In our continued efforts to make Taltopia.com very scalable and redundant (tech terms which mean "able to grow big" and "safe from crashing") we decided it was time to invest in some professional grade computing power. We've been getting by until now with the single server that we built with our own hands. For all you techies out there, this means that we have been running our operating system, database, encoder, media files, and anything else you can imagine on one machine...yikes!
We would like to now introduce you to the new machines that will be running the show:
3 brand new Dell 2950's! Here is what they look like:
These computers are monsters, they are load balanced, Dual Quad Core Raid 1's and 5's, 4 Gig's of Ram, and Dual Ethernet Gigabit Cards. Below is a Prime 95 test for 12 hours(basically running the CPU's at 100% for 12 hours to make sure that Dell didn't send us duds)
We have been setting these up in our office for some time and will be delivering them to our host on Tuesday night, so the site will be down for a few hours. Thanks for understanding!
Wow. Starting off the blog with a "wow" may be dramatic, but it's well deserved. After months of talking about contests, we finally did it. No, your eyes are not deceiving you, you read correctly dear talopia-ites.
Contests have arrived.
You might be wondering, "What does it mean for me, your average taltopia user?" Well, average taltopia user, this means that you can now win prizes and famebucks just by creating or entering contests.
Contests are broken down into two main categories:
1. Sponsored 2. User Generated
Sponsored contests are generated internally. What this means is that we partner up with companies, studios, casting agencies, etc., to bring you contests where you can win awesome prizes. Currently we have an MTV casting seen here , a digital camera for photographers seen here, a chance for models to sit down with a scout seen here, and a gift certificate to Michael's Arts and Crafts seen here and other great stuff to come that you can take home. Check it out here.
User Generated contests are created by you, our fantastically cool users. You create the title and description, then set the requirements, entrance fee and duration. It is totally controlled by you! After you create your contest you can invite people to join, and the entrance fee they pay gets placed into a prize pool. For example if you created a contest with a 5 famebuck entrance fee, and ten other people joined, then the winner would get 50 famebucks!! Check our User contests here.
We hope you enjoy the new section on our site, it can be accessed via the new tab, and on the front page.
Janice Dickinson, Paul McCartney, and the Smart Car?
What does the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, Paul McCartney, and the Smart Car have in common? They were all somehow tied-in to the green carpet event that we were invited to attend last night at the House of Petals in West Hollywood. The event was titled the "Green with Envy Fashion Experience" whose purpose was to raise awareness about the environment, help fight global warming, and to discover new ways of enjoying an eco-friendly lifestyle.
The green carpet event was hosted by Janice Dickinson and featured models from the Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, including CC Fontana who you can see here. There were also some great organic foods and beverages.
We had the pleasure of meeting Paul McCartney's mother and sister. For those of you who are too young to know who Paul McCartney is, you might know him from a little garage band called THE BEATLES! It turns out that Paul's sister runs a website which provides management tools for up and coming bands and musicians. We spoke about potential partnership opportunities and are setting up a meeting - look out for some news of this in the future.
Anthony and I were traveling to a conference a few weeks ago, and when we arrived to the security check area at the airport. As we proceeded to take off our shoes and place them in the bin for the x-ray machine, we noticed a clever ad from zappos.com, the site that sell shoes online. The ad was inside the shoe bin and read "Looks like you need some new shoes...visit Zappos.com"
We felt that this was some really great advertising - everyone who was boarding a flight could relate to the ad - thats some good targeting. We needed to come up with something like that for Taltopia.
Here is what we came up with: Pretty much all aspiring talent need professional headshots if they want to be considered for a gig. Actors need headshots, models need headshots, comedians need headshots...everyone in the entertainment industry needs headshots. Why don't we provide headshot studios with FREE (branded) envelopes!?!? Genius!
We picked up a few hundred 9x12 envelopes, printed our quirky message on them, and started distributing them to local photographers. The photographers loved the idea of getting free envelopes (lower overhead costs for them) and they felt that Taltopia would be a great resource for their clients.
Here is what they look like:
If you are a photographer who would like some free envelopes, be sure to contact us.
Jai Rodriguez, star of "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy", made an appearance at the Taltopia.com party and said a few words about us. Thanks again to TechZulu for their great coverage.
So we've been getting a lot of requests for pictures and video of the event. Allen and I thought we'd structure this blog in such a way so people that attended could view the awesome pics from the event and those that didn't could get a taste of what went down.
For those of you that attended and are dying to see the pics here is the link:
Click Here For Pics We really want to thank Wm. Marc Salsberry for taking these great shots.
Also, we wanted to thank our sponsors Pink, Fashion Tv, Red Agency as well as the great charity that we worked with at the event Reality Cares.
After the break, you can see some select pictures from the event and a play by play from Allen explaining what happened. (Also, a picture of us with our "Serious" faces, I swear the photographer told us to do it)
It was 6:30pm on Friday, May 16th when Anthony and I arrived at Boulevard3. The Tainted Angels were rehearsing on stage, bartenders were stocking up their shelves, the art exhibit in the courtyard was already set-up, models were downstairs prepping for the fashion show...lets just say there was a certain buzz in the air.Lights, camera, ACTION! The doors opened at about 8:40 to a line of guests that had been waiting patiently outside. The first thing that people noticed as they walked in was the Taltopia.com logo projected on the side of the Boulevard3 building...jaws dropped.
While the crowd started growing in the courtyard, the red carpet became the place to be seen. Special red carpet appearances were made by: Golden Brooks (Beauty Shop), Jai Rodriguez (Bravo’s Queer Eye For The Straight Guy), Shana Wall & Tian Kitchen (The Amazing Race), Rebecca Cardon, Brian Peeler & JD Jordan (Bravo’s Work Out), Dominique Sharpe (Oxygen’s The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency), Jeff Pickel & Brett Novek (America’s Most Smartest Model), James Rhine (Big Brother), Model Verina Marcel (Model), Rib Hillis (Extreme Home Makeover), Diego Currier (Love Test), Summer Altice (Playboy Playmate), Enrique Sapena, Alexcy Aranguren, Janet Michel, Gisel Saumat & Roseny Carrero (VH1’s Viva Hollywood), Tony Duran (Celebrated Photographer), and Orna Etkovich Gusinski (VP of Fashion TV), among others…
After a few poses on the red carpet, we headed over to meet with our friends from TechZulu for a follow-up interview - we were very honored to have had them cover our event.
By 10pm the courtyard was packed and people started to fill up the main area inside, where the fashion show was taking place. Our Taltopia.com video montage was playing on the main projector screen as DJ Cash should the crowd what real music is. Contrary to popular belief, at Taltopia.com money does in fact grow on trees...Famebucks that is.
We got up on stage, introduced ourselves, and then showed the audience what Taltopia.com is all about:
Then it was time for the main event...The Tainted Angels! This upcoming group sang their hearts out on stage while putting on an amazing dance performance. Just when you thought it was all over, a group of professional breakdancers pounced on stage and put the icing on the cake. All in all, one hell of a show.
Once the stage was cleared the pumped-up crowd kept the party going. People rushed the stage and danced the night away...this was a night to remember.
In our efforts to brand the hell out of Taltopia, we have decided to enter the world of Television advertising. We have considered doing this for some time now, but really had no clue where to begin. Google has started offering a TV Ad marketplace which is pretty cool, but currently only offers national advertising campaigns. Since we want to ensure that our ads are being shown to the most relevant audience, we decided to research the ad marketplace in Los Angeles.
So, Anthony and I got on the phones and started contacting Los Angeles cable television networks which include Charter Communications, Time Warner Cable, and Comcast. We also had the option of using Spotrunner.com, but found it to be too expensive. We found it was muuuuuch cheaper to work directly with the cable networks - cut out the middleman.
Time Warner had a pretty sweet deal that we couldn't pass by. Our TV commercials are going to be aired 600 times a month in each of 3 major metro areas of LA for about 3 months on networks which include MTV, VH1, BET, ComedyCentral, and E!. Be sure to let us know if you see our commercial while watching!
With a little help...ok ALOT of help...from our editor friends, we were able to make two 15 second spots which will begin airing next week. Here is a sneak peak:
