Cool niche websites on TV shows, movies

Lately I’ve been praising specialty websites.
So I thought I’d mention a few that I like related to television shows and movies.
TV Series Finale is an interesting website devoted to TV show endings, reunions and revivals. It’s one of the places I check when I’m trying to find out whether a favorite, low-rated TV show is being canceled or not.
Instantwatcher.com is dedicated to helping people find the best movies available on Netflix’s instant-viewing service. It offers scads of genres and useful lists to peruse. I particularly like the list of movies certified as “fresh” by Rotten Tomatoes.
Netflix Instant Play Picks of the Moment by Paul J. Marasa highlights a good new movie every few days that’s available on Netflix streaming video.
There are more, but that’s enough for now.

Specialized websites sometimes short-lived

The Failed Promise of Digital Content, Part 12

Among the unsung heroes of the Internet are people who devote their time and efforts to a specific expertise and share that knowledge with others online.
They create and maintain specialized websites devoted to covering one subject in a thorough and exhaustive manner. They become the go-to resource for information on their special niche.
I’ve written about several such focused websites that I admire, including Future Rock Legends (coverage of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and eligible artists), Theme Park Brochures (an extensive collection of amusement park maps and brochures), and most recently the Internet Adult Film Database (a NSFW database of porn movies, performers and directors).
But maintaining such websites involves tremendous commitment and dedication. As a result, many specialized websites don’t last. Their creators lose interest or no longer have the time to work on them.
I’ve seen a number of interesting specialty websites get abandoned or disappear. Some are no longer updated, but linger like ghosts. Others are now just broken weblinks or direct to different websites.
During the Great Recession, which started in December 2007 and might have ended in July 2009, several websites popped up to track job cuts and retail and tech company closings, but they’re now dead.
Among the deceased websites are FuckedStartups.com, Screwdd.com, LayoffBlog.com and Timely Demise.
In some cases, their data and articles are archived. In others, the information is gone.
And we’re all less for it.

McDonald's has gone to the birds

Just the other day at the McDonald's restaurant in Norwalk, Conn., my kids and I watched birds go wild over a spilled bag of French fries. It was like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" -- if the people were replaced with delicious thin cut fried pototoes. OK, so it was nothing like that movie. But it was fun to watch.

Internet Adult Film Database: A fine example of niche expertise online

The beauty of the Internet is that people with specialized knowledge can readily share their expertise with anyone.
A good example is the Internet Adult Film Database. It is to pornography what the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is to mainstream movies. The porn industry is a multibillion-dollar enterprise, so regardless of your personal feelings about it, it should not be ignored. (Warning: IAFD is not suitable for work. Contains adult images.)
The IAFD lists 104,302 titles and 99,391 performers and directors.
The IAFD has an all-volunteer staff of 12 editors who do research and data entry, says the site’s webmaster Jeff Vanzetti. The website is the premier resource for information about the U.S. porn industry, although it has been adding more European titles to the database.
The IAFD was created by Peter van Aarle, who died in September 2005 at the age of 42 from a heart attack, according to Wikipedia. Vanzetti and others continue his legacy.
In an e-mail interview, Vanzetti told me his favorite part of working on the IAFD is knowing that he’s “giving something back” to the community. “I think that’s what drives most of the editors; knowing we’re part of something larger than ourselves and we’re helping the fan and the consumer make informed choices,” he said.
The IAFD includes both gay and straight porn movies. The database has significantly more porn actors than actresses recorded. It notes 58,004 actors and 35,958 actresses. That’s a lot of people having sex on camera.
The database also lists 5,429 directors. Of those directors, just over 2,300 (42%) were performers themselves, Vanzetti said.
As with any extensive database, a lot of interesting information can be mined from it. Vanzetti was kind enough to run the numbers for me for some fascinating statistics on the porn industry.

Q: How many active performers are there in the porn movie business today?

Assuming an active performer has had a movie released in 2009 or 2010, the Internet Adult Film Database lists 6,295 male performers and 3,642 female performers. There also are 682 active porn directors.

Q: What’s the average career length for people in the porn movie industry?
Two years for performers and three years for directors.
The typical female performer makes 10 adult movies. The average for male performers is six movies. Directors average 13 movies.

Q: What’s the average age for actresses and actors doing porn?

The IAFD’s birthday data are incomplete, but what there are shows that, on average, female performers start at age 23, males at 26 and directors at 32.
Female performers tend to quit porn acting by 27, males by 32 and directors by 37.

Interesting stuff.
Thanks again to Jeff Vanzetti for helping out with this article. He also assisted my posts on porn parodies based on real-life events or public figures and the cleverest titles for porn parodies of Hollywood movies and TV shows.

Netflix thinks I’m gay … still

I don’t get it. Netflix supposedly has improved its movie recommendation system to better match movies with the tastes of its subscribers. But based on the movie lists it thinks I’ll enjoy, the service must think I’m gay. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)
Four of the 20 movie lists it’s giving me now are gay themed. (See screenshot above.)
In November 2008, I noted that five of the 20 movie lists it selected for me were gay themed. A year later, just two of the 20 movie lists were gay themed. Now we’re up to four (or 20% of the movie lists presented).
Maybe it’s all the princess and Barbie movies I’m renting for my daughter. Or my continued choice of movie musicals and Marilyn Monroe movies for my queue. For whatever reason, Netflix continues to get me wrong.

Big productions highlight E3 2010

The 2010 Electronic Entertainment Expo, better known as E3, is in the books. This year’s show will be remembered for its theatricality.
Cirque du Soleil produced a lavish show for Microsoft’s Kinect controller-free video game system for the Xbox 360 console.
Eminem, Usher, Rihanna and other stars performed for Activision at an over-the-top concert at L.A.’s Staples Center.
Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Sony also staged dramatic events for the media at the annual E3 show, which ran June 15-17, with pre-show events starting Sunday night June 13.
Nintendo trotted out a hundred attractive women, in the style of “Deal or No Deal,” each holding one of the company’s new Nintendo 3DS handhelds. They walked off the stage and into the crowd of media and analysts to show off the device.
EA showed off its new “Medal of Honor” game by having 24 players on stage demonstrating the game’s online multiplayer mode.

Best crowd-pleasing event

Activision’s amazing concert spectacle included not only A-list music acts, but high-profile DJs, dancers and fireworks. Huffington Post and USA Today had good coverage of the epic three-hour concert. The Gamer’s Temple posted the official press release.

Weirdest event

Microsoft’s Cirque du Soleil show was just bizarre. French acrobats pranced around as tropical primitives in awe of the magic of technology. At least, that's what I think was going on.

Best celebrity cameo

Not Hall of Fame quarterback Joe Montana at the EA press conference or Olympic gold medal snowboarder and skateboarder Shaun White at the Ubisoft media briefing. The best celebrity cameo at E3 was Kevin Butler, a fictional Sony executive played by actor Jerry Lambert. He brought the house down with his hilarious put-downs of Microsoft and Nintendo.

Best video game

“Dance Central” by Harmonix, a unit of Viacom’s MTV Networks, was the best new game introduced at E3 in my opinion. First off, it takes full advantage of Microsoft’s Kinect full-body motion control system and can’t be replicated with Sony’s Move or Nintendo’s Wii, which use handheld controllers. It has the potential to be a breakthrough game and cultural phenomenon.
CNBC, TheStreet.com and Silicon Alley Insider posted their views on the hit games of the show as well.

Working hard at the E3 video game show

It was all work and no play at the E3 video game conference in Los Angeles this week, as evidenced by the photo above.
Here I am with two Playboy playmates: Miss December 2005 Christine Smith (left) and Miss September 2009 Kimberly Phillips (right). They were helping Take-Two Interactive Software to promote the release of “Mafia II.” The game is scheduled for release on Aug. 24.