Tangled Web

Millionaire Matchmaker Patti Stanger has built her reputation on the ability to recognize a good thing when she sees it. In the case of sheknows.com, her new website partner, no doubt the latest traffic stats helped do the trick. In April, an astonishing 55 million-plus unique visitors clicked into Evolve Media’s female-centric hub.

Now added to that mix is pattiknows.com, a revamped version of Stanger’s previous official website pattistanger.net. Weekly features include a video advice column from Stanger, a column by her spousal staff members Destin Jude Pfaff and Rachel Federoff, and recipes using aphrodisiac ingredients. From today’s official announcement:

“Based on the size of their audience and their digital expertise, SheKnows was the obvious choice for me to partner with as part of building out my brand,” says Stanger. “I’m able to build a stronger, more loyal fan base online.”

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Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Think it might be time for The Young Turks to fire the clearly foreign transcription service that does the subtitles for their YouTube videos. Because TYT‘s deaf audience is going to think Cenk Uygur is a stroke victim.

Very first line from the transcript: “rolling stone have an article with a truck present no bomb a about at several different issues.”

It only gets better from there. Seriously, watch the whole video with the close captioning turned on. As much as we love TYT, the show is actually slightly more entertaining this way.

With Roger Ebert’s valiant attempt to revive At the Movies having faded into the sunset, writer-director Kevin Smith is aiming to kick-start the critics-talking-heads format on Hulu beginning June 4 with a fundamentally different approach. In each episode of Spoilers, he will have 50 citizen co-hosts.

The hoi polloi popcorn chompers will be chosen via a website launching today and get to chime in about big summer blockbusters like The Dark Knight Rises and Rock of Ages. Ahead of the first taping at his new SmodCo Studios facility on Universal City Walk, Smith teased some of the other content in an interview with Wired:

“We’re going to do a beat called Movie Goon where like I’ll have on my friend Malcolm Ingram, who hates everything. He’s one of these nihilists. If it’s popular, he can’t stand it. He represents the Internet. So we’ll bring him on and let him have his say and then we’ll beat him up verbally and tell him why he’s wrong — have a good old-fashioned debate.”

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Far more intricate than the script of Battleship, exploding today on screens across America after an earlier international start, is the matter of how the source board game came to be.

When people this weekend Google – “Who invented Battleship?” – they’re likely to get a lot of search returns featuring the name Clifford Von Wickler. But a little further research suggests that like President Obama’s Kenyan birth certificate, this starting point may be entirely bogus. Per game aficianado Theodor Lauppert:

According to many sources Battleship was invented around 1900 by one Clifford Von Wickler, who however never patented it. This is highly unlikely, since the name Clifford Von Wickler itself is unlikely, and pen-and-paper games typically played by kids at school rarely have a traceable inventor.

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Here’s a reminder of just how embedded Twitter has become in the whole reality TV media mash.

We’re still two months away from the debut of K-Town, a YouTube reality show centered around some colorful denizens of LA’s Koreatown district. But already, in a press release dispatched in support of an announcement made today at New York’s Internet Week, there are the Twitter handles of all the show’s main participants. They include:

@JASMINECHANG089: A hairstylist who was born and raised in Koreatown. Whether it’s her platinum blond locks or her loud infectious laugh, Jasmine is the undeniable center of attention wherever she goes.

@Scarlet_Chan (pictured): A former exotic dancer who is sexually liberated and not afraid to express it. Scarlet is a self-admitted troublemaker who is introduced to the Koreatown scene by her close friend, Jasmine.

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The always funny folks over at Funny or Die “leaked” their version of the Coachella 2013 lineup.

I’m looking forward to hearing Vodka in a Water Bottle and Waiting Until You Get Back to the Hotel to Poop tear it up next year in Indio.

One of our favorite Hollywood Foreign Press Association reporters Ruben Nepales has a cool interview piece with Johnny Depp. He leads with several interesting observations made by the reluctant mega-star about dealing with the white noise of the Internet.

While 13-year-old daughter Lily-Rose thinks it’s weird that she has various Facebook and Web fan sites, dad takes it a step further, deeming the phenomenon “somewhat ugly.” He says both she and 10-year-old brother Jack have access to the Internet, but that when it comes to the wild-west standards of Web journalism, he tries to occasionally give them a friendly heads-up:

“They are able to read truths, lies, fiction and rumors. This whole thing has become this mulch of fodder. I’ve decided to just stay hush-hush about anything and everything. If the rumors spin, let the rumors spin.”

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• Warren Buffett considers rescuing more newspapers – FishbowlNY
• Tom Brokaw has harsh words for what’s become of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner – FishbowlDC
• ‘The Dictator’ mocks Ryan Seacrest, Ann Curry and Matt Lauer on ‘Today’ – TVNewser
• Morgan Spurlock and friends launch commercial production company – AgencySpy
• 5 free sites to help journos build online portfolios – 10,000 Words

Today KCET launched a new series called Artbound, and with it a novel approach to arts journalism, one that lets readers vote on what stories the TV station will produce.

The Artbound web presence features articles and columns by a host of contributors, including Sharon Mizota of the LA Times, Frances Anderton of KCRW and DWELL magazine, and Joel Beers of the OC Weekly. It reads like a pretty standard arts section, but with a touch of American Idol thrown in. KCET explains:

These long-form, multimedia articles will be rated by readers and vetted by the Artbound editorial team; highly compelling stories will be produced in a short format video documentary and featured online. Artbound’s audience will have the opportunity to share, discuss and comment on the films. Shortly thereafter, four original 30-minute TV episodes will be produced culled from the content and social activity online.

Allowing the audience to choose KCET programming is a compelling idea. But readers of arts coverage do not tend to the be most vocal of online commenters, so we’ll be curious to see how much participation this project inspires.

It’s been three Internet days since the suicide of former Chargers great Junior Seau. Ever since the story broke, we’ve been waiting to get Grantland’s take on the tragic and potentially game-altering death. So far, nothing. We recognize Grantland often takes the long view on stories like these. But still. No blog post? No media roundup? Nothing?

Adam Yauch‘s obit was up before Seau’s. On a site primarily known for its sports coverage. Not good.

Grantland’s editorial base is in Los Angeles. It may just be the highest profile literary operation running on this side of the country. Junior Seau was a USC grad and a Southern California icon. This is your home turf, Grantland. Time to step it up and at least acknowledge the loss of a local hall-of-famer. Take your time with the big think piece–if you have one in the works. But if Deadspin, based in New York, has been able to dig up some decent Seau narratives, it shouldn’t take you guys three working days to pull together something. You’re in Southern California. This would be a good time to demonstrate you’re of Southern California.