News Flash: Gaga Dethrowns Britney

Lady Gaga topped Britney Spears for the top spot on Twitter after earning 5,743,505 followers while Spears dropped to 5,704,360.

YouTube Video of the Week

In honor of the fact that I received my Lady Gaga concert tickets in the mail this week, I’d like to share the following YouTube video of the week. Happy Friday!

YouTube Video of the Week

To help get you through your Wednesday, I thought I would share this video of 12-year-old Grayson Chance singing and playing Lady GaGa’s “Paparazzi” perhaps even better than the original. Since his first television appearance on Ellen last week, his YouTube videos have jumped to more than 30 million views in total. Once you watch, you’ll see why.

Do Product Placements Make You (Ga)Gag?

Some have said that if content is king, then content distribution is the crown prince. While it remains paramount that brands continue to product relevant and provocative content, the means by which that brand image is shared needs to be just as, if not more, innovative these days.

Product placement is nothing new. Since 1919 when Red Crown Gasoline appeared in the short comedy film The Garage, to the far more recent outpouring of marketing in today’s entertainment, a la Absolute Vodka in Sex and the City, brands have made their mark in non-advertising for a price. Some are subtle (think Volvo in the Twilight series) and some are not so subtle (think the host of consumer brands highlighted in Talladega Nights). But none have found their way into as provocative a spectacle as the recent mini-movie/music video, Telephone by Lady Gaga and Beyonce.

Thank You in 140 Characters

Now that we are officially deep into Award Season, I’ve spent a good amount of time watching and reading up on these shows from the red carpet interviews to the after party gossip blogs. While I, of course, love checking out the hairstyles, jewelry and gowns, I’ve begun to grow tired of the long-winded acceptance speeches that have caused these pop culture pageants to take up 5+ hours of prime time television.

It is for this reason that I’m a fan of the growing trend celebs like Lady GaGa, Pink and Taylor Swift have trail blazed: acceptance speeches via Twitter.

After last night’s Grammy Awards it’s become clear that many of the nominees are going beyond the microphone to share their gratitude. The best part is, these speeches are only 140 characters!

I can think of a handful of really good acceptance speeches:

And I can certainly think of many truly terrible ones:

While I recognize that these are very special and important moments for these actors and musicians, it is virtually impossible that they can thank everyone in the allotted time and many tend to ramble on and on and on and on. . . Unfortunately, any genuine, poignant commentary in these speeches (which Merryl Streep so delicately exhibited at this year’s Golden Globes) is few and far between.

So in the spirit of the Digital Age, let’s enforce a new code when it comes to acceptance speeches: Please, keep it to 140 characters.