Ruvoland

I generally dislike animation, kid’s movies and adaptations. And especially car movies.

Speed Racer is all of those things. It’s also one of the most visually stunning movies I have ever seen. Behind the predictable melodramatic scenes, Disney-style moralism and Emile Hirsh’s effeminate sailor/hipster costuming , some absolute masterminds were at work at what I can best describe as real multimedia.

It’s one thing when Baz Luhrmann does good cinematography. Or Fellini. Take something as lollipop as Speed Racer and if it can evoke emotive force from visuals alone, it’s brilliant. It doesn’t piggyback on deep intellectualism or love or poetry. Just visuals.

In a typically bizarre New York evening, I walked the red carpet for the movie between Susan Sarandon and Fred Durst (?), watched it, ate a hot dog without the hot dog and hung out with a detective.

I just had my first Idol moment.

It’s 8:30pm on Wednesday. I took a break from my internet addiction and turned on the TV while I ate dinner. Keep in mind the only channels I get are the ones my antenna picks up, and as a result I have an unopened Slingbox sitting in my storage closet next to my laptop from 2000.

American Idol was on, and Jason Castro was on American Idol. This is Jason.

It was my first Idol moment.

He reminded me of someone from the Stanford hippie crowd, minus the ego. He played a version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” with a ukulele. A version by a Hawaiian artist.

Of course if Idol had their shit together they’d publish that information immediately for people who are concurrently online and looking to find out more about the song.

With the iTunes ads plastered all over the Idol site you’d think they would offer it as a pay-to-purchase. Logical, no?

I am not an Idol fan. I will probably not watch another episode or part of an episode this entire season. The rest of the episode is playing while I type this and I’m not into it.

But if I could subscribe to Jason Castro’s performances on the show, and have them delivered to me, be it via Facebook, Twitter, gmail, RSS, YouTube… wherever… I would.

Idol, for all its massive success, is missing the digital opportunity. Jason Castro’s page doesn’t let me watch his previous performances, and when I tried to check out his videos, I got this bullshit expandable Ford Edge ad that refuses to close unless I click on it. (ARE YOU SERIOUS, FORD?)

I clicked on “Add to Friends,” and a lame message showed up to join MyIDOL. Not going to happen. Ford ad still up.

Then I found one of his performances, and finally got rid of the Ford ad.

Why isn’t it easier for me to see his past videos?
Why don’t they all play in sequence until I hit “stop”? (one useful function of real TV).
Why hasn’t Idol extended its digital tentacles into all the sites and services people online actually use?

Slap a Ford pre-roll on the videos instead of the bullshit expandable frozen ad that ensures I will never again visit americanidol.com.

Take advantage of the fact that I wanted to subscribe to Jason. That way FOX wins a new pair of eyeballs (that they would have never had on TV) and better, a recurring set of eyeballs that will watch his new video every time it hits my inbox (whichever inbox that is).

Better still, even though I only watch a fraction of the Idol broadcast, I’m a more engaged and passionate viewer because I’m watching my favorite part. That’s what we do with TV anyway—watch the pieces we want.

Take it further still and suggest other videos I might enjoy.

Do all that and you’ve got a distributed digital revenue stream for Idol’s broadcast content.

What we have now is simply a crappy digital experience.

Oh, that and FOX’s Hulu.com joint venture with NBC. Maybe FOX should contract out the Hulu guys to fix the Idol site?

A lot of the big media guys talk about how tough their lives are and how they can’t make up enough money with digital distribution that they are losing with people fleeing the TV for better things to do.

Seems like they’re leaving some obvious opportunities on the table.

In the meantime, go Jason! I won’t see you again or vote for you but you rock!

UPDATE:

I went back to Google and found this Jason Castro fansite. Then checked out the chat room. Read below:

I took their advice, googled “Jason Castro rainbow,” and found this blog, with YouTube video already up.

Still no word on whose “Rainbow” version it was. Glad to see the bloggers have it together. Guess what, no brand advertising on the fan site or live blogging site. Isn’t that where the marketers want to be?

Problem: the updated directory assistance number in Switzerland is similar to the fire department’s emergency number.

Solution: a Swiss fire department rap video:

Duly noted, another example of cross-culture pollination via YouTube. Duly noted, they make fun of the effeminately gay guy.

But what’s really cool here is the following. In the old paradigm, if you want to get a message out to people, you craft something general-purpose and bland and you push it out to a huge audience, hoping people watch it. (think TV commercials). It’s called pushing a message out.

In the new paradigm, you craft your message (or advertisement) as entertainment, you make it specific to an audience, and you let people pull it in.

Now more than ever, people are going to watch what they want to watch. They are not limited to a few dozen TV channels and scheduled programming. So who do you want to watch, and what are you going to give them?

(via this blog)

“Britney Spears” is, for the sixth time in seven years, the most popular search term that Americans look for on Yahoo.

The Top 10:

1. Britney Spears
2. WWE
3. Paris Hilton
4. Naruto
5. Beyonce
6. Lindsay Lohan
7. Rune Scape
8. Fantasy Football
9. Fergie
10. Jessica Alba

(Adult search terms and company names are removed from the list. Otherwise we might see something more like this…