<< click pic || When artists connect directly to fans and find success without the corporate model, it makes me imagine “suits” as Persians, and I unleash on them in the 300 style.

What I love is how the business opportunity online doesn’t require the army of unnecessary and costly business infrastructure. The internet is making that breed extinct. They suffer, much like a factory worker suffered when automation was introduced, from the interweb making THEM obsolete.

This is so damn sexy, I nearly want to cry while jumping headlong into the millions of dollars saved from “bloat-collar” casualties.

Imagine you’re a Corporate Fat-Kat, livin’ the high-life by supplanting the dearth of your own creativity with that of young artists. You then wake up and wonder, “Where the fuck is the fresh meat this year?”.

It’s turned… We aren’t playing “their” game. The internet is the “great leveling”. If they want to continue stealing millions, it means the Bloat Collar has to pick up the mic, brush, camera, camcorder - and play OUR game.

Connect - we’re calling you out.

Ah… This is the way it should be.

>Striking writers in talks to launch Web start-ups<

Creative people connecting directly with their audience, and taking the lion’s share of their efforts. Imagine, from a business perspective, how much money you would save if you could eliminate all the unnecessary studio execs, board members, conglom structures, etc.

For me, these are exciting times. 2nd Culture is poised quite well with this movement to entertainment online. Money is flowing, and I believe we have the right mix of creative property, and business philosophy to find our own market and fans, and build a viable business model.

Anyone else wondering what Joss Whedon could accomplish online?

(Click the “Original  Story” link below)

Ok… I’m confused as to why this is scaring anyone in cable. Should they not already have a strategy in place to compete with these markets? This is the best part of the article are these two comments:

1. “a show broadcast on a Tuesday evening during primetime is often watched on the Internet on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays over the lunch hour. This suggests that when people miss a favorite show on TV, they try to watch it from work on a computer”
2. “But providing those shows as video-on-demand over cable may not help because people don’t have access to TV during their lunch hour at the office.”

wow.

The only thing scary about this “learning experience” is that they are still learning it in 2007.

ORIGINAL STORY | digg story

I’m just gonna shoot from the hip on this one, and whatever I write I’m just gonna leave up. You’ll find in the My Projects menu list on the right the various projects of 2nd Culture.

2nd Culture - First Year:

Overall, a success. But not quite in the ways I’d hoped. A lot of contract work with Corus has come in, and kept the lights on. But some of the 2nd Culture initiatives have been both a disappointment, and victory.

Disappointments:

• Got involved with a company, and it ended up costing us a lot of development time on 2nd Culture
• The reason for working with the company was strategic, and everything was going well until the deal “changed” quite drastically due to nepotism and short-sightedness
• We invested nearly $1000 into this new venture, before this “drastic change”
• We still have no idea how it’s going to turn out, or if I’ll see my 1000
• WGA (short film paid for by FrameBuyFrame sales), is still in post production
• we lost 8 people (I had to cull, and bring everything “back to the wood” on all our websites/network)
• The host that I use for my sites has turned out to be unreliable - so our site’s performance is unacceptable
• We’ve had 4 different web developers back out of the project due to various reasons
• I’ve had to spend an unacceptable amount of personal/project time learning web development, Joomla, and design to have our site “up”
• Because of the time spent, I’ve neglected an important element to our cause - posting content for Panda Girls

Crom - 2nd Culture’s lead writer

(COMPLETE DISAPOINTMENT)

Victories:

• FrameBuyFrame.com sold $1400 in frames in it’s first 3 months - with NO advertising
• Over the last 10 months we’ve tweaked the sites, and have an enormous amount of user data for version 2.0’s release
• We hit over 100,000 unique visitors
• The local television station wants a story
• I was asked to pitch our business model at the Calgary Demo-Camp
• Tokyopop made a offer for a publishing deal with Panda Girls
• We shot a short film entirely financed by capital earned through FrameBuyFrame.com sales
• Found an incredible writing partner for developing quality Intellectual Property for film, tv, internet, and video games (Yes, Crom - you can stay)
• Signed two Intellectual Properties for development in film and tv
• Received valuable consulting from a marketing manager from Shaw
• A venture capital company has made an offer of 200K

All in all, the year had it’s wins and losses. What I’ve learned mostly is not to chase every opportunity. That’s not to say we did, really… It’s just that there were a few that we should have just said “no”.

The losses/disappointments forced me to restructure (more time and money), and rethink my approach to 2nd Culture, FrameBuyFrame.com, and Panda Girls.

I’m embarrassed to say, these issues reflect on my leadership. 2008 is looking a little clearer due to some storms we’ve survived over the 10 months. It helps to remind you where you’re headed when you’re in the clear again.