Speaking at INplay 2010

Animax Entertainment's Michael Bellavia will be in Toronto next week at the kids interactive media conference INplay. Drop us a note if you'd like to arrange a time to meet while we're there. We're on the panel Making Companies International-Ready.

This Ain't No Joke. Bravo, Animax!

Animax Entertainment is working on a Facebook Connect game for NBC Universal's Bravo TV called "Who is Top Chef?" Currently in the development stage, the social game is set to launch a few months from now. Players will be able to test their skills against their friends to see if they have what it takes to be a culinary master and earn the title of Top Chef.

Read the full press release here.

CTIA Animation & Games Panel

Animax Entertainment is at CTIA Wireless 2010 today talking on a panel entitled: Producing Mobile Animation and Games. The panel is sponsored by the Animation and Gaming Committees of the Producers Guild of America's New Media Council.

Through case studies, this session will walk you through the relationship between the technology and execution of mobile animation. Learn from industry leading publishers, game developers, and brand marketers. We're going to be reviewing some of our past work and lessons learned along the way as a producers of mobile and web-enabled interactive entertainment content. There is another panel as well in the program and a mixer so let's meet up today.

Won 2 ADDYs - Best of Category!

While everyone else on the planet was watching the overly long and indulgent Oscars, Animax Entertainment was indulging in an Odyssey of our own at the LA North ADDY ceremony held at Odyssey restaurant in Granada Hills. While we missed seeing The Hurt Locker upset over Avatar, we did walk away from the ADDYs ceremony with two awards for Slotcar, the branded entertainment webisode series we produced for Carl's Jr. and Hardee's - Best of Category and a Special Judge's Award. We now move from the local level to the district level of the American Advertising Federation competition. Keeping fingers crossed.

Ty Inc Taps Animax

Ty Inc, the makers of the world famous Beanie Babies, has tapped Animax Entertainment to lead development efforts of the Ty Girlz kids brand. In particular Animax is building a free-to-play model into the Ty Girlz girl focused virtual world, developing new content and building in new revenue opportunities through advertising and microtransactions through the sale of virtual goods. The news item got picked up by a few outlets in the social game, virtual world, toy and kid press:

• Virtual Worlds News
• Playthings
• Kidscreen
• The Toy Book
• Cynopsis Kids
  
• Ypulse
  

Read the full press release here.

And if you're a little girl, play for free on Ty Girlz right now!

My Mini Peeps are Coming

The new My Mini Peeps virtual world for kids is in the works. Stay tuned for the launch of the 3D world but for now you can read this article on the company creating it, Masher Media, and its founder, Sherry Gunther. Animax Entertainment worked with Masher on the upcoming site. We also have one of those things in the foreground of the photo.

Animax Wins an ADDY Award

Animax Entertainment just won a 2010 ADDY Award for our work on Slotcar, the branded entertainment series we produced for Carl's Jr. and Hardee's.

The ADDY® Awards run by the American Advertising Federation are the creative industry’s largest competition, attracting over 60,000 entries every year in local ADDY competitions. The mission of the ADDY is to recognize and reward creative excellence in the art of advertising, graphic design, web design, and in the elements of advertising, illustration and photography.

Little Pim New & Noteworthy

Very nice! Little Pim's Word Bag, the iPhone app Animax developed for Little Pim made Apple's New & Noteworthy listings. The preschool targeted multilingual app for kids is quickly rising in the rankings - in less than a month it's now in the Top 25 apps in the Education category. Go Panda Go!

Cirque Du Soleil Has Some Nerve

Seems like Cirque Du Soleil isn't so creative after all! The new name of their NYC show is the same name Animax uses for its employee newsletter - Banana Shpeel - and we used it starting in 2007!

Even though we're not in the circus, we do bend over backwards for our clients.

Valentine, Won't You Be Mine?

Valentine's Day is upon us and courtesy of FunNugget.com you can let your loved one or want-to-be-loved-one a special Valentine message using our Heart-o-matic Message Maker. That's a big name for a small little ecard app that lets you play with and arrange calorie-free candy hearts to form a message. Lots of fun words in there to mashup.

There also is a new, free Valentine puzzle game with a whole new set of tricky Valentine photos to puzzle through.

Little Pim Sees Shadow

Yes, it's Groundhog's Day today and the groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow which means six weeks more of winter. Little Pim also had a little debut when Wired's Geek Dad shadowed Pim in a nice app review of Little Pim's Word Bag (Okay, we stretched the Punxsutawney-Pim correlation a little).

Toon Town Postponed

Animation Magazine postponed Toon Town 2.0 due to logistics issues. We'll let you know when it get rescheduled. As far as we know, the Film Finance Summit is still on. We're also headed to Kidscreen Summit, NY Toy Fair and the Engage Expo, so contact us if you're available to meet with Animax Entertainment.

Ten Years of Mike & Mike

Mike Golic and Mike Greenberg have been on ESPN Radio for 10 years now and as part of the celebration they are replaying a bunch of their best clips. One of their top moments was the Emmy win for the animated series Off-Mikes that Animax Entertainment produced. Here's the clip from the show where Mike & Mike generously pat Animax on the back. Thanks guys and congrats on the anniversary!

Top Social Media Rules

Inc. Magazine just highlighted Animax in an article about Social Media employee policies. In general our policy is pretty liberal in that we'd much rather focus on being part of the conversation than on controlling the kinds of things employees or connected folks say in particular. Our policy organically developed as we started to use Facebook, Twitter and other social media for marketing for Animax, FunNugget.com, as well as on client projects. One caveat: since we've produced a lot of kids focused work there are definite differences in approach to conversations in order to ensure security and safety.

Just Won Three Pixie Awards

With superlatives like "excellent" and "innovative," Animax Entertainment just won three Pixie Awards for a mix of our original animation productions and client work. Popzilla and Bob & Doug won Platinum level awards (the highest honor), and then Joint's Don't Jump won Gold. The awards represent the work of many animators and in particular many Flash animators working together.

(Sorry if the Pixie Award image) is NSFW but hopefully you're okay reading this blog post.