Three cheers for our new rep to the old alumni magazine Images, Mary Gilbreath! She took it upon herself to organize the original slackers, the Atlanta members of the Savannah Country Day School class of 1984 for cocktails and dinner. I literally had not seen some of these folks since graduation, and it was great fun to catch up. Attending were Mary Gilbreath, George Petkovich, Louise Mulherin, Mallory Troxler, Michael Friedman, Alex Cann, Kirk Lanier and myself. There was much discussion of people not in attendance (or course) and general catching up. We gathered at the Old Vinings Inn, and the food and drinks were yummy. I took a few photos – the gallery is here.
[itvt] on CNN Enhanced
Since the February launch of the CNN Enhanced interactive television product, there has been very little trade coverage of what I think is one of the most interesting and widely distributed domestic ITV projects around – it reaches over 11 million Echostar Dish Network households with constantly updated, 24/7 news content. Interactive TV Today,aka [itvt] has just published a lengthy interview with myself and Kevin Cohen, SVP at Turner Broadcasting who was the main sponsor of the project. I worked on this project for over a year before it launched, and I’m quite proud of what it achieves. Here’s my favorite quote from yours truly:
Trotz: At CNN, we try to make practical and logical reuse of things that we create for one medium in others. There are probably several dozen syndicated products that use the feeds from CNN.com–whether those products are on mobile or on other Web sites or are RSS feeds or what-have-you.
We’ve essentially taken that same approach with this new interactive TV application–this approach of repackaging the content that we produce for CNN.com. The site has nearly 25 million unique users per month, and it’s updated every minute of the day. So we want to make that broad array of constantly updated content available to viewers on EchoStar, and–later, hopefully–on various cable platforms. And we want to do this in such a way that it’s accessible while they’re watching our bread-and-butter core product, the CNN US linear network.
Update: PaidContent.org’s Rafat Ali has also linked to the interview.
In the Tall Grass
Sam and Amy had a lovely afternoon, hanging in the front yard with some of his friends. Dad had to grab the camera to get this shot of him exploring the pathway among the monkey grass. Gallery is here on Flickr.
MiniReview: Everything is Illuminated
I’m trying to make it a policy that I’ll post at least a short review on anything we are watching from Netflix, mostly for the greater good my own recollection. Anyway, I’d seen a preview for Everything is Illuminated sometime last year when Amy and I had actually managed to see a movie, the I Heart Huckabees indie flick. Anyway, I recall being charmed by the visuals and the storyline of an American Jewish writer going back to Russia to find the people involved in his grandfather’s life and his escape from the Germans in WWII. The film was charming at times, disturbing at others, and in my opinion a must-see for anyone who traces their ancestry through Eastern Europe and the Holocaust. A great performance by Elijah Wood, the grandfather (who at times reminded me in mannerisms of my dad), and the goofy rapping Russian guide. I’m putting the book by Jonathan Safran Foer on my ‘to read’ list. Four stars.