Ok, did we all get it out of our system yet? The sly digs, the guffaws, the skeptical snorts? CBS is turning a Twitter feed, a Twitter feed, for crying out loud, into a comedy series, and there's been a collective rolling-of-the-eyes out there in medialand.

The news that William Shatner has been tapped for the lead role - the "dad" of "Shit My Dad Says" - is icing on the cake for anyone who wants to pooh-pooh CBS's programming savvy. (Yes, I said "pooh-pooh" in a post about "Shit My Dad Says". Moving on.)

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Well, here are three reasons I think this thing has a hope in hell - with the caveat that the vast majority of pilots self-destruct before they make it to air, let alone without ever becoming a successful series.

1. There's an audience. No, SMDS' million-plus Twitter followers won't automatically translate into a faithful TV audience. But those followers represent a big chunk of people primed to at least consider giving the pilot a look-see - and that's quite a hurdle to jump. What's more, many of them are die-hard fans... and if they like what they see, they'll work tirelessly to promote the show to friends and family.
2. Justin Halpern is legitimately funny. SMDS isn't to everyone's taste, but it takes real craft to crank out laugh-out-loud jokes that fit into Twitter's 140-character limit, and he clearly has an ear for dialogue. Granted, doing that once every day or so is a long way from hitting the sitcom pace of three or four jokes per minute - but he isn't alone in writing for the show. And t/> [...]
   
   Sun Feb 21, 2010 13:05 pm

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   RecreateMyNight - Digital Amber to Suspend a Moment in Time
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   There was this place. Lenny's Nosh Bar. Depending on your age when you found it, it was where you hung out in college, high school, or after college. One of its habitués, talking it over on a Facebook page devoted to the place, decided to create the Lenny's Jukebox on YouTube. The reaction was overwhelmingly positive. What a great use of new technology to resurrect a moment of past time! Seems like he wasn't the only one to have that idea.

   RecreateMyNight.com is devoted to just such a purpose. But it pulls together a full suite of social media tools in the service of transcendent memory. In addition to video, it allows text, status updates, photos and more.

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   RecreateMyNight is "an application built on top of an enhanced time stamping API," according to the young so-and-sos at MediaMerx, who built it as "a project to keep track of some epic nights out."

   Now Virgin Records is hoping fans of its bands will use it to help those bands keep track of their nights. The first band to employ it are The Constellations.

   It's always iffy whether a service built to assist users in their desire to celebrate themselves will be used to sing the praises of others. In other words, my gang might use this to memorialize our time together, but will we use it to glori/> [...]
   
   Wed Jul 14, 2010 04:20 am

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   BusinessWire Offers Free Haiti-Related Press Release Distribution
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   Popular press release distribution site BusinessWire, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway, is offering its services for free to companies and organizations who are contributing to the aid of victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Such companies can push out free news releases with offers pertaining to supporting services, information, operations, and events directly related to rescue and recovery efforts.
   
   BusinessWire asks member companies to submit press releases as they normally do via the site's online order interface, and to follow up with their local newsrooms. Other organizations are given the following phone number to call for further details: 888.381.9473
   
   BusinessWire has consolidated all of its Haiti Earthquake-related press releases into one spot, so the information is easily accessible. That can be found here.

   [...]
   
   Fri Jan 15, 2010 09:55 am

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   How Startups Are Like Rock Bands
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   Startup culture is continually growing in the greater public interest, and with that growth comes a sort of celebrity for the founders of the more popular companies. Mark Zuckerberg and Evan Williams are now household names, and in many ways, these entrepreneurs are like rock stars in the startup world. In fact, the journey of an entrepreneur through the startup experience is a lot like that of a musician seeking stardom and millions of adoring fans, and artist Shane Snow has a perfect infographic to illustrate this.

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   Snow, a graphic designer, freelance writer, entrepreneur and would-be musician based in New York City, saw his youthful aspirations of topping the rock and roll charts crumble as he and his bandmates went their separate ways after college. During that time he has been writing about technology, running a few startup sites, and designing websites and infographics. One such infographic was inspired by his dual experiences as a musician and an entrepreneur and shows that the path to success for both is marked by similar milestones.

   

   For starters, rock bands assemble members of complementary abilities, create a rough-cut demo tape, network with similar bands and begin touring small venues. The same is true for startups, which gather a team of varying skills, produce their first prototype, and begin networking with other startups and investors. Rock bands "bootstrap" /> [...]
   
   Tue May 04, 2010 15:05 pm

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