Xtranormal Rebirth and Facebook Issues

I've devoted most of my time recently to caring for my wife as she recovers from surgery, so I haven't done much about my movie and writing projects. This week I have some thoughts about the return of Xtranormal and problems with Facebook.

Xtranormal Rebirth

I used Xtranormal to make "The Barrier" last year. It was a shock when they suddenly shut down last July. I was barely able to get all the stuff I wanted for the movie done. As it was, I would have liked to make some changes to what I did have.

For the last few months the company who owned the rights to the Xtranormal technology has had it on sale. Just yesterday I learned that they've now sold the technology to a new company called Nawmal (http://www.nawmal.com/). There isn't much information there yet. You can sign up for a news letter.

It looks like they still need to work out just what they have before they can release anything. Hopefully they'll have some kind of product out soon. I just hope it isn't too expensive.

I want to make some changes to "The Barrier". I had hoped that I could redo it as live action, but I don't think that is very likely now. I would like to have a "final" version of the movie though.

Facebook Issues

I've seen a lot of complaints about how changes to Facebook have affected Facebook pages. One example is: http://www.thisistrue.com/blog-facebook_starting_to_circle_the_drain.html. I've have some of the same problems.

My Facebook page has 125 followers, but often as few as 4 or 5 see my posts. I can increase that by paid advertizing. I've done that a few times, and it does help me increase the number of people who see the post. However, since this doesn't generate any revenue, it is hard to justify the expense.

I think that pages must be primarily intended for companies who sell something. While I hope to make money from my movies and stories, the page isn't likely to generate any money.

Some people say they will abandon Facebook, but I don't want to do that. I already have an e-mail list, but I don't have a lot of people on that. I set up Facebook groups in the past and think that may be a better option for me. It seems like I can send out a group e-mail, which doesn't cost anything.

The main problem with a switch to a group is that I'm likely lose some of my followers. On the other hand I do think it is better to have a small group of active followers than a huge number of passive followers, who you can't contact. The best way would be to keep the page, but also add a group.

My to do list gets longer every day. :)

The picture of the cat has nothing to do with the post, but I heard that cat pictures attract people.

This post is a mirror from my main blog http://www.dynamiclethargyfilms.ca/blog