Ron Howard has wanted to be in the marketing business for decades now, but his wife told him that if he had time to take away from his work as a famous director, producer, and actor, he better fork it over to his wife and kids.

Well, the kids are all grown up now and Howard must have gotten buy-in from his wife because the partnership of Howard and producer Brian Glazer – the duo behind such classic films and TV series as Splash, Apollo 13, 8 Mile, A Beautiful Mind, Friday Night Lights, 24, and Arrested Development – are bringing their storytelling savvy to the marketing world, according to Fortune.

The appeal of working with brands, Howard told Fortune, is that marketers are “wide open” about their how they deliver content, using "long form, short form, live events.” They're also eager for better quality storytelling, and eager to bring Hollywood-honed creativity to their brands. Down the road, Howard says, "We could bring in an Academy Award-winning screenwriter to work on a brand."Continue reading...

The newest kid on the media block is Medium, somewhere between a social network and a collaborative publishing tool, and given the pedigree of its founders, Twitter co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone, it’s well worth attention.

Obvious, Williams and Stone’s post-Twitter startup that was announced at the Aspen Institute festival in July 2011, has already given the world Blogger as well as Twitter, and describes itself as “more of a philosophy than a company or product. We focus our long term view on ideas and technology that can be generally described as 'world positive.' When opportunities resonate with our worldview, we do what makes sense to help them succeed.”

Medium is their “world positive,” lightweight tool for self-expression with text and images. Users — anyone with a Twitter account — can post once or several times a day, and create original collections. Posting is presently open only to those who register.

Medium is a fervent democracy and posts are ranked by ratings rather than chronology. The nascent promise is that everybody should be able to publish without the dual pressures of becoming a full-time blogger and amassing a following.Continue reading...

"We've run a campaign like nobody's ever seen," says Herman Cain's Chief of Staff Mark Block in the above campaign video. It's certainly a campaign ad that nobody's ever seen, unless taking a drag of a cigarette after a few inspirational words is the norm for campaign advertising. That's right. He's puffing on a cigarette.

In times where the healthcare crisis is top of the political agenda, as people grow more conscious of obesity and setting a good example for kids (witness Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign), not to mention the FDA's initiative to help people STOP smoking, why in God's name would you include a shot of someone smoking, let alone your Chief of Staff, in your promotional video if you are running for the highest position possible in the United States of America?

"The message behind the ad was to our supporters that we're on a roll," Block told Fox News. "We're excited about what's happening." He added that "a lot of the people on the staff said, 'Just let Block be Block.' That's what it was all about."

It's all about keeping the common touch, he added. "I'm not the only one that smokes in America for God's sake," he told Fox. "It was a choice I made and it was at the end of the ad. The real message that we're trying to get through was the Cain train is on a roll." So if the political hack develops a hacking cough, now you know why.Continue reading...

Twitter is closing in on an $800 million funding deal, $400 million of which will be used to cash out current investors and employees.

Aside from additional revenue, the move will allow current stakeholders to monetize privately held common stock, as the company will probably not file for an IPO in the immediate future.

“Once the latest investments are complete, Twitter’s total cash haul since it was founded five years ago will be $760 million,” according to AllThingsD.

Current investors Benchmark Capital, Union Square Ventures, Spark Capital, and other venture capitalists will be joined, going forward, by Russian heavyweight DST Global, an investor in Facebook, Zynga and Groupon. Continue reading...

Biz Stone, Evan Williams and Jason Goldman, three key developers of Twitter, are now devoting their energies to Obvious — a startup that (Obviously) has a Twitter feed.

The startup's website states: “The Obvious Corporation makes systems that help people work together to improve the world. The proliferation of technology can seem superfluous, but with the right approach, technology can benefit individuals, organizations, and society. We are relaunching the company that originally incubated Twitter with a high level of commitment to making a difference and developing products that matter.”Continue reading...

Twitter celebrated turning five today with a segment on ABC's Good Morning America and a video, above, that highlights the reasons why a cross-section of users (including Richard Branson, Snoop Dogg, Hillary Clinton, Martha Stewart, Serena Williams) are fans of the micromessaging social service.

Twitter recently got into the wine business, collaborating with Crushpad, a Napa Valley winemaker, on Fledgling Wine as a cleverly-labeled fundraiser for San Francisco's Room to Read charity. But that's not what Twitter cofounder Biz Stone is promoting in his first TV commercial, above — a paid endorsement for Stoli vodka. Evidently, he's never heard the classic Woody Allen routine.

And so we bid a fond farewell to Old Spice Man, aka actor Isaiah Mustafa, who swan dives off in the video above after a suave success this week. His now-concluded personalized video responses to social networkers on Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Digg and even 4chan blew up the social web.

Not only did Mustafa, in character, deliver a marriage proposal and respond to celebs such as Alyssa Milano , Twitter co-founder Biz Stone and sister brand Gillette — the P&G-backed campaign redefined "viral" with its barrage of tongue-in-cheek responses and set a new bar for branded social marketing.

W+K creative director Iain Tait discusses the "great trust" and "bravery" that P&G exhibited in allowing his team to respond in real-time on the social web, "with little to no supervision," after the jump.Continue reading...