MySpace Adds HD Video

Well, here's the code that I got from another site that had the preview embedded.

(didn't work, missing an end tag)

Here's the code directly from MySpace.

Iron Man Exclusive Trailer

Add to My Profile | More Videos

To see the whole trailer, you have to go to the MySpace Trailer Park. There's nothing to indicate the streaming video is HD, though it is very clear. But clicking on any of the squares to the right of "WATCH THIS TRAILER IN DIFFERENT SIZES" yields otherwise. I suggest starting with the 480p version. It will open Quicktime and play a file "ironman_480p.mov"

To get completely blown away, click on the 1080p version. Takes a while to download. But pretty much the best viewing experience I've seen yet. I had to move the Quicktime player over to my 23-inch display just to see the controls. And it was corner-to-corner goodness.

Wow!

Customer Service

I've been meaning to rant about this topic for a little while now, and now I have the perfect case study. And a pretty comprehensive reference to boot.

Wife and I just got back from our weekly ski trip. She works weekends, which works in our favor when it comes to finding good skiing deals here in New England. This week we headed up to Lake Placid to ski Whiteface, a mountain I grew up racing on, to take advantage of a "Gore-Whiteface Gift Certificate" my father and mother-in-law gave us for Christmas.

Flashback: The intent was to use this at Gore Mountain, much closer to home growing up and where we used to go after exhausting the Pepsi Program weekends at local hill West Mountain. In December we made the drive from the Nutmeg State for a couple days chillin' with the family and a day on the slopes at Gore.

Unfortunately we arrived at Gore without the printed receipt from the online purchase. Turns out we could have just used my name to redeem the certificate, but we didn't know that.

Fast forward to this week, the last week of February. Having already skied Gore Mtn, and most of the major spots in Vermont, we were willing to go the extra 100 miles or so to Whiteface. The northern tier of New England was supposed to get a good little storm, so the extra drive time seemed worth it. Plus we'd get to stay in Lake Placid, home of the 1980 Olympics. Ironically we staying right across the street from the Olympic Center building, site of one of the two Sportcenter Greatest Highlights ever (vote now on ESPN).

Imagine my frustration when the ticket sales agent at Whiteface informed me I had to physically pick up the "Gore-Whiteface Gift Certificate" at Gore Mountain, "because that's the website it was purchased from." Thoughts of driving over to ski Stowe or Smuggler's Notch, then home to write a very angry blog post bounced around in my head.

Having worked for years in ski school, I kept my composure and offered suggestions like "You can't override the system?" The response was something you might expect the first week of the season, "I need the gift certificate to scan it right here" showing me the infrared scanner attached to her computer terminal.


I implored the ticket sales person with something to the effect of "You mean to tell me that, in this age of technology, you can't just call down to Gore?" Long story short, she relented, and things worked out. It took a few minutes, but as she pointed out we were "lucky it wasn't the weekend." The extra time inside didn't bother my wife, as it was all of 2 degrees outside at the time.


So in the end, good job to Whiteface for finally making it right. Hopefully they make the system a little more user-friendly by next season. It will be hard to attract people from outside the Adirondacks otherwise.

And just in case you're interested, you can purchase from Gore Mountain. Oddly enough, the site didn't show up in the top ten when I searched for "Gore-Whiteface Gift Certificate." And I couldn't find anything on the Whiteface site.

If you have a few minutes, a guest blogger writes a interesting and deep graduate level example of a customer service from the tech side of things. At the very least, every ski school and ticket sales office needs to have a full slate of scenarios thought out before the start of the season. And when that fails, flexible and adaptive employees who aren't afraid to think outside the box and go the extra mile.

Via Web Strategy by Jeremiah.

Nimbus Independent - Hunting Yetis, Episode 1 (Part 1)

Here's what all the hype is about. Great footage, great production, lots of hype. The steaming is OK, but at least the interface is really sweet. And you can embed it, which is critical. RipTV hosts and all the sponsors get to embed. I'd say everyone wins.

HD version wasn't up yet as of this post.

Part 2 starts playing right after part 1. Probably broke it up for people with slower connections. That's the only thing I would criticize. Just make it one episode, one part each month.

Can anyone guess how they got the heli sounds? Highway rumble strips?

"Watch" Quiksilver Natural Selection Highlights

Despite posting about the Quiksilver Natural Selection a few days back, I had pretty much scrolled past all the results on other blogs until powderroom.net caught my attention by simply telling me to "watch" the highlights. Subliminal? Perhaps. But it worked.

Sure enough, this is one of the best ski or snowboard event coverage pieces I've ever seen. The footage of the run through Dick's Ditch, aided by a cable cam, is extremely well produced. They might not show everyone, but they show enough to make you feel like you're watching it live. The announcing by Todd Richards is great, maybe I can finally learn the names of all those snowboard tricks. And the rider introductions are pretty entertaining and creative, to say the least.

As the announcers point out, with athlete appearance fees of $9000 EACH "you could tomahawk all the way to the bottom and still win." Clearly there was A LOT of money behind this.

Here's the video, hosted by Freecaster, another great service:

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Saw the poster at the movie theater. Techcrunch was nice enough to post a link to the trailer. For some reason Michael Arrington says you can't embed the trailer, maybe they just added the embed feature.

How many years has it been since Temple of Doom? Too many ...

Perfect

Adrants described this as "Flanked by '72 Dolphins, Reebok Politely Seeks Super Bowl Buzz."

As a Giants fan, I just call it ... perfect.



Patriots, "You got STOMPED!"

As Seen in VT.tv

New concept out of VT:

Jackson Hole - Events Marketing

I'm not sure this is the best title, but after reading two blog posts back-to-back about Jackson Hole, commenting on the effectiveness of event marketing seemed appropriate.

Mind you, I generally read the news, then some marketing and internet video blogs, then get into snowsports. Kind of like reading the paper: Front page, maybe business, save the sports for last. Sports for dessert. I screwed up today and forgot to read the news. Who won Super Tuesday? I'll find out later. For dessert maybe.

Anyways, the two posts were "Local Boys Take Quicksilver Title" in the Jackson Hole Blog followed by "Powder to the Peaceful" in the JH Underground Blog. Pretty clear I go in alphabetical order, too, huh?

The Quicksilver Natural Selection All Mountain Invitational was a new event organized by Jackson local Travis Rice, who naturally won the inaugural event. In these days of multiple competing tours and events, it's pretty obvious that getting financial backing from either an endemic or non-endemic brand is pretty important. In the case of the Natural Selection, Rice hooked up one of his major sponsors with title sponsorship of a cool new event, held on his home turf, that he subsequently won. Pretty smart. Of course the weather cooperated, too. Which leads us to the second event.

With snow like this, why are we fighting?

A simple "happy hour Friday" at Cloudveil Store in Jackson. With all the great snow this year, and the rapid growth of backcountry skiing and riding, there has been a lot of tension on Teton Pass. So Couldveil has called something of a "time out" to try and address concerns over beers. The man in the middle might well be Teton Pass Ambassador Jay Pistono, who will at least be in attendance. My hope would be that he moderates some discussions.

So how are these two events related?

• Both are in Jackson Hole and have local ties (Travis Rice, Cloudveil)
  
• Both leverage a popular brand name to lend credibility, if not financial backing or something as simple as a venue
  
• Both brands gain exposure "sponsoring" something cool
• Both brands help promote the sports in all the right ways: funding a progressive new event or helping resolve disputes

My two cents. Well done to both Quicksilver and Cloudveil for good event marketing.

This just in: Spyder is buying Cloudveil. So maybe that's what the party is for. Cloudveil also seemed to be in a pretty festive mood at OR as evidenced by this video I first saw on The Snaz (also out of Jackson). Maybe I should read ALL my blogs first, write second.