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Question: What does a successful LA producer, a famous photographer, world-class museum, and a universally celebrated restaurant all have in common?
Answer: Why the web, of course!
I realize the famous are already famous so it might seem redundant or perhaps greedy to want more but really, is there ever too much beauty and talent and yummy to revel in? The other day, I started to root around to see how ‘the established’ were utilizing the web as extra arsenal in their marketing strategy. I discovered a film producer using a limited free download on iTunes to entice new online viewers, artists sharing their work in the virtual space and a now famous restaurant fostering a community of fans years before the first guest was seated in their dining room and months before the launch of their latest publication.
Acquiring inspiration not frustration during the recent writers’ strike, Joss Whedon(best known for Buffy the Vampire Slayer) teamed up with his talented and well-known friends like Neil Patrick Harris, Nathon Fillion & Felicia Day to create Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a mini-series exclusively for the interwebs. Initiate Creative Webvertising. Initially, the three acts were available for free on the home site until midnight, Sunday, July 20th. Now, each episode is available for purchase on iTunes. This kind of marketing is a little a la Radiohead “choose your price” to download their most recent album or give a little, take a little but either way, it’s pleasing to see people playing around with the format.
 The works of Alexey Titarenko hang in many museums around the world, but thanks to the web his magic is accessible to the world. Experience for yourself, the haunting photographs from his Black & White Magic of St. Petersburg series. Seeing Titarenko’s series, inspired me to check out how the giants in the art world were playing in the web playground. SFMOMA has an E.space: created to explore new art forms that exist only on the web. “These commissioned online projects explore new forms of storytelling — taking a fresh look at what constitutes an exhibition — within the unique space of the personal computer screen.” And New York’s MoMA curates their own online exhibitions utilizing multi-media and online journals/blogs to interpolate process, in both its content and form. Now on view: Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling & Dali: Painting and Film
My exploration from pop culture to high art somehow led me to haute cuisine or in this case, molecular gastronomy; the art of cooking with science. Please let me introduce: Alinea, famed for inventive preparations and deconstructions of classic flavors. Try their peanut butter and jelly composed of a single grape, still on the stem, encased in a peanut butter-filled brioche. Um, delicious and genius, anyone?
 After sifting through several flash heavy websites from the top rated restaurants in the world, (French Laundry, Chez Panisse) Alinea was the only one I discovered to creatively interact in the web space. The Chicago gem is run by Chef Grant Achatz and partner Nick Kokonas along with the collaborative efforts of designers, sommeliers, suppliers and chefs all key players to the creative process. A process that blossomed online with The Alinea Project, an open online forum discussing the business plans from blueprint to completion, years before the restaurant opened its doors in May 2004. They continue to embrace the web in the same vein with the online launch of the new Alinea Book, slated to ship in October 2008. Their latest publication comes with early access to the Alinea Mosaic - an interactive multimedia web site - containing bonus recipes, demonstration videos, supplementary images, and a behind the scene perspective.
My conclusion from these online explorations is quite simple: you may not be able to teach an old dog a new trick, but you can market him online and see if his old tricks can dazzle some new fans!
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