Anthony Mendez' Post-amp

What happens outside of my voiceover studio

My love/hate relationship with Google

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via google.com

Perhaps "hate" is a strong word, but the frustrations I sometimes experience with something I "love" can sometimes keep me up at night. Yeah, I'm that passionate about Google. It's not blind Google-love. It's true love. Let me tell you a little about our relationship.

It was love at first sight. I had never seen such a clean, simple layout for a search engine before. They called it Google. I would tell all my friends about it... possibly even annoyed them with it. At the time, I was the new media director for NuLife Entertainment (a concert and club promotion and marketing company, now a record label) and I was tasked with coming up with new creative ideas for marketing and social integration both internally and externally. Google, was the first thing I introduced to the staff. Some of them called it "Goggle," but no matter; Because , they too saw the value in its simplicity and efficiency for getting information. I used to tell them, "If Google can't find it, it doesn't exist."

Eventually, everyone knew about Google and it was no longer my discovery. It became a celebrity and I felt like I was standing on the sidelines at the "red carpet." It also became verb. Part of the lexicon. To "Google" something meant something. My love was growing. It then added other features like maps and I broke it off with both Yahoo! and Mapquest (which kept leading to a dead end... sometimes literally.)

I remember Leo Laporte on ZDTV talking about this much buzzed about (foreshadowing?) free email called Gmail. I thought the name was silly, but I wanted an invitation so badly. After all, everything stopped when "Call for Help" and "Screen Savers" came on (just ask my then-girlfriend, now-wife, Marivel) and I was Google's first love! I deserved an invite. When the invite finally came, I was positive I wanted to marry Google. And so I fully committed myself to it, dumping my first web-based email account, Hotmail (besides, little did I know that Hotmail would soon cheat on me with MSN and things would never be the same again.)

It was a marriage made in heaven. Over the years our love continued, but not without some compromises. Yes, it was great that I can now have a great spam filter, never-before-seen threading of emails, accurate directions, and many, many more functions all in one account. But something didn't feel right. Google was growing up faster than I was. I tried to keep up. I signed up for AdSense, AdWords, Google Reader, Google Analytics, Google Profile... heck, I even let Google handle my domain's emails and showed everyone else how to do the same (at this point I wasn't concerned about exclusivity.) I jumped on board with Google Voice... it literally had a hold on me.

Recently, however, I've become disillusioned, because of its last two additions - Google Wave (I want to love it, but don't know how) and now, Google Buzz (which seems to be just that.) It felt like an abusive relationship; I did everything to avoid getting a Google slap or, worse, being dumped by Google altogether. But when I recently changed my Google profile, only to learn that by doing so I can no longer access my Waves, it became apparent that I was headed for heartbreak. When I signed into Youtube, only to be forced to sign in with my Google/gmail account, I felt like I was being manipulated. Nonetheless, I was hopeful at first, because I truly wanted to believe that this was the first step to consolidation. But it wasn't. And when I signed up for Buzz, and it created yet another Google profile for me (the one I was trying to get initially but it refused to let me use - AnthonyMendez) I knew it was now giving me the run around.

I still have my AnthonyVO.com email with Google Apps, but some services require I sign in with my gmail account instead. I can't move from one service to the other without having to separately log in to that service. It's giving me a headache.

Why, Google? Why? I want to continue to love you, but you keep shutting me out!

Heartbroken,
Anthony Mendez

Happy Twenty-Ten

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We woke up yesterday, New Year's Eve, to only about two inches of snow. Not enough to make the quintessential snowman. But apparently enough snow for the not-so-ubiquitous snow owl. Kudos to the bank around the corner from my home for making do with what they had. For many, 2009 seemed to be the year for that.

The economy forced us to reevaluate those things we took for granted. And to do away with the little luxuries that didn't add much value to our lives. In a way, it made us more human. While some complained about their jobs, or lack thereof, I had what I consider to be my crossover moment in my voiceover career. Perhaps, companies wanted to push more movies, TV shows, and products in an effort to break out of the downturn; Or, perhaps, there was more money out there than we were led to believe by the doom-and-gloom news media. I don't know.

What I do know is that I did more "voiceovering" in 2009 than any other year prior. The crossover itself occurred this Fall when I went from narrating the entire promo campaign for Latino in America on CNN to narrating special promos for their Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The crossover occured when I narrated TV spots for Michael Bublé's latest album. It occurred when MTV allowed me to be a part of their push for the much-talked-about "Sherlock Holmes" All in English. It also occurred, ironically enough, when I was given the opportunity to write, translate, and voice the Hispanic TV spots for Overture Films' "Law Abiding Citizen." The Crossover Voice (a term coined by my voiceover coach, consultant, and friend, Marice Tobias) was born.

But now what? Now, the focus becomes sharper and the "burn" intensifies. For a couple of years I've gotten to work on so many of my ideas. The Meditation for Voiceover ebook, The Lazy Voice-over blog, DJ Movie Drops, ScratchAnthony.com... The list goes on. The problem has been that each of those ideas required its own website; Its own domain. I had too many pieces on the board and not one cohesive strategy. Moreover, I thought I could implement most of these ideas on my own, which took me away from the microphone. As good as some of these ideas were, there was no focus and not enough time to bring them to their full potential.

So, I took a page out Steve Rubel's hub and spokes "handbook" and created AnthonyMendez.com This blog - powered by Posterous and which I call Post-amp (after the Preamp. Get it?) - became, as Steve would call it, my "hub" and my other sites my "spokes." From here I will be able to connect and form relationships with people online. The focus is on relationships. Not marketing. I am, first and foremost, a person and then a voiceover. From this personal hub, those that want to know more about me and what I have to offer can go on to my different voiceover sites, including my main professional voiceover site AnthonyVO.com

Approaching the New Year with new ideas and new ways of doing business seems like a natural way to continue to grow. But it doesn't take a calendar to push me to create and implement new ideas. That's just how I'm wired. What I will do very differently this year is allow others to help me. That's key in working on the launch for my Latitude Creative multicultural entertainment marketing company. That's key in allowing me to not only focus on voiceovers, but to continue to come up with fresh new ideas. And that's key in growing as a person.

With that said, I will be closing some of my sites: Meditation for Voice-over and The Lazy Voice-over will be no more. The Lazy Voice-over will be archived in some fashion, but the M4VO site will be closed completely. I haven't found the time to create the audiobook version of it, and besides some of my ideas and approach to voiceover and meditation have changed dramatically (partly due to social networking and increased workload.) Things change and we along with it; We must.

Here's to 2010 bringing about beneficial change both internally and externally. Be flexible in your approach to business and life and I can almost guarantee less stressful times as a result. Like they say in the Dominican Republic, "Be like the palm tree." (They don't actually say that, but if that phrase catches on, you heard it here first!) Happy New Year!

-Anthony