RMG BUZZ

Bonnie & Clyde Headed to Broadway, Stopover in Sarasota

admin — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:32:27 +0000

The new Frank Wildhorn musical Bonnie & Clyde, which premiered at La Jolla Playhouse in 2009, will be seen at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL, in November, prior to Broadway.

The musical about the Depression-era American outlaws has music by Frank Wildhorn (Jekyll & Hyde, The Scarlet Pimpernel), lyrics by Tony Award winner Don Black (Sunset Boulevard, Song and Dance), book by RMG’s own Ivan Menchell (The Cemetery Club, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and direction and musical staging by Jeff Calhoun (Deaf West’s Big River, Broadway’s Grease!).

For the full article recently published on Playbill.com – CLICK HERE

Cybele Pascal on Martha Stewart

admin — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 19:09:25 +0000

Please check out our client Cybele Pascal on the Martha Stewart Show as she demonstrates how to make an allergen free Classic Crumb Cake. You can also see this episode on the Fine Living Network this Saturday. Check local listings.

Here’s a link to video from the show!!
http://www.marthastewart.com/show/the-martha-stewart-show/allergen-free-treats

Check out client Matt Cavenaugh!

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 08:00:00 +0000

I expected Matt Cavenaugh to be an eccentric, loud, animated person who exuded “Broadway.” Instead I learned he is humble, eager to share his passions, and easy to talk with. I wanted to know more about this man who is portraying the legendary role of Tony in the Broadway revival of the hit 1957 musical “West Side Story.”

BHL: Playing the prestigious role of Tony in “West Side Story” is a huge accomplishment for any actor. What has this role meant for you?

MATT: It has been an enormous accomplishment. The role of Tony and the show “West Side Story” are what inspired me to get involved in theatre in the first place. My mom dragged me to a production of “West Side Story” at my high school the year before I attended there. I wasn’t really interested in going, but she talked me into it. As it happens, I was blown away by the power of the story, by the music. I remember thinking, “I want to be up there. I want to be doing that.” It really was an “A-hah!” moment in my life. So, it is a great full-circle experience to now be playing the role on Broadway.

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that this has been a very full and busy time in my life. After our last production, I will have spent more than a year playing this character.

It has definitely been the most challenging experience I have had professionally. It is a lot to take on vocally, physically, and especially emotionally. It has certainly been a real honor to play Tony. Both the role and the show are so beloved by a very passionate audience.

BHL: Now that you have the coveted role of Tony under your belt, what are some of your personal goals?

MATT: You know, it’s funny. As I was graduating college, one of our professors had us write down where we see ourselves in five years. I didn’t write that I wanted to be famous. I simply wrote that I wanted to be established in the theatre, television, and film. Now, I’m not as established in television and film as I would like, but I am proud of the work I have done in the theatre and the mark I am starting to make. I have been very blessed. As I grow older, my goals evolve. I have a longing to not only be an actor but also to be a director. I want to create.

Personally, I want to be a good husband. I want to be a good father if I am so lucky to have that opportunity. I want to be someone in this town that people look to and respect – someone the community seeks to help solve problems and lead.

BHL: Aside from having a remarkable voice and impeccable acting skills, what are some of the things you attribute to making you who you are today?

MATT: The easy answer is my family. Yes, my mother and my father, but also the position and role I played in my family. I inherited my father’s drive and resiliency coupled with my mother’s warmth and interpersonal skills. I am also the second oldest of seven children, so I was given a lot of responsibility early on in life.

I also cannot give enough credit to my education. I had a wealth of inspirational teachers from elementary school, to college, and beyond. One in particular is Keith Salter, my high school theatre teacher. How cliché is that? Keith was a great mentor. He challenged me. He believed in me.

He guided me. He also had a real practical approach to the theatre. The theatre was a place to work, not to theorize. Keith was very instrumental during such an impressionable time in my life, and he pointed me in a great direction. He empowered me to travel that road with confidence in my own abilities. I would not have had half of the successes in my life were it not for him.

BHL: Are there any quotes that describe or define who you are?

MATT: At different times in my life I have had different mantras. One year it was “Less talk, more action!” That worked for a time. Maybe it should be, “I’m a deadline kinda guy.” Without one, I’m really pretty worthless.

This was an article that was recently published in Beverly Hills Lifestyle magazine featuring our client Matt Cavenaugh and his wife Jenny Powers. Matt most recently finished starring on Broadway in West Side Story playing the lead role of Tony. For more info you can check out his website www.matt-cavenaugh.com Look for Matt to be a contributing writer to the magazine in the future!

BHL: Playing the prestigious role of Tony in “West Side Story” is a huge accomplishment for any actor. What has this role meant for you?

MATT: It has been an enormous accomplishment. The role of Tony and the show “West Side Story” are what inspired me to get involved in theatre in the first place. My mom dragged me to a production of “West Side Story” at my high school the year before I attended there. I wasn’t really interested in going, but she talked me into it. As it happens, I was blown away by the power of the story, by the music. I remember thinking, “I want to be up there. I want to be doing that.” It really was an “A-hah!” moment in my life. So, it is a great full-circle experience to now be playing the role on Broadway.

It’s a bit of an understatement to say that this has been a very full and busy time in my life. After our last production, I will have spent more than a year playing this character.

BHL: Now that you have the coveted role of Tony under your belt, what are some of your personal goals?

MATT: You know, it’s funny. As I was graduating college, one of our professors had us write down where we see ourselves in five years. I didn’t write that I wanted to be famous. I simply wrote that I wanted to be established in the theatre, television, and film. Now, I’m not as established in television and film as I would like, but I am proud of the work I have done in the theatre and the mark I am starting to make. I have been very blessed. As I grow older, my goals evolve. I have a longing to not only be an actor but also to be a director. I want to create.

BHL: Aside from having a remarkable voice and impeccable acting skills, what are some of the things you attribute to making you who you are today?

MATT: The easy answer is my family. Yes, my mother and my father, but also the position and role I played in my family. I inherited my father’s drive and resiliency coupled with my mother’s warmth and interpersonal skills. I am also the second oldest of seven children, so I was given a lot of responsibility early on in life.

BHL: Are there any quotes that describe or define who you are?

MATT: At different times in my life I have had different mantras. One year it was “Less talk, more action!” That worked for a time. Maybe it should be, “I’m a deadline kinda guy.” Without one, I’m really pretty worthless.

Life lessons from Google

admin — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 07:25:25 +0000

Do what you love and the money will follow. If ever there were a company that embodied this point of view we at RAIN would have to say the folks that started GOOGLE get a big fat A+. With a clear passion, focus, and vision GOOGLE has redefined our world.

10 things Google has taught us

What makes it so revolutionary? Ken Auletta, author of a new book on the company, shares his insights on why it’s uniquely successful and what that means for the media world

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By Ken Auletta, contributor

October 26, 2009: 9:28 AM ET

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Diary of a love affair: Obama and Google

The president may be critical of corporate America, but he has a soft spot for one very big business: Google. Here’s how the two got so intertwined.

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NEW YORK (Fortune) — In researching his new book, Googled: the End of the World as We Know It, to be published next week by Penguin Press, author Ken Auletta had extensive access to the company’s inner workings and reported widely on its impact on the media landscape.

In a Fortune.com exclusive, he offers ten enduring lessons drawn from his journey into Google’s realm:

1.) Passion wins

Start with the words of advice — “Don’t settle” — that Larry Page offered the Stanford graduating class in 2002. This intensity was revealed in the zeal with which he and Sergey Brin inspired the entire company to “serve the user,” to take more risks, to radically improve search.

Or as CEO Eric Schmidt told me: while he assumed that “Google would be an important company; the founders always assumed that Google would be a defining company.”

A moment after venture capitalist Michael Moritz finished describing Google as “a rare” company, I asked Moritz, an early investor in both Yahoo and Google (GOOG, Fortune 500), whether he felt the same enthusiasm for Yahoo (YHOO, Fortune 500).

He winced, hesitated, then finally said: “Yahoo is a company I’ve been close to for a long time and feel a lot of affection and loyalty towards. But within the first 18 months to two years of being associated with Google, I began to understand this was a very different company than Yahoo. It was rooted in the studies of the founders. Google was built on a foundation of Larry’s and Sergey’s intellectual pursuits. Yahoo was built on the foundations of Jerry’s and David’s interests. And there’s a big gulf between those two.”

That deficit of passion, he suggested, was a reason that Jerry Yang and David Filo chose not to be fully engaged full-time with the company they created.

0:00 /2:30Google execs top 40 under 40 list

2.) Focus is required

Passion without focus can lead you astray. Bill Campbell, chairman of Intuit and a Silicon Valley mentor who spends a couple of days each week at Google, thinks the key to Google’s success is “focused passion.” He credits Schmidt for bringing a focus to the founders.

In an interview with Betsy Morris of Fortune, Steve Jobs offered an interesting and, typically, upside-down perspective on focus: “People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the 100 other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the many things we haven’t done as the things we have done.”

Media mogul Barry Diller, who had an unsettling session with Page and Brin in the early days of Google, when Page would not look up from his PDA to talk to him, now thinks what might be construed as rudeness was really focus.

“They had their own method of communicating and processing,” Diller said. “They give much less quarter than other people do to common business courtesies. They’ve stayed true to this. It’s a spectacular strength. It means you never get de-focused by the crowd.”

3.) Vision is required too

Without vision, even the most focused passion is a battery without a device. “Don’t be evil” is a vague incantation. But Page and Brin’s effort to make “all the world’s information available,”and to first and foremost serve users, is a vision.

It’s one that successfully drove Google to index the Web, make news and books searchable, treat ads as information and to reject dollars if the ads were not “relevant,” help users search for the best or cheapest products, find simple travel directions, store and search their e-mail, and share calendar information.

Such a vision does not come from survey research. In his 2005 speech to graduating engineers at the University of Michigan, Page told them they didn’t have to go to business school. He said he had read an entire shelf of business books when he was younger, and among the lessons he learned was that “many of the amazing insights that happen in business actually come from people who really aren’t in the business.”

4.) A team culture is vital

Google’s allocation of 20% of employee time to projects of their own choice give them a sense of proprietorship. True to its open-source, wisdom-of-the-crowd ideals, Google has created a networked management that functions from the bottom-up as well as the top-down. In both directions, it unleashes ideas and effort.

As Larry Page astutely observes: “There is a pattern in companies, even in technological companies, that the people who do the work — the engineers, the programmers, the foot soldiers if you will — typically get rolled over by the management … you end up kind of demoralized. You want to have a culture where the people who are doing the work, the scientists and the engineers, are empowered. And that they are managed by people who deeply understand what they are doing.”

5.) Treat engineers as kings

For most Valley companies, engineers are the equivalent of the television writer, the movie director, the book author. They are the creators. The 20% time Google grants its engineers gives them a sense that they are liberated to take risks, to follow their passions.

Innovation, as Bill Campbell told The McKinsey Quarterly, comes when “the crazy guys have stature, where engineers really are important…. empowered engineers are the single most important thing that you can have in a company.”

It is no accident that Page and Brin and Schmidt spend so many hours each week in meetings with engineers. For most traditional media companies, the engineer is less central.

However, as digital is now part of the mainstream, and as older media companies struggle to master its challenges, they would do well to heed the advice Google’s David Eun offers: Don’t do what these companies traditionally do and stick “the geeks in a corner.” Instead, CEO’s should have at their elbow “a top Chief Technical Officer.”

6.) Treat customers like a king

An important reason Google is usually listed among the world’s most trusted brands is that it conveys a sense that the user comes first. Advertising may produce 97% of Google’s revenues, but to a user it doesn’t feel that way. Google services are free, and they’re user friendly, just as an iPod is.

The lessons Larry Page took away from reading Donald A. Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things while a graduate student at Stanford, helped shape Google’s approach to its customers. Or as Page said, “Having an attitude that your customer or users are always right, and your goal is to build systems that work for them in a natural way, is a good attitude to have.”

To understand how Google earned the trust of its users, go back to its 2004 IPO. Again and again it referred to the users as sacrosanct: “We believe that our user focus is the foundation of our success to date. We also believe that this focus is critical for the creation of long-term value. We do not intend to compromise our user focus for short-term economic gain.”

By focusing on the user, Page and Brin provided an organizing principle for Google employees that echoed Sam Walton’s adage: ” ‘If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.’”

7.) Every company is a frenemy

What Lord Palmerston said of nations applies as well to corporations: There are no permanent allies, only permanent interests. A medium like the internet blurs the borders between companies, sometimes making it more difficult to sight a potential rival or to distinguish between ally and foe.

Google started as a search engine, but quickly realized it could efficiently sell ads or aggregate news or search books or use its infrastructure to create cloud computing or expand into video by acquiring YouTube or expand into mobile devices.

At the same time, Google’s AdSense helps newspapers by supplying them with ad dollars; AdWords partners with ad agencies to sell products; YouTube is a coveted promotional platform for the television networks; Android software supplies an operating system for more than a few mobile telephone companies.

These horizontal ambitions, coupled with the fears aroused by the speed of technological change, inevitably frays the bond of trust among companies. Most companies become frenemies, both cooperating and competing.

8.) Don’t ignore the human factor

As a journalist, the deeper one burrows, the more complicated narratives and the people who populate them usually become. Among the enduring truths I keep bumping into when there is the luxury of time to get to know people or institutions, is that their decisions are often made for what are not, strictly speaking, reasons of logic. These can be ascribed to human factors. How to measure wisdom, judgment, sensitivity, relationships?

Google has been wise in winning the trust of its users, in building a team culture, and in thinking long-term. But when you start from a blanket assumption that the old ways of doing things are probably wrong, as Google does, you’re bound to make unwise mistakes.

Page was unwise to assume Google could immediately digitize all books, just as Google was wrong to assume that it could devise formulas to better sell ads for newspapers and broadcast radio, two efforts it has since abandoned. Google has not always been wise in avoiding battles, in being insensitive to copyright, or privacy, or the concerns of government.

9.) There are no certitudes

Today, Google appears impregnable. But a decade ago so did AOL, and so did the combination of AOL Time Warner.

“There is nothing about their model that makes them invulnerable,” Clayton Christensen, the Harvard business historian and author of the seminal, The Innovators Dilemma, told me. “Think IBM. They had a 70% market share of mainframe computers. Then the government decided to challenge them. Then the PC emerged.”

Seemingly overnight, computing moved from mainframes to PCs. “Lots of companies are successful and are applauded by the financial community,” Christensen said. “Then their stock price stalls because they are no longer surprising investors with their growth. So they strive to grow but forget the principles that made them great — getting into the market quickly, not throwing money at the wrong thing. When you have so much money you become so patient that you wait too long. Look at Microsoft. No one can fault them for not investing in growth ideas. But none of these have grown up to be the next Windows.”

Maybe, Christensen added, we are now beginning to “see this at Google.” The company has poured money into YouTube and Android and cloud computing, but has yet “to figure out the business model for each.”

10.) “Life is long but time is short.”

The words belong to Eric Schmidt, who explained: “Life is long in the sense that we have long memories. Time is short in that you have to move very quickly. But to me the most important thing to know is that life has a way of working things out. We forget so quickly what the problem was three or four years ago. So my personal view of life is that every problem is an opportunity.”

This is a reason to think and act boldly, as Google has, to take risks, and not to be anchored down by “long memories.” To top of page

Obama & Google (a love story)

10 things Google has taught us

What makes it so revolutionary? Ken Auletta, author of a new book on the company, shares his insights on why it’s uniquely successful and what that means for the media world

In a Fortune.com exclusive, he offers ten enduring lessons drawn from his journey into Google’s realm:

1.) Passion wins

Or as CEO Eric Schmidt told me: while he assumed that “Google would be an important company; the founders always assumed that Google would be a defining company.”

That deficit of passion, he suggested, was a reason that Jerry Yang and David Filo chose not to be fully engaged full-time with the company they created.

0:00 /2:30Google execs top 40 under 40 list

2.) Focus is required

3.) Vision is required too

4.) A team culture is vital

5.) Treat engineers as kings

It is no accident that Page and Brin and Schmidt spend so many hours each week in meetings with engineers. For most traditional media companies, the engineer is less central.

6.) Treat customers like a king

By focusing on the user, Page and Brin provided an organizing principle for Google employees that echoed Sam Walton’s adage: ” ‘If you don’t listen to your customers, someone else will.’”

7.) Every company is a frenemy

8.) Don’t ignore the human factor

9.) There are no certitudes

Today, Google appears impregnable. But a decade ago so did AOL, and so did the combination of AOL Time Warner.

10.) “Life is long but time is short.”

This is a reason to think and act boldly, as Google has, to take risks, and not to be anchored down by “long memories.”

Fast Company’s Most Innovative Companies 2010

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 05:16:37 +0000

We at Rain Management Group are always trying to keep in touch with company’s that are changing our business. These organizations are constantly pushing and challenging all of us as we try to make great content and embrace the new technology that allows us to platform this content. Our clients are quick to adapt, and that is why they continue to excel in our business. Below are selected links to FAST COMPANY’S 2010 most innovative companies. It’s great to see company’s like HULU, NETFLIX, SPOTIFY, DISNEY all in the top 20. To us this is a sign that our business while heading in a new direction is thriving, and creating new opportunities for all of us.

http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/profile/hulu

http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/profile/netflix

http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/profile/spotify

http://www.fastcompany.com/mic/2010/profile/disney

Donnie Wahlberg guests on premiere of IN PLAIN SIGHT

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:21:10 +0000

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Daphne Zuniga in Natural Solutions Magazine – On Stands Now

admin — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:24:40 +0000

Our client and actress Daphne Zuniga (One Tree Hill, Melrose Place) dons the cover of this month’s NATURAL SOLUTIONS magazine. Inside, there’s an interview where Daphne talks about her “grassroots advocacy for environmental justice.” Daphne speaks about combating water pollution and working with Communities for a Better Environment (based in California). This issue is on stands now – so go grab a copy and read the full interview.

Also, please be sure to visit Natural Solutions’ website.

Stewart Butterfield on ‘Glitch’, Flickr, and Social Media Integration

admin — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 16:51:45 +0000

This recent article from Mashable features Flickr’s co-founder Stewart Butterfield explaining his ambitious new online game – “Glitch”:

Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield and five other former Flickr employees are joined by one Digg alum, one games expert and several freelancers in Tiny Speck, a company that’s working on an online game that has a shot at rebooting the stagnating massively multiplayer online game genre.

The 2D game — called Glitch — incorporates beautiful illustrations and cutting edge game mechanics, but its most interesting features are its social aspirations and the lessons it learns from the web that its founders mastered at their previous gigs. (By Samuel Axon)

To read the entire article, please click the link HERE.

Social Media Giant

admin — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:33:45 +0000

With limited resources e.l.f. a cosmetics company built a tremendous following and strong revenues by using only new media. They spend no money on traditional media. We at Rain are using Social Media everyday to create opportunities for our clients, and are fascinated by the strategies of e.l.f. CMO Ted Rubin. Read on………

How e.l.f. Became a Social Media Giant

Feb 9, 2010

- Todd Wasserman

Few brands have had as singular a focus on social media as e.l.f., a cosmetics line that does zero in the way of traditional advertising yet has strong working relationships with about 500 bloggers. As the CMO for e.l.f. (the acronym stands for Eyes Lips Face), Ted Rubin is known for his active use of Twitter (where he has 20,000 followers) and his responsiveness. Rubin, a former protege of Seth Godin, says he responds to every tweet he gets. The social media outreach, along with distribution at Target, a recession-friendly price of $1 per item and a positive review in O: The Oprah Magazine two years ago have helped e.l.f. build a strong brand on the cheap. Brandweek spoke with Rubin about his thoughts on traditional advertising, social media and why larger brands like Coca-Cola can benefit from e.l.f’.’s strategy. Excerpts from the interview appear below:

Brandweek: Your philosophy is not to spend any money on traditional media, right?

Ted Rubin: It’s more than a philosophy, it’s part of our business model and part of what allows us to sell products at the prices we do. So it’s not just a philosophy and the reason I point that out is I work with a lot of bloggers and as bloggers are getting more sophisticated and are earning money from certain brands, they come to me for sponsorships and things and I can legitimately tell them that I can’t do it. It’s not that we don’t want to do it or we don’t want to spend the money there, it’s just not the way we operate.

BW: We’ve seen companies like Google and Starbucks that never advertised suddenly advertise. Do you see that happening at e.l.f.?

TR: It’s hard to say. I believe at some point it will have to change, but I believe that the founders—and take this in the most positive light—are very spoiled. They got success from day one and they’re very used to things working right away. So they’re not used to putting in money to make things work, but if you want to grow and expand past a certain point there are chances that you have to take and that could mean trying out traditional ads.

BW: Regarding social media, is most of your focus on Twitter or is it Facebook?

TR: My philosophy is that Twitter and Facebook are what leads into other forms of social sharing. I consider Twitter a place to lay the groundwork where other people pick up things. I make a great use of Twitter and Facebook not only to reach out to the public, but to build relationships with stronger mediums, like the blogging community. We have 500 bloggers that I deal with regularly that are on my list regularly to contact about products, about changes, about updates and they’re not like an e-mail list that you’d get on if you sign up with e.l.f. With the bloggers, it’s a much more direct relationship. I focus on Twitter and Facebook because they’re scalable platforms, but I do that to build up what I feel are the real advocacy groups which are the bloggers and the people on YouTube.

1 |2NEXT PAGE »

How e.l.f. Became a Social Media Giant

Feb 9, 2010

- Todd Wasserman

Brandweek: Your philosophy is not to spend any money on traditional media, right?

BW: We’ve seen companies like Google and Starbucks that never advertised suddenly advertise. Do you see that happening at e.l.f.?

BW: Regarding social media, is most of your focus on Twitter or is it Facebook?

BW: How much of this is CRM and how much is marketing?

TR: Personally, I believe CRM and marketing go hand in hand and I believe it is a problem in a lot of corporations. I think customer service should come under that realm as well. In a company where customer service doesn’t come under the CMO or at the very least if there’s not somebody in charge of customer service who’s not working hand in hand with them is a big disconnect, because if you’re saying one thing in, especially in social media marketing and they’re experiencing something else, there’s going to be a problem.

BW: How did you amass such a big Twitter following? You have more than any other CMO, including Barry Judge of Best Buy or Jeffrey Hayzlett of Kodak.

TR: What’s nice about that is it’s helped me build relationships with them as well. Being a small brand, I now have relationships not only with all the guys on that list but with others who have recognized what I’m doing there…I think it’s a lot about my personal branding. I reach out a lot, I’m incredibly communicative. I don’t just talk about media, I talk about marketing, I talk about being a divorced dad with teenagers. Why do I do that? Because I think the more people get to know you for who you are then you’re not just a guy trying to sell them something and I write about things I believe in. People will realize quickly if you’re writing about something that’s not truly you.

BW: Isn’t the goal to sell more product?

TR: The goal is absolutely to sell more makeup. Our immediate goal within social media is not click-throughs, not like our direct marketing path that we have with our e-mail marketing. Bottom line, e-mail marketing is about click-throughs and open rates and sales. I can’t say that everybody here agrees with me and I think it’s a fight that most CMOs are focusing on social media have with the C-suite, our founders and owners. I think that everyone’s been spoiled in the last 10 years because everything’s so trackable and most of them forget that the way they built their company originally was on branding. Who would buy $1 makeup if there wasn’t a brand attached to it that led them to believe it was quality? If we didn’t have the social media presence where bloggers and tweeters and Facebook people speak about us all the time and literally a day does not go by where there’s not a user-generated, unincentivized video uploaded to YouTube about e.l.f., not a day. I do believe in sales, but there’s not a true device that [tracks the link between] social media and sales that’s really working. Right now, I think the most important thing is engagement and interaction because it allows you to do branding on steroids. Before, branding was putting up a GoDaddy ad on the Super Bowl and following up with a billboard.

BW: Do you think a large brand like, say, Coca-Cola, can learn from what you do?

TR: I think they can totally learn. Coca-Cola could do it much better and it would be easy for them. Look at the amount of people who would love to follow Coke if they were doing something of value and making people feel like they were doing something more than buying a product.

The Information Divide Between Traditional And New Media

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 08:20:57 +0000

At Rain we are always trying to stay current with respect to the merging of traditional and new media. As new technologies continue to emerge how will we define the difference between the two? Will today’s “new media” be tomorrow’s “traditional media”? The attached article by Brian Solis from www.Paidcontent.org is something we would like to share with our clients and friends. We hope you will find it helpful.

In the era of the real-time web, information travels at a greater velocity than the infrastructure of mainstream media can support as it exists today. As events materialize, the access to social publishing and syndication platforms propels information across attentive and connected nodes that link social graphs all over the world. Current events are now at the epicenter of global attention as social media makes the world a much smaller place.

It’s a timely subject as Clay Shirky will discuss how social media can make history at this year’s TED conference. Indeed social media is changing, documenting, and also making history, revolutionizing once invincible industries that are now paralyzed by confusion, fear, and ignorance. Although they’re reacting now, it will take more than the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other digital readers to revitalize the business of media. PLEASE CLICK ON LINK BELOW FOR FULL ARTICLE