Last week Roger Avary, Oscar winner and co-scribe of Pulp Fiction, was removed from a work furlough program and transferred to a California jail just days after using his Twitter account to share private information about his cellmate.

The Ventura County’s sheriff’s department said he was transferred due to security reasons and not for his Twitter updates.

An interesting insight into the inner sanctums of America’s prison system or yet another incident demonstrating the freedoms celebrities are allowed that others are not?

Losing the ability to communicate with others is one of the fundamental liberties one is denied once they’ve been put behind bars. We’ve all heard it – “one phone call.”

When will it become – one email, last text message, or final tweet? What will inmates be allowed in this changing digital landscape? With blackberries and mobile Internet, what’s stopping someone from emailing the “rat” in a crime scandal just before he or she gets thrown behind bars?

I’ll be curious to see what rules the law will enforce or whom they’ll make an example out of. I have a sneaky suspicion that person is not going to be an Academy Award winner.

In August, Avary pleaded guilty to vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated following a fatal crash last year.

September 2007: I’m three months out of college with a degree in theater and philosophy (somehow the job offers weren’t exactly lining up with that piece of paper backing me).  Some may remember this specific day in early September of that year, as there was a blackout in Los Angeles.

With nothing to do myself and my roommates, all of us related to film/performing with our majors and degrees; do exactly what any sensible twenty something would do without Xbox 360 or internet.  We sat on our lawn and drank beer, and told ghost stories.

For nine hours.

Now, don’t be fooled–I am at heart a complete and utter nerd (and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one at KARMA Media Labs). Read the rest of this entry »

I love food and I love social media. So I have been very taken by the Kogi success story.

For anyone not living in Los Angeles, California, not following social media or not interested in food, a little background is necessary.

Kogi started as a taco truck, a very familiar sight on LA streets and nothing to write home about.  The first interesting twist comes in the food: Kogi takes Mexican staples (tacos, quesadillas, etc.) and “koreanizes” them. Trust me, the result is exciting, different and delicious. The second, and to us social media marketers, more important twist is that Kogi built a cult following using a blog and Twitter.

The blog gets about 21,000 monthly unique visitors (per Quantcast, nothing to sneeze at for what is essentially a very local blog) and @kogibbq has almost 22,000 followers! Twitter was used as a tool to let (hungry) followers know where the taco truck would be on any given day or time and tweets reportedly draw crowds of 300 to 800.   And that’s for a restaurant-on-wheels that launched as recently as November 20, 2008. Read the rest of this entry »