skateboards.com Archive

Christian Hosoi drops in to Santa Cruz Skate Shop/Skateboards.com HQ

– October 11, 2008Posted in: Action Sports, Interviews, Media, eCommerce

A couple of weeks ago I interviewed Christian Hosoi on 102.5 KDON’s The Morning Madhouse for the Tim Brauch event (which he took 1st place by the way) and we kind of hit it off. Yesterday, I got a text from my boy Barry at Pocket Pistols that Hosoi, Chris Hammrock, Chicken and a few am’s were floating through Santa Cruz and wanted to drop by Santa Cruz Skate Shop to say whats up, sign some autographs and eat some food. About 3pm Hosoi and the crew pull through after skating the Santa Cruz Skate Park for a couple of hours so we proceed across the street to Hank’s to get some grinds and a coffee at the Verve right after. I have to admit its a bit surreal to be having chicken strips then a coffee with a legend like Hosoi…but those are the perks of being in this business. Back at the shop people were already buzzing about Hosoi being in the area and boards start being flung under the mighty sharpee. While that was going on I was chatting up Chris Hammrock (also a Pocket Pistol team rider) about the new websites Hosoi had going on, new technology he was implementing to get the word out that Christian Hosoi was back with a vengeance. Of course, I felt obliged to show him a few tricks that I had up my sleeve and proceeded to show him Skateboards.com TV channels that we use when we are Live Streaming and my Nokia N95 Mobile Streaming . Once Hosoi saw this we did a little impromptu interview for Skateboards.com TV and blasted it out for the world to see.



Overall, Hosoi is a legend…there is no debating that if he hadn’t fallen down the skateboard world would have seen Christian Hosoi video games and the like…BUT..he would have never found GOD and his love to help him along and guide him. I like the Christian Hosoi I see in front of me now…SKATE OR DIE!

ASR San Diego and 2008 Battle of the Shops

– September 14, 2008Posted in: Action Sports, Media

Ahh, ASR San Diego…the memories of scantily clad women (some shouldn’t), high fives and hand jives with all your bro’s, stupid security people that flex on little kids and product scavengers that go from booth to booth in hopes of free product from struggling companies. Did I mention that jail is always an option in San Diego as well? Anyhow, this ASR was extra special as we were broadcasting live from an undisclosed location inside of ASR through Skateboards.com TV, Josh “MadMan” Mattson winning the Transition for the 3rd time at 2008 Battle Of The Shops hosted by Automatic magazine, cruising the floor with Animal Chin and checking out all the after parties. First off the LIVE Broadcast through Skateboards.com TV both with our stationary cam and mobile cam view went off well as we had well over 1000 people watching out for pro’s, bro’s and ehemmm…well you know the rest. While I walked around streaming from my N95 phone catching random pieces here and there like

Too $hort from Oakland in the Famous Stars and Straps booth and Battle Of The Shops coverage. Make sure you join up over at Skateboards.com TV to get alerted when we go LIVE. 2nd day of the show we teamed up with Animal Chin..

yes you heard it right Animal Chin..

we found him..in my youth I often wondered what would happen if I actually found Animal Chin and what I would do…so when we he came into our secret location at ASR San Diego, all I could do was follow him around for the rest of the day. Animal Chin and our crew went from booth to booth as he cleaned up time after time. Did I tell you he makes the best fortune cookies in the world? Now the best part of ASR…2008 Automatic Magazine’s Battle Of The Shops held this year at ASR San Diego California.

We had our Skateboards.com/Santa Cruz Skate Shop team in place, the only Skate Team to travel from Northern California and compete against the likes of Active Ride Shop, Pacific Drive, Val’s Surf, Pharmacy Board Shop and 15 other high brow shops. This was our 3rd year showing up and dropping hammers with our riders Brandan “B-Lo” Howard, Nathan “Knox” Forson, Micah “M-ZO” Szoke and Josh “MadMan” Mattson. Right out of the gate, M-Zo was laying it down in the Technical division with guys like Willy Santos standing by watching the pressure was on, next it was Brandan Howard and the Double Set after flinging his body down and taking a bad stack the Transition was next.

Josh “MadMan” Mattson was defending champion 2 years running and people were gunning for him. Curren Caples and David Loy tried and died..the MadMan was on fire using the whole ramp and skating like a possessed man in search of redemption. Last but not least, Nathan Forson was on tap to take on the Rail division with guys like Marquise Preston, Andrew Pott and Andrew Elliot charging. In the end, our Skateboards.com/Santa Cruz Skate Shop Team walked away with an 8th overall and Josh “Madman” Mattson once again took the Transition event with a 1st place making it a 3-PETE at the Automatic Magazine’s Battle Of The Shops 2008.

After winning the $500 first prize, The MadMan clearly stated he was up for a dinner at Dick’s Last Resort

and contemplating his next fishing pole purchase. Overall this was probably the best ASR San Diego show I have had in two decades. Not sure what’s next but make sure you stay tuned as you never know what hot mess we will be serving up to you next.

Catching up with myself…

– August 10, 2008Posted in: Action Sports, Interviews, KDON, Media, Music, Social Networks, Web 3.0

I have been so busy blogging elsewhere that I haven’t had a chance to update my own personal blog. There has been quite a bit of stuff in the business world and my personal world..I guess I can catch everyone up on the business front first. I haven’t really blogged about the business side because I had a few things up my sleeve that I didn’t want the world to know yet. So here it goes…I kind of figured out how our company will employ the social atmosphere that is encompassing the web. Most companies that are running social networks/communities feel autonomous in the sense that they do not acknowledge the other main players out in the field. Let me digress, FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, JustinTV and our Skateboards.com Blog etc…now in realizing that our market was already embedded within these other communities, I decided to reach out and exist where they exist with the intent of luring them back to our network to participate. When you go to www.skateboards.com you will see badges for our FaceBook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, JustinTV and our Skateboards.com Blog . In addition we are also streaming a LIVE TV channel for Skateboards.com TV through JustinTV. All of these components have helped elevate our social inbound traffic by bringing awareness of Skateboards.com to the masses. But…just having the profile is one thing the real trick is how you syndicate the content between the different sites…that is my secret and if you want to know we can discuss over the phone when you write a check to invest! After orchestrating the social attack we began to develop content and promote it through the various channels I have listed above. Our first LIVE Skateboards.com TV event was Black Tide courtesy of Total Assault and Interscope records. Skateboards.com TV, Sam Diggs, DK, Menace, Fringe and Zane made our way to the Shoreline Amphitheatre which was hosting the Mayhem Festival. We coordinated with the powers that be and linked up to interview the young metal band known as Black Tide.

These guys are on fire and will be huge soon…did we mention that they are going to be playing with Motley Crue in Japan????Here are some pics of the days events…

Being that I do radio on 102.5 KDON, we have access to artists as they come through. One in particular we got to interview for Skateboards.com TV was HardNox out of Concord California representing Universal/Blackground records.

These guys are off the hook, they busted out their smash “She’d Rather be with the DJ”

acapella for the viewers and now we actually sponsor them through our brands Santa Cruz Skate Shop and Fringe Clothing.

Skateboards.com TV didn’t stop there, we then negotiated an X-Games 14 appearance with future partners SponsorHouse.com. For two straight days we streamed LIVE from X-Games 14 out of the SponsorHouse.com booth, with a direct view of the Vert Ramp and tens of thousands of X-Game fanatics. Skateboards.com TV commanded the LIVE stream with thousands of viewers watching and chatting with

SponsorHouse athletes Ducky, Ruben and X-Games Silver Medalist Jeremy McGrath who was kind enough to give us a short interview and sign hundreds of autographs for waiting fans.  Needless to say we were able to gather a larger viewership due to our social quadrangle of promotion by interlinking all of our social exposures and broadcasting through Skateboards.com TV, JustinTV and SponsorHouse.com. Here are a few pics from the X-Games 14 scene

xgames14
Skateboards.com TV setup
Jeremy McGrath and DK

DK on the Mic
Bucky Lasek and DK
DK at X-Games 14


On a personal note, our newest son Carter is getting so big he turned 7 months old and has been the highlight of our lives lately. He seems to be learning things daily, like how to reach out when we want to pick him up and orchestrating getting his nene into his mouth on his own. My older son Zane is working hard at Santa Cruz Skate Shop making his old man proud as I now know he is cut from the same cloth and can handle the business when he gets old enough. My Oldest, Autumn just recently performed in front of a packed house at the Seattle SuperDome. My Kids make me so proud…

On a more serious note, my father, my biggest supporter has been in ICU for about two weeks now fighting for his life…if you have ever watched a loved one go through this it is really humbling and life changing. I love you Dad!

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