Archive for the ‘author’ Category

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Write for a Cause!

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Hey all, if you haven’t already checked out our newsletter, our twitter page, or our FB page, please note that we’re putting on a cool competition! Here’s what we sent to our users yesterday:

Scripped will award the winning writer $500 for his or her short script.
Please sign up for the contest email list for instructions on how to enter on this page, and here are the highlights:

  • Write a 5-10 page script relevant to the current financial crisis
  • The final judging panel includes Alex Albrecht - new media mogul and co-host of Diggnation,  Sean and Laurie Percival - the editors of Lalawag and Alexia Tsotsis - the technology/business lifestyle reporter for the LA Weekly
  • Entry fee is $10, and your script is due by August 1st (we encourage you to submit earlier)
  • We will buy the winning script for $500 and publicize it heavily to our user-base. We will also send your script to the entire Harvard Kennedy School current student and alumni list-serv. There is a chance your script will be produced, though financial constraints do apply :)
  • Send us an @reply on twitter and we will give you feedback on your topic
Good luck in the competition, and please contact us with any questions. Let us know what you think about the changes we’ve made to the dashboard section of our site….

Happy Scripting,

Zak, Ryan, Sunil, & Josh
The Scripped Guys
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Posted in sunil | 3 Comments »

Get Your Script Read by Aaron Lubin - Special Offer

Monday, March 9th, 2009
All - we at Scripped have a special offer for you: Aaron Lubin, producer of Purple Violets and four other feature length films , has offered to read a limited number of Scripped users’ scripts! Aaron will provide notes/coverage service for a fee for between 1-3 people during the month of April. Aaron is Ed Burn’s production partner, and was the first producer to release a feature length film straight to iTunes. Aaron has a terrific reputation in the industry, and is an all-in-all nice guy. Since demand for this service will be high, we will provide this service on a first-come, first-served basis. Aaron will interview you individually, and determine whether it makes sense to move forward in the process. We hope you take advantage of this wonderful opportunity!
Email us at contact@scripped.com with subject - “Aaron Lubin Coverage” to participate in this offer. 
Sincerely,
The Scripped Guys
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Posted in Uncategorized, sunil | 25 Comments »

Tina Fey Fallout/ Jason Calacanis Vids

Saturday, January 17th, 2009

So check this out - apparently we’re nerds for snatching up the dlanefan and cougarletter URLs: http://videogum.com/archives/awards/the-golden-globes-tina-fey-kno_044811.html. Tina, if you are reading this, I will use the URLs for good.

On another note, we’ve posted more vids from the Jason Calacanis event we held at Anderson last Wednesday. Please check out http://www.scripped.com/jcal for more information. Happy Weekend!

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Posted in sunil | 11 Comments »

Cougarletter and Dianefan

Sunday, January 11th, 2009

Anyone watch the Golden Globes tonight?

Tina Fey, during her acceptance speech, made a few hilarious comments about the Internet. In any event, she was just joking around, but stated that “Cougarletter” and “Dianefan” were harassing her. I couldn’t help myself - bought the URLs tonight. Look for content on both sites soon…. Don’t worry Tina, I’ll be nice….. if you help promote Scripped!

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Posted in sunil | 208 Comments »

back in the SF marina

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

I slept on the floor last night and shivered as though the 3 feet of snow on the ground in Boston followed me to San Francisco. It’s cooold in the foggy city. But I still miss this place.

With 3 moves in nearly as many days, it has been a busy return to California. First stop was Los Angeles where a loyal Scripped blog reader and mother of my someone special had a fantastic birthday party at a tapas restaurant in Ventura. Just one day prior, I loaded up a Zipcar and moved my crap from Cambridge to Boston, where I will sunset my days as a graduate student in a cozy new Beacon Hill apartment. From Ventura we took the 101 straight up to San Francisco and woke up early to help the movers load up a U-Haul. No more kitchen nook and views of Scott and Chestnut. It’s funny how much smaller an apartment looks when the furniture’s out. With hardly a moment’s rest, were back on the road to Davis for another apartment cleanout. Then half of us returned to the empty marina apartment and cuddled up on the bare floor next to the radiator that hissed and spat as it tried to keep us warm through the night.

And now I am back at the marina Starbucks. This place is like a friend that I couldn’t get along with for a while and is now back in my life. I credit it to the free wireless. I used to hate the fact that Starbucks, at the height of its cash hogginess, would charge obscene rates for Internet access. Finally, my old friend has come around. I’m loving the free Starbucks wireless, and I reward them by purchasing a soy mocha with my Starbucks card.

Today I am off to Napa for lunch and a visit to grandma. Sunil is traveling around Barcelona and Zak is currying it up in India. That leaves Josh and I to hold down the fort through the holidays. Were it not for my iPhone life would be much less pleasant and I’d have to duck into these cafes more often to keep up on your emails and other business. It’s such a treat how technology not only makes it possible to keep up with a virtual company, but also allows the possibility to be a student, a grandson, a boyfriend, and even an apartment mover, more or less all at the same time. I would not have it any other way.

Happy holidays, Scripped folks. We’re really looking forward to the new year. In the next big newsletter we’ll tell you why!

Cheers,

Ryan

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Posted in Writing, entrepreneurship, ryan | 3 Comments »

making money on YouTube

Friday, December 12th, 2008

This NY Times article was sent to me by a good friend, my old pal from UC Berkeley who was the BMOC (you remember that term? “Big Man On Campus”) our senior year of college. Tall, tanned, handsome, charismatic Hawaiian athlete-turned-president of the student body, he couldn’t take a step outside of Eshelman Hall without a high five or hello.

Anyway, we still chat, but the conversation has matured a bit. We now talk about making money doing what you love, and he sent me this article. I’ll quote just a bit here:

Making videos for YouTube — for three years a pastime for millions of Web surfers — is now a way to make a living.

Granted, building an audience online takes time. “I was spending 40 hours a week on YouTube for over a year before I made a dime,” Mr. Buckley said — but, at least in some cases, it is paying off.

And no, Michael Buckley has no relation to me, unfortunately. But if you happen to know him, please send his email address over. Maybe a common last name is enough to get him to promote Scripped.

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Posted in entrepreneurship, publicity, ryan | 3 Comments »

COMMENTS!

Saturday, December 6th, 2008

Hey everybody, guess what? You can now make comments!

Yes, you could have made comments before, but they did not appear immediately because some genius out there created a spam bot that would add oh, about 10 comments each day with links to pics of you-know-who and his or her you-know-whats. We at Scripped also believe in innovative publicity, but hey, not on our blog. So we had to screen each one, and I got tired of it.

Last night, as I spent 5 hours doing the door shift at the venerable Muddy Charles pub, I installed reCaptcha on our blog. Now the spammers can’t leave their digital poop on our doorstep, and you can have the immediate gratification of seeing your comment posted right away. Just click the comments link below, write your comment, and enter the two words in the reCaptcha box before you click submit or hit enter.

Comments, anyone?

Ryan

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Posted in Scripped, blogosphere, ryan | 13 Comments »

writing under pressure

Friday, December 5th, 2008

One of the best classes I’m taking this semester (or should I say took? 1 class left!) is taught by Maralee Schwartz, former political editor of the Washington Post. In this class, titled “How Politicians Connect,” we study the connecting strategies of Obama and McCain.

Of course it entails a good amount of reading and writing. Hmm… connecting, writing/reading… Seem to go together, no? A good book, or in Scripped-land, a good screenplay, connects the writer to the reader. It is done not just by writing well and looking good (Mitt Romney) but by being straightforward (McCain, at least in his better days) and always genuine (Obama, frustratingly consistent). Finding your true voice and being honest with yourself is what readers respond to in good writing. It’s probably why writing under pressure often produces your best stuff.

Like today. I got an email from Sunil asking me to put another one of my awesome blog posts together. I thought to myself, I have nothing to write about. Then I self-corrected - there is always something to say if I let my true self out. The best way to do that? Give yourself a time limit. I have contact@scripped emails to respond to before my lunch date with said Prof. Schwartz! Plus my own personal overflowing inbox! Plus economic problem sets to grade!

We all have our obligations, but taking the time to write, if that’s what you like to do, is critical. I leave with one last anecdote. Yesterday I had the good fortune to lunch with Jeff Taylor, the former “Chief Monster” at Monster.com (wildly popular job/resume website) and current head of Eons.com. He asked the other students at the table what we do for fun. Odd question from a bad ass CEO, right? Well, he told us he’s a DJ and spends his Sunday mornings sourcing music from all over the world and does his mixing on Thursday nights. Then his mix goes off to Sirius and XM where they broadcast his creation.

He told us that as you get older, it becomes increasingly important to do what you love. It helps you connect, stay straightforward, and be genuine and sincere with yourself. So thank you, Sunil, for making me write.

And with that, I return to those emails…

Ryan

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Posted in Uncategorized, Writing, ryan | 9 Comments »

Phone Usage

Wednesday, November 26th, 2008

Today is the one year anniversary of my iPhone. I have been on the phone for 34 days and 9 hours in that time. I am both shocked, and mildly depressed at that fact. What could I have done during those 34 days instead of being on the phone? I suppose Scripped wouldn’t be where it is today without all that phone time!

Happy Thanksgiving….

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Posted in sunil | No Comments »

community-powered everything

Monday, November 24th, 2008

I write this from an empty bar named “The Muddy Charles” on the MIT campus. Serving pitchers of Bud and Sam has been my Monday afternoon routine for months now. Today is the first time I’ve had the bar all to myself.

It usually bustles with the likes of the 3 Peters: PB, PC, and P… something. There’s another guy who downs a pitcher while doing the Boston Globe crossword puzzle. Some do construction jobs on campus, others are MIT staff, and there is at least one emeritus professor, an old lovable man named Bernie who teaches astrophysics.

I like it here. It’s one of just a few hubs in the MIT community. Hubs are important to have, no matter what community you belong to, and if you’re somewhat of a binge networker like me, you try to infiltrate the leadership. It’s why I couldn’t just patronize this cozy little campus pub; I had to be a bartender! And as expected, the networking is great. Coincidentally, this picture of me in Variety magazine was taken at the Muddy. The fireplace in the background keeps us warm when it’s 30 degrees out.

Anyway, let me bring this back to Scripped. I set up a profile for Scripped in the VenCorps community, a new “community-powered capital” platform set up by a big-time venture capital company. Since they’re still in alpha, I can’t provide any links, but suffice to say we managed to get in pretty well with these folks too. Just today it was announced that Scripped took 3rd place in a “showdown” against 9 other other startups who made it into the finals. We’re very happy with that.

The irony of this is, of course, that Scripped is still a closed platform. We are aware of that and can’t wait to watch the networking that you’ll do when we blow the lid off this thing. Rest assured we’ll make sure it’s safe to do so and all the legalese is done properly. It’s mostly script and idea protection that is drawing the process out, but we’ll get there.

In the meantime, keep on writing…

Ryan

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Posted in Scripped, business model, entrepreneurship, launch, ryan, script frenzy | 7 Comments »

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