Gowalla

Social networks that revolve around following a user’s geographic location, such as Foursquare and Gowalla may soon become irrelevant, according to a recent Ad Age article (3/22/10 by Kunur Patel) which predicts that location-based marketing will become an integral part of all web sites and critical for advertisers.

Imagine if advertisers knew your location at all given moments, plus had detailed data concerning your likes, dislikes and purchasing decisions. It would only be a matter of time before mobile search could give you local answers and suggestions that matched some of your favorites and might even pop up with suggestions based upon your age, size and style tastes.

Kip Cassino, VP-research at Borrell Associates tells Ad Age, “What used to be called point-of-purchase is now called mobile advertising. Mobile can be an extension of a retailer’s storefront.” Once you begin tracking where consumers are, the barriers between advertising and promotion start fading away.

Mobile ad group product manager for Google, Paul Feng explains, “We think of location as a hugely important signal. Foursquare is really innovating for small businesses and that’s fantastic. But ultimately that’s just one piece of the opportunity.” Feng notes that about one-third of all mobile searches have local intent. With that in mind Google has recently allowed advertisers to add phone numbers to mobile ads so consumers can click to call.

Cassino predicts, “The demand for stationary computers is going to dry up on a consumer level. One quarter of Facebook’s 400 million users access its network from mobile devices and they tend to be almost twice as active as the non-mobile crowd. The article also suggests Facebook will introduce location-based features during April.

“We’re thrilled to report that overall attendance for the festival stayed steady at just under 22,000,” reports Sallie Mayne, executive director of the Nashville Film Festival, which was held last week. “We had fewer events than last year, but sold more tickets to films, panels and workshops this year. To maintain our attendance in our 41st year, after the anniversary blow-out we hosted last year, is a testament to the quality of our film programming and the strong support of this festival by the community.”

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Clint Black stars in the new straight-to-DVD release Flicka 2. The movie will premiere at Nashville’s Belcourt Theater on Tues., April 27, with the event benefiting The Children’s Miracle Network and The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. There will be a special presentation of a $500 million check from The Walmart Foundation to Children’s Miracle Network.

Black plays alongside actor Patrick Warburton (“Rules of Engagement,” “Seinfeld”) and Tammin Sursok (“The Young And The Restless”), in the continuation of the popular 2006 Flicka that starred Tim McGraw.

The DVD will be out May 4th from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, and is a available for pre-order exclusively at Walmart.com.

Jo Hunt

Producer Jo Hunt and director/editor Bill Filipiak have announced the launch of Thinking Bee Productions. The television and video production company will focus on the creation of unscripted series for both broadcast and webcast as well as music videos.

Hunt and Filipiak first met while developing Meet the Wilsons, a popular reality series based in Nashville and currently airing on CMT Canada. “It became obvious within a couple of months that we had a shared belief that there is a place for programming and video of a positive nature,” says Hunt.  “Our goal with Thinking Bee is to build an arsenal of programs that will inspire and encourage audiences.”
In addition to their series work, Filipiak and Hunt see major opportunities applying their storytelling skills to create entertaining and compelling video content for the web.

“Developing effective web video content is becoming its own art form,” Filipiak says. “Having a team that understands the need for that content to both be entertaining and tie in directly with all other marketing and branding efforts is essential to helping businesses get the biggest return for their marketing dollars.”

Bill Filipiak

Filipiak marries a strong background in directing/editing with a very successful history in advertising/marketing.  Hunt, meanwhile, as vice president/development for High Five Entertainment, produced both music and non-music television properties for multiple cable networks. Thinking Bee currently has three reality-based television series in development and is in production on several Web series.

“We’re thrilled to be in a position to offer labels and businesses a means of creating web video that is more than just behind the scenes footage,” says Filipiak. “We believe that the growth of social networking on the Web has created a need for video pieces that tell a story and help the audience connect with artists and businesses on an emotional level. In essence we believe everyone has a great story to share and we’re here to help them tell it.”

For more information about Thinking Bee Productions, click here.