Apple Ipad is Rad!

OK.  Apple's the coolest.  I can't believe I was ever a PC guy before I got into the film biz in '96.

You have to jump about 3/4 through this video to see what we care most about at BuzzBroz, the Apple Ipad's awesome new interface with YouTube.

This makes me so glad I held off getting Amazon's Kindle.   Check out the newest toy from Apple the Ipad, sadly not due in stores until March:(

Web Heartbreakers

Yikes. There's so many horror stories I've heard, seen and experienced since I first pioneered CAD (Computer Aided Design) as young interior architect for Chicago's leading firm in the 1970s -- back when Bill Gates' Microsoft was but a twinkle in his eyes -- that I hardly know where to start.

Genie Trouble

Shortly after I moved to LA 7 years ago to make movies at the tender age of 50 -- after a billion dollar real estate career that included building Oprah's Harpo Studios and a 38-story $162 million skyscraper that I lost my shirt on -- I met a beautiful woman who had a beautiful idea for a website devoted to helping families deal with the grief of losing a loved one. 

My lovely well-intentioned friend lavished tens of thousands of her hard earned dollars on a web designer who lived and worked in India.  But she was distraught when after months and months of broken promises the Indian web designer vanished like a Genie.

After 5 years hunting for the Genie scoundrel, who fled for parts unknown, my gal pal's wonderful grief site for the dearly departed remains a useless wreck of babble code. 

Before we move on, I don't mean to knock Indian web builders.  There's good ones, I'm sure, just as there are plenty rotten American based web designers. I just feel anyone is begging for trouble using overseas labor for the web where clear communications is so vital.

How BuzzBroz Got Started

I first started making my own websites 2 years ago for Kids Talk Politics.  Why?  The show was unexpectedly passed over by PBS even though they aired my 2000 show in prime time!  My solution was to put the show on the web, using what was still the infant YouTube to power the videos on the kids' webpage.

But the project's funding never anticipated the PBS debacle and I could not afford a web designer.  So I had to learn to web design or let the project perish. 

GoDaddy to the Rescue! 

Then and now I find GoDaddy people well trained, available 24/7, Americans based in America, patient and knowledgeable. 

GoDaddy made KidsTalkPolitics.com a breeze.  The show flourished throughout the 2008 elections, with rave reviews from The LA Times, Reuters, YouTube and Parent Magazine.  And the adorable kids' show grows to this day where our viewership via YouTube is nearly 350,000 people.

For now it looks like 2012 will be a better year for Kids Talk Politics than for President Obama. 

GoDaddy Rocks

I've learned the best way to help clients avoid heartache is to create simple easy to navigate pages from stock GoDaddy templates that clients can update on their own or inexpensively have BuzzBroz update.  No knowledge of code is required.  No high priest or Genie of the web to hold BuzzBroz clients hostage. 

With simple typing and mouse skills, cut and pasting of hyper links, the tech support at Godaddy and a good eye... freedom and safety awaits you as a BuzzBroz client.

Men From Mars Help BuzzBroz With the Big Stuff

For clients with elaborate sites and large businesses, BuzzBroz has friendly state of the art web designers at our disposal via our strategic alliance with Mars Studios.  Best of all I met the men from Mars via that rarest of all things relating to web designers... a happy client. 

So big or small websites BuzzBroz has you covered.

Good Social Media Begins on Your Home Page

Why have I spent all this valuable web real estate talking to you about web page design? One simple yet vital reason. 

We create enormous buzz for clients using our Hollywood Ninja social media marketing skills of distributing DVDs and popular web series, hard earned with blood sweat and tears, but unless we can get client's web site is cleaned up and ready to serve the buyer, making purchase of goods or services a breeze, it means nothing.

What I am saying is simply this, unless you and your company are ready to have us asses your website for smooth functionality and to invest some time and money taking our recommendations we'd rather you to take your business elsewhere.

Yeah.  We feel that strongly.  We want to do more than bring people to your webpage.  We want you to make sales.  At BuzzBroz we want you to flourish!

Doritos Crash Super Bowl - Genius Social Media Marketing

I was at my favorite Starbucks on Ventura Boulevard in LA when I noticed about three conversations going on around me about the newest Doritos competition.  Last year this was our entry.  It stars Antonio Charity who's been on THE SHIELD and is a solid actor both on stage and film and TV and BuzzBroz client Pizza Salad's owner and my pal Nick.



We weren't picked as there are thousands of entries and they favor amateurs. Talk about brilliant social media marketing thousands of amateurs sending their links out for views of their home made commercials.

Top prize if you win the top spot and it airs for the Superbowl? $1 Million. Sounds like a lot but there are conditions. It has to be the #1 spot ratings wise going up against all the other spots from professional agencies. Yep. I bet lot of the amateurs don't read that fine print.

Here's this years finalists. All talented amateurs.

DORITOS CRASH THE SUPER BOWL 2010!

Paul Beilter's Views on Economic Recovery

Before I began social marketing via BuzzBroz to support Overactive Imagination Pictures I was a real estate broker and developer. Back in 1990 I was deep into building Oprah's Harpo Studios and a $162 million skyscraper. One cold December day, near the end of that year, I had lunch with my friend, past client and former mentor, Chicago great Paul Beitler.

Left to right: John Lamb, Oprah Winfrey, Jeff Jacobs, Ken Sheetz

I remember the sinking feeling I had when Paul told me that 1991 was going to be a disaster of a year for all of us in commercial real estate. He was right. In 1991 I lost everything I owned in the first of a wave of friendly, and not so friendly foreclosures, that devistated almost every property in Chicago, including the mighty Sear Tower. Nothing was "too big to fail" in the real estate crash of '91.

So imagine my horror when Paul warned me in late 2008 that 2009 would be a worse economy than 1991. And darned if he wasn't right again. In 2009 I had a lot shorter distance to fall than 1991 but the sheer lack of capital made it sting far worse. I gave up many things I loved to survive 2009.

But fearing the worst might not yet be over despite the new year, I asked Paul if he saw 2010 as a year of recovery. Luckily for you, dear reader, Paul has graciously consented to share what he had to say to me. But first a little about Paul Beitler, president of Beitler Real Estate Corporation, pictured below.

Over the course of Mr. Beitler’s 30 year real estate career, he has achieved a remarkable financial success record for his partners and investors. Mr. Beitler has been responsible for the development of over 10 million square feet of Class A office space, including some of the largest and most architecturally distinguished building in the City and suburbs. Many of these developments sold for the highest values in the history of Chicago providing unprecedented financial returns for investors.

In addition to his success and involvement in the business world, Mr. Beitler is extremely active in many prominent civic, cultural and business institutions. He has served on the Board of Trustees of the Museum of Science and Industry, Board of Trustees for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Member of the Architecture Committee of the Art Institute of Chicago and is on the International Board of Directors for the Frederic Remington Art Museum in New York.

Paul Beitler's Thoughts on Economic Recovery

2010 is going to be a transition year. While viewed as being better than 2009; it won’t be putting the world on fire.

The main problem is the Obama administration who continues to send mixed and unclear signals to corporate America. When in doubt do nothing. And that is exactly what most decision makers are doing - - nothing.

The commercial real estate industry will not expand. Most of the trading that will occur will be the buying and selling of second position paper for properties with the intent of blowing the original developer and equity holder out of the deal. Nice hummm.

Residential properties will continue to lose value. I estimate that the residential market will lose another 15-25% in overall value.

Banks are continuing to hold on to the money they have to balance against their bad debts which they are refusing to write down against their profits. So there will be little if any new money for borrowers.

As always those people who manipulate money for the benefit of the public investor will do well. Hedge fund and derivate operators will continue to make a lot of money.

Unemployment may drop to 9% but the general public will not return to their old spending habits which means the single saving grace called American Consumerism will not come riding in to rescue the economy.

2011 will start to show the first signs of recovery with the real benefits realized beginning 2012.

Well, there you have it. While Paul doesn't see a quick recovery I'm happy, given how he's usually bang on in his predictions, that he sees a recovery coming at all given some of the doom and gloom I've been reading of late. So chin up!