It is simply amazing how YouTube (and a few of the choice other vid sites) are being used and discussed as affecting the election set for next year. It is early and yet, there is so much ink about it. From the 1984/Hillary Mash-Up, to Obama Girl, the nets are buzzing with how this could sway elections and land candidates in office. Granted that is what they said last time around when they thought the youth and energy behind the the internet, the Vote-Or-Die campaign and the swift boat debacle would push the office to the Democrats, and yep, they were wrong. But with CNN and YouTube getting involved in the debates and everyone and their mother doing campaign ads and offering opinion, it is sure shaping up to being an interesting 16 months.
UPDATE:Here is the Hillary/Sopranos Spot that was just released yesterday.
As I age and look back at my youth, I find myself drawn to the entertainment of the time and how it compares to the entertainment currently. Not just in the medium it was presented but the content as well. In this exploration recently I remembered Rich Little. The celebrity impressionist of yesteryear who killed it in the Catskills and beyond. Although I do remember thinking to myself that he was not great, he always seemed to get Carson laughing as well as my older (and jewisher) relatives. So of course I looked at YouTube to see what currently passes for impressions these days. The results speak for themselves.
Oy
Vey
150,000 people think this is funny? ok, it is a bit
Being Friday and all, what better than watching the esteemed Stadtler and Waldorf cursing up a storm with each other. No, this clip never ran on the actual Muppet Show, but in fact is a mash-up of the ornery gents and the esteemed British comedy duo Derek & Clive (Dudley Moore and Peter Cook). Derek & Clive have provided hours of entertainment for me in past years and thanks to YouTube, we can see them in all their deadpan glory.
So get this story. I am astounded at how bad this customer experience was with Best Buy corporate and it really makes me wonder how companies that are supposedly in the customer service business completely fair at it.
At my company we have a company credit card. We use it for a variety of stuff, and being that we do a lot of events that require technology often we run out to the Best Buy across the street from the office. I would estimate that we have easily spent over 50k with them in the last year or so, so we are not a small consumer to a brand like that. To continue, we were going over our credit card statements and noticed that there was a charge from May for 2 airline flights. We did not recognize the names of the travelers and the flights were each over $500 so we did a little more digging. Luckily, my credit card statement lists the names of the travelers. So I put one of them into good ole Google and the results came up. The name came back as some woman who lives in Minnesota and lists Best Buy Inc as her employer (note: the flights both originated in MN to Vail and back, also note that BB's headquarters are in MN). So I says to myself I says, hey! we have a corp account and also charge a lot on our corp card with Best Buy and one of the names of the passengers on this bogus trip works at Best Buy! Of course, we call the CC company and the airline to dispute, but I say to myself, let me also call BB and let them know that one of their employees might be stealing credit card #'s. It seems the right thing to do. So I call Best Buy corporate to report this. I tell the receptionist the gist and she says hold. She then transfers me to CUSTOMER SERVICE as if I want to place an order. After waiting 6 minutes on hold, someone picks up and I proceed to tell her the story, she says, "I don't have a screen for that", please hold. I hold another 5 minutes and she gets on the line to tell me that her supervisor said to dispute the charges with my CC company and the airline. I said that we are doing that, but I wanted to report that someone in the organization may be stealing. ...pause ...pause She finally comes back on the line to say "Sir, what would you like me to do with that information?" I say that I think Best Buy would like to know if someone is stealing credit card numbers (yes, i know allegedly) and she pauses again and says "Ok, I can put it in the notes here" and then pauses. I ask her if she wants the name and she says "OK." I give her the name and she asks if there is anything else she can do and I say no thank you. I call back to the corporate number and ask if there is someone in Human Resources I can call to report a complaint about a BB employee. I am transfered to a crisis consultant who happens to be someone who only deals with BB employees so after I tell him the story he says, "Sorry I wish I could be more helpful but they do not give us a number for that." I try one more time and ask the receptionist who I should talk to in this regard? She says Consumer Relations. I speak to a woman and relate the story one more time. Her initial response "Oh my gosh!", she tells me that she has not experienced this and needs to talk to her supervisor. Another 5 minutes on hold (we are up to over an hour at this point) and the woman (who of all I have spoken to seems the most interested) does take the name and will ask someone higher up to get in touch with and again encourages me to call the bank to dispute the charges. I ask when I should expect someone to get back to me and she simply says that she will try and let someone know how important it is.
So who knows if I will get my 1K+ back, whether the CC's insurance will handle, the airline or hopefully Best Buy. As for me, I would like to see said person thrown in the gallows, but that would mean BB actually taking interest in making their customer service experience better, which, at least from this wasted afternoon, it does not seem they really want to do.
Oh yeah, this is a site about user video so here is another guy pissed at BestBuy
We have all seen the Nintendo commercial with the kids getting a N64 for xmas and going nuts. But first time YouTuber EdHargrave decided to mash it up with some beats and some text to truly show us how sick our youth are as we watch them treat the console like it is the second coming of the Beatles (I smell a 'When I'm Nintnedo 64' mash-up coming!). Almost at 1.8 million views, I cannot help but wonder if people are watching in horror or for entertainment value.
Adrants reported today on George Vlosich, the Etch-A-Sketch art king and his recent film for Quicken Loand and The Cleveland Cavs (Who play at Quicken Arena). In this vid, he spends 5 hours (sped up to a few minutes), creating a portrait of LeBron James. Damn that boy has time on his hands!
In our extended series, we look at those who are more creative than we. Enter Professor Nieto. I saw him speak yesterday and his stuff is pretty kick ass and most of it is down and dirty in how he creates his animations and effects, but what I like best is how he interacts with his films. Enjoy.
I was watching some vids recently and they were just plain noisy. Just too much sound, wind, static, etc. It gave me a headache. I started thinking about the time when creators had to use live musicians to give audio to their silent creations. With silent films, the stories had to work without dialog or sound effects, how many film-makers could create in such a way now? Well it turns out, through the power of web video search that we can find out, and to some pretty cool results!