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New member registration has been disabled due to heavy spammer activity. If you'd like to join the board, please email me at MaxDevore at hotmail dot com.
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But not through Verizon Wireless - so guess i will not get to hear his message that way! >:(
Publisher Scribner Teams with Flytxt for Unique Mobile Campaign
NEW YORK, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Starting today, mobile phone users and Stephen King fans can take advantage of an exciting and innovative marketing campaign designed to allow King's publisher, Scribner, to interact with a targeted audience for King's new book, Cell (January 24, 2006) Teaming up with mobile marketing provider Flytxt, Scribner has developed an exclusive text message mobile marketing program that, through phone, interactive online, and print advertising will provide supplemental content that allows Stephen King fans to expand their experience of Cell beyond the printed page.
The campaign highlights include:
- January 18: Mobile phone users nationwide (ages 18-54) will be notified via text message of the chance to join the Stephen King VIP Club.
- January 19: Scribner begins a series of animated, interactive ads on Yahoo! directing viewers to cellthebook.com, the opportunity to join the Stephen King VIP Club, and to pass along content rich emails to friends.
- January 24, publication day: VIP Club members receive a voice message from Stephen King himself, followed by weekly text messages promoting trivia, sweepstakes, polls, and more.
- Exclusive premium content (talk-tones of Stephen King, wallpaper of various stage dust jackets of Cell) will be available for sale at cellthebook.com, creating incremental income for the publisher and the author.
- Membership in the VIP Club will also be available via email and the internet to allow access to readers without mobile phones. All of the features of the club will be accessible to non-mobile users.
- VIP members will also get an exclusive first listen to a monologue by Stephen King, which will later be part of a podcast featuring Cell and made available to the general public through the SimonSays podcast and other outlets.
- Cell will also be promoted via major advertising in national newspapers and magazines, and through a first serial excerpt in Entertainment Weekly (the first time the magazine has serialized fiction). All advertising will direct consumers to the company's cellthebook.com website.
"When Stephen delivered the manuscript for Cell, it cried out for a campaign utilizing mobile phones," said Scribner Executive Vice President and Publisher Susan Moldow. "Our cellthebook.com campaign is a natural marriage of content and marketing that highlights an author already well-known for pushing the envelope, and allowing us to communicate with readers in a way that is fun and technologically appropriate for the subject.""There are 195 million mobile phone owners in America, with more than half of them employing text messaging, said Sue Fleming, Vice President and Director of Marketing for the Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Division. "This is an important emerging market for publishers, and we are happy to team up with Flytxt to reach a targeted audience and create new revenue streams based on our content as well as broaden the audience for Cell experience for Stephen King fans."
"We're thrilled to be working with Scribner and Simon & Schuster to take this positive step towards extending the Stephen King brand through the mobile channel, forging an exciting and interactive relationship between the author and his audience, added Jonathan Hum, Account Director at Flytxt. "It's great to be involved with a company that understands how mobile can be used effectively as a brand-building tool and to enhance the Cell experience for Stephen King fans."
About Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Simon & Schuster, a part of the CBS Corporation, is a global leader in the field of general interest publishing, dedicated to providing the best in fiction and nonfiction for consumers of all ages, across all printed, electronic, and audio formats. Its divisions include Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing, Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, Simon & Schuster Audio, Simon & Schuster Online, and international companies in Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom. For more information, visit our website at http://www.simonsays.com
About Flytxt
Flytxt(R), the world's leading mobile marketing services provider, serves a broad client base globally across the media, entertainment, FMCG, retail, leisure and carrier sectors. Flytxt's customers include Target, Time Inc, Time Warner Book Group, Harper Collins, Hachette Filipacchi, Hearst Magazines, Pepsi, Cingular, T-Mobile, Vodaphone, EMAP, and Orange, who is currently leveraging an award-winning Flytxt campaign for its "Orange Wednesdays" cinema mobile couponing program. Flytxt was ranked 12th in the Sunday Times Tech Track 2004, and the company has twice been named to the Tornado Insider's TOP 100 European companies list. Incorporated in 2000, Flytxt is headquartered in London, UK, and has offices in Seattle, Washington, Tampa, Florida, and New York City. For more information, visit http://www.flytxt.com.
Here's the Cell page on King's site.
The cell tolls tomorrow.
That's right -- Stephen King's Cell, the latest nightmare novel from the master of the macabre, drops on an unsuspecting world tomorrow, and as a dedicated fan you'll be at the top of our "must call" list.
In the days ahead, look in your in-box for special offers and King-related content, including online polls, quizzes, and chances to enter to win Cell and Stephen King-related prizes. There'll be exclusive audio messages and podcasts from the King himself. We even created a special web site. Visit www.cellthebook.com for fun stuff, including talk tones and wallpaper for your cell phone.
It all starts tomorrow, so get ready. You'll be glad you answered the call.
The part of Salem Street in Malden that Stephen King is referring to in his book ''Cell" (''King visits Malden, zombies in tow," Globe North, March 19) is near Rowe's Quarry. It includes the 1400 block of Salem Street. In December, we sold the home we owned for 40 years in that neighborhood.
Who is going to have the heart to inform Mr. King that the neighborhood he fondly remembers was bulldozed in January to build a 770-unit condo development?
Message From Stephen Regarding Cell
"Cell… the writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, they were the writers for Ed Wood and 1408, which is an awesome, really scary script. It's going to be so good. They're working a draft right now, so by the time I finish Hostel Part II the script should be ready. I really want to read it."
Roth (Hostel) and writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are now writing the script for Cell, based on King's apocalyptic book in which a mysterious cell phone "pulse" drives some people insane all over the world, turning them into ravening killers.
Roth said that he would necessarily change elements of King's book, while maintaining other elements. "I love the opening [scene]," Roth said. "But I also want to keep, ... not necessarily that same chaotic tone, but I want to keep the tension of the opening 40 pages of the book going throughout the whole film and introduce other elements. Because I think the book, for me, where it loses tension is where suddenly you don't feel like the phone crazies are trying to kill them. ... I find that it's finding other ways to make it so you still feel the tension that any second you could get killed [and] carrying that throughout the whole film."
Roth, a native of Boston, added that he hopes to shoot the movie in that city, where it is set. And he'd even like to persuade King to make a cameo in the movie, which Roth will begin after he wraps the upcoming sequel Hostel 2.
"If he'd like to, sure," Roth said of a King cameo. "There's always room. That's the good thing about Cell. Because it's like crazy people running around trying to [kill you] It's like everybody gets a cameo."
>>> Source
Q: What's going on with Cell?
Eli Roth: Cell, the writers Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski are writing it. They wrote 1408 and they wrote Ed Wood and the People vs. Larry Flint and now that I'm getting closer to locking picture on Hostel 2, I've been meeting with them more regularly and they're working on the draft. My first question when I adapted it was can I deviate from the book. Am I going to piss off Stephen King? I heard he was mad at Stanley Kubrick. I don't want him mad at me. Apparently Stephen King said do whatever you want. My feeling is that you always do what's best for the film. There are certain elements that will make the book great, but first and foremost you owe it to the movie. I'm looking at movies like Stephen King adaptations like Carrie and Creepshow, I mean Creepshow is dead on and The Shining deviates and it's still a great film. I think the key word is that it's an adaptation of the book and not a replication of the book.
Q: That opening scene sort of defines the book and are you going to preserve that?
Eli Roth: Yeah. I love the opening but I want to keep that not in the same chaotic tone, but I want to keep the tension of the opening 40 pages of the book going throughout the whole film and introduce other elements, because I think the book for me where it looses tension is where suddenly you don't feel like the phone crazies are trying to kill them. You feel like they're steering them and I find that it's finding other ways to make it so that you still feel the tension that any second you can get killed carrying that out throughout the whole film.
Q: A Boston setting?
Eli Roth: Yes, Boston definitely.
Q: Are you going to have Stephen King cameo in Cell?
Eli Roth: If he'd like to, sure. There’s always room. That's a good thing about Cell because it's like crazy people running around and trying to....and everybody gets cameos. All of you will be in Cell. You'll all die in Cell. Everybody who wants to get killed, there's room for plenty of blood for everyone.
Q: Are you going to have to shoot in Boston or just set it there?
Eli Roth: We’ll see. I'd love to shoot in Boston.
While chatting with screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski about their work on the Stephen King film 1408 (pictured, and currently set for June 22 release by Dimension), Fango also got a few comments from them about their next Dimension/King project: CELL, to be directed by HOSTEL mastermind Eli Roth. This will be a different ball game altogether from 1408; while that film relies on an unseen, psychological menace, King’s 2006 novel is a thrill ride from page one, his own homage to the zombie films of George A. Romero. In the book, a mysterious “pulse” is emitted by every cell phone in the U.S. turning anybody using one into a vicious, inhuman killer. Those afflicted eventually form a hive mind determined to wipe out the last survivors, who struggle to survive in a devastated New England.
The two scripters see CELL as a chance to not only pull their own variation on the “zombie” genre, but also to make a statement of how technology has overtaken the American lifestyle. “People think they have to be connected at all moments of their lives, so we’re trying to make the movie a big indictment of that,” Alexander continues. “We’re using the novel as a jumping-off point. The book is very sarcastic about this world of people and what they have brought upon themselves with all their friggin’ cell phones and e-mails and pagers and Bluetooths and all this stuff, but after a certain point, the novel sort of moves on to new ideas. We’re trying to keep the movie focused on that original theme, because it’s very timely and provides a really good shape to the material.” But he adds that the movie will reflect the fast-paced, action-packed tone of King’s novel: “There’s much more action in CELL, and particularly because Eli is the director, we’d be crazy if we didn’t make it visceral.”
“There’s not a lot of pretension in CELL,” adds Karaszewski. “The best sequences in the book are the ones that get really violent and horrible and funny all at the same time, and that’s why Eli is the perfect director for it.” The pair are currently completing the script’s first draft, with production tentatively slated to begin in the fall; see Fango #265, on sale in July, for their comments on 1408, and #264, on sale this month, for a chat with that movie’s director Mikael Hafstrom. —Don Kaye
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that sending SMS messages potentially violates the federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from using automatic telephone dialing systems to make calls to cell phones unless the owners have consented. The decision appears to mark the first time that a federal appellate court has said that the telephone law applies to text messages.
The ruling could have far-reaching effects on mobile marketers who send SMS ads, says cyberlawyer Venkat Balasubramani of Seattle. "There's a lot of marketing going on by text message, and now there's another regulatory scheme that marketers and brands have to worry about," he said, referring to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act. "There's a whole lot of marketing that's going to come under the umbrella of that law."
The case dates back to 2006, when New York resident Laci Satterfield filed a class-action lawsuit against Simon and Schuster and mobile marketing firm ipsh! Satterfield had signed up for a free ringtone service from Nextone at the request of her son, according to the court ruling. As part of the enrollment process, she agreed to receive promotions from Nextones affiliates and brands.
After registering for this service, she received an unsolicited text message inviting her to join the "Stephen King VIP Mobile Club" and directed her to www.cellthebook.com.
She alleged that this message violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act's ban on using automated dialing systems to reach wireless devices. She sought class-action status and a minimum of $500 damages per incident for each cell phone customer.
Simon & Schuster argued that the text messages weren't covered by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and that Satterfield had consented to receive the ads.
Friday, the 9th Circuit ruled against the book publisher on both points. "Reviewing this issue, we hold that a text message is a "call" within the meaning of the [Telephone Consumer Protection Act]," the court said. The appellate court also found that Satterfield had only agreed to receive ads from Nextones brands, and not Simon & Schuster. "The message was a product of Simon & Schuster, not Nextones," the court wrote. "Nextones's only role in this case was simply supplying the numbers."
Friday's decision reversed a 2007 trial court ruling that ended the case in favor of Simon & Schuster and ipsh! But the decision also left open the possibility that the marketer could still prevail in the matter. The appellate court remanded the case back to the trial court for further hearings to determine whether the equipment used to send the text messages should be considered an automated telephone dialing system.
>> Source
Harrison is scripting CELL for the Weinstein Company, which had originally planned to turn the book into a theatrical feature (with Eli Roth attached at one point to direct), but decided to abandon those plans and will be shopping the project to networks instead. Having served as assistant director/composer on the King-scripted CREEPSHOW and helmed TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE: THE MOVIE (including an adaptation of the author’s “Cat from Hell”), Harrison considers CELL one of King’s best recent books, with opening chapters that will make an incredible first 30 minutes on screen. The filmmaker adds that he doesn’t see this as a zombie story so much as a VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED-esque chiller, and enjoys the fact that the infected populace possesses a hive mentality. While he has been officially contracted to direct, he would certainly like to. BOOK OF BLOOD screens at Fantasia tonight at 7 p.m. (the show is almost sold out as of now); look for exclusive video of Harrison discussing BOOK, CELL and other projects at this site tomorrow!
>>> Source
In the lawsuit, filed earlier this year in federal district court in Minnesota, Brenda Czech of Stearns County alleged that financial information company Wall Street on Demand violated federal law by sending "numerous" SMS messages to her. Czech, who sought class-action status, contended that the unauthorized messages resulted in slowdowns, consumed wireless bandwidth and ate up her device's memory.
But U.S. District Court Judge Donovan Frank found that none of those alleged harms translated into economic losses.
"While this court does not disagree that unwanted text messages, like spam e-mail, are an annoyance, whether receipt of such messages can establish a civil action under the [Computer Fraud and Abuse Act] is, of course, a different question," Frank wrote last week. He added that Czech's complaint "neither references any specific financial charges allegedly incurred ... nor attaches any comparable supporting documentation of such losses she in fact incurred."
Czech alleged that the messages from Wall Street on Demand started in 2006, soon after she signed up for a new phone plan from Sprint. She said in her lawsuit that she paid $39.95 a month for 1,000 minutes and an additional $5 a month for up to 300 text messages, but didn't allege that the Wall Street on Demand messages pushed her over the limit. Instead, she argued that the "cumulative impact" of the messages and the threat of potential charges, "substantially impaired" her use of her mobile phone.
Wall Street on Demand's says in its marketing materials that it delivers 7 million alerts each week.
The decision only involved the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and not federal laws about marketing. In another recent case, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals held that book publisher Simon & Schuster might have violated federal Telephone Consumer Protection Act by allegedly sending unsolicited text messages promoting Stephen King's "Cell."