by The Editors on April 1, 2009
As baffled as we are by the timing of this announcement (no, it’s not an April Fools joke), it would appear from a story posted on the Transworld Business website that Transworld Media reduced its staff today by eight people.
Here’s what Transworld Business Publisher Rob Campbell said:
We’ve had to report on a lot of layoffs over the past six months. Unfortunately, those stories usually involved friends and great people we’ve had close working relationships with for years. Today, the news hits especially close to home. . . TransWorld has eliminated eight positions within the company. Departments affected are TransWorld Business, Transworld Surf, TransWorld Skateboarding sales, marketing, and finance. More specifically, TransWorld Business lost two editors.
These “eight positions eliminated” do not appear to include a change made yesterday in the sales group at TransWorld’s Tustin office.
[Link: TransWorld Business]
by The Editors on April 1, 2009
On March 19, 2009 when Sportnet and GrindTV announced that they were joining forces to create a super online sports company backed by Softbank Capital many wondered how long it would take the new company to realize efficiencies in the work force. The answer: about 10 days.
According to sources familiar with the situation more than 30 people were relieved of their duties at Sportnet yesterday, leaving the group with approximately 12 employees. Apparently, GrindTV co-founders Erik Hawkins and Greg Morrow are holding on to the individual site editors (which is good) and their own employees, as GrindTV staff reportedly did not experienced any cuts yesterday.
by The Editors on March 30, 2009
Australian surf writers Tim Baker, Nick Carroll, and Sean Doherty will be speaking on a panel at the Sydney Writer’s Festival being held May 18-24, 2009. The event titled High Surf takes place May 23, 2009. Here’s what their website says about the discussion:
From Puberty Blues to Tim Winton’s Breath, surfing and surf culture continues to hold a valuable place in the Australian cultural landscape. Indeed, as the surfing community has become a broad church, surfing seems to have become the image, metaphor and recreational choice for our times. Surfing writers Tim Baker, Nick Carroll and Sean Doherty paddle you deep into the turbulent waters of the world of surfing and surf writing, with John Meredith.
We’re kind of bummed we’re not going to be there.
[Link: Sydney Writers Festival via Surfline]
by The Editors on March 30, 2009
Although we enjoy the creative output from the group of surfing brothers known simply as “The Malloys” we still can’t help but write silly captions in our heads whenever we see posed, wistful group photos like this one on the Nixon site promoting their work in a new documentary film on surfing in Ireland titled Waveriders. But we don’t want to play this game alone.
We’ll kick it off with ours:
Three tools escape from their shed.
Post your captions in the comments and the person with the best caption will win something.
by The Editors on March 28, 2009
by The Editors on March 26, 2009
Stephen Teran is a 6’5″ shoe salesman from Tucson, Arizona who happens to have Volcom as his Twitter username. He has 60 followers and likes to update with comments like “Taking the trash out. I want to go home already. Supposed to leave 2 hrs ago,” and “buying some sonoran hot dogs.”
Tonight Mr. Teran got the following tweet from the Volcom marketing division’s Willie Marshall: “@volcom yo hit me up, I got a proposition for you.”
We’re guessing that Willie is hoping to obtain Mr. Teran’s username. It will be interesting to see how this little proposition turns out because there are a couple more Twitter brand squatters out there who may be waiting in line for some propositions of their own: Burton, Billabong, Quiksilver, Electric, Roxy, Nixon, Dakine, Hurley, Adio, Rip Curl, Independent, Vans, O’Neill, Etnies, emerica, Gravis, K2 and more.
Looks like Twitter caught the action sports industry by surprise. Why does that not surprise us?
by The Editors on March 25, 2009
Filmmaker Jared Eberhardt once told us that there are guys of a certain age in this industry who, no matter how hard they try, always end up wearing Vans shoes. They show up at weddings, funerals, and baptisms in suits. . . but on their feet it’s Vans.
Many have had access to ass-loads of free shoes over the years but they always end up throwing on a pair of Vans on their way out of the house. The Vans Off The Wall book seems built especially for them, errr, or us.
Vans Off The Wall tells the multi-generational story of the community that encompasses boards, bikes, art, music, and street culture, as well as the iconic shoes keeping it all together. With oral histories from Tony Alva, Joel Tudor, Steve Caballero, John Cardiel, Geoff Rowley, and others Vans: Off The Wall provides an intimate visually stunning account of how the company had changed the face of pop culture since its founding in 1966.
Self-promotional? Yes. Written by Vans Marketing VP Doug Palladini? Yep, but we’re not going to let either of those things quell our enthusiasm. That’s how much we’re looking forward to it. Vans says the book drops on June 1, 2009 but Amazon says they’re shipping May 1.
[Link: The Vans Book via Boardsports Source]
by The Editors on March 25, 2009
by The Editors on March 24, 2009
If there has been one thing Vice Magazine has always been good at (aside from Dos and Don’ts), it’s been making money. So it’s really no surprise that their advertising arm (Virtue) is also doing well.
Creativity Online profiles the company and gets the background on all the marketing they’ve been doing in the action sports space (Red Bull’s School of Surf, Alliance of Action Sports).
“We’ve been marketed to our whole lives, making our bullshit detectors very sophisticated,” says Vice co-founder Smith. “So our whole modus operandi was not to bullshit. We decided to set up this separate wing that could leverage our talent but also be a separate company to help brands reach this demographic.”
When you’re just in it for the money then it all kind of makes sense. No reason not to help Pepsi push sugar water to the kids if it means more money for drugs, women, and in-depth photo essays on Detroit’s flailing public school system.
[Link: Creativity-Online]
by The Editors on March 24, 2009
Though the cover doesn’t look much different than any other surf book, Surfer Boys is not about life on the ASP Dream Tour. It’s a collection of short, gay, surf erotica stories that’s coming out May 1, 2009 from Cleis Press.
“Hang ten!” takes on new meaning in this collection of erotic stories that follows the sexual escapades of those fabulous beach boys. Their taut, tanned bodies glistening with water and their hair damp from a dip in the ocean, these dudes are like sex on surfboards — fast, sleek, and oh so hot!
Ah, we’re guessing not many of these books will be showing up on reception room coffee tables at our favorite surf fashion companies because that would be so gay.
[Link: Cleispress]
As baffled as we are by the timing of this announcement (no, it’s not an April Fools joke), it would appear from a story posted on the Transworld Business website that Transworld Media reduced its staff today by eight people.
