Possible Yahoo Mail PHISHING SCAM

I just received an email, supposedly from Yahoo Members Services however, when I looked at the email address, it was from freeman_boy@hotmail.com. 

The email then states that my account will be suspended and all of the information lost if I do not respond with all of my acco...unt info in a reply to the email. Doesn't quite add up. Please if you get this don't respond before getting in touch with Yahoo 1st.

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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.

Andy Garcia talks Social Media and Promoting Films @ City Island OC screening

Last Thursday, I attended a screening of a new film starring

Andy Garcia

, called

City Island, hosted by the

OC Film Society

, a sub group of the

Newport Beach Film Festival

that holds screenings of independent films when the festival is not going on. They’re pretty on-the-money about indie-film, having shown the following hits over the last few months:

The Young Victoria

,

Precious, Serious Moonlight, and The Blindside.

I planned to use the event as a rehearsal of sorts for my intended coverage of the 2010 NBFF. Garcia was actually penned in to attend and participate in a Q&A following the screening – almost unheard of in the biz.

Despite a few setbacks, including my forgetting my Flip camera at home, the event was probably one of the most successful thrown by the OC Film Society. The Q&A with Garcia went on longer than most do. And he was more than gracious in answering any manner of inquiry about the film, even one from a woman so unimaginative as to ask the actor how she should describe the film to others (did she forget that she just sat through the entire thing? Sub question: do you ask the cops how to describe a car accident when you were the one in it?)

One of the topics brought up was about the difficulties of making getting independent film made in today’s economy. This he turned into a secondary point on how social media has altered the way studios promote films, and they way a film now gains a following.

On the former: Although it seemed for years that independent filmmaking is on the rise, and a growing number of indie films winning numerous awards, including Oscars (Hurt Locker, Best Picture 2010) – many of the smaller studios, responsible for those films, are closing their doors. However…

 On the Latter: Although money is tight, the rise of social media allows for independent filmmakers to engage their (potential) audience in an entirely new, and more personal, manner – giving them a leg up on the big-budget competition. You can engage more people in less time, and make it more intimate. Now you can connect with 1,000 people with the click of button, “before you had to physically make contact with 1,000 people,” Garcia said.

The word-of-mouth aspect of social media has also laid an interesting groundwork for the movie release, Garcia said. The very dynamic of social media gives the little guy a fighting chance against marketing budgets that overshadow the indie film’s entire funding.

All it takes is one bad clip…

“Social Media could kill a big-budget film, with enough bad response,” Gacia said. If say a scene gets leaked over YouTube or some other outlet and gets negative feedback from the public, it has spelled the end of some recent releases.  “The cream rises,” in this new media environment.

And it’s that very new/indie media mentality that Garcia attributes to the success of City Island, a film that was passed over and almost found itself collecting dust on some shelf, a number of times. Yet throughout the filming, the passion of the director and cast kept the project not only moving forward, but building interest like a snowball.

Read Director Raymond De Felitta’s blog on the making of the film “Movies ‘til Dawn: Making City Island.”

“City Island has become a grass roots indie fave, a movie that audiences feel belongs to them--a perfectly appropriate reaction given that the films success began with it winning the Audience Award at the Tribeca Film Festival.” – De Felitta

The film opens in Orange County on April 2.

For video clips from the Q&A: http://www.kellyforniamedia.com/index.php/nbff/ocfilmsocietycityisland/

And for more info on my 2010 NBFF coverage go to - http://www.kellyforniamedia.com/index.php/nbff/

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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.

Creative & Entertaining Uses of Twitter (occurring right under our noses)

Tonight, I downloaded the Mashable app on my iphone and one of the top stories I read talked about how some "genius" (more specifically, Jonah Peretti of Buzzfeed and Huffington Post fame) found a way to merge the thrill of the Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) line of books with Twitter.

Like me, I'm sure many of you born (or growing up) within the era known as either the 80's or 90's are more than familiar with the lore of the CYOA books. A mystical invention, where rather than having to be drug around by the author's whim or fancy, YOU, yes YOU, are given a forked road and a decision, to take the fate of your own personal reading experience into your own hands, AND, either triumph, get lost in a cave for all eternity, die by alien hands, or a million other increasingly more unfathomable and bizarre, and thoroughly enjoyable conclusions.

And, I'm sure, like me, many of you cheated ;) marking one or more of your previous choices leading to your current path with a finger or two. So that in case you should die, fate could in fact be reversed and you could go back to a better time, before that final blow - don't worry know one knew but you. Oh, and how the guilt killed. But, heck you couldn't just let it end there.

And it didn't! Which leads to yet another ingenious facet about these books - Multiple adventures and story lines, available in multiple combinations all within one jacket and one title. Wow! I mean, this was Twitter before there was twitter, following threads that lead you down conversational patterns, tracing back to other story lines and patterns. Why weren't these two combined before? It almost seems silly now.

However, like most of these stories do - this got me to thinking, "What other creative uses of Twitter are being engaged in right now, under our noses even? How are people utilizing the tools provided by the micro-blogging site, twee-king these tools to create adventure within the Twitterverse? How hard do you have to look to find them? Are we already and just don't know it?

1. #Journchat - my friend @RochelleVeturis, a "virtual force" on twitter, and past colleague at the LA Times, told me about #journchat - an online community meet up of journalists chatting about the state of the news industry through the simple use of the hashtag search function. All I have to do to watch and/or participate in the conversation is add the #journchat hash to my tweets.

I mean take that in, an entire forum of journalist converging across time zones and geography to hold a discussion in virtuality. That's awesome and so simple. It seems too easy to be true.

Right now, conferences all over the world are engaging in a journchat forum of sorts, just on a smaller scale, throwing out hashtags for people to add to the end of their tweets during a conference session or some other event to bring people into another conversation outside, or alongside the realtime event. I just hosted the posting and twitter feed for such an event last month. People both at the conference and at their respective homes or businesses (unable to attend), discussed topics, shared information, quoted speakers and then retweeted said quotes to the masses.

2. Read a Novel - tweet by tweet: Two projects on Twitter are trying to share an entire novel tweet by tweet: James Joyce’s Ulysses or Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Read an entire novel, at your pace, taking in only a thought at a time. My question is how long would it take you to reach the end? 

3. Better yet, Write Your Own Novel: The novel says it is already completed, but I am hoping for a follow-up project in the near future. Even though it’s defunct, you can still read what was written at the 140novel site, color-coded by author. I may start the story up again, complete with my CYOA created story lines. Yes, inspiration strikes again.

4. Alarm Clock? Need to remember something? Send this @timer a direct message, and he'll tweet you back. For example, 'd timer 45 call mom' reminds you in 45 minutes.

5. Track your packages: with @trackthis you can keep your eye on the things making their way to you from FedEx, UPS and DHL shipments. I don't know about you, but I order one thing I need, or want, online a month because I love the anticipation of knowing that soon something is waiting for you, sent to you (yes even if it was from you too), on your doorstep. And I love just as much tracking it across the state or nation. It's just fun.

6. Keep track of who's Adding and Dropping you on Twitter: I recently started using @chirpstats on twitter, a service that once you begin following them, keeps a tally of the people who've followed and unfollowed you over a week or a couple of days, depends on the traffic. I right now, don't have a huge following, but large enough that I can't wade through the muck and find out who stopped following today. This little twitter bound app has actually helped me maintain a customer service base of sorts with people who were thinking of walking away from this tweeter. Almost every time it was someone I was unaware was following me, and so I followed them and they followed back, again.

7. Post like a Pirate: argh maytees, looking to tweet like the ruffians of the sea do? Well, ye be on the right track if yer head toward http://postlikeapirate.com/twitter.php. Simply enter in yer infermation and a message in a bottle yer wish to send out to sea, and the app will reformat it in pirate slang. Oh goodness, if only my pirate-obsessed former editor only tweeted.

I think that's enough for now, but I would love to hear from you about any jewels you've found - Some unexpected and creative new uses of Twitter, be it a complete time suck or the answer to the world's power crisis. Send 'em my way...

––––––––––––––––––––

Btw - I'm starting my CYOA game tonight, right now as a matter of fact. Wanna join in? http://twitter.com/peretti/status/10731245477

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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.

Need to cross the border, but don't know where to start? New cellphone app may help...

A new cellphone application created by three professors from UC San Diego, and one from University of Michigan, will help illegal immigrants to cross the border, providing information on key landmarks and where to find water in their trek across the desert to the land of the American Dream. 

Some applaud it, some call it an "inappropriate use of taxpayer funds and an irresponsible use of technology," according to Fox News story "Critics Blast Transborder Immigrant Tool as 'Irresponsible." here's the link to read more: http://topstories.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=17224&content=34865719&pageNum=-1

It's true that by providing useful information on crossing the desert this new application could save peoples' lives, such as the 111 whose deaths were attributed to border-crossings last year. But the app also tells people when and where border patrols are expected to hit. That doesn't really sound like a safety thing to me. 

But anyways, it got me thinking...

We're narrowing in on all the wrong things here. Let's take a minute to sit back and breathe this one in.

First, are there really multiple university professors out there, right now, getting paid their respective state's hard earned cash to design an application to assist people in technically breaking the law? Funds that could be going to let's say, classes that are getting canceled & causing riots and such in UCs; funds that could be going to my sister's paycheck so that she doesn't get cut from the budget every year because she's not yet tenured, and at this rate, won't ever be; funds that could be going continuing benefits and retirement that were promised to  - but now ripped away from - daycare workers and other non-teaching employees; funds going to improved salaries, new equipment, medical supplies, books, etc. 

It warms my heart to think that some so called "professorial staff" out there, probably getting high, are planning out really important experiments with their research money, not like medical phone apps, or GPS locating apps that could save lives like in Haiti - no let's help people cross the border. 

And why are we making it so easy for people to enter the country all of the sudden? ;) Gone are the days when illegal immigrants had to just run balls out and hope not to get picked up by a floodlight while scaling an enormous wall topped with barbed wire. 

I mean really, marinate on this one a moment. I see a whole new slew of "when I was your age stories from parents." 

I can just see it now, the whole family sitting around the three-foot, plastic Christmas tree. Uncle Reggie, first time in America, joining the fam, gets lauded by gramps because, "When I was your age...

"We didn't have no cellphone gizmos to get us cross the border. In my day, you had the clothes on your back and some tortillas. Son, I dodged minutemen, border cops and la policia, uphill, both ways, with no shoes, and your sister under my arm. That's how we did. You kids don't even know how easy you have it these days."

Oh yeah, forgot to mention the best part: read this quick description from Fox: 

"The Transborder Immigrant Tool (TBT)... a software application that can be installed into a GPS-enabled cell phone. In addition to helping immigrants locate water and landmarks, it also could alert them to Border Patrol checkpoints. And to make the trek a little less arduous, it also plays recorded poetry."

It's the little extras that really make a product sparkle.

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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.

Looking for that little to deduct this year...

...but don't know how to keep track of it all? The new iphone app iDonateit by BMG helps you track what you've donated to various charities and causes, estimating the quality, value and quantity. I'm not quite sure why this fascinates me so much. But it's just amazing what we have at our fingertips these days to help us keep track of what once seemed so daunting/overwhelming - you choose your adjective implying sheer size and scope.

Stuff like this almost makes taxes seem like fun, when you  can play around with it on your iPhone. Did I just imply that doing your taxes could almost be fun? Wow, I'm either getting old or losing my mind. 

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/idonatedit/id341013253?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D6

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Posted via email from Kellyfornia on the state of... well, things.