Posted with tags
Ardi,
Ardipithecus Ramidus,
New York Times,
My Damn Channel on 10/2/2009 11:25:54 AM by Meg Mylan
Deep in the dirt of some place not in America, scientists
have found the remains of a four foot, 120 pound female from a really, really
long time ago named Ardi. Ardi’s hunched
shoulders, propensity for nudity, and un-groomed body hair were strong
indications that she was an early My Damn Channel fan. You human descendants of Ardi can continue
watching MyDamnChannel.com just as Ardi did 4 million years ago right here.
Posted in
My Damn Channel,
New Media with tags
Corporate layoffs,
insurgency,
online video,
Big Fat Brain,
You Suck at Photoshop,
Agency of Record,
TIME magazine,
Lost,
Mad Men,
30 Rock,
Colbert,
Harry Shearer,
Suhaila Suhimi,
Flight of the Conchords,
STELLA,
GraceNMichelle,
Heather Fink,
Lapdance,
Kurt Loder,
Back on Topps,
atom.com,
FACETIME,
Ed Helms,
Kerri Kenney-Silver,
Sam Seder,
Sarah Silverman,
David Cross,
Andy Dick,
Isla Fisher,
A.D. Miles,
Mark Malkoff on 12/18/2008 2:38:49 AM by Rob Barnett
We started My Damn Channel in the wake of an earlier round of big corporate layoffs as traditional media tried to wrap its arms around the intense insurgency of online video.
Many major media companies took a shot at chasing YouTube's brass ring, but they couldn't ride their horses fast enough to get into the lead ahead of all the upstart brands racing onto the field.
We ran fast in our first year. Some of our best competitors like Super Deluxe didn't make it. We loved their work. We stayed determined to keep costs low, but still bring the best talent - treat them well - and let them deliver quality, original web video which is getting seen by an audience growing faster by the second.
In the past 24 hours, we've had the #1 video on all of YouTube - thanks to Big Fat Brain, creators of "You Suck at Photoshop" and their NEW web series, "Agency of Record."
This week, TIME Magazine honored us in their Top 10 Everything of 2008 - twice! They put YSAP in the Top 10 TV Episodes of the year next to Lost, Mad Men, 30 Rock & Colbert. And they honored Sir Harry Shearer for one of his Katie Couric Open-Mic Moments that we call "Found Objects."
Maria on our team just told me we passed 42 million total views yesterday.
This week, we added Suhaila Suhimi to lead the advertising team bringing more top brands in to sponsor all of our new programming.
Here's a list of what's NEW & what's coming for the year ahead with immeasurable thanks for every second you've stopped your world to take a look at www.MyDamnChannel.com:
Flight of the Conchords HBO premiere episode next week on My Damn Channel - 3 weeks before it airs on HBO !
STELLA - new channel just launched
GraceNMichelle - new channel just launched
Agency of Record - new episode tmrw/Fri
Heather Fink channel
new episodes of LAPDANCE with KURT LODER
new videos from atom.com
new episodes of BACK ON TOPPS - every Tuesday
new episodes of FACETIME
and a lil tease of more/new magic wonderments:
ED HELMS
KERRI KENNEY-SILVER
SAM SEDER
SARAH SILVERMAN
DAVID CROSS
ANDY DICK
ISLA FISHER
A.D. MILES
MARK MALKOFF
and....
S P I N A L T A P 2 0 0 9
The Osbournes are coming back to TV. Saw the story by Brian Stelter at the NY Times. It's va-va-variety!
We're featuring our OZZY interview with DON WAS on the home page today - talking Sabbath, Randy Rhoads, & Frank Zappa! It's episode 6 of an 8 part hang at Ozzy's house.
Posted in
Uncategorized with tags
NY Times,
Spiderman,
Gothamist on 6/5/2008 10:09:21 AM by Rob Barnett
Just went downstairs to get a slice of pizza & walked into what looked like a scene from a summer superhero movie. A rescue climber was scaling the new NY Times building right here on our street while thousands watched from below. It first looked like he was sent up to save a jumper - but Gothamist has the story about environmental anarchy by Alain Robert who refers to himself as Spiderman.
Ben Stiller praises Iron Man Robert Downey Jr. in TIME magazine & says, "he is not afraid to try something fully, knowing it could end in disaster but also understanding that that is where greatness lies."
If it stands alone, the quote is a bit out of context - it's not referring to IRON MAN but to an upcoming film directed by Ben & starring Robert - as a black man.
I grabbed hold of the quote thinking about an old rule to NEVER use the word "TRY." If you think "TRY" - you're thinking you may not actually get THERE.
DOING it - is better. Thanks to every co-con for a biggest week ever in Damnland.
Posted in
Big Fat Brain,
Donnie Hoyle,
Snatchbuckler,
You Suck at Photoshop with tags
You Suck at Photoshop,
YSAP,
Big Fat Brain,
Troy Hitch,
Matt Bledsoe,
Snatchbuckler,
Rob Barnett,
TIME Magazine,
MTV,
VH1,
CBS,
Peopleburg on 5/3/2008 2:08:44 AM by Rob Barnett
TIME 100 Most Influential People in the World
Technoculture
Fun with Photoshop
Thursday, May. 01, 2008 By JOSH QUITTNER
Troy Hitch, left, and Matt Bledsoe have just been revealed as the co-creators of the hit Web series You Suck at Photoshop.
Five hundred Gazillion Web video channels and nothing good on? Google this: You Suck at Photoshop. Narrated by the fictional Donnie Hoyle--an angry, sarcastic, cuckolded Photoshop expert--it was launched in late December and ended 10 episodes later, in April, when Donnie mysteriously disappeared. Not that you ever saw him. In the videos, the camera remains centered on a computer desktop and follows Donnie's cursor as he conducts mock tutorials on how to use the photo-altering application. Sound obscure? Maybe not. With the explosion of blogging and do-it-yourself publishing, Photoshop has become one of the Web generation's indispensable tools. Accordingly, the Donnie series has been viewed nearly 8 million times and is up for two 2008 Webby Awards: Best Comedy and Best How-To Video.
How a goof became a phenomenon is a Web-age love story almost as sweet as Donnie is bitter. Many fans believed the video series had to have been made by a professional comedian; Dane Cook was a favorite suspect. But it turns out to be the work of Troy Hitch, 37, and Matt Bledsoe, 39, both of Covington, Ky.--two former ad-agency guys who met while recording a radio commercial in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio. They buddied up, started writing funny bits and launched a new-media-centric creative agency called Big Fat Institute in 2005.
That's where Rob Barnett discovered them. A show-biz guy who had worked at MTV and VH1 before spending two years at the helm of CBS Radio, Barnett had decided to become a Web-video impresario. He found Big Fat Institute while looking for someone to design his website. You Suck at Photoshop "was hysterical," Barnett recalled recently. "I was instantly engaged and e-mailed them: 'WHO are you?' In 38 seconds, I get a response: 'Who are YOU?' We started flirting." The e-mail led to phone calls and an invitation to visit Barnett in New Jersey. "A few days later, they jumped on a plane to Newark, and we fell in love," he says. Barnett signed the guys to build his video-entertainment website, MyDamnChannel.com and then produce comedy videos for it. You Suck at Photoshop was their first baby.
Hitch and Bledsoe had long nurtured an idea for a character they thought of as the Angry Photoshop Guy. Explains Bledsoe: "We had both been in the agency business so long that after a while we'd seen every kind of person in the advertising world." One of those stereotypes, he says, was the "insane designer, basically. He has horrible social skills and horrible things going on in his life, and the only thing he has going for him is he can out-Photoshop the guy in the cube next to him." It took 2 1/2 hours to complete Episode 1. "The vast majority is improvised by Troy," says Bledsoe. "I hate him for that." Hitch adds, "It was meant to be a one-off thing." But within a few weeks, the blogosphere discovered it, and the series began racking up page views.
In my favorite episode, Donnie shows viewers how to seamlessly remove the wedding band from a picture of his cheating wife's finger. "We actually really put the ring up for sale on eBay, and within four hours, 30,000 people had come by to look or bid on it," Hitch tells me. "The ring was bid up to $760." But eBay shut down the auction after discovering the performance art--a violation of the terms of service, apparently.
The team emerged from anonymity in April to launch a sequel, Snatchbuckler's Second Chance. It's filmed in a fictional, virtual world called Peopleburg.com Snatchbuckler, Donnie's erstwhile partner in the online game World of Warcraft, has gone there to shake off his Internet addiction. The video debuted on MyDamnChannel.com in late April, and it looks pretty cool. But I miss Donnie and wish I could Photoshop him back into my life.
Posted in
Big Fat Brain,
Donnie Hoyle,
Snatchbuckler,
You Suck at Photoshop with tags
Big Fat Brain,
Josh Quittner,
Matt Bledsoe,
My Damn Channel,
Snatchbuckler,
Time Magazine,
Troy Hitch,
You Suck at Photoshop on 4/25/2008 9:06:00 AM by Rob Barnett
Matt Bledsoe & Troy Hitch
We’re launching our newest MY DAMN CHANNEL series today from the men who brought you “You Suck at Photoshop” (YSAP). Big Fat Brain is: Matt (Bledsoe) & Troy (Hitch) - one vowel away from South Park and please add Amy Austin to your consciousness - since every male lobe needs a brilliant woman behind them...or something like that.
YSAP is nominated twice by the WEBBY AWARDS for Best Comedy Series and for Best How-To Series.
7 WEBBY nods in all, for our artists & our site.
From Genesis to Revelation & from “YSAP” to “Sn4tchbuck3r’s Second Chance”
Here’s the first exclusive interview with Big Fat Brain by TIME magazine’s Josh Quittner
3 new channels - launch Monday at 4a pt / 7a et
also Monday -- the Season 2 finale of WAINY DAYS
David Wain & a photo of Paul Rudd are in a front page story in tomorrow's Sunday NY Times Arts & Leisure section:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/arts/television/10itzk.html?_r=1&ref=arts&oref=slogin
Posted in
Don Was,
Music business,
Music Videos,
My Damn Channel,
New Media,
Wasmopolitan Cavalcade of Recorded Music with tags
Don Was,
Jill Sobule,
LA Times,
My Damn Channel,
Was (Not Was),
Wasmopolitan on 1/31/2008 10:15:00 AM by Rob Barnett
Press: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/buzzbands/2008/01/don-was-post-he.html
Pull: http://www.mydamnchannel.com/explore.aspx?channel=59
A few months back, internal stats on My Damn Channel consistently began to prove that our biggest viewing hours started at 12Noon & went through to 2pm.
Lunchtime/Desktime is the place where humans are eating an average of 2 videos a day.
We shared the ideas & the stats with one of the better bloggers we know. Brian Stelter is: http://tvdecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/. He writes for the paper as well. The Times found that many of our brothers and sisters are finding the same results. Here's more...on page one of today's Times.
Noontime Web Video Revitalizes Lunch at Desk
By BRIAN STELTER
For Web video, lunchtime has become the new prime time, and media companies have started responding.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/05/business/media/05video.html?ref=todayspaper