Amped Up Entertainment

Future of Internet TV Applications

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 01:54:00 +0000

Future of Internet TV Applications

The future is here now and the ones that take it and grab on now will see the most success. Everyday a new TV comes out with applications for viewing Internet TV, such as YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and BlipTV. These are just a few websites that you can now view with your Smart TV.

So how does this help you as a producer? With the cost of film production becoming less expensive and the way to distribute your film much easier with the sites I have mentioned earlier. The opportunity is here for more producers and developers to get their content seen.

Mark cites YouTube as “the new Comcast” in that they are a massive video distributor. With YouTube you can gain subscribers and be more interactive with your viewers. When you signup with a video ad network you can see revenue from your online video content. With social networking site like Facebook and Twitter you have the ability to have your videos go viral and see worldwide viewership and repeat viewers to your online channel.

So this brings us to the new smart televisions. When you build your viewers with your social networks and as people purchase these new televisions. You will have a viewing audience and now you have a successful television station. All run from your laptop. As for some of these televisions the run off apps just like on your smart phone. So not only will your videos be available online and on televisions they are also available on mobile devises.

The future is here now, who will step up and grab hold for the ride? Within the next few years you will see advertising dollars raise tremendously for online video content. I am already working on my show ideas and building my applications that will work on all the new smart TV’s as well as smart phones. Will you follow?

Source: Future Of Television: Internet TV To Explode In 2012 http://www.reelseo.com/internet-tv-to-explode-in-2012/#ixzz1nXfIEMmB

Start Up America

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 04:55:00 +0000

Start Up America

I recently was doing some research when I came across this website, Start Up America Partnership (www.slco). Start Up America is a site that helps young companies branch out and get some recognition in the business world. The site is free of charge to set up an account and in just minutes your business is list on their site for others to find you in the directory. This is a great way for you to find partners and for partners to find you.

Their site has a section of StartUp Regions. This area lets you choose the area that you are located so that you can network with other startup companies close to you. I took a look at the Startup Tennessee region being that I am in Tennessee. There I was able to find a list of investors and a list that I was able to fine-tune my search to general areas within Tennessee.

I was just amazed that I had found this site that just happens to be FREE, that has so many great information sources. By signing up I am going to have at my finger tips access to advisers, funders, investors, major corporations other service providers as well as possible new business partners and they are all in my area.

I would suggest that you take a few minutes and visit the Start Up America website and signup it just takes a few moments, then find your region and just see the possible partners that are just waiting for a business like yours.

I will be signing up my company and you should to. This can help take your ideas and turn them into reality. You never know an investor maybe looking at the site right now and could miss seeing your great idea. Sign up today just as I did.

Source: http://www.s.co/ & http://www.startuptn.com/

Learning from the Experts

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 22:32:00 +0000

Learning from the Experts

Credit: Google Images

Over the past several months I have researched a lot of different very successful businessmen and women. I have learned a lot from each one of them and a few really stuck with me. I was very impressed in Daymond John who is the founder of FUBU clothing. He took an idea and took chances and has become one of the most successful fashion icons to date. Daymond has also become a motivational speaker and helps entrepreneurs understand how to boost sales, and keep a great moral.

One key part that made Daymond’s idea a great success was that he wasn’t afraid to take a risk. He looked at his idea and the target market that he had to work with and seen that there was a great need and want for a product like his, so he took the risk with his own money to start his clothing business in his house. This brings up another great point that I will take from my research is that you must be willing to show investors that you are willing to put your own money into your idea or product. If you were not willing to risk your own money then why would an investor want to invest their money into you and your idea?

Since doing the research I have made changes to the way I have approached my business plan. I have looked more in depth on how I have prepared the target market section. This helps me see before hand if my idea will be a success. I also have looked deeply into the financial statements more than I was before my research. Daymond made some good points how to plan ahead so that you won’t be surprised when issues or problems arise. Preplanning will make my life a lot easier since I have looked at all the areas of my financial planning.

Sources:

www.daymondjohn.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgmq1f93vZI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daymond_John

http://www.entrepreneur.com/blog/222663

Businessmen and the business plan

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 00:11:00 +0000

Businessmen and the business plan

This past week I took the chance to do some research on some businessmen, so I first took a look at Daymon John and then I looked at Mark Cuban.

Credit: www.daymondjohn.com

First lets take a look at some of the things I learned about Daymond John. Well the first thing that I learned was he was the man that started the clothing line FUBU, up until now I always thought that FUBU was started by a hip hop artist. Daymond John started by selling hats on the streets of Queens. After much success hustling his and making $800 in just one day, FUBU was born. With the help of a few of his friends Daymond transformed his house into a mini factory and mortgaged his home to start the company. FUBU quickly became a worldwide known clothing brand and at its peak was seeing profits of $350 million in annual sales. Today Daymond is a motivational speaker, branding expert and one of the most successful fashion icons.

Credit: google images

Now lets take a look at Mark Cuban. Mark is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks (NBA team), and Landmark Theaters and is the chairman of NDNet. His first shot at being a businessman came when he was 12 years old, Cuban wanted a pair of shoes so he decided to sell trash bags to raise the money he needed. Cuban has a bachelor degree in business administration from Indiana University.

Both of these businessmen have similarities in the way they look at the way to approach a business plan. You must look at the specific product or service that you want to market, you must look to see if the area that you have chosen for your business has the correct target market for what you are doing. You also must be able to show that you are willing to take the risk with your own money, investors are more likely to invest in you if they see that you will take the risk also. Also they both say that you should make sure that you include the projections of finances to your business plan, without showing what type of outcome the investment can have an investor will not want to invest in the unknown.

No matter if your business is a risk or a sure to make money deal you want to make sure to plan and develop an outstanding business plan.

Sources:

www.daymondjohn.com

http://bpexpertviews.blogspot.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Cuban

On the Mobile Go with an app

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 01:47:00 +0000

On the Mobile Go with an app.

I recently found an Internet site that allows you just to do that, be on the mobile go with an app. With the everyday changing world of mobile marketing and more people getting their information from their smart phones I began the search to find an easy way to build an app for my business.

What did I find? Well I first found a site call AppMakr (www.appmakr.com) this site was very easy to use and gave a clean look for your apps and the best part its free. But after trying to build my app I found some issues. I wanted to add a feed from our Facebook page, this would not work. So I did some research and the only thing I came up with is that Facebook no longer publishes their feeds the same way as they used to giving you the ability to republish data.

So I decided to keep looking and that's when I came across Conduit (www. mobile.conduit.com). Conduit is almost just like AppMakr. It is another free site and it does work with Facebook feeds. I have built my app for testing and really like the features that you can do inside their site.

If you are ready to take your company to the mobile app world I would suggest that you take a look at these two sites. Each of these sites offers a few different features and you may like one over the other. Just remember that this is only a way to build your app. You will still have to purchase a developer account from Apple and Droid to get your app on the market.

My suggestion would be to get an app today. Do not fall behind in this everyday changing world. Everyday that you wait is another day that your competition is moving ahead of you in the mobile world.

Sources:

http://www.appmakr.com

http://mobilecp.conduit.com

Does my site need SEO?

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 03:54:00 +0000

Does my site need SEO?

First you must ask yourself what is SEO before you decide whether you need it or not.

SEO is short for search engine optimization. SEO is a process for getting your site a higher ranking on search engines, like popular sites Google, Bing and Yahoo. By researching keywords that are most searched online and building links and creating content you can gain visits to your website.

Source: Google Images

So why is SEO important? Everyday your site sits ideal online is a day that you should be gaining visits and new customers or fans. When you gain them you also gain sales on your products the more fans equals more cash.

I recently was searching online for ways to develop new tactics to gain more visits on my website when I came across this site that gave five good reasons for SEO. Checkout the site as it breaks down each reason. Five Reasons for SEO

SEO v. ROI

It’s very simple formal to follow.

ROI = (Anticipated revenue from SEO efforts) – (Proposed cost of SEO project)

Breaking this down further, we have:

(Anticipated revenue from SEO efforts) = Conversions derived from Organic search visits

Source: Google Images

The fact is simple is when you take the time and/or money to invest into SEO for your website you will see big gains in your profits and/or fan base depending on what your business is. SEO is not something that is simple or easy to do. You will have to do your research if you are trying to do this on your own. This first thing I would do so that you can see if you are getting results is to check your page rankings before you start and check it periodically to see how your rankings are effected by the SEO methods that you are doing. To check your page rankings click here.

*Sources

http://enginesofcreation.com/five-reasons-for-seo.cfm

http://www.prchecker.info/

Important steps in selling your own music online

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 22:46:00 +0000

Important steps in selling your own music online

The 5 important steps

The music business has become a lot easy for independent artist to sell their music. With the Internet there is now many ways for you to sell your own music without having to use or be signed to a major label. If you use the following steps you can successfully sell your music online and make money.

Step 1 – Register with one of these companies ASCAP, BMI and/or SESAC. These companies will be the ones needed to make sure that you get money owed to you in royalties.

Step 2 – Register with a site to sell your music online. A good site that I have found is www.tunecore.com this site can distribute your music on sites such as CDBaby, Amazon, iTunes and more.

Step 3 – Build a portfolio/website & make sure to do search engine optimization so your site will be listed first when someone searches for you. When building your website make sure that you make it social friendly so that fans can click share on articles, music and videos.

Step 4 – Join social networking sites, create a fan page on Facebook and Twitter. Share, Share, Share.. Make sure you share your page with everyone you know and ask them to do the same. Increasing the number of fans you have on your Facebook page will increase the chances of online sales and will make your next releases much easier to promote.

Step 5 – Write Press Release and get reviews. This will get other blogs and sites posting about you. Do your homework and send a press release to the different demographic review sites and news sites and publications. Send them a link with a free digital download. When they do a review and story on you this will draw fans to your site and this is a free way to market yourself.

These 5 steps are just a few steps in selling your music successfully online. Online social marketing is a great way to get the word out about your music. When you do step 4 it is important to share your page with everyone you know and to have your friends share as well. This will allow you to gain fans and will make future music easier to promote and market. The first single will be the hardest but the hard work will make your future brighter.

Sources:

http://www.growmap.com/10-key-steps-to-effective-online-music-marketing/

http://www.articlesnatch.com/Article/5-Ways-To-Start-Selling-Your-Music-Online-And-Make-More-Moolah-/2173802

6 Legal Copyrights for all music created

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 13 Nov 2011 21:19:00 +0000

6 Legal Copyrights for all music created

Whenever a song is created there are 6 legal copyrights that are automatically given to the song created and these are given the minute that the song is created. A song is anything that is lyrics or a melody.

These 6 copyrights are:

1. Distribution

2. Reproduction

3. Public Performance

4. Digital Transmissions

5. Derivatives

6. Public Display

There are 2 copyrights in every song. The first one is ℗. This stands for phonogram. This copyright is given to the person or company that publishes the song. This is the copyright that is for the actual recording. The second copyright is ©. This stands for copyright and this is given to the person that creates the song. These two copyrights are needed to be able to give permission for one to use or reproduce the song.

For instance if you film a movie and want to use a song in your movie you must have permission from both the person that owns the copyright of the creation of the song, the song writer. And you must have the permission from the person owns the rights to the recording of the song.

With these 6 copyrights that are given to the creator of the song, this is why you see that bands that have one or two members that wrote the songs that they perform and record will make more money than the other band members. This is one reason that causes bands to break up.

With more music being sold online on such sites at iTunes, Napster, Rhapsody and many more, the way people are getting paid is changing and the song writers look to become the ones making more money in the future. Singer/Song writers can now be their own record label, producer; keeping the money being made in their own pockets.

There is a good series of videos that you should watch if you want more information on copyrights at www.tunecore.com/copyright

Sources:

http://www.tunecore.com/copyright

http://youtu.be/FMvhjwwzcQg

Legal liabilities in your business

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 24 Oct 2011 03:03:00 +0000

Legal liabilities in your business..

This week I listened to a few podcast and I was surprised by what I found out about some of the legal liabilities that could make your company or break your company.

Let’s start with Trademark laws, there are many new trademark laws coming into existence when it come to domain names not only in the USA but in other countries as well. Brazil has recently added Trademark and Patent laws when it comes to domain names and advertising with upcoming Olympics coming there in 2016. The Brazilian PTO has recently made changes to many laws that will take a few years to take effect. I suggest that you listen to this podcast very informative about new laws that may be important if your company has ties overseas.

I also listened to a podcast on non-compete agreements. There were many great things I got out of it, from my standpoint I will try to get my employees and individuals I hire to sign them but like they talked about in the podcast I will have to pay more if I expect someone to be exclusive to me when I hire freelancers.

The last podcast I listened to was a Citizen Media Law podcast. This podcast talked about copyright laws. The biggest thing that I took from this and wanted to touch on was how the copyright laws recognize fair use. I can understand from one point why this would be applied in some cases but as a creator I do not believe it is fair to the creator. I believe that the final say should come from the original creator. The way I see it if there use is fair to both parties then it will most likely be given permission to be used, if not then the person wanting to use the creation should have to be forced to look elsewhere.

I strongly suggest that you take the time to listen to the following podcast.

Reference:

Trademark Law Podcasts http://www.lexisnexis.com/community/downloadandsupportcenter/media/p/51.aspx

Freelance Radio, Episode 40: Non-Compete Agreements

http://freelanceswitch.com/podcasts/freelance-radio-episode-40-non-compete-agreements/

Citizen Media Law Podcast #6: Copyright & Fair Use in Savage v. CAIR (Audio podcast)

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/podcasts/cmlp/2007/12/savagevcouncil

Entertainment Lawsuits

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Today I took a look at some entertainment lawsuits that was surprised by what I found out. Just today a lawsuit that was originally filed in December of 2008 got a verdict. The suit was over copyright infringement. The person, Richard Prince that was being sued over photos said he used them under fair use. The original photographer Patrick Cariou won in court today after the judge found that the photos were not changed enough to fall under the fair use laws. As a photographer I think this is a great step in protecting the rights to photographers on the photos they create.

The second lawsuit that I came across is against apple inc., and is over their new iCloud. There is a company called iCloud communications that says they already owned the name and their service is like the service that apple is promoting. It looks like apple will have to pay big bucks on this one. iCloud communications is ready to go all they way through court with this one and apple inc. is hoping to try to settle this one out of court. If you ask me I think it maybe better for these two companies to work something out with one another. Apple inc. has the money and the lawyers to drag this out in court for a long time and it would just hurt the both of them, I think iCloud communications would be better off to work a deal but not completely sell out. I am very surprised that a company as large as apple would not have looked into the fact that someone already has the name.

Now for the last suit that I took a look at, I looked at The Pirate Bay suit. This suit has been going on for sometime now. If you haven’t heard of The Pirate Bay it is a file-sharing site located outside of the United States. I believe they are located in Sweden, at least I know this is where it started. The creator of the site has a lot of good points about how his site is legal and how the groups that are trying to sue him should be happy that there is a avenue here for them to distribute their content. A good example of how this can be turned into a win-win for both sides is napster.com; this site was once the largest file-sharing site out there and now is a site that sells content. I myself don’t believe its right for people to illegally download other people’s creations, but at the same time I understand where the creator of the file-sharing site is coming from. File-sharing on the internet will never be stopped, this is and will be an ongoing battle for the companies that create music, movies and software.

Sources:

Richard Prince Loses Fair Use Argument
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2011/03/19/richard-prince-loses-fair-use-argument/

Apple Sued Over iCloud Copyright
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izuuWPGLo-o

Pirate Bay Surrenders to Hollywood, interview with co-founder Peter Sunde
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PZpJCTsNtw

Wireless Data With Light Bulbs? Is this the future?

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 23:19:00 +0000

I recently watched a video from TED Talks, were Harald Hass discussed the possibilities of wireless data transmission using light. Everywhere you look you see light. This looks to be a great alternative for data transfer.

After watching the video of the conference by Harald Hass, he mentions how there are 1.4 million cellular towers in worldwide and over 5 billion phone devices being used worldwide. So with this in mind he brings up the point the four major problems that are affecting wireless data use in today’s technology. These four problem areas are capacity, efficiency, availability and security. The best way to describe this is that for capacity todays phone devices use radio waves to transmit data if you did not know we are running out of the radio waves and this is making radio waves more expensive to get. As for efficiency, cellular towers are not very efficient. The towers use more power just to keep themselves cooled down then they actually use to do their job, now taking a look at the availability and security. You can’t use your phone in places such as hospital or airplanes so this limits are availability to use our devises, also because these devices use radio waves they are easily able to be hacked into making your content available to others.

How can using light be a better alternative? There are lights everywhere you look so if everyone would change there lights to an energy efficient LED light the possibility of transferring data could exist everywhere and more efficiently than how we are doing it today. As Harald Haas showed in his speech, If we take a look at the electromagnetic spectrum of radio waves and visible waves (which is what led is considered) we have 10,000 more times the spectrum that can be used, making the possibilities of transferring data much more effective and efficient. The security would be much better because light cannot travel through walls allowing others to tap into your devices.

creativecommons.org

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 19:27:00 +0000

creativecommons.org

I wanted to learn more about creative commons, so I took a look at their site and began to do my research.

What is creative commons?

Well creative commons was created in 2001 to help give people more control of their copyrighted material on the Internet. Since copyright was out way before the Internet creative commons helps give creators the control to allow use and sharing of their creations. Creative Commons is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable corporation. Creative Commons licenses are free to the public.

Creative Commons is a great tool in education as well, it allows for textbooks and lessons to be shared world wide easier with permission through a license. It allows information to be quickly shared without having to contact the creator to get the correct permissions. This is a big deal when it comes to science. When scientist is working on new drugs for cures, with research and journals and previous recorded data being licensed under creative commons with the right permissions doctors and scientist can react faster in their studies.

Using Creative Commons is simple and easy to use. Just simply go to their website (creativecommons.org) and chose the licenses that you want to allow or disallow people to be able to use your creation. You can keep your creation free and stop others from being able to sell your creation and force people that share your creations to ShareALike, which means others can use and share your work but they must share under the same terms that you are allowing. Their site has all the tools needed to control the use of your creation.

A Creative Commons licenses is not a alternative to copyright, a creative commons licenses works with copyright. Simply giving you more control on modifying how you want to allow your work or creations to be used.

I would suggest any creator weather in be a photographer, filmmaker, writer, artist, musician or a DJ take use of this free service and protect your work the way you want it to be shared.

Source: creativecommons.org

Dirty Deals – Bad Decisions

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 01:59:00 +0000

Dirty Deals – Bad Decisions

In the past few weeks I have talked to several people in the entertainment business about what it takes to negotiate deals. One person’s story stuck out to me so I asked if I could sit down and chat with them about what goes on with their day to day dealings in negotiations. This person told me they would be glad to speak with me as long as they stayed anonymous, so I said that was ok with me. I can completely understand why they didn’t want me to mention their name after speaking with them. This person started off talking to me about how they first were able to get into the door of the CEO’s and Presidents of major record labels in Nashville. “It was quite simple”, he said. “You just call up the label and get their secretary on the phone and ask for the person you want to talk to by a nick name.” He went on to explain to me how the secretary will think that you are just one of their buddies calling and will actually let you talk to them or give them your message. He was able to get meetings with label CEO’s to show them his music. This was just one of the first tricks he had up his sleeve.
Later in his career after having success as a songwriter and having a record deal of his own as an artist he really began to see how cutthroat the business really was. He recalls sitting in the office of an executive and having to extend the truth on facts on his record sales and fan base when he was trying to switch to a different label, and he told inside information on the label he was leaving to boost himself, and in the end this all fell down on him. He didn’t get the new deal and the label he was at found out about his dirty tactics against them, not only the label he was trying to go to but also some of the artist that were on the label with him. He explained how he thought he could get a few artists to go with him to the new label.
Now after 6 years away from the business he reenters the music industry with his own publishing company. Learning from his mistakes with dirty tricks and deal making he looks to solidify himself as a top producer. “If I only knew then what I know now”, he explained. “The money got to me, I was just out looking for anyway to get more.” This is just another example of how staying humble to yourself and truthful is the only way to go. Even though this is a cutthroat business you must stay morally sound.
Some examples I have found to show the different dirty tactics one might use in negotiations can be found here http://faculty.washington.edu/vandra/html/body_negdirty.html

What’s next in Mobile Marketing?

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 18:43:00 +0000

What’s next in Mobile Marketing?

Just about everyone today has a mobile phone and with the smart phones taking over the mobile phone market. What will come next in mobile marketing? Everywhere you turn there is a contest to enter with your phone just to get you to signup to receive there alerts. We are already seeing

text message alerts that have been around for sometime taking the back burner to some of the newest crazes such as QR codes. Everywhere you turn on be it in a magazine, newspaper or an ad display somewhere QR codes are seen everywhere now. For instance I was at a NASCAR race this weekend and while looking around I noticed QR codes on the transporters that haul the cars to and from the track. The sponsors on the trailers were using QR codes to allow users to go straight to the companies site. A QR code (abbreviated from Quick Response code) is a specific matrix barcode (or two-dimensional code) that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and camera telephones. (Wikipedia.org)
You can make a QR code that will send people right to your website or just about anywhere on the Internet. Many are using it to send you right to their Facebook or Twitter page so gain followers.
Some of the new technology being used today in mobile marketing is the GPS capabilities of the phones. This allows for what is called geo-fencing allowing advertisers to target the user to the area they are located.
So I must ask, what is next where will mobile marketing go from here. Some companies are already using voice controls in their mobile search devices making it faster and easier for people to search for the companies they are looking for. Together with social media, the smart phone and mobile marketing the future looks to be on demand and in your hands.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code

http://www.commarketing.com/blog/what’s-now-and-what’s-next-in-mobile-marketing/

Streaming Video in your everyday life.

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Tue, 12 Jul 2011 23:37:00 +0000

Streaming Video in your everyday life.
Streaming video is becoming a part of everyday life; as the Internet grows so do the options for your everyday communication. Just about a week ago Facebook announced its partnership with Skype. Facebook is trying to encourage its users to be more face-to-face by adding this feature. Since the Internet was first born it has caused people to lose just that the face-to-face communication just as text messaging has taken over the talking on the phone.

Streaming Video for entertainment
Streaming video has now even become one of the top places to watch your favorite TV shows and movies. With companies like Netflix, Hulu and more popping up everyday, you now can sit at home and watch what you want when you want with the touch of a few buttons you can see what you want on demand.

Streaming video in today’s business world.
Streaming video has become a new cost effective way for companies to hold meetings with clients and employees across the country and even the world. In the past business men and women would have to catch a flight to attend meetings with clients, now with streaming video you can hold those meetings from the comfort of your own office.

Making money with Streaming Video
Now this is the best part, you can now much easier make money with your videos with streaming. There is several sites today that allow you to post your video and you can make a profit off the advertising they sell. Blip TV is one that I have started to use lately. You can post your videos for free and make a little money with them. There is new site called StageIt, they allow bands to stream shows online and sell tickets for the show just as they would if you were going to the show in person. This is just another sign that streaming video will be a big part of your everyday life.

Do what you love and you will always be happy.

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 01:25:00 +0000

In 2008 at the Web 2.0 expo Gary Vaynerchuk spoke and spoke straight to the point on how it is important to do what you love. I feel the same way that he does, in 2006 I left a job that I had been on for 7 years to go to school and make a change in my life to do something that I love to do. Since I have begun a career in photography I have met a lot of amazing people. I may not be the richest person in the world but I am happy.

Vaynerchuk mentioned in his speak how he had taken over his family business and increased the profit margin over the years he was running the business, but he wasn’t happy so he stepped aside as the CEO and started a new business Wine Library TV.

Another thing that Vaynerchuk spoke about that I completely agree with is to treat your customers as friends and with respect and care about how they feel and what they think. The better you understand your clients or customers and have that one on one connection the better your company will be and the happier you will be. Vaynerchuk explained how he personally responds to each and every one of the emails.

One other thing that Vaynerchuk mentioned as well that I hear a lot from people is how everyone says they don’t have the time to start doing what they love, but like Gary said stop going home and sitting on the couch and watching TV, stay up late and work hard at it and give up some of your personal life now and later you will see success and be happy while doing it.

So with that being said if you haven’t watched the video of his speech then I would strongly suggest that you take the fifteen minutes to watch it and take the chances that are needed to do something that makes you happy.

Sources
TED.com Gary Vaynerchuk: Do what you love (no excuses!)
http://www.ted.com/talks/gary_vaynerchuk_do_what_you_love_no_excuses.html
2008 Web 2.0 expo.

AAF – American Advertising Federation

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 13:59:00 +0000

AAF – American Advertising Federation

For those of you that may not know what the AAF is, AAF stands for the American Advertising Federation they are an association based in Washington D.C. and is the oldest national advertising trade association, helping protect and promote everyone’s well-being in advertising. The AAF is built with a network of 200 ad clubs across the United States and has 214 college ad clubs as well providing over 7500-student experience needed in the real world.
I was a member and president of the ad club at the college I attended and this helped me gain precious experience that I am using today. The AAF also gives students a chance to have their work seen on a national level by competing in the student Addy Awards. The Addy Awards is judge by professionals across the country and this helps give students a clear understanding of how their work compares to other work.
In 2010 I was one of the lucky students that won on the national level in the student Addys, I won gold and judges choice for our local competition and silver and both the district and national awards. This got me some well-known photographer and designers in our area looking at me, which was priceless. I would recommend that and student that has chance to join an ad club group in college do so, there is much knowledge to be gained and the events that your group can do and get involved with the community. Our group was able to get in touch with Habitat for Humanity and through this we would do photos of the build of new homes and a photo session with the family that the house was being presented to. We would then have printed a coffee table stylebook for the family to keep. Also through the ad club group we helped design flyers and ads for Habitat for Humanity.
[Image]The AAF also helps keep it members educated on the latest trends in marketing, technology and creativity and provides assistants to members that are part of local groups.
Each year the AAF holds its national conference in June, which is field with speakers, and several programs to help build your skills in areas such as social media and marketing. The annual event also hosts an expo, which provides business a place to share their products and services. And to end the four day event they hold the annual professional Addy Awards and dinner.
If you or your business is in the advertising industry this is a must event to attend and if you are not a member of the AAF this is something that you may want to look into.
Sources: www.aaf.org and www.admericaaaf.org

MindTools.com Review

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 00:26:00 +0000

MindTools.com review

Today I took a look around the Internet search for good tips on Team Management. One that stood out to me was Mindtools.com. The site has a lot of free information and was easy to read.

Mindtools.com first launched in 1996 as a free skills training site, to teach people practical skill that can help you excel in your career. In 2003 their e-courses were launched for download. The site now has over 300,000 subscribers and has more than ten million visitors a year.

On the topic that I had goggled “Team Management”, this site does a really great job at breaking down the keys to start and manage your team. They break down the importance of delegating people to the task and the understanding fully what the goal is for the team and what each person’s role is to be, to how to keep your team motivated with good communication and how important communication is within the team. Each team member must remember how important it is to communicate to the other members. The site also makes some good tips on what traps to avoid when managing a team. I felt like the information that I read on Team Management has helped me in many ways.

Mindtools.com also has links to several other resources to help with leadership skills, problem solving, decision making, time management, and something that most people don’t remember to try to control is stress management. I would recommend this site to anyone that works with team projects or will be working on a team project in the future. The information that you can access for free is unbelievable, you may also choose to become a member of the site for as low as $19 and get much more quality information, and with a money back guarantee how can you go wrong?

Mind Tools. (2008). Team Management Skills. Retrieved April 15, 2011, from http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_92.htm

Leadership & Motivation

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 15:42:00 +0000

I recently watched a video on YouTube of a seminar that talked about leadership and how to motivate. The video was of Dr. Patrick Dixon; he had some really good points that he talked about. It’s pretty amazing how just by leading a team without being the type of person that demands work from people and showing to much control over someone and just working with your team and having your team enjoy working with you will increase productivity in your team. When your team goes home feeling good about the day and not dwelling on the next day of work, people on the team will be more likely to do that extra little work and will most likely bring their friends to join the team which makes people have more fun while working. When moral is down it’s usually just one or two people that bring the rest of the team down. So it’s good to find those one or two people and get their moral back up get them enjoying what your team is doing and make them feel better about the way they are treated and that alone will increase productivity of the rest of the team and will make the team more profitable. Happiness is always more important than money. If you make your team members happy to work with you then they will most likely work for less money. This has been true for me. When starting my business I have had great people working with me that I normally would not have been able to afford with our startup budget.
Remember being a good leader and having respect for your people will make for a much better team. It won’t feel so much like work and people will enjoy working for you. Have fun and get more work done. Take a look at this short video below.

Dixon, P. (Speaker). (2008). Leadership and motivation at work. motivational speech. leadership skills, styles and team . [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD72GzaxxuI&feature=related

Record Labels and their lack of artist development

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 13 Mar 2011 22:01:00 +0000

I recently watch a video of Owen Husney a music manager. He talked about how in today’s music industry the record labels do not spend the time developing artist like they should be, they are looking for artist that already have a fan base and have already put albums out on their own. The artists today need to spend their time now on going out and playing, building their fan base on their own. This is the only way they are going to get the record labels to help them. This isn’t how it should be; the record labels should be the ones developing the artist not getting artist handed to them that have already been developing themselves.

The record labels business is to develop artist and have a passion for their artist, to stand behind them and help them succeed. This is the biggest thing missing in today’s music industry.

Owen Husney also talked about what he called “The System” how that big record labels will loan you $500,000.00 to help you record your first album and live on and you will make payments back to them through royalties of your albums, but when you are finished paying them back they still own your music. This has got to change he believes that with the internet this will change soon not in the next year or so but in the years to come.

He went on to talk about today’s bands as McDonald hit bands. This is what he called bands that will not leave there mark on the earth. Because they move as quick as McDonalds they are here and then they are gone, because these bands were not developed properly.

That leaves us with in today’s industry a band or artist must do what it takes to build their own fan base and prove to the record labels that they have the market to get their albums sold. So travel and record as much as you can, this is how todays business is.

New publication.

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 04:40:00 +0000

Well this is one the first times I have ever done a blog post. I want to tell everyone about the new publication that Amped Up is working on. We are excited to announce the start of a monthly motorsports newspaper. We believe that with all the auto racing articles that we have coming in it is time to dedicate a paper just for our race fans. With the all the controversy going on to save local racing in the mid state we believe that there is a need for media coverage. The is other publications that just refuse to print anything about motorsports. We hope with this publication we can not only give deserving people coverage but help the sport get back into the media circle.

We encourage everyone to check out the new website and pickup a copy at your local track coming soon.
http://ampedupmag.com/motorsports/

Yung Wurk

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 06:26:00 +0000

DreamzWurk is an Entertaiment group that Mrz. Dreamz and Yung Wurk have come together to start up with the help of Amped Up Entertainment and a few other people. Music is their passion they love to perform and get their swag on, LOL! They have artist who sing, rap, dance, draw, photo’s, etc. Even trying to have sercurity, They are going to have all area’s covered. Willing to Wurk with other artist only serious inquiries. Gonna build this here from the ground up. They are here to do their thing either roll with it or get rolled over! Yung Wurk is gonna GO HARD regardless. Check out the tracks add them to you your page support the movement!

About Us

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 06:24:00 +0000

Amped Up Entertainment is a full service entertainment management and promotions company with over 20 combined years of industry experience. From individual client management to full-scale event coordination, our experience is second to none.   Our goal is put the Personal back into Personal Manager.

Amped Up Entertainment also provides event management, ranging from single shows to multi-stage, multi-event festivals. Our track record has been proven time after time. From corporate functions to stadium style events we possess the talent and skill to provide the best in entertainment.

Our Owner

noreply@blogger.com (AmpedUpEntertainment) — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 19:46:00 +0000

NFL Network

Mike Curran started Amped Up Entertainment in the summer of 2010 after working with various artist and sports athletes for years.