Yesterday, Turner Broadcasting (you know, those guys who sign my paycheck) took the wraps off a project that’s been in the works for a while – a new broadband site called Super Deluxe (splash site up and running – find the easter eggs!). Dubbed by a story in MediaPost and the Hollywood Reporter as a blend of features of TV networks like Comedy Central with the social networking features of a MySpace, the coverage reports that the site will feature material from both established and emerging comedians and allow for a fair amount of ‘UGC’ (that’s user generated content to those uninitiated among you) from users to also appear on the service. The Hollywood Reporter had this to day:
Dubbed Super Deluxe, the free, advertiser-supported venture will target men 18-34 with a mix of live-action and animated material that won’t skimp on profanity and toilet humor. “It’s like cable TV without the rules,” Turner Entertainment Group president Mark Lazarus said.
TBS has recently announced another effort in a similar vein, though of smaller scale, where users can submit videos to for consideration as being ‘Funny or Not’ as well as the already launched VeryFunnyAds.com, a place to – you guessed it – watch funny commercials. MediaPost reports that the Super Deluxe site will launch in January. My team is involved with – you guessed it again – the ad technology to support the service. We have a busy Fall ahead of us…
So this post is more about food than anything else, but let me highlight the beautiful little dumpling morsels seen above, caught through a window of a joint in Koreatown. As far as work goes, I spent most of last week at meetings in the city, punctuated by a couple of fun dinners with coworkers and friends. First up on Tuesday and Wednesday were a couple of Internet Advertising Bureau events. I spoke on a panel discussing ‘New Mediums, New Challenges – How Ad Operations is Being Redefined.’ Former coworker Mike Stoeckel (now of Fox Interactive) was the moderator, and Tim Messier from Weather.com, Jared Iwata from Microsoft and I had an energetic discussion on podcasting, vodcasting, mobile, video syndication, AJAX and the general implications of Web 2.0 technologies on existing counting, ops and reporting methodologies. Wednesday featured more IAB meetings, including a joint publisher-agency ad ops summit at the NYC ‘Googleplex’ which only opened recently – with quite the cafeteria, let me tell you! Thursday and Friday was a return to all things Turner as we kicked off several major ad technology projects that will keep my team busy through January. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the awesome dinners I had while in NY. First at a great Argentinian steakhouse on 9th Ave with my fellow AdOps council members, then a great selection of gourmet pizzas featuring lobster and bacon on one and a white clam topping on another delivered to my old coworker and friend Hart’s place in Chelsea. And finally, a fun outing with coworkers Lauren Gardner and Beth Kuenzi to Koreatown for some hardwood charcoal goodness. That evening was topped off by cheescake (multiples for some of us) at a 100+ year-old bakery in the East Village. Yummy. Photos are here for your salivating enjoyment.
I was in New York last week for a long series of meetings over three days, and I’m back for a quick set of meetings today. First for the IAB’s Ad Operations committee, then for the MRC Internet Council (pictures from IAB dinner are here). That was followed by vendor meetings for the next two days. And boy was I tired by the time I got home. I did manage to hang with some old friends from SI.com and have a nice dinner one evening. I’m back again this week for a quick trip – spending some more quality time with CNN Digital ad sales. I can’t wait to get home and forget about travel for a few weeks – I hope work allows me to stay put for a while. Photo above taken while I was waiting to meet folks at the Time-Life Building.
In traditional Admonsters fashion, Tuesday afternoon was an outdoor excursion for the attendees. We had a choice of mountain biking (called ‘more strenuous’) and hiking (allegedly ‘less strenuous’). I picked the less strenuous option. Well, unlike what I’d expected, we began our hike right at the hotel and headed up to the Mt. Sanitas loop trail, which – for the record – is listed as strenuous on ProTrails.com, dammit. There were two groups – one taking a slower ‘smell the flowers’ pace, the other heading some 1,400 feet up with almost 900′ of elevation change in less than one mile. Well, I had great plans to head to the top with all my photo gear in tow. The first 1/2 mile kicked my butt, however, and I had to pause for about 15 minutes to get my head clear – the altitude was just too much for yours truly. I wasn’t the only one, and we had a jolly group of six taking it quite easy on the shorter path in the valley below Sanitas, which was still a 3 mile hike all told with some tough elevation changes. After returning to the hotel, I made a big mistake of taking a warm bath and shower, which seems to have totally overheated my system, giving me the chills and putting a damper on my plans to join tonight’s dinner at the Flagstaff House restaurant. I’d been there a few years ago, but felt it better to skip this time. Oh well – a couple of advils and a nice meal of pasta from room service, and I feel much better, thankfully. Check out the updated Admonsters XV gallery with images from the hike. And next time, someone remind me not to carry 15 pounds of camera gear on this type of hike.
