Hello everybody, this is going to be my last post before heading out for the premiere. I’m leaving the hotel in a little over an hour and should be picking up my tickets at about 5:30 (Pacific Time). We then have a little down time… the red carpet is at 8:00 (Pacific Time) and the premiere should follow shortly after that.

Thanks to Treo I’m going to be posting live updates from the Red Carpet and Mann’s Chinese Theater. I couldn’t figure out how to get images centered, but other than that the Treo posts should be identical to the rest of this blog (except with blurrier photos).

Sadly, I didn’t quite get to 1,000,000 visitors before leaving for the premiere. I’m currently holding at around 975,000. I’m going to give myself until midnight Pacific time, so maybe there will be a late night push and I’ll be able to cross the threshold. Here’s the constantly updated count:

And here’s a few tickets toget you in the mood:

Wish me luck.

Today is a day for anticipation.  Feel free to use this space to muse on what impact this film has had on your life for the past 12 months, what the film will be like, or anything else that’s on your mind.

Due to the intense interest in this site today, I’ve shortened the homepage to help keep the server working. You’ll need to use the links at the bottom of the page to access older content.

CrazyMonk was kind enough to find an email that I wrote on January 9th, just three days before officially launching Snakes on a Blog.  Sitting here in Hollywood on the eve of the premiere, it seems pretty prescient:

On 1/9/06, Brian <@> wrote:

I’m thinking about making a blog about my journeys surrounding Snakes on a Plane.  My attempts to go to the Snakes on a Plane premiere is exactly the sort of thing the blogosphere needs.

Brian

The really embarassing part is that I used the word “blogosphere.”

If this if your first visit to Snakes on a Blog, you can feel free to skip this lenghty written brain-storming session and skip to the more fun stuff below. If you’re a long time reader, I’d appreciate your advice on the following idea:

I’ve been asked a number of times what I would do with this site once the movie comes out. I generally gave some answer about leaving the site up as a digital museum and made a few quips about DVD releases and sequels. Over the last few days, however, I have begun to wonder if this site couldn’t be something more. I have an idea, and I’m interested in hearing your opinions. A lot of you have been with me on this for a long time, so I’d value your insights.

There were two things that made Snakes on a Plane (and specifically this website) a success. The first was its ‘viral’ nature. Everything having to do with SoaP was catchy, and people were interested in sharing it. Every reporter asks me if this is something that can be reproduced in the future by new movies, and I always tell them that it can’t be. Something is ‘viral’ when it’s organically entertaining. That cannot be manufactured, it can only be found. A few people have asked to hire me to create another “Snakes on a Plane” wave of attention for their project, and I’ve given them the same basic answer: what they want to recreate cannot be recreated.

But there’s a second aspect to this story that is relevant to what made Snakes on a Blog a success. That aspect is the deluge and cataloguing of fan-generated content. When people become interested in a film, they turn to creativity to show their attachment and often create pieces of art. For Snakes on a Plane I’ve been calling it fan graphics, fan songs, fan clothing, fan comics and fan videos… but these things are not Snakes on a Plane specific. Other movies have had fans dedicated to creating and sharing content based on the film.

This content creation has traditionally happened in a number of ways spread thinly across the net. What if Snakes on a Blog took on the role of tracking this new phenomenon and cataloguing EVERYTHING that was produced by fans of film and television? As far as I can tell, this is something that nobody is currently doing. There are a lot of websites dedicated to film, but nobody is dedicated to tracking and maintaining collections of fan made content.

This concept is something that’s new for Hollywood. Even New Line, I’ve heard, was initially conflicted over how to approach the creation of quasi-original content by fans. Studios in the past have threatened Harry Potter fans, Star Wars fans and Transformers fans with lawsuits over fan-generated content. But this is, perhaps, the wave of the future and it’s something they’re going to have to learn how to deal with. It would be interesting to try to grab onto this concept as it’s cresting.

Does this seem like something you would be interested in? Would you enjoy a centralized clearing house for every Brokeback Mountain parody? Every riff on Kevin Smith? Every Harry Pothead cartoon? Everything generated by fans across the media realm, organized by film/tv show and easy to access?

Now this would be a step forward for me. If I were going to do this, it would have to make at least enough money to pay for itself. There would be some ads… this would be a real project. Who’s got ideas, critiques, advice? Hate mail?

CNBC is here filming over my shoulder right now. They’ve asked me to type. It’s not very interesting to read this message, but hey, what else do I have to do right now?

I’m also doing an interview with NBC’s Today Show tomorrow morning. I guess both of these will be airing sometime during the week. I’ll get more information when I’m not just typing to fill time.

Ok, the CNBC interview is going to air during a piece on On The Money tomorrow (8/16) at 7:00pm EST.

UPDATE: CBS just wrote in to say they were going to air my LONG delayed piece on the CBS Evening News on Thursday night.

Welcome to the FINAL monthly stats update. I’m a day late in posting this, I’m sure I’m going to hear about it from my dad.

I’ve been online for around 215 days. I’ve had over 915,000 visitors (I might hit a million before the premiere). I’ve posted 446 stories which received 4,288 comments (and 4,187 blocked spam comments). There have been 3,000,000 requests for pages, and a staggering 47,000,000 requests for all files (these are mostly people hotlinking to images, comics, and icons and posting them on other forums around the net). I’ve transferred 1.29 terabytes of data. The most popular day of the week is still Friday. The most popular hour of the day is still between 1pm and 2pm EST.

I’ve gotten twenty free t-shirts, one free hat, one free button and one free mug. A fan started petition requesting I be allowed to attend the premiere is over 1720 signatures. There are currently 55 translations of “Snakes on a Plane” into foreign languages and well over 100 poems. I’ve been interviewed by three TV crews. SnakesOnABlog.com has appeared in countless of newspaper stories, linked to by thousands of blogs, and over 6,000 other webpages. I’ve been invited to one Comic-Con.

But my goal was not to build stats. My goal was not to get free t-shirts or high hit-counts. My goal was to attend the Hollywood premiere of Snakes on a Plane. Finally, thanks to all of the above stats and the help of hundreds of thousands of readers, I was officially invited to attend.

Thank you, everybody.

Previous stats updates: first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth.

This blog has been shockingly popular. Tomorrow I’m due for one of my monthly recaps (when I don’t do them, my father gets upset), but I wanted to point out that last night this site passed 900,000 visitors. The current count is:

Wouldn’t it be nice to go into the official opening night at over a million Snakesonaplaniac visits? I’ve never had 100,000 visitors in a week, but maybe this is the week.

Today’s the first day of my Hollywood adventure. This post is scheduled to go live at the same time as my plane takes off. If you’re reading this, I’m on my way. Unless, of course, something delays my flight?

Wish me luck.

This isn’t really of any interest to anybody, but the Guardian ran a story a while ago that was your basic Snakes on a Plane media piece, but their description of Snakes on a Blog that made me laugh:

disturbingly meticulous

Harumph.

Subject: Invitation
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 2006 12:47:27 -0700
From: “Paddison, Gordon”
To: “Brian F”

Brian, our entire team at New Line are big fans of SnakesonaBlog.com. New Line would like to formally invite you to attend the premiere screening of Snakes on a Plane on August 17th at the Mann’s Chinese Theater in Los Angeles. We will arrange your airfare and accommodations and we thank you so much for your interest and support of Snakes on a Plane.

gordon paddison
evp new media marketing
new line cinema

Woot!

Two new Snakes on a Plane shirts today:

The first shirt is from SoapShirt.com and uses a warning light motif. The second is from out friends at Damnation with their final design: iPod Girl is my Copilot. Nice. Agam Darshi (iPod Girl) promised me a picture of her wearing the shirt, I’ll post it here when it arrives.

It’s sad to hear that this is Damnation’s final design, just as it was sad to hear that DC Lugi was finished making new videos. Maybe they’re just saving up for the DVD release.

All previous Fan Shirts.

Ok, today a group of about ten bloggers including myself, SnakesOnStuff and others were invited to take an ealry look at the Snakes on a Plane booth at Comic-Con. We got in there a few hours before the hoards arrived, here are my pictures:

Read the rest of this entry »

David Ellis was kind enough to let me know that he and his wife will be attending a screening of Snakes on a Plane with fans at the Alamo Drafthouse (favorite venue of the AICN crowd) on Friday, August 18th. I don’t have specifics about which screening he’ll be at (I’m sure, there will be more information about that forthcoming, or in the comments) but if you’re in the Austin area, this might be a special treat.

In other news, I’ve officially arrived in San Diego as evidenced by the terribly boring picture of a San Diego sign below. I’ll be checking out the SoaP setup at Comic-Con tonight, I should have pictures up by this evening.

Ok, everybody, in addition to Samuel L. Jackson, I will also be sitting down with David Ellis for five minutes and with the snake wrangler (I believe it’s this guy) for five minutes.  What should I ask them?

As a few of you have noted, there’s a book on Amazon called Snakes on a Plane: The Guide to the Internet Ssssssensation. A month or so ago I was interviewed by the author, but it seems that I’m not the only person he’s spoken with. The publisher has sent me a copy of the manuscript - here are a few pictures:

As you can see, the copy I got is in black and white, one-sided and spiral bound, but it’s enough to indicate the scale of the book. David Waldon apparently managed to interview pretty much anyone who’s done anything having to do with Snakes on a Plane including, but not limited to, Me, Snakes on a LiveJournal Blog, Jeff Rowland, Sticknstein, both contest winners, Damnation Inc., DCLugi, Subatomic Warp, Matt Barr, ShelfLife and many more (and he managed to get pictures of all of them). It’s actually pretty neat to see everyone collected in one place.

I don’t know if anybody who’s not in the book is going to be interested in it, but now you know what it’s like.

Three new shirts came in the mail this week, two you can buy, one is only for me. The first two are fan made:

This first shirt is math based and clearly contains a joke far, far over my head. This one was, of course, designed by a Harvard student which explains why I don’t understand it. It can be purchased at T-Shirt Mojo.

This second shirt didn’t photograph particularly well (the lighting in my room is strange, I have to stand on my bed to get these pictures to come out at all). It can be purchased at the Travelling Snakes CafePress store in the usual assortment of CafePress styles.

And here’s one final shirt (front and back):

Those first two were both fan-made, but this final shirt came to me special delivery directly from David Ellis and is the shirt given out to actors, musicians and other folks directly associated with the film. I feel very special, I will wear it proudly.

All previous Fan Shirts.

Welcome to the monthly stats update. I’m sure my dad is livid that I’m two days late, sorry about that.

I’ve been online for 185 days. I’ve had nearly 775,000 visitors. I’ve posted 365 stories which received 3,312 comments (and 2,651 blocked spam comments). There have been 2,500,000 requests for pages, and a staggering 41,000,000 requests for all files (these are mostly people hotlinking to images, comics, and icons and posting them on other forums around the net). I’ve transferred 1.14 terabytes of data. The most popular day of the week is still Friday. The most popular hour of the day is still between 1pm and 2pm EST.

I’ve gotten fourteen free t-shirts, one free hat, one free button and one free mug. A fan started petition requesting I be allowed to attend the premiere is over 1550 signatures. There are currently 53 translations of “Snakes on a Plane” into foreign languages and well over 100 poems. I’ve been interviewed by three TV crews. SnakesOnABlog.com has appeared in a large number of newspaper stories, linked to by 1139 blogs, and over 6,000 other webpages. I’ve been invited to one Comic-Con.

But my goal was not to build stats. My goal was not to get free t-shirts or high hit-counts. My goal was to attend the Hollywood premiere of Snakes on a Plane. If that doesn’t come to pass, then all the rest of this work was for nothing. Read my first, second and third pleas to hear more. My goals are looking pretty good at this point. David Ellis, the director, has said that I’d be coming to the premiere in several interviews… but the quest doesn’t end until I’m standing on the red carpet.

My next monthly update will be mere days before the release, hopefully I’ll already be in L.A.

Previous stats updates: first, second, third, fourth, and fifth.

I just wanted to quickly thank New Line for not being Paramount.

ATTENTION MEDIA ENTITIES: I’m not interested in doing press/interviews about this video. Please don’t call.

On Tuesday night I posted a video about my experiences with Comcast. Within 24 hours it had been seen by over 70,000 people (by now its over 200,000) and shown on Countdown on MSNBC (Keith Olbermann made fun of my air conditioner).

On Wednesday evening I received a call from my regional Vice President at Comcast.

On Thursday evening I had a team of Comcast guys (including the head of the technical division in DC) working both outside and inside my home from 7:00pm until midnight. After five hours of work, everything APPEARS to be fully up and working. This crew was extremely professional, efficient and they knew what they were talking about. It was great. If Comcast could provide this level of service for every person experiencing connection issues, they’d be the darling of the industry.

For those of you looking for more information about my technical problem, read on.

Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the monthly stats update, I know people go crazy for these… just crazy:

I’ve been online for 153 days. I’ve had over 600,000 visitors. I’ve posted 308 stories which received 2,332 comments (and 1,796 blocked spam comments). There have been 2,000,000 requests for pages, and a staggering 36,000,000 requests for all files (these are mostly people hotlinking to images, comics, and icons that I’ve hosted and posting them on other forums around the net). I’ve transferred 980 gigabytes of data. The most popular day of the week is Friday. The most popular hour of the day is between 1pm and 2pm EST.

I’ve gotten ten free t-shirts, one free hat, one free button and one free mug. A fan started petition requesting I be allowed to attend the premiere is over 1350 signatures. There are currently 51 translations of “Snakes on a Plane” into foreign languages. I’ve been interviewed by three TV crews. SnakesOnABlog.com has appeared in a large number of newspaper stories, by 898 blogs, and over 6,635 other webpages.

But my goal was not to build stats. My goal was not to get free t-shirts or high hit-counts. My goal was to attend the Hollywood premiere of Snakes on a Plane. If that doesn’t come to pass, then all the rest of this work was for nothing. Read my first, second and third pleas to hear more. My goals are looking pretty good at this point. David Ellis, the director, has said that I’d be coming to the premiere in several interviews… but the quest doesn’t end until I’m standing on the red carpet.

Previous stats updates: first, second, third and fourth.