This is an article that ran in Bluffton Today shouting out our search for an Assistant Content Manager on Twitter and how BFG is successfully utilizing social media in a variety of innovative ways, internally and externally.

Last week’s debut of indie film Rage is one for the record books. Rage became the first full length movie to premiere exclusively over mobile devices. To keep it mobile-friendly, the film was released in seven parts last week for iPhone and iPod Touch through a partnership with Babelgum.

The unique release strategy is more than just a novelty as Read Write Web reports:

According to filmmaker [Sally] Potter, this experimental distribution for her new movie is actually an attempt to fight the digital piracy problem faced by the movie industry today. And yes, she’s doing it by by offering up her film for free…albeit in a way that ensures the film can only be viewed, not recorded.

It’s also clear that Potter had mobile in mind when the murder mystery was filmed. Its tight shots of interviewees almost look like they were captured on a mobile phone.

Following the mobile release of the film, which stars Steve Buscemi, John Leguizamo and Dianne Wiest, a DVD also became available. It’s another interesting twist in the film’s release calendar. DVD releases typically don’t happen until many months after a movie premieres.

AMC’s sleeper hit Mad Men recently scored its second consecutive Emmy for Best Drama Series, further lessening the possibility that someone in America hasn’t heard of-if they haven’t actually watched-the 1960s-set advertising melodrama. But midway into its third season, AMC execs aren’t taking any chances, having recently launched the new “Live Like a Mad Man” sweepstakes in conjunction with Hilton Hotels-the cherry on top of an extensive, months-long marketing blitz.

Here’s how it works: Book your next Hilton vacation online at hiltonfamily.com/madmen, stay at a participating hotel through November 15, 2009, and you are automatically entered to win. The lucky winner will be randomly selected to live like his or her favorite Mad man (or woman) during a VIP trip to New York City, which includes a three-night stay at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, two round-trip airline tickets, an autographed script, restaurant gift cards and more.

Such an arty, introspective series is Mad Men that it could easily fly under the radars of everyone but critics and a handful of devotees, so in the months leading up to the season three premiere, AMC initiated a comprehensive, multi-pronged promotional campaign that has leveraged the series’ obsessive fanbase and a number of retail partners. Promotions have included photo- and video-based “Casting Call” contests (the former of which was a partnership with clothier Banana Republic) and “New York’s Gone MAD”-a weeklong kick-off celebration that saw classic 1960s cocktails on select Hilton hotel bar menus and a costumed premiere party in Times Square.

But on a series that piles on intense period detailing, pop culture nostalgia and creative product integration like they were layers in one of Betty Draper’s trifles, would you really expect the latest Hilton tie-in to stop short of the airwaves? On its latest episode, which ran concurrent with the Emmy telecast, Mad Men introduced a recurring storyline featuring none other than Conrad Hilton, founder of Hilton Hotels Corporation-setting one integral scene in “Connie’s” lushly appointed suite at-you guessed it-the Waldorf Astoria.

We’ve been seeing lots of restaurants and wine bars moving into the technology realm taking advantage of everything from touch screens to applications. Now, a London restaurant is taking technology and wine in a different direction: crowdsourcing.

L’Anima went to its consumer base last month, asking them to pick three new wines for the restaurant’s wine list. Once they had a list together of top suggestions, the restaurant took them to wine experts whose videos explain their final choices. The pair in this video, Denise Medrano and Dan Coward, got a little creative in their response, comparing wines to Hollywood celebs like Johnny Depp. That’s my kind of wine pairing.

[Via Jaunted]

Nucleus, a gallery in Southern California is celebrating Maurice Sendak’s 1963 classic tale Where The Wild Things Are, which is also getting the big screen treatment by director Spike Jonze, with a show called Terrible Yellow Eyes.

Sendak’s book has had a “profound impact” on people from all walks of life and ignited the imagination of pretty much anyone who has journeyed into his strange world. Artist Cory Godbey is one of those people and his love for the book lead him to create a blog, also titled Terrible Yellow Eyes, that celebrated how Sendak’s vision has influenced so many artists. Now with the help of a large contingent of fellow artists, Godbey is bringing Sendak’s world to life.

The show at Nucleus runs till October 6.

Does the idea of flipping open your favorite magazine and watching a video appeal to you? Maybe?

Entertainment Weekly rolled out the first magazine with embedded video (showing a soft drink commercial and some previews for new network shows) this week. The video player is held inside the magazine by a cardboard insert, which means you can’t really flip through the magazine. The LCD screen is about the size of a mobile phone display and it also has tiny speakers (so you can hear your video).

It’s a cool idea and it will be interesting to see where this goes. Last year Esquire put out a magazine with a few pages of electronic ink for its 75th anniversary issue that flashed advertisements - also held in place by rigid cardboard (though not as rigid as the video player).

It’ll be nice when these ideas go farther than just showing off ads and previews and actually start showing real content, or allowing a reader to dive deeper into something. Critics argue that the magazines, which are basically throwaway - though hopefully recycled - will only produce more electronic trash though the makers of the technology discount that claim and state that the screens can be reprogrammed for further use, so that’s good.

With electronic ink, slimmer and slimmer video screens and smaller chips, magazines and newspapers (if they are to continue to exist in some form) will have to evolve and fast. Is embedding video inside a magaine one of the first moves? It’s a start. We blogged about some other cool nano tech last year.

In the not too distant future, I envision magazines will still be held in the hand (I imagine a clear, plastic looking “magazine” type of thing that has few “pages” that can be flipped, bent, and read just like a real magazine), but the cool part is that the content can be constantly refreshed using the web.

With this type of technology a reader/viewer can still have something in their hand that “feels” like a magazine that can actually be flipped through like a traditional magazine. For instance the magazine could be Vogue one minute and then with a quick touch (like on an iPhone), voila, it is now Time or Rolling Stone. If it looks like money can be made and it is something that people will gravitate toward, then it will probably happen.

As for the current tech, here are a few stats:

Screen uses liquid crystal display (LCD) technology
Each is 2.7mm thick with 320×240 resolution
Can store 40mins of video
Battery can be recharged via mini-USB
Rechargeable battery lasts up to 70 mins
Developed by LA-firm Americhip

Are you looking for some excitement in your market reports? There’s an app for that.

In these trying economic times, Puma is hoping to become a beacon of joy with its Puma Index. Download the iPhone app and get stock reports on the left of your screen and a model disrobing on the right. The more the market tanks, the more clothing the male or female model removes (until they’re down to their Puma Bodywear of course).

It could just make you start rooting for a more bearish market.

I am a big fan of Apple’s Garageband multi-track audio recording and mixing program. I have used it for years to make a lot of home recordings. It’s no Pro Tools, but it’s also very easy to maneuver through. For someone who hasn’t spent years learning the tricks of the multi-track recording trade using a high end program like Pro Tools, then something like Garageband is the perfect tool.

Though one of the drawbacks of Garageband (for me that is) is that after making a bunch of recordings I notice that my hard drive begins to sag from the weight of it all. So I was thrilled to find out about this new multi-track recording program called Myna from Aviary. It works a lot like Garageband, but it is browser based (you need to have Adobe Flash installed) and as you record and add tracks, it all lives in Aviary’s cloud so it’s not taking up space on your machine.

A quick spin through it shows me that it is super fast, it “feels” very much like Garageband, but I think if you’ve spent anytime using any audio mixing and recording software then Myna will be pretty turn key for you.

Highlights of Myna Features

Powerful Clip Editing
Trim, Loop, Stretch and Reverse your audio clips, width editable loop points, and interactive time stretch capabilities.

Automation
Easily add fade-ins, fade-outs, pan from left to right, and modify gain over time, with editable control points.

Effects
Add non-destructive effects to your audio clips including Pitch Change, Reverb, Delay, Parametric EQ, and more.

Import / Export
Import your own audio files, or search one of our provided libraries. Mix it down and export directly to your desktop or publish back to your account.

Share and learn
Collaborate with other users. Follow step-by-step tutorials to learn new skills.

The Creative Seed Initiative, which last May brought rock star poster designers Aesthetic Apparatus to Savannah, is thrilled to bring New York City-based graphic designer Charles Wilkin, founder of internationally acclaimed Automatic Art and Design to Savannah to share his creative insights and design philosophy with the city’s creative community.

The Creative Seed lecture series is proudly presented in tandem by BFG Communications and The Savannah College of Art and Design and will take place at SCAD’s Arnold Hall, located at 1810 Bull Street on Tuesday, October 6, 2009, at 7pm. Admission is free and open to the public.

Charles Wilkin founded Automatic Art and Design in New York City in 1994 because he believed that, “personal expression is an essential and integral part of the design process.” Wilkin sought to successfully merge art, commerce and design on a more emotive level and has found great success in doing so. With this basic tenet guiding his hand, Automatic Art and Design has garnered a great deal of industry recognition.

Wilkin’s distinctive way of thinking about design and working with clients has helped Automatic Art and Design land an impressive array of work with companies such as Billabong, Burton Snowboards, Nixon watches, Best Buy, Capitol Records, Adobe, Mattel, Taco Bell, Knopf, Target and many more.

Wilkin’s work has been widely featured in a variety of national and international art and design media such as Computer Arts, How, Idea, Communications Arts and Metropolis.

In 2003, Wilkin was nominated for the prestigious National Communication Design award from the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City, which is the only museum in the nation devoted exclusively to historic and contemporary design. His work is also in the permanent collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Hamburg, Germany.

Once again, Savannah creatives are in for a unique look behind the artistic curtain with this presentation by Charles Wilkin.

Film director David Lynch likes to stay busy. He’s got a lot of his resume: filmmaker, coffee seller, evangelist for transcendental meditation, web TV producer, cartoonist, musician, and occasional Los Angeles weather reporter  Now he can add window display artist to the list. Lynch likes to explore the dark side and this strange display in the windows of a Paris gallery definitely visits some of the weirder bends in the road.

David Lynch is not the only one who creates weird and wonderful window installations. Here’s a nice selection of bizzare window displays from Buzzfeed.