Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
company name	Mattel, Inc.
company logo
company type	Public company
traded as	NASDAQ-100 ComponentS&P; 500 Component
foundation	1945
founder	Harold MatsonElliot Handler
location	El Segundo, California, US
key people	Robert A. Eckert(Chairman and CEO)
industry	Toys and games
revenue	US$ 5.856 billion (2010)
operating income	US$ 901.9 million (2010)}}

| net_income = US$ 684.9 million (2010) | assets = US$ 5.418 billion (2010) | equity = US$ 2.629 billion (2010) | num_employees = 31,000 (December 2010) | homepage = Mattel.com }} Mattel, Inc. (; ) is the world's largest toy company based on revenue. The products it produces include Fisher Price, Barbie dolls, Hot Wheels and Matchbox toys, Masters of the Universe, American Girl dolls, board games, and, in the early 1980s, video game consoles. The company's name is derived from Harold "Matt" Matson and Elliot Handler, who founded the company in 1945. Handler's wife, Ruth Handler, later became president, and is credited with establishing the Barbie product line for the company in 1959. After the release of the Barbie doll, Mattel revolutionized the toy industry with its talking dolls and toys. Major successes in the 1960s with the talking Chatty Cathy doll in 1960 and See 'N Say toys in 1965 moved Mattel to its position as the number one toymaker in America. Mattel closed its last factory in the United States of America, originally part of the Fisher-Price division, in 2002, outsourcing production to China, the beginning of a chain of events that led to a scandal involving lead contamination. On Friday, September 3, 2010 a mini "Flash Crash" appears to have occurred in Mattel shares which plunged 22% in pre-market trade for no apparent reason, only to recover shortly thereafter.

Corporate governance

Board of directors

Current members of the board of directors of Mattel Inc. are:

Robert A. Eckert, chairman

Tully Friedman

Michael Dolan

Vasant Prabhu

Dominic Ng

Andrea Rich

Ronald Sargent

Christopher A. Sinclair

G. Craig Sullivan

John Vogelstein

Kathy Whit

Corporate responsibility

Mattel announced its Global Manufacturing Principles (GMP) in 1997, designed to set safe and fair treatment of employees.

In 2003, Mattel issued its first Global Reporting Initiative report to publicly assess the success of the GMP and commit to improvements. Simultaneous to this report, Mattel issued their 2004 Corporate Responsibility report, the first to be issued by a toy company. From both the 2004 and 2007 reports, a majority percentages of Mattel-owned facilities are regularly audited, it can be seen that Mattel has room to expand its supply chain auditing.

Following the high-profile recalls of 2007, Mattel appointed Geoff Massingberd as Vice President of Corporate Responsibility, to lead development and implementation of programs business integrity.

Asia Pulp and Paper Controversy

On June 8, 2011, Greenpeace launched It's Over", an international campaign criticising Mattel's use of Asia Pulp & Paper's products in its packaging, particularly in its line of Barbie products. Greenpeace accuses Asia Pulp & Paper of clearing Indonesian rainforests and threatening species native to those rainforests. Within two days of the campaign's start, Mattel ordered its packaging suppliers to stop buying from Asia Pulp & Paper pending an investigation into Greenpeace's deforestation allegations, and further ordered its suppliers to report on how they source materials.

The Learning Company acquisition

In May 1999, at the height of the dot-com bubble, Mattel acquired The Learning Company for $3.5 billion in stock or 4.5 times annual sales. The Learning Company was considered at the time one of the leading entertainment and educational software companies, owner of such titles as Reader Rabbit, Carmen Sandiego, Myst, Riven, and National Geographic, but had in 1997 accumulated losses of $475 million. Mattel thought that this acquisition would help business diversification by giving the company a leading position in the market of consumer software. Mattel CEO Jill Barad expected to have direct internet sales for all Mattel's toys and predicted that Mattel sales over the Internet would reach $1 billion in a few years.

In the third quarter of 1999, Mattel expected The Learning Company to post $50 million in profits but in reality it posted losses of $105 million. Despite this loss, CEO Jill Barad continued to be optimistic. Things worsened in the fourth quarter, as The Learning Company's pre-tax losses reached $183 million. For the year The Learning Company's pre-taxes losses were $206 million, on revenues of $750 million. The Learning Company's losses depressed Mattel's 1999 profits and as a result, Mattel posted a $82 million net loss compared to a $206 million net income in 1998. Mattel also warned that it would take a revamping charge of $75 million to $100 million in the first quarter of 2000 because of The Learning Company.

By 2000, Mattel was losing $1.5 million a day with The Learning Company, and Mattel's stock price (which reached a high of $45 in March 1998) traded at $11 in February 2000. Under pressure, on February 3, Mattel's CEO Jill Barad resigned but received a $50 million severance package. In April Mattel announced that it was selling The Learning Company; analysts predicted that The Learning Company could be sold for $400 million, then for $200 million. In the end, in October, The Learning Company was sold to Gores Technology for nothing other than a percentage of The Learning Company's future profits. In addition Mattel cut 10% of its workforce to further cut costs. As a result of this restructuring Mattel posted a net loss of $430 million for the year 2000.

==Product recall== On August 2, 2007, Mattel's Fisher-Price subsidiary recalled almost one million Chinese-made toys, including ''Dora the Explorer'' and ''Sesame Street'' toys, because of potential hazards from parts of the toys which were colored using lead-based paint that may have exceeded the US Federal limit of 600 parts per million.

In worst cases, Mattel toys' lead in paint was found to be 180 times the limit. The paint on the toys was up to 11% lead, or 110,000 parts per million. U.S. Federal law allows just 0.06% lead, or 600 parts per million. Children who suck on or ingest toys or jewelry with high lead content may be poisoned, which can lead to learning and behavior problems, even death in some cases.

On August 14, 2007, Mattel recalled over 18 million products because it was possible that they could pose a danger to children due to the use of strong magnets that may detach. Strong small magnets could be dangerous to the children if two or more were ingested, attracting each other in the intestines and causing damage. Some instances were reported. A child swallowed a Polly Pocket toy magnet and had to undergo a surgery. At the time of the recall, none of the U.S. or European safety legislation and standards addressed the specific hazard of strong magnets. Some of the products had been available in U.S. stores since 2003, during which time Mattel did not consider them harmful enough to warrant a recall. After incidents with similar magnetic toy parts being swallowed, causing perforation of the intestines, Mattel re-wrote its policy on magnets, finally issuing this recall in August 2007.

Recalled items included die-cast ''Cars'' character, Sarge, made between May and July 2007, found to have been manufactured using paint containing higher than acceptable levels of lead (436,000 recalled globally), 7.1 million Polly Pocket toys produced before November 2006; 600,000 Barbie and Tanner Playsets; 1 million Doggie Daycare; Shonen Jump's One Piece; and thousands of Batman Manga toys due to exposed magnets. 18.2 million items were recalled in total.

Zhang Shuhong, co-owner of the Lee Der Toy Company, which had made a number of toys for Mattel, committed suicide by hanging himself at one of his company's factories in Foshan on August 11, 2007, according to authorities. Lee Der ceased business.

On September 4, 2007, Mattel recalled a further 530,000 affected toys in the United States – and 318,000 outside the United States – after its intensive testing found that the Chinese-made products contained levels of lead in painted parts that were above the acceptable limit set by the company. This third recall in a month included accessories for ''Barbie'' dolls and Fisher-Price toys.

On June 5, 2009, the Consumer Product Safety Commission fined Mattel and its Fisher-Price division $2.3 million dollars for violation of Code 16 of Federal Regulations CFR 1303, the Federal lead paint ban. While Mattel agreed to the fine, no wrong doing was admitted on the companies part.

Effect on Mattel

Among others, ''Fortune'' magazine rated the recall of Mattel's products as one of the 'Dumbest Moments' in business for 2007

Mattel's response

Mattel has increased audits and testing of all products. In August 2007, CEO Robert Eckert said, "We were let down, and so we let you down," referring to the three massive product recalls for lead contamination of paint.

On September 21, 2007, Mattel's Executive Vice-President for worldwide operations, Thomas Debrowski, traveled to Beijing. In a meeting with China's product safety chief, Li Chanjiang, Debrowski took full responsibility for the magnet recalls and said that, "vast majority of those products that were recalled were the result of a design flaw in Mattel's design, not through a manufacturing flaw in China’s manufacturers." Reading a prepared text, he continued, "Mattel takes full responsibility for these recalls and apologises personally to you, the Chinese people, and all of your customers who received the toys."

Partnerships

In March 2005, Mattel partnered with Oasys Mobile to extend their market into the mobile field. The partnership was announced on March 16, 2005 and gave Oasys Mobile the right to produce games on such licenses as UNO, Ker Plunk!, Toss Across, and Rock'em Sock'em Robots. Since then the two have worked together to add such licenses as the Barbie, Magic 8 Ball and Max Steel IPs to Oasys' portfolio. These subsequent partnerships also extended the territories in which they could market their products. The new markets included Japan and Taiwan for the Barbie license and Japan, China, Korea, India, and the Philippines for the UNO license, and in late 2009, Mattel signed a deal to make WWE toys from 2010 through present (well at least that's how i think of it)

Lawsuits

Some of the lawsuits involving Mattel are as follows:

Keller Rohrback L.L.P. Files Suit Against Mattel, Inc. for Selling Toys Covered in Lead Paint Mattel Lawsuit Seeks Lead Tests for Children. Class action wants toymaker to pay for medical testing. Family files suit against maker of Polly Pocket after son undergoes surgery Mattel against Winx Club. Shareholders File Lawsuit Against Mattel Over Toy Recalls Mattel sued the band Aqua, saying their song violated the Barbie trademark and turned Barbie into a sex object, referring to her as a "Blonde Bimbo." The lawsuit was finally rejected in 2002. Mattel was involved in legal proceedings with Super Duper Publications in an attempt to suppress Super Duper's use of the words "and say" in their therapy products. Super Duper Publications specializes in materials for use in special education classrooms but Mattel accused Super Duper of diluting their "See N' Say" product line. Mattel won the legal battle and was awarded $400,000 in penalties. They are now seeking millions of dollars to pay for their legal expenses and costs. Mattel Inc. defeated MGA Entertainment Inc. in a conflict over the creation of the Bratz doll line. The U.S. District Court in Riverside ruled that Bratz designer CEO, Carter Bryant, violated the terms of his exclusivity contract with Mattel. It was decided that he created the Bratz doll concept while he was working for Mattel. This decision will lead to the possibility for Mattel to claim right to the Bratz doll line as well as the right to receive damages.

Mattel Inc VS Playing Mantis. In the mid-1990s, Playing Mantis released a line of rechargeable cars which were a direct copy of the 1970s Mattel Hotwheels Sizzlers with the same name. The merchandise was quickly removed from store shelves. Mattel won the case, however the payout from Playing Mantis remains unknown. Mattel has since re-released its own line of Sizzlers through an exclusive deal with Target Stores.

Mattel Inc VS MGA Entertainment. In April of 2011, Mattel was forced to pay $88.5 million to MGA Entertainment in a dispute over the Bratz line of dolls. In the court ruling, the judges found that Mattel did not own drawings of Bratz dolls. The Bratz dolls hurt the sales of Barbie dolls significantly over the period of time that the Bratz dolls were on the market.

Products

Mattel distributed Nintendo's products in Canada from 1986 to 1990, the UK until 1990 when Nintendo Computer Entertainment UK was established, and Australia from 1987 to early 1994 when Hiroshi Yamauchi opened Nintendo Australia Pty Ltd, Nintendo's only privately owned subsidiary and had Susumu Tanaka from Nintendo UK Ltd and Graham Kerry from Mattel Australia Pty Ltd as the first Managing Directors of the subsidiary.

Mattel's international revenue accounts for 49% of its gross sale in 2007, coming from regions like Europe, Latin America and Asia.

Mattel's International Sales Revenue by Geographical Regions in 2007

See also

2007 Chinese export recalls

Hasbro

References

External links

Mattel

Vintage Mattel toys

Mattel Toys Pictures of many toys at Figure-archive.net

Category:Companies established in 1945 Category:Toy companies of the United States Category:Companies based in Los Angeles County, California Category:Multinational companies Category:Toy brands Category:Barbie Category:Card game publishing companies Kettelkamp, Sean: Chatty Cathy and Her Talking Friends; Schiffer Publishing (1998) Category:Doll manufacturing companies

ar:ماتيل ca:Mattel de:Mattel es:Mattel fa:ماتیل fr:Mattel id:Mattel it:Mattel he:מאטל ms:Mattel nl:Mattel ja:マテル no:Mattel pl:Mattel pt:Mattel ro:Mattel ru:Mattel fi:Mattel sv:Mattel zh:美泰兒

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Name	Matt Harding
Birth name	Matthew Harding
Birth date	September 27, 1976
Website	http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/
Web alias	Matt
Web host service	YouTube
Meme	''Where the Hell is Matt?''
Signature phrase	}}

}} Matthew "Matt" Harding (born September 27, 1976), is an American traveler, video game designer, and Internet celebrity known as Dancing Matt for his viral videos that show him dancing in front of landmarks and street scenes in various international locations. Harding has since received widespread coverage of his travel exploits in major print and broadcast media outlets, and was hired by Visa to star in their ''Travel Happy'' campaign.

He is originally from Westport, Connecticut. He began his game industry career working for a video game specialty store called Cutting Edge Entertainment. Harding later worked as an editor for ''GameWeek Magazine'' in Wilton, Connecticut, and then as a software developer for Activision in Santa Monica, California and then Brisbane, Australia.

Harding claims that a sarcastic joke about the popularity of shoot 'em up games led Pandemic Studios to develop the game ''Destroy All Humans!'', on which he received a conceptual credit. Saying he "didn't want to spend two years of my life writing a game about killing everyone", he quit his job and began traveling, leading to the production of his first video.

On 11 December 2008, Matt Harding sarcastically revealed at the Entertainment Gathering that the videos were a hoax and that he is an actor, not a game designer, and the videos were made using animatronic puppets and extensive video editing. A month later, during the MacWorld convention, Matt revealed the "hoax about the hoax" and joked about the fact many people took it seriously and the outrage it caused. He also made it very clear that the videos he made were indeed 100% real.

Where the Hell is Matt?

Harding was known by his friends for a particular dance, and while video recording each other in Vietnam, his travel companion suggested he add the dance. The videos were uploaded to his website for friends and family to enjoy. Later, Harding edited together 15 dance scenes, all with him center frame, with the background music "Sweet Lullaby" by "Deep Forest". The original Song uses samples from a dying Solomon Islands language which was recorded in 1971 by a French ethnomusicologist at the Solomon Islands near Papua New Guinea. The song, "Rorogwela" was sung by a young woman named Afunakwa. According to the video "Where the Hell is Afunakwa" by Matt Harding, Afunakwa died in 1998.

The video was passed around by e-mail and eventually became viral, with his server getting 20,000 or more hits a day as it was discovered, generally country by country due to language barriers, before the launch of major video upload sites.

Harding created a second version of the video in 2006, with additional dancing scenes from subsequent travels, called "Dancing 2006". At the request of Stride, a gum brand, he accepted sponsorship of this video, since he usually travels on a limited budget.

Harding released his third dancing video on June 20, 2008. The video is the product of 14 months of traveling in 42 countries. The background music/song of this video is known as "Praan" composed by Garry Schyman and sung by Palbasha Siddique, with lyrics adapted from the poem "Stream of Life," a part of the Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore.

As of August 2008, Harding is represented by Creative Artists Agency. His videos are viewable on YouTube, Google Video, Vimeo and his own site wherethehellismatt.com. His "Where the Hell is Matt? (2008)" video has been watched over 33,555,501 times on YouTube and Harding's YouTube channel is ranked "#83 - Most Subscribed (All Time) - Directors" as of December 22, 2010.

Major media coverage

Harding's video clips have appeared on television shows including:

''The Screen Savers'' (March 17, 2005)

MSNBC's ''Countdown with Keith Olbermann'' (August 18, 2005)

''Inside Edition'' (August 19, 2005)

''The Ellen DeGeneres Show'' (October 10, 2005)

''Rude Tube'' (February 15, 2008)

''40 Greatest Internet Celebrities on VH1

''Jimmy Kimmel Live'' (August 6, 2008)

''Enough Rope'' (August 18, 2008)

''The Daily Show'' (November 6, 2008)

Harding was bumped from ''Good Morning America'' on September 8, 2005, due to coverage of Hurricane Katrina, but appeared on May 31, 2006, dancing outside the GMA studio in Times Square with footage from his videos displayed on the Panasonic Astro Vision screen on One Times Square.

In November 2006, Harding was invited to lecture at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, about the experience of making the video and subsequent fame. He also was filmed dancing with students from the college.

In 2007, Jawed Karim, one of the founders of YouTube, stated that Harding's video is his favorite video posted to Youtube.

On July 22, 2008 and again on July 25, 2010, NASA featured Harding's third video on their APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) website, titled "Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth", making claim of humans worldwide sharing a common love of dance. The website states that "few people are able to watch the above video without smiling". Harding himself has joked that he is impressed with this, especially since the video has nothing to do with astronomy, nor is a picture.

On November 2008, Matt and the vocalist Palbasha were interviewed by KFAI radio in Minnesota. It is a behind-the-scene story about finding the musician.

Videos

First video

# Beijing, China. # Hanoi, Vietnam. # Delhi, Bengal Jungle, Agra;India. # Moscow, Siberia;Russia. # Bangkok, Thailand. # Prague, Czech Republic. # Angkor Wat, Cambodia # Los Angeles, New York, Seattle, Westport;USA # Suhbaatar, Mongolia. # Kilimanjaro Summit, Tanzania. # Monte Alban, Mexico. # Tsavo, Kenya. # Impenetrable Forest, Uganda. # Yangon, Myanmar.

Second video

# Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia. # Petra, Jordan. # Machu Picchu, Peru. # Venice, Italy. # Tokyo, Japan. # Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. # Brisbane, Australia. # Luang Prabang, Laos. # Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei. # Area 51, Nevada. # Tikal, Guatemala. # Half Moon Caye, Belize. # Sossusvlei, Namibia. # Routeburn Valley, New Zealand. # Monument Valley, Arizona. # South Shetland Islands. # Chuuk, Federated States of Micronesia. # London, England. # Very Large Array, New Mexico. # Abu Simbel, Egypt. # Easter Island, Chile. # Haute-Picardie, France. # Mutianyu, China. # New York, New York. # Ephesus, Turkey. # Guam. # Mokolodi, Botswana. # Berlin, Germany. # Sydney, Australia. # Dubai, United Arab Emirates. # Rock Islands, Palau. # Mulindi, Rwanda. # Neko Harbour, Antarctica. # Kjeragbolten, Norway. # San Francisco, California. # Seattle, Washington.

Third video

# Mumbai, India # Paro, Bhutan # Giant's Causeway, Northern Ireland # Stone Town, Zanzibar # Lancelin, Australia # Lisse, Netherlands # Christmas Island, Australia # Kuwait City, Kuwait # Teotihuacán, Mexico # Seljalandsfoss, Iceland ##(Quick scenes of transition from dancing alone to with others) Dublin, Ireland ## Boston, Massachusetts, United States ## Toronto, Ontario, Canada ## Atomium, Brussels, Belgium ## Praça do Comércio, Lisbon, Portugal ## Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada ## San Francisco, California, United States ## Paris, France ## Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ## Washington DC, United States ## Chicago, Illinois # Madrid, Spain # Antseranana, Madagascar # Brisbane, Australia # Dublin, Ireland # Buenos Aires, Argentina # Chakachino, Zambia # Istanbul, Turkey # Wainivilase, Fiji # London, England # Stockholm, Sweden # Auki, Solomon Islands # Sana'a, Yemen # Ala Archa Gorge, Kyrgyzstan # Tagaytay, Philippines # Demilitarized Zone, Korea # Timbuktu, Mali # Warsaw, Poland # Austin, Texas # Tokyo, Japan # Poria, Papua New Guinea # Miami, Florida # Munich, Germany # Tongatapu, Tonga # Chicago, Illinois # Thimphu, Bhutan # Gurgaon, India # Sydney, Australia # Lisbon, Portugal # Seoul, South Korea # Soweto, South Africa # New York, New York. # Tokyo, Japan # Vava'u, Tonga # Cape of Good Hope, South Africa # Panama Canal, Panama # Wadi Rum, Jordan # Lemur Island, Madagascar # Auckland, New Zealand # Batik, Morocco # Amsterdam, Netherlands # Atlanta, Georgia # Mexico City, Mexico # Brussels, Belgium # San Francisco, California # Taipei, Taiwan # Vancouver, British Columbia # Washington DC, United States. # Rio de Janeiro, Brazil # Cologne, Germany # Singapore # Alhambra, California # Tel Aviv, Israel # East Jerusalem, Israel # Paris, France # Montreal, Quebec # Nellis Airspace, Nevada # Los Angeles, California # Sao Paulo, Brazil # Seattle, Washington

Fourth Video - South Africa

In preparation for the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Matt Harding created a special video to celebrate the occasion in which he performed the Diski Dance in locations across South Africa. He uploaded the video to YouTube on March 5, 2010. The following locations were shown in the video in the order listed. Some locations were visited several times.

# Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, Johannesburg # The Pinnacle, Mossel Bay # Hout Bay, Cape Town # Table Mountain, Cape Town # Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town # Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit # South African Airways # Boulders Beach, near Cape Town # Soweto Cooling Towers, Soweto. Johannesburg # Robben Island # Soccer City, Soweto, Johannesburg # Table Mountain, Cape Town # Cape of Good Hope # Camp Jabulani, Hoedspruit # Blyde River Canyon, Mpumalanga # Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, Johannesburg # Bourke's Luck Potholes, Blyde River Canyon, Mpumalanga # Soweto Cooling Towers, Soweto. Johannesburg # Hout Bay, Cape Town # Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, Johannesburg # Mac Mac Pools, near Mac-Mac Falls, Mpumalanga # Lesedi Cultural Village, near Johannesburg # Camp Jabulani, Hoedspruit # Bourke's Luck Potholes, Blyde River Canyon, Mpumalanga # Lesedi Cultural Village, near Johannesburg # Soccer City, Soweto, Johannesburg # Table Mountain, Cape Town # Johannesburg # Boulders Beach, near Cape Town # The Pinnacle, Mossel Bay # Nelson Mandela Square, Sandton, Johannesburg # Soccer City, Soweto, Johannesburg # South African Airways

Videogame development credits

Harding's development credits include:

''Destroy All Humans!''

''Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events''

''Army Men RTS''

''Dark Reign 2''

''Battlezone II: Combat Commander''

''Battlezone''

''Zork: Grand Inquisitor''

Parodies

On the FX sitcom ''It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia'' Matt Harding is parodied on episode "Frank Sets Sweet Dee on Fire" by "The Dancing Guy" (a bald local celebrity on a Public-access television cable TV that dances to rave music in front of different shots of nature while wearing nothing but his underwear or a diaper).

CollegeHumor created a video ''Where the Hell is Matt's Girlfriend'' which depicts Matt's girlfriend cheating on him as he dances around the world.

BlameSocietyFilms also made a parody titled "Where the Hell is Shut-In Matt" and it has a shut-in named Matt dancing around his apartment.

RandumbProd made a parody as well titled "Where The Hell Is Dane?" with creator Dane Kevin Cook dancing around his town in a variety of humorous places.

References

External links

Official homepage and blog

Matt Visits Yahoo! Headquarters

Category:1976 births Category:American video game designers Category:American Internet personalities Category:Living people Category:People from Brisbane Category:People from Westport, Connecticut Category:People from Los Angeles, California Category:People from Seattle, Washington Category:Viral videos

ca:Matt Harding cs:Matt Harding de:Where The Hell Is Matt? es:Matt Harding fr:Matt Harding ko:맷 하딩 it:Matt Harding he:מאט הארדינג nl:Matt Harding ja:マット・ハーディング no:Matt Harding pt:Where the Hell is Matt? ru:Хардинг, Мэтт zh:馬特·哈丁

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
name	Matt Costa
background	solo_singer
birth date	June 16, 1982
instrument	Guitar, Piano, Harmonica
genre	Indie rock, folk rock
occupation	Singer-songwriter
label	Venerable Media, Brushfire
associated acts	No Doubt
website	MattCosta.com
notable instruments	}}

Matthew Albert Costa (born June 16, 1982) is a singer-songwriter from Huntington Beach, California. He has five independent releases: two self-recorded EPs, and three full-length CDs released via Brushfire Records.

Life

Matt Costa, who is of Portuguese descent, states that his father worked in the airline business. In early 2003, Matt's homemade demo reached No Doubt guitarist Tom Dumont, who offered to record more demos for Costa in his home studio. Those first recordings led to two EPs that Costa and Dumont distributed themselves. These were later combined and mixed by Phil Ek in order to form Costa's first full-length CD entitled ''Songs We Sing''.

Costa spent the summer of 2005 opening on Jack Johnson's summer tour. He has since toured with Modest Mouse, Oasis, Ryan Adams & The Cardinals, G. Love & Special Sauce, and Death Cab for Cutie. Costa joined Jack Johnson for his 2006 European tour. He has also contributed to the Jack Johnson and Friends Curious George soundtrack; his track is entitled "Lullaby". This song was taken from his ''The Elasmosaurus EP.'' Costa has also toured extensively in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Asia and South America.

The video for Costa's first single "Cold December" was released February 2, 2006. On July 31, 2007, he released a song titled "If You Took To Me" as part of the environmentally minded polar bear documentary ''Arctic Tale'' and its soundtrack.

On October 7, 2007, Matt released the first single, "Mr. Pitiful," from his record ''Unfamiliar Faces.'' The song "Mr. Pitiful" was used during a scene with Paul Rudd in the movie ''I Love You, Man'', the redband trailer for the film ''Youth in Revolt'' starring Michael Cera, and the movie ''Marmaduke''. Apple also used an instrumental cut of this song for the worldwide iPhone 3GS ads.

On December 23, 2008, Costa married.

''Mobile Chateau'', Matt's third album, was released on September 21, 2010 via Brushfire Records. The new record was recorded at Pheasant Studios in Santa Ana, CA as Costa's first solo production.

Discography

EPs

2003: ''Matt Costa EP''

2005: ''The Elasmosaurus EP''

Albums

2005: ''Songs We Sing'' (independent release)

2006: ''Songs We Sing'' (Brushfire re-release)

2008: ''Unfamiliar Faces''

2010: ''Mobile Chateau''

Singles

2006: "Cold December"

2006: "Sweet Thursday"

2006: "Sunshine"

2008: "Mr. Pitiful"

2010: "Witchcraft"

Sampler/Soundtracks

2006: '' A Brokedown Melody Soundtrack''

2006: ''Sing-A-Longs and Lullabies for the Film Curious George'' (released by Jack Johnson)

2006: ''Brushfire Records Winter 2006 Music Sampler'' (with Jack Johnson, G. Love & Special Sauce, & Money Mark)

2007: ''Arctic Tale''

References

External links

The Official Matt Costa Website

Matt's Official MySpace

Artist's twitter

Matt Costa collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive

Category:1982 births Category:American musicians Category:Brushfire Records artists Category:American people of Canadian descent Category:Living people Category:American people of Portuguese descent Category:Live Music Archive artists

de:Matt Costa es:Matt Costa fr:Matt Costa it:Matt Costa nl:Matt Costa pt:Matt Costa tr:Matt Costa

Coordinates	41°52′55″N87°37′40″N
Name	Matt Corby
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Matthew John Corby
Birth date	November 07, 1990
Instrument	VocalsGuitarPianoBanjoHarmonicaGlokenspielKeyboard
Genre	AcousticFolkBluesIndie
Occupation	MusicianSinger-songwriter
Label	Scorpio Music (independent)
Years active	2007 - present
Website	Official Site }}

Matthew John "Matt" Corby (born 7 November 1990, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia) is an Australian singer-songwriter, who was the runner-up to Natalie Gauci on the fifth season of ''Australian Idol'' in 2007.

2007

Corby was 16 when he auditioned for Australian Idol, and placed as the runner-up to Natalie Gauci.

2008 - present

Corby signed with Scorpio Music Management in 2008 and under their guidance headed to London and New York late in 2008, where a series of gigs were played at iconic London venues including The Regal Room and The Bedford.

On 5 June 2009 Matt's debut independent EP, ''Song For...'', was released to ITunes with a limited number of physical copies also released to CD retailers in Australia on 19 June 2009. The 4 track EP received broad critical acclaim and featured the debut single, Letters.

Matt returned to London in July 2009 for three months. He played numerous gigs at a variety of London venues, and whilst in the U.K. wrote and recorded his next EP (also in the folk genre), due for release in April 2010. He was in the final 12 in the inaugural Vanda and Young Songwriting Competition in 2009.

Corby spent the UK summer of 2010 recording his new EP ‘Transition to Colour’ with indie label and production team Communion. It was recorded over a three week period in a London studio with Ian Grimble (The Libertines, Seasick Steve). It was released in Australia and UK in October 2010. The EP has reached #6 on the Top 20 Australasian Singles Chart, after lead single 'Made of Stone' received significant airplay during the summer of 2011.

Discography

EP

2009: Song For... Independent release via Scorpio Music

2010: My False : Released on 28 May

2010: Transition To Colour : Released 22 October

Awards and nominations

Nominated

2009: Vanda and Young Songwriting Competition - Final 12

External links

http://www.mattcorby.com.au

http://www.myspace.com/mattcorbyau

http://www.facebook.com/mattcorbymusic?ref=ts

http://www.youtube.com/MattCorbyau

http://www.mattcorby.org

http://www.communionmusic.co.uk/

References

Category:1990 births Category:Living people Category:Australian male singers Category:Australian child singers Category:Australian guitarists Category:Australian pianists Category:Australian keyboardists Category:Australian Idol participants Category:Idol series runners-up Category:Australian singer-songwriters

Matt Cutts works for the Search Quality group in Google, specializing in search engine optimization issues. He is well known in the SEO community for enforcing the Google Webmaster Guidelines and cracking down on link spam. Cutts also advises the public on how to get better website visibility in Google as well as webmaster issues in general, and is generally an outspoken and public face of Google.

Career

Cutts started his career in search when working on his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Matt got his Bachelor's degree at the University of Kentucky and Master's degree from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His field of study was computer graphics and movement tracking, then moved into the field of information retrieval, and search engines after taking two required outside classes from the university's Information and Library Science department. He co-oped at United States Department of Defense. He did not complete the Ph.D. before moving to Google, but did acquire a master's degree.

Before working at the Search Quality group at Google, Cutts worked at the ads engineering group and SafeSearch, Google's family filter. There he earned the nickname "porn cookie guy" by giving his wife's homemade cookies to any Googler who provided an example of unwanted pornography in the search results.

Cutts is one of the co-inventors listed upon a Google patent related to search engines and web spam, which was the first to publicly propose using historical data to identify link spam.

In August 2006, Cutts allegedly admitted to using the identity GoogleGuy in posts to web related boards, though Cutts later said he was quoted out of context.

In November 2010, Cutts started a contest challenging developers to make Microsoft Kinect more compatible with the Linux operating system. At the time, Microsoft had stated that the use of Kinect with devices other than the Xbox 360 was not supported by them.

References

Further reading

External links

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO – his personal blog

Matt Cutts on Twitter

2009 BusinessWeek profile

Category:Google employees Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people Category:University of Kentucky alumni

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