Tell Me About Your College Orientation Experience

Remember your summer orientation session when you started college? I’m performing comedy for this year’s North Carolina State University orientation, and I’m looking for funny advice or stories for the incoming freshman. What do you wish people would have told you?

Just to refresh your memory, here is a glimpse at the NCSU schedule:

• Students start arriving at 7:45 AM – most after driving a long way to get to campus that early.
• Students must wear their nametag at all times while at orientation.
• Students get their ID made, and then enjoy a campus tour with their Orientation Counselor (OC).
• Students eat all meals at Fountain Dining Hall!

Informative and entertaining orientation sessions include:

• Finding your place at NC State.
• How to avoid crime and stay safe while on campus and in Raleigh.
• How to eat healthy and make wise personal choices.
• Advice on being safe if sexually active.
• How to avoid underage drinking, illegal music downloads, and other campus offenses.

Brings back good memories, right? I don’t want to sound old here, but in my day “illegal music downloads” meant taping Wham!’s latest song directly off the radio onto cassette through your boom box. And if your boom box had two cassette slots? Well, then you could venture into the illicit World of “file sharing!”

Please use the comments section to posts your funny stories, advice for incoming freshman, jokes, and other observations. The class of 2011 – and I – will thank you!

The Actual Monetary Value of Internet Video Fame: A Case Study

On Friday, April 20 I awoke to find two of my comedy shorts on the front page of MySpace. To put things into perspective, MySpace is consistently one of the Top 5 most visited web sites in the World. They have 4 featured videos on the home page. And there I was in two of them. If we were to believe mainstream media’s coverage of “Internet fame”, then by all accounts I should be sipping Mojitos at the Casa Del Mar with Brent Weinstein from United Talent Agency. But instead of discussing my next film project, I’m writing this blog to reveal the real stats behind Internet video fame.

Key Internet Video Benchmarks

Summary from Day 1:
87,032 - video views
2,474 - visits to MySpace page after viewing video (2.8%)
110 - new MySpace friends (0.1%)
0 – revenue*

After Day 1, MySpace no longer displayed the two videos on the home page. However, one of the videos remained in homepage rotation for 7 days, and both remained “featured” videos on the main MySpace video tab for 7 days.

Full 7 day effect:
165,793 – video views
4,803 - visits to MySpace page after viewing video (2.9%)
198 - new MySpace friends (0.1%)
0 – revenue*

On Day 8 with no promotion from MySpace, video views plummeted 721%.

*A note on the $0 revenue: To be fair, I wasn’t selling anything. But let’s suppose I was offering a DVD of my best comedy shorts. With less than 3% of people clicking through to my page, and only .1% of people being interested enough to add me as a friend, how much could I have possibly made? The answer is likely not very much.

What is the Value of Internet Video Fame?

What I’m trying to determine is the actual monetary value of Internet video fame. Perhaps this isn’t a good case study. Maybe people hated the videos, and hated what they saw when they clicked through to the page. (And if you read the hilarious video comments, it’s certain that a very vocal percentage fits that description).

Using web analytics, “Internet Video Fame” can be measured, tested, and quantified. In this case study, the fame brought lots of eyeballs, but no money. So was it a waste? Or will the fame indirectly lead to other business opportunities down the road? I’ll definitely keep you posted.

What is the Value of a Reality TV Show Appearance?

Be sure to bookmark this blog and check back. I’ll soon have actual statistical data on the value of Reality TV show appearances for bands. Using web analytics, I’ll show you exactly how many website visits you can expect from your 15 minutes of fame, and how many CDs you can expect to sell. You won’t want to miss it!