The Aura Group Blog The Aura Group http://blog.theauragroup.com Tue, 07 February 2012 14:36:00 Tue, 07 February 2012 14:36:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2012/feb/the-aura-group-honored-by-2011-marcom-awards,-receives-gold-award-for-movieconnect/ The Aura Group has been honored as the recipient of a Gold Award winner in the 2011 MarCom Awards.  Presented to The Aura Group president David Bailey, the award recognizes MovieConnect for its excellence in the innovative use of technology based rich media. "We are honored to receive this great recognition for our efforts in the production and use of MovieConnect," said Bailey. "Our team has worked very hard continually refining MovieConnect as the  premier digital advertising movie ticketing service of its kind, and we're thrilled it has been so well received." See list of all 2011 MarCom Award winners: http://www.marcomawards.com/winners.php About MarCom Awards: MarCom Awards is an annual international competition honoring excellence and the creative work of marketing & communication professionals. With about 5,000 entries per year, the MarCom competition attracts winners ranging from individuals to media conglomerates and Fortune 50 companies. About MovieConnect: A technology service of The Aura Group, MovieConnect™ offers enhancement to any online movie banner, rich media ad, or movie Facebook page by locating a consumer's location and displaying the closest theaters and showtimes, as well as options to purchase tickets from any major online ticketing agency, all within the ad unit. Theater locations and showtimes may also be conveniently sent to any mobile device, Twitter or Facebook account. MovieConnect clients include major Hollywood studios, as well as search engine giants Google and Yahoo.   http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2012/feb/the-aura-group-honored-by-2011-marcom-awards,-receives-gold-award-for-movieconnect/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2012/feb/the-aura-group-honored-by-2011-marcom-awards,-receives-gold-award-for-movieconnect/ Tue, 07 February 2012 14:36:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2012/jan/the-aura-group-earns-top-honors-in-visionary-emerging-media-with-2011-summit-international-awards/ The Aura Group has added a nice addition to its trophy shelf in the form of a beautiful crystal globe. Summit International Awards presented the trophy to The Aura Group in recognition of MovieConnect, the company's innovative movie showtimes and ticketing application. "Great concept; enjoyed the fact that each ad/widget was customized to a particular film," said Brent Almond, Summit Emerging Media Award Board of Judges member. "MovieConnect offers superior identification of a need; excellend execution and fullfillment. That is the mark of a Summit Emerging Media Award Visionary winner," said Jocelyn Luciano, Executive Director, Summit International Awards. The Summit Emerging Media Award recognizes pioneers, innovators and visionary companies who demonstrate keen foresight, introduce new methods, direct, and set the pace for emerging media. The prestigious annual competition is judged by a panel of respected industry professionals. "We are truly honored to receive this type of attention for MovieConnect," said Aura Group's David Bailey. "Our team has worked exceptionally hard developing MovieConnect as the premier app and online platform for movie showtimes and ticketing, and we couldn't be more proud of their dedication and tireless efforts." http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2012/jan/the-aura-group-earns-top-honors-in-visionary-emerging-media-with-2011-summit-international-awards/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2012/jan/the-aura-group-earns-top-honors-in-visionary-emerging-media-with-2011-summit-international-awards/ Wed, 18 January 2012 20:25:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/october/a-creative-soul,-the-aura-group’s-cutberto-garcia-gets-excited-about-family,-the-arts,-and-the-great-outdoors/ What is your title at The Aura Group? I think my card says Art Director, but I'm not sure if that's an apt title for what I do as I am involved in things on a more intimate, hands on level with the clients than say just designing as it were. How many years with the company? Wow, I think closing in on 10. Since 2003. What is your primary roll? I handle all project front-end development including assignments for our MovieConnect clients. What did you do prior to joining The Aura Group? I worked in retail for about 8 years. I used to manage a music store called Music Plus. Remember record stores? I've always loved music so I really enjoyed that part of it. I later managed a clothing retailer in Santa Monica called Beyond the Beach. It was at the start of the big surf gear revolution. It was a great gig and the company was hugely successful, but I decided to resign to focus more on what I really wanted to do and how I wanted to spend my future. I realized it wasn't in retail. I wanted to pursue a career in a more creative field and decided to attend FIDM (Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising). The problem was it was over $15,000 a year and I didn't know how I was going to come up with the money. A friend suggested I apply for a scholarship the school was offering. It was a contest to re-design the corporate branding for Rampage clothing company. The winner would receive a $15,000 scholarship. Long story short, I entered the competition and won. A nice boost in confidence, it was at that point I felt I made the right decision in pursuing a career in design. I was just granted an awesome opportunity and I intended to use it to the fullest extent. Two years later I completed their graphic design program. What was your first job after graduating from FIDM? I was hired at Belkin as a designer. It was around when Flash was just ramping up. Funny story. My manager there said that he saw this really cool business marketing card, a little digital card on a square CD-ROM disk. It was the size of a business card, but for your CD-ROM drive. Very cool, and we decided we wanted something similar to use with our marketing. We did some research and contacted an interactive marketing and advertising company in Orange County who were producing them. After meeting with them, my manager asked if I could learn Flash and create our own cards, which we eventually did. Fast forward several years, and I was hired as a Flash developer at The Aura Group. After settling in I ran across all these CD-ROM cards, and realized it was, in fact, the same company who came out to pitch us on using the product. Didn't realize until then. Small world. What do you enjoy most about working in the interactive field? First and foremost, doing something that I love every day. I enjoy the creativity of designing, programming and building applications. Technology changes and evolves all the time, which always keeps things new and interesting. I could never work on an assembly line doing the same thing day in and day out. Just punching the clock. It's refreshing to be in a field where what you do helps impact the way people view things such as a rich media ad that interfaces with the user. I find it amazing how technology breeds technology. Look at the case of the iPhone and iPad. There has been a chain reaction of new media technology as a direct result of these two phenomenal products. They provided a medium of which to build upon and an explosion of new evolving technology has ensued. That's the business of technology. Always something to look forward to. What's not to love about that? If not working in interactive design, what would you be doing? Probably an architect. I love good architecture such as mid-century modern. The simplicity and practicality. I also appreciate the whole innovation of prefab modular home design. What they are doing with these days is pretty cool. How do you spend your time outside of work? Well, just bought a house so spending a lot of time at The Home Depot, but honestly, I try to balance my work with my family time with my wife Ana, and our two boys Jacob and Landon. We try to get out as often as we can. Head to the beach, biking, camping, or visiting with family. Just anything but sitting at home watching TV and playing video games all day. As much as I enjoy doing that myself, got to be outdoors. Favorite artist? Shepard Fairey of Obey. Favorite music? Most anything really. I can listen to The Smiths all day. Same with Sublime. And hip hop, but it has to be good hip hop. Nothing mainstream. Stuff like Sage Francis, Atmosphere, DJ Vadim. Also like electro hip hop like Prefuse 73, and Onra. Anything with good rhythms and break beats. And of course, old school reggae, roots, and Bob Marley. What music platform do you use? I like to search iTunes to discover new stuff, but of course Pandora. Spotify is good too. PC or Mac? Mac. Definitely Mac. Favorite TV show? The Office. Favorite movie? Swingers. Like most of the planet, do you spend a lot of time on social media? Not necessarily. I mean I am with work building Facebook apps for MovieConnect, but really just don't have the time to sit and post things all day. I keep pages with Facebook, twitter, and g+, but again mostly for development. What do you think of the recent changes Facebook has made with its new timeline? It's really cool. I set up my page with my developer access within the first couple days. Pretty cool to have all your content organized and the ability to go back to, say, September and see what you did or posted. Funny thing as a result, people will think twice before posting a status update. Whereas before it was like, yea, so I'm multi-tasking on the pooper, or some other mindless post. Now, people are going back and saying oh man did I really say all this stuff? http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/october/a-creative-soul,-the-aura-group’s-cutberto-garcia-gets-excited-about-family,-the-arts,-and-the-great-outdoors/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/october/a-creative-soul,-the-aura-group’s-cutberto-garcia-gets-excited-about-family,-the-arts,-and-the-great-outdoors/ Thu, 13 October 2011 12:14:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/august/david-bailey,-director-of-business-development-and-co-founder-at-the-aura-group-hones-the-fine-art-of-time-management/ When did you discover technology? My early teens so the early 80s. I remember going to Kmart and playing with the Commodore 64 until I finally got one of my own. I would be there all day. Fond memories on the 64, logging into BBSs back in the day, writing basic scripts and things like that. After a technological hiatus as I trained to be a Police Officer, I jumped back into technology focusing on this new "internet" thingy. I researched Gopher and Telnet and signed up for @Home service. Lost some money on their stock by the way. I always like cutting edge tech, ever evolving and always exciting. I consider myself lucky to now play in the field as my profession. What is your primary roll at the Aura Group, and has it changed much since co-founding the company in 1999? To keep us a few steps ahead of the game. To set the direction, tone, focus, and drive of our company, and in that respect, that's never changed. And there's always securing new business, launching partnerships, and making relationships. That's really what it's all about. You served as a cop for the City of Los Angeles at LAX and also World Port LA. What experiences from that stand out most? There's really so much. Hard to signal out just one. I recall a high speed pursuit involving an ADW suspect, that's assault with a deadly weapon, which ended up taking out several Police units. In all, there were over a dozen units chasing this guy, including a helicopter. Pretty much all available units in pursuit, and he's literally going everywhere. We chased him around Wilmington where he ended up stuck on the railroad tracks after trying to elude us by driving down the tracks. Smart move. Actually, several of our units got hung up as well. It was a mess. Another time that stands out is answering a report of a windsurfer in distress just out of the Angel's gate, which is the passage that leads outside of the Port into open water. There was a huge storm, and this guy was apparently trying to get back in when it really started getting rough. Even for our 35 foot fly-bridge Police boat, which was being tossed like a canoe. We got out near the break wall and spotted the board, but no sign of the rider. Fortunately, he was picked up by another boat before we made it out. He had drifted dangerously close to the break wall and probably would have ended up against it had the other boat not been close by. We radioed in, and started to head back when I look up and see this wall of water, a swell that's bigger than our boat and we start going up sideways and I'm thinking holy crap, we're going in the water. I've never seen the bottom of the ocean from the backside of my windshield until that day. Completely flooded us like a scene straight out of Deadliest Catch. Nearly put out our own distress call, but of course we would have never lived that up. I'll never forget it. Do you miss being a cop? It's a fun and exciting job, it's rewarding, but it's somewhat insulated with a ceiling for money and opportunity, but I loved it, and loved helping people. I miss the camaraderie with everyone in the department. I do miss it. You also served several years on the planning commission for the city of Fullerton, including being its chairman. Now you're on the John Wayne Airport commission appointed by Orange County supervisor Shawn Nelson. What are your duties there? Help oversee all operations in airport area as it relates to improvements, budget and development. A little of everything. John Wayne is a great airport, and we're currently expanding with a whole new terminal complete with a new parking structure. It will still carry the same charm and character of a smaller airport, just able to accommodate many more flights and passengers. It only takes a few days a month out of my schedule, and I'm enjoying the appointment. How did you go from chasing bad guys and keeping the peace to running a succeful interactive advertising agency? Surgery. What would be my last days on the job, I starting to lose the feeling in my leg due to nerve damage in my back. It got to the point where I had to have surgery. Since I was unable to perform on the job, the department asked me to retire. While in rehab, I focused on building Aura and the rest, as they say, is history. Aura has expanded into the entertainment field with the launch of MovieConnect. How has this changed the focus of the business? Aura has always been into exciting markets, and interesting brands and products. We've steered clear of financial type business or things we don't find exciting. Plus, being close to Hollywood, it made sense and a natural fit to get involved with the entertainment industry in some capacity. MovieConnect was born out of working with the studios while working on various forms of creative, and it has grown and evolved as we create. Aura continues to evolve along with it, but we have remained the same company with the same principal plans and ideals. In addition to being married, your increasing daily responsibilities at Aura, your assignment with the Santa Ana Airport, you are also co-founder and partner at Matador Cantina, a popular Mexican restaurant in historic downtown Fullerton. How do you juggle it all? Well fortunately the Aura offices are directly above the restaurant on the second floor of the same building, which makes it convenient to stop in whenever to check on things. I also have a great staff at Aura, who operate very efficiently and independently from a day to day standpoint, whether I'm there or not. Aura is my primary responsibility, of course after my family. The appointment at the airport and Matador come next. Quite honestly, I've learned to prioritize, but it's always a balancing act. What do you enjoy most about Aura? Helping a client conceptualize a need and then delivering on it. That's the real reward. Sitting with the client, and outlining how a product or service will function, using my team's interactive knowledge, our infrastructure and technology resources to deliver a stellar product. What do you do when you are not working? Probably something involving golf. Honestly, I think it's important to have a good work/life balance. When I was younger I just worked. I lived for work and nearly lived at the office working round the clock, and then some. Now I enjoy golf, getting out with friends and family, dining out. Spending time with my wife Adrienne. Going out for a cocktail. Or even just taking a nice long walk with our dog Oscar. What is your favorite music? Anything that reminds me of different time periods of my life. The 80s & 90s. But I like all types of music really. Lately I've been getting into New Orleans jazz. There's a show on HBO called Treme. Been watching the last 2 or 3 seasons and over that time I've come to appreciate all the layers of sounds and all. Great stuff. Favorite TV show? Some of my favorite TV is on Discovery Channel. I can watch how it's made all day long. My favorite shows in all honesty most anything produced by HBO. Their content and production value is very entertaining. I do like Weeds, Curb Your Enthusiasm and Boardwalk. Mac or PC? PC iPhone or Droid? iPhone Those who visit the Aura Group offices know of the vintage Centipede arcade game which staffers enjoy to break up the day. What's your high score and who uses it most? I reached 73,000 and change last week, but I can't beat Doug (laughs), who's top score is 130k. I have been playing a lot lately. Sometimes it's nice to bang on a machine. http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/august/david-bailey,-director-of-business-development-and-co-founder-at-the-aura-group-hones-the-fine-art-of-time-management/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/august/david-bailey,-director-of-business-development-and-co-founder-at-the-aura-group-hones-the-fine-art-of-time-management/ Tue, 16 August 2011 14:35:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/july/harry-potter-finale-breaks-all-time-record-advanced-ticket-sales-and-midnight-opening/ Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, the final film in the successful Warner Bros. boy wizard franchise, conjured up $34 million in advanced tickets, totaling $43.5 million from midnight shows Friday, according to studio estimates. "Part 2" beat the previous midnight record set last summer by "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse," which earned around $30 million for its midnight screenings. It also smashed the midnight opening record for  IMAX theaters,  making $2 million at 274 theaters with IMAX screens. With the addition of 3-D, "Part 2" could end the franchise's spellbinding 10-year story with a total weekend debut approaching $150 million, according to Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. That would surpass the $125 million opening last November of the first "Deathly Hallows" installment. The current debut weekend record is $158 million set by The Dark Knight in 2008. http://www.hollywood.com/boxoffice Read more:  http://www.sacbee.com/2011/07/15/3772641/final-potter-sets-midnight-box.html#ixzz1SDK8kDua http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/july/harry-potter-finale-breaks-all-time-record-advanced-ticket-sales-and-midnight-opening/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/july/harry-potter-finale-breaks-all-time-record-advanced-ticket-sales-and-midnight-opening/ Fri, 15 July 2011 17:11:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/june/movieconnect-ticketing-app-for-warner-bros-new-movie-horrible-bosses-now-live/ It may not be in theaters til' July 8, but you can now purchase tickets for Warner Bros new comedy "Horrible Bosses" with our MovieConnect Facebook ticketing app. The all-star cast includes Colin Farrell, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, Jason Bateman, Jamie Foxx, Donald Sutherland, Julie Bowen, Jason Sudeikis, and Charlie Day. Visit the movie's official Facebook  fan page  and click ticketing for theater locations, showtimes, and ticketing. Also, create an event and "share" with friends! http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/june/movieconnect-ticketing-app-for-warner-bros-new-movie-horrible-bosses-now-live/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/june/movieconnect-ticketing-app-for-warner-bros-new-movie-horrible-bosses-now-live/ Tue, 28 June 2011 17:06:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/june/douglas-shaw,-chief-technical-officer-and-co-founder-at-the-aura-group-shares-his-passion-for-computers,-sci-fi,-and-electronica/ What is your primary role as Aura's Chief Technical Officer? I still wear a lot of hats. I oversee all project development from architectural conception to product delivery, as well as any project maintenance. I also maintain all networks and operational systems for our clients. Keeps me busy, and why I still work 10-15 hour days, but it's all good. When did you first discover technology? That's easy. The day my dad brought home the first IBM computer in 1981. It was this big surprise. It took forever to do anything, but it was magical at the time. I figured out how to use it. And I've been on them ever since. My dad was a television engineer so I was always interested in electronics. I was the geeky nerd in high school, yeah that was me, the computer aid. I got into programming in high school. We had a little mini network we called the Corvus, which was basically a large hard drive. It was like 40 megabytes. Whew-hoo. And it was huge in comparison to anything today. We had a bunch of computers wired up to it so you were sharing data. Pretty cool for the time, but it would go down every 6 weeks or so, and there was this book that was about two inches thick that I had to type in because they had no way of reloading the software or maybe my teacher just wanted to give me something to do. I would have to reprogram the whole thing from scratch every time. That was such a pain in the butt. You studied television production in college, and was even accepted to Art Center in Pasadena, but your passion for computers and technology won out. Yeah, I took television production thinking that's what I wanted to do. From live production to editing. I also took classes in 3D animation, which was pretty new at the time. Got pretty proficient at it and ended up teaching 3D animation, tech and network support. My plan was to further my education in television production, but couldn't afford the tuition at Art Center so I just stuck with computers. Do you think you made the right decision? No question, especially knowing some of my friends who got into the field, and are still struggling. This is something I really enjoy, and I couldn't really imagine doing anything else. What was your first IT gig? I worked for a small computer company with only a few people. We did computer/software sales and support that focused on the computer aided design (CAD) industry. AutoCAD from Autodesk was the main piece of software that was sold and I supported. But over time Autodesk pushed into other markets like 3D animation. I learned software 3D Studio, and that's when things changed for me, and my focus on computers. I worked on so many different types of hardware and software over the years it just became natural to not only support, but offer training as well. For a short time I worked for Warner Bros in their facilities management division that maintained all electronics and other related maintenance associated with the studios, but soon after started with a company called Odetics Broadcast, which produced tape robotics systems for the television industry. They produced an electronic system which physically grabbed a tape from a library and inserted it into a deck. They had won many industry awards for their innovation and their robots were the industry standard for television automation. It all worked on a DOS platform and I was hired to help with conversion to the Windows platform. As it turned out I not only helped with the conversion, but ended up setting up systems for television stations and studio clients around the world. I did more traveling during that time period than I have my entire life. How did you come to co-found The Aura Group? I was a freelance developer at the time, and I was meeting with a client at a local cigar bar. Dave Bailey was there and overheard our conversation. We talked afterward and formed The Aura Group a short time later. That was in late 1998. Primitive times in the interactive world. What was the company's initial focus? Aside from websites, we were doing shape CD roms, taking content off CD roms and putting it online. One thing led to another and we grew along with the industry, taking on more complex development, and spearheading all sorts of new multimedia technologies. Very exciting times and in many cases, it continues to be so today. That's the beauty of technology. Always something new. Speaking of multimedia technologies, in the late 90s you were on an alpha and beta-team to help develop a flash communications server product for Macromedia to deliver video online. How did this come about? At the time no one put much thought into a Flash video platform and its relation to the online community. At the time, RealPlayer was the predominant player in the space, but the quality just wasn't there yet, and there was no customization. Our initial tests came from a shape CD rom. We put together a presentation for the Marriott Corporation in 1999 who wanted a presentation piece to hand out to clients. That's around when we heard Macromedia was developing a Flash based video delivery system, and we ended up on the beta-test team to help refine and develop the product. Now of course everything is about video. The MovieConnect ticketing platform has become a major focus for the company. Where is it heading? It's already come a long way starting from a basic banner unit. MovieConnect as a platform is ultimately about delivering data to a customer via an advertising medium. That means there's always going to be new ways to deliver that data, especially if the data continually changes and evolves. And its accessible everywhere from rich media online ads, text message, twitter, you name it. And now with our new Facebook app, users can obtain showtime info and purchase tickets, along with the whole social media element. There's also the possibility of incorporating movie trailers, and other related studio content, including coupons, and who knows what else, so sky's the limit. What part of the job do you enjoy most? Problem solving. That's what I'm good at. Give me a problem, and I'll find a solution. Also helping to create ground breaking products and services for our clients. That's always something we've strived for from the beginning. What do you do on your free time? I read quite a bit, but at the moment I'm learning Russian, which takes up most of my available time. As far as hobbies, I have a wood working shop, and currently rebuilding my kitchen. And of course, I'm into computers so I game every now and then with friends. What's your favorite game? Team Fortress II. Favorite movie? You'll probably laugh, but Dune. Something a little interesting, the theater where I first saw the movie was beta testing subliminals, probably for the studio, so when a certain scene came up, you would smell a scent of whatever what was in that particular scene. Then it would disappear. Obviously nothing ever came of that, but a great movie. Favorite TV show? I'm a sci-fi guy. So anything sci-fi I pretty much like. Unfortunately they just canceled one of my favorites, Stargate Universe. Yea, I mean, I like Star Trek, and some of the new series like Eureka. That's a pretty cool show. What are you listening to? My music tastes are all over the place from hip hop to trance, even a little classical, but I probably listen to electronic most. I've always enjoyed music. When I was 17, I was a mobile DJ. DJ'd clubs, parties, you name it. Mac or PC? PC all the way. We have a couple Macs in the office for testing, but I've always preferred PCs. IPhone or Droid? I've not played with the Droid much. I was on a Windows mobile for a long time, but switched to an iPhone so I suppose iPhone, of course, it has to be jail-broken. I need more functionality, you know? I hear now Apple actually offers units that come jail-broken. They should all be that way. For me, it all comes down to personal customization. As far as tablets, I have tested the Droid 2.2 unit. I like it, but it's just not there yet. I mean it's okay. Little sluggish, and the rom is not upgradable, which doesn't make sense. Of course, I've played with the iPad as well a bit, but not really a big fan of either. Give me something I can configure and upgrade the software, and I'm happy. To help take the edge off a busy day, the Aura Group has Centipede, the classic arcade video game in its offices. Who uses it most, and what's your top score? It's equally used among the staff, but come on, who do you think has the top score? 129,980. Top that… http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/june/douglas-shaw,-chief-technical-officer-and-co-founder-at-the-aura-group-shares-his-passion-for-computers,-sci-fi,-and-electronica/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/june/douglas-shaw,-chief-technical-officer-and-co-founder-at-the-aura-group-shares-his-passion-for-computers,-sci-fi,-and-electronica/ Wed, 15 June 2011 12:38:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/may/last-day-to-make-your-vote-count!/ The Aura Group has been nominated for ThinkLA's Interactive Awards!  The Aura Group is running for Media Partner of the Year with their MovieConnect technology.  40% of the judging is based off popular vote, so please register to vote Aura Group as Media Partner of the Year. You can vote here: http://thinklaoes.adbeast.com/vote/register/ Hurry!  Voting closes at 11:59 tonight!   Thank you for supporting the Aura Group! http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/may/last-day-to-make-your-vote-count!/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/may/last-day-to-make-your-vote-count!/ Tue, 17 May 2011 12:19:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/april/just-to-clear-the-air,-as-interesting-as-it-may-sound,-rumors-of-madonna-buying-the-aura-group-are-completely-untrue/ "Madonna To Own Club," reads the headline of a piece on Perez Hilton. After noting that Madonna opened a Hard Candy Fitness center in Mexico City, the bad blogger writes, "Now the pop singer wants to buy [a] stake in  The Aura Group , which owns several nightclubs such as Aura Mayfair - the London hotspot she was recently spotted partying at." Perez adds that Madonna "plans to put her own spin on the venue," and even quotes a so-called "source" as saying, "Madonna sees it as a natural move. She has ambitious plans." He then notes, "She'll be rivals with her ex-husband Guy Ritchie, who owns The Punchbowl pub in the same city." Really? No. A rep for Madonna tells Gossip Cop that stories about the singer buying into the club business are "totally untrue." See full article  here . http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/april/just-to-clear-the-air,-as-interesting-as-it-may-sound,-rumors-of-madonna-buying-the-aura-group-are-completely-untrue/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/april/just-to-clear-the-air,-as-interesting-as-it-may-sound,-rumors-of-madonna-buying-the-aura-group-are-completely-untrue/ Fri, 08 April 2011 20:20:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/march/google-ties-up-geolocation-tech-deal/ Google has signed a new deal to license technology which will help to localise its banner advertisements. The search engine signed a deal with MovieConnect, which specialises in interactive advertising, to use their technology which allows the identification of the location of a Web surfer, and incorporates local cinema listings into banner advertisements for movies. Google's media advertising wing, DoubleClick, will in turn license the tech and off it to its clients as an advertising feature. The move further cements the concept of locality as integral to search engine optimisation. Although lots of businesses will offer their services worldwide, some with physical presences such as a shop will want to use their local area as a focus for their SEO. For example, Merseyside could include the Wirral and Ellesmere Port in addition to Liverpool as part of their web optimisation. CEO of The Aura Group, which owns MovieConnect, David Bailey, said: "Google DoubleClick serves billions of online ads for the film industry. A partnership between MovieConnect and Google DoubleClick just makes sense; they serve a significant amount of film studio's online media." MovieConnect is able to customise banner advertisements for movies, including those on mobile smartphone applications, online widgets and Facebook applications by automatically recognising the user's location, and using this to tell them of their nearest cinema showing the movie, and what times it is being screened. The user can then then elect to have these details sent to their mobile device. It can even tweet screening times and post details to a Facebook user feed. The licencing of the technology by Google will give those in SEO careers a hint just how important localisation will be to web sites in the near future. Originally published on stuckon.co.uk by Cheryl Matthews. http://www.stuckon.co.uk/google-ties-up-geolocation-tech-deal-3923.html http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/march/google-ties-up-geolocation-tech-deal/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/march/google-ties-up-geolocation-tech-deal/ Thu, 10 March 2011 13:43:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/march/the-aura-group-licenses-new-movie-showtime-and-ticketing-technology-to-google/ Los Angeles, CA. (March 2, 2011) - The Aura Group, a new media advertising and consulting agency, has partnered with Google's rich media advertising division DoubleClick, to use Aura's proprietary movie ticketing and showtime advertising technology; MovieConnect. DoubleClick is an online ad management and serving technology that allows advertisers and third party developers to plan, buy and manage campaign activities. DoubleClick users can promote their technology and advertisements to buyers around the world through DoubleClick Ad Exchange, which connects advertisers, developers and agencies. MovieConnect displays movie times and theater locations into any online advertisement, and will send information back to the user in real time via the advertisement, Twitter, or Facebook.  Through the partnership, the Aura Group will license MovieConnect technology to Google, which will be used as an advertising feature for DoubleClick subscribers.     "Google DoubleClick serves billions of online ads for the film industry.  A partnership between MovieConnect and Google DoubleClick just makes sense; they serve a significant amount of film studio's online media," said David Bailey, CEO of the Aura Group. MovieConnect enhances online movie banner advertisements, mobile applications, Facebook apps and online widgets by automatically identifying the consumer's location and displaying the closest theaters and showtimes in-line with immediate ticketing options and social elements. Consumers can elect to have theater and showtime information sent to their mobile devices to take on the go, creating highly personalized and localized advertising content. The Aura Group's service also takes advantage of popular social media platforms and offers the ability to both tweet showtime info and/or post it to your Facebook wall. "You can click through to buy tickets immediately," said Bailey.  "We have seen an over 300% interaction rate for MovieConnect. Moviegoers love seeing local theaters in their ads." The Aura Group, a wholly owned subsidiary of Aura Interactive, Inc., specializes in online advertising creative and technology in addition to interactive media development. Aura's commitment to develop new technologies, coupled with stunning creative abilities and expert Flash video knowledge, has positioned itself, and its clients, on the cutting edge of online advertising. For more information, call 714.441.2098 or visit www.theauragroup.com.  For more information on MovieConnect, visit www.movieconnect.net.   Media Inquiries: Rob Hallstrom PR@theauragroup.com http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/march/the-aura-group-licenses-new-movie-showtime-and-ticketing-technology-to-google/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/march/the-aura-group-licenses-new-movie-showtime-and-ticketing-technology-to-google/ Wed, 02 March 2011 18:52:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/storage-cloud-reduces-costs-for-advertising-firm's-content-delivery/ The Aura Group online advertising firm ditched its on-premise storage in favor of a storage cloud to keep high-capacity media files available for its customers to access. Douglas Shaw, chief technology officer (CTO) at Aura Group, said he cut his storage costs in half by moving to the Zetta Storage Service cloud and said its backup capabilities give him more "peace of mind" than relying on tape. The Aura Group puts out electronic press kits for movie studios containing clips and other information about the movies in multiple formats. Instead of sending the kits to outlets that might run clips, it streams the video clips through content delivery networks (CDNs). While that's cheaper than sending out kits with video, it requires a great deal of storage - from 500 GB to 1 TB per movie. Shaw said his Fullerton, Calif.-based company was running out of storage on its internal SAN, so it turned first to hosted storage from Rackspace and then replaced that with the Zetta Storage Service cloud approximately a year ago. He said cost was a big reason for the switch, although performance and flexibility also figured into the decision. "It didn't make cost-effective sense to expand our SAN in comparison to moving to the cloud where you only pay for the storage that you use," he said. "Zetta is acting as cold storage. Based on requests from the customer, we can set them up through different content delivery networks to deliver files to thousands of people and reduce costs. We marry different technologies to get the results we want." Zetta charges $921.60 per month per volume for the first 2 TB of storage, and 45 cents per month for each additional GB. It doesn't charge extra for bandwidth. Shaw said he currently has about 1.5 TB on the Zetta cloud, but has had as much as 2.5 TB online. The amount varies from project to project. The Aura Group uses ZettaMirror to back up its business files, reducing its dependency on tape. "The amount of money I was paying on my dedicated storage was exponentially growing," Shaw said. "With dedicated storage you always try to plan for 'Hey I'm going to use 30 TB potentially, I may only use 10 TB right now but I want room for growth,' but [then] you have space you're paying for but not utilizing. With the cloud, I pay only for the storage I'm using and basically the storage is unlimited, I can expand it any time. With dedicated storage, I have to plan ahead and make sure I have overhead available to me to make sure I don't run out of storage. Shaw said he looked at other storage cloud alternatives, including Rackspace's Cloud Files, before settling on Zetta. He said Zetta's performance during testing was one reason for the switch - Aura Group could upload data at 40 Mbps over a 100 Mbps Fiber connection with Zetta while other alternatives maxxed out at 15 Mbps. He also liked Zetta's support and said it makes it easy to update and purge files stored on its cloud. That comes in handy when dealing with another Aura Group product - banner ads that run on websites such as Yahoo and Facebook. ZettaMirror installs an agent on any server to be backed up. Customers configure the backups through the Zetta website, setting up the directories they want backed up and when they want to synchronize data from the servers to the online storage. Shaw said Aura Group sets its backups to start at night after everybody leaves the office. "Traditionally we've always used tape backup, yet juggling tapes and all that is always a pain in the butt," he said. "It's a necessary evil, but it's a pain in the butt. Zetta's mirror service lets us synchronize our local storage up to cloud storage, basically doing nightly backups. I'm still using tape, but this gives us peace of mind as well as access to data from anywhere in the world. It's not just limited to my internal network." Shaw said he did a great deal of testing before he committed his data to the storage cloud, though. "I was really nervous about releasing control of my data," he said. "I always want control over everything. We did a lot of tests to make sure our data would be secure and we wouldn't be losing data. That was always in the back of my mind when we were first looking at it. Where's that comfort factor with the company I was dealing with?" He said he his files that go to the cloud are encrypted and require a key to access. "We put our business data up there on separate volumes," he said. "That gives me peace of mind. Our building is an old hayloft, and sometimes power isn't stable."   Read full article by Dave Raffo, Senior News Director, SearchStorage.com  here http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/storage-cloud-reduces-costs-for-advertising-firm's-content-delivery/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/storage-cloud-reduces-costs-for-advertising-firm's-content-delivery/ Fri, 18 February 2011 16:52:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/warner-bros-unknown-movie-banner-with-aura-group's-movieconnect-technology/ Check out this movie campaign in the Huff Post for Warner Bros. Entertainment release of "Unknown," created with Google DoubleClick using our MovieConnect ticketing panel technology. Page down to the third Unknown movie banner, click to expand, then click on menu to view. Cool stuff! See movie campaign here http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/warner-bros-unknown-movie-banner-with-aura-group's-movieconnect-technology/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/warner-bros-unknown-movie-banner-with-aura-group's-movieconnect-technology/ Wed, 16 February 2011 18:07:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/movieconnect-launches-new-campaign-with-unknown/ Warner Bros. reached out to the Aura Group to give life to the new movie, "Unknown."  The film, in theaters Feb. 18, uses online MovieConnect advertisements that provide in-banner showtime and theater locations.  Check out the film here: http://unknownmovie.warnerbros.com/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/movieconnect-launches-new-campaign-with-unknown/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2011/february/movieconnect-launches-new-campaign-with-unknown/ Wed, 16 February 2011 12:00:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/june/dynamic-online-media-pays-off/ Since our launch of MovieConnect, which provides movie studios with personalized theater and showtime information in their online media, we have seen firsthand how the inclusion of dynamic, personalized content increases user interaction. We have seen interaction rates with MovieConnect panels over 300% and whole media placements generating higher than expected time on brand. If you're looking for ways to increase your relevance and increase your exposure, dynamic content is the way to go. http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/june/dynamic-online-media-pays-off/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/june/dynamic-online-media-pays-off/ Fri, 04 June 2010 16:15:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/may/kiacom-website-wins-award-for-rich-content/ The most useful automobile manufacturer Web sites for new vehicle buyers offer not only rich content but also strong execution of that content, according to the J.D. Power and Associates 2010 Manufacturer Website Evaluation Study. Kia.com was selected as the most succesful website in this category according to this recent study. This is a new study that was released from the  J.D. Power and Associates Reports . Measuring rich media execution is pivotal in doing website research because it shows where the consumer found interest in the site and where the site may have lost their interest. The  Kia.com  website executes rich media really well throughout the site including videos and many moving parts. We are thrilled to announce that we work with Animated Designs and currently work on all the video encoding for the Kia.com website. According to the report, Kia.com rates highest among usefulness in new-vehicle shopping with an index score of 880 on a 1,000 point scale and performs well in all four factors. Kia continues to improve its site and their online presence keeps getting better! Kia seems to really focus on drawing consumers in through rich-media and understand how to use rich-media online. Congrats to Kia.com! Read the full press release regarding this award  here .   http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/may/kiacom-website-wins-award-for-rich-content/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/may/kiacom-website-wins-award-for-rich-content/ Mon, 03 May 2010 19:08:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/may/welcome-to-our-new-site!/ With 2010 upon us, we are pleased to reveal our new website as well. With a new creative design, some new partners and different projects to highlight we thought it was time to update our web presence as well. We worked to make it as user friendly as possible and also kept it simple, because we believe our work speaks for itself. We have different sections that highlight our work and in today's technologically advanced we also included The Aura Group's social media platforms that we currently engage in, including facebook, twitter and our own blog where we hope to discuss current trends in advertising, projects we are working on, and any news that is relative to The Aura Group. To see our work, just click on the big Work button on the right side. Learning about what we do here at The Aura Group is also easy and can be done by clicking on Services. Contacting The Aura Group is easy, just use the contact form on the Contact page. Some things we've updated since our last website, besides the addition of the blog, is the careers page. Check out job postings there and see if you would be a good fit for The Aura Group. We hope you enjoy our new site, and be sure to check out our  twitter  and  facebook page! May you have a happy and creative 2010!     http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/may/welcome-to-our-new-site!/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/may/welcome-to-our-new-site!/ Mon, 03 May 2010 18:45:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/social-media-plus-the-aura-group/ Are you tweeting? Well if you're not up to speed with Twitter, you're not one of the 23 million people who do it, including The Aura Group. Since February of 2009, Twitter has increasingly grown from 7 million users to where it currently stands at about 23 million users. The Aura Group can be found on twitter at  www.twitter.com/auragroup . Most of The Aura Group's tweets will be technology related articles that we have found interesting from numerous different websites and also will highlight some of the projects we are working on. Along with Twitter, The Aura Group also had made a Fan Page on the social media platform, Facebook. Fan Pages are usually implemented to raise awareness to a brand or company and can be a way to network and connect with different people. With 250 million people on Facebook and the website constantly evolving, it's a great network to understand and also be a part of. You can find our fan page on facebook at  this location . Social media is an up and coming way to advertise and really spread the word about whatever work your company is doing. By being involved in social media it gives The Aura Group an new understanding of how it works and how we can use it for our clients as well. http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/social-media-plus-the-aura-group/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/social-media-plus-the-aura-group/ Sat, 03 April 2010 19:42:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/implementing-movieconnect-in-the-twitter-platform/ With the product MovieConnect, The Aura Group has decided to take creativity, social media and presenting consumers with movie show times to the next level by implementing Twitter functionality on the banner campaigns that have the MovieConnect feature in them. With this functionality in place, once the banner ad is open to the show time section, users can have the @movieconnect twitter account tweet their personal twitter account with the times that the movie will be playing at the movie theater of their choice. Once the user has the movie times on their personal account "@'ed" to them, they can take those times with them on their mobile device. The user can chose to re-tweet the times to their friends and it gives them options of when the movie is playing. It's a simple way to brand the movie and it's showtimes even more than just having it in the banner advertisement. Social Media has become an important part of consumer's daily lives and by having this feature in the banner campaigns, along with the option to text yourself show times, it makes the movie and overall branding mobile as it begins to travel with the consumer. Having the show times at the tip of your fingers allows the consumer to reference them on their own time, possibly later when they are not in front of a computer or the advertisement and then make decisions on when they will see the movie. With the Twitter feature implemented in the banner, it's just one more way that The Aura Group is making it easier to brand a movie. It makes the consumer more connected to the advertisement and the movie as they can take the information with them effortlessly. Giving them the option to tweet and also text allows them to also forward the information to others, making the ad travel virally without any extra work. http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/implementing-movieconnect-in-the-twitter-platform/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/implementing-movieconnect-in-the-twitter-platform/ Sat, 03 April 2010 19:36:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/toshiba-and-the-aura-group-team-up/ Toshiba, while working with advertising agency Young and Rubicam, tapped The Aura Group for their recent campaigns that involved their laptops. These banner ads were all rich-media based and were heavily based off of user interaction. The Aura Group developed the ads that highlighted many different aspects of the laptops that included the sleep and charge feature. This feature was highlighted in a video inside the advertisement. The rich-media banner expanded to showcase six different videos explaining the many different features of the laptops. Having this many videos in a banner advertisement is tricky and also load intensive, so The Aura Group worked especially hard to make sure the videos flowed effortlessly when opened in the expandable banner and also consciously kept the file size down to make sure that many different users could experience the banners within the ads. With the six different videos included in the advertisement it allowed users to learn a lot about the laptops all in one place, before having to click over to the actual Toshiba website. This allowed for tracking of user click-thru stats and also really kept the user active within the banner for a solid period of time. http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/toshiba-and-the-aura-group-team-up/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/toshiba-and-the-aura-group-team-up/ Sat, 03 April 2010 19:30:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/the-matador-cantina-tapped-the-aura-group-to-create-new-web-presence/ The Matador Cantina, a newly remolded Mexican inspired restaurant in downtown Fullerton, wanted their website to reflect the festive Mexican feel they have featured throughout the restaurant. With The Aura Group designing the entire look and feel of the site, The Matador Cantina was not disappointed in the overall outcome of the site. With The Aura Group at the helm of the design, the focus of the site was mainly the ambiance that is found throughout the restaurant. Consistently throughout the site, the design portrays the weathered hard wood floors, dark wood finishes and character to allow visitors to get the true feel of the restaurant without ever even stepping foot into the establishment. Another aspect that really adds to the website is the integration of social media throughout the site. Social media is becoming an important way to interact with consumers and The Matador Cantina branded itself successfully throughout different social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. With this integration on all pages of the website, visitors can easily access the social media outlets that The Matador Cantina currently uses. Also, the Gallery and Events pages are easily updated by the admin of The Matador Cantina to keep the website fresh and current and let patrons know what is going on at The Matador Cantina. The ability to populate and inform visitors of specials and events that are constantly changing is a great way to entice people into the restaurant. By having a user-friendly backend built by The Aura Group, The Matador Cantina has no problem keeping these things current. http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/the-matador-cantina-tapped-the-aura-group-to-create-new-web-presence/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/the-matador-cantina-tapped-the-aura-group-to-create-new-web-presence/ Sat, 03 April 2010 19:21:00 http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/welcome-to-the-the-aura-group-website-30/ The Aura Group has created a new web presence to highlight many new projects that they have completed since the last website release in last 2005. Working on new projects has allowed The Aura Group's repertoire to grow and has allowed them to implement many new functionalities and features in websites. The Aura Group's new website streamlines the overall functionality and makes it much more user friendly as well. With the creative yet informative side of The Aura Group's creative team shinning through on many aspects of the site, the simplicity of the site is refreshing. The non-cluttered aspect of the site allows users to find information about what The Aura Group does and what they can offer to clients as well. With the new sites release, The Aura Group really feels that the new era of business is upon us as well. With social networking being implemented throughout the world on many different levels and aspects, we also opted to add it in our business plan. We hope you enjoy looking around our new site and please feel free to drop us a line with any comments or questions! http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/welcome-to-the-the-aura-group-website-30/ http://blog.theauragroup.com/blog/2010/april/welcome-to-the-the-aura-group-website-30/ Sat, 03 April 2010 15:24:00