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FanChatter’s Social Chat Box is back on The Red Carpet with E! Online for #Oscars Weekend

Marty

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posted 11 months ago

This Week in Chatter - Bieber Say Bieber Again (2/19/11)

In a week bookended by Bieber, I bring you TWiCh (This Week in Chatter), but first, some overdue thank yous…

Big thanks to @graemethickins for turning his socially-charged spotlight on FanChatter for a while as we created boxes for the Golden Globes, SAG Awards, and Grammys for E! Online. When I mentioned in last week’s TWiCh post that some members of the media had taken an interest in us, he’s the reason why. If you’re a startup or anyone looking for some truly modern PR momentum, contact Graeme. He calls what he does “strategies to win in the knowledge economy”. I call it invaluable help.

And many thanks as well to Paul DeBettignies, aka @MNHeadhunter, for his strategic help in building the #Gophers National Signing Day FanChatter Box a couple weeks ago. He’s the best Minnesota Golden Gopher fan I know and certainly the most socially savvy. You can also find him at @Gophers because he mercifully recognized the need to take his sports tweets elsewhere. Paul advised me on picking the hashtags and curating the streams of Gopher Signing Day chatter from Facebook and Twitter so fans like him wouldn’t miss a thing on college football’s equivalent of draft day. He also provided the best photos and analysis of the Gophers’ special Signing Day event — the ‘Sota Social.

Now, back to Bieber, as in Justin Bieber (and yes, I’m hoping that mentioning the kid’s name will drive tons of traffic to my blog through teen phenom osmosis). The week began with one of the most memorable Grammy nights ever. It’s always fun when so many different genres of music are crammed into one awards show, forcing fans of every stripe to commingle and try to make sense of each other’s tastes, but never has this been so apparent and entertaining as in the age of social media.

I watched the “Chat About Grammys” Box we created for E! Online during the entire event, and it was the consolidated fan commentary about every shift and surprise that both made up for the lack of a host AND offered what no host ever could — the most entertaining play by play of an event I’ve ever seen sourced from thousands of fans in real time. Here’s just a sampling of chatter from that night…

ryanseacrest The moment everyone’s been waiting for - @ladygaga’s #grammys outfit: http://yfrog.com/h4vrompj

Jasmyn Green Christina is trying 2 redeem herself @ the Grammy’s b/c she messed the superbowl up so bad. lol #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS
 
Cana Ata Who is Justin Bieber and how do we make her go away? #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS 

MzDami Bee the grammys need a kanye moment..lol #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS

Connie Toole I’m kinda bored. #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS
 
Stacey Kohan Apparently Kanye is on Twitter watching the Grammys.. saying his thoughts.. #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS
 
fanchatter Good tip Stacey Kohan. Just added @kanyewest’s tweets to the #Grammys tab feed. Refresh your page to see… #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS

 kanyewest Damn… I can’t find the words to explain how I feel about the best new artist award… Don’t wanna say the wrong thing

 denisflorent kanye moment..”esperanza ur great & all but justin is the best new artist of all time” #Grammys

NotChrisRock I just tried to Google #EsperanzaSpalding and the only result I got said “Try Bing” #Grammys #WHO?

Luisa Graciano UM record of the year and album of the year? someone please explain the difference #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS
 
cashhartz RT @elibraden: BREAKING: Angry Birds invade Staples Center in search of Lady Gaga kidnappers #grammys
 
NotChrisRock I’d rather be stuck in an arcade fire than have to listen to anymore of Arcade Fire #Grammys
 
laurence_lebel Ok. Arcade Fire VS Eminem, Lady Antebellum, Katy Perry et Lady Gaga pour l’album de l’annee. GO Arcade Fire GO! #Grammys!
 
vcan_do So bizarre. Never even heard of “The suburbs” I’m embarrassed to say…Album of the year. Really?? #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS  

MsGordon87 This is the most I have ever tweeted. I like this Eonline. #Grammys http://eonli.ne/GRAMMYS

Thanks to E! for enabling this conversation to happen, and especially for inviting fans like MzDami Bee, Connie Toole, and @MsGordon87 (to name a few) to publish their own thoughts about the Grammys to the homepage of eonline.com.

In return, those fans promoted E!’s social hub of Grammys coverage for all their friends and followers to see, and that’s exactly what the Box is for.

If you didn’t catch it above, the upset of the night was @justinbieber losing the Best New Artist Grammy to someone named Esperanza Spalding (?), but that didn’t stop him from being named starting point guard in the NBA All-Star Weekend BBVA Celebrity Game held Friday night in LA.

And thanks to our friends at the @MNTimberwolves, I came to appreciate how much of a social media punch this kid packs. The team called this week to ask for an update of their #TWolves FanChatter Box so it could live on their special NBA All-Star microsite as well as their homepage. Instead, I updated their #TWolves Box with ALL-STAR tabs AND gave them a second Box that was specially designed for the All-Star microsite, including multiple built-in hashtags (#TWolves #NBA #AllStar) and a special MN ALL-STAR tab featuring chatter about Timberwolves All-Star reps @kevinlove and Wes Johnson.

But it’s the NBA ALL-STAR tab in both Boxes that’s worth checking out this weekend. It’s streaming all the NBA All-Star chatter from both Facebook and Twitter… and that’s a busy stream, especially when Bieber takes the court and the MVP (decided by text voting) and later @blakegriffin is dunking everything in sight at the T-Mobile Rookie Challenge game.

Here’s some select chatter from the Timberwolves’ All-Star FanChatter Box Friday night…

CleveSpTorture After watching a cpl min of the #BBVACeleb I’d say Pippen, Jalen, Bieber, and Master P’s kid could all get minutes with the #Cavs. 

Its_Jrizzy #bbvaceleb Bieber’s MVP stat line - 8 pts, 2 boards, 4 dimes and .09% FG percentage… makes perfect sense #rigged

justinNXT Floppy-haired three point shooter who’s not old enough to drink? Pretty sure David Kahn is going to try to draft Bieber.#Timberwolves

AaronSiders John Wall to Blake Griffin bounce pass alley-oop ….. WOW!!! #Allstar #NBA 

cjrider RT @TasMelas: Wooooooooaaoaooaoaoaoooaoaa! We are not worthy. Prolly the on-court highlight of the weekend.#AllStar #NBA

TampaPhil Countdown until #BlakeShow bounce pass dunk is on youtube. over/under 1hr #Blake#Griffin #Blakers #Beast #NBA #AllStar

(minutes later)

TasMelas Replay of what could be the best on-court highlight of the weekend - Wall to Blake:http://dlvr.it/GzDf8 #AllStar #NBA #TBJ

Scott_N86 Rook Soph game…how much fun was that!? Which was better the Wall to Griffin bounce oop or the Cousins to Wall off the board? #allstar#nba

Drake Wilks-Patterson Best NBA rookie,sohfmore game ever..j wall 22 assist…an ally bouncd of the ground to blake griffen..at the en j wall went up betwen the legs off back board ally to finish it.. rookies win 7 strait

jclong #Wolves Wes Johnson scores 25 in NBA Rookie All-Star Gm. Nice effort. But a Wall-to-Griffin eyepopper stole the show:http://t.co/zflaIXw

kevinlove Wes killed it tonight!!! 10-15 shooting 3-5 from the 3 ball…Rooks gotta feel good about that performance

Bert Chantasirivisal Had a great time at the NBA Rookie & Sophomore game…kids will never forget the experience

That last one reminds us what events like these are all about, and I’ll second all of the above about the @jimmywa11 (Rookie Game MVP John Wall) to Blake Griffin bounce-pass-to-reverse-alley-oop-slam. Best in-“game” dunk of all time, period (if you call that a game).

Jordan Dennis Highly MADD I missed the NBA rookie vs sophomore game but there’s always the dunk contest ………..have a feeling Blake Griffin goin to bring it bak to the Vince Carter dayz

He’s right. The Sprite Slam Dunk Contest is tonight, and I share the feeling that Griffin is about to go Vinsane Vintage 2000. Check out the chatter on the Timberwolves All-Star site to see what the world has to say about it and I’ll be back next week with a full report of that and Sunday’s game and a look at all the pre-Oscars chatter.

One last thing… I discovered a bad link at the end of the FanChatter Box Request Form that was causing people to lose their progress at the very end. I’ve now fixed the link and I’m working on shrinking the size and complexity of the form overall. If you have any questions about requesting a Box, please let me know and I’ll help.

That’s all for now folks. See you next week on This Week in Chatter!

Marty

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posted 11 months ago

This Week in Chatter (2/12/11)

Rekindling one of my favorite company traditions, and summoning my best Mel Allen impersonation, welcome to This Week in Chatter, or “These Weeks in Chatter”, which is what happens when you haven’t done one of these in a while. 

(#TWiCh is a weekly report of the latest activity and news around FanChatter and its growing network of social chat boxes. Click here for more information about the FanChatter box and all that it can do, and click here to request your own free box demo.)

Let’s start with the newest news first…

I’m happy to announce that Chat About Grammys, our third consecutive red carpet event FanChatter box for E! Online, is now live and showcasing real-time social chatter about the Grammy Awards from the right column of the eonline.com homepage. We’re honored to be working with E! again after successfully integrating fans into their coverage of the Golden Globe Awards and SAG Awards, and we truly appreciate their understanding of the collaborative read-write web. If you enjoy the celebrity thing, keep an eye on the E! Team tab all weekend for behind the scenes tweeting and twitpics from their army of official Red Carpet correspondents. 

During last weekend’s Super Bowl, our #SBXLV FanChatter box offered chatter organized by the Packers, the Steelers, tweeting NFL Players, and chatter about the ads. It wasn’t heavily promoted, or even promoted at all, but @quick13 found it on our homepage and tweeted that it was “a great way to follow all the info.” Thanks. We thought so, too.

But it was the boxes appearing recently on other people’s sites that we were most proud of, including…

UFC 126 Play By Play over at TheWellVersed.com, where @AndreasHale and @SimplyAnthony showed how two guys and a bunch of @ replies could revolutionize live event commentary under one tab while offering all the best real-time UFC chatter from both Twitter and Facebook under the other. I don’t know who calls the action for the UFC pay-per-view telecasts, but they should be looking over their shoulder.

RunnerSpace.com used the box for social chat alongside their live streaming video feeds of the USA Half Marathon Championships in Houston two weekends ago, and then again for the USA Cross Country Championships in sunny San Diego last weekend. My fastest running friend @aeicher showed up to chatter on our fellow Minnesotans in the Half and as we both not-so-secretly wished we were running it ourselves. 

And speaking of Minnesota, the Golden Gophers showed how social they could be by bringing in a box for National Football Signing Day. There was one tab for  Gopher Signing Day chatter, one for official @GopherAthletics and @GoldenGopherFB tweets, one for NSD chatter from throughout the Big Ten, and one for NSD chatter from around the whole country. If you were a Gopher football fan — or any football fan — tracking with Signing Day, GopherSports.com was the place to be.

Of course, it was the Minnesota Timberwolves (here — smack dab in the middle) and later the fine folks at Philly.com (here, here, here, here, and here — scroll down lower left) who pioneered the use of the original box and continue to demonstrate its intentional utility as an always-on hub of social media activity that keeps people coming back again and again to see your official conversation curation. Now that they have the new and improved box version, they can easily customize tabs (like the Timberwolves are doing with #ALLSTARLOVE) and add more boxes, like Philly.com did adding #DOOP FanChatter to enhance their Philadelphia Union soccer coverage.

Finally, I’d like to thank the members of the media who have shown an interest in FanChatter. There was this generous telling of our story in the StarTribune, this memorable piece by @GRLitman for the WCCO-TV evening news, this fun interview with the Minnov8 Gang for their weekly podcast (which earned them their very own box — see right column — complete with a THE GANG tab full of everything you need to know about the Minnesota tech scene), this memorable piece by @GRLitman for the WCCO-TV evening news…

…and the folks at Finance & Commerce were kind enough to name me to their Minnesotans on the Move list for 2011. I’m honored, especially since I sort of happened into this entrepreneur thing with no training, a little vision, and a lot of tenacity.

So that’s #TWiCh for the first part of 2011. I’ll try keep it weekly from here on out, which will be easy if the box requests keep rolling in. Until then, enjoy The Grammys and happy chattering.

Marty

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posted 11 months ago

Press Release: FanChatter Returns to the Red Carpet to Power E! Online’s Social Coverage of The Screen Actors Guild Awards

Successful Golden Globes Social Chat Box Inspires Sequel for SAG Event

Minneapolis and Los Angeles – January 28, 2011 – E! Online (http://eonline.com) has once again enlisted FanChatter to aggregate and inspire real-time social commentary about its red carpet event coverage. The event this time is the 17th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards®, a celebrity-filled gala scheduled for Sunday evening, January 30, in Los Angeles.

A custom SAG Awards®-themed FanChatter box will be featured on the E! Online homepage throughout the weekend beginning Friday, January 28, where it will showcase Facebook updates, tweets, and photos inspired by the event, including a dedicated feed of E!’s own celebrity correspondent content under the “E! Team” tab. Meanwhile, users are invited to sign in and post their own social chatter from the box without having to leave the site. 

This marks E!’s second collaboration with FanChatter in recent weeks. Its “Chat About The Globes” box was a hit during Golden Globes® weekend (January 14-17) as hundreds of thousands of visitors interacted with the feature to track and share user generated commentary about the winners, the losers, what they wore, and often what host Ricky Gervais was saying about them.

“There was so much chatter surrounding the Golden Globes, including great behind-the-scenes photos from the E! Team, and E! provided the perfect hub to find it all and jump in,” said Marty Wetherall, Co-founder and CEO of FanChatter. “Handling the massive traffic to the E! Online site that weekend was the biggest test of our technology so far, so it’s especially nice to be asked back to help with the SAG Awards.”

The Screen Actors Guild Awards®, which made its debut in 1995, is the only televised awards show to exclusively honor performers. It is also unique in the size of its voting body, as all SAG members – approximately 100,000 in number – are responsible for selecting the outstanding film and television performances of the year.

According to Wetherall, Facebook and Twitter are abuzz with SAG members discussing their choices. “Actors tweet and update their status just like everyone else, which we noticed as soon as we put together the SAG Awards box. They’re chattering about the movies and shows they’re watching and the decisions they need to make for their ballot, so it will be interesting to see how it all relates to the winners announced on Sunday.”

“Thanks to E!,” he continued, “we’ve discovered another way that tapping the social conversation can be uniquely relevant and engaging.” 

About FanChatter

 FanChatter (http://fanchatter.com) offers a platform for media properties, sports teams, and other organizations to engage their fans through content sharing and generate more revenue through sales and sponsorships. It was a Y Combinator-funded startup in 2009, the first such company originating from Minneapolis, Minn. Its customers include E! Online (Comcast Networks), the Minnesota Twins (MLB), the Minnesota Timberwolves (NBA), the Country Music Association, and several others.

About E! Online

E! Online (http://www.eonline.com), based in Los Angeles, is a top entertainment web site, providing the latest daily news and celebrity inside information in a fun, irreverent tone. E! Online presents up-to-the-minute entertainment news, original features, gossip, music and movie reviews, live-event coverage, and E!-branded merchandise for film, TV, and music enthusiasts. It attracts approximately 2.5 million unique U.S. users per month, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. E! Online, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of E! Entertainment Television, Inc. (“E!”), the world’s largest producer and distributor of entertainment news and lifestyle-related programming. E! is currently available to more than 80 million cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers in the U.S.

About The Screen Actors Guild Awards®

Lauded by critics for its style, simplicity and genuine warmth, the Screen Actors Guild Awards (http://sagawards.org), which made its debut in 1995, has become one of the industry’s most prized honors. The only televised awards shows to exclusively honor performers, the awards focus on both individual performances as well as on the work of the entire ensemble of a drama series and comedy series, and the cast of a motion picture. Other highlights of the Screen Actors Guild Awards include the Life Achievement Award, presented to an established performer for fostering the highest ideals of the acting profession and tributes to the varied talents within the Guild’s membership. The Screen Actors Guild Awards is the only national network television show to acknowledge the work of union members. Screen Actors Guild is affiliated with the AFL-CIO through the Associated Actors and Artistes of America (the Four A’s).

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posted 12 months ago

Mega-ambitious

posted 1 year ago

Press Release: FanChatter’s New Social Media Chat Technology Enhances E! Online’s Golden Globes Coverage

Company’s Updated “Box” App Makes Viewers Part of the Action

Minneapolis and Los Angeles – January 14, 2011 – FanChatter, the mobile social fan engagement company, today announced a new release of its chat box technology that will aggregate, organize and amplify the real-time social conversation surrounding the Golden Globe Awards from a featured hub on the E! Online web site (http://eonline.com).

Visitors to the site this weekend (January 14-16, 2011) will see FanChatter’s “Chat About The Globes!” box on the homepage showcasing social conversation and photos organized under three tabs:

• “Chatter” — content published from the box

• “E! Team”  — live tweets from E! Correspondents

• “All Globes” — aggregated chat about the Golden Globes from Facebook, Twitter, and the box itself

To contribute chatter, users simply sign in with their Facebook and/or Twitter account via their PC or mobile device and speak their minds about who deserves to win what and who’s wearing what on the Red Carpet.

“Chat About The Globes!” marks E! Online’s second use of FanChatter’s updated box app (formerly named “ChatterBox”) after a highly successful test as part of their “Live From The Red Carpet: Harry Potter 7 Premiere Livestream” in November 2010.  Facebook users are required to “Like” a designated Facebook page to post from the box, and the E! Online’s Facebook page saw an increase of more than 1,000 Likes during the three-hour HP7 Livestream event.

“The box lets fans everywhere enjoy the latest news and conversation about Golden Globes in real-time while contributing their own chatter, all from the convenience of E! Online’s homepage. It’s the next best thing to standing on the Red Carpet or hanging out backstage with the stars,” said Marty Wetherall, cofounder and CEO of FanChatter, “and it’s a tremendous honor for FanChatter to be working with such an accomplished property.”

E! Online attracts approximately 2.5 million unique U.S. users per month, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. E! Online, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of E! Entertainment Television, Inc. (“E!”), the world’s largest producer and distributor of entertainment news and lifestyle-related programming.  By working with FanChatter, E! is leveraging the social web to generate new growth.

“Everything that’s published from E!’s box back to Facebook and Twitter contains a link back to the E! Online site, allowing increased engagement to drive increased traffic, not to mention more fans and followers,” said Wetherall. “The web site of the future will aggregate all of the conversation about a given subject while allowing visitors to interact in real-time in ways that promote the site, and these sites will be optimized for any screen. That’s what the FanChatter box offers today.”

About FanChatter

FanChatter (http://fanchatter.com) offers a platform for media properties, sports teams, and other organizations to engage their fans through content sharing and generate more revenue through sales and sponsorships. It was a Y Combinator-funded startup in 2009, the first such company originating from Minneapolis, Minn. Its customers include E! Online (Comcast Networks), the Minnesota Twins (MLB), the Minnesota Timberwolves (NBA), the Country Music Association, and several others.

About E! Online

E! Online (http://www.eonline.com), based in Los Angeles, is a top entertainment web site, providing the latest daily news and celebrity inside information in a fun, irreverent tone. E! Online presents up-to-the-minute entertainment news, original features, gossip, music and movie reviews, live-event coverage, and E!-branded merchandise for film, TV, and music enthusiasts. E! Entertainment Television, Inc. (“E!”), which owns and operates E! Online, Inc., is currently available to more than 80 million cable and direct broadcast satellite subscribers in the U.S.

About the Golden Globe® Awards

Known worldwide, the glittering Golden Globe Awards ceremony (http://www.goldenglobes.org) is held every January and is sponsored the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.  The Association is a non-profit organization that has donated more than $10.5 million in the past 15 years to entertainment-related charities.  It also funds scholarships and other programs for future film and television professionals. The 2011 Golden Globe Awards Ceremony will be broadcast live on NBC, Sunday, January 16, beginning at 8:00 pm Eastern time.

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posted 1 year ago

Powered by the sun… for FREE!

Heard a radio ad for Westinghouse Solar Lighting during my run today.

The guy says these lights are “powered by the sun… for FREE!”

Then he asks, about the sun, “How do they stay in business?”

Well, the sun has a lot of users.  They’ll figure out how to monetize later ;)

marty@fanchatter

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posted 2 years ago

@DJ_AM

I don’t know much about DJ AM (Adam Goldstein).  I never saw him perform.  I never (knowingly) heard one of his mixes.  I remember he was in a plane crash and survived.

But I do know that he tweeted a rather haunting lyric from a Grandmaster Flash song on Tuesday, two days after he threw out the first pitch before a Mets game at Citi Field.

And it appears from the news that he died yesterday after doing some crack.

Strange seeing tweets from a dead guy.  He was my age, too. 36.

I heard it said this week that Twitter is not a social network, it’s blogging for the masses.  It gets mistaken for a social network, but it really just lets everybody blog and comment so quickly and easily that our lives and thoughts become revealed to people, even the ones we don’t know.

I also heard it said that Twitter founder Evan Williams predicted a new communications protocol and then made it come true.

That’s an impressive feat.  And it’s made reading tweets from a dead guy possible and collectively mourning his loss a social event.

So I’ll join the millions on Twitter in saying RIP @DJ_AM.

Content sharing is king.

marty@fanchatter

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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posted 2 years ago