Waxy.org is the sandbox of Andy Baio, an independent journalist and programmer living in Portland, Oregon. I created Upcoming.org and some other stuff too.

Contact Me: log@waxy.org or waxpancake on AIM

Anchorman's Friendster Marketing

Posted Jul 9, 2004

It looks like Dreamworks is using Friendster to promote the release of Anchorman, with user profiles for each of the characters. In addition to Will Ferrell's Ron Burgundy, there are photos and descriptions for Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate), Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), Brick Tamland (Steve Carell), and Champ Kind (David Koechner).

It looks like someone's logging in every day to approve every new friend request and testimonial. (So far, Ron Burgundy has 273 friends from word-of-mouth alone.)

Is this sort of promotional tie-in a first for social networking applications? Does anyone know if Friendster approved (or was paid for) the creation of the fakester accounts, which they officially forbid? (Thanks to James for the original tip.)

Update: Some users are seeing giant Anchorman banner ads, proving that it's an official Friendster tie-in.

12 Comments (Add Yours)

Jul 9, 2004
9:55 AM

witz wrote:

The Friendster accounts are supported by advertising banners, so I am positive it's paid for. Though Brian Fantana never approved me, bastard!

Jul 9, 2004
10:17 AM

Andy Baio wrote:

All Friendster profile pages have ad banners, it's not exclusive to these accounts.

Jul 9, 2004
1:05 PM

mat wrote:

Witz beat me to it, but I was going to note that based on the big ass Anchorman bannner ads...

Jul 9, 2004
1:09 PM

witz wrote:

I meant that they have banners POINTING to these profiles...it's definitely a pay deal.

Jul 9, 2004
2:08 PM

Andy Baio wrote:

Thanks for the screenshot, Mat! It's strange, I'm not able to see those banner ads at all.

Jul 10, 2004
8:43 AM

Nelson wrote:

For the past month I've been seeing ads for the Anchorman all over the net in odd places. It's clear someone in marketing is trying something a bit different. It almost worked on me - ordinarily I'd totally ignore a movie like this, but this time I got as far as reading the reviews :-)

Jul 12, 2004
2:52 AM

Chris wrote:

A Wired article on this just went up. It cites this blog post:

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64156,00.html

Jul 12, 2004
10:47 AM

Dalton wrote:

I recall Belle and Sebastian doing something like this in October for the release of their new album. "Dear Catastrophe Waitress". I don't know if it was official and OK'd by the Friendster people, Catastrophe is still up there, and she's got thousands of friends.

Jul 13, 2004
9:09 AM

astralgirl01 wrote:

The Anchorman characters are on MySpace.com as well...

Jul 15, 2004
11:09 AM

witz wrote:

http://tribalfusion.speedera.net/m.tribalfusion.com/media/181496/728_Brick.gif

Jul 26, 2004
2:51 PM

Anonymous wrote:

Giant anchor man banner ads alone doesn't prove anything.

Aug 26, 2004
5:39 PM

name wrote:

yup catastrophe has 1900 friends

Waxy Links

July 24, 2008

Amir's Super Mega Burn — anonymity can turn anyone, even superfans, into superjerks in no time flat (via)

The Balcony Is Closed — Roger Ebert on Gene Siskel and the end of "At the Movies"

The Onion's Random Roles with Teri Garr — like Random Rules, this format teases out insights and anecdotes from interview subjects

July 23, 2008

Bush: 'Our Long National Nightmare Of Peace And Prosperity Is Finally Over' — remarkably prescient article from January 2001

Jeffrey McManus runs the numbers on Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog — Joss Whedon himself confirmed the estimates were close (via)

QA Deathmatch — bug reporting as a multiplayer game (via)

Fox News affiliate tries product placement with fake McDonald's iced coffees — even if it's a morning show, this is a huge credibility hit and creates new conflicts of interest (via)

GameBridge, Jabber/XMPP bot for Z-Machine, MUSH, and other text games — nice list of text adventures on the Jabber bot

I-Fluid, PC game pilots a water droplet through a kitchen — with a nice be-bop soundtrack

July 22, 2008

43 Folders on iPhone security — is the time saved for convenience worth the potential hassles of identity theft?

Baby's First Internet — "It doesn't matter what you say, just publish it twelve times per day." (via)

July 21, 2008

Something Awful tries the 5-minute microwave chocolate cake recipe — don't miss the handy microwaved huevos rancheros recipe (via)

July 20, 2008

Multiplayer Minesweeper — brilliant collaborative game, but only takes one jackass to ruin everyone's fun (via)

Cliche Watch: Pushing over the Leaning Tower of Pisa — many more in Pisa Pushers on Flickr

July 18, 2008

The Quirkbook — Rands polls Twitter for everyone's odd quirks and mildly OCD mannerisms

Jane McGonigal on Werewolf at Foo Camp 2008 — ideal strategies, a sneaky all-villager variation, and the impact of the werewolf metaphor

Google interviews the creators of WarGames — great trivia about the making of the film and its impact on tech culture

July 17, 2008

Logan Aube's Hockey Night theme — Something Awful goons tweak an online contest with funny results (via)

July 16, 2008

Sean Tevis is running for Kansas State Representative, XKCD-style — help a computer geek defeat the incumbent, a hard-right, anti-privacy Creationist; he's trying to get 3,000 to donate $9 each

How to Fake Being a Wine Snob — there might be supertasters out there, but most people are just faking it

The Economist responds to Freakonomics co-author's pasty/pastry mixup — tasty response to this original post (via)

Mike Arrington interviews Evan Williams at Foo Camp — great interview; thoughtful questions and brimming with information, without the sensationalism

Rick Trooper — The Empire rolls you.

Mocha VNC Lite, free VNC client for the iPhone — link opens in iTunes; like others, I'm hoping an SSH client is next

Annalee Newitz on Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog — exceeds the hype; the site's been down all day, so I just bought the season in iTunes for $3.99

July 15, 2008

The Sound of Young America Live interviews Ze Frank — strange interview, but talks about the end of The Show and current projects; see also: Jay Smooth from Ill Doctrine (via)

Defender of the favicon — staggering hack puts a playable Defender clone in your browser's 16x16 favicon; Firefox and Opera only

Twitter officially acquires Summize — search.twitter.com is now live

July 14, 2008

Deep Note, the Guitar Hero bot — it got 820k points and 98% playing Through the Fire and Flames; amazingly, some humans can still beat it, for now (via)

Unofficial RSS feed of newly-added App Store applications — until Apple adds their own, I've been keeping tabs using this

Anchorman's Friendster Marketing

12 Comments (Add Yours)

Leave a comment