Grand Theft Auto Makes More Than A Grand

Sales of GTA V sailed past the $1 billion mark within three days of its release. That is Billion with a "B" as in "Boy that's a lot of money". That means it recorded sales of $1,000,000,000 faster than not only any video game, but faster than any type of media ever. I don't like to use exclamation marks while I write, but here are a couple just for fun!!!!!!!!
The highest grossing movie ever is Avatar. It ranks only 18th on the list of highest ever openings according to Box Office Mojo. The highest ever open for a world wide release of a movie was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 with a world wide opening of $483,200,000.
This is the fifth edition of Take-Two's Rockstar Games' 16-year old game. It was more than five years in the making and cost of between $200 million and $250 million, according to  analysts' estimates. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part One and Two combined had a budget of about $250,000,000.
Previously, Activision Blizzard Inc.'s "Call Of Duty: Black Ops II" reached $1 billion in global sales 15 days after its November release. That game took in sales of $500 million on its first day.

Everybody and their mother is online (almost)

Today, 72% of online adults use social networking sites according to The Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project. While this may seem obvious to those of you reading this on line, it still is an extraordinary fact that a majority of adults are communicating via platforms that simply did not exist a few years ago. According to the report the percentage of internet users who are on Twitter has more than doubled since November 2010, You can read more about the report here.

The End of an Old Era Means the Beginning of a New Era

I remember when I first became a Washington Post reader. It was the "Funny Papers" that sucked me in as a young kid. I soon moved on to the sports pages, and then the editorials, mostly because of the great political cartoons by Herblock, Now it is on to the great unknown with Amazon's Jeff Bezos at the helm. For those of you who are history buffs, Walter Pincus has written a fine and concise article of The Post, the sale and the news business.

And the Losers Are.....

With the academy awards approaching, we all have our favorite for the best picture of the year, but what were the really, really bad movies of the year. To decide that we have the Razzie® awards, now in their 33^rd year. Not surprisingly the big winner was TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN PART 2. It won seven Razzies® including Worst Picture, Worst Actress (Kristen Stewart) Worst Supporting Actor (Taylor Lautner), Worst Screen Couple (Lautner and 12 year-old Mackenzie Foy) and Worst Screen Ensemble.  You can read more about the Razzies® here.

Can I have a minute of your time? It will only cost you seven to eight million dollars. That’s about how much a minute of ad time will cost for this year’s Super Bowl on CBS. What are advertisers really paying for? They are paying for the path to over 100 million bank accounts. Is it worth it? I think in most cases it is not. I’ll ask people what their favorite ad was, and they’ll describe the spot to me in detail. I’ll ask them to name the product the advertisement was for and they will draw a blank. In reaching young adults, (read – people with money to spend) social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter may be more viable options. I’ll leave you with one final question – What’s your favorite Super Bowl Ad? Here’s one of mine.