hal tweets ·1:04 PM
Indie comics in 80s LA, a homage featuring Groening, Panter, Hernandez bros…. http://bit.ly/b1FcGM
Hal
2008,
13:15 GMT
My 1000th Friend!
Posted by: Hal
Okay, just added 50 or so new friends. I kept a careful tally as I made my way up to 1000. I didn’t want to misscount. It wasn’t the guy from Bangladesh or the girl from China writing a thesis on Facebook. It was almost my high school friend’s mom (sorry marjorie..you were 2 away). It wasn’t woody allen (or the person claiming to be woody allen) who added me as a friend this morning. (I am not making that up. How could you make that up?) The winner of the Hal’s 1000th Friend Contest is…drum roll…
MARIE ANGELL from Houston, Texas.
Good going Marie!
I’ve messaged Marie and am anxiously waiting to hear back from her. Since she’s in Texas and I’m in Toronto, I think I’ll send her flowers. Then we can chat online and I’ll find out all about her and if she’s okay to have me post what I find online, I’ll certainly do so. For now, all I can tell you is that she is a musician in a band and she seems like a pretty cool, fun person. Check out her band The Snake Charmers.
Thanks for being my 1000th Facebook pal Marie!
Hal.
2008,
15:19 GMT
Facebook Obsession and Indie Writers Deathmatch
Posted by: Hal
Okay it’s time to admit that I’m currently obsessed with Facebook. I’m spending way too much time on good old FB. What am I doing on there? Nothing of consequence whatsoever. Adding then deleting applications. Looking at random people’s pictures. Answering my FB messages. (A young woman today sent me a message through FB saying that she just wrote a 2 hour exam based on my article about my failed FB party.) I’m also chatting using that annoying pop up chat thing. I’ll chat with anyone! I’m a chat slut! It’s got to stop, but will it?
In order to justify my obsession with FB, I decided to try out their advertising feature so I could pretend I was doing business. I created an ad for Broken Pencil Magazine’s short story contest Indie Writers Deathmatch. It was actually quite interesting. You can target by age, country, education and interests. The ad is currently aimed at Canadians ages 16-45 who indicate writing and creative writing as interests or hobbies on their profile. I created the ad last night and so far today there’s been 12,029 impressions, and 11 clicks. I’ve spent $3.77 of BP’s money for those 11 clicks, an average of 31 cents a click. (I’ve capped it at $10 a day.)
As a advertiser, I like how targeted I can get. And as a consumer I think it’s also valuable – you’re a creative writer, so you get an ad for a creative writing contest. At the same time, there are drawbacks both practical and philisophical. On the practical side, clicking the ad takes you to the Facebook group. You then have to go from there to the actual contest page in order to find out all the details and enter your short story. So that’s one extra step which is a drawback (unlike, say, a Google Ad which would take you directly to the page you want people to go to). I have no way of knowing, ultimately, how many people actually go from the FB group to the Broken Pencil Death Match page.
More abstractly, this kind of advertising simply enhances what we already know but often chose to ignore: that the stuff we put up there to tell our FB friends about our lives can be used by just about anyone as marketing fodder. Even your social decisions – for instance if you say you are “attending” the Deathmatch – could be incorporated into the ad. (The ad is designed to have a headline above it that says “Hal Niedzviecki is attending the Indie Deathmatch”.) So all this integrates your social life into commercial life and makes me slightly queasy, slightly fascinated, and, as someone who’s trying to reach a very particular cohort of potential creative writers, slightly fascinated. If anything else comes to mind about this, I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, I really need to write a blog post about something other than FB. Get out of the house. Do something with my life.
Hal.
ps – and do consider entering the Deathmatch. It’s a really fun contest and a great opportunity for an emerging writer. I’ll be one of the initial judges to see what stories go on to get voted on. If you’re not a short story writer, please pass the link on to someone who is!
2008,
18:24 GMT
Bits and Pieces: Hal's Upcoming Weekend, More on Facebook Advertising, playlist for Hal's 10
Posted by: Hal
End of the week bits and pieces…..
1) I’ve been really tired lately. And hungry. I think I’m getting ready to hibernate. W. is going to be away this weekend. It’s just me and the kid. I hope she takes long naps…
2) Michael, reader of the blog, sent me an article in response to my musings about Facebook ads. The article talks about Facebook’s approach to advertising and why they’re using these small low paying ads instead of massive blockbuster advertising.
From the piece:
“Mr. Rose argued that Facebook isn’t so much about explaining products as showing people which of their friends endorse them. He pointed to a campaign by Procter & Gamble that allowed Facebook users to give each other Tide vintage T-shirts (actually tiny pictures of a t-shirt).
“Tide wants to create a positive affiliation with their brand in your mind,” Mr. Rose said. “Are they more likely to do that with an ad that says ‘Hey, we’re better”? Or are you more likely to have a positive feeling if one of your friends sends you a virtual gift that is a Tide vintage T-shirt?”
Again, it’s this whole question of using people’s lifestyle inclinations as a way in. Of course that can backfire: do people who wear vintage Tide t-shirts really have an affiliation with Procter and Gamble products?
Anyway, so far the FB ads for Indie Writers DeathMatch that I’m running have had an average of about 26,000 impressions a day, with about 36 actual click throughs to the FB page for the contest. I’ve capped the amount we want to pay at $10 a day and plan to run the ad for 10 days. So in the end it’ll cost $100 for 360 click throughs. Now since it costs $20 to enter the contest (you get a subscription too) at the end of the day I only need 5 of those 360 to actually enter the contest to make it worth it. The question, of course, is whether or not we’ll get those five people through this.
3) Back to my weekend. In addition to W. being away leaving me as sole parental unit in charge – watch out kid, there’s a new sheriff in town – I’m going to be on a panel at a conference on Sunday. The conference is called Culture Congress and the panel I’m going to be on is Technology of Contact. 11:45 – 1:15 at the Lakeside Terrace, Harbourfront Centre, downtown Toronto. also on the panel are: Jacob Zimmer, Michel Lefebvre, and Peter Flemming. It’s free if anyone wants to check it or the other events out.
4) Finally, I’ve created a CD mix of Canadian tunes to send to my 1000th Facebook friend, the free thinking, home schooling blues playing Texan Marie Angell. There are 13 songs on it. Here’s the lineup: 1) “When She Appeared” – Aaron Booth 2) The Commute – The “Barmitzvah Brothers 3) Slow Recovery – Beans 4) In Her Dream – Bob Wiseman 5) Almost Crimes (live version) – Broken Social Scene 6) Pamphleteer – The Weakerthans 7) In State – Kathleen Edwards 8) I Will Not Sing a Hateful Song – Constantines 9) Almost Summer – Jason Collett 10) I’m a Mountain – Sarah Harmer 11) 38 Years Old – The Tragically Hip 12) Blackheart – Cuff The Duke 13) The Dead Flag Blues (all 16:28 of it) – godspeed you! black emperor. I’m excited for Marie to experience this cross Canada panorama of weirdness!
2008,
19:53 GMT
Hal Update: Book, Doc, 1000th Friend Photos and Me Love Blob!
Posted by: Hal
I haven’t updated much lately. No excuse, really, except that I’ve been both busy and lazy, a devastating combination, but one that many feel with the onset of winter and holidays. Snow flurries outside, a guy on the radio talking about selling plastic ice surfaces to Quebec townships(!), and, well, it’s already halfway through December.
So lots on my blog agenda. First off, I had lunch today with Amy Holmes who presides over the Open Book Toronto website. She’s cool and it’s cool so check it out.
In Peep Diaries news, I’m happy to announce that I’m in the editing stage of the game, the feedback from my editor at City Lights is good and things are coming together nicely. The book is on schedule to be published in May. There’s a cover now, it’s great, and I’m going to reveal it early on in the new year. In the meantime, wish me luck on the re-writes. Actually here’s the sick truth: I love editing. Writing is annoying but editing I find incredibly peaceful. I can only write for an hour or so at a time, but I can edit all day. Is that weird or what? I guess it’s going to be a blissful rest of the month, cutting, pasting, inputting changes, adding new developments…
In Peep documentary news, it looks like the funding has finally come together to make the documentary – in which I attempt to be the most peeped man alive – and to put together the ultra-cool Peep interactive online project that will both stand on its own and be integrated into the documentary. We’re meeting on Thursday next week to talk about our plans for the website, and general timing. I’ll keep ya posted.
Well what else to tell you? I took E. my three year old to the TINARS For Tots Holiday Reading last weekend. It was fun and we picked up a copy of CTON’s Super A-maze-ing Year of Crazy Comics by Clayton Hanmer, who also did the cover of the summer Broken Pencil How-To issue! It’s a really funny book and E. is super into it, particularly a maze involving trick-or-treating and a giant monster attacking the candy store. We love you blob!
Finally, before I forget, I also want to update you on my 1000th friend, Marie Angell of Baytown, Texas. She received the box of goodies I sent her and sent back a bunch of pictures of her and her wonderful family opening up the stuff. Now, Marie, I’m waiting for book reports and a review of the mixed CD of indie Canadian bands I burned for ya. Hanukah came early to the Angells of Baytown, as you can see by following this link to Marie’s slideshow .
2009,
18:55 GMT
Back in Action in 2009: Hal's new Macy's wardrobe, Adventures in Translation and JohnTV
Posted by: Hal
Okay I'm back and I'm blogging. I spent the holidays with W. and E. in the suburbs of Maryland. There are a lot of stores there. A lot of them. A good place to visit if anyone wants to ponder just how it is possible that people get sucked into spending so much more than they actually have. Speaking of which, we bought a whole bunch of new clothes. Macy's was having a sale. Hey, a man's gotta look good, right?
The visit was pretty decent. My mom watched the kid a lot which let me do what I like to do best: sleep in. When I wasn't sleeping I was doing something else I'm partial to: drinking beer. Also went to a hockey game (Capitals versus Leafs, Caps won of course, go Caps!), saw two movies - Slum Dog Millionaire and The Reader - both at this giant movie theatre on the edge of a fake lake built beside a weird fake town made up entirely of stores and restaurants (condos surround but do not intrude). Anyway, you get the idea.
So, while I was gone two articles popped up that mention my work - both in different languages. One appeared in La Presse (a Quebec paper) and one appeared in a Mexican newspaper. I posted the link to the La Presse article on Facebook and requested a translation of the article and promptly got two sent to me. I posted them to my FB page, so if you want to see them friend me. Today I posted the piece in Spanish, so hopefully someone either here or on FB will translate that one for me too!
Pic on JohnTV with the caption:
"This could be you. Would it be worth it?"
So the piece in French by Mario Roy is about pride and its spill over into pseudo-nonconformity ie. the idea that we are trying to be different just so we can proudly proclaim that we are different. It got me thinking about the roots of Peep Culture. Is it pride or insecurity that causes us to reveal so much about ourselves? It's probably a little of both.
While in DC I watched a bit too much cable on Dad's giant - and I do mean giant - recently acquired HD big screen tv. One of the shows consisted of Shocking Videos. They featured the work of Brian Bates, "Oklahoma's Video Vigilante" who takes great pride in videoing prostitutes and johns in the act and posting the ensuing footage to his website Johntv.com.
Obviously the fact that he does this, and that his videos are all over cable as well, is indicative of the rise of Peep - in which we derive entertainment from other people's 'real' lives. But there's something else here, the zeal with which Bates pursues his subjects, and the pride he takes when he is featured on TV. You can argue that the videos posted to YouTube via his website serve to advance his stated aim of battling prostitution in Oklahoma City, but when they are put on TV, they become entertainment, and the only thing they advance is his pride. (I should add here that at least one of the videos posted to YouTube from Johntv.com come with advertisments from YouTube that say: "Hookup With Sexy Asians.")
Here's a sample of the work of Brian Bates.
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
Indie comics in 80s LA, a homage featuring Groening, Panter, Hernandez bros…. http://bit.ly/b1FcGM
Issue 47 (spring) is now completely ‘unlocked’ on the NEW Broken Pencil website. Web TV, Liz Worth on punk TO & more http://bit.ly/bXvQuP
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