Sara Sara Cupcakes? Yes, please
Helen Ford Wallace taped her upcoming Parties Extra video today in the studio. Her guests included Toni Hoffman from Sara Sara Cupcakes near downtown Oklahoma City.
Toni Hoffman is opening Sara Sara Cupcakes next Tuesday, fulfilling a promise to her niece. Read an excerpt from Steve Lackmeyer’s reporting back on Sept. 3, 2008.
It was Easter 2007 and Toni Hoffman was doing what she always did with her niece Sara when the family gathered together — making cupcakes.
This is, after all, not just any family — but the descendants of legendary judge Joe Cannon.
“My family is very gregarious and loud,” Hoffman said. “But my niece was the shy one. And for years, we baked cupcakes — it was our own special thing.”
Just as Hoffman was showing Sara Brinson how to create a carrot design atop a cupcake, the 18-year-old made a vow to her aunt: “You and I are going to run a cupcake shop together someday.” Hoffman was puzzled — she repeated what Brinson said to make sure she heard her correctly.
“Yeah,” Brinson said, “that’s all you and I know how to do.”
‘I made a promise’
The next day, Brinson died from sudden cardiac arrest. Three months later, Hoffman was watching “Jimmy Kimmel Live” when she heard the host discuss the reason he loved Los Angeles — the city’s cupcake bakeries. Hoffman called her sister Dana, Sara’s mother, after the late-night show was over and pitched Sara Brinson’s idea. Dana Brinson reminded Hoffman they didn’t know how to operate a bakery.
“I don’t care,” Hoffman said, “I made a promise — we’ll figure it out.”
And that, Hoffman said, is the start of the story of how she decided to open Sara Sara Cupcakes. The location for this new venture, a dilapidated 102-year-old house at 7 NW 9, is yet another story. The property is part of a stretch of properties being redeveloped by Steve Mason, owner of the Iguana Mexican Grill, Earl’s Rib Palace and Cardinal Engineering.
The cupcakes are quite tasty, check out the menu for more. They brought a few crimson and cream examples, which disappeared quickly from the Studios’ green room.
The video will be posted this weekend on NewsOK.com.
Wal-Mart to sell iPhones?
Apple recently hooked up with Best Buy to sell iPhones, in addition to Apple stores and AT&T stores. Now comes a memo that Wal-Mart may sell my favorite phone soon. But after Christmas. Read this report from AlleyInsider for why, and why it may make sense.
Santa comes to town
We shot a promo for the OKC Philharmonic this afternoon. Santa, Mrs. Claus and two elves paraded in front of the green screen. With a trombone and flute. Of course. The ad should appear on NewsOK sometime soon, during the holidays.
Twitter down again, but where’s the whale?
Haven’t seen this one before…
YouTube is growing up
CNet has a good look at how and why YouTube is changing its approach towards advertising, and towards user-submitted content.
In the past week YouTube has announced it will auction off search terms as part of an ad program, called Sponsored Videos, designed to enable anyone to expand the viewership of their videos. YouTube also said last week it obtained rights to post full-length movies produced by a large film studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. What this means is that YouTube has given up on the idea that user-generated content can be a successful standalone business. It’s about time.
YouTube and AOL are both deciding that people eating crickets is not the path to gold. The novelty of the absurd has its place, but it’s not what you should hang your video views and ultimately bank accounts on.
The truth is the ability of user-generated content to generate lots of cash has been in doubt for a long time. Most of the video-sharing companies that challenged YouTube two years ago have been restructured or switched business models. The most recent evidence came Saturday when TechCrunch reported that AOL will shutter the company’s lightly trafficked video-sharing service, AOL Video Uploads.
American Airlines has mobile boarding passes
Here’s something cool. I would certainly use it – mobile boarding passes. American, which I’ve had no shortage of bad luck with, is rolling out its Mobile Boarding Passes program, according to mobilecrunch.
American Airlines has hopped on board with the launch of their Mobile Boarding Passes program. If you’re flying out of Chicago (ORD), Los Angeles (LAX), or Orange County (SNA), you’re given the option to send a digital boarding pass to your cell phone via e-mail. The boarding pass contains a QR-code-ish bar code – security will scan this, and you’re on your way.
Judging by the comments on the mobilecrunch site, other airlines – Alaska, Lufthansa – already have something similar in place.
New Google iPhone app?
Two quick iPhone updates:
CNet is reporting Google’s iPhone app is getting a new voice. Yours.
Google on Friday is expected to release version two of its mobile search application for the iPhone. The new version works much like the old one, letting users query Google outside of the mobile Safari Web browser, as well as search through contacts and narrow down results by their current location. The big change is the addition of search-by-voice, which lets you skip the keyboard entirely.
There’s also the rumor about a new software upgrade for the iPhone next week.
Red EPIC raises the bar
The new Canon EOS 5D Mark II is flat out amazing. This video from Vincent Laforet is sick for all the right reasons.
But this announcement today from Red, well, it’s straight outta crazytown.
Are you Sirius about my XM?
The chocolate and peanut butter have combined.
SIRIUS XM Radio introduced the new channel lineups today. The two satellite radio companies have been merging forever it seems like. Now we get the pay-off. XM subscribers get access to selected SIRIUS programming and SIRIUS subscribers will be able to hear selected XM channels.
SIRIUS XM Radio says the same amount of music and non-music channels will be available as before. Some channels have been combined. Other channels have a new home on the dial.
SIRIUS XM says there will be no increase in subscription fees and subscribers simply continue to use their existing hardware.
If you previously preset your favorite channels, all of your presets will automatically redirect to their new locations.
For more specifics on the SIRIUS lineup go to www.sirius.com/newlineup.
For the new XM lineup, go to www.xmradio.com/newlineup.
Video chat via Gmail
Last night, browsing through TechCrunch, I read about Google releasing a video chat feature.
I installed it this morning. Works well, of course your friends have to have cams and Gmail and be in Gchat (pretty much like with AIM or iChat), but many of my contacts don’t use Google’s features in this way.
The real advantage of this is simple: it comes from Google. Which usually means more reliability and common sense functionality. Also, it allows those using Gmail for their email to use one application instead of multiple.
One roadblock I encountered was even by detaching the chat, when I closed (not quit) my Safari browser my conversation died too. No doubt user error and lack of time getting used to it.
