Daily DigVid Review: Me me me me me
The Colbert Report’s Stephen Colbert was named Webby person of the year when the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences handed out the 12th annual Webby awards in New York Monday night. We’ve known who the winners are for a while, but the Webbys do a good job generating headlines by limiting everyone to five-word acceptance speeches (Oscar – are you listening?). Colbert’s – the headline of today’s DDVR – is so obvious that it’s genius. Other good ones were “Eliot Spitzer, we thank you,” by the NY Times, although that really seems more like a NY Post acceptance speech; “Together, we’ll make reading obsolete,” from The Onion News Network (see yesterday’s post and Atlantic.com article on how the fast-clicking of the world of the Internet is making us all ADD); and “Keyboards are full of germs,” Michael Gondry, who was named Webby Film and Video person of the year. Many people seemed unable to count: David Byrne’s speech was “Hey Mister DJ, play another song,” while Nick.com’s was “Sponge Bob is our sugar daddy,” both of which I really think are six words. A list of all speeches can be found at: http://www.webbyawards.com/press/speeches.php. Also, you’ll feel like you were there if you check out the Webbys Flickr page.
Can’t travel? Not to worry. Antenna Audio has put its Discovery Audio productions and CityGuides on iTunes, so you can visit Manhattan’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and the Rijksmuseum without ever setting foot outside your door. Antenna Audio’s CityGuides – a new produt for the company – go a little broader than that, offering tours of New York, San Francisco, South Beach, London, Paris, Rome and other cities. Listeners can either enjoy the tours at home, imagining that they are gazing at the Eiffel Tower, or take the audio tour guides on the road.
If a best-selling author like Paulo Coelho is addicted to MySpace, I don’t need to feel so ashamed about having my own profile on the site (although I understand everyone has moved over to Facebook these days, so maybe I should be more ashamed about my unwillingness to evolve with the times). Coelho is collaborating with the News Corp.-owned social network to create a user-generated movie of his book The Witch of Portobello, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Coelho fans are being asked to create videos that focus on one of the book’s 15 characters. The winning submissions will be fashioned into a mash-up. Those same fans also can submit songs, with up to 16 planned for the UG-video’s soundtrack. How’s that for being a man of the people? Maybe Coelho will win the Webby next time around.