The Social Media MBA Blog by Karl Long

Lets face when us bloggers talk about “a-list” we’re still talking small fish in a small pond, when celebs get hold of a blog and start using it properly the results can be wonderful. I’ve always like Zach Braff’s work, and Garden State is one of my favorite movies and sound tracks. Anyway, he’s launched a new blog (his previous one was under the Fox umbrella, so I’m assuming he can be a bit more indie now), and I just happened across this little intro video on youtube. The reason I find this particularly interesting is that Zach’s pretty clear that he wants this to be a co-creative relationship with his fans:

“What’s this site going to be about? I don’t know, I don’t want it to be just about me, because that would get boring real fast, and lets be honest no-one is going to buy a Zach Braff calender”

Also, in this video clip he tells us that he wants to create a mini film festival where fans can send in short movies, and the winner will get to work with Zach when he directs his next music video, or scrubbs episode.

What I like about this is it’s genuine, heartfelt, and it’s clearly not the concoction of some PR or publicity person, it’s about Zach, opening a dialogue with his fans. Oh, and he’s got close to 300 comments on his first post, hmm, comments, interesting.

Now with all that praise, i’m afraid the one problem is the actual web site, the actual site is an overproduced flash monstrosity that get’s doesn’t do much but obstruct the actual interaction that Zach is clearly asking for. It seems that Zach has a bloggers mind and a flash centric creative director. My advice Zach, install wordpress, install the K2 template, and let your creative directer have at it on that infrastructure. Although with no trackback, it’s unlikely i’ll be a part of this conversation.

Big thumbs up for the attitude, but thumbs down for the flash orgy

http://zachbraff.com

BTW sorry if you’ve seen this post appear and disapear various times today, i’ve been in hosting hell trying to switch hosts, and in the end failed, and everything is back on the old server again. Oh will we ever be set free.