OMGfun.TV
If you stop by my blog from time to time, thank you! You may have noticed, since I finished my last production project, I’m blogging more than ever. I recently read a post on copyblogger called 3 Reasons You Should be a Formulaic Blogger. It made a couple points that got me thinking about how I’ve blogged in the past and how I want to blog moving forward.
NealCampbell.com has always been about me. I started writing here as a therapeutic vent. Up until recently, I haven’t cared if people read what I write here. That’s changing as I move on the next phase of my life. This blog will probably never follow a formula or focus on a specific topic, but I have lots of brands in development that can and should.
OMGfun.TV is a brand I’ve had on the back burner all year. It’s a blog where I’m curating things I find online that make me smile. It’s a light, family friendly site designed bring a few minutes of cheer when you need it. You can watch the best of YouTube on OMGfun.TV without experiencing the hateful comments that sometimes make YouTube yucky. Content is broken up into categories like, Babies, Cats, Cool, Cute, Dance, Dogs, Fun, Gadgets, Kids, Pop, Puppies, Science and Tech. Each post so far features a YouTube video, and when I can find it, the story behind the video. As content builds , I’d like to produce a show featuring the best stuff. I also plan to open the site up for viewer submissions.
Check it out. Tell your friends, thanks for watching and for supporting my advertisers!
Read MoreMy Biggest Business Blunder
I came out of the most massive depression of my life last February.
In January, I wanted to die so bad I stayed in bed the whole month taking Benadryl every time I woke up. It was bad.
While waiting for the Benadryl to kick in, I studied suicide and learned the most peaceful method involves an oven bag and helium. Beyond my religious baggage, the thing that kept me hanging on was a belief that I might be able to work on something that matters more than GeekBrief.TV did.
I want to be doing GeekBrief.TV. Since it was my idea and I wrote all the shows, I can’t come to terms with losing it. It should be mine. I invented my dream job and I don’t want to do anything else. Life says, I don’t get the option I want.
Luria and I agreed before mediation, I would get GeekBrief.TV and she would get Cali Lewis. To me that would be the best, bad end of our marriage and business relationship. When we got to mediation last November, she changed her mind. She was suing Mevio for reasons I can’t even begin to comprehend. Mevio’s lawyer, Bobby and mine said let her have GeekBrief.TV. Mevio told me that they would win and give GeekBrief.TV to me to control. The mediation process is HELL. Mevio told me I would earn back equity based on performance of the show. Having my baby (GeekBrief.TV) messed with by outside forces wasn’t okay, but I trusted Mevio at that point more than I trusted Luria. Right now, I barely trust even best friends. I made a huge mistake trusting Bobby at Mevio, but I don’t think it was the biggest business blunder I made.
In February, the depression burned off like fog does in San Francisco. I went from feeling doomed to feeling excited about my future. It happened over night.
I was taking care of my grandmother and her sister until the family could get them in a better, safer place. I started reading my home town paper and creating a vision for something I could do there. There was an article about Let’s Think Productions shooting a short film there. That gave me huge hope. I made a list of people in my home town that were making a difference, and I worked on getting to know them.
All that, and I still haven’t gotten to my biggest business blunder! When depression went away, I was open to any opportunity. The opportunity to produce the “Making of The Bloodstone Diaries: Thief of All Things” happened and it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever done in my life. I got to work with talented and nice people who produced very cool things for me to shoot and edit. From that, I made this …
Netflix Redemption Story
Netflix pissed off a huge number of customers recently when they jacked up prices overnight. Even worse, they announced an ill-conceived plan to spin off their traditional business sending DVDs by mail in favor of their shiny, new love: streaming video. They gave the DVD-by-mail business a new name … a horrendous new name … Qwikster. It is the kind of cocky decision making that comes when people are so successful that they begin to believe their success is guaranteed.
The connected public showed their collective distaste for the changes by canceling subscriptions. Netflix shares plummeted.
Last week SNL spoofed an apology from Netflix. Today it was real. Netflix announced they were reversing the decision to split DVDs by mail and streaming into two different services and were dropping the awful Qwikster name.
In a New York Times Blog Post, Netflix spokesman Steve Swasey was quoted as saying, “We underestimated the appeal of the single web site and a single service. We greatly underestimated it.”
I’ve been a Netflix customer for awhile. I cancelled my subscription to DVDs by mail during the 2008 Presidential election when Reed Hastings wrote an Op-Ed piece informing us he makes too much money and should be taxed more. That’s a move rich guys make when they want to pander to the likes of people occupying Wall Street.
I missed Netflix too much so I decided to ignore that Mr. Hastings had joined the idiocracy. It is a wonderful thing to see those red envelopes in the mailbox. When Netflix increased prices, I dropped DVDs by mail in protest, but again I miss those red envelopes!
There are exceptions, but it seems like people yearn to be FOR things, not against them. People would rather be cheerleaders than critics. This morning when I read that Netflix had come back around to sense and sensibility, my reaction was, “Oh thank, God! We can be friends again! I really missed you!” Knowing the nature of the American consumer, I would expect subscribers to flood back into the Netflix system. The stock price is up already.
Netflix made a mistake, and as far as I’m concerned, Netflix is forgiven.
Read MoreVenture Capital and Beyond Talk with Marc Andreessen
Marc Andreessen offers answers questions from a Stanford audience about topics from the state of VC and the stock market, to Facebook’s market dominance, to the rebirth of consumer electronics.
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