Jonathan Grubb

It’s been about 8 months since I left San Francisco (along with my family, industry, and may friends) and relocated to LA. I wrote my first set of 8 LA things back in September, before I had learned:

1. Blogging is for nerds.
   Having a blog is still considered nerdy, which I still think is kinda funny because, you know, 3 billion people have blogs now.
2. Blogging is different when there are famous people around.
   This is probably the main reason I haven’t been blogging. Most of my friends here are in the entertainment business, so any social gathering is attended by a variety of producers, writers, actors, musicians, artists, and the occasional startup CEO. So how do you write a blog post about a typical night out and avoid having it read like a bad tabloid? Saying “I hung out with [actor name]” will pretty much always sound like bragging. Plus nobody else has a website, so if you want to make it clear who you’re talking about you have to link to their IMDB page, which also looks a lot like bragging to everyone outside Los Angeles. I mean, I feel like a douchebag just talking about it.
   Then some people actually are famous enough to be watched by tabloids, so anything you say about them or any photo you post of them has the potential to become gossip fodder. All the starlets love having their photo taken, but if hanging out with you feels like work I’m guessing you won’t be invited to the next party.
3. Everybody in LA wants a website.
   It’s fun to be here for this transition, to watch the whole entertainment industry turn toward the internet one person at a time. Even people who we just on strike over internet distribution rights have never heard of Hulu, and when I show it to them they’re blown away. And I’m talking about the people who are actually on the shows on Hulu — they’ve never heard of it. As soon as they see it they understand that the internet is the future (which I also think is funny since the internet is actually the present) and they need a web strategy.
4. Music people are still pissed about Napster.
   Mind you this is the music industry people, not the musicians. All the musicians I know owe their success to internet distribution and promotion, namely iTunes and MySpace. But some record executives still think of the web as the place where people steal music, full stop. Luckily old people retire eventually.
5. Entertainment isn’t so big, money wise.
   There’s this great little Java app (the only great java app) called the Map of the Market where you can compare the size of public companies. Go take a look. It’s divided into sectors: Energy, Health Care, Financial, etc. You’ll probably recognize the Technology section with big blocks for companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, and Apple. Then you look for the big Entertainment block, where all those rich movie stars hang out, and you find this little sliver hidden behind Wal-Mart in a sector called “Consumer Cyclicals.”
   Think of it this way: Will Smith makes $80 million when he has the best year of any actor ever, and Larry Page made $80 million today when Google shares went up 1.7%. (Please don’t check my math on that.)
6. Movie stars need the tools that bloggers already have.
   I’m working on a project with a great actor who will be launching a web company. When I launch something I make sure to tell my friends, email my business contacts, post links on my blog, Facebook, Twitter, etc so all my personal fans (that’s you) will know about it. But guess what? The movie star with actual fans doesn’t have any of these things — he has no direct line to those millions of fans. Too bad.
7. There’s no free wifi anywhere.
8. At least everyone uses a Mac.