Tag: Interviews

Today I’m interviewing Jeff Civillico. Although Jeff is now technically a Las Vegas headliner with the show “Amazed,” you won’t recognize him as he is yet to become famous or even moderately well-known. You have not seen him on The Tonight Show or Comedy Central, but you may have seen him at the post office or Target.  He is currently holder of the least-used Georgetown degree in school history.  For more info on Jeff and his corporate and college shows, please visit his site.

1. How are you using the internet / social media to promote your career?

Well, I have JeffCivillico.com as a splash page that links to my 2 separate sites – one for corporates and one for colleges. I created targeted promo for the two different markets I mainly work.

Also, I’m very active on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace, etc.  I’m always sending out where I’ll be performing and keeping in touch with fans from past shows. I have 15,000+ Twitter followers and I’m maxed out on my Facebook page. A couple years ago, fans from past shows would correspond with me via email. Now, it’s almost all done exclusively through sites like Facebook and Twitter.  It’s a different way of interacting.  I get a ton of wall posts and direct messages.

2. Have you noticed the payoff yet?

Yes, I am seeing a big increase in my bookings from separating my two sites. Corporate event planners and producers want to see someone who’s clean cut, wears a shirt and tie, and speaks intelligently and articulately. College kids want to see someone in jeans and t-shirt that looks like them. Same material pretty much, but a different style.  It makes sense when you think about it – people want to connect with the person they see on stage.

Neither my college site or corporate site link to the other.  That way when my manager is pitching me for a corporate show, he sends them to JeffOnStage.  If he were submitting me for a college showcase, he would send them to the college site.  Of course if they Google me they’ll find both sites, but doing this at least allows for some separation.

3. You’ve published articles in differently themed magazines (online and print) that focus on parenting, business and technology. Have you noticed a response from that?

I really don’t believe in “one for one” thinking. I think too many entertainers are looking for payoffs from specific actions like doing one showcase, going to one conference, reading one book, etc.  That’s not how it works.  I’m a big fan of the Johnny Carson philosophy.  When people asked him how he became so successful, he said “My success just evolved from working hard at the business at hand each day.”

Back to the articles…so yea, I’ve never had someone call me up and say, “Hey I just read your article on planning a memorable event—I’d like to pay you 5k to perform for our company!” That’s not what I’m attempting to achieve by writing articles.  It’s about positioning yourself as an authority. And I believe being published helps establish that presence in the market.  It all contributes to who you are, your brand, your development as a performer and a business person. It’s consistent work over time.

4. What do you think about posting videos of your show online?

I understand why some entertainers don’t put any of their work online, but that’s just not my philosophy.  I’m an open guy.  Sure you’re gonna get burned sometimes when somebody swipes some material, but I feel if you’re always charging forward creating new content, people will always be playing catchup.  That being said, I wouldn’t post my entire show online… I don’t really see the point in that.  I post teasers just to get bookers to bite and then I send them more info directly.

There’s also the idea that if you’re creating your content, it’s naturally going to be done with your style, energy, and voice. That can’t be duplicated.

5. How do you think digital tools will change comedy?

It’ll change comedy just like it’s changing all of entertainment, and many other industries as well. The gatekeepers are pretty much gone now. You can do it yourself, and people now expect you to do it yourself.  You don’t need a film or production company to buy into who you are and give you the tools to make videos.  Video editing is user-friendly now.  So is web design.  Social media is free.  Blogging is free.  It’s cheesy to say, but you honestly can let the world know who you are pretty easily now.

It takes time and energy of course, so the lazy guys aren’t gonna do very well as the mediums continue to grow and change. You gotta keep up or you’re going to become irrelevant.  Every so often I hear guys saying, “I’m not really into the internet thing… I don’t do computers… I’m not a tech guy.” That means you’re gonna be a not working guy! You don’t have to be a tech guru (I’m certainly not)… but you need to recognize the importance of it in growing your performing business.  If internet marketing is not your thing, outsource it.

6. How much information do you tend to share on the social networks?

I always post my performances, where I’ll be, new stuff I’m doing, newsletters and announcements. I try to keep really personal stuff off there.  I like to maintain a level of privacy with my inner circle of close friends and fam.

I think you have to be careful. A lot of performers don’t realize when they post online, they are posting it to the world. I know guys who have lost gigs on cruise line or for companies with family reputations because of cursing and pictures on their profiles.  As everybody knows, gossip spreads like wildfire online.

7. What’s your weirdest online experience involving your comedy career?

I’ve had weirdos and creepers who write some pretty inappropriate or just bizarre comments on my wall. I’ve had to unfriend some people because of that. I try to keep a professional reputation and some people just don’t understand that.  They don’t realize that I’m friends with past and future clients, speakers bureaus and other performers, etc.  I don’t know if there’s one particularly crazy experience, but this idea comes up on a regular basis.

8. Any other thoughts?

I guess regarding the use of technology with comedy you just have to find the balance that you are comfortable with—both creatively and on the business side as well.  If you don’t put yourself out there at all, nobody will know who you are or what you do.  That’s not good.  If you are constantly tweeting and blogging about your clips and travels, you’re not developing yourself as a performer… and that’s not good.

Find the right balance, develop your philosophy, and stick to it!

Today I’m interviewing Jan McInnis. Jan is a corporate comedian who has spoken at hundreds of conferences, training sessions, employee retreats and banquets held by such groups as Anthem Blue-Cross, Merrill Lynch, John Deere, the Federal Reserve, Women in Insurance & Financial Services, and the Mayo Clinic. Jan was featured in the “Wall Street Journal” as one of the top convention comedians whose act is clean.

1. How are you using the internet / social media to promote your career?

I’m doing everything from Google Ads to Facebook, Linked In, Blogging, etc. And I’m doing lots of interviews like this and doing blog talk radio interviews. I’ve done several of those. I’m kinda all over the internet, which is nice but a little disorganized.

2. Have you noticed the payoff yet?

Yes. What I’m noticing is people with actual money are searching the internet. In the past week, I’ve had a major company, that you think wouldn’t search the internet for comedians, find me. That’s happened a few times. Up until a little over a year ago, people that would find you wanted you to do their events for $50. Now, people have actual budgets and it’s big companies searching. I think that’s a big change that happened online.

3. Your main website is TheWorkLady.com, why do you promote that instead JanMcInnis.com?

Because people can’t spell Jan McInnis. I do a lot of work humor so I went with something people can remember and spell – TheWorkLady.com seemed like an easier thing to remember. It also let’s people know what I talk about in my act. I market myself to the convention market so work is a good subject to differentiate me from some of the other comics.  I do own JanMcInnis.com, because I think you have to own YourName.com. I think down the road the internet is the mail way we’ll do business, so owning your own name will be crucial. I’d love to own Jan.com, I missed that one. I also have a comedy writing site, www.Joke-writer.com, to promote my comedy writing services, and an Emcee site. www.ComedyEmcee.com and a couple of comedy blogs: www.ComedyWritingBlog.com, www.JanBlog.com.

I own probably fifty domain names. I’m gonna go broke owning domains. I got my book title’s domain name: www.FindingTheFunnyFast.com and two keynotes speeches I do domain names: www.FindingTheFunnyInCommunications.com and www.FindingTheFunnyInChange.com.

4. How do you think the web is different for booking corporate gigs vs clubs and colleges?

As I mentioned, up until a year or two ago, there weren’t big companies scouring the web, or I didn’t think so. Now they are. The clubs have always been doing email a little more readily. And colleges, I’ve only done a few, so I don’t know much about that market.

5. You have a blog that’s separate from your website, what’s the thinking behind separating the two?

My website is more static, my blogs have different stuff on them every week, you can follow me a little more. I have www.JanBlog.com which started out being comedy travels, fun stuff like that. Then I started putting in tips on writing. I’ve written for radio, greeting cards and I’ve sold to The Tonight Show, CEOs and speakers. And I really wanted to promote my writing service to get more writing clients. My www.JanBlog.com didn’t really fit that blog and it wasn’t on WordPress, which seems to be the most popular hosting site and one that Google likes to search, so just a few weeks ago I started www.ComedyWritingBlog.com and that’s my tips on comedy writing. So I’ve got two blogs going and I need to get better at them. I did put in an entry last night so I’m getting better!

I’m my own technology person, which is a bit of a problem. Until 3 years ago, I had a guy hosting my website and doing a few things for me, but it took him six weeks to put up a video. I got really frustrated, and then he put it up with bad quality. He actually said that it was low quality because, quote, “That’s for people who have dialup.” I’m thinking if someone has dialup, then they probably can’t afford a comedian.” So I took over doing all the web stuff (except google ads) because I want to do it now! I have a flip video camera, I can take testimonials from shows and pop them up on my website and blogs. I can make instant changes. I’ve never thought of myself as a control freak, but maybe I am a little bit when it comes to my career.

6. What do you think about posting videos of your show online?

It’s the best way to get people to find you. I’ve had tons of people find me from YouTube videos. You have to monitor the comments though. I’ve had people put up sex references to my videos. . .I have no idea why – there’s just some weirdos out there. . .and so you’ve really got to be ready to get those off of there and/or not approve them. Most clients don’t want a mailed packet anymore. . .and you can really go broke mailing out packets and DVDS. Plus if you don’t have an online presence people don’t take you seriously. I have a couple friends who have businesses and they don’t even have a website. I don’t care if the website is 2 pages, you need something up there to show that you’re serious.

Some people are worried about people stealing your jokes, but you can’t be that paranoid about it. You can’t stop people from stealing jokes. I think the universe will take care of them. You can tell when someone has stolen material because their act is uneven. I do a lot of setup – punch, setup – punch jokes, really quick like Rodney Dangerfield. When people mix it up with set-up/punchline and maybe some stories, and then some one liners. . .it is uneven. Plus most of us write about what bothers us, from our personal experience. Someone who steals from you doesn’t have the same feelings when they’re telling the joke.

7. How do you think digital tools will change comedy?

I think it’ll be easier to get booked because you get a sense of the comedian instantly online. One thing going on at conventions now is that the audience is twittering in real time about the speaker. I think that will come into play a little bit with comedy too. There will be more real, quick, immediate feedback. Whether you’re in a club or a convention you’ll find out what people think right then. But it also is going to get really annoying. . .we had hecklers in the clubs. Maybe we’ll have Tweklers at the convention. Hey, I just invented a new word. . .let me go buy the domain name quick!

8. How much information do you tend to share on the social networks?

I don’t share personal things like my birthday and stuff because I almost had my identity stolen last year. All the person needed was my birthday, so she kept calling me and asking questions trying to find that out, so I’m real cautious about that. I use FaceBook more with friends and family, so I haven’t put as many business people on Facebook. I use Linkedin for business. And regardless of if it’s friends and family or business people, I don’t talk about what I had for breakfast or the mundane things of my life. Instead I try to keep it more professional and/or tell some funny things that I’ve heard or mention things I’m doing. . . so as to remind people what I do for a living. . .you never know if their company or an organization they belong to will need a comedian. Plus I love my friends but I really don’t care if they’re raising farm animals on some imaginary farm and I don’t really want a bunch of snowballs thrown at me, so I don’t do it to them

9. What’s your weirdest online experience involving your comedy career?

I haven’t had anything really odd other than people will email me whole speeches and say, “Can you give me some jokes?” I’ve never talked to these people, they don’t know what I charge, yet they want me to read their whole speech and punch it up for them, usually at little or no cost and they want it done now. Or they’ll send me their jokes and ask me for my input. I do bounce joke ideas around with my comic friends, but I don’t have time to just drop everything and look at someone’s joke whom I don’t even know.

10. Any other thoughts?

It’s really fun that you can do all the web stuff yourself but I should get some more to help, because it can be overwhelming. Plus there’s just so much to learn. I do have someone doing things like google ads, etc., but there is so much more that I’m sure I’m missing out on. But it’s really cool how that it’s so easy to take comments from a show and put them up that night and have some nice testimonials. That’s really fun.

Today I’m interviewing Rick Younger. Rick can be seen bi-weekly on NBC’s, “Today Show” and in the upcoming Paramount film “Morning Glory” in Summer 2010. Rick has also been seen on, “Law & Order: SVU”, “Damages”, “Rescue Me”, numerous national commercials including popular ads for Verizon, Staples, T-Mobile, Starburst and McDonald’s and also toured nationally with the Broadway Musical, “RENT”.

1. How are you using the internet / social media to promote your career?

I got into the social media thing at “the turn of the century.” At first I was on a site called BlackPlanet. My strategy was going on, chatting, getting to know people, making them laugh and then saying “oh by the way, if you’re in town, come check me out.” That has been successful. Even this Sunday, there was a friend I met through black planet that came to the show.

I’ve always tried to jump on what I heard was the new thing. Unfortunately I’ve never been the guy who found the new thing before everyone else. I have MySpace, Twitter, FaceBook, Tumblr, WordPress.

I have two blogs. The Life and Times of a Renaissance Man where I talk about stuff that goes on in my life, my career and inspirational things. The other is for every time I’m on something and I get video, I put it on my WordPress blog which is part of my regular site. I also use Tumblr, I try to post something everyday. It’s been videos of myself, once I run out of those I’ll post something else.

I’m always in search of the next big thing. Everyone on Twitter talks about FaceBook like it’s not cool, everyone on FaceBook talks about MySpace like it’s a dinosaur. Social media is very fickle. It’s like a club, no club stays cool forever.

2. Have you noticed the payoff yet?

Yes I have noticed the payoff, there’s people who come to shows from the internet. I was just having this conversation with a comic friend, I’ve been doing it for 18 years, there was no social media when I started out and the internet wasn’t what it is now. Only people using it at work had email. The guys who started out when I started have slowly started to realize that we gotta use this. I’m a little ahead of my friends in that manner. We have this fear that we’ll burn out our material if we put it on the internet, but I’ve realized people that follow you on the internet may never come to a show. What is happening is you’re building up your fan base.

I appear bi-weekly on the Today Show on a segment called, “Guys Tell All” and there are people who watch me every time I’m on the Today Show who have purchased my CD and support me in ways other than coming out to actual shows. I feel that’s invaluable, social media and the internet gets you out to a bunch of people at once. Some may reach out to you, some may not. With Twitter, I have people following me on Twitter, I’ll go and look and I’ll notice they’re also following other people I’m on the Today Show with, and I’m like, “Oh that’s where they found me.” Sometimes you don’t know the source of the support. There’s so many different ways people are supporting you that you may not see live at a show.

3. Your album is on CD Baby and iTunes can you talk about that process?

CD Baby lets your fans order the hard copy or get the mp3 version. It’s a website for independent artists. I’m not with a record label and my CD is a self produced project entitled “Come On N’ah”. Some friends of mine helped produce it with me. They own a Christian comedy club. I don’t curse in my act, so I have a nice size Christian fan base. So I’d come to their club and there would be other acts, guys who’ve been doing comedy for five minutes, who were selling merchandise. My friends were like, “It’s a shame you’re this funny and don’t have merchandise.” So they set up a recording session at the club for me. They didn’t take any money for the CD, but I didn’t get paid for that gig. It’s paid off greatly since then. I go to them to get reproductions, but it’s an independent thing. CD Baby is very good because they help push you out there and iTunes picked it up because of CD Baby. And in this day and age, where hardly anyone is buying CDs, being on iTunes is a totally wonderful thing.

4. Why did you decide to have two different blogs instead of combining them?

Rickyounger.blogspot.com is like my diary type blog entitled “The Life and Times of a Renaissance Man”. I’m not necessarily trying to be funny. I’m just sharing a piece of me. What happens is I go and write, and a theme will come up in the writing and that’s what the title will become. I’ll talk about my career and have inspirational words like, “Don’t quit.” I didn’t start out trying to be inspirational but I’ll get emails saying, “Hey that’s really encouraging, I was thinking about getting out of the business.” That’s the therapeutic blog.

Then I got the one on my website, it’s a “What’s New” page. I came to that because I got tired of having to depend on webmasters to update my news. It can take a while, especially if they have a lot of clients. So I wanted something on my page where I could add things on my own.

I didn’t start doing Life and Times until after I had the blog on my website, and a theme had already developed on the website. It’s pretty much videos. I didn’t want to make it so that, say I was to post three or four inspirational blogs in a row, someone went to my what’s new page, and the inspirational stuff is not their cup of tea, they won’t scroll down to see the videos.

I read an article recently talking about the benefit of a blog over a website. And my website is where I try to get more work, and bookers/producers wanna see: What do you do? Why do I know you? Why do I want you at my club or event? And having video saying, “Oh this guy is on NBC’s Today Show, Law and Order, etc,” that works better for people coming for that purpose. So I wanted to keep the personal blog separate from that. The blog is “Rick Younger, person” and the website is “Rick Younger, this is my business.” You still get a taste of the person, but if you’re there for who the business is, you’ll get what you want out of that.

5. What do you think about posting videos of your comedy sets online?

I’m just opening up to the idea of posting comedy sets online. At first, I was really against it. My CD was recorded five years ago, and it took 13 years of comedy before I made my first CD. Coming up with enough material to make a good album, it takes time. I don’t know if everyone agrees with that. I’ve seen it where people put out album after album. You’re at the club watching someone, waiting for the first good seven minutes of their act, and they have three albums, but I digress.

Your material is like your kids, I think of some of my earliest material that took me years to stop doing because I loved the material so much. It’s like, “These are my first born.” It takes a while to move on sometimes. Now that I’ve had more experience, I find my material is based on my life. So there’s always something new coming, even if I have a foundation of certain bits. If you perform, people might put you in a certain head space like, “Oh yeah, I remember last time he did this.” Or I’ll know the person who books this show, really likes that bit.

Now I realize, when people come to the club to see you, there’s a large part of them coming to see “Rick Younger, the person they like.” So what you say as far as your material, some of it they remember, some they don’t, but they remember the experience of having a good time with you. Sometimes, you need to be able to post some things that gives a person who can’t come to the club a taste of who you are. You need stuff for people who might come to the club so they get a chance to say, “Hey I wanna come see that person live.” Then there’s the cross section that will never leave their house. A lot of people on the internet are teenage kids whose mom won’t let them come out, or the socially inept person that never comes out. But that person could decide they love you and be your best word of mouth just from their computer. So having your presence on the internet is really good in that sense. It’s good to put some material out there so people who never leave the house can become a fan possibly.

I came to this realization really recently, so I’m looking for opportunities to get out and record my sets. I put my opening monologue for The Rick Younger show on the internet just two days ago. And it’s funny because I’m so critical of putting myself out there like that. I feel if you see my live it’s so much better than seeing me on tape. So I’m watching it, and hearing people laugh, but I still feel like, “someone is gonna see this and they’ll hate me.” And once they decide they hate you, that’s where they’re gonna stay. It’s harder to make someone love you that’s decided to hate you, than it is to make someone hate you who had decided to love you.

My inspiration for posting videos on the internet is seeing the person doing comedy for 5 minutes who has 50 videos on the net with hundreds of thousands of views and a Comedy Central Presents. I’ve auditioned for pilots for people who got pilots because of their “internet following.” I’m like, “Who is this person? They got one million hits on YouTube? So did two girls one cup, do they need a TV show?” So time has taught me you can’t beat City Hall. Although, maybe I’m selling out now cause I got a kid, I need to feed him.

6. How do you think digital tools will change comedy?

I’m hoping there will be some positive effects. But right now I think it’s totally changed who is popular. It’s like, the cool guy who has no knowledge of the internet is lagging behind. In the amount of time I’ve been a comic, I’ve seen how, for lack of better description, “the nerds have taken over”. It used to be the “cool, hip comic” was the guy everyone liked, like Eddie Murphy in the leather suits. Now, with the internet you got Aziz who’s real popular. And he plays that Randy character, but overall, he’s not your Eddie Murphy cool guy. Rich Vos, who’s popular cause of Last Comic Standing, he doesn’t have the biggest internet presence, but he’s been doing it longer. Any internet stuff by way of Rich Vos is his people and not Rich Vos, but you get the feeling that Aziz is personally interacting with his fans. Kevin Hart has over 200,000 twitter followers and he’s literally tweeting. He’s young enough where doing that is fun for him.

I’m 41, I tweet, but it’s still more of my job than it is a fun thing. I do it, but I’m aware that my wife will be like, “What are you doing, can you play with us now?” It’s kinda making it so there’s a different type of person who’s moving to the forefront of comedy. I’m hoping what will happen is, people who have been doing comedy longer and deserve to be seen, will take notice and do what they have to do.

It is cool that a person can develop a fan base and support system without having to work the road. I hate the road, I got off the road after a while because I felt miserable being out there. I was like, “Why do we have to do the road?” With the internet and social media, we don’t have to do the road. I stay in NY, I do The Today Show twice a month, The Joey Reynolds show once a week, and I do my own show that I produce, “The Rick Younger Show” and I’m on shows for my friends. Every once in a while I’ll go out of town and do something, but that doesn’t happen a lot.

Because of the internet, I’m in constant contact with people from all over the world. I have my Swedish fan, she saw me at Stand Up New York when visiting from Sweden. She bought my album, she blogs in her native country and she mentions me on the blog. I have people in England too. All these relationships have been nurtured form social media. Whenever they come to NYC, they let me know, and I’ll call a club or two, or a friend, and get on a show so they can see me live and I’m getting out there just as much as if I had gone to Sweden or England. My people from England, every time I’m on The Today Show, I send them the link. They’re not even in America and they watch The Today Show at least three times a month because of me. Even yesterday, I posted stuff from my most recent Rick Younger show, and YouTube has those related videos on the side, and I noticed another guy had posted from The Today Show, and someone had started “A Guys Tell All” YouTube page that I have nothing to do with. And I don’t think NBC has anything to do with, there’s no NBC logos, and the page was recently started. So once again, the internet is getting it out there.

7. How much information do you tend to share on the social networks?

I do a combination of self promotion and comedic insights. On Twitter, I post what I’m doing performance wise and then I’ll post my daily interactions with my son. I’m his daycare, cause I don’t have a day job. I refer to him as “The Youngest Younger” and I say what we’re up to. Like this morning, I said “The Youngest Younger just turned 17 months, by the time he’s 5, he’ll say his favorite artists are Marvin, Stevie and Earth Wind Fire.” I’ll also respond to what other people tweet. Sometimes it’ll be funny, sometimes it’ll be angry forty year old dude stuff that makes people laugh. It’s a combination of self promotion and insight into who I am, without getting into too much of who I am. Some people fill up your stream with “I turned the corner,” “I need to go to the bathroom.” I think that’s a bit much.

8. What’s your weirdest online experience involving your comedy career?

It’s all been pretty unweird. I have people who reach out to me from other countries and it was a little weird because, I thought I was being Punk’d. Once I realized they were serious and they proved they had actually seen me, it was okay. Sometimes, things get lost in translation. Even when people put “LOL” after stuff. I think maybe they’re being sarcastic. Like you write something and they reply “Hilarious LOL” and I hear it as a sarcastic, “Hilarious LOL, you’re not funny.”

People reach out to me that I didn’t know had seen me. There’s a thin line between cyber stalking and stalking. There’s a certain part of me, the old school part of me, that is so aware, because of the fact that I put dates and locations to where I’ll be, I’m leaving myself wide open to the crazy person. There’s a part that’s always afraid of people recognizing me. “Hey Rick Younger” and I’m like “Yes…? Who are you?” That’s the weirdest thing about the internet to me, people getting to know you that you’re not getting to know back. And when they say, “How are you doing?” and you’re like, “Wait you know a whole lot about me. Who are you?” Then I remember I posted all that on my website.

Today I’m interviewing Hasan Minhaj. Hasan has appeared on E!’s ‘Chelsea Lately and is a regular correspondent on Yahoo!’s OMG the 411. Hasan won Sierra Mist’s Best Comic Standing, performed at LiveNation’s Comedy Jam, the nation’s largest comedy concert and was a 2009 national finalist in NBC’s Standup for Diversity.

1. How are you using the internet / social media to promote your career?

The internet and social media is the tool that has helped democratize the entertainment industry. Now comedians are able to create their own following through their standup and their projects. Now, if the industry ever asks, “What is your voice?” You can always prove it through your numbers. “These are the people following what I’m doing and this is why what I’m doing is relevant.”

I use the same methods as anyone else: Facebook, Twitter, a personal website. Also, the biggest thing I’ve used that a lot of comics use is the blogosphere. I really believe that having people write about what you’re doing, in any capacity on the internet is important. Google sees any site the same as a New York Times article. And if anyone is wondering what you’re doing, that’s the quickest way to find out about you. If they Google my name, an article you wrote might pop up just as high as an article the LA Times wrote about me. Giving comics and their viewers that power is an amazing tool. It can be hurtful if they hate you, but for the most part it’s an amazing tool.

2. Have you noticed the payoff yet?

Absolutely. Three years ago I built a destination website, HasanMinhaj.com. The payoffs have been tremendous. In 2007, the digital landscape was MySpace was king. A lot of people thought the destination website (YourName.com) was dead. They said, “you don’t need that. All you need is a web 2.0 site like myspace.com/YourName.” I made the move to use both destination site and MySpace because I feel that even though web 2.0 and social networking are the most popular thing right now, and will continue to be for the next few years, web 1.0, destination websites, are absolutely necessary. The payoff in investing and designing the site and putting all the content there has paid me back tremendously. In terms of people finding my content, booking me and in reality, it makes me seem a lot bigger than I really am.

I look at the internet as my digital footprint, it’s just as important as the mark you leave in real life. You can appear to be as successful and as relevant as you want to. You can’t over do it though, you can’t say “I’m the guy who invented the Nike swoosh”,“I invented the polio vaccine” or “I was on the tonight show with Johnny Carson.” But you can make yourself look real professional and put your best foot forward.. The number of comics that don’t have websites is amzing. I feel you should use your website as the aggregator of all that content. The payoff for that is tremendous.

3. Your debut album “Leaning on Expensive Cars and Getting Paid to Do It” was only released on iTunes, Amazon and other digital stores. What led to this decision?

Well my label, New Wave Dynamics is a digital distribution label. And even the people with major labels push digital downloads because it’s more convenient. The physical medium itself isn’t what it used to be. People are doing digital downloads to more efficiently consume media. That’s why I pushed it the hardest. It minimizes the number of steps people need to do to get your content. If you remember junior high, the means I had to do to get an album involved a lot of steps. I had to convince my parents to get in the car, go to Tower Records, and buy the CD. That’s 3 or 4 degrees of separation. Otherwise, I’d listen to the radio, put in a blank tape and wait all day to record the song. These days, everything is now, now, now. I’m just gonna google it, I’m not gonna wait. Digitally consuming content is the way to go until I can telepathically transport my content to people’s brains into the computer chips that they put in there.

With that said, I’ll still be selling hard copies at the show. Physically having merch in your hand will never be obsolete. I feel there’s no other alternative to that. People after your shows will almost always want to leave with a piece of what you’ve done. But in terms of blasting out to people that I physically can’t be in touch with, digital is the way to go.

4. You have a blog, do you have a set focus on it?

It’s just things I find relevant or important that I want to blog about. There’s no specific focus. It’s for “what is he thinking about? What’s on his mind?” Basically, it’s a longer form version of what Twitter is. I love Twitter, it’s a great brain dropping device that can broadcast thoughts that never make it to the stage.

5. What do you think about posting videos of your show online?

Besides sending clips to bookers, I don’t see that as beneficial, posting entire sets online. You should post clips so people have a taste of what you do. Inherently, the more successful you get, the more people will want to hoc up your entire act on the internet. As comics, we know the downfall to that. A musician can perform the same song over and over again because fans come to the shows wanting to hear the hits. When a comic performs everyone comes to the show and is like “Hey, what’s new? I’ve heard that joke.” There’s something about standup where people assume and expect that everything you’re telling them happened yesterday. Subconsciously, they know it’s an act honed over time, but they want to believe, “It’s so conversation, casual and in the moment. There’s no way he spent the past year honing this act.”

You can have a seven minute set online and little clips. I don’t think there’s value, unless you’re putting out a special, in putting out 45 minutes online. I don’t know who’s gonna watch all that material anyway, unless they’re diehard fans of what you do.

6. How do you think digital tools will change comedy?

Like I’ve said, the internet has democratized the entertainment industry. Anytime someone says something important, anyone can create and say this works or doesn’t work. Any artist can now show what they’re doing can work. The comedy business is just a business, it’s about followers and being profitable. There’s a lot of comics Bo Burnham, Angela Johnson, Russel Peters and Dane Cook that have huge digital followings. Unlike music, I see absolutely nothing wrong with spreading free digital content. In the end, we’re comics and we’re paid through our live performance. If you’re a person with an idea and a following, you can make stuff happen. Even sketch comedy like Derick Comedy and Human Giant, they’ve created content and have people appreciate it because they put it online.

I think the new casting director is a place called YouTube.com. That’s the way everything is gonna go from now. The old formula of people in suits sitting in the back of comedy clubs searching for talent doesn’t need to be done anymore. I’m just gonna go on the net and Google what I want and pluck out exactly who I need.

There’s no better time to be a comedian or an entertainer. We’re seeing a combination of two things: one, the ability and opportunity to proliferate and spread what you’re doing and two, the means to do it have become incredibly cheap. The cameras and equipment are so cheap and readily available in comparison to what they were ten years ago. Now we’re on the verge of seeing the next great Spielberg, Chapelle or Chris Rock via YouTube or the internet. Instead of an agent or manager finding them, the rest of the world will participate in the discovery.

7. How much information do you tend to share on the social networks?

Anything that won’t get me arrested.

8. What’s your weirdest online experience involving your comedy career?

I remember there was a girl who was really into my standup but I never knew what she looked like cause her profile photo was a picture of a cat. She was so supportive of my comedy but for all I knew she was just a cat. I knew it was a girl based on her name, but what you put on the internet, you can be whoever you wanna be. If your profile pic is a cat and your info says, “I love cats,” for all I know, I’m talking to a cat. I have to give her props for untagging every picture that showed she was a human or for limit everyone’s profile access to not be able to see she was a human, that’s commitment. I generally try to not talk to people who have pictures of animals or inanimate objects as their profile photo. A cat, a tiger or Michael Jackson, I don’t understand that. Why would you do that?