Stritar's chronolog

5 reasons why Star Wars 7 will become the highest-grossing movie of all time

Thu, 04 Dec 2014 13:51:20 GMT

We’ve finally seen it! And by we I mean everybody. It turns out the thing that can really break the Internet are not a few pictures of a big ass, but a movie trailer that's been anticipated like none before it. And it came with a bang! Even though a lot of people watched the trailer on iTunes (where statistics are undisclosed), the movie already managed to attract more than 40 million views in less than a week on YouTube, beating the previous record holder by miles. This time, it’s all in, Star Wars - The Force Awakens began its journey to become the greatest movie ever. You don’t believe me? Here are five reasons why this will happen.

The original movie’s success

Did you know that when Star Wars came out way back in 1977, it became the highest-grossing movie of its time (according to Wikipedia). Neither did I, but there’s more. If you adjust the earnings for inflation, the original Star Wars turns into the third biggest box office hit in history. The movie was super huge, but we were too young to notice. Actually, most of us weren’t even born at that time, which means this one will appeal to two generations of geeks. But we’ll get to that later.

The 90s/00s sequels didn’t do bad as well in the box office, two of them managed to get on the Top 50 movies of all time list as well. Not a bad starting point for Episode 7.

The original cast

Star Wars 7 represents one of the greatest cast reunions in the history of Hollywood. More than 30 years later (the last of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi, was released in 1983), everybody’s back in action. Except James Earl Jones, but Darth Vader is dead anyways (and will hopefully stay that way), so no biggie there. Can you even look at this picture and not get excited about it?

This photography of the cast of Episode 7 already became one of the most iconic in movie history. Source: Daily Mail.

It will be interesting to see how chemistry between the actors works after so many years. On one hand, you have the superstar Harrison Ford, on the other hand you have Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, who didn’t manage to make outstanding careers. But if you ask me, the anticipation of the character dynamics makes the whole thing even more intriguing.

J.J. Abrams

It’s too bad George Lucas won’t return to direct the next few episodes, but he was very involved in the making of this movie nevertheless. J.J. Abrams surely is the right choice for the job, he has the spectacle material this movie needs. Of course, this means that the worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek will finally entwine for good, but who cares anyways. The ultimate no-no already happened when Ben Affleck was casted his second high-profile superhero.

Back to J.J.. The trailer he made for Star Wars 7 looks simply fantastic, and based on his other recent achievements, we surely have a lot to look forward to.

Disney

When Disney paid $4 billion for Lucasfilm in 2012, some people thought they must be mad. Think about it again, Disney means business. They're a marketing machine which calculated even bigger piles of money can be made from the Star Wars franchise. As the second largest media company in the world, they also know how to do it. Their biggest box office hits so far include The Avengers to The Pirates of the Caribbean, but in 2015, they're out to take the gold.

The Force is already strong with Mickey - X-wing in Disneyland Paris.

The geekosphere

On friday, the new Star Wars trailer was all over the internets. The geek community collectively orgasmed while watching the 90 second teaser. The cult and fandom that’s present around this scifi classic is enormous, and after the “disappointment" of the second trilogy, we finally have something new to look forward to.

On friday, top three posts on reddit were about the Star Wars trailer. Soon, things started taking their own course. The YouTube trailer received more than 40 million views in less than a week. And it’s still one year before The Force Awakens will be released. There are so many opportunities available to Disney it’s almost ridiculous. With proper marketing, Star Wars could actually break the Internet.

Reddit after Star Wars trailer revelation.

But it’s not only about you. It’s about your dad as well. The original cast will surely appeal to the original geeks who were drooling over Leia way before you were born, while Facebook will help to deliver the message. Our parents are the ones who will tip the scale for the next Star Wars.

The Force Awakens

Almost 40 years after the original Star Wars, the stars have aligned again. Millions of fans are patiently waiting to see how Luke, Leia and Han will combat the Dark side of the Force. Unlike the pale second (first) trilogy, Disney now holds all the cards to create the biggest movie of all time. The target audience is huge, and the means for virality and distribution are better than ever. All we need to do now is to allow Disney to seduce us for a year, and after we are all wet, deliver the promise. The world is ready for the next supermovie.

But for how long? Avatar 2 is scheduled for 2016.

Daft Punk, Arrested Development, and how content is becoming an experience

Wed, 15 May 2013 07:32:28 GMT

What a great year for content! In October 2012, Red Bull Stratos set a benchmark for what can be done with branded content. The jump was watched live on YouTube by 8 million people. A few months later, Gangam style established a new standard for how far online virality can take you. It became the first video to reach 1 billion views on YouTube. Powered by the internet. These two extreme cases probably won't be topped for quite some time (internet time, that is) and are clear leaders in their categories. But lately, I've noticed two other great examples that clearly show something else - where commercial content (promotion) is headed. It's all about delivering experiences, which are created and amplified by digital marketing.

Daft Punk

I've never ever seen so much buzz about a release of a new album. Ok, my streams aren't filled with information about Biebers and Gagas, so I can't tell what's happening there, but I'm sure Daft Punk won big time. The crazy release that's been going on for months, with teaser videos, song loops, weird promotions and shitloads of publicity. Facebook, Twitter or Reddit, Daft Punk seem to be all over the place, and everybody was trying to be the first to publish the link to the stream or download of Random Access Memories. The first single from the album already received more than 23 million views on YouTube (in 6 weeks), and the song is number 1 in many countries, besides breaking Spotify streaming records. What a comeback!

Arrested Development

Some of you may have heard about Arrested Development. It's one of those shows that got cancelled after only a few seasons, but kept a strong fan base that was waiting for years for a movie to be made. Then, the mighty Netflix came around, and something even better than a movie happened. Season 4, with the original cast! The trailer that launched a few days ago already has more than a million views, which is a lot compared to the 3.5 million who watched season 3 finale. Awesome stuff, can't wait to see it.

So what

A music album with lots of supporting content and infinite publicity, a TV show with a loyal army of geeks? These two cases are more alike than it seems at first sight. They both offer more than the content itself, they offer experiences. They are both fueled by the internet. They are both children of online virality.

Google search trends for Daft Punk and Arrested Development peaked in the past days.

Daft Punk gave us a something that goes beyond an album, they gave us a complete story that's funky, appealing and mysterious (and filled with 80s revival and robots). Netflix will be fulfilling a fantasy that we've been having for years, and they will make us come like never before. The complete season (15 parts, 8.5 hours) will be available at once, so fans will be able to watch it in one peace! The US internet will surely be consumed by Netflix on May 26th.

Do you see what's happening? Everything, even (commercial) content, is becoming an experience. Otherwise, it's overlooked in the sea of information overload.

UPDATE (16.6.2013): It seems Arrested Development's transmedia experience is getting more interesting. Yesterday evening, one of the most fascinating characters in the series, dr. Tobias Fünke, got it's own sizzle reel and website, promoting his acting skills. Great stuff.

Is it even possible to create original content in this age?

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 11:52:13 GMT

I've been blogging for more than three years now. And I love doing it, hell, I think my blog is pretty fucking awesome. But there's a problem I've been noticing lately. Every single piece of content I write has probably been written hundred times before. By mainstream media, by authors, by bloggers, by you. There's no way around it, and it bugs me to infinity. Take this specific post for instance, I won't even google it, but I can guess plenty of others writers have faced these thoughts and wrote about them from their own viewpoints. The irony of the situation is fantastic.

The amount of information on the internet is overwhelming. Thousands of blogposts created every day, hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, infinite tweets (check out this cool infographic). And only so many things you can tell. Which pretty much means that no matter what you write, someone else surely wrote it before you. All the topics have been covered so many times it's silly. You feel you're stealing other people's ideas even if you aren't. Or are you?

I'm one of those people who tries to absorb as much information as possible. I want to learn every day, synthesizing the gathered knowledge for various reasons, such as my work or this blog. From this perspective, I'm inevitably copying other people's ideas, rewriting content that's already been written many times before. Stealing Lego blocks and using them to build new sculptures. Is there even such a thing as an original idea? There probably really aren't that many.

Writers and bloggers are just a bunch of monkeys who are trying to write Shakespeare anyways. Curators, who are striving to separate the sheep from the goats, blending extraordinary ideas into somethings even greater. And that's what matters, that's where the value is added. Even though most of the content is not original, if any. But I guess that's ok, I just needed to think and write about it, which helped me understand this is the very essence of blogging.

What's hot on the web - Part 7: The greatest metameme ever?

Fri, 22 Jun 2012 20:49:02 GMT

By now you've probably already noticed Gotye's "Somebody That I Used To Know" is a pretty amazing song. It's actually one of the most played songs ever on YouTube (currently on 17th place with around 260 million plays), and already has plenty of great remixes and variations. One of the covers that is really worth mentioning is the performance by Walk Off The Earth, where five people play this song on one guitar.

This great cover already has more than 120 million plays itself, enough to get its own parody by The Key Of Awesome. This funny adaptation of the cover has more than 7 million views, and the puppet interpretation of the adaptation almost 400 thousand. But wait, there's more. A few other guys, inspired by the parody, converted it into a Tetris theme song version, with around 50 thousand views, and a parody of the puppet version of the parody version exists too. Enough to create one the the greatest metamemes in existence, and to make it to What's hot on the web series.

You'll enjoy this, and don't get too confused.

The original

Views: 259,894,229
Published: Jul 5, 2011

The cover of the original

Views: 121,555,950
Published: Jan 5, 2012
Inception level: 46.77 %

The parody of the cover of the original

Views: 7,524,547
Published: Feb 8, 2012
Inception level: 6.19 %

The puppet version of the parody of the cover of the original

Views: 396,868
Published: Feb 8, 2012
Inception level: 5.27 %

The response to the parody of the cover of the original

Views: 49,580
Published: Feb 16, 2012
Inception level: 0.66 %

The parody of the puppet version of the parody of the cover of the original

Views: 642
Published: Mar 18, 2012
Inception level: 0.16 %

Pretty impressive stuff, isn't it? Man, I love the interwebs.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

The future (of software) is in platforms

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 16:26:11 GMT

I don't know if you've had the chance to read What Would Google Do? by Jeff Jarvis. You should, it's a very powerful book, even though it's been written a few years ago. Things have changed a bit since then, when Google was on top of it's game, but that doesn't mean the ideas presented in the book aren't more actual than ever. One of the chapters that made the biggest impact on me was the one about platforms and distributed systems. Google managed to conquer the world of Web 1.0 by being decentralized, allowing others to embed YouTube videos, Google Maps and Ads anywhere on the Web. This orientation provided the fuel for Google's further development and growth. Today, this way of thinking is not a competitive advantage anymore, it's becoming a necessity. As you will see, current online market leaders of various industries are not those who provide the service, they're the ones who provide the platform.

Platforms rule because mashups rule

Platforms, as opposed to products and services, allow others to build on top of them. Not thinking about control and centralization, they provide the basic building blocks other can use to develop even more products and services. In the world of Web 1.0, this meant using an embedded YouTube video instead of having your own video player, but Web 2.0 has been heavily defined by ecosystems of services built around other services. With APIs these platforms provide, developing high-level mashups has never been easier from the technical point of view, and this type of architecture benefits everybody. The platform vendor gets additional developers that extend and market it's service, while the satellite mashup gets the distribution channels, users and data they need to get somewhere faster. A modern synergy packed symbiosis.

Oren Michels, CEO of Mashery, which provides API as a service, talking for Silicon Gardens in Kiberpipa

The technology platforms

Today, pretty much all of the technology market leaders are platforms. Google allows various levels of use of it's services, from embedding things to using different APIs. Facebook's games and other apps ecosystem is huge, with providers such as Zynga already gone public. Twitter and it's massive amounts of tweets generated in real-time produced the Twitterverse - an array of fascinating high-level services. Foursquare, a geo-location network allowed other interesting concepts, such as augmented reality and games, on top of its service. Amazon offers you to build your own store, and Apple's and Android's mobile app stores are hosting hundreds of thousands of apps developers can build, deploy and distribute in short amounts of time. Salesforce offers a platform for enterprise IT, WordPress for writing and blogging tools. I could go on, but you get the picture. Platforms are the future, because they evolve collaboratively, with thousands, if not millions of people co-creating them.

A massive Salesforce conference in San Francisco, which I've visited on my Silicon Valley trip (thanks Davorin!)

The real-life platforms

Not only in software and technology, platforms in real-life are also becoming more widespread. The whole Apple iPad/iPhone gadgets ecosystem is one of the most obvious cases, where various providers offer sound systems, dongles, add-ons and other accessories that upgrade and make the original item even more appealing. Nespresso and Dolce Gusto are another interesting products. Nestlé provides the platform - the small coffee pads, which they are pushing to the market, while different manufacturers make coffee machines and other complementary products. The platform becomes more useful because of its satellites, which make the platform even more successful, turning this relationship into a virtuous circle.

Coffee machines by various vendors for Nestlé Dolce Gusto

So what should I do?

Firstly, you should embrace this way of thinking and understand what's happening. Platforms have been around since the beginning of software, even though you maybe haven't thought about them in such a way. Computer architectures, Operating systems, Programming languages and Development environments are all platforms, on a more basic level - but they provide the foundation which others can build on top of. Other platforms are build atop of these and others atop of those. Platforms are everywhere, and with every new level, they are less technically, and more conceptually oriented. Think about where you fit in.

Next, find a platform that suits what you are trying to do. Personally, against many odds, I believe more in Twitter than I do in Facebook, since Facebook is trying to keep as much as possible inside its service, while Twitter acts distributed. One of our projects is Twenity, a game we've developed around Twitter influence measuring.

If you're feeling lucky, you might want to become a platform on your own. While this may be almost impossible to do, it's something I wish I will have the chance to do someday. Neolab already has its own development framework, and if we do manage to make enough surplus or find an investor that will take us down this road, I'll be the first one in line. That is, if we don't decide to join an established platform and rather build on top of that.

Things have changed. The future (of software) is in platforms. Are you already a part of the show?

What's hot on the web - Part 6: The most amazing unique music acts

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 07:32:17 GMT

Welcome to the next episode of the fantastic What's hot on the web series. It's been a while since we did this, and since one of the previous posts was focused on fails, I think it's only fair to give memes with a positive attitude a chance too. This part of What's hot on the web cover various unique music acts, each amazing in it's own way. I've been gathering these videos for years and these are the greatest I've noticed so far. You've probably already seen a few, but hopefully missed a few too, so enjoy the show.

11-year-old boy covering Lady Gaga's Paparazzi

When I heard this boy play his interpretation of the hit song from Lady Gaga, I was simply speechless. Greyson Chance become the hottest stuff in an instant, his performance taking him to as far as the Ellen Show. See for yourself, and while you're at it, observe the girls' faces in the background. It's obvious that something magical just happened.

Dude plays trance on an acoustic guitar

It's safe to say that Ewan Dobson is a guitar god, and his song Time 2 fit for any local dance party. This video clearly proves his fingers have a life of their own, making this act one of the most awesome things ever. Prepare to be amazed.

Blue Man Group and Drumbone

Blue Man Group are well known for their amazing (and interactive) out of this world acts, ranging from music to theater (if you have the chance, go see them!). One of their famous performances features their cover of The Who's Baba O'Riley, but at this point, we will rather focus on an act of their own, the Drumbone.

Pale kid raps fast

Busta Rhymes probably felt a bit awkward if he ever saw this video. One dorky kid. White and pale. Kicking everybody's ass in speed rapping. Priceless.

Bobby McFerrin doing his thing

Meet the original beatboxer. Yup, this is the guy that sings all the vocals in Don't worry be happy, and this is one of his solo acts.

Axis of Awesome - The ultimate four chord song

This one was quite a hit some time ago. An awesome band with and awesome name proving that all the hits songs in pop history are actually the same. Four chords is all you need for being a rock star. Or an internet star.

Hang drum solo

You may not find this video as fascinating as I do, but take a closer look. This guy is actually producing magical sounds on a barrel of some sort. Ok, two barrels to be exact. Which is pretty cool if you think about it.

Obadiah Parker putting emotions into Outkast's Hey Ya

I've always though that Hey Ya from Outkast was this funny song (the video probably had me fooled). But then I saw this guy. And it made me feel happy and sad at the same time. Beautiful.

The iPhone band

When the band Atomic Tom got their instruments stolen, they got this amazing idea. They performed one of their songs called Take Me Out live on a NYC subway, using only iPhones. The performance is not technically perfect, but we can still wonder if this the start of a new trend.

local: Perpetuum Jazzile - Avsenik Medley

Perpetuum Jazzile's Africa should've been here, but I've already included that one in one of my previous posts. But this other one is pretty cool too, and very Slovenian. Polka kicks ass.

This is it for now. Did you find anything you like in my selection? Do you have any other favorites I may have missed?

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

Can you believe Watson got the question about Slovenia wrong on Jeopardy?

Wed, 09 Mar 2011 07:33:12 GMT

Slovenia made it to the spotlight again, for the first time after the soccer world cup (when Slovenia was trending topic on Twitter and top search on Google). This time, it happened because IBM's supercomputer Watson competed against human champions in the famous TV show Jeopardy. IBM's computers are known to destroy people in various challenges, Deep Blue beat the world champion Garry Kasparov in a chess tournament in 1997. But chess is simple for computers to play, because it is pure logic and mathematics – the capability of a player is determined by the number of operations and actions it can calculate in advance. But a quiz is a totally different story, where the biggest challenge is semantics – understanding the meaning of words.

In 1950, Alan Turing, one of the greatest pioneers of computing introduced the Turing test, a methodology that could separate humans from computers using a set of questions, some of them formed in such a way computer wouldn't be able to understand and answer them. There are many questions which can't be answered with pure logic, the one I remember from high school goes something like this:

"Jack attended Sally's party, bring a doll. What was the present?"

The catch is in the connection between party – (birthday) – present – doll, which can't be noticed without abstract thinking humans are capable of. And today's computers still face the same problem - even though Watson dominated Jeopardy, it failed miserably on the following question about Slovenia:

"As of 2010, Croatia & Macedonia are candidates but this is the only former Yugoslav republic in the EU"

Watson's computing capabilities and knowledge banks are huge, but a question and an answer so obvious to humans presented a huge problem. Watson surely knows which countries are EU members, but it obviously didn't understand the question, thinking it was asked about which country would be next to start negotiating for EU membership, answering Serbia. The right answer was, of course, Slovenia.

The video is also fascinating from the cultural point of view – and extremely creepy. Those who have watched (or read) "2001: A Space Odyssey" may have experienced a slight shiver and carefully waited if Watson would say it: "Hello Dave". Others might have enjoyed this science fiction presentation, but besides Watson's obvious advantage in being the fastest to answer the question, it's clear that computers are still far away from being intelligent. And hopefully they will stay that way.

The Web is going rogue. The Web is going mainstream.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 17:16:40 GMT

Times are changing, and the World Wide Web isn't any different. You've probably already noticed your mother on Facebook and it's not too hard to understand that interests of specific generations can be a bit different. The same goes for young people, who are obviously growing up in a world of their own, a confusing world overwhelmed with infinite amounts of information.

In the USA, already 93% of people under 18 are online. A massive group, which is probably the main driving force behind changing how the Web looks, and they are actually doing quite a good job in making it mainstream and pop. The Web used to be a part of the geeky subculture, but lately it's becoming just one of the mass media, another television on steroids.

YouTube

A great example of this pop transformation are top videos on YouTube. Star Wars Kid, David After Dentist and other classic home-made videos are starting to look unimpressive compared to Lady Gaga's and Justin Bieber's music videos. If you check the current list of most viewed videos, you can see that YouTube is really becoming more of a PopTube, where record labels are dominating the chart with high budget music videos. Lady Gaga managed to be the first pop artist with the most viewed YouTube video, but was quickly dethroned by Bieber. A sad fate for the biggest online video sharing tool.

Twitter

When people who actually have something smart to say are getting less followers on Twitter than pop princesses, you know something's gone wrong. Ashton Kutcher, the king of Twitter and the guy who beat CNN to one million followers, was overtaken by Britney Spears in the number of followers just a few moths ago. This is just the beginning - the following list provides information about top Twitter users, where you can see more and more pop stars whose accounts are emerging and taking the lead. Perhaps I'm not the correct target group, but Britney's Twitter account with her 423 tweets pretty much sucks!

Google

Google is kind enough to allow us insight into it's most popular searches of every year, which offers great overview of the culture of a specific era (Google Zeitgeist: 2007, 2008, 2009). This is The spirit of the times, as seen by world's biggest search engine:

In 2007, there were no people or other pop brands on the top 10 list of searches.
In 2008, Sarah Palin became 1st and Obama took 6th place, but that was mostly because of the US presidential elections, which can't really be considered pop. Pop star searches included Heath Ledger on 5th (because of his death) and the band Jonas Brothers on 10th place.
In 2009, the trend of pop searches continued. Michael Jackson became 1st (due to this death), New Moon (Twilight movie) finished 6th and Lady Gaga 7th. Creepy enough, but wait until Justin gets on the list in 2010.

These are some of the cases showing the evolution of the World Wide Web, currently ruled by it's undisputed queen, Lady Gaga. The scary part is that all of this is probably just a virtual portrait of the real world of today, where Pop Stars and Supermodel reality shows are helping to create new values and a wannabe society. And the Web is not just a victim of this trend anymore, it became an active player helping to promote this new and strange culture.

All of this saddens me a bit, and this is my puny effort to change this trend. Or maybe I'm just getting old.

Creative online advertising at its best – Wired and Youtube

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 13:48:41 GMT

I used to work for an online advertising agency. For large projects we were usually trying to make a campaign extraordinary and special, something that would stand out from the rest and be creative and effective. When you are trying to achieve something like that you are usually limited by a great number of facts, such as the campaign budget, creativity of the team, capabilities of the designers and programmers, but perhaps most importantly, the technical issues and platform of the site that will serve the ads.

Looks like Wired.com and YouTube.com don't have those problems and are actually cooperating with the advertisers to go towards perfection. YouTube you know, but in case you haven't heard of Wired, it's an online blog and an off-line magazine, one of the most respectable with focus on new technologies. They have great content, high reach and are a big potential for advertisers and marketers. Some of them are actually prepared to go for it all the way. I have noticed two campaigns on Wired and one on YouTube that really stand out, all of them fully integrated with the site. Forget floaters and takeovers, in-site advertising is the bomb. We can only wonder how much money was spent on the design, development and the serving of the ads.

Acura

The Acura ZDX banner works in a such a way that the site's main menu and some content are reflected onto the car (fake, of course). This makes it look as if the commercial is fully integrated with the site, making it interesting and appealing. It doesn't do anything special besides that, but the graphic rendering is pretty good.

Apple

Apple's iPod nano and iPod touch advertisements on Wired.com are even more outstanding. iPod touch goes a step further, breaking apart the site and its main menu (fake again, of course), trying to communicate the motion sensitivity, multi-player gaming and other features of the gadget. This approach goes beyond in-site advertising, because it uses the takeover ad to emphasize iPod touch capabilities, giving it an outstanding look and probably a very high effect for both branding and direct response. You must be weird not to click it, even though you know where the link leads and you don't actually need or want it.

Nintendo

After Nintendo's Wii console came out, they made a really awesome Wario Land ad on YouTube. Emphasizing the gaming console's capabilities and motion sensitive controllers, they went even a step further than Apple. The final result is a totally destructed YouTube page, with most of the site's elements slowly being kicked off the screen. Creative and amazing, again with great direct and branding effect, use of beyond in-site advertising, and a great demonstration of focused communication. This one looks like it actually really does take the site to bits and pieces, because all the elements look real and updated. Nintendo was probably able to negotiate full control over their YouTube channel.

These are bits of advertising excess I have noticed while browsing the web. The mentioned commercials are usually online just for a day or so, so it's hard to catch them if you're not a regular user. I'm sure there are more similar cases like this on other portals too. It's been obvious for quite some time that advertising is shifting towards online, with effective and amusing results. Technical capabilities of this medium are probably unlimited, so we can expect even more amazing displays of creativity, design and modern marketing in the future.

What's hot on the web - Part 4: Performances gone wrong

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 14:03:09 GMT

A lot of time has passed since our last What's hot on the web broadcast, so I bet you are already eager to see more. The series is doing quite well, but the time has come to do a bit of specialization. This part will be focused on weird (and therefore funny) performances from around the globe, turning into epic fail. Looks like some people think they are ready for the spotlight, but they aren’t. Youtube, you can make our day.

Model takes a tumble twice

I don’t know what's funnier about this one, the commentators who can't stop laughing or the model who does the boogie woogie. We all know fashion has it's price, but the price for this one is a new type of dance nobody can reproduce.

Staying on stage fail

If you have a public performance and you actually do choose to play on playback, make sure you stay on the stage. Otherwise, everybody will know what you're doing...

Ken Lee

This one already became a legend. A girl, performing at a Talents competition in Bulgaria wanted to sing Mariah Carey's Ken Lee, a song which nobody heard of. It turns out she got the lyrics of Without you a bit wrong, which is amusing the jury. Later on she tried to repeat the performance and do it again with the right lyrics, but the original version took the most applause. The extensions of this meme went so far that even Mariah herself made a comment about it.

Is Europe a country?

Stereotypes have it that Americans suck at geography and that blonds are a bit, well, you know... This one proves them right. In a show where people compete against fifth graders, this girl fails miserably when she thinks Europe is a country.

American educational system

On beauty contests, answers of the competitors are always a bit interesting. In this case, it looks like Miss South Carolina didn't quite understand what the question on American education was and she answers a totally different thing. Besides, even if she answered something, nobody knows what that was. A sad irony.

Exclusive nightclub fail

There are a lot of interesting moments on TV shows and quizes, so we won't even try to go through all of them. We’ve all seen The wheel of fortune, where people have to guess the right letters and words. The following competitor almost had it, but not quite. Check your spelling capabilities before you go playing a game like that.

Wrong price is right winner

Another cool quiz that produces a lot of awkward moments is Price is right. This one is twice funny. First, this woman makes a really stupid bet, putting her in a situation where she has almost no chance of winning. Besides, when the price is told, she thinks she actually won. Twice. Triple fail for that one.

Coconut breaking

People do all sorts of crazy shit to get noticed. Like this guy, who sets out to break a few coconuts with his hand. Hm, even before you see the footage you can tell this was a bad idea...

I hope these perfomances make you think before going public. Once it’s online, you’ll be marked forever.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

What's hot on the web - Part 3: A peek into obscurity

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:39:25 GMT

You know the drill. The world wide web is a beautiful thing filled with cool and funny stuff. A lot of that stuff gets unnoticed by most of the people, so consolidations are needed. I like weird and unexplainably attractive things, things that are differently funny and geeky. Because we've already went through the classic ones, this part of the series is a bit more obscure. Presenting What's hot on the web, part 3.

The Techno Viking

The Techno Viking is supposedly the only guy who could kill Chuck Norris. The story is happening on an open air party where this guy tries to pickpocket a visitor. Little does he know that around the block the Techno Viking is lurking. Once he get into his element, the dominance doesn't end until the end of the movie.

All your base are belong to us

This one is based on a lousy translation of a video game. The cyber community and gamers found this so hillarious that somebody actually made a song out of it, video included. All your base are belong to us!

local: reporter Andrej Stare drunk

The legend has it that all Slovenian TV reporters are a bit drunkards, because their job demands spending a lot of free time while on the set. One the funniest is a sports reporter Andrej Stare, who magnificently commented on a hockey match between Slovenia and Croatia. Totally drunk, of course.

Hope you had a good laugh. But beware, you don't want to piss off the Techno Viking.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

What's hot on the web - Part 2: The classics

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 20:03:20 GMT

Wheee, the second part of the very cool and funny series What's hot on the web. This time I bring you three more viral things from the beatiful World Wide Web. Hopefully there is enough information in the post to get you up and running, in case you would like to see more.

Literal Versions

We have already noticed that a lot of people have too much time. Luckily a few of those people actually found something useful to do, and so came literal versions or literal music videos. Literal versions are edited versions of music videos where lyrics talk about what's going in the video. There are quite a few of them, but in my oppinion, Total eclipse of the heart is the best one.

Demotivators

Motivational posters are originally intended for schools and offices and work with a motivational punchline that helps people through the day. Well, the cyber community wouldn't be normal if it didn't abuse that to the maximum, thus demotivational posters were constructed. You can notice them by a picture with a thick black border, a punchline and an explanation under it. They are funny, cool and most importantly, there's thousands around the web.

local: Perpetuum Jazzile doing Africa

Perpetuum Jazzile is a Slovenian vocal band that is getting global publicity these days. One of the reasons is their interpretation of Toto's classic hit, Africa. It is just inspiring and awesome, with more than 5 million views already.

Hope you enjoyed the selection.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.

What's hot on the web - Part 1: Know your meme

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 12:54:12 GMT

I am one of those geeky people who are always up to date with what's going on on the web. I surf a lot of recommendation sites, blogs, cool portals, etc. and collect useless knowledge. You could say I am one curious dude. Therefore I often get asked by friends about What's hot on the web.

Well people, there's a lot going on. A lot of bizzare and freaky stuff, online mocking between Diggers and Redditors, narwhal worshipping and girls playing with cups. Some are made epic, some are too boring to make it. The cyber community is making some things viral, and yes, Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird. Too bad that is so last decade...

Here is the first part of hopefully a series of cool internet memes I stumbled upon. Not actually so new, but still funny stuff to see.

Rickroll

It looks like Rick Astley's Never gonna give you up became one of the most popular music videos on the web. Why? Because it became the most important part of a really popular prank, called rickroll. The way it works is that you send somebody a link to a cool video, which turns out to be a really cheesy 80's music video. Backuped by radio, television, basketball games and the geek community, Rick Astley almost got the Best Act Ever award on MTV Awards. He likes it, but hopes his daughter won't get embarrased.

Btw, check out this hot video of drunk girls having a drinking contest.

Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a plane is probably the most web hyped movie of all time. Even before it was shooted, there were already thousand of blogs, web pages and articles written about the movie. It wasn's a real success, but concerning it was a low budget film, did pretty good. The reason for it's buzz was mostly because of the expectation of main line in the movie, done by the cult actor Samuel L. Jackson. Pretty cool.

local: the Arsonist (Požigalec)

This is a local slovenian internet phenomenon. Some guys were supposed to make a citizen's arrest on an suspected arsonist and were later on interviewed by the news. Besides having a funny southern accent, the story begins with the guy explaining to the news that he tried to steal some guy's bike and noticed that he had a gasoline can. Therefore he got the idea he was the arsonist that did some fires in the area. The funniest thing about it is that he asked the guy "Why do you need a bag if bought a bike?". Well, the thing got so viral that some guys made a reconstruction of the story, a music video and also an online merchandise store. Pretty funny (and weird) stuff indeed.

Stay tuned for the next part of What's hot on the web.

Check out the complete What's hot on the web series.