I figure this is more of a "Taking Care of Business" post than a "DV News" item, so here it is...

Our company, Poorly Projected Pictures (http://p3pictures.com/), is featured in The Daily Evergreen (http://www.dailyevergreen.com/story/21922), Washington State University's paper. It has a circulation of 12,000 to our target market. It's our first newspaper article, after sending out about seventy press kits to college and local newspapers.

You can see our stuff at ColonelCrush.com (http://colonelcrush.com)

If other people here are doing regularly released web video, let me know. There are definitely cross marketing opportunities. We release about three or four minutes of video a week - hardly a saturation point. If people have a list of video sites that they check every week, it can help create a habit, and that can lead to reach, which leads to advertising and merchandise sales.

So, anybody else here with a similar business? Anybody else doing press kits and trying to get the word out?

Let's hear your stories...

I just found the pdf versions of the article: Page 1 (http://www.dailyevergreen.com/images/pdfs/2007/03/29032007/03292007p05.pdf), Page 2 (http://www.dailyevergreen.com/images/pdfs/2007/03/29032007/03292007p06.pdf).

Wow. Big cool fonts, one BIG and one small photo. Somehow a newspaper article is much cooler when it actually looks like a newspaper article.

And, if you don't want to read about us, you can read the Hangover Remedy article right next to ours. Is there any better location in a college newspaper? :)

Cool Jon!

Evergreen today - Variety tommorrow.

Evergreen today - Variety tommorrow.It's tomorrow now. Time to check the news stand!

So... anybody else here making a go of a web-based video series? Are we nuts?

Jon;
That's very enterprising stuff, well done (I thought that was a new booming gadget that was missing from my repertoire...!).

I'm convinced that the future of film distribution will be via networked connectivity, and web is leading the way with this, so you guys are ahead of the curve. More power to you.

Greg

Thanks Greg!

I'm an engineer by training. Learning about marketing, web distribution and viral trends has been interesting stuff.

What's amazing to me is what a "high gain" system this is. Most stuff on YouTube gets maybe tens of hits, possibly a few hundred. But other things, like LonelyGirl15 and Charley the Unicorn, get millions.

The cliff is even steeper for the majors. I just read that David E. Kelley's "Wedding Bells" TV show (never seen it) is being canceled after just four episodes. It's shown on Fridays (primetime death), and got 4.5 million viewers, but still gets the ax.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/SHOWBIZ/TV/04/03/television.bells.reut/index.html

If Colonel Crush ever got 4.5 million viewers, I'd be ecstatic - after cleaning up the fried ashes that used to be our server, and investing in a small server farm.

The line between hero and zero in this business is really elusive, but the need for marketing and promotions is not.

In this context I'm not surprised at all at the collusion between the Big Media companies (you promote my movie on your news show, and I'll promote your movie on mine...) The recent radio payola scam doesn't surprise me either. It's all about buzz.

So... are press releases and newspaper articles the best use of our resources? Should we buy Google ads? What's the best way to market an Internet video channel in order to reach critical mass so we can finance the site through ads?