Taltopia at Actorfest 2009

Actorfest is a huge acting convention put on by our friends at Back Stage where thousands of aspiring actors can meet with casting directors, attend workshops, and browse acting services in the exhibit hall. This year, Actorfest took place at the California Market Center in downtown LA on Saturday, November 14.

We really wanted to make an impression at this event...this was the first trade show we were exhibiting at after all. So, we came up with this great idea: people who visited our booth would get a free Taltopia shirt and we would email them our comprehensive industry professional directory. If we saw you wearing the Taltopia t-shirt at Actorfest, you qualified to win a free iPod shuffle! We got a great response from everyone and gave out iPod shuffles to a few lucky actors throughout the day.


Here are some pics from the event.

Our booth before setup:

Our booth after set-up:


The t-shirt giveaway!
The iPod winners:





A few fans of Taltopia:



Our #1 fan "Basil":

New Category: Photography!

New Category!: We have just created a new "Photography" category on the site! Before, Photography was a subcategory of the Art category, but since it became so popular on the site, we decided to give it the attention it deserves.

If you have previously uploaded photography on the site, your media is now in the "General" subcategory of Photography. Other subcategories include Landscape, Nature, People, Macro, and Black & White.

Important: Please visit your My Media page to correctly categorize your photos! Here is a link for your convenience.

Enjoy!

Facebook Connect!!

That's right, you read correctly, we now have facebook connect. Woo hoo!

What does that mean ? Well, you can now use your Facebook account to join and login to your Taltopia account! This feature makes it really easy to find and connect with your Facebook friends that might already be on Taltopia.

When you are logged in with Facebook Connect, and you vote on a media or leave a comment, a box will pop-up asking you if you would like to publish this to Facebook. You will also see a "Share on Facebook" button after you upload media to the site or promote a contest entry. These are great ways share what you do on Taltopia with your Facebook friends through your newsfeed.

To get started, just visit Taltopia.com and click on the blue "Connect with Facebook" button located at the top right of the page.


If you don't already have a Taltopia account, you will be prompted to create one.


If you're already a member, we make it easy to link to your Facebook just click "Already a member? Click here to link your account." and you are ready to go!


Hope everyone enjoys this new feature! Let us know what you think!

Profile Badges - Promote yourself...everywhere!

Profile badges are a great way to drive traffic to your profile to help you get more exposure. Including badges in your email signature, on your blog, or on your website can help your fans conveniently navigate to your portfolio on Taltopia. We have recently added 3 great profile badges for our members. If you are a member on Taltopia and want to promote your profile with a badge, click here. If you are not yet a member, join now. Ciao.

7-day Premium Membership FREE Trial!

That's right folks, you can now enjoy all the benefits of being a Premium Member FREE (for 7 days). If you decide to cancel within the 7 days, you won't be charged a penny....otherwise, do nothing and you can continue receiving all the perks that come with being a Premium Member.

Click here to get started!

Note: This offer is only valid for NEW members ONLY!

Alexa...Still Climbing!

Many of you may have read our previous post about our growth in Alexa ranking. Well, we're still climbing! As of the 12:53pm PST, our Alexa rank is currently at 16,791 - that's an all time high for us! Although the Alexa rank is important, the real value of it is the ability to compare it to our "competition" (the chart below speaks for itself).



I would also like to add that despite the recent downturn in the economy, July was our most successful month in terms of member acquisition (36,972 new members) and in terms of revenue (sorry, figures can not be disclosed!)

Here's to another successful month at Taltopia!

American Idol 2009 Auditions

Sunday, 4:20 AM....I picked up Anthony and we started our day's adventure to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, CA.

You might be wondering what in god's name would possess us to be up so early on a Sunday morning - American Idol 2009 Auditions, of course!

As we pulled into the parking lot, we noticed that there were already hundreds of cars and thousands of future Taltopia members already waiting in line. Let's move!

Once our flier distribution team arrived, we popped open the trunk and started distributing 10,000 colorful, professionally printed, double-sided, high-gloss, UV protected fliers to our future members.

By 10:30 AM, pretty much everyone in attendance had a flier in their hand and on their car.

A job well done.

Taltopia Rap Contest!

Hey Taltopia, we just posted a new premium contest with prizes valued at over 600 dollars!

So submit your best beats and rhymes. Please enter an audio or video file of yourself rapping. An iPod Touch, professional Sony headphones, and a professional recording microphone are up for grabs! Enter now!

4th of July Contest

Description
Independence Day, also referred to as the 4th of July, is a holiday which commemorates America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Show your Independence Day spirit by entering a photo, video, audio file, or even a document that commemorates the 4th of July. Some ideas include pics or video of fireworks and US monuments, pics or drawings of the flag, original poetry, modeling in 4th of July clothing, and so on.

Prize: $100 Amazon Gift Card!

Enter now!

Up, Up, and Away! (Alexa Rank)

For those of you who may not be familiar with Alexa, here is a brief intro: Alexa.com ranks websites based on a number of factors, the most important of which is a site's traffic. This widely accepted ranking helps give a general idea of how one site's traffic compares to another site's traffic.

Now that we have had this lesson in Alexa Rankings, we are very excited to see that Taltopia's Alexa Rank has recently pulled way ahead of our competitors. Take a look at the screen shot below (the dark blue line is Taltopia). As of yesterday (May 20, 2009), our Alexa rank was 22,722. Our 3-month average has increased by over 33,000 ranks, and we are confident that this trend will continue.



We want to thank all of our loyal members and supporters for their role in helping us reach this milestone!

Taltopia Mobile News!

Just wanted to post a quick update. We are really excited to see that our new mobile site was chosen as a Staff Pick by Apple.com.

Thanks Apple...personally I've been a fanboy of yours since my G3 laptop!

Taltopia Mobile

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Taltopia.com Launches Mobile Website

Los Angeles, CA

Taltopia.com, a platform that connects aspiring talent with fans and entertainment industry professionals, announced today the launch of a new mobile-friendly version of the website. This mobile-friendly version of Taltopia.com is designed specifically to accommodate smartphones such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android G1, both of which feature relatively large touch-screens and 3G speed for easy internet browsing.

Visiting “Taltopia.com” from your smartphone will automatically redirect you to this new mobile site where you can browse profiles, vote on media, send and receive messages, edit your profile, and even apply to casting calls on-the-go.

“The ability to browse and apply to casting calls from your mobile phone is a highly demanded service which none of our competitors offer,” said co-founder Anthony Zanontian. Taltopia Mobile helps solve the problem that models, actors, and other aspiring talent face when they need to access and apply to recent casting notices while on-set, between auditions, or on the road.

“We are really proud of Taltopia Mobile,” said co-founder Allen Vartazarian. “We really tried to create a simple, yet very functional interface for our Taltopia’s members,” he added. The launch of Taltopia Mobile comes at a time when mobile browsing has dramatically increased. As more sites like Taltopia embrace this transition from 20-inch monitors to 3.5-inch screens, even more users will flock to the emerging world of mobile browsing.

New Message System - Threaded Messaging

We recently upgraded our messaging system to what is called "threaded" messaging. "Threaded" is just a fancy term used to describe the way your messages work: when you message someone on Taltopia, you are starting a new "thread" and when the other person responds, your full conversation will be displayed in a single, organized manner. You may already be familiar with this system if you are a member on Facebook. Here is an example of what it looks like:

Enjoy!

Guitar Center Music Contest - $300!

Description **This contest is limited to Premium Members only** Being a musician is tough. Making money as a musician is even more difficult...until now. Enter your best music into this contest for a chance to win $300 to Guitar Center! Note: This prize will only be awarded if a minimum of 15 entries are submitted. Requirements There is no entrance fee for this sponsored contest, but entry is limited to premium members. All types of music are accepted in this contest, whether it be classical, rap, rock, a cappella...you name it. Video and Audio uploads only please (no pics). All entries will be considered, but more attention will be given to the top 5. Winner to be chosen by Taltopia Staff. Taltopia.com has no affiliation with Guitar Center.

Taltopia now on Twitter

Taltopia.com is proud to announce that we are now on Twitter!

We figured if the world is doing it, why shouldn't we.

You can now follow the happenings of Taltopia.com here: http://twitter.com/claimyourfame

Don't miss out, become a follower today!

Taltopia.com Passes 100,000 Users, Proves Artists Value "Free" In This Economy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Taltopia.com Passes 100,000 Users, Proves Artists Value "Free" In This Economy

Los Angeles, CA

Taltopia.com, a platform that connects aspiring talent with fans and entertainment industry professionals, announced today that their membership had just passed 100,000 registered users. “We couldn’t be happier,” said co-founder Anthony Zanontian, referring to the site’s membership, ”it’s great too see how users are responding. We really do everything for them.”

Taltopia differs from most talent-themed websites by allowing its members to upload an unlimited amount of media, apply to casting calls, and enter sponsored contests where they can win prizes – all for free. Taltopia also offers a number of free articles to its members, thereby helping aspiring artists on their path to success. It’s no wonder the site’s membership continues to grow rapidly in a slumping economy.

Another competitive advantage for Taltopia.com can be found in their new “Offers Section,” an area of the site which allows members to complete incentivized offers from advertisers in return for Famebucks, the pseudo-currency used on the popular website. Members can then redeem these Famebucks at Taltopia's Store to purchase gift cards and merchandise from retailers such as Amazon, Apple’s iTunes, and Guitar Center.

Most of these offers simply require members to enter an email address or answer survey questions, resulting in free Famebucks to the user and income to Taltopia from the advertiser. “Our new Famebucks Offers Section is one way we have had to adjust our revenue model to accommodate the economic downturn” said co-founder Allen Vartazarian. “It’s been great to see these free features gain traction with our members,” he added.


About Taltopia.com:
Taltopia.com is a platform that connects aspiring talent with fans and entertainment industry professionals. Members can create free profiles, upload media, join fan clubs, enter contests, and submit to casting calls. Categories include music, art, acting, dance, comedy, and modeling. Taltopia.com received $800,000 in angel funding in March of 2008 and is based in Los Angeles, California.

Contacts:
Allen Vartazarian, allen@taltopia.com
Anthony Zanontian, anthony@taltopia.com
(818) 763-1065
http://www.taltopia.com

Bulk Uploader!

The moment you have all been waiting for...the Bulk Uploader is here! That means that you can upload or embed multiple images, songs, and videos all at the same time! It's super easy to use this bulk uploader. Click on "Browse" to add a file from your computer...if you want to add more files, click on the "Add" button, and repeat as necessary.

You can also embed multiple files by pasting the "Embed" code from your favorite media sharing website (YouTube, MySpace, DeviantArt, Slide, and Flickr are a few of the many places that offer embed codes). Click on the "Add More" button if you want to...add more. Pretty simple, right?

Once you are done, click the "Upload" button, wait for you files to upload, and then you will be prompted to enter more details for each media you have uploaded. Click here to take our new bulk uploader for a spin!

Complete Offers - Earn Famebucks!

We just finished adding a cool new feature to the site that lets you earn Famebucks just by completing offers here (you need to be logged in, so be sure to create an account if you don't have one yet).

Here is how it works:
1) Find an offer: Each offer states how many Famebucks (F$) you can earn for completing the offer. The description will tell you exactly what you need to do to earn the Famebucks.

2) Complete the offer: Click on the image of the offer you would like to complete. This will link you to the offer page where you can complete the requested information. Some offers are free and only request information or a download, while other offers may require you to purchase a product or subscribe to a service.

3) Wait : After you have completed the offer, it may take a few hours for our system to be alerted of its completion. Please be patient during this process. If you have completed an offer, and still have not seen the appropriate deposit in your famebucks account, then please contact us.

It's as easy as 1, 2, 3!

Premium Membership

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Now that we got that out of the way, lets move on to some more important Taltopia-related news...Premium Membership!

As a Premium Member, you will gain access to many new features that are not available with a basic membership. Here is a breakdown of what you get:

Premium Contests: Only Premium members will be able to enter premium contests which offer bigger and better prize packages.

Featured in Searches: When anyone does a search on Taltopia, Premium members will be featured at the top, resulting in much more exposure.

Apply to Castings First: Premium members will be able to apply to casting calls within the first 24 hours of posting!

FREE Famebucks: We will deposit 5 free Famebucks into your account for each month of Premium Membership. If you prepay for 6 months or 1 year, you will get even more Famebucks up-front! You can use these Famebucks to promote yourself or buy stuff from our new and improved Famebucks Store.

Directory Access: As a Premium member, you will have exclusive access to our new directory section with over 2,000 valuable listings of Talent Agencies, Modeling Agencies, Record Labels, Dance Studios, and Acting Schools.

Profile Badge: Premium members will have an exclusive badge on their public profiles which let's others know just how cool you are! Check out my profile here to see what I mean.

No Ads: As a kind gesture to Premium members, we will block all ads from showing up when you are logged in.

You are probably thinking to yourself, "Wow, these are some really great features...I wonder how much this costs?" Log-in and find out here: http://www.taltopia.com/members/premium/join.aspx

Have a wonderful holiday season and happy new year!

Just Launched: Taltopia Famebucks Store

The moment you have all been waiting for has finally arrived...Taltopia.com is proud to announce the launch of the new Famebucks Store! Woo Hoo!

Previously, you could use Famebucks to donate to artists you admire, bid for a spot on the almighty Wall of Fame, enter user-generated contests, and buy a Taltopia T-shirt. But now you can spend those hard-earned Famebucks to buy just about anything! Currently, our store selection includes gift cards to Guitar Center, Amazon.com, Michael's, and iTunes (don't worry, you can also still buy a Taltopia T-shirt, the hottest trend in fashion). Look out for more great items coming soon to the official Famebucks store!

It's super-easy to use the Famebucks store. If you see an item you would like to purchase, click on the "add to cart" link and you will see it show up in your shopping cart on the right. Once your all done, click on the "checkout now" button. What are you waiting for? Click here to check it out!

Taltopia's Holiday Photo Contest

Photo Contest

In the spirit of the Holidays we are giving away a Cannon "Elph" digital camera! We are looking for holiday themed photography. Be sure to submit your best stuff! Good luck!

Click here to enter (or vote) now!

RocaWear Rap Contest

Rap Contest!

Think you got the best rhymes around? Prove it in the RocaWear Rap Contest. The rules are simple: upload a video or audio track of your best rap, then invite all your friends to come vote for you. The winner will get $50 to RocaWear and an iPod Shuffle!

Click here to enter now!

Acting Contest

Are you an aspiring actor looking to make it in Hollywood? Upload a VIDEO of you acting out a scene from your favorite movie. Taltopia.com will pay for $100 worth of acting lessons for the winner!

Click here to enter the contest now!

Now Casting! (Taltopia Launches Casting Calls)

Question: What is a casting call?

Answer: In the performing arts, casting (or casting call) is a vital pre-production process for selecting a cast of actors, dancers, singers, models and other talent for a live or recorded performance.

Now that you are aware of the formal definition of "casting call," we would like to introduce you to the new Casting Call section of Taltopia.com, where industry professionals can post their current projects and recruit talent for FREE. (click here to sign up for your free industry professional account)

Casting directors, Photographers, Talent Agents, Music Producers, Filmmakers, and Choreographers can use this new feature to access our database of over 50,000 artists.

Casting call categories include Acting, Crew, Dance, Modeling, and Music. You can even search for casting calls within a certain mile radius of your zip code!

When you come across a casting that you are interested in, simply click on the blue "apply" button to submit yourself directly.


Click on the following link to check out our (growing) casting section:
http://www.taltopia.com/castings/casting-calls.aspx

Enjoy.

Our New Commercials!

Well taltopia users we have some exciting news...we have two new commercials!! Woo hoo! They are going to be running on a national campaign so let us know if you happen to catch one.

See the videos below!

Taltopia's Best Comedian Contest!

Comedian Contest

We are looking to discover the best comedian on Taltopia.com! Submit your funniest skit, prank, or stand-up routine for a chance to win two tickets to the Improv Comedy Club at a location near you.

Submit the funniest VIDEO or AUDIO clip of yourself doing a skit, prank, or stan-up routine. The top 5 entries will be judged by Taltopia's staff.

Click here to enter: http://www.taltopia.com/contest/40096/Taltopias_Best_Comedian

Win a brand new Canon PowerShot SD1100IS 8MP Digital Camera!

We have a new contest for a chance to win a Canon PowerShot SD1100IS 8MP Digital Camera!

We are looking for Taltopia's photographers to show us their best macro shot! For amateur photographers this just means very close-up photography. Be sure to submit your best stuff! Good luck!

Here is the link: http://www.taltopia.com/contests/contest.aspx?cid=40097

Get a personal guitar lesson from Jet Black Stare!

Two great contests launched in one day! Woohoo!

Jet Black Stare, want's to see and hear your best guitar, bass, or drum solo! Upload now and you will have a chance to get a personalized video lesson from the band along with a brand new guitar! You'll also receive a Viva La Rock hoodie and a Jet Black Stare prize pack including an autographed CD, tshirt and official Jet Black Stare trucker hat.

Requirements
Upload audio or video of YOUR OWN best guitar, bass, or drum solo.

This contest prize is only available for United States residents. Get as many votes as you can. The top 5 entries will be considered.

Here is the link: http://www.taltopia.com/contest/40072/READY_TO_ROLL_with_JET_BLACK_STARE

Win tickets to a show with Spill Canvas and One Republic!

We have a great new contest for our Taltopia Users! We are working with The Spill to get you two tickets to The Spill Canvas concert with One Republic, an autographed Scraps LP Vinyl, a Spill Canvas button pack, and a Spill Canvas hoodie! For the contest, The Spill Canvas wants to see your best black and white photo! Requirements Upload YOUR OWN best black and white photo. Any photo goes! The top 5 entries will be considered. Here is the link: http://www.taltopia.com/contest/40071/The_Spill_CanvasLets_See_Your_Best_Black_and_White Enter now and claim your fame!

Thumbnails

Many users have been asking us to create a way for embedded media to show thumbnails (instead of our generic TV icon). The moment you have all been waiting for has now arrived! Although we already do pull thumbnail images for videos from YouTube, Revver, ClipShack, starting today we will also pull thumbnail images from embedded images on Photobucket, Snapfish, Webshots, and Flickr.

Thumbnails help our members get an idea of what a media might be about before they click on it. Don't worry if you have already embedded media from these other sites, since our top notch programmers have set up our system to go back and automatically pull the thumbnails for you ;)

Stay tuned for more updates...

Album Art Contest: Lunar Sway

Art Contest

Lunar Sway, an L.A. based rock band, is looking for artwork to be considered for the cover of their upcoming CD!

Click on he following link (or the image above) to check out the contest on Taltopia.com:
http://www.taltopia.com/contests/contest.aspx?cid=40045

Lunar Sway is on track to become the breakthrough band of 2009. This band embraces new models of creation, promotion, and distribution of their music, including the release of a new song on every full moon.

To learn more about Lunar Sway be sure to visit their site here:
http://www.lunarsway.com

and join their fan club here:
http://www.taltopia.com/lunarsway

*Prize Description: Your artwork to be considered for their next CD, CD autographed by the whole band, 2 Tickets to their next show (date to be announced), 5 free mp3 downloads of their tracks! less

Requirements
Upload any artwork that you feel represents what Lunar Sways stands for. Your entry must incorporate the moon. Photography, art, photoshops, etc., are all acceptable!

The top 5 entries will be considered by Lunar Sway for the prize.

Contests! Yeah Baby!

Contests galore. That's the word around our water cooler here. What contests can we create to keep our awesome users happy. We keep trying to come up with cool and original contests for you guys. Hope you like what we conjured up this month!

Contests currently running:

Breakdance Battle - Win tickets to a live show of Randy Jackson's Americas Best Dance Crew

Tiffany & Co. *Bling* *Bling* Jewelry Contest - Win a $100 dollar gift certificate to Tiffany & Co.

Taltopia Rap Off - Win an Ipod Shuffle and one year subscription to Source Magazine!

Taltopia's Take Your Best Nature Shot! - Win a Canon Powershot A590 8.0 Megapixel Digital Camera

Also we want to congratulate our winners from last months contests:

Congrats to GH05T for winning the Guitar Center Jam Session Contest!
Congrats to Jessica for winning the Victoria's Secret Contest!
Congrats to Viv for winning the Art Contest!
Congrats to Jandri for winning the All Time Low Contest!

Keep entering to win...and remember Claim Your Fame!

Taltopia News and Updates

There has been a lot of stuff cooking here at Taltopia.com headquarters that we wanted to keep you updated about.

Wall of Fame: First and foremost, we would like to inform all of you about a minor change we are making to our Wall of Fame section. Currently, when you bid for a spot on the Wall of Fame, your entry stays up until it is outbid or 21 days, whichever comes first. Since the site has grown significantly since we created the Wall of Fame, we are going to be lowering the time period to 10 days. This will help to ensure that the Wall of Fame is not being abused, and will open up spots for other deserving talent looking to get more exposure.

Higher Quality Audio: After some super heavy-duty fine-tuning, we have improved the quality of audio playback in our media player to CD quality! We are pretty proud of this, especially since there aren't too many other sites out there that offer this sort of committment to preserving quality.

Best Week Ever: Last week Taltopia had its best week ever in terms of traffic to the site. Our Alexa ranking (for those of you who know what that is) jumped about 25,000 spots, while our traffic tripled! This spike in traffic can be attributed to a number of factors, including TV ads airing nationally, people getting others to vote for them in 3 contests ending at the same time, as well as a very successful press release.

In The Works: We are in the process of developing a casting call section where members can browse and submit to a plethora of available casting opportunities in cities around the country. This casting section is also going to be an amazing resource for casting directors to recruit the talent they seek. Along with this, we are developing a number of value-added features exclusively for premium members...more details about this later.

American Idol: We came, we saw, we fliered.

The last time we blogged about hitting up the American Idol audition line, we thought we had seen it all.

Here's a short recap: San Francisco's Cow Palace. 6,000 people standing, singing, and screaming in line. Sleeping bags, pillows, security guards, and hundreds of parked cars.

We had such a successful marketing outing that we decided to try and go to all of the American Idol auditions. We crunched some numbers, compared calendars, called contacts, drew up battle plans and came to the following conclusion: we would be able to make it to Phoenix (Arizona), Salt Lake City (Utah), and Jacksonville (Florida).

So we did the following: ordered up another 15,000 fliers, booked flights and hotel rooms, (through priceline where we got some killer deals), and put our running shoes on.

Phoenix and Salt Lake City, were both great successes and having done three cities, we thought we had the whole fliering thing down. We knew how many to take, how long it would take us to pass out our supply, and when to go from passing out to people to placing our fliers on cars. We knew our stuff; or thought we did.

Then came Jacksonville. Wow, what a city. It took everything we knew and blew it out of the water. Up til now, the biggest turnout we had seen was probably 6,000 people. Jacksonville was at least 15,000; there were people everywhere! Every previous time we had passed out pretty much every flier we had, give or take a few hundred. In Jacksonville, we came home with empty pockets. Not one flier was left between the two of us.


Now that it's said and done, we were very happy with our marketing efforts. We reached the exact demographic we were after and got some serious branding done. The bottom line is we will see you again next year American Idol!

New Features!

Now that the contest section is up and running, we took some time to add a few features that our users had suggested...ok, demanded.

MySpace Promotion Tools
We would like to direct your attention to our new animations that you can use to let your friends on MySpace know about your Taltopia account. Here is what they look like:











You can find the codes for these by clicking on the "Promote" button on profile pages.

Sorty By:
This new feature gives you full control over what shows up when you click to browse one of our many categories. Now when you are browsing through a section, you can choose to sort by votes, views, upload date, and alphabetically. Click here to take it for a spin!


Sponsored Contests
Our contest section has really been taking off! We are currently offering tons of great prizes including cash to Guitar Center, a Studio Art Case Set, gift card to Victoria's Secret, an iPod Nano, and autographed gear from "All Time Low":



Thanks for tuning in, and as always, remember to claim your fame!

Allen and Anthony Learn How to Flyer

1. 6,000 people standing in line to audition 8am
2. 60 people standing in line to audition at 8am

Can you guess which one was American Idol and which one was America's Next Top Model?

No, no it's not what you think. Well, actually it is. The Fresno audition of Top Model, had a poor turnout. Even though this was a little disappointing, we were still able to promote Taltopia.com to a very targeted group of models who really wanted to make it in the industry.

American Idol was a little different. By a little, I mean a lot. We arrived to the scene around 2am to see how the line was coming along. Again, we were met by the stern face of disappointment. Only 50 cars were in the parking lot. We decided to lay low for a few hours hoping the situation would change.

Then it happened.

Hundreds of cars started pouring into the Cow Palace parking lot. By 5am there were close to 1000 cars parked with singers jumping 0ut to get in line.

It was time for action. Allen and I stepped out fliers in hand and started to go to work. Cars continued to come into the parking lot, while those who had finished were leaving. After we had finished with the cars, we took a more personal approach and started handing our super awesome fliers (seen below) to talent as they were walking past.

I am happy to report that we passed out all of our fliers and have ordered another 5000. See you at the next audition American Idol!

Taltopia.com Road Trip!

We recently found out that America's Next Top Model is having auditions on Saturday July 12th in Fresno, and that American Idol is having auditions from Tuesday through Thursday the following week in San Francisco - you know what that means....road trip!

We decided that it would be a great opportunity for us to educate (flier) the aspiring talent who will be attending these open auditions about the valuable resources available for them on Taltopia.com!

We will drive out of LA this Friday afternoon and head for Anthony's hometown of Fresno, CA. To save on cash, we will be crashing at Anthony's parent's house and will get up bright and early on Saturday morning to head out to "Island Water Park" which is where Top Model auditions are being held. After that, its off to San Francisco on Monday night for three more fun-filled days of passing out fliers. Here is what the fliers look like:




On a side note, we wanted to let you all know that we saved alot of money by booking our hotel on Priceline.com We were looking for a cheap hotel near Cow Palace (the convention center near SFO where the Idol auditions are going to be held) and decided that we wanted to spend only $90 a night. Neither one of us had used Priceline before, so we decided to give it a shot - not only did we get a room for $90, Priceline upgraded us to the 4-star Sheraton Hotel (a $250 value). Priceline Negotiator rocks!

Check back for updates from our trip!!

SCHEDULED DOWNTIME: New Servers ;)

Scheduled downtime: Tuesday, July 8th 2:15-3pm PST

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!

It's Finally Here!! Taltopia.com's Contests!!!!

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.

(photos courtesy Wm. Marc Salsberry)

Headshot Envelopes

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 loves Taltopia.com!

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.




http://www.viddler.com/explore/techzulu/videos/119/

Taltopia.com Party - A Night To Remember

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:

Click Here To View





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.

Look Ma'...we're on TV!

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:

New Look and more...

Well we did it. After a month of arguing, yelling, throwing laptops out of windows, and realizing that we just can't work together anymore (pause) we launched a new look on the site. Hope you all like it.

We really wanted to make the site a lot more user-friendly and I think we have done just that. We made everything bigger and more "bubbly". The icon's are just darn cute, you'll notice that they have been changed on your user panel to the left and throughout the profile pages. The actual page size got bigger, as well as personal and media thumbnails. Our front page changed to include the browse section for easier searching and we got new kicka** tabs throughout the site. What it comes down to is that our minor changes ended up turning into a whole site redesign.

Also, we've expanded the profile sections to include "Im a(n): Actor, Model, etc", although this is a minor change, it will be a major addition because of the industry tie-ins that will go along with it; so be sure to update your profiles to reflect this change.

Edit Profile Here

Looking towards what's coming in the near future, we are happy to say contests, and we really mean it this time!! We are done with the design and programming (mostly) however we just got wind of some major deals we can put together before launch. Once these are locked-in we will release the new section to give you guys more opportunities to Claim Your Fame!

Taltopia Party! RSVP Required

You are cordially invited to attend Taltopia's exclusive red carpet event on Friday, May 16th. The event will be held at one of LA's hottest nightclubs, Boulevard3, from 8pm-2am. Boulevard3 is located at 6523 Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood, CA 90028. There will be no cover charge for this event and there will be an open bar from 8pm-10pm, so be sure to arrive early.

IMPORTANT: You MUST RSVP to be on the list by clicking on the image above or by following this link: http://www.gaudypr.com/rsvp.html

Thank you for your continued support. We look forward to celebrating Taltopia with you!

Claim your fame!

Best,

Allen Vartazarian & Anthony Zanontian
Co-founders, Taltopia.com

Taltopia Interviewed on TechZulu

A few weeks ago, we were contacted by the guys over at TechZulu.com, a site where they interview up-and-coming websites. Vak and Efren (TechZulu's co-founders) came by our office last week to shoot this rather extensive (25-minute) interview. It was great meeting them, and we feel that the interview went very well - we covered everything from the start-up process to getting angel funding, and even our future plans. Go grab some popcorn and soda pop, click play below, and enjoy!

http://www.taltopia.com/view/15338&s=user&cur=1/TechZulu-Interview

Adtech 2008!!

So it's that time of year again. What time you ask? Well, it's time for the Digital Media Advertisers to showcase their stuff at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, otherwise known as Adtech '08!

Allen and I were lucky enough to make it out there this year. As first time attendees we really thought the trip was well worth the time, cost, and effort. Those of you who were there can attest to the massive turnout of the online advertising community; Google, Yahoo, Clickbooth, Commission Junction, and almost every other player in the field all made it out to try and grab a few new clients and give away lot's and lot's of new pens.

However, even though we've been funded, we are still super tight with our budget. Having said that we learned a couple of things for next year and had a few experiences that made us laugh.

Here is the breakdown:

Flights: Sure first class is great, but so is Southwest's 39 dollar flight that leaves at 8am from
LAX. Time to wake up so you'll make the flight, 5am.
-Tip for next time: Fly out of Burbank and go to Oakland, it's worth
an extra 10 dollars.

I'm not a morning person:

Allen is:

Local Transportation: Limo's are awesome. So is the BART. Total Cost: 12 dollars. Yep that's round trip.
-Tip for next time: I'd do it over again. The BART is awesome!!






Lodging: You partied at the W and we spent the night at the Renoir. Total Cost: 87.00.
-Tip for next time: Stick with a chain hotel. We were afraid to go out at night.

The Event: In a word...Awesome! Get there early.
-Tip for next time: Bring comfortable shoes, I mean really comfortable shoes, we walked like 20 miles on the duration of our trip.





Food: There are lots of events after the conference hall closes. We stopped by
Advertising.com's shindig, free drinks, food, and more importantly great networking!
-Tip for next time: Don't go out with you friends to some restaurant. You are there to network and meet people. Go to great company sponsored event's and start some conversations

That's pretty much a summation of the trip. We highly recommend it to everyone who's thinking about attending. We made some great contacts and plan on going again next year.

LA Business Journal - "20 in their 20's"

We are honored to announce that we have been featured in the April 7, 2008 issue of the respected Los Angeles Business Journal. Not only are our pictures on the front page, but we were lucky enough to get the centerfold placement! Here is a link where you can check out the digital "clippings" that Anthony put together for you all: http://www.taltopia.com/press/labusinessjournal.pdf

The special report is about 20 people in their 20's who are doing big things in Los Angeles.

This is probably the best print coverage we have received so far, and we want to thank our families, friends, and fans for all of their love and support.

2 New Features

Although it might seem impossible, things just got even MORE exciting here at Taltopia. We would like to officially announce the release of two new subtle, yet very cool "refinements" to the site. Many of you have seen the cool way that pictures expand when you click on them; if you don't know what I am talking about, load the following link and then click on the picture: http://www.taltopia.com/view/14678&s=browse&c=newmedia&cur=85/Macro.

...well, now you can do the same with every single profile picture on the site! To see an example, click on my profile picture here: http://www.taltopia.com/allen

NOTE: If you would like your profile picture to expand to a larger size, you will need to re-upload your profile picture by logging in and visiting your "Edit Profile" page here: http://www.taltopia.com/members/editprofile.aspx

Another great feature that we have released this week is the "Previous/Next" feature on all media pages. You will notice that this helps you browse more easily on the site, making your visit to Taltopia a bit more enjoyable (and time-consuming).

Big News...

So we've dawned on a new chapter of our lives as the co-founders of Taltopia. You might have heard the rumors circling around your office water coolers, or should we say our office water cooler.

That's right taltopia-ites, don't let your eyes deceive you, I just said our office water cooler. Unknown to many, for the past year and a half, Allen and I have been working out of the following:

1) Starbucks

2) Allen's House

Pretty much in that order. Our running joke was that we had 6,000 offices all over the world. Let's just say we're happy that joke went out of style...really happy.

So, here are some pictures of the Talopia office with more to come as things develop. But before the break I just wanted to share some thoughts...I'm sure many of you have read these great tips on how to save money as a startup. Just to address a few of his points based on our experience:

For #2 and #10: Lots of people have their own computers. Especially if you are an online company. Although second monitors are great and buying people computers who work from home seems practical, you can just ask that people bring their own computers. I know this one's really cheap. But everyone here has their own computer and has no problem working on it. Yearly savings...lots.

#3: Don't buy people lunch. People need time away from each other, and lunch 4 days a week starts to add up.

#4: Bring whatever you can from home. We brought work tables and chairs from home and family members who were more than willing to give it away. What you don't have, buy cheap. I'm blogging right now on a $50 dollar Ikea desk, 4 legs and a flat surface, thats really all you need. Also, 600 dollar chairs are a bit much, don't skimp out on the chair, but 600 dollars, cmon. What it comes down to is that it's just a desk and chair.

#12: Do not buy a 5,000 dollar expresso machine. No explanation needed. It's freakin 5,000 dollars.

#13: Do put sodas and juice in your fridge. It keeps people happy and costs you almost nothing.

Our own few tips:

1)Hire people who have their own companies. 1099's are the entrepreneurs best friend.

2) Lots of whiteboards.

Here are the pictures I promised....


Doing some "filing":

Our first office visitor (we were lacking some chairs):

Allen's desk (did you notice the spotlight rugs?):

The Conference Room (excuse the mess):


Anthony's Desk:

Our first dinner in the office (Carl's Junior served on cardboard boxes...classy):

2008 Montgomery & Co. Technology Conference

Montgomery & Co. is a Santa Monica based Investment Bank which holds an annual Technology conference where it invites established/emerging tech companies to present to an audience of potential investors and industry professionals.

We were honored to receive an invitation to attend this conference last week and were very impressed by the event. The conference was held at the Fairmont Hotel right by the beach on Wilshire and Ocean Blvd., across the street from the Montgomery & Co. offices. The two-day had 5 presentations running each half hour from 8am-6pm, with breaks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We made sure to attend the relevant presentations which included sites like Habbo.com, Meebo.com, IMVU, Gaia.com, MyYearabook.com, Hi5.com, and so on. It was great to listen in on how these companies got to where they are, and more importantly, what their plans are moving forward. All in all, it was a very humbling experience where we were able to make numerous strategic contacts with potential future investors, as well as with representatives from the United Talent Agency, William Morris Agency, and the Creative Artists Agency. We hope to leverage these relationships to help our users get one step closer to getting the recognition they deserve.

WE GOT FUNDED!!!

So, we don't know if you've noticed yet, but after putting in a lot of hard work into Fames...I mean Taltopia.com, we got funding! We just closed the deal late last week, and in celebration we donated 5 Famebucks to all of our current members! Also, as a promotion we are also giving away 5 Famebucks to the next 2,500 people who sign up, starting right now! So be sure to tell all of your friends and family!

We are very excited to use this money to help you, our loyal and dedicated users. Look forward to new and exciting features (trust us they are coming) and new opportunities for members to get connected with industry professionals.

That being said, we owe it all to you, our Taltopia-ites!



You can see the press release below, and download the pdf here. Be sure to give it a read because we were up until 4:30am this morning making sure it was distributed properly.


Taltopia.com™ Announces $800,000 Series “A” Funding to Connect Talent with Fans

Los Angeles, CA – March 5, 2008 – Taltopia.com™, LLC (www.taltopia.com), a free online platform which connects aspiring talent with fans and industry professionals, announced today that it has completed a Series “A” round of funding in the sum of $800,000. The financing was led by a single Angel Investor from Go4Funding, a site whose goal is to unite entrepreneurs, business owners, and investors.

The young entrepreneurs who started Taltopia.com™, formerly Famesource.com, have completely self-funded the project up until this point. Allen Vartazarian and Anthony Zanontian, now 24 and 22 years old, plan to use the funds primarily to broaden Taltopia’s reach and to further develop appealing features on the site.

“Taltopia is about empowering fans to decide who gets exposure,” said Allen Vartazarian, referring to the “fame” and “shame” voting system. By focusing on this unique niche, Taltopia™ has distinguished itself from other general social networking sites where aspiring artists typically get lost in the clutter.

For users who are not getting the exposure they crave, the site boasts a “Wall of Fame” which grants users the opportunity to “buy” their fame with Famebucks™, the virtual currency used on the site. Users bid for the limited number of spots available on the page, with outbid users being bumped down to subordinate positions. To kick things off, Taltopia.com™ is giving away $5 worth of Famebucks™ to the next 2,500 members that join the free site.

“Taltopia is going to modernize the way artists get the recognition they deserve by providing the tools they need to promote themselves,” said Anthony Zanontian. “We hope to further expand our relationships with talent industry professionals, which are an essential part of this equation,” he added.

For users who are not getting the exposure they crave, the site boasts a “Wall of Fame” which grants users the opportunity to “buy” their fame with Famebucks™, the virtual currency used on the site. Users bid for the limited number of spots available on the page, with outbid users being bumped down to subordinate positions.

Anyone can upload or embed audio, video, or images of their talent to Taltopia.com™, in the hopes of becoming the world’s next “web-celeb.” Even if you do not have a talent, you can join as a fan and become a critic.


About Taltopia.com:

Taltopia, LLC (www.taltopia.com) is an online media distribution and social networking destination whose aim is to provide aspiring and professional talent with a world-wide stage to share their abilities across the web. The site also rewards its members with Famebucks™ for simply using the site’s features, giving users an incentive to find and recommend good artists, while giving artists a platform to promote themselves online. Categories include Music, Art, Acting, Dance, Comedy, and Modeling. Taltopia.com™ is based in Los Angeles, California.

CONTACTS:
Allen Vartazarian, allen@taltopia.com (818) 438-4656
Anthony Zanontian, anthony@taltopia.com (559) 906-2050

http://www.taltopia.com

Famesource is now....Taltopia!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We are very excited to announce that Famesource has a new name…Taltopia! The new and improved name was created from “talent” and “utopia” – it’s our own little perfect place for talent. We wanted something completely original that would differentiate us from other websites out there.

Don’t worry, your lovable co-founders Allen and Anthony are still running the show, and all of your profiles and media will seamlessly be moved over to Taltopia.com. Along with this change, we are officially coming out of beta testing. This means we think we have worked out all the remaining bugs on the site, but be sure to let us know if you come across anything we may have overlooked.

Be sure to look out for new features and exciting contests in the near future.

Thank you all for your continued support.

Claim your fame!

- The Taltopia (formerly Famesource) Team

Mini-features Released: Filter by Media & Pagination

Hey Folks,

We just wanted to give you a all little heads up about two new "mini-features" that we have released on Famesource: filter by media type and paging. We are calling these "mini-features" because they are quite subtle...also, its just cute to call it "mini-. "


1) Filter by media type: This feature makes it easy to filter any category you are browsing by media type: video, audio, and images. When on a browse category page you will see 3 check boxes at the top and can uncheck any media type that you do not want to be shown. Take it for a spin:
http://www.taltopia.com/browsecats.aspx?c=12



2) Paging: We have also made it easier to flip through the different pages of content that we have thanks to a little thing called "pagination." This is just a fancy word meaning you can click on any page # shown and be taken directly to that page. This really helps when browsing through one of our bigger categories, such as photography:
http://www.taltopia.com/browsecats.aspx?c=65

Also, the entertainment community lost a great friend last week. All of us here at Famesource extend our deepest condolences to Heath Ledger's close circle of friends and family. We highly respect and value the contributions he made as an actor. May he rest in peace.

Articles Galore!!

To those of you who haven't noticed, we've made a small addition to the bottom of our front page. It's an articles section! Well now you are probably asking "Anthony, How does that help me, your average joe actor who has an audition and wants some advise on how to ace it?" Humm, I don't know, but we do have an article titled: Making the Cut - an Actor’s Guide to Acing the Audition

Besides some unnecessary sarcasm, we are very excited and are really trying to build a solid repository of helpful articles for up and coming talent. So if you have any good articles you've written on the topic feel free to Contact Us and we will post if it meets our guidelines.

Besides that, be sure to start browsing our limited, but constantly updating, Articles Section and as always be sure to let us know what you think!

New Feature: Job Board!

Want to know when the next big auditions are coming to town? How about a role as an actor in a film? Or what about posing as a model for a new magazine?

We are very proud to announce the implementation of our first major feature of 2008...the Taltopia Job Board! The job board is one more step that we have taken to help you, or beloved member, claim your fame.

Follow this link to check it out:
http://jobs.taltopia.com/

The all new Taltopia job board will constantly be updated with new listings from all around the country. You can use the filter on the left side of the job board to find results that meet your specific criteria.

Need a band for a special event? Looking for back-up dancers for your next music video? How about some models for a photo-shoot? Well, you can take advantage of our job board to recruit the specific talent you are looking for.

Happy New Year!

Well it's that time of year again, where we reflect on the old and prepare for the new. We just wanted to wish all of our members health and happiness for '08!

In the last year we have had our ups and downs, and just wanted to let you know how much it's meant that you were all there with us (tear... sniffle ...tear). Allen and I think, correction, know, that '08 is going to be a huge year for Taltopia. We are going to pull out all of the stops so keep your eyes peeled. Believe me when I say we are working on additions that are going to be a huge resource for our members, and they are coming soon.

So with that, I wish you all a Happy New Year. Here is to a fantastic 2008!

Allen Vartazarian and Anthony Zanontian: The Truth Behind the Valleywag Article

On December 29, 2oo7 Valleywag.com posted a misleading article regarding Famesource, stating that we have been paying people to register as members on our site. If you have not yet seen this post, you can find it here:
http://valleywag.com/338952/meet-the-guys-trying-to-buy-users-in-india

They also tried to take a stab at our lovely CNN host Nicole Lapin:
http://valleywag.com/338980/internet-tv-even-dumber-than-the-real-thing

In response to these false and misleading posts, we emailed the editors demanding clarification. Here is the original email we sent to Valleywag (sent 12/30/07 at 1:53 AM)

" Dear Mr. Nicholas Carlson,

Thank you for taking the time to write about Famesource on Valleywag and, more importantly, for giving us this opportunity to respond. After reading this post, it is very clear that your “tipster” miscommunicated an offer we have in place to drive traffic to Famesource.com. We are not offering any monetary incentive for people to sign-up, as your article suggests. Like any Cost Per Action (CPA) offer, we are looking to work with a person and/or company that can drive US traffic to our site and we are willing to pay for every new member that registers as a result of this traffic.

This is no different than advertising on Google Adwords, Azoogle, or Hydramedia, all of which offer a CPA service. After dealing with a number of these CPA companies, we found that many of the campaigns were being managed by people in India. Since Famesource has been completely self-funded by the two of us, we made the choice to try and cut out the middleman. We want to emphasize that we are not paying any individuals (from India or anywhere else in the world) to join Famesource; we are only trying to strike a more affordable CPA deal.

The funniest part of all this is that we have not even found a qualified party to work with overseas, not even a single sign-up! We would appreciate if you could clarify these points in your title and article because it wrongfully tarnishes Famesource’s wholesome nature, which we have worked so hard to maintain. In the future, we encourage you to contact us before making any claims about Famesource or ourselves as we are more than happy to discuss any matters in more detail.
We look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best,

Allen Vartazarian & Anthony Zanontian
Co-Founders, Famesource.com
Allen@famesource.com
Anthony@famesource.com "



and the response from Owen Thomas (Managing Editor, received 12/30/07 at 7:00AM) was...



" Allen,
Thanks for writing in. You're welcome to leave a comment on the post.
- Owen "


So, we attempted to leave a comment on the post only to find that it was never published. The comment that we attempted to post was the email seen above, which clearly describes our situation.

After we saw that our comment was not being published, we sent them the following email (sent 12/30/07 at 11:02 AM):

" Owen,
Between 9:30AM and 10AM, we attempted to leave a comment on the three postings regarding Famesource, clarifying the false information presented in the posts. As of 10:53AM, none of these comments have been published.
We are more than willing to provide statistics from Google Analytics proving that our membership is not coming from India. As stated in our previous email, we are not paying anyone to join Famesource.com, we are simply looking for an affordable affiliate partnership.
Please understand that if you don't correct these false and misleading statements, we will have to seek legal counsel.
Feel free to contact us directly to discuss this matter.

Allen Vartazarian & Anthony Zanontian
Co-Founders, Famesource.com
Allen@famesource.com
Anthony@famesource.com "

As of the time of this post, we have not yet heard back from Valleywag and, as a result, we wanted to make this clarification before anything gets out of hand.

Included below is a snapshot of our Google Analytics which proves that only 1.2% of traffic to Famesource is from India. Furthermore, if you search the word "India" in the search box on our site, you will find that only 63 out of approximately 10,000 profiles contain the word India.




What we are offering is no different than an affiliate program, where people/companies get paid for directing traffic that converts to membership. Furthermore, if Valleywag had taken a moment to do some research before blindly and maliciously posting about Famesource, they would find that we specify in our responses to all potential online marketers that all traffic must be from the US.

If anyone wishes discuss this in more detail, we are both very accessible.

We encourage you to share your thoughts by commenting on this blog post, as well as on the Valleywag post. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.


Allen Vartazarian & Anthony Zanontian
Co-founders, Famesource.com
allen@famesource.com
anthony@famesource.com

UPDATE: Our comments have been "approved" and posted on the Valleywag posts, about 4 hrs after we submitted them. We also received an email today (January 2, 2008) from "Gaby Darbyshire" the VP of Finance and Legal at Gawker Media (Valleywag's parent company) defending the blog posts. After a few minutes of discussion and debate, Gaby agreed to change the title of the blog posts to something they feel is more accurate. It is important to note, however, that a subtle change in the title does not correct the false information being presented within the post.

Happy Holidays!

We want to wish everyone out there a very healthy and happy holiday season! To show off our holiday spirit, we added a cute little wreath to our logo...but the holiday spirit doesn't stop there! We are also offering 2 Famebucks for the price of 1!

That's right folks, for a limited time, when you make a Famebucks purchase we will credit your account twice as much. So, if you purchase $20 worth, you will get $40 Famebucks deposited into your account! Famebucks make a great holiday gift, since you can donate them to other members you admire.

Follow this link to get started:

http://www.taltopia.com/members/deposit.aspx

In the Works

Just to let you guys know, we have a bunch of features in the works for Taltopia. We have been working non-stop, with schematics, in laboratories, tinkering around with ideas, thinking about what we can add to make your lives(as taltopiaees) better. We found it; Block this User. What does that mean? If someone is annoying you this allows you to completely block all interaction with the annoyer. I know, it's a big one...but seriously, id say a good 10 or 15 more features besides that one, but we can't let it all out of the bag can we? Most importantly, it's all for you, our users.

So get excited, continue using Talopia, ummm avidly, invite your friends, tell your family and keep your eyes peeled for more to come. Also, be sure to be claimin' that fame.

Charity Event: Hollywood Cure For Pain

Philanthropy is an important part of any organization, and what better way to show Famesource cares about our community than to attend the Hollywood Cure for Pain charity event!



The first annual Hollywood Cure for Pain event was organized to raise awareness and collect donations for chronic pain diseases. One of our lovely Famesource users (Cher from The Big Girls Show) invited us to become a sponsor of the event - how could we refuse!



When we showed up, we found that we were on the VIP list and were invited to take a few pictures on the proverbial "red carpet." After a couple interviews we made our way to our seats, had a few drinks, and started chatting with people about...what else...Famesource!

Interns aka Slave Labor

I'm totally kidding about the title. We love interns, looooove em, heck we've even been unpaid interns at one point in our lives. But this is different because we are getting interns!! You heard right, Famesource is acquiring a few, we'll keep you updated with who, so you can drop them a line and bug em, but our interns are gonna be the coolest.

We laid out a 12 week schedule for them, and are including them in every facet of our operations. They even get to hang out on conference calls with us and sit in on meetings we have with industry professionals. We really don't want them to have the same experiences we did when we interned, and want them to take away something valuable from their time with us.

So, drum roll please, say hello to our first interns:

http://famesource.com/racdyn




http://famesource.com/kkamjou



http://famesource.com/andrewmark

If any of our readers have an interest in learning more about how you can be an intern as a resume builder or for school credit don't be afraid to drop us a line.

New Feature: Post to Blogs and Profiles

Have you ever come across an interesting talent on Famesource that you were dying to share on your blog or other profile? Well, now you can!

We have decided to add a new widget to our media pages provided by our friends at Gigya. This new widget lets you conveniently post whatever media you come across on Famesource to your profiles and blogs. It's super easy to use...you just click on whichever site you want to post on, fill-out a bit of info, and you're done!

You can find this new widget in the "Promote This Media" section of any media page:

http://famesource.com/view.aspx?m=7082&?r=1

Take it for a spin!

Tech Coast Venture Network: Survivor 3 Event

On September 27 we went to the Tech Coast Venture Network event in Irvine. We decided to take some time away from Famesource so we could mingle with other entrepreneurs who are experiencing similar challenges and hardships of "starting up their own startup"(coined by me). The event was awesome and really gave us a lot of feedback as well as giving us the opportunity to meet some really great people.

We heard a lot of companies pitch there and were really happy with the winners. We were so excited about all the fresh ideas out there, and drove home even more motivated than we had arrived.

5998...5999...6000!!

Well we did it everyone, we cracked the 6,000 member mark. Thank you for all of your support, we couldn't have done it with out you...literally, we couldn't have. Just making it clear that you guys make up that number, membership is a reference to members, which is a reference to you, so way to go. Excuse my sense of humor, but it took us a lot of hard work to get here, and we really want to thank everyone who supported and continues to support us. Cheers!

If you STILL have not created a FREE account, please follow this link to sign up...remember, you don't have to have a talent to sign up as a fan!

http://famesource.com/join.aspx



We are growing rapidly, so here is to 10K! See you soon...very soon!

I'm Bleu da de dee da de dam

Great news for you Famesourcee's (especially those in the modeling category). We have teamed up with Bleu Model Management, one of the West Coast's largest and most prosperous modeling agencies, to give our users gigs. Shabi Shahryar, our contact there, is super excited to be on board with us and will be scouting the site looking for stuff she likes, so don't be surprised if you get a message from Shabi offering you a shot at fame. This is just some of the things we are doing to help you guys make it to the top. We really want to see our members succeed!



Check out Shabi's profile here:

Shabi's Famesource Page

Facelift - Step #1 Editor's Pick

As many of you may have already noticed, we are trying to add some more variation to the Famesource.com home page. We have a few ideas in the works, but our first step (as many of you may have already noticed) is the creation of the "Editor's Pick." The Famesource team has come across a plethora of great talent that we feel deserves to be on the front page for at least a day or two. We hope that you find the editor's pick as interesting or entertaining as we did.

If you have a talent that you feel deserves to be highlighted as the editor's pick, feel free to message us - we are here to support you!

UPDATE: Famesource Featured on CNN

Update: Our previous blog entry was about Famesource being featured on CNN's Young People Who Rock...here is the much anticipated video! Thanks for all of your support!

http://famesource.com/view.aspx?m=8469

CNN - Young People Who Rock

Thats right...we rock! We were recently featured on CNN.com's segment titled "Young People Who Rock" which highlights people under the age of 30 who are doing big things. Nicole Lapin, the host of the show, contacted us after someone had anonymously suggested we be on the program.

We set the date. We set the time. We made it happen. I drove out the CNN headquarters on Sunset Blvd in Los Angeles, parked the car, and approached the security desk. The gentleman at the desk asked for my ID and then said "Mr. Vartazarian, they are waiting for you in make-up." He escorted me to the make-up room where I got to meet the lovely Nicole Lapin. She invited me to in the chair next to her and we started chit-chatting about Famesource and its recent success. The make-up artist then brushed some of the magic tv make-up on me, and we were off to the studio...Larry King's studio that is.

It was truly an amazing experience to be in that studio. The lights, the cameras, the crew...it was awesome. I remember staring off to the side of the studio where I saw Larry's desk and his famous desktop microphone. After a few camera adjustments and a sound-check, we were ready to roll. The interview lasted about 10 minutes and was over as quickly as it began.

You can read Nicole's column about us here. The taped interview will be up soon!

Our newest team member - Eric!

A part of us has grown...let's just say it has gotten bigger, a lot bigger...33% bigger. Ladies...you know what we are talking about...our member grew...well membership...well people on the team...we added someone to the team. Let's just say sex sells - you know you wanted to keep reading.

We'd like to welcome Eric to the team! Eric is a soon to be UCLA grad with a Business/Economics major and a minor in Computer Science. More importantly, he is our self-proclaimed marketing guru. We fought long and hard to have Eric join our team and after three days of unnecessarily long negotiations we have him on board. Since his entry into the Famesource family, we've had a great time coming up with new hip, young, fresh, vibrant, descriptive synonym, ideas to promote Famesource. Here is to the new addition to the team! Plus, I'm happy to report that we continue to represent the UC systems here at Famesource. From Berkeley, to LA, all the way down south to San Diego...we've pretty much got it covered. So drop him a line, ask him a questions, and make sure you bug him...it's literally his job to respond j/k.

Eric, its a pleasure to have you on the team.

Eric's Famesource Profile

Music Connection Bulletin

How do you market a talent-related website? One great way is to inform talent-related magazines about your new service and convince them that their readers would appreciate hearing about it.

We went to a local bookstore and spent a few hrs in the magazine section, jotting down the names and contact info of all talent-related magazines. Once we had our list, we checked it twice, drafted a nice pitch, and started sending out.

One of the first magazines to reply was Music Connection Magazine, a highly-respected magazine for aspiring musicians and the music industry in general. They loved the concept of Famesource and included us in their weekly bulletin that goes out to over 40,000 subscribers. We are also looking to get published in other key industry magazines...any help or tips are much appreciated!

TV Commercial Winner - Famesource.com

It's official! Famesource has its first television commercial, and best of all, it was created by one of our very own users. Chris Miller, username "snakejohnson," is a lean mean animating machine!

The commercial will be aired multiple times a day on an international television channel for a period of 6 months. We feel that this commercial embodies what Famesource is all about...helping aspiring artists find the exposure they deserve.

Venture Capital / Angel Investors

It's that time ladies and gentlemen, Famesource has begun searching for Venture Capital/ Angel Investors/ Spare Change on the floor (just kidding). Up until this point, the entire project has been self-funded by myself and my partner. With the website doing well, we have begun to search for cash money to help take us to the next level...world domination.

We will keep you informed on how the situation unravels, but for those of you with connections to say accredited investors, or venture capital firms, feel free to drop us a line...seriously.

Famesource Does Vegas!

Q: After Los Angeles, what city has the largest concentration of aspiring talent?

A: LAS VEGAS!

so we went. we saw. we conquered. (we also baked in the 115 degree desert heat)

Here is a pic of us advertising Famesource at The Price is Right show at Bally's. We didnt get called up or anything, but we did get plenty of people who asked about the site.

Famesource Community Toolbar

We are very proud to announce the launch of the Famesource Community Toolbar! This toolbar will make it super easy for you to stay up to date with whats going on in the Famesource world. Anthony and I will be fine-tuning it in the coming weeks, but we have added the basic features to get started.

The toolbar has
1) our logo which will link you directly to the main page
2) a search box where you can search on google, FAMESOURCE, ebay, etc.
3) an RSS feed to our blog which will let you know when we have new posts
4) an email notifier which lets you know when you have new mail (really easy to set up)
5) a top of the line pop-up blocker (from google)
and last but not least
6) local weather....yea, we know how important that can be!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD!

Enjoy, and remember to give us any feedback you might have.

Link Exchange

We want to let the readers know that we have decided to start a link exchange on Famesource. A few friends of ours put up FS on their own websites, and we felt that it would only be fair to return the favor.

After starting we had good responses from other site owners/promoters that wanted to simply swap links. So why is this a blog entry? 1. It's been an uneventful week.(kidding) Seriously though because of how well its gone we wanted to let people know that if you want to trade links, we are more than open to it, and if you wanna go further than simply a link trade, send us an email and we will work something out.

Here is the page... http://famesource.com/links.aspx

Be sure to give HollyScoop a look she helped us out on day 1!

Our Youngest User!

We always go through our database to check certain things, one of them so happens to be age, we like to know the average age of our users, what area they are from, etc..

However when we saw this we could not help but laugh. Joshua is officially the youngest Famesource-er alive...alough his parents may be to blame for that hahah. We just want to welcome him, and let our users know that we have donated a few Famebucks to help in his modeling career. Best of luck Josh...and thank you parents for uploading...be sure to tell Josh's friends!

http://www.famesource.com/profile.aspx?u=JoshuaTK

Hit the streets.

The title here is not abstract or theoretical folks. We literally hit the streets. After a long weekend of sitting in front of monitors, Allen and I decided that it was time to get out there and do some face to face promoting for Famesource. We threw on some matching Famesource "Claim Your Fame"(tm, by the way) T-shirts, grabbed a handful of fliers, filled our pockets with cards, and hopped in Allens car with nothing but hopes, dreams...ummm and a list of talent related businesses from Google...LA is a big place guys, we needed to know where we were headed.

After a few welcoming smiles, it's fair to say that we ran into a few people that were not so excited to see us. But after we explained exactly what Famesource was, their sneers turned into cheers, and they posted up our fliers in their businesses. All in all, at the end of the day we felt like we had accomplished a lot. If any of you reading this live in LA be sure to drop us a line and tell us where you saw our flier.

Parallel Cut

Famesource was invited to attend the official launch party for Parallel Cut, an independent film directed and produced by two Famesource members, Edgar Metro and Eddie DeLeon. The short film is based on a true story about how John Gotti's son was accidentally killed by their neighbor.

The event was held at Falcon, a very appropriate venue on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. The "Gotti" theme was evident immediately upon entering the building, where we were greeted by a person who offered us a small bag of "cocaine" (powdered sugar of course) which could be redeemed later for a gift bag. All the tables had 12 x 12 mirrors with "parallel cuts" of powdered sugar on them which accented the coffin in the middle of the room (which was also full of bags of powdered sugar and housed the gift bags we would receive later.)

It was really awesome celebrating this accomplishment with Edgar and Eddie. I am confident that these two have a very bright future ahead.

The Fame Game! - Facebook Application

After hours and hours (and more hours) of development, we are very proud to announce the launch of The Fame Game application on Facebook. I guess we will call this the "beta" launch of the application, because we still have a few more features we would like to add.

We tried to keep it really simple here. Once you add the app to your profile, you (and anyone else who visits your page) can start "Faming" and "Shaming" talent. Clicking on "Top Fame" and "Top Shame" will lead you to a page with the rankings from Facebook votes. We feel that by broadcasting our member's content on Facebook profiles, we are providing yet another avenue of gaining exposure.

So, if you have a Facebook account, we encourage you to get started. Add this application and start playing The Fame Game!

Famesource T-shirts!

Anthony drove down to my house this weekend for some hard work on Famesource. The temperature was about 75 degrees...and he was wearing a jacket?

I quickly brushed it off and began talking about our weekend agenda when I was interrupted. "Is it just me, or is it hot as hell in here?" Before I could respond, he unzipped his jacket to unveil the hip new FAMESOURCE T-SHIRT! (coming soon to our merchandise section) Users will be able to purchase these shirts with Famebucks, so start earning them and be ready for more "Fame-gear" heading your way.

TV Commercial - Help!?!?!

Now that Famesource has begun to gain some public awareness, its about that time for us to put together a TV commercial advertising what we have to offer. Although Anthony and I are prepared to get behind a camera and start shooting, we decided it was best to let our talented users submit their stuff...we are a user-generated website after all!

Here are some guidelines - the commercial needs to be about 10-seconds long. We ask that you try to incorporate our logo and slogan ("claim your fame!") at some point in the clip. Make it funny, make it quirky, act out a skit, show-off your animation skills, pretty much anything goes. We will be accepting submissions over the next few weeks. You can email what you come up with to famesource@gmail.com

What's in it for you? Well, if your clip is chosen we will throw a few famebucks your way (you can use those to bid on the Wall of Fame) and you will also be featured on Famesource.com - most importantly, your clip will be all over TV!

Here is our first user submission. Think you can do better? Lets see what you got!

Famesource Compared to MySpace

If any of you happen to live in the San Joaquin Valley (Fresno, Madera, Bakersfield, Fowler, Merced, etc.) and were watching NBC affiliate KSEE 24 at 10pm or 11pm, on Monday the 21st, there we were.

NBC did a segment on how people are finding fame and fortune online and they featured us...they compared us to MySpace! Sure we may have a fraction of their users, sure we may not be worth 10 billion dollars, sure we may not have Tom's connections, but you know what we do have...a Tv interview with NBC affiliate Ksee 24 in Fresno. Thats right. What are all those things in comparison huhhh? If you ask me. Nothing.

KNBC4 Raw News: Famesource.com

I got contacted last week by Mekahlo Medina who is a news anchor for KNBC here in Los Angeles. He invited me to come into the NBC studio for an interview about Famesource. You can see the interview above.

It was really cool meeting Mekahlo, and I felt that the interview went pretty well. We hope that this interview makes more people aware of the free services that Famesource.com has to offer aspiring and professional talent. Claim your fame!

Anthony why do I have 70 emails from Famesource?

So we made a little boo boo. In an attempt to message all of our users with updates that we were very excited about, we mayyyyyy have sent out one too many emails and internal messages.

Okay, so what do I mean by little? The system sent out over 9000 emails, for 2,600 or so users. But, Allen and I got the bulk of it with 5000 emails populating our inbox, however there were some users who got upwards of 70 or 100 emails. We really want to apologize again for doing that. The code was off by a 1. Yep, a 1. We have already gone through and fixed the problem. We really respect your guys' privacy and in no way did we intent to spam you.

We REALLY appreciate your support, and hope that you all enjoy the new updates to famesource. Be sure to send us hate mail if we caused you any pain...we deserve it hahah. But besides that enjoy the site and stay tuned for more updates.(umm without us flooding your inbox)

Fame...TV?

Yea, you read it correctly...FameTV!

We are currently working on a deal that will give our "fame-hungry" users the chance to be on a user generated satellite TV channel! This is very exciting for us all because it's such an amazing way to gain exposure...and best of all, its going to be FREE for Famesource.com members!

How will it work? Very simple, you check a box on the Upload page that says you want to be on FameTV...we'll handle the rest. FameTV - coming soon!

New Feature: Promote on MySpace

Famesource.com is a free social community that connects aspiring artists and athletes with fans and provides tools to help members gain the exposure they deserve. Whether you have a talent you want to be famous for, or you're just a fan of talent, Famesource is the place for you. Click here to learn more.

We welcome all new visitors to the site and understand that you probably already have an account with MySpace....so we decided to launch a new feature that helps you promote Famesource profiles on MySpace!

We are proud to announce that we have launched our first MySpace promotion tool. We decided to keep it simple for now. To find this feature, simply click on the Promote button next to the profile pic of the talent you would like to support (it can be your own), and then click on the MySpace logo.

All you have to do is copy the code in the text box and paste it into your MySpace profile. The Famesource.com logo will now appear on your MySpace and anyone who clicks on it will be taken directly to that profile. Exciting stuff!

We also added code to send out a bulletin to your friends on MySpace, so check that out too!

Looking for your big break? Check out Famesource.com now!

998...999...1,000!

We cracked 1000 users! For two guys who have lived in a dark hole for the last two months trying to cut out time for their friends, family, and (sigh)girlfriends...thats not bad, not bat at all. All we have to say at this point is watch out myspace. Sure you might have 165 million users, but let me ask you this...do you have Famebucks?. Check and mate.

All jokes aside we are very happy that we have had this kind response...keep it coming guys!! Tell friends, family and help our site grow!

Count 'em baby...count.

100,000!

This one was a big one, well maybe not for you. But for us...it was HUGE! 100,000 page views. Wow. One-Hundred thousand, say it slow, sound it out. Sexy isn't it. It's like one thousand times one hundred. Or even one times one hundred thousand.

For two 20 some-year-olds, it meant a lot. It meant people liked the site, were using it, and that 8 months of work had really paid off. Thanks again to our users who helped us accomplish this goal late in our second week. HERE IS TO A MILLION!

U---C---L---A, UCLA FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

We made it into UCLA's Daily Bruin, from what we are told, the second highest circulated paper in LA!! Whoo Hoo for us!

It happened fast...really fast. About a half hour interview, and then BAM the next day we were on the front page. Okay so they never did say Famesource.com, something we are still a little baffled about, but they did say Famesource, a web company, and mentioned Allen and I. I'd say an overall success.

Be sure to check out the article here...and support the Daily Bruin.

A meeting with an LA Music Producer

It was a few days before launch, and we were huddled together at the local Starbucks trying to make the final preparations to go live. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar face sitting a few tables away. I overheard him chatting with a young lady about her music and the potential she had. Where did I know this guy from?

Then it clicked...it was Barrett Yeretsian, music producer and band member of Aviatic, a popular Los Angeles band. I had seen Aviatic in concert at the Roxy a while back, and fell in love with their music immediately. I told the team about his accomplishments and made it a point to contact Barrett (I didn't want to interrupt his meeting).

We contacted Barrett and he agreed to meet with us....at the same Starbucks. After giving him a brief synopsis of the site, and letting him explore it on my laptop, Barrett was in love. He loved what we had going here. We came up with a few great partnership ideas (we are still implementing those now). Most importantly, Barrett will be monitoring the site frequently to look for the next "web celeb" that he feels has the potential to make it big in the Music industry.

"Put it in a Box"

Sometimes people get carried away. It's fair to say that I am a people. After we had decided on a box outline, I lost it...just a little.

It became a running joke between Allen and I. That everything I saw had to be in a box or else I wouldn't like it. I think the quotes were..."That's not bad, let's put it in a box and see how it looks." or "Humm. I like it, but in a box, I'd like it more." or "That's stupid, but in a box it would be cool."

After some serious therapy, I eased up on my boxitis, and agreed that only 50 percent of the site should be in a box.

Tabs, Tabs, Tabs!

Tabs. Man oh man. I am super anal(that doesn't sound right) about tabs. We must have gone through 50 designs, 400 colors, 30 positions, and at least 2 friendships to get the ones that we have now. Most of the convo's ended up like this.

Allen: I like these tabs...Anthony, what do you think?
Anthony: I don't like them.
Allen: What don't you like?
Anthony: I don't know. I just don't like them.
Allen: What should we change?
Anthony: I don't know...they are stupid.

I think that I can say I wasn't liked very much by the crew when it came to tabs. But you have to admit, the ones we have now look sexy.

We're so Mashable!

Let me start of by saying...THIS WAS EXCITING!

So we woke up one Sunday morning and realized we had a HUGE spike in our traffic...we were but 3 days old at that point and had only told friends and family...literally scared of our server crashing.

It seems that an email Allen had sent to the editor of Mashable, asking him to simply check out the site ended up in a review of Famesource on their front page! This sparked a whole series of bloggers talking about us all around the world, from blogs in Arabic to German. We were really excited. Every few minutes another blog would pop up.

Allen: "What language is that one in?"
Anthony: "I think Chinese!!"

Here is a pic of Famesource that was on Mashable.

Arthur's Hospital Visit

This was scary. No really. I usually joke about stuff, but Allen can attest to this as well.

One Sunday afternoon(a week before launch might I add), our head developer Arthur called us up and said that he had just left a hospital in Vegas and was on his way to Cedar-Saini Hospital back in Los Angeles. It ended up that his pancreas was about to burst, and on top of that they had found 2 kidney stones.

I can honestly say that we were really worried about Arthur. We really had gone from a business-client relationship to close friends. We laughed, we cried, and we argued together. We had eachother's backs...as sappy as this is, Allen and I came to really love Arthur(if you know what i mean, wink, wink), and him being in the hospital with something so serious really made us concerned.

But it's good to say that after a few flowers, and some red pee, Arthur was okay, and the website moved forward to launch!

Server Story

Both Anthony and I are technically inclined. Anthony has taken apart and reassembled computers numerous times for friends and family; I on the other hand, have installed some RAM in my sister's computer....thats about all the experience we have with hardware between the two of us.

To save some money, we came up with the brilliant idea of building our own server. Being that we are both do-it-yourselfers, it seemed like fun. We consulted with a few professional (Anthony's buddy from college) and after hours of research finally agreed on what specific parts to order. A few days later, a majestic stork would deliver our baby...in pieces.

I must say, we were pretty intimidated to see all these parts once they were spread out on my dining room table. All of these parts needed to be properly installed to bring our baby to life. We opened up the so-called instructions and tackled this obstacle like any other.

Intel chip goes here, RAM goes there, the two hard drives connect here, CPU fan clips there, video card connects here, screw it to the frame there...it went on and on. She was ready for her first boot-up. We plugged it in, fired her up, and were relieved to find out that our hard work paid off.

Next we installed some software, tested for a week, and delivered it to its new home at our host in downtown Los Angeles (where all the FAMOUS servers reside).

Leggo my Logo

So Allen and I thought we could design. We couldn't. Well, we were good at Stick-figures, and I mean good. But besides that we needed help. After consulting a few designers, we decided to post up a competition to get more entries so that we would have a broader spectrum to choose from.

The contest started out kind of slow...but really pick up with some great entries. As soon as we saw a version of our current logo, we knew we had it.

This one was kinda cool.


we really liked this...but didn't know if it would work on a website.



Two more that we liked.





In the end we had a lot of great entries, but settled on the final design, a similar version give or take one or two hundred position and color changes we made. This gave us what you see now.

Plus we added a beta.

The Name

Now that we had a concept for a website and a developer on our team, we were faced with the harder than you think task of choosing an appropriate name. And trust me...This turned out to be MUCH harder than you think. But we did have a few preconditions, rules if you will.

• It MUST be only two syllables. All cool sites have names that are two syllables - Goo*gle, You*Tube, My*Space, Face*book, etc.
• It MUST be a name that relates to ALL talent - Acting, Music, Sports, Dance, Comedy, Modeling, Art, and any other talent we weren't clever enough to think of.
• The name had to be cool enough to one day become used as a verb (sorta like when people say "MySpace me" or "Google it")
• It had to be a domain that wasn't already taken and being sold by someone for $10,000 (we are recent college grads after all)
• The name had describe exactly what the site was all about - helping talented people find the exposure they deserved

After days of deliberation, we went through every word in the dictionary that related to talent, checked them against our list of preconditions, then searched to see if the name was available.

Literally 90% of the names we came up with were already snatched up by domain brokers who were looking to make a quick buck. Time to get creative baby.

We went back to the faithful mirror in my room with our dry erase markers. Hours later, the words "Fame" and "Source" were drawn together, and our site had a name.

We would be known to the world as FAMESOURCE.com

Finding the team.

Although Allen and I consider ourselves experts in the field of 1998 web design and development, we began to search for a developer. We searched...umm, for a long time. For those of you who don't know us, we are...I wouldn't say hard to get along with, because we aren't. We...well we are passionate, yeah that's a good word. Passionate. We wanted someone to be as passionate about our project as we were. And that's not easy because we were REALLY passionate about Famesource.



I'm seriously laughing thinking about the different developers we met. We saw it ALL - one guy met with us in his living room in his shorts and socks...thats it haha. Another development team we met with invited us to a formal executive board room(superfancy) where they then proudly displayed a porn site they had built.

It wasn't until we found our developer, and now close friend Arthur that Famesource would truly begin to form. Look that that cute guy.