Man, the media really loves that, "thousand hits per second" quote.

I wish they would have talked about the DVD Villian contest. Which I am SO going to do...as soon as I find some creativity and talent. So that's coming along.

alexreager | August 20, 22:02 CET

Ummm, it's the ELoE contest. No need to find creativity and talent when you can steal it!

danregal | August 20, 22:20 CET

I enjoyed that, it was very well written for its market. Bullets are your friends! And I love the 'crazy random happenstance' of Comic-Con, although I never got the feeling Joss was quite that calculating about the timing of the release.

cabri | August 20, 22:25 CET

Really? I'd have figured calculating the timing was a no-brainer of a move.

[ edited by theonetruebix on 2008-08-20 22:32 ]

The One True b!X | August 20, 22:32 CET

I thought the end of the article was kind of weird, until I realized it's a Direct marketing website! Called "Direct"! Very cool :)

miri47 | August 20, 22:43 CET

They left out the key part, in my opinion.

5. Pay attention to your fans. Listen to the things fans say they want to buy, like t-shirts and a soundtrack. Be responsive to their frustrations about international access, encourage their joyous poetic ramblings, and note their heated discussions about the plot. Play with them on all those free social networking things. Lurk on the discussion boards. Post to the boards sometimes. Let them in on the big plan, and let them know they're appreciated.

In return they will break your site. Sorry about that. We did it with love though. Which brings us to

6. If you do what they did and you do it right, prepare for lots of traffic.

I mean hell, it's August and they're still doing stuff like requesting twitter poems. A sound marketing strategy is important, but they're really encouraging fan participation in a way that goes beyond fulfilling a marketing strategy. They're invested in this beyond a mere product, and they've really stepped up in terms of making this really fun and making sure the technical issues got resolved.

Sunfire | August 20, 23:26 CET

Simon, thanks very much. In September I'll be giving a speech in Canada about how to leverage social-networking techniques in support of government services, and I had already planned to use Dr. Horrible as a case study of a successful (non-governmental) use of social networks to build buzz. This short article helps give me some useful material.

SteveP | August 20, 23:35 CET

I mean hell, it's August and they're still doing stuff like requesting twitter poems.

It helps to become drunk and bored. They don't teach that in marketing academy.

ETA that every time I see this thread, I hear Tyler Durden. "We are the all singing, all social, crap of the world."

[ edited by theonetruebix on 2008-08-20 23:36 ]

The One True b!X | August 20, 23:36 CET

Drunk boredom is what powers social networking, as far as I can tell.

Sunfire | August 20, 23:41 CET

FWIW, on the other hand, Strike.TV's use of social networking so far is a good example of how to PRETEND you're doing it, but not really do it. Just making enough use of it to seem like you've got your social networking cred, and that's about it.

The One True b!X | August 20, 23:49 CET

And that is exactly the kind of formulating plan most people walk away with after reading these kinds of articles. They network but don't socialize, and maybe it's interesting but it isn't fun. It's clearly business.

ETA: Strike TV seems to be better than most. Just looks like it's one person managing it and it's intermittent?

[ edited by Sunfire on 2008-08-21 00:05 ]

Sunfire | August 21, 00:01 CET

That said, I just got my Strike.TV beta code. Internet at work is crap, so it will have to wait, but I'm kind of excited to see what they've come up with so far.

The One True b!X | August 21, 00:23 CET

This was a fun article. Nice to see the little injokes from DHSAB and HIMYM (why do I like things with unwieldy acronyms?), showing the writer knows what she's talking about.

As for Strike TV... has that started, then? I'm interested to see what's going on there as well, but I've been out-of-the-loop for a while now.

GVH | August 21, 01:07 CET

As for Strike TV... has that started, then?

It just opened up the private beta this week.

The One True b!X | August 21, 01:10 CET

Very nice, thanks! I do wonder how long the Horrible team will continue to socialize with us. I'll miss their demanding dancing monkey Tweets, for sure. They always make me smile. :)

Where's my soundtrack? Oh, they also forgot to mention free comic book buzz. Captain Hammer's comic was niiiice.

korkster | August 21, 02:23 CET

Hopefully T & W will stick with us at least until promotion goes into high gear for Dollhouse. It would be nice if she did the official tweet for that too. :)

cabri | August 21, 03:00 CET

Are they thinking of selling the sheet music for Dr. Horrible at some point? A friend who's in musical theater is interested in using Dr. Horrible songs for auditions. They should do one like the OMWF book, with the script, sheet music and photos.

electricspacegirl | August 21, 03:41 CET

Dr. Horrible's twitter has 8,861 Followers.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog myspace has 12,796 friends.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog Facebook has 65,184 fans.

[ edited by Anonymous1 on 2008-08-21 04:59 ]

Anonymous1 | August 21, 04:43 CET

T-shirts are getting close to selling out for a second time!

Anonymous1 | August 21, 04:46 CET

Did they add extra designs yet??? I've been waiting for the cow-bell to sound, but no such luck yet. :(

korkster | August 21, 05:26 CET

No extra designs YET! Doc said he is working on some.

#1 Downloaded TV Season on iTunes

5 WEEKS RUNNING!

Anonymous1 | August 21, 05:36 CET

Doc said he is working on some.

Yes, well, we knew that. It's why the question was asked. ;)

The One True b!X | August 21, 05:46 CET

Jinx does accept design submissions but when queried they wouldn't say if Dr. Horrible designs are included (which would really help with the gap between official and unofficial designs, using the best of fan stuff). All they did was send their standard email saying basically "if you have an original design, submit it and wait. If we decide we want it we'll send you money".

cabri | August 21, 07:34 CET

Sunfire said,
And please dont remove that access once it's been given, the Hulu message of no access doesn't get any less annoying over time.
For every day of denied access it's getting harder and harder to call it a mistake, even if people are busy.

jpr | August 21, 07:38 CET