I am not a conservative person. I’m totally okay with gender-neutral bathrooms, paid maternal leave and the right for women to have access to birth control / abortions. I’ve never factored in a person’s gender, race or sexual orientation when I considered them for employment, having only cared about if they had the necessary skills to do the work I needed of them. I’m not particularly interested in the personal lives of individuals unless studying their life helps me better
Ghostbusters Reboot Flopped. Why it Deserved to Bomb For Its Marketing
As I predicted back in March, Ghostbusters (2016) failed at the box office. Its Thursday opening in the States was only $3.4M. Throughout the weekend the film continued to play to largely empty rooms. Other recent Thursday openers: Finding Dory (200m budget) made 5.9 million. The Secret Life of Pets (75m budget) made 5.3 million. Jurassic World (150m budget) made 18.5 million. Deadpool (58m budget) made 12.7 million. Man of Steel (225m budget) made 21 million. Batman V Superman (250m
How to Use Facebook Audience Insights to Perform Market Research For Your Startup
Many people have heard that Facebook is a useful way for brands to directly connect to potential customers, but they may not know why. The reason is simple to understand: Facebook has built its business on data, and it uses information about its users to sell advertisements. Users willingly give Facebook access into their personalities and habits. Facebook uses that knowledge to decide what products are most likely to appeal to different kinds of users to when serving ads for
How to Start Your Own YouTube Network: An Insider’s Guide – Now Available!
As the founder of a successful YouTube multi-network (which sold last year to a film studio) I am often asked to consult for companies that want to understand how to launch their own networks. I’m generally happy to share my knowledge and assist, but sometimes people can’t afford my consultation fees. I’m reluctant to offer free advice because explaining how multi-channel networks work and how to start one from scratch is a very time consuming process, and I just don’t
Monster Crate Club and Creep World
Hey friends, I just wanted to let you know about something, in case you haven’t been keeping up to date with my Twitter or Facebook posts. My publishing imprint, Martell Books, has started expanding into fiction to compliment the nonfiction business related books I’ve been publishing. One of these projects is Creep World, a series of children’s horror novels (there’s about six of them out right now!) by Luther Darkmore. Additionally Martell Books is launching a monthly subscription box service
Is Facebook Enforcing the 20% Ad Text Rule For Ulterior Reasons?
I had another ad rejected today for “violating” Facebook’s 20% text rule. And I’m finally sick of it to the point I’m going to do something about it, even if it’s just embarrass Facebook a little by showing how meaningless this rule actually is. Above is a screenshot which one of Facebook’s “ad integrity specialists” sent me that “proved” my ad for Monster Crate consists of more than 20% text. Please pay special notice to how in some squares of
Why Facebook Audience Insights Showed ‘Ghostbusters’ Reboot Was a Bad Idea
I’m posting this ahead of the Ghostbusters reboot launch because I want Hollywood to wake up. I want the industry to stop making movies that the market very clearly does not want, and start focusing on films that people actually want to see. I believe focusing on films that people actually want to see will lead to a more stable film industry and avoid the costly mistakes such as the Ghostbusters reboot will be. Also, I’m a Ghostbusters fan. I
TubeMeet – A Social Network for YouTube Creators to Find Collabs
I always thought a social network service that helped YouTubers find other local creators near them would be a good idea. So let’s give this a shot! I just setup TubeMeet, which allows you to connect your FB account. It will help introduce you to other people in your area that have shared interests, such as YouTube and types of videos you make. It’s brand new so I hope people join! https://tubemeet.mightybell.com Update 8/26/2018: TubeMeet was an interesting experiment but
The Tech Bubble Will Burst, and It Is Gonna Hurt
It’s coming. The lessons of the Dot.Com Bubble days have been forgotten by the business elite. We now have all these “unicorn” companies with over a $1B in valuation, even though very few of them have any profits to justify such a valuation. The valuation is based purely on over-hyped metrics like subscriber count and “engagement”, and not on cash-flow. Due to a lack of cash-flow the startups instead sell the dream that these userbases can be successfully monetized —
The Fine Bros. / React World Fiasco Demonstrates The Difficulties of Launching an MCN
As reported on by many sources such as Inc. , TubeFilter and many others, the internet is at war with the Fine Bros. and their new MCN ‘React World’. The main issue is the Fine Bros. have trademarked the word ‘React’ and announced that YouTubers who joined their network would be able to license their show format. One of my best friends, Eric Perez (known as 8-Bit Eric on YouTube ) has been at the center of the controversy. For
‘Stunt Lightsaber Combat’ Book Reaches Top of Amazon Best-seller List
My new book ‘Stunt Lightsaber Combat for Beginners’ has hit the #6 best-seller spot for the martial arts category on Amazon. The book has been out for about three weeks and selling pretty well. I’m better known for my writings about business development and marketing, so it’s great to see that books about my other interests are also well received. I also want to give a big thank you to Ultrasabers for helping spread the word about the book. Soon
Peak at ‘The Lean Channel : YouTube For Entrepreneurs’ printed book
Hey all, I thought I would share some of photos of the printed copy of ‘The Lean Channel: YouTube for Entrepreneurs‘ book. As you can see, the book is a high quality print with full color images. I have laid the book out as a textbook because I believe it can be valuable for college courses such as Web Video (a fairly standard multi-media course). As mentioned before the book can be ordered from the website at Martell Books.
Is ‘Kisses in Tokyo’ Really Bad? Review of the Ili translator video
As a marketer, topics about how to introduce a new product to the market interest me. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about a device called ili that is a pretty advanced translator that doesn’t require an internet connection. Most of the discussion has been over a specific video the company is using to promote the device. Buzzfeed called it “creepy”. and claimed it was sexual harassment? But is this video really so wrong? I’m going to take a