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Lincoln Announces A Very Moody Collaboration With Matthew McConaughey

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Matthew-McConaughey-LincolnMatthew McConaughey is the new pitchman for Ford's Lincoln brand.

The company made the announcement Thursday and released a rather moody video in which the Oscar-winning star of "Dallas Buyers Club" talks about why he loves to drive and detests being a passenger, why he thinks there's good chemistry between himself and Lincoln, why he likes the MKC SUV (it has a "good stance"), why he looks forward to driving for two days from Hollywood to Austin, TX, and about how Lincoln is a "classic, iconic American brand" that's "making a transformation into the luxury market..."

Wait! Isn't Lincoln already a luxury brand?

Well, that's kind of the issue. And the reason why the brand has gone with McConaughey — who may have played a lawyer doing business out of the back of his old-school Lincoln, but who looks far more spiritually connected to something like a Ford F-150 pickup truck — to boost the division's fortunes.

Because Lincoln has lost its way. After the financial crisis, when former CEO Alan Mulally was getting rid of Jaguar, Land Rover, Aston Martin, Volvo (nameplates that collectively made up Ford's "Premier Automotive Group") to concentrate on a "One Ford" strategy, there were doubts regarding Lincoln's future.

I know because I expressed those doubts in a McConaughey-esque context.

Heck, I did it twice.

I mean, three times.

Lincoln survived. But it hasn't been setting the luxury market on fire. As Bloomberg's Keith Naughton observed when reporting the McConaughey news:

Lincoln’s U.S. sales rose 16 percent this year through July, compared with a year earlier when sales fell to a 32-year low. Lincoln ranks eighth among luxury brands sold in the U.S. and it’s outsold by almost two-to-one by General Motor Co.’s Cadillac luxury line. A year’s worth of Lincoln sales would not fill half a Ford factory.

So obviously Lincoln has to do something to define — or more accurately, redefine — itself in the market. McConaughey is right as far as the issues of the moment are concerned: Lincoln is "making a transformation." But the brand has always been Ford's core luxury offering, even when Jaguar and Land Rover were in the stable. Ford never truly stopped thinking of Lincoln that way, but the consumer did.

The esoteric quality of the McConaughey intro is unusual, however.

"The campaign isn't screaming for attention," he says in his mellifluous drawl, as lightly trance-inducing electronic music plays and images of twilight in Texas float across the screen. "It's as much about the tone...the mood...the silent...moments...in between the words and in between the dialogue..."

He trails off, then resumes, declaring, "There's an authenticity to the campaign, and to the automobile."

The automobile. McConaughey is 44 years old but somehow he can get away with sounding like a wise man from the oily mists of Route 66, back when the authenticity of Lincolns was a given.

And then comes that genre of borderline whacky, stream-of-consciousness, back-porch philosophizing that has become a McConaughey speciality since his Oscar acceptance speech about being his own hero...but when he's a different him...in the the future...

MM GIF"What does 'live in your moment' mean to me? What does it mean to everybody, all right?" he asks. "It's what everyone's trying to do. I'm not gonna say I do it all the time, I don't know anyone who does do it all the time."

Those thoughts, by the way, are preceded by this shot of a steer in a pen. Make of it what you will.

Lincoln-MM-ScreenshotAnyway, back to living in the moment. "We know what it means," he continues. "It's not getting to far behind, it's not getting to far ahead. Once you're in the MKC, it is a good example of shutting out the rest of the world."

AdAge reports that McConaughey has a "multiyear" contract with Lincoln, so we could be in store for a lot more of this.

In a teasing YouTube video, all of 20 second, introducing himself as the new face of Lincoln, he remarks that "sometimes you've got to go back, to actually move forward."

Evidently, Lincoln wants it this way. According to the brand's media site:

In a nod to McConaughey’s storytelling talents, Lincoln and director Nicolas Winding Refn (“Drive”) created a storyline for him around the MKC. In the spots, McConaughey invites viewers to experience the vehicle through unscripted moments in the commercial.

Watch the whole Lincoln media video here

SEE ALSO: Here's The SUV That Will Make You Want To Drive A Lincoln Again

SEE ALSO: This Little SUV Is Lincoln's Latest Step Towards A Comeback

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One Of YouTube's Greatest Innovators Is Ready For His Next Challenge

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With an ADD sense of humor and internet insights from a brief stint at a search engine optimization company, Toby Turner has emerged as a YouTube star and one of the site's greatest innovators.

Turner ranks fifth among independent YouTubers with 14.8 million followers among his three channels: Tobuscus, where he posts comedy sketches and parody videos; Toby Turner, where he frequently posts "lazy vlogs" about his life which range from wacky, energetic freestyles to carefully planned and practiced comedic routines; and TobyGames, where he posts videos of him playing video games along with improvised commentary.

He got his start back in 2006 when his mother took out a loan for him to get a video camera. A student at the University of Florida at Gainesville at the time, supposedly working toward a career in dentistry, he was eager to find another career path.

"I wanted to do anything beside getting a real job," Turner tells Business Insider.

In 2007, Turner posted his first big hit on Metacafe, a weird video where he pretends to prove an urban legend that says if you pour Coca Cola on raw pork, worms come out. The video topped 1 million views, and at a rate of 5$ cost per thousand views (CPM) that earned him $5,000, which he considered an impressive sum.

At the same time, Turner was offered to create a sponsored sketch video for $5,000. Though the deal never went through, it was a hint that there was a business model in making online comedy videos.

"I was jogging down the street and thinking, 'That's six months worth of rent,'" says Turner. "I knew there was opportunity to [make a living online], but then I realized its about making a lot of videos."

While in the Gainesville comedy scene, Turner became known for a standup routine that was as manic and frenzied as clicking through a set of YouTube videos. It consisted of a jumble of traditional standup jokes, comedy songs, and prerecorded sketch videos.

Turner's says his style is based around his ADD-personality. He says he gets bored quickly, a trait that led him constantly switch between comedy genres in his live show. That carries over to his YouTube videos, which he edits with an eye towards his audience's short attention span.

"I would watch a video that I'd made when I was editing and if I got bored, I would realize that I need to throw something in fast to switch up the topic or move to the next joke," he says.

When Turner graduated from the University of Florida, he had a few hits on YouTube and MetaCafe (including a remix of his fellow University of Florida student getting famously tasered) and just over 3,000 subscribers.

Getting optimized

Turner moved from Florida to Los Angeles with a desire to pursue his comedy, but his first job, which he found on CraigsList, was in search engine optimization.

Although Turner says he hated the job, he credits it with teaching him useful insights. He learned how to use Google tools like Keywords and Adwords to find trending topics that were likely to go viral and to write keyword-heavy blog posts that would shoot to the top of Google's search rankings, and he realized he could use the same techniques to get his own content to the top.

Turner began creating sketches and parody songs that capitalized on memes, movies, TV shows, events, and trends. If he was fast enough and the content was good enough, Turner found that he could make his videos go viral.

"I would do stuff that catches onto popular keywords like news events. You have to be really fast," says Turner. "I tried to think about how I could use my strengths [like music, comedy, parody] to get in the public eye through search engine optimization. I sprinted up through the ranks of YouTube that way."

Turner's videos at time included riffs on popular movies, including "Click," "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang," and "The Ring." Others riff on a popular Cingular commercial, a popular Dave Matthews Band song, and the recently released iPhone. Hidden in the description of each video was keyword-heavy text that explains the history of each topic in the video, even in videos about non-topical subjects like video-blogging, sky-diving, or boobies (the sea-bird).

Turner's keyword strategy worked especially well during the early years of YouTube, when there was less sophisticated or widespread competition. Once others started to figure out the same strategy, jumping onto a keyword and getting seen became much harder, though the strategy certainly has not gone away. By the time his competition caught up, however, Turner had built a loyal following that he could cultivate and grow.

Once Turner began making enough money off YouTube to support himself (around $2,000 per month), he quit the SEO job and focused on his YouTube channel full-time.

Literal trailers and funny gaming

In October 2008, YouTuber Dustin McLean posted a "literal" parody of A-Ha's 1985 hit "Take On Me," where he dubbed over the lyrics with new vocals that literally describe the odd visuals in the video. The video was a massive hit (13+ million views), prompting many YouTubers to make their own literal music videos in short order.

Turner quickly recognized the trend and decided to put his own spin on the genre by creating literal movie and video game trailers. For the videos, Turner dubbed voice-overs for popular movie and video-game trailers, making fun of what was being shown in the trailers and the plot-holes in the movie/game. He has since made over 30 literal trailers, which have received anywhere from 4 million to 40 million views.

Literal videos weren't the only YouTube form that Turner mutated into his own either. By 2010, one of YouTube's most popular forms was the video-game walkthrough, where top gamers would film themselves playing the latest games while providing commentary and strategy tips. Turner had long wanted to do the same, but he didn't like the genre's self-seriousness.

"If anyone tried to be funny, [the audience] hated them," says Turner. "I always felt it was more important for video-games to be fun."

 Turner began posting videos every day of him trying and failing hilariously to play the most popular current video games, the first of which was StarCraft II. He quickly gained a huge following; and in short order, other YouTubers jumped on the comedy-gaming bandwagon, a trend that has been ridden to the top by Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg (username: PewDiePie), who is currently the most popular YouTuber in the world.

Here's Turner's most popular video from his gaming channel (9.6+ million views):

Making It Big

In 2010, Turner signed to Machinima Studios, the YouTube gaming behemoth that has over 11 million subscribers. At the time, the company was snatching up popular YouTubers into its network with the promise of lucrative ad dollars. While Machinima does produce its own content, at the time, Machinima's main focus was negotiating pre-roll and banner ads on YouTubers' existing videos.

For Turner, the main attraction to signing was the "wall of protection" he thought with Machinima would provided. Turner frequently posted content that co-opted more traditional media, either through his parody videos or his video game commentaries, both of which required that he use copyrighted content.

In 2013, Turner switched sides, signing with Maker Studios, Machinima's main rival. Maker Studios has been challenging Machinima for YouTube dominance over the last year, picking up big name YouTubers like PewDiePie and celebrities like Snoop Dogg and Robert De Niro. Earlier this spring, Maker Studios was bought by Walt Disney for $500 million, which could rise to $950 million, depending on how the company does.

Turner says he hasn't noticed a difference between the two companies, whether monetarily or in services provided, possibly because he produces all his content independently.

Despite rising success, he says he tries not to focus on views, CPMs, or income dollars, even if he knows that it would make for a better business model.

"You get obsessed and you don't focus on being creative anymore," he says. "You start focusing on what the most monetized keywords are."

Turner declined to give a hard income number, but said that he, his friends, and his family are living comfortably from his career.

SocialBlade, a YouTube analytics site, estimates that Turner makes somewhere between $226,000 and $2.18 million per year, through ads negotiated by Maker Studios or sponsorships and product placements that he negotiates himself. SocialBlade's estimates are based around a $5 CPM rate and the idea that all of Turner's videos are monetized, which is certainly not the case. Add in the fact that CPM rates fluctuate wildly —Turner says that sometimes they are as low as $1–3 — the lower end of that range is probably a better ballpark figure than the higher end.

Finding Time For Everything

Maintaining three popular YouTube channels is far from easy. While Turner will routinely offer up projects for his friends to work on, most of the shooting, editing, and posting falls solely on him. His most elaborate videos can take months to bring to fruition, while other like his daily Vlogs or video game commentaries he can shoot and post in a day.

Turner's most time-consuming videos by far are his Tobuscus Adventures, an animated series on YouTube where his alter-ego Tobuscus goes on adventures with his friend Gabe.

Although popular, routinely getting between 3–4 million views, the videos take so long that they probably aren't worth it from a financial perspective, Turner says. To him they are more of a passion project.

All things considered, Turner says that he does little else besides film and edit videos, write scripts, and sleep.

Breaking Out Of YouTube

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As Turner's position on YouTube has solidified, it has become more viable for him to leverage his fanbase to pursue projects outside of YouTube. Currently, he is working on both a book for Harper-Collins and an iOS/Android game based on his Tobuscus Adventures YouTube cartoon show.

In the case of the Tobuscus iOS/Android game, Turner looked to his rabid audience for funding. He put up a campaign on IndieGoGo in 2013 with a hefty goal of $240,000. He ended up raising far more: $600,000 in an impressive show of support.

Turner is developing the Tobuscus game with a team of independent developers he has cobbled together himself, with mixed results. Despite the extra budget from the IndieGoGo campaign, the project has gone over-budget and succumbed to delays. Turner says the problem lies in he and his team's inexperience.

"The developers have never made a game by themselves before," Turner says. "They're talented, but I didn't realize how much time I'd have to spend helping them along. It's been a rough ride at times."

The game development, like his book, has been a learning process. Turner is certainly a multi-talented performer, but like the do-everything millennial generation that he appeals to, he has a tendency to overextend himself.

"It's gonna be a lot smoother next time around," says Turner. "I had no idea what to expect when I got into [developing the game]. It was the same with writing the book."

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The game, due out in October, adheres to Turner's frantic style. Amidst painstakingly tested gameplay, he throws in cutscenes and voice-overs meant to break the tension, make players laugh, and occasionally distract from less-polished parts of the game.

Turner sees his long term projects as a path towards breaking into traditional media, something that has been notoriously hard for YouTube stars until recently. It shows in his work; though he still publishes frequently to all three channels, he seems decidedly focused on both the Tobuscus Adventures video game and book. 

The list of YouTube comedy stars that have crossed over is short: Donald Glover (who started in YouTube sketch comedy team DerrickComedy), Jimmy Tatro (appeared this year in 22 Jump Street), and Bo Burnham (on MTV and recently released a Comedy Central stand up special) round out the list.

That may be changing, says Turner, who believes the stigma of rising as an internet star is dissipating as Hollywood studios and casting agencies turn to web stars and their built-in fan bases to find the next great entertainer.

"There's an opportunity right now for YouTubers to break into traditional media," says Turner. "In the beginning, YouTube content wasn't up to the same standard as traditional media. Now, people are using it as a launchpad."

SEE ALSO: 10 YouTube stars who should be on your radar

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Kevin Spacey Is Making $500,000 Per Episode For 'House Of Cards'

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frank underwood president house of cards

There's a big reason Kevin Spacey made the jump to Netflix.

According to a new salary report from TV Guide, Spacey is making $500,000 an episode for his lead role on the Emmy-winning political thriller "House of Cards."

TV Guide reports that number includes producer fees and profit participation.

Season 2 of the series, which launched in February, had 13 episodes. That puts the actor's salary at $6.5 million. 

The figure places Spacey into an elite club of network stars who make over $500,000 per episode. According to TV Guide, it includes Mark Harmon for "NCIS" ($525,000), "Two and a Half Men" actors Jon Cryer ($650,000) and Ashton Kutcher ($750,000), and "The Big Bang Theory" stars Jim Parsons, Kaley Cuoco, and Johnny Galecki, who netted $1 million per-episode salaries. 

Spacey plays a ruthless democratic house whip, Frank Underwood, who strategizes his way to the top of the White House.

"House of Cards" received 13 Emmy nods for Season 2, including Outstanding Lead Actor (Spacey), Outstanding Lead Actress (Robin Wright), and Outstanding Drama Series.

TV Guide predicts the streaming service could eventually pay Spacey a $1 million salary for his role.

"House of Cards" has been renewed for Season 3, which is expected to air on Netflix in 2015.

SEE ALSO: Chelsea Handler is reportedly making $10 million for her new Netflix deal

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The Simpsons At War — Five Moments When The Classic Show Took On National Security-Related Topics

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The cable network FXX is currently re-running every single episode of "The Simpsons" over a 12-day marathon. It's an ideal spirit-raiser during a season of pestilence, atrocity, and conflict — although the Simpsons, which has satirized, deconstructed, or just plain sledge-hammered nearly every aspect of American life over its quarter-century on the air, hasn't shied away from those topics either.

Indeed, The Simpsons has taken an interest in war, peace, and its deeper meanings even since the beginning of its run. Here are five of the best episodes that dealt with military and national security-related themes. 

Screen Shot 2014 08 22 at 11.45.54 AM"Bart the General" (season 1, episode 5): In this episode, Bart learns that he can't just go it alone against Nelson, the school bully — he needs to gather a coalition of the willing, adjust his strategy to his opponent's weaknesses, and then dispense with the illusion of absolute victory by signing a long-term non-aggression pact and then eating cupcakes with his once-enemy.

No, this episode isn't a perfect parallel to America's experience in the post-9/11 period, even though there have been moments where the U.S. has built coalitions, shifted its approach, altered its expectations and goals, and even broken bread, so to speak, with its former battlefield opponents.

Still, it's sort of remarkable that this was made all the way back in early 1990.

"The Secret War of Lisa Simpson" (season 8, episode 25): Lisa becomes the only girl at Rommelwood military academy, where she endures the harassment of her classmates and eventually proves that women can be the equal to their male counterparts

Things are trending in Lisa's direction — longstanding exclusions on women serving in combat roles in the U.S. military are in the process of being lifted. But the episode is most memorable for the Rommelwood commandant's graduation address, which accurately predicts the next decade and a half of battlefield trends — with some embellishment, of course:

"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."

Screen Shot 2014 08 22 at 11.47.13 AM"The Principal and the Pauper" (season 9, episode 2): Seymour Skinner is the refreshing inverse of negative stereotypes about Vietnam veterans, as well as one of the more complex Vietnam vets in American pop culture. The principal of Springfield Elementary isn't a traumatized psychopath or an R. Lee Ermey-type disciplinarian. He's the show's embodiment of blandness and conformity — as well as the eccentricies and insecurities that always lurk behind them, just slightly out of sight.

When you get past the episode's preposterous and still-controversial premise — it turns out Skinner isn't even Skinner's real name and that he assumed the identity of a comrade he believed had died in Vietnam  — it's really about an angry street kid who finds a sense of purpose and discipline in the military, and settles in to a quietly dignified life of public service (albeit incompetently rendered, most of the time) once he returns from war.

Skinner is often a mess of a human being, never more so than in this episode. But this 22 minutes shows how he's both less caricatured and truer to the actual experience of millions of American military veterans than scores of other similar, lesser characters.

Screen Shot 2014 08 22 at 11.48.29 AM"Simpson Tide" (season 9, episode 19): Homer joins the Navy, and then assumes command of a nuclear submarine after accidentally firing his commanding officer out of a torpedo chute. At that point, the international incident that caps the episode is all but inevitable.

Narrative-wise the episode kind of gets away from itself, although it does show how a cascade of geopolitical misunderstandings, fueled by a lack of basic trust and assumptions of bad faith, can rapidly bring the world's powers to the brink of all-out war.

And this now-classic clip, in which the U.S. exposes its total ignorance of the ambitions and very nature of Russian foreign policy — leading to a near-instantaneous breakdown of a relationship vital to global security —seems downright prophetic these days.

"New Kids on the Blech" (season 12, episode 14): A record producer recruits Bart, Nelson, Ralph and Milhouse to form a boy band — but the new pop stars don't realize that their music contains subliminal recruitment messages for the U.S. Navy.

This episode premiered in February of 2001, and the idea that a peacetime volunteer U.S. military would have to resort to this sort of subterfuge to attract volunteers would seem outdated within a few months of its premier.

But it's endured as a favorite, perhaps because of its appeal to an anxiety, validated for some by the Edward Snowden NSA disclosures, that the national security apparatus has penetrated the most seemingly-random or banal aspects of life.

This episode also includes the uncanny appearance of what looks like the flag of Syria's secular opposition, over a decade before the conflict in Syria began. 

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JOB OF THE WEEK: Sr. Digital Product Manager

Tour The Offices Of Music Video Giant Vevo, Where Employees Enjoy Private Concerts Every Week

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vevo office tourMusic and video streaming service Vevo is one of the biggest sites out there.

According to ComScore data for July, Vevo is the fifth most popular destination on the Internet, behind only Google, Facebook, AOL, and Yahoo. Vevo's artist channels are also among the most subscribed-to on YouTube.

Vevo is an amazing place to work, too. Major artists are constantly stopping by the company's New York City headquarters for interviews and in-office performances, and employees often get to meet and take pictures with them. 

We recently paid a visit to Vevo to check out the facilities for ourselves. 

Vevo's offices take up the entire 25th floor of the Condé Nast building, located in New York City's Times Square.



As you exit the elevators, you'll find a wall covered in titles of popular songs from the last few decades.



There are lots of places to watch music videos all over the office, including this area by the entrance. When we visited, singer-songwriter Matt Nathanson was scheduled to perform.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider






Here's The $3,500 Gift Bag Musicians Will Take Home At MTV's Video Music Awards

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MTV VMA gift bag beyonce

After Beyoncé and this summer's buzzed about singer Iggy Azalea perform at MTV's Video Music Awards this Sunday, they'll go home with a gift bag valued at more than $3,500.

The bags will be received by nominees, presenters, and performers and include everything from toothpicks and candles to hats and a guitar.

Check out what's inside.

The Lipault bag, which will hold everything in the gift bag, is a small luggage tote valued at $179.

lipault bag

Inside, attendees will receive an array of gifts which include the following.

A $22 trucker hat from Ascot + Hart.ascot and hart mtv vma gift bag

A bottle of Botran aged Rum.botran rum

Floss picks and a case from DenTek Oral Care. A 90-count pack sells for $11.27 on Amazon. The case retails for about $2.29.dentekA $399 gTar Smart Guitar which teaches you how to play a guitar with through an app.

gtar app

A three-month membership to SoCal Hot Yoga Studios in Malibu and Los Angeles estimated at $447. A one-month membership costs $149.so cal yoga vma gift bag

 

Glasses from the Calvin Klein Collection Eyewear by Macron.calvin klein collection glasses vma gift bag

A $69.99 bartending app that can make anyone into the perfect bartender. bartending app brookstone

A $29.99 wireless mouse from Logitech. Here are some of the designs it comes in:logitech wireless controllers mtv vmas

This $20 inflatable, color-changing Luci Lux solar lantern from MPowered.luci lux solar lantern

A $75 designer water bottle from Mobot.mobot water bottles

A set of four shot glasses from Sisters of Los Angeles which retail at $48.

310 area code shot glass sister of los angeles 

$22 beanies that say LA from Rolf Bleu.

rolf bleu beanie

Board games from University Games including "Dirty Words" ($15.99) and "Smart Ass" ($24.99).dirty words smart ass

A Titanio wristwatch from Swiss Collection.

Titanio swiss collection

The gift bags will also include the following: 

Dresses from British woman's brand House of CB.
Tops and lounge wear from Body Bark.
A bikini from CM Cia Maritima Beachwear.
Coconut wax candles from Pure Planet Home.
A frame from Lenox.
A sample of jewelry from Nomination Italy which makes watches, bracelets, earrings, and more in stainless steel, sterling silver, and 18 karat gold.
$10 corkscrew from Williams-Sonoma.
Six kitchen tumblers from Williams-Sonoma that are $24-$30.
A $98 cami set and eye mask from Wildfox Couture
A necklace from jewelry company Brevity which reads "Los Angeles."
Note cards from stationary company Invitation Consultants.

SEE ALSO: Here are the odds for who will win at this year's Emmys

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Here's Your Chance To Take Private Tours Of LinkedIn, Twitter And More

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Silicon_Valley_Sweeps

We're sending one lucky winner and a friend to Silicon Valley for an insider's look at the upper echelons of the tech world.

Meet CEOs and execs from PinterestLinkedInTwitterChegg, andYCombinator, tour their campuses, and enjoy the best of the Bay Area with a$1,000 Uber credit and a stay at the luxury Hotel Zetta.

 

 

 

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This Summer's Best New Death-Defying Ride

A Rock Band Named 'ISIS' Is Getting Threatening Hate Mail From People Thinking They Are Terrorists

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ISIS band

A rock band named "ISIS" has been receiving threatening hate mail from people who mistakenly believe the five-man group of musicians is in some way connected to the militant terrorist group of the same name, ABC News reports.

“It blows my mind that people can't see the difference,” a band representative told ABC News. “I know they receive threats constantly via Facebook.”

On the band's Facebook timeline, some have posted angry rants against the group which disbanded back in 2010 shortly after releasing their last album the previous year. The band, which originated out of Massachusetts in 1997 and later moved to California, has still maintained a website and a Facebook page, which has more than 170,000 fans.

"Just like our fans, we've been watching the news in disbelief," drummer Aaron Harris told ABC, in response to brutal acts carried out recently by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS or ISIL) militant group. "We haven't commented on it because we haven't been an active band since 2010, even though our music does live on. We maintain our Facebook page to keep people up-to-date on our current musical projects."

The threats apparently got so bad that the band changed its Facebook page name from just "ISIS" to "Isis the band" in an effort to stop the confusion.

The rockers aren't the only ones to consider a name change. In July, a tech company named "ISIS" which built a mobile wallet app announced it was re-branding in the following months to avoid the negative association, The Verge reported.

"We have no interest in sharing a name with a group whose name has become synonymous with violence and our hearts go out to those who are suffering," CEO Michael Abbott told The Verge.

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This Guy Outsmarted A 'Burning Man' Ticket Scalper In The Most Hilarious And Awesome Way Possible

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Ben Feibleman

No one likes ticket scalpers.

Instead of wanting to enjoy a concert or sporting event, they often buy up a bunch of cheap tickets, then sell them at insanely marked-up prices, with little negotiation.

But in the case of Burning Man— a giant one-week art and cultural festival in the middle of Nevada's Black Rock Desert — one man was able to get a ticket from a scalper at a reasonable price by turning the negotiation on its head and completely outsmarting him.

It all started with an ad on Craiglist:

burn

Ben Feibleman, a tech investor/entrepreneur who had been searching for the coveted tickets, spotted the ad and immediately noticed the ticket price was double its original price (Disclosure: I'm a personal friend of Ben).

What's more, ticket speculation is completely against what the festival is all about, and the organization cancels tickets they find were sold above face value. The event has grown so large and tickets sell out so quickly, the organizers work hard to ensure no real fans of the event end up getting screwed by an exorbitant ticket price.

"Whenever we could undeniably prove that someone was selling their tickets for a markup, we cancelled their tickets and notified them that they were no longer valid (since they had breached the terms of sale)," it reads on the organization's website.

So Feibleman came up with a plan: Confront the scalper, gather the evidence — but give him a chance to redeem himself. He emailed him to tell him he had cash on hand, and could meet in Palo Alto immediately. They exchanged numbers, and the scalper gave him a call.

"I didn’t answer the call so I could get records," Feibleman told Business Insider. He responded via text message.

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At Starbucks, they met face-to-face and had friendly small talk in the corner. The scalper explained that some of his friends were going but he could no longer go, so he had to sell his ticket.

"Are you a veteran burner?" Feibleman asked (People who attend the festival call themselves "burners" and it's rare that one would scalp a ticket). The scalper said no. Meanwhile on the table, the car pass and ticket were visible so the QR code could be scanned to verify the ticket was legitimate. Instead of scanning the code, Feibleman snuck a photo instead.

Since he couldn't go anymore, the scalper said he was covering his losses, telling Feibleman the price of $950 was "supply and demand."

That's when Feibleman confronted him: "I'm gonna offer you $450 here," he said. The scalper told him he wouldn't negotiate and started to get up, as other Starbucks patrons began to look over at the confrontation.

"As soon as you leave here, I'm going to send all this information to the Burning Man office," Feibleman told him, while he began to walk out. "You've got an hour. You better sell those things in an hour, otherwise they'll be worth nothing."

Soon after, Feibleman began texting him to explain he had more than enough evidence to send in, and his tickets would be canceled if he didn't do the right thing.

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The scalper was angry, and not very happy about where this was going.

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Then, Feibleman decided to up the ante. He would post his own Craiglist ad.

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"Go ahead and do it," the scalper texted him back. So Feibleman did:

Ben's ad

As this drama was playing out on the pages of Craiglist, Feibleman started getting fan mail from fellow burners.

"Amen brother! Thank you for doing what I wish I had time to!" read an email he received. Another told him: "Major thumbs up!"

He even received invites to come by fellow burner's camps, once he finally made it to Black Rock. Now realizing his name was on the line — blasted all over Craiglist — the scalper angrily called Feibleman upset about what he could potentially be doing to his reputation.

"I feel bad, but I feel for worse for everybody else," Feibleman told him of his fellow burners. "Ask your burner friends how they feel about this."

The scalper finally realized he was defeated, although he was still very angry. He agreed to meet again a short distance from the Starbucks.

"Once I realized he was shifting his tone and ready to do the deal," Feibleman told BI. "I stopped being aggressive."

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The scalper finally accepted he wasn't going to win this one: "I'm giving it to you cause of your burner explanation."

They met again, where Feibleman told an angry scalper that a "convenience fee" was more than fair, putting the price to $450. The scalper tried to get a little more, but he said, "Look dude, the negotiation is over."

They finally settled. The initial contact to sales close took no more than one hour, with a true burner headed to the desert, ticket in hand, and a scalper begrudgingly accepting a fair final price of $450.

"If he really cares about karma, and he really wants to go to Burning Man, and he cares about it," Feibleman told BI. "I feel like I saved him from being an a--hole scalper."

NOW: I Went To Burning Man And It Was Even Crazier Than I Expected

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The Incredible Story Of How Chris Pratt Got His Big Break While Living In A Scooby Doo Van In Maui

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chris pratt scooby doo van

The actor Chris Pratt — known for his roles as Andy on "Parks and Recreation" and Peter Quill in "Guardians of the Galaxy" — can expertly rap every single Eminem lyric off the singer's 2001 hit "Forgot About Dre."

The talent, Pratt has said, is due to the fact that the actor "listened to that and smoked weed every day" while living "in a van in Maui" after college. 

He explains to The Independent:

Aged 17, he left college after one semester and worked selling coupons before he 'retired' aged 19. By which he means that he took up his best friend's offer to buy him a one-way ticket to Maui, Hawaii. 'It's a pretty awesome place to be homeless,' he says, remembering his days sleeping in a van or in a tent on the beach. 'It would be different if I lived on the streets of Chicago and ate garbage from a dumpster. We just drank and smoked weed and worked minimal hours, 15-20 hours per week, just enough to cover gas, food and fishing supplies. You know, it was charming time.'

It was during this time that Pratt waited tables at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company, where one day he had a conversation with actress Rae Dawn Chong that ended up changing the course of his life.

''I was like, 'You're in the movies, right? I always wanted to be in the movies,''' he recalled to EW. ''She said, 'You're cute. Do you act?' I was like, f--- it, 'Goddamn right I act! Put me in a movie!'''

Chong ended up casting Pratt in her directorial debut, "Cursed Part III," prompting him to leave Maui and his "living in a van" days behind.

''The moment she told me she was bringing me to LA, I knew,'' he said. ''I was like, 'This is what I'm going to do with the rest of my life.'''

After all the press the van had been getting lately, Pratt dug up a photo to prove its existence to fans:

SEE ALSO: Watch Chris Pratt Do An Incredible Job Rapping An Eminem Song

AND: Here's How Chris Pratt Got Ripped For Marvel's 'Guardians Of The Galaxy'

MORE: Bob Iger Nominated Chris Pratt For The Ice Bucket Challenge, And His Response Was Great

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The 33 Most Ridiculous MTV 'Video Music Awards' Outfits Of All Time

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VMAs Lil'' Kim, Mya, Christina Aguilera Pink

This Sunday marks the 31st anniversary of MTV's "Video Music Awards."  

Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Iggy Azalea, Nicki Minaj, and Usher are all set to perform, while Kim Kardashian, Gwen Stefani, Lorde, and many others will be presenters.    

Beyoncé leads this year's nominees with eight nods, while rappers Iggy Azalea and Eminem are each nominated for seven awards.    

See who takes home the top prizes during Sunday's live awards show at The Forum in Inglewood, California.    

In the meantime, let's take a look back at 31 years of celebrity crazy on the red carpet.

In 2001, the now defunct Destiny's Child went with a Western theme at the NYC awards show.



That same year, Britney Spears performed her infamous snake dance.



Mudvayne went for a scarier look during the 2001 awards show held at Lincoln Center.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider






The Insane Business Ideas On 'Nathan For You' Have Had Mixed Results

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Dumb Starbucks/ Nathan Fielder

Comedy Central's "Nathan for You" just wrapped its second season this week, and we are already eagerly awaiting season three.

Nathan Fielder's comedy show involves convincing guests that he is there to help their small businesses flourish and then offering ridiculous suggestions. Although guests are frequently perplexed by his suggestions, they think they are on a business turnaround reality show, not a comedy show, and they always wind up going through with it. The fact that so many small business owneres are willing to appear on "reality" television to help their company says a lot about America's $40 billion management consulting industry.

Some of Nathan's ideas are so ludicrous that they actually work, while many fail for that same reason. The comedy often stems from the business owners and unsuspecting customers' recations to his tactics, as Nathan himself remains as straight-faced as humanly possible. 

Below are five examples of "Nathan for You" business plans that received mixed results:

5. Selling poo-flavored frozen yogurt. The very first episode of "Nathan For You" opens with Nathan pitching to a Los Angeles-based frozen yogurt shop owner about how he could get more customers in the door if he implemented a "crazy" new flavor that would be so outrageous that people would flock to the establishment just to see the madness for themselves. While it's not an effective long-term plan, Nathan's stunt did bring in customers.

4. Rebranding a caricature artists as an insult comic. In an effort to help veteran caricature artist Greg Dohlen make a name for himself, Nathan comes up with a plan to turn him into "the king of sting", as he believes people want to laugh at themselves. This is one instance where Nathan's silly scheme actually works, as all of Greg's customers seem delighted by his offensive drawings. 

3. Allowing attractive people to shoplift. In an attempt to put a positive spin on a clothing store owner's shoplifting problem, Nathan comes up with the brilliant idea of allowing attractive, "trend-setting" people to steal one item. In order to determine who or who is not attractive, Nathan has the store owner and her employees compile a list of attractive traits and hires a security guard to enforce them. Hilarity ensues as the lovably awkward security guard does his best to pick and choose who qualifies as attractive. The idea here, that allowing attractive people to steal will inspire more "less attractive" customers to shop there, is pretty flimsy, so it's no surprise that it doesn't really work. 

2. "Selling" alcohol to underagers. When a liqour store owner reveals that he turns down a lot of teenagers attempting to buy alcohol, Nathan comes up with a plan that allows the store to legally "sell" alcohol to minors without actually giving it to them. By accepting the sale and putting their purchased booze in a storage room for them to pick up when they turn 21, Nathan has found a loophole that technically allows the store owner to "sell" to teens. Despite Nathan's best efforts to accomodate the angry customers, this plan angered more patrons than it amused. 

1. Staging a fake movie shoot to get people to buy souvernirs. In what may be his masterpiece, Nathan attempts to bring more customers into a struggling LA souvernir shop by setting up a fake movie shoot inside the store. The plan is to offer consumers a role in the film as paying customers and thus trick them into spending their actual money during the shoot. The genius behind this bit is just how far Nathan takes it — to make it appear legitimate, he hires a Johnny Depp impersonator and actually decides to make the movie to avoid potential legal troubles. Nathan's riotous plan actually works, as tons of excited Depp fans jump at the opportunity to be an extra in the film and shell out real dollars to do so. It truly has to be seen to be believed.

SEE ALSO: 'Dumb Starbucks' Shut Down By Health Department

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The 33 Most Expensive Movie Props Ever Sold

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We know the most expensive movies ever made, but do you know which props were sold for the largest amount?

A study by eBay Entertainment Memorabilia gathered the most expensive movie props used in films in a new infographic.

Costumes and cars make up most of the memorabilia, ranging from Dorothy's ruby red slippers in "The Wizard of Oz" to the DeLorean from "Back to the Future."

The most expensive prop? According to the study, that's the white dress Marilyn Monroe wore in "The Seven Year Itch," which sold for a reported $4.6 million.

Take a look at all of the pricey props below:Movie Props 

SEE ALSO: Most expensive movies ever made

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This Video Game Is So Hard, You Need To Go Around The World In Order To Win

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Space Invader Paris

For the most part, even the hardest video games can be completed from the comfort of your own home. Or sometimes even on the train on the way home from work. It might take you hours or days or weeks, but you don't need much more than some snacks and perhaps a coffee to get you through those hard levels. 

Flash Invaders

But then there's "Flash Invaders," an iOS and Android game where in order to win and get the most points, you have to visit every continent. 

The game is the brain child of a French artist who goes by the name Invader. He has an art project, called "Space Invaders," where he installs pictures of classic video game characters.  

"The idea is to 'invade' cities all over the world with characters inspired by first-generation arcade games, and especially the now classic 'Space Invaders,'" he writes on his website. "I make them out of tiles, meaning I can cement them to walls and keep the ultra-pixelated appearance."

"Flash Invaders" is like a scavenger hunt to find these art installations, which are located in a bunch of different cities all over the world. After downloading the app, players have to look for the artwork, then snap a picture, or "flash" the art.

"I have this idea for a long time of giving to the public a way to participate to the process," Invader said in an email to Business Insider. "That's what happened with 'Flash Invaders' — the public is not only a viewer anymore, it becomes a player who has to walk in my steps. It is a video game taking place in the reality."

The app uses image-recognition software to compare the picture you take with what's in its database. And it uses a built-in GPS verification system so there's no cheating, according to Vandalog blogger RJ Rushmore, who tried it out. That means you can't just upload a Google image of the art — you have to actually be in the same physical location. 

Each art piece is worth a certain number of points, "depending on its size, composition and where it is," according to Invader. People play against each other; the person with the most points, wins.  

"The idea is also to 'Flash' a maximum of space invaders and for that [you have] to visit many places in many cities," Invader said. 

He's even shot one of his art pieces into the stratosphere. "I had this idea in mind for a while — to send a space invader back to space! I didn’t know how to do it, but was possible to do it in a very DIY way," he told ANIMAL New York in an interview last year. "The piece went in the stratosphere with a small camera and the images are so amazing that I decided to make a documentary about it."

Thankfully, that piece isn't included in the "Flash Invaders" game. 

The game has gotten pretty popular. But Invader says he's not sure how it's been spreading so quickly. "I just put it on the Apple Store and Google Play and wrote few words about it on my Instagram," he says.

As of this writing, 785 players are participating and have racked up more than half a million points. 

SEE ALSO: 14 of the coolest video game Easter eggs in the world

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A Former Disney Imagineer Built The Ultimate Survival Vehicle For His Daughter (DIS)

Rap Mogul Suge Knight Shot At MTV Awards Pre-Party

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WEST HOLLYWOOD, Calif. (AP) — Rap mogul Marion "Suge" Knight has been injured in an early morning shooting at a West Hollywood nightclub but is expected to survive.

Sgt. C. Tatar, watch commander at the Los Angeles County sheriff department's West Hollywood station, says the 49-year-old Knight and two others were hit at the 1OAK club around 1:30 a.m.

Authorities say the club was packed at the time, and they are still seeking a suspect. The other victims were a man and a woman.

Knight, who founded the label Death Row Records, was also shot in 2005 at an MTV awards pre-party in Miami. He helped him land and make megastars out of Tupac Shakur, Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre, shifting the center of the rap universe to the West Coast the 1990s.

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Actor Adam Driver's Dark But Amazing Analysis Of Life

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Adam Driver GIRLSActor Adam Driver  a former Marine and Juilliard alum currently most famous for playing "Adam" on "Girls" and an upcoming villainous role in "Star Wars: Episode VII" — dropped some deep, dark insights on life in a new interview with GQ magazine:

"Life's shitty, and we're all gonna die. You have friends, and they die. You have a disease, someone you care about has a disease, Wall Street people are scamming everyone, the poor get poorer, the rich get richer. That's what we're surrounded by all the time. We don't understand why we're here, no one's giving us an answer, religion is vague, your parents can't help because they're just people, and it's all terrible, and there's no meaning to anything. What a terrible thing to process! Every. Day. And then you go to sleep. But then sometimes," he says, leaning forward, "things can suspend themselves for like a minute, and then every once in a while there's something where you find a connection."

Driver says it's this connection that he loves so much about acting, offering people a brief respite from the trials of their existence.

But despite having six films slated for release in 2014 and 2015, the married 30-year-old tells the magazine he still "believes things are going to go to shit at any minute."

"I still don't feel like I've really put in my dues. Like it doesn't feel earned," Driver explains of his fame after joining the cast of HBO's "Girls" in 2012. "Everyone is so used to having everything immediately, and that doesn't seem to lend itself to things being good."

Read Adam Driver's full GQ interview here >

SEE ALSO: How Adam Driver Used His Training As A Marine To Get Into Juilliard

MORE: 'Girls' Actor Adam Driver Will Play The Villain In 'Star Wars: Episode VII'

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The 10 Highest-Grossing Summer Movies Of 2014

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guardians of the galaxy gamora star lord

The summer 2014 box office may be down nearly 20%; however, it still managed to bring one billion dollar movie and two of the highest box-office openings August has ever seen ("Guardians of the Galaxy" and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles").

As the summer winds down, we've compiled the biggest movies of the season, breaking each film down by both its international and domestic revenues. Unsurprisingly, all but two films on the list have made more money overseas. 

A few take aways:

  • Comedies were bigger at home than overseas.
  • Fox dominated the summer with three very different sequels: superhero film "X-Men: Days of Future Past," "Dawn of the Planet of the Apes," and comedy "22 Jump Street."
  • Paramount was the only studio to have a movie hit $1 billion this year.
  • Universal Pictures doesn't break the top 10. It's highest-grossing movie of the year so far has been comedy "Neighbors" ($264.7 million worldwide).

highest grossing movies 2014

SEE ALSO: Photos of Lee Pace's awesome transformation into the "Guardians of the Galaxy" villain

AND: You can now watch the best scene from "Guardians of the Galaxy" online

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