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Sunday, 17 February 2008 |
AuthorViews is proud to release an excerpt from inventor Hans Camenzind's Much Ado About *Almost* Nothing: Man's Encounter with the Electron, a book about the history of electron discovery, with profiles of the people who made the most (or the worst) out of it.
In Much Ado About *Almost* Nothing, Camenzind introduces the scientists, inventors, engineers and nobodies who toyed with electricity and, as a result, enriched our general understanding on the subject -- from historical figures as renowned as Ben Franklin and Alexander Graham Bell to the relatively unknown personalities who nonetheless made huge contributions.
In this excerpt, Camenzind covers the undistinguished Lee de Forest, an inventor and entrepreneur who just may be the "Father of Radio."
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 )
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Thursday, 14 February 2008 |
In early December 2007, Burger King began its "Whopper Freakout" campaign, a series of TV commercials and online videos in which real Burger King customers are told the Whopper is no longer on the menu.
The hoax took place at two Burger King locations in Nevada. Employees were substituted with actors and hidden cameras were placed around the ordering counters to capture customers' reactions to the prank.
According to an article in The Wall Street Journal called "Hey, No Whopper on the Menu?!," the "Whopper Freakout" campaign is based on a market research technique called deprivation research:
Burger King has been conducting deprivation studies for several years, getting small groups of people considered core customers by the fast-food chain to voluntarily forgo eating Whoppers. As part of the experiment, the people kept food diaries so Burger King could analyze what they ate instead.
The purpose of deprivation research is to help measure brand or product loyalty, and to help marketers create messages that hit home with consumers. The "Whopper Freakout" campaign takes this technique to a new level. It's not just about the research used to create the message -- it is the message.
The success of this campaign demonstrates the power of video, specifically online video. In addition to TV commercials, "Whopper Freakout" clips are available all over the Internet, from the campaign's companion website, WhopperFreakout.com, to all major video portals, like YouTube and Google Video. According to the WSJ article, the original 8-minute, documentary-style clip, which spawned the series of commercials, was viewed over 3 million times on WhopperFreakout.com, and over 350,000 times on YouTube.
Burger King maintains that the campaign contributed to more than a 10% increase in Whopper sales in the quarter that ended December 2007.
The lesson from all this is that if you can generate captivating video content and get it online, the results can be spectacular. It wasn't the commercials alone that impacted Burger King's sales; rather the combination of TV and the Internet. While TV ads cost millions to produce and air, syndicating a video across the Web can cost next to nothing!
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 )
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Wednesday, 13 February 2008 |
AuthorViews would like to congratulate George Ingmire, our Production Manager, for his work on the film Trouble the Water, which just won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.
Directed and produced by Tia Lessin and Carl Deal, both of whom worked with Michael Moore on Fahrenheit 911 and Bowling for Columbine, Trouble the Water is a poignant documentary about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. The film includes real video footage of the storm shot by Kimberly Rivers Roberts, a resident of the 9th ward who was unable to evacuate.
Ingmire, with 10 years of video production experience, is in charge of sound and camera on AuthorViews shoots, as well as editing and cutting all footage. He was approached in early 2006 to work as the sound recorder for Trouble the Water and he accepted the job whole-heartedly.
A resident of New Orleans for the past 15 years, Ingmire evacuated to Virgina during Katrina and returned to the Crescent City in October 2005. Since the storm, Ingmire has devoted a great deal of his work to telling the story of Katrina. He has worked on several Katrina films, including Spike Lee's HBO documentary, When the Levees Broke, which won 3 Primetime Emmys in 2007.
When asked his thoughts on Trouble the Water, Ingmire replied, "Of all the Katrina documentaries I've worked on, this film came closest to telling the real story."
For more information on Trouble the Water, check out these articles:
GreenCine Daily
Cinematical.com
Soros.org
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 )
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Tuesday, 12 February 2008 |
Verita Bouvaire Thompson, author and prominent New Orleans figure, died of natural causes on February 1, 2008. She was 89 years old.
AuthorViews had the privilege of interviewing and filming Thompson about her book Bogie and Me: A Love Story, a memoir about her 17-year secret love affair with Humphrey Bogart, a portion of which overlapped with Bogart's marriage to Lauren Bacall. Bogie and Me was published in 1982, creating quite a stir because it was the first time Thompson had revealed the affair publicly.
AuthorViews shot Thompson's video in New Orleans, where she lived for the last 18 years of her life. She was a stunning woman, well-known throughout the French Quarter for her glamorous style, party-girl attitude, and of course her history with perhaps the most famous movie star of all time. The Associated Press via MercuryNews.com states: All the way to her death, her friends said, Thompson adhered to a striking style and outlook reminiscent of the 1940s and Bogart's movies, dressing in Chanel suits, high heels, hat and gloves - with a whiskey smash in hand. According to Contactmusic.com, Thompson was offered the opportunity to evacuate New Orleans by private jet right before Hurricane Katrina hit, but refused, exclaiming, "Lauren Bacall failed to chase me out of Hollywood. Katrina won't force me out of New Orleans."
For more information, check out the articles at:
Contactmusic.com
MercuryNews.com
BayouBuzz.com
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Last Updated ( Wednesday, 19 March 2008 )
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Monday, 11 February 2008 |
AuthorViews is proud to present an excerpt from Princeton scientist John F. Brinster's The Abduction, a philosophical and historical novel that challenges the very foundation of Western religion.
The Abduction is a controversial tale about the early life of Jesus of Nazareth, based on an ancient Chinese legend in which a Chinese ambassador abducts Jesus as a child and raises him among Buddhists in Western China.
This excerpt details the education and teachings of Jesus (known as Jem) as he grows up and matures as a member of an aristocratic Chinese family.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 28 February 2008 )
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