Glenn Rubenstein - Remix & Mash-Up Edition

Glenn Rubenstein likes to mix things up

It might not seem obvious if you've only watched the videos, but music played a large role in the OpAphid alternate reality game and interactive video series.

Part of the reason for this is because I thought it would be interesting if the characters of Tachyon and 10033 could use pop culture and a shared knowledge of music as a means to communicate secret messages to one another.

But beyond that, I've always enjoyed remixing songs and making mash-ups. It's something I started doing back in the days of my band Headboard, and over the last decade or so I've spent many a sleepless night in front of an audio program as I obsessed over a mix.

So when I was thinking of interesting ways to encode messages between the two characters in my series, the idea of doing mash-ups and mixes sounded pretty cool. If anything, I thought I could produce some interesting puzzles that would have listening appeal for the audience above and beyond what they needed to decode or decipher.

Additionally, I've also produced some remixes and mash-ups over the last year that debuted on BreeFM radio show. I haven't ever really done anything with them beyond playing them on the show, but the response has always been really good. I also wasn't sure what the best means to distribute them was, but finally a light bulb struck when I was checking out the site 8tracks last week.

So if you have the chance, listen to the playlist Glenn Rubenstein Remixes and Mashups over at 8tracks.com.



For the curious, here's a rundown of the streaming MP3 playlist, which is made up entirely of remixes and mash-ups I've done:

Kelly Clarkson vs The Pixies - Where Is My Mind Since You've Been Gone?
Beastie Boys vs Debbie Gibson - Shake Your Rump, Shake Your Love
High School Musical 2 vs Glenn Rubenstein - What Time Is It?
Nelly vs The Jane Does - Grillz (Junkie REDEARTH88 Remix)
MC Chris - Nrrrd Grrrl (Glenn Rubenstein Remix)
The Music Math Mash-Up from OpAphid v Tachyon
The 46 Song Mash-Up of Doom from OpAphid-REDEARTH88

(There's also one original track for good measure: the original version of the Tachyon theme song "What Time Is It?")

It's all streaming for quick playback in CD-mp3 quality, so check it out!

- Glenn Rubenstein

Glenn Rubenstein Explores Social Media's Next Wave

Glenn Rubenstein has been quite busy as of late.

Why? Because I signed up over at the Mashable Beta Invitations Website to request invites for the latest social media sites in development. Some are still in the "invitation only" stage, but a few are publicly accessible as of this writing.

Rather than give a breakdown of each site's features, I figure it's easiest to link to my profiles on a few so that you can see what I've been able to do with them so far, you can check out my profiles to see how these sites are actually used, or you can add me as a friend -- they call it "social" media for a reason, you know.

This is by no means the complete list, but it's rather a selection of what I have liked and found accessible and somewhat useful to date. But of course, there are many more available through the Mashable link above. What I have been most surprised by is the how many sites are simply new twists on other existing social media and social networking websites.

For instace, do you like microblog sites like Twitter and Pownce? Then you might also want to visit Glenn Rubenstein on Jaiku. Jaiku is like the two above-mentioned sites, except it's easier to plug in other feeds from your blog or a site like StumbleUpon. Useful, sure...until Pownce or Twitter add similar functionality.

Are you into Facebook's mini-feed feature but want a standalone version? If so, you should check out the Glenn Rubenstein FriendFeed. Friendfeed allows you to build a central hub for your activity updates from around the web. Mashable has already argued it's more useful than Google for keeping up with your friends.

But let's say you enjoy the level of information you can find by searching a site like Wikipedia or Mahalo, only you wish you could add further information or relevant links to additional sources. Take a look at
Glenn Rubenstein : Spock. Spock blends the Wiki approach with a Digg-like relevancy rating system and allows users to add to the related links and knowledge base on a person.

This one is probably my favorite though.

Are you into the idea of a social media games site with a lot of personality? Peep Glenn Rubenstein - iminlikewithyou.

Iminlikewithyou lets you play games with friends and start your own games others can participate in - most you can create are basically polls and quizzes from what I can tell so far though. The site does feature some cool multiplayer party games though - one that I liked a lot is similar to Pictionary, another is like a more chaotic version of Tetris.

You have to see it for yourself, but this site has a lot going on - for instance it randomly asks you yes or no pop-up questions (rewarding you with points) and even informs you as new members join in real-time. Of all the sites I've seen, it is certainly the most interactive of the bunch, because it prompts you to participate.

Anyhow, these are just a few of the up and coming social media sites I've been checking out. If you want to check any of these out for yourself, you can sign up at Mashable, or just leave a comment here with your email and I'll send you one.

- Glenn Rubenstein

Glenn Rubenstein in Canon's Viral Video Superstar Battle

It took awhile, but I'm finally at a stage where I've earned work I've done in quotes following my name! I guess now I can be called Glenn "lonelygirl15/OpAphid" Rubenstein - although I think prefer Glenn Rubenstein ("lonelygirl15/OpAphid").

Anyhow, Canon's Battle Of The Viral Video Superstars was a lot of fun to shoot, and it was great to hang out with everyone that Canon assembled for the event. Barats & Bereta, Ricky Stern ("Lazy Dork"), Gary Brolsma ("Numa Numa"), Ben Relles ("Obama Girl"), and Chad Vader's Matt Sloan & Aaron Yonda were all really cool, and I had an excellent time in New York (even though my team lost).

Canon HD: Viral Video Superstars (featuring Glenn Rubenstein)

More info on Glenn Rubenstein and Canon's Battle of the Viral Video Superstars

The New York Times also did a write-up on the Chad Vader guys while the event was going, and I got a very nice mention here "Glenn Rubenstein, one of the writers for the Lonelygirl15 series"



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Glenn Rubenstein

I'm a WHATmaster? - Lonelygirl15 Shakes It Up With OpAphid

This is an interesting recap of Lonelygirl15 and OpAphid, with a bit of insight on the two and how we came to collaborate.



It's a shame we didn't have more time - as you can see here, Glenn Rubenstein was originally scheduled for a different panel, but it all worked out in the end and my ARGFest experience was a lot of fun.

- Glenn Rubenstein

The Glenn Rubenstein Director/Editor Video Reel

This is a selection of my video work as a director, editor, and director of photography from LonelyGirl15, REDEARTH88, and OpAphid. It's broken down into "Music Video" style videos and "Commercial" style videos.

I always have trouble selecting which videos best represent me, if only because I think there is a lot of diversity in my work and it's hard for me to pick just one or two as a sample.

Check out the videos that I chose here:
Glenn Rubenstein Director-Editor Video Page

File Under: Working Hard or Hardly Working

Glenn Rubenstein's Online Radio Venture (Circa 1999) in the Village Voice

Long before the days of Glenn Rubenstein on BreeFM or even Glenn Rubenstein's work on LonelyGirl15, I was an early fan of the Shoutcast plug-in for WinAmp. Much like I did with Hyphenated Radio back in the day, I still use Shoutcast through WinAmp for my weekly radio show on BreeFM (Wednesdays at 8PM Pacific).

Being one of the first people to launch a dedicated a Shoutcast station, I had a fair amount of success in finding an audience with Hyphenated Radio. We also got some solid press coverage as a result. Unfortunately, the idea proved to be a little too ahead of its time, as licensing issues were not yet in place.

Not knowing what the cost would ultimately be, it was impossible to close any of our talks with investors. Meanwhile, the attention we received caused bandwidth spikes that overloaded my personal connection, and at the time, the lack of clear-cut and legal regulations for music-licensing online made it nearly impossible to obtain a dedicated hosting server for purposes of streaming music online. This also killed any opportunity we had to sell advertising, unless we shifted to a "talk only" format, which would have limited our audience at the time.

That beind said, reading this article about my online radio venture, which appeared in The Village Voice back in February of 1999, definitely brings back memories...

Adventures in Hi-Fi:
Digital Kills the Radio Star
by Austin Bunn

Hyphenated is fronted by Glenn Rubenstein, a 22-year-old journalist who once cohosted a nationally syndicated radio show called On Computers. On SHOUTcast, Rubenstein serves up 10 hours of programming in an unlikely mix of Bel Biv DeVoe, Everclear, and rambling talk— what Rubenstein calls "Format X." Rubenstein runs his show off his Pentium 400 and a cable modem...

Glenn Rubenstein's Adventures in Hi-Fi at the Village Voice

File Under: Blast from the Past