. – Simon Dumenco, September 25, 20009


Rockers Journey To Kilimanjaro For Cancer Charity Members of the Fixx, the Gin Blossoms, Squeeze and the Stray Cats will participate in Kilimanjaro Rocks, a 12-day concert/fundraiser/journey to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in East Africa. The event, which will take place from September 27 through October 9, was organized by the Love Hope Strength Foundation, co-founded by Mike Peters of the Alarm to raise awareness and funds for cancer care in East Africa. – Michael Tedder, September 25, 2009


British Musicians Climb Kilimanjaro For Love Hope Strength British musicians Glenn Tilbrook, Mike Peters and Nick Harper will, this Sunday, start a journey that will see them climb Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest mountain. The trek is the latest in a series of “Rocks” events, organised by the Love Hope Strength Foundation, that combine music, travelling and trekking to raise money and provide resources of those affected by cancer.- September 25, 2009


Why Your Company Needs Social Media Other Sales Prospecting Tools Twitter is not the ONLY social media tool to use for sales prospecting. Other tools that you can use for online reputation management can actually be used for sales prospecting as well. Here are some examples. Trendrr – Lets you automate tracking and reporting around social and digital media. Garner real time ROI and actionable data. – September 24, 2009


Giveaway! Thanks to FullBar for this giveaway! I'd like to give away a CASE of FullBars. I've had them, and frankly love them. So there. If you want them, the whole damn box -- here's what you're going to do to enter…- September 24, 2009


Fighting Cancer On Mt. Kilimanjaro The Love Hope Strength Foundation is at it again – bringing musicians to really neat location around the world with the goal of raising funds, support and awareness to fight cancer. This time around, members of The Fixx, the Gin Blossoms, Squeeze and The Stray Cats, along with Nick Harper and founding member Mike Peters of The Alarm, are climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro in East Africa. – Jay Smith, September 24, 2009


Legendary Musicians Perform Atop Mt. Kilimanjaro The Love Hope Strength Foundation (LHS), an international rock n' roll cancer foundation, today announced details for "Kilimanjaro Rocks", a 12-day musical journey to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro in East Africa taking place September 27th through October 9th. – September 24, 2009


Social media: a new way of listening As companies value what is said and discussed in the social media, companies like Attentio, Trendrr and Nielsen BuzzMetrics use tools to monitor and analyse the social media to give them the information they need, says Stephen.Trendrr, for instance, has a free account with limited features and allows 10 elements to be tracked for free. For more features, companies have to subscribe. – September 23, 2009


StatShot: VMAs, Glee, the Talk of Twitter Town With the new fall TV season here, we thought we’d check back in with the folks at Trendrr to see which broadcast and cable shows people are Twittering about. The first thing we noticed is that there is a lot more general Twitter activity around TV shows when compared with last season. Save for a newsy spike in traffic (e.g., Oprah joins Twitter), and a particularly popular show (like Lost), typically there were less than 10,000 tweets per show earlier this year, with most hovering in the low thousands. – Chris Albrechy, September 22, 2009

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Never Mind Leno. Oprah Beats Letterman, Who Beats Fallon, Who Beats... Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week Thanks to the debut of his (critically panned) prime-time talk show this week, Jay Leno has been dominating all sorts of mind share, from mainstream media to social media. As you'd expect, he spiked big as a Twitter topic: On Tuesday, there were 56,549 tweets that referenced him (though by Thursday he'd fallen back down to Earth, with just 6,792 tweets). But I was more curious about the TV talk-show host Twitter-buzz landscape before Leno crashed prime time. Thus this week's chart. – Simon Dumenco, September 18, 2009

As Seen In Advertising Age
The Beatles: Rock Band vs. Guitar Hero 5 vs. ... Courtney Love? Dumenco's Trendrr Chart of the Week This week's Trendrr chart takes a look at Twitter buzz surrounding the current epic battle of the video games: "Guitar Hero 5," released on Sept. 1 (in the U.S.; Sept. 11 in Europe), and "The Beatles: Rock Band," released this past Wednesday. – Simon Dumenco, September 11, 2009


Bresnan Deploys Web-To-TV Platform The cable operator is using the Clearleap platform to manage The Spot, a VOD section with localized channels featuring businesses in categories such as jobs, dining and events. In addition, Bresnan plans to use the system to ingest Web-delivered content for its local linear channels, as well as target local advertising on both VOD and linear TV. – Todd Spangler, September 10, 2009


Bresnan deploys Clearleap’s Web-based platform for local VOD Bresnan is using Clearleap’s platform to manage its VOD section, which is called The Spot. The Spot comprises localized channels featuring businesses in categories such as jobs, dining and events. The Clearleap platform will help Bresnan ingest, distribute, manage and monetize content of all types by using its clear\|flow and clear\|profit modules. - Mike Robuck, CedMagazine.com - September 10, 2009


Clearleap Nets Bresnan Deal Bresnan Communications and Clearleap, an Internet based TV technology platform today announced the nation’s 13th largest cable provider has deployed Clearleap technologies across all of its systems. The Clearleap Technology Platform is used by Bresnan to manage The SPOT, a Video-On-Demand section comprised of localized channels featuring businesses in categories such as jobs, dining, and events. – September 10, 2009