Friday, August 12, 2016

Wizard of Oz Turns 77 today, August 12


“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore. We must be over the rainbow!”
~~ Judy Garland, playing Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz film, 1939, American actress, singer and vaudevillian (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969).

The Wizard of Oz turned 77 years old August 12th. Happy Birthday to you. This 1939 American fantasy adventure film produced by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer was first released on August 12, 1939.

To honor the 75th anniversary back in 2013 aspecial 3D version was released Nationwide on September 20, 2013 for 1 week only to celebrate this milestone. (See The Wizard of Oz 3D Youtube Trailer.)


Based on the 1900 novel The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum the film starred Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Frank Morgan, with Billie Burke, Margaret Hamilton, Charley Grapewin, Clara Blandick and the Singer Midgets as the Munchkins.

Surprisingly, the initial release of The Wizard of Oz was not a box office hit and barely broke even. According to IMDb.com, the film earned roughly 3,000,000 and had a huge budget for that time, estimated at $2,777,000.

What appeared to save this film was, of course, what else – technology – particularly with the use of Technicolor, along with the fantasy storytelling, musical score, and unusual characters. Gradually The Wizard of Oz has become one of the most well known films and part of American popular culture.

It also featured what may be the most elaborate use of character make ups and special effects in a film up to that time. With this gradual popularly, came huge earnings, adjusted in 2012 to $239,190, 498 (source: IMDb.com).





THE ICONIC RUBY SLIPPERS

According to a Forbes article in 2008, Inside the Search for Dorothy’s Slippers, the ruby slippers worn by Dorothy during The Wizard of OZ are now among the most treasured and valuable of film memorabilia.

Multiple pairs were made for the film, and of them five pairs are known to have survived; one pair was stolen in 2005 and has never been recovered. Interesting to note that in L. Frank Baum's original novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy actually wore Silver Shoes however it was changed for the film to ruby to take advantage of the new Technicolor film process.


MUSICAL SELECTIONS AND SOUNDTRACK

Music in The Wizard of Oz was highly acclaimed for musical selections and soundtrack. Music & lyrics were by Harold Arlen and E.Y. "Yip" Harburg, who won the Academy Awards for Best Music Song for "Over the Rainbow."

Also, Herbert Stothart, who composed the instrumental underscore, won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.


Please share this on your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media networks you enjoy! Thanks!

What was your favorite part of the original film?

Did you see the 3-D version that was released on the 75th anniversary of The Wizard of Oz? 

RESOURCES: 
▲   The Wizard of Oz, Warner Brothers http://www.thewizardofoz.warnerbros.com
▲   The Wizard of Oz on Wikimedia en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wizard_of_Oz_(1939_film)
▲   The Wizard of Oz on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/TheWizardOfOzMovie
▲   The Wizard of Oz on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/channel/HC62C4ngurVs4
▲   The Wizard of Oz photo stream on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/TheWizardOfOzMovie/photos_stream Warner Bros. studio screening of The Wizard of Oz 75th anniversary in 3-D!
▲   The Ruby Slippers: Inventing an American Icon, The Lemelson Center, http://invention.smithsonian.org/resources/online_articles_detail.aspx?id=593


All photos courtesy of Wikimedia.org unless otherwise indicated.
This blog is an updated report of the original Wizard of Oz 75th Anniversary posted on August 12, 2014.
Please visit this blog frequently and share this with your social media and professional network. Thanks.

Thursday, August 11, 2016

One year ago today - Alphabet, abc.xyz was born and Google became "G"


Today (August 11, 2016) marks the 1 year anniversary when Google became the letter "G"and  part of the newly converged organization named Alphabet (abc.xyz).  Happy birthday G! So far I haven't noticed anything different since Alphabet launched one year ago and began using the .xyz root server which itinially launched on February 19, 2014.     However, according to many SEO/SEM industry leaders and ceo.xyz, the .xyz extension has gained momentum and is here to stay.

As of November 2015, .xyz reached 1.5 million name registrations with speculation the growth and momentm was most likely due to Google's announcement of abc.xyz. Yet according to TheDomains.com, as recently as June 26, 2016, .xyz had over 5.5 million registrations (nearly 600K registrations per month for the 7 months (November 2015 - June 2016) and became the 4th most registered gTLD (generic top level domain) on the worldwide web after .com, .net and .org.


The Blog post below was posted on August 11, 2015 when Google became part of abc.xyz and gave birth to baby G.

In the new Alphabet world at abc.xyz, G is for Google.

As of Monday, August 10, 2015, Google has a new name, “Alphabet.”

Who would think that the renamed, reorganized, Google corporation, is officially named after a set of 26 letters in fixed order, “Alphabet.”

Of course, Google remains its own, fine-tuned, Google brand as the internet arm for Search, Advertising, Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, Android, Google Apps, etc.; However, Google will be owned by the newly created company Alphabet where G = Google. Will C = Calico, F = Fiber, N = Nest, X = Google X, etc. ?



According to a recent blog by Google co-Founder Larry Page,
“What is Alphabet? Alphabet is mostly a collection of companies. The largest of which, of course, is Google. This newer Google is a bit slimmed down, with the companies that are pretty far afield of our main Internet products contained in Alphabet instead … Alphabet is about businesses prospering through strong leaders and independence … For Sergey and me this is a very exciting new chapter in the life of Google -- the birth of Alphabet. We liked the name Alphabet because it means a collection of letters that represent language, one of humanity's most important innovations, and is the core of how we index with Google search!” #GisforGoogle #Alphabet #abc.xyz


REORGANIZATION OF GOOGLE – What does this mean?

All of the other venture projects, i.e., Google X (moonshot which includes driverless cars and delivery drones) Calico (biotech research), Nest (smart home projects), Fiber (high-speed internet), Ventures and Capital (investing), once part of Google, will operate under Alphabet as separate entities. Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page have new titles, Alphabet CEO and Alphabet President, respectively.

Google’s new CEO is Sundar Pichai (formerly Larry Page’s deputy), who according to a recent Bloomberg post, is known as the “most powerful man in mobile.” #GisforGoogle #Alphabet #abc.xyz

Many leading economists equate this recent Google strategy to Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway business model. Although quite different, (i.e., Google innovative non-consumer product vs. Berkshire Hathaway ordinary consumer products) Berkshire’s Insurance business is the key income generator for Berkshire Hathaway just as Google Search is the key income generator for Alphabet. For the economy it means more jobs including more CEOs for many of Alphabet’s emerging entities, more financing and investment opportunities, and continued technological innovations.

RESTRUCTURING OF GOOGLE STOCK – If you own Google’s stock, what will you do?

Apparently this new stock structure has to do with transparency for Google’s investments and the new Alphabet will make future acquisitions much more seemless than before. Do you think this restructuring will shed an entirely new light to disruptive innovation and turn the markets upside down?

According to the company’s recent SEC filing, Alphabet will gradually replace Google as the publicly traded company on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Therefore all shares of Google will convert to shares of Alphabet and will represent the same amount of shares. This merger will most likely occur sometime later this year. #GisforGoogle #Alphabet

OTHER RESOURCES:
• Google SEC Filing, SEC
• Google Investor, Google
• Google Creates New Company Called Alphabet, Restructures Stock, Bloomberg
• Google Investor Relations, Google
• How Google Became Alphabet from A to Z, Wired
• A New Company Called Alphabet Now Owns Google, Wired
• What is Alphabet, Google's new company?, Business Insider

Google.com becomes abc.xyz and G is for Google is part of the "evergreen marketing insighter" series by Gloria Buono-Daly