Kathryn Garcia over at ABC 15 did a really cool story about the lifecast.
Thanks sister! It was great meeting you! :D
Click here to see the broadcast:
There also a shorter text-based version on their website here.
Thanks a lot to everyone over at ABC 15!
:)
Keep watching, world net ‘lifecasters’ go on view 24/7
Welcome to their world -- all of it
Lifecasting Makes YouTube Seem Like Old Technology
Balls Out
Once there was a silly old Gnant
The State Press
Jenifer - You are the coolest. Much love to you sister. :)
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Paradise Found
Megalopolitan Life
BEST TRADE
Jody Gnant's Recording Contract
When word about the red paper clip trading frenzy hit national media outlets, including Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and National Public Radio, it brought Valley musician Jody Gnant into the national spotlight. A year ago, a light bulb went off in the head of Kyle MacDonald, an enterprising young Canadian who wanted to trade a thin piece of metal for a home of his own. Using the Internet as a bartering tool, he slowly made trades for bigger and better items. His first trade was a fish-shaped pen, the seventh exchange was a snowmobile, and by his 10th trade, he held a recording contract, a dream for the folk singer-songwriter Gnant. She e-mailed MacDonald through his Web site, www.oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com, and offered one free year of shelter in her 1920s-era Garfield neighborhood duplex. He accepted, flew out, and they made the swap at high noon on a warm April afternoon. Jody's recording contract includes 30 hours of recording time, 50 hours of mixing, and transportation to and from the Toronto studio. The album will be pitched to record execs for Sony and XM Radio. And to think MacDonald chose a Valley lease over a 24-hour lap-dance-a-thon from a stripper in Japan.
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What a spectacular account of the One Red Paperclip adventure.
ABC and 20/20 - ya'll rock!
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One Red Publicity Party
The blogger who traded a paper clip for a house wasn't the only one to benefit from the project. Others got loads of free publicity, too
It began with one red paper clip—and ended with a house. Kyle MacDonald, a 26-year-old native of Belcarra, B.C., Canada, traveled to a small town in rural Saskatchewan on July 12 to accept his new home, earned through a series of trades that started with a single red paper clip.
Inspired by a childhood game called "Bigger or Better," he posted a picture of the paper clip on his blog at http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/ exactly one year earlier. He asked readers to send offers for bigger or better things. His goal was stated at the end of the post: "I'm going to make a continuous chain of 'up trades' until I get a house. Or an Island. Or a house on an island. You get the idea."
But MacDonald wasn't the only one who scored big. Some participants scored items that were useful in their own right. One got a 1,000-watt portable generator, and another got an IOU for a keg of beer.
YAHK FREEZE IS OVER. Several traders gained some pretty valuable publicity. Jody Gnant, the lucky up-and-coming recording artist who received a recording contract in exchange for a year's free rent in her Phoenix duplex, got priceless media exposure. MacDonald put links to Gnant's Web site, www.jodygnant.com, on his blog, which has had 5.6 million visitors. "There's been a huge response," Gnant says. "Definitely people have come to my Web site probably who would not have seen it without One Red Paper Clip."
Now, fans of the One Red Paper Clip project from all over the world have looked into Gnant's music after reading about her role in the story. "People are e-mailing me from Japan that say they love the music," she says. MacDonald has already invited the "entire world" to his housewarming party over Labor Day weekend. Gnant plans to perform for the festivities. She's even recording a song dedicated to the project and promises to stay connected with its community. "Kyle can expect me to be sleeping on his floor quite a bit over the course of the next year, I can imagine," she says.
MacDonald's seventh trade garnered him a trip to Yahk, B.C., from the magazine SnoRiders West. MacDonald had previously quipped to a TV interviewer that Yahk was the only place on Earth he wouldn't go to seal a trade. When the magazine offered him the trip in exchange for a Ski-doo snowmobile, he couldn't resist. Everyone involved got some media exposure from the event. In addition, SnoRiders West published many articles following MacDonald's project. The magazine ended up trading the snowmobile to a local database consultant in exchange for his services.
ROCK STAR TREATMENT. MacDonald's final exchange, for the house in Kipling, Saskatchewan, is with the city itself. The town traded the house for an acting role in an upcoming film, which had been traded to MacDonald by actor Corbin Bernsen. Kipling will hold open auditions for the film over Labor Day weekend, the same time MacDonald has promised to host "Saskatchewan's Biggest Housewarming Party, Ever." The auditions and the party are open to anyone in the world who wants to make the trek to the town of 1,100.
What began as one man's quest for a house grew into a prime example of the grassroots publicity power of the Web. Even famed shock rocker Alice Cooper got involved, bringing MacDonald on stage at a concert, where he toted a giant red paper clip, before bursting a blood-filled balloon over MacDonald's head. And to think it all started with a tiny metal clip.
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There are a lot of odd and brow-furrowing ways to make it as an artist in the music business, from American Idol and its imitators to battles of the bands like the Bodog Battle of the Bands that the gambling Web site www.bodog.com's founder Calvin Ayre is sponsoring. (It's online at www.bodogmusic.com.) Ayre's offering the winner a million-dollar recording contract.
Bodog's battle is being waged in its early stages largely on the Internet; I heard about it when I got a MySpace message from Joey Arroyo, a singer-songwriter kid I wrote about in this column a few weeks back, asking his friends to visit the site and vote for him. Internet democracy doesn't insure quality talent, though, which is why I'm not very impressed by Ayre's contest.
I had the same derisive attitude when I heard about the One Red Paperclip trading-up scheme -- the goal being to eventually swap a paper clip for a house. (Check it out at www.oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com) Along the way, a couple of months ago, a local singer/songwriter named Jody Gnant traded one year's free rent in a unit of a Phoenix duplex she owns for a recording contract at a studio in Toronto and the promise that her record would be shopped to record execs at Sony and BMG.
Media outlets were all over the Pay It Forward -style story, but none of them had much to say about Gnant's music. I promptly ignored it. Gnant wasn't getting the deal based on her talent; it was based on what she had to offer to perpetuate Montreal-based blogger Kyle MacDonald's cute lil' project.
Not long ago, though, I was talking to my homie Sean Shepherd, who works with bands like the Liar's Handshake via his Harmonic Scalpel company, and he convinced me to check Jody Gnant's music out. I did, and he was right: The girl's got talent.
Gnant isn't playing out while she works on the record she's due to begin recording next week in Toronto, but Shepherd's seen her plenty in the rehearsal studio, and he was convinced. "She's never more in her own skin than when she's performing," he tells me. "There's a different side of her that comes out when she's performing. Some people transform; she's one of them.
"I think it's fresh," he continues. "It's eclectic enough to have a broad base, there's a positive twist on the attitude of her songs, and her observations. It's more upbeat, and she has a fantastic voice."
Shepherd knows his shit when it comes to music, and he isn't, by the way, managing Gnant -- she's self-managed. So I got my hands on some of Gnant's music -- her 1995 disc Treasure Quest, and some demos including a few songs off her upcoming album, tentatively named Pivot. I was impressed. Her music's not the sort that I'd jam for my rocker friends, but she's got a cabaret sort of sultriness going on, in an adult contemporary kind of way.
She ought to be polished by now -- the twentysomething young lady has been writing songs since the age of 11 and joined the Arizona Songwriters' Association when she was 13.
Gnant usually does play around town, though she's taking a break while she prepares and records the Pivot album. Her favorite venues are art-related First Friday-style events, which fit well with her genre, and are appropriate since she used to run an art gallery called FHH Gallery in the Phoenix space she now calls her studio.
Now, she's about to head off and record the bulk of Pivot (three songs -- "Me Who Changed," "Lavandaria Sucia," and "Black and Tan" -- are already recorded). I've got the demo versions of those songs, and assuming they're indicative of the record that will result, they're polished, earnest, and soulful compositions that establish Gnant as a chanteuse who belongs on the smoke-filled lounge circuit.
"Me Who Changed" is a Latin-flavored pop number in which she croons about "screaming anger, crying shames, pointing fingers and placing blame," while "Lavandaria Sucia" is a playful, almost lusty track driven by a film-noir bass line until the song implodes into a calliope-esque montage. "Black and Tan" is a funny little ode to Phoenix's infamous after-hours party where Gnant shows she can handle country-flavored tunes as well.
Trading a year's free rent for the time in the recording studio made perfect fiscal sense to Gnant. "It was a way of spreading my recording time costs over twelve months in the form of a monthly rent payment," she tells me. "That's how I justified being able to hit the enter button and submit the trade. It was actually going to be cheaper than to put it on a credit card."
This is one case where the gimmick overshadowed the talent. It's kind of a shame that many people, I'm sure, will have the same reaction as I did to the method used to get the recording time rather than Gnant's music itself.
There's no promise of a record deal included in her contract, just the guarantee that it'll be shopped to certain execs. But Gnant has been living an artist's lifestyle for years, and she's confident that once again fortune and providence will be on her side.
"If somebody said, 'We want you to be Jody Star, we want you to change your name and sign this record deal,' I'd be content doing exactly what I'm doing now; I could say 'No, thank you,'" she says.
"People are waiting to see if I can actually make music, if I can actually sing. I know the answer to that."
Soon, I hope, everyone will.
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What newspapers don’t want you to know is that you can sell or trade anything for free. Valley residents are trading timeshares for yard work, children’s toys for DVD’s and Corvettes for pools. Craigslist.org is fast becoming the nation’s best alternative for buying classifieds, and bartering on the site makes it even more fun. Share rides. Trade homes instead of renting hotel rooms. Find lost pets. Goodbye daily newspaper classifieds. Hello virtual democracy.
(Me at the apartment up for trade...)
Welcome to Craigslist.org, the free classifieds site now evolving into an unprecedented virtual community. Here, users carpool to save gas. Some find jobs. Others trade vacation properties to avoid hotel fees. And that’s just the beginning.
“About six months ago someone lost an iPod on the Boston light rail. Someone else found it. They connected through Craigslist.org,” site founder Craig Newmark says. “Somebody got back their iPod. I like that a lot.”
Newmark is talking on his cell phone from San Francisco, his company’s base of operations. Short and wearing thick glasses, Newmark says he has never thought of himself as a revolutionary. Now, Newmark sits at the helm of the world’s most popular online classified Web site. Newmark, a self-professed geek who once considered posting a personal ad on his own site, stands between Steve Jobs and Martha Stewart on Time magazine’s 100 most influential people list.
From Bangkok to London, Sao Paulo to Phoenix, about 10 million users log onto Craigslist every month. They’re finding everything from life partners and lost pets to plumbing solutions and bartering for some dental work.
Up for trade today in the Valley is Scottsdale resident and business owner Joseph Verdone’s 700-horsepower Corvette Z06. He’d like to trade the $50,000 sports car for an in-ground swimming pool. “Because of Craigslist, people are realizing they have services and products that can be traded,” Verdone says.
Verdone has been using Craigslist for about two years. In that time, he hasn’t paid a cent for hours of landscaping, masonry and painting chores around his house. Rather, the custom auto accessory shop owner trades for accessory work on vehicles.
Verdone’s Corvette barter proposition is just one of hundreds listed on the Craigslist.org Phoenix page today, and the barter section is small beans compared to job postings (9,120 in Phoenix) and housing (17,869 Phoenix listings).
By the People, For the People
Unlike other top-10 Web sites, Craigslist is virtually free of pop-up and banner ads. Users pay nothing for the service, ever. Where daily newspapers charge for classifieds and limit users with space and time, Craigslist ads are not restricted in length and are as free as the air you’re breathing.
“Everything is based on what people have suggested,” Newmark says. “People suggested stuff like job postings or stuff for sale. I responded by putting them in. In a way that’s our whole history. People suggest stuff, and we do it.”
Phoenix landlord Jody Gnant says that user-driven community is exactly why she uses Craigslist. “They don’t make me fill out what my zip code is, what my age is. I don’t have crazy pop-ups. They don’t have to take anything from us. People in return are offering what they have in exchange.”
Gnant found her last two years’ worth of tenants through free Craigslist postings. “They’ve been great tenants,” says Gnant, who also searches the barter section daily for noteworthy trades.
“Right now I have an ad up for a keyboardist for my band,” she says. You may recognize Jody Gnant’s name from her most recent barter transaction, one year of free rent for a recording contract and a famous red paperclip.
Gnant’s trade was one in a series of escalating barter transactions that began with a red paperclip offered on Craigslist. Oddly enough, daily newspaper accounts of the story mysteriously failed to mention the name of the site on which it all started, Craigslist.org.
The Revolutionary
At a recent American Society of Newspaper Editors convention, directors flashed Craig Newmark’s mugshot across the big screen. “Do you know this man?” they asked the editors of the largest newspapers in the country.
Newmark, a former seventh-grade computer geek, is now well-known by these editors, and for good reason. His Web site is the coffin-closer for the daily newspaper classified ad cash cow. Publishers fear for their profits. Journalists fear for their paychecks.
More than free classifieds on electronic steroids, Craigslist is evolving daily into an unprecedented and unpredictable digital community. Nobody really knows how far it could go. Gnant, among others, cites a personal connection and trust among users. “If everybody knew about Craigslist, would the people who reply be as cool? I don’t know.”
As the masses increasingly embrace the concept, companies spanning all industries could feel a major impact from such Web-based shockwaves.
If Craigslist is indeed a virtual democracy, then Craig Newmark is the revolutionary at the helm, which wherein lies the irony. While dotcom sites were investing millions before the dotcom bubbles burst, Newmark was quietly giving people what they wanted, for free.
Now his site, which he touts as having been designed by the people, for the people, boasts a GDP and a population that eclipse some small world nations. Users rejoice that there still aren’t any taxes. Industry experts estimate Newmark could cash in on about $550 million a year if he started selling ad space on his site, but Newmark insists his list is for community use, clinging to his quasi not-for-profit status.
As the years have passed, more analysts have come to believe Newmark really isn’t in it for the money. Newmark’s biggest Craigslist deal lends some credibility to that notion. It was the purchase of his 1992 Saturn. He now says he drives an eco-sensitive Toyota Prius, lives in an apartment and runs his business from an old house in San Francisco. This coming from a man whose name may ultimately appear next to Bill Gates and the founders of Google in the annals of Internet history.
Today, the deep-voiced San Franciscan tells about his recent trip to New York. It turns out the employees at the Tribeca Grand, the hotel where he stayed, had all landed their jobs through his site. He says these are the kinds of things that excite him, not money.
“I never had a clue Craigslist would be so big, and I still try to behave like it’s something that needs continuous nurturing,” Newmark says.
After deciding that a personals ad on his site would pose a conflict of interest, Newmark met his girlfriend at a local café. The story is telling of Newmark’s life philosophy, “Treat others the way you want to be treated, and things will work.”
“The big theme is a culture of trust,” Newmark says of Craigslist. “The idea is that we all share some values. The culture of trust and the golden rule feed into each other. People are overwhelmingly trusting on our site.”
Gnant agrees that the culture of trust and shared intelligence offers unprecedented opportunities. “I think Craig made the people important. He put the people above advertisers and dollars and cents,” Gnant says. “Craig put people first, and Craig is succeeding for it. If you talk to him, thank him for not subjecting me to pop-ups.”
Back on the phone, Newmark says he’d better get going. He spends 40 hours a week personally fielding customer service inquiries, and he’s gotten a little behind on his hours this week.
“If you all of a sudden have a question, just call me. I know how frustrating it would be if you couldn’t get a hold of me,” Newmark says. “Have fun with the story. I’ve got to get back to customer service.”
If this were an election to name the person to head up such an important online community, it’s pretty obvious after a short discussion with Newmark that we’d have to vote to keep him in office.
I know at least one journalist who would vote for Newmark. Apparently, about 10 million other monthly users would agree. Hey, Craig, if all the newspapers are dead in five years, can I come work for you?
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Tammy Leitner of KPHO Channel 5 did an amazing piece on
One Red Paperclip.
Thanks Tammy! You rock!
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Ronald Lewis was cool enough to interview me for his podcast.
In case you didn’t know, Ronald Lewis has done some amazing interviews in the short time his program has been airing, including high profile apprearances by Kyle MacDonald, Alex Tew and Webaroo.
To Ronald – thanks for the positive and happy vibes.
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CNet News - by Daniel Terdiman - April 13th, 2006
Blogger asks, 'Wanna trade a paper clip for a house?'
Kyle MacDonald is on the verge of successfully completing a project that on its surface sounds nothing less than absurd: Trading--with the help of a blog--a single red paper clip for a house.
Since embarking on his house hunt last year, MacDonald has traded with people from across Canada and the United States and is now sitting on a year's free rent for an apartment in Phoenix.
He announced on his one red paperclip blog his intention to take the clip he'd used on his resume and trade it up, step-by-step, until he got a house. And his goal is getting tantalizingly close.
"This has turned into an obsession," said MacDonald. "So many people have heard that I'm trading up to a house that if I don't make it, I'll be a schmuck. I'll take a house anywhere in the world. That's kind of the adventure, trading up to a house and then moving there."
MacDonald, 26, currently lives in Montreal and has spent the last year doing odd jobs and traveling. But the project that began as a throwback to "bigger and better," a game he and his friends played as children, has now become his full-time occupation. And it's allowed him to spawn a Net cult following that's hoping he'll succeed. Popular blogs such as boingboing have been tracking his progress for months.
MacDonald's trades have gone as follows:
• Paper clip for a fish-shaped pen
• Fish-shaped pen for a clay doorknob with a funny face on it
• Clay doorknob for a camping stove
• Stove for a generator
• Generator for an "instant party"
• Instant party for a snowmobile
• Snowmobile for an all-expenses-paid trip to Yahk, British Columbia
• Yahk trip for a panel van
• Van for a recording contract
• Recording contract for the year of free rent in Phoenix
After each trade, MacDonald posts the item he currently has and waits for people to post offers--which anyone can see. He then decides, with the help of feedback from readers of his site, which offer to accept.
"I'm a guy in Montreal who has an Internet connection and one red paper clip," said MacDonald. "If 10 people hadn't volunteered to collaborate with me on this, then I would still have the red paper clip on my desk."
Indeed, as he's moved up the barter chain, MacDonald has encountered some mundane and even odd trade items, even as he's visited the far reaches of Canada and crisscrossed North America five times.
"I like to think I live off magic," said Jody Gnant, the singer from Phoenix who traded the year of free rent for the recording contract. "There is an amazing energy going on with this project right now. I'm thrilled that Kyle asked me to be a part of it."
Gnant said she owns a duplex in Phoenix that has an empty unit and that she will use the recording contract to lay down a "one red paperclip"-themed song.
She admits the value of the rental property far exceeds that of the recording contract, but she says such calculations are of no concern to her.
"I make strange decisions every day," Gnant said. "I live off magic, not necessarily off ones and zeroes."
And her red paper clip-themed song could certainly come in handy, given that MacDonald said he was approached by a number of producers interested in making a movie about his project.
To those who've participated in the trades, MacDonald is probably the key to the success of this crazy process.
"When I met with Kyle (I found that) he's just a young enthusiast, and I wanted to contribute to helping him," said Bruno Taillefer, who traded a van for the trip to Yahk, B.C. "It has everything to do with his personality, and his drive. Not anybody could do this. He's the type of guy I wanted to get involved with as soon as I met him. I really wanted to help him get his house."
Gnant said she feels the same way about MacDonald and the project.
"I think Kyle's an amazing writer, and that has everything to do with (it)," Gnant said. "He's a pioneer of taking a blog to the next level. There are probably other people trying to do the same thing, and we just don't know about them."
MacDonald is confident he's going to succeed, and hopes it can happen by the July 12 anniversary of the project's launch.
Asked what he thinks his chances are, he replied quickly, "100 percent. It's a fine line between being oblivious and being crafty enough to make this work."
His trading partners agree.
"I can't wait until Kyle gets his house, (and) I know he's going to get his house," said Gnant. "I don't think it's going to take him very many trades at all, and I'd love to think that's how the universe works."
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December 2004
When Jody Gnant got up on stage, she announced to the crowd that her style of music is"Bohemian-Geek-Soul." I thought that was awesome. It's always tough for a band to describe their style, but she seems to have put a lot of thought in trying to name hers.
So before she even started singing, she had my attention. You have to admit that it's cute. Bohemian-geek-soul. But when she started singing, I was mesmerized. She's the sweet girl-next-door type of chick. But when she sings she has this beautiful, deep voice that is just amazing.
All of her songs had a bit of whimsy in them, so that you kind of had to giggle. One song was about leaving your lover. She says, "Did you ever have a lover? And did you ever have a neighbor? And she was hot! All washing her car in little shorts..."
But I think the funniest was the song about The Black and Tan, which Jody describes as being "like the Supremes meets the Grateful Dead." Now that it's closed, I can tell you that it was an underground bar downtown that stayed open until 5 a.m. In the song she says, "Bring your friends, just don't tell nobody; keep it on the down low."
All and all it was a stunning performance. I have to hand it to Jody. She had an awesome stage presence and a very sweet and sexy voice. If you ever get the chance to see her, take it.
