(* Source: Fruktcomms *)



Nike has partnered up with Wu-Tang rapper and Grammy award winning producer RZA on a series of new commercials in the US promoting a new line of Nike 6.0 ‘extreme sports’-styled footwear.

The three new spots – dubbed ‘RZA vs. Nike 6.0’ – feature the producer in a studio setting live mixing audio to a series of extreme sports videos featuring BMX biker Garrett Reynolds, surfer Kolohe Andino and motocross rider Ryan Dungey. The RZA created remixes are available to download for free from the Nike 6.0 website.

Highlighting the process of musical creativity is rapidly becoming an essential part of the new wave of download giveaways. The move by Nike follows a key trend whereby brands are giving their endorsers space to be creative around the brand, letting them work to a free brief as opposed to over directing the outcome.

In a world awash with digital content every track needs a back-story. With extreme sports it is the anticipation and sharing of the riders’ journey that engages the audience, and not just the end result. The same can be said of music. Nike has attempted to capture the reactive emotion of the studio process in these commercials whilst also providing exclusive free content.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PopSop.com *)



With young, dynamic and active target audience Nike keeps on inventing smart and interactive marketing campaigns. Yesterday the brand announced the launch of ‘The Chosen,’ a new global ‘Just Do It’ campaign starring a number of action sports stars. The main point of the campaign is a film featuring skate god Paul Rodriguez (P-Rod), Olympic snowboarder Danny Kass, surf genies Julian Wilson and Laura Enever. The film was shot in many countries of the world at night with lighting and pyrotechnics effects reminding of a live rock concert with a main theme ‘I got a thing’ performed by Hanni El Khatib.

As ‘The Chosen’ will go on, Nike will be providing an opportunity for athletes to participate in the sports featured in the film, arranging sport events globally. A video contest inviting skaters, surfers, BMX riders, snowboarders and skiers to submit a video of their crew in order to be chosen for an unforgettable travel with the Nike team while getting access to premium Nike products is another part of the campaign.

“‘The Chosen’ represents a new voice for ‘Just Do It’, a passing of the torch to the next generation of sports heroes,” said Davide Grasso, Nike’s Vice President of Global Brand Marketing. “This is a defining moment for Nike Action Sports as we evolve this iconic campaign to bring it to new audiences, in new ways around the world.”

The campaign will take place in 23 markets including the USA, China, Brazil, Western Europe and Australia. In US the film will air on TV on Sunday, June 5 during Game 3 of the NBA Finals at 8 PM EDT. The 3-D version is to be watched at cinemas over the 4th of July Weekend.
All the events are to be followed on the Nike Facebook page, on Twitter and at the official Nike web-site.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paloma Vazquez *)

 

Adidas’ ‘All-In’ campaign received significant attention when it launched last week (including the sometimes surprising selection of celebrity ‘athletes’). Supporting the campaign’s launch was a 3D projection mapping event in Paris, in which the brand showcased athletes across multiple sports; including football/soccer, skating, and even…music. 3D projections were a significant trend last year, with brands like Ralph Lauren, Target and others employing the visual technology to bring ideas to life. It clearly shows no sign of ceasing this year.

In investigating the campaign further, we also found it interesting how Adidas is engaging fans in the campaign in both the US and the UK, with the apparent strategy of empowering fans to demonstrate their talent, passion for sports, and their “game face,” by submitting their stories describing why they’re “all in.” As Piers noted last week, the objective of the campaign is to
promote the idea that when you love your game, whatever that game may be, you put your all into it.
To that end, select respondents will be showcased differently in each country — either in an MTV commercial in the US, or as a reporter at a music event in the UK (for example).
We can’t help but notice the slight resemblance between Adidas’ new campaign and Pumas’ ‘After Hours Athlete’ campaign. While Adidas’ ‘All In Campaign’ is a more direct celebration of athletes — as well as music makers and lovers, the combination of music directly alongside sports threw us off just a bit.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Brand-e.biz *)


G-Technology by Hitach has partnered with Fool’s Gold Records to develop a streaming video series of live performances and interviews. Tight Space will feature Fool’s Gold artists such as A-Trak, Chromeo and Treasure Fingers braodcasting live at 536 Metropolitan, Fool’s Gold’s newly opened retail store in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.

The debut episode of Tight Space will stream on 20 July, kicking off with a DJ set by Chromeo.

“Based on their own creative output, we knew that A-Trak and the Fool’s Gold team would enable G-Technology to reach creative influencers in a very credible and fun way,” said Diana Cartwright, Hitachi GST marketing lead.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Carlos Varela *)



Incubus has a new album coming out in July, and instead of doing the usual press tour, the band has decided to set up shop in its hometown of Los Angeles, hosting a livestream to get fans pumped for the new disc.

“Incubus HQ Live” kicks off Thursday and will run until July 6, with the band interacting with fans — in person and on camera — daily from roughly 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. PT. As of right now, Incubus isn’t exactly sure how its going to use the stream, according to guitarist Mike Einziger. “We haven’t really planned a lot of it,” he says. “We’re going to leave a lot of it up in the air. There are a few things that are going to be planned, like I’m the guitarist, so I’m going to do an guitar clinic with fans.”

The band also plans to perform live on the stream — the first performance of which will be tonight — answer fan questions sent in via social media, and conduct any interviews with the press from Incubus HQ. The band has also teamed up with video-sharing app Viddy (which is rapidly becoming a favorite among members of the music scene, like Panic at the Disco), asking fans to create 15-second videos inspired by upcoming album, If Not Now, When? [iTunes link]. The band even has their own Viddy production pack — or effects that users can apply — which includes the ability to soundtrack a video with their single “Adolescents.”

Although most bands are loathe to delve into the marketing side of an album release, Incubus conceived the livestream idea on its own, attempting to tailor the concept to its image. Einziger acknowledges that the promotional side of music “kind of sucks,” but looks upon the livestream as a chance to let fans know about the disc in the band’s own way.

“That’s the key for us — being able to let people know that we have an album coming out, but allow people to find out about it through the channels that we prefer,” says Einziger. “None of us are great at talking about our music, we’d rather just play it. [But] we want people to know that we have an album coming out…. If we don’t tell the story ourselves, maybe somebody else will tell it in the way that we don’t like.”

“I can only imagine what this would have been like with me, if I had this opportunity with some of the bands that I grew up listening to,” he adds. “I would have lost my mind.”
The band does feel a bit apprehensive going into the first day of the promotion. “We don’t know what we’re going to get. This could be the worst idea in the world,” Einziger says, his sentiment almost exactly mirroring Death Cab For Cutie bassist Nick Harmer’s apprehension before the band filmed a live music video for their song, “You Are A Tourist.”

Posted by brian tiong at 05:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PopSop.com *)



Bacardi 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Steve Mullins *)



Coke Studio, the primetime Coca-Cola sponsored TV music show broadcast across a raft of Pakistani channels, opened in India last Friday. The Coca Cola- and MTV India-backed sponsored programme is offering unedited live recordings and performances from the likes of popular singer Richa Sharma, to Sufi artists the Wadali Brothers and Advaita, a New Delhi band.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: FruktComms *) 

(* Source: StylishChap.com *) 

Ahead of it’s time in the online shopping experience, oki-ni has created an innovative “shoppable” short film that allows viewers to shop by simply clicking on the video.

Oki-ni was founded in September 2001. Initially both a gallery space/store and a global online destination, oki-ni was created to work with established brands and progressive designers, to offer innovative products to knowledgeable fashion consumers.

Oki-ni make the everyday extraordinary. That’s why, they came to creating our latest video. They wanted to do something truly remarkable. What they came up with is this, an interactive and fully-shoppable video.

Bringing together the creative talents of director Antony Crook, Ridley Scott’s RSA/Black Dog production company and the pioneering work of wireWAX, this moving editorial is fully shoppable – meaning that you can click on any outfit, while the video is playing, to shop the look.

The video is styled by Glenn Kitson, a regular oki-ni collaborator, and represents a big step forward in the functionality of online video.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paloma Vazquez *) 

Levi’s has made significant strides to elevate the brand directly into the contemporary ‘cultural fabric’. From photography to art, and from Pennsylvania to the broader US and internationally, Levi’s is doing some smart, compelling work to cultivate its perception as an interesting brand that quite simply ‘gets it’. We don’t know if this will necessarily sell more of Levi’s denim (at least not in the short term) – but it will create curiosity and relevance for the brand as it supports creativity and art, among both the professionals it partners with and the average folks that can practice their own art (with Levi’s as both patron and curator).

Posted by brian tiong at 05:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Giles Fitzgerald *)

Project Imagin8ion, a photography contest promoted by Canon, invites people to submit their imaginative photos for the chance to inspire a Hollywood short film by Oscar-winning director Ron Howard.

A one-minute TV commercial to promote the contest has been created. “Parade” features a city street full of visual effects as an astronaut, a little girl riding a huge diamond dog, a mermaid, firefighters, and a winged knight fighting a giant snake, all pass by Ron Howard’s apartment. He is seemingly unaware, as he gazes at a selection of photographs in search of inspiration.

Posted by brian tiong at 04:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source:  PopSop.com *)

(* Source: Giles Fitzgerald *) 

Posted by brian tiong at 04:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erica Swallow *)

 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Jackie Rangel *)

(* Source: Kyana Gordon *)

Posted by brian tiong at 10:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Paloma Vazquez *)

Land Rover, The Brooklyn Brothers London, Somesuch & Co with director Nick Gordon and Less Rain have collaborated to produce Being Henry, a fully interactive ‘Action –Love – Fantasy – Comedy – Adventure’ film about choices. The online film affords viewers the opportunity to make Henry’s choices, via a choose-your-own-adventure style interaction. Leo Fitzpatrick of The Wire plays Henry throughout the film’s nine different story lines and 32 potential endings. Starting out as a an apparently normal, mundane day, that story may escalate from deciding on breakfast cereal to shooting rats to being kidnapping and tortured by instrument of choice, among others. The outcome depends on the viewer’s choices on Henry’s behalf.

(* Source: POPSOP *)

Colourful M&M‘s candies have lost their dear fellow, Red, In Canada and are now asking residents of this country to help spot him in the City of Toronto (its digital version). The character got into the virtual space on November 4 (the sad story of how Red jumped into the digital dimension is told in a video), and the volunteers of 13 years of age or older are challenged with a task to drag him back within a month.

His friends are sending clues to the ‘rescuers’ through a range of social media channels—first 6 hints are provided in the spot, which explains the whole situation. By visiting the dedicated hub www.findred.ca, consumers can access Google Maps Street View to scour the digital city, looking for Red’s three different locations. Once Red is spotted, the lucky player pushes the button and continues the search until she or he finds all the three places. For every 30 virtual kilometers each ‘tracker’ covers on the digital map, the brand gives one new clue to find Red at the location closest at the time.

Each one who registers on the website automatically enters into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a new red smart fortwo coupé—if a participant manages to find the Red M&M’s character, he or she receives additional entries and increases the chances to win the ultimate prize as well as a range of other gifts.

Here are social media channels and platforms, where the hints are be given by Yellow, Orange, Green and Blue spokecandies, who desperately want to return their unlucky buddy:

Twitter—users of the micro-blogging webservice can discuss their achievements using the hashtag #FindRed;

Stickybits—with the help of barcodes, which can be found on participating M&M’s products, players can receive new clues;

Foursquare—users of this network can follow Red as he checks into various locations around Toronto;

QR codes—the brand will put real-world posters featuring 18 QR codes with hints;

Facebook—the new M&M’s Canada page provides users with links to other hubs and also serves as a platform for active discussions on the theme.

This hilarious geo-locating Find Red campaign was developed by Toronto-based Proximity Canada.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Catherine says...

There was a time when YouTube  was considered a wild-wild west of content — a place where marketers shied away from uploading their commercials, let alone building a branded channel. But these days, YouTube has become more mini-van than stagecoach. From Toyota Sienna’s high-profile television commercials urging consumers to visit their YouTube channel, to (what might be considered the anti-minivan) Harley Davidson’s fan-centric YouTube universe, there has been a noticeable shift in corporate adoption of the platform.

There are many companies now that are hopping on the bandwagon. Just about every corporation and small business is creating a branded channel on YouTube, but there are still relatively few marketers who have managed to harvest the full potential of the platform.

Whether your brand already has a YouTube channel that’s in need of a facelift, or if you’re interested in developing one from scratch, this article will provide some practical tips and valuable tricks to help you kick-start the process.

1. The Test Tube on YouTube

Look at your YouTube channel as a new, exciting learning lab. Be malleable in your approach to both the content and design of the channel. Don’t be concerned with acquiring thousands of friends and subscribers right away. Use this time to test, gather insights, and see what works for your brand and what doesn’t. Unlike your company’s website and traditional marketing collateral, the look and feel of the channel can be changed, tweaked and optimized without a huge investment of time and money.

2. Plotting Global Domination? Check Your Swagger

Ideally, you’ll want to be goal-oriented during the launch (or re-launch) of your channel. Before your itchy little finger goes to hit that “upload” button, consider the needs and goals of your various target audiences, and keep reminding yourself that web video is distinct medium.

Next, think about your marketing objectives and overall brand strategy. Are you using the channel to attract prospects, provide customer support, or build a list of subscribers? Understand that there might not be “one size fits all” content if you are trying to accomplish all three.

Let your strategic goals drive the tactics you use to create and promote videos, and consider whether a paid sponsorship would offer an advantage. If you check out YouTube’s advertising channel, you can get a basic overview of what brands can do with the platform, but be forewarned — the information is a bit heavy-handed on the sales side.

The United States Navy Channel has a wide variety of videos aimed to attract potential recruits. The Navy’s recruitment-focused channel is organized into playlists that target specific groups of recruits with military precision.

3. Avoid Over-commitment Issues

Strongly consider outsourcing. I’ve never met a marketer who wasn’t time-starved. Let’s face it: You probably don’t have time to be uploading content, let alone coming up with titles, descriptions and tags, friending, rating, commenting and optimizing. And I’m giving you fair warning: Entrust this project to a summer intern at your own peril.

While you should allow yourself the flexibility to experiment, YouTube can be a high-profile place to make gaffes, so don’t say I didn’t warn you. If you’re going to outsource, you might consider looking for a specialist who is already set up and can implement your strategy. Creating web videos and knowing how to market them on YouTube requires a whole different skill set than web development — just because it’s online doesn’t mean that it’s a job for the company that builds your website.

4. Be a Social Media Butterfly

Think of your YouTube channel as an extension of your brand that lives and breathes. You’ll need someone who is dedicated to tending to that page, building your audience by reaching out to fans, and managing your profile online.

Start by searching your brand on YouTube and see what the existing conversation looks like. Then try reaching out to people who already have an affinity for your product or service by commenting on their videos and/or “friending” them. Remember that YouTube is an online community, and if you’re not participating in the dialogue, then you are missing the opportunity for true engagement.

5. Don’t Just Re-purpose Old Content

You should post your television commercials online, but don’t let that be the only content on the channel. Remember that television commercials are designed for a one-way medium, and that while audiences may want the ability to see your commercials on-demand, if that’s all you have to offer, they will never visit your channel again.

And don’t just post your commercial and 15 derivative videos about the making of it, or “director’s cuts” of the same, unless they have legitimate value as content in their own right. YouTube is an opportunity for your brand to go beyond traditional “push” marketing tactics and to create videos that address multiple audiences and a variety of consumer needs.

Intel uses their popular television campaigns as the feature reel on their channel, but they also offer a wide variety of other content, including a look at what it’s like to work at Intel, and video from a game developers conference.

6. Broadcast Your Best Self

Make the feature reel on the channel the most entertaining or best piece of content that you have. If that means that it’s a cleverly written and witty commercial that was originally destined for TV, so be it. If a viewer visits your channel, you’ll only have one chance to impress them with your content, so if you don’t entertain them or offer some overwhelmingly valuable information, you’ll lose an opportunity.

7. Make a Menu of Content to Feed Everyone

Understand that YouTube is a search engine for video. Create tailored content that considers what consumers are searching for or need to know about your products and services. If you play your cards right, when consumers are searching for information about your competitor, they’ll come to your videos first. Instructional and how-to videos that show consumers how to use your product are always a good place to start, but also consider the value of integrating your product into existing YouTube shows and then favoriting those videos on your channel.

8. Juice Your Marketing: Extract Extra Value

YouTube does not exist in a vacuum. Try to integrate your YouTube channel into the rest of your marketing programs and cross reference/promote your content. You can extract more value out of your event marketing if you think about ways to co-produce video content. Remember, integrating marketing channels and initiatives is well known for producing a campaign “multiplier effect.” Whether it’s video shot at a trade show or a promo for an upcoming event, just make sure that the video is well produced and edited for length.

Harley-Davidson took advantage of it’s photo shoot with popular model Marisa Miller for the V-Rod Muscle as an opportunity to get some behind the scenes footage and put together a video for YouTube. Harley definitely got extra value from the photo shoot as the video is one of the most-watched on their YouTube channel.

9. Be Homegrown

Grow your channel instead of “launching” it. If there is any medium that pays attention to grassroots movement, web video is it. And be patient — it takes time to spread the word about your channel, and it takes care and nurturing for it to catch on. Keep releasing content on a regular basis, integrate your YouTube channel into your other marketing efforts, bring your customers extra value, and your presence will grow.

10. Keep the Future in Mind

YouTube was started in early 2005 — look how much has changed in a five-year time span, and how fast web video has progressed. As new technology and distribution channels emerge (like the iPad), try to think about how you can create web video content that will serve your brand into the future. During the production process, you should keep user-experience in mind and plan for the audience to be watching your videos on screens the size of a TV, as well as on their mobile phones.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Niels Bellaar *)

Niels says...

We love it when the online world and the offline world come together and share. It’s what we have seen from exciting brands like Red Bull and Apple and we believe many brands have the opportunity to port their offline activities to the online world. And today Diesel is doing such a thing.

At this very moment the world’s hottest fashion designers and brands are showing their fall 2010 collections at the semi-annual New York Fashion Week. Among these is Diesel who will show their Diesel Black Gold fall 2010 collection today at 5pm.

Many want to attend this fashion show, but only a few actually can. From Apple we learn that major offline presentations (the Apple Keynotes) are followed by many via streaming video. At the Diesel Black Gold dotcom you can tune into the live broadcast of the runway show, giving you the opportunity to be among the first to know about this fall’s hottest designs.

In addition Diesel invited not only their offline press relations to the runway show, but also several online fashion influencers. By doing so Diesel shows the importance of having an online presence and closes the gap between traditional journalists and bloggers.

Discussing what you’ve just seen at the live broadcast can be done at Diesel’s Facebook and Twitter channels. It really looks like Diesel is moving away from traditional marketing and towards a model which is more content driven, engaged and focused on consumer dialogue.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *)

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a series of posts by guest writer Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.Previously, he wrote about the State of Online Video, 12 Surprising Things Holding Back Online Video Advertising, and Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online.  In part 4 today, he examines where he thinks the sweet spot is for making money in onljne video. Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of WatchMojo.

In Search of Profits

Ten years ago, web companies didn’t generate much revenue.   These days, web companies are some of the most profitable around.  Online video is where the Web was ten years ago: in investment mode as video companies that are generating high revenue are not necessarily the most profitable.

Are those companies suffering low margins because they’re investing in the future or are they fundamentally lower-margin businesses?

Ad Networks Are Low Margin Businesses

This week, video ad network Brightroll raised $10 million from Scale Venture Partners.  Ad networks aggregate audiences and sell ads to marketers, sharing the proceeds with publishers/producers.  Scale’s Rob Theis’ argues: “the most strategic Internet investments are those that compete not with other Internet businesses, but with the much larger amount of money still being spent offline.”

Brightroll’s CEO Tod Sacerdoti added: “I think by this time next year the majority of the top five to ten video properties by any measure will be aggregator networks.  The best example for this is display advertising.”  Indeed, networks have an unmatched ability to scale but can also crash to the ground awfully fast.

The low margin is the least of their problems; differentiation and defensibility are.  Blue Lithium and Right Media hit jackpots by selling to Yahoo!  But those who didn’t sell (Tribal Fusion, Valueclick) suddenly found themselves under pressure from search advertising on performance and video on branding.

Content Networks Have Little Differentiation

Similarly, aggregators gather videos from content providers, sharing ad revenues.  iFilm (sold to Viacom, renamed Spike), Guba, Grouper (sold to SONY, renamed Crackle), Revver, YouTube (sold to Google), Veoh, DailyMotion, Metacafe, Viddler, blip.tv, are all vying for content, audiences and dollars.

YouTube is master of this domain.  Hulu is giving YouTube a run for its money, but the business model is anything but certain and its long term exit strategy is murky (Disney, News Corp. and NBC Universal/Comcast are shareholders but also competitors).

Ultimately, ad and content networks operate in a high-risk, winner-take-all game.   For publishers, it’s a lower risk world.  Consider the two acquisitions News Corp. made in 2005: Rupert Murdoch paid more for IGN ($650M) than for MySpace ($580 million), but MySpace’s subsequent growth made him look like a genius (for a while).  Today, MySpace is searching for its raison d’etre while IGN treks along as an unstoppable force in its sphere.

The Myth of Hyper Distribution?

In online video, producers are agnostic to distribution channel or platform.  To reduce risk, they diversify distribution, but the jury’s out on whether hyper distribution bears fruit.  Hyper distribution refers to syndicating one’s content as broadly as possible with little or no restrictions.

When it comes to generating revenues, is hyper-distribution wise?  Not according to Chris Pirillo, a prosumer video producer who leverages video to promote his empire but only counts YouTube as a commercial platform: “YouTube offers the largest audiences and generates most the revenue.  If you’re not YouTube, you have challenges in creating value for content producers”.  If that changes, look out for Freewheel, which according to CEO Doug Knopper allows “media companies and content owners to be able to monetize their video libraries across multiple channels and devices”.

Advertisers Follow Audiences…

Ex-Disney CEO Michael Eisner doesn’t pretend to know how the industry is going to play out, but he’s got no doubts what the end result will be: “I don’t know if the growth in content made for the Internet will be evolutionary or revolutionary, but it can’t not happen: a death march has been going on for other media who are in trouble because there is a more efficient way to share content around the world with the Internet.”

Business Models Take Time to Develop

Eisner made his fortune in television.  One VC who’s made his online has another opinion.  In Fred Wilson’s influential 2005 post “The Future of Media (aka Please Take My RSS Feed)”, he suggests to:

1 – Microchunk it – Reduce the content to its simplest form.
2 – Free it – Put it out there without walls around it or strings on it.
3 – Syndicate it – Let anyone take it and run with it.
4 – Monetize it – Put the monetization and tracking systems into the microchunk.

In theory, in the future when video streams monetize the way search queries have (whereby a search query is always associated with some kind of paid listing) then perhaps Wilson’s thesis will prove right.  But in practice, at least in the five years that have passed since the post, it’s been a recipe for financial disaster.

Hyper distribution is great for promotional purposes but not necessarily for commercial purposes.  Marketers do pay more attention as an audience grows, but they also pay a premium for scarcity and exclusivity.

This is the fundamental conundrum facing new media producers who rely on hyper-distribution to build brands and audiences but who weaken their pricing power and ability to secure guaranteed dollars by giving away their videos.  This can work if you can build ad-supported businesses, but that takes time and money.

Today, a few new media producers have managed to build ad-supported businesses, namely Revision3 and Next New Networks.  But between the two, they have raised over $30 million in venture capital.  Most producers don’t have that luxury.  For those others, I recommend creating content that other media companies will pay for, to buy them enough time to build a syndication business and eventually, a fully ad-supported business which commands the large ad dollars.

An imperfect but useful analogy I use is the banking model, where retail, corporate and investment banking fees can create a large business.

This diversified strategy provides:

• a safe income stream:  licensing, like retail banking, provides a recurring and non-volatile revenue base.
• a growth business: syndication, like corporate banking, requires other companies in the ecosystem to do well.  This can provide higher CPM rates by placing content in the right context.
• a wildly lucrative stream: advertising, like investment banking, takes time to develop, is speculative and seasonal, and risks drying up abruptly.  Notice how advertising revenue spikes each fourth quarter, for example.

The reason why I place content producers in the highest Profitability circle over time  in the first chart above is because only they can build such a business.  (The Profitability Index represented in the chart takes into account operating margins and total return on investment, including likelihood of a liquidity event).  And, yes, I am completely biased, since this is the kind of business I am trying to build with WatchMojo.  Aggregators and networks are solely advertising based businesses; just ask YouTube who generated $10,000 in a paid model test, even though it can generate billions in simpler ways.  Video advertising will be a bigger business, but not necessarily a higher-margin business.

Video will be Everywhere: on all Websites

Video on the Web is no longer just about entertainment.  It is also about marketing, instruction, and conveying information of all kinds.

• Content bellwether Wikipedia announced it will be rolling out videos soon enough.
• e-Commerce leader Zappos encourages users to submit their video experiences which increase sales 6% to 30%.  In 2010, it will create 50,000 videos.
• It won’t be long before organizations feature their accountants, lawyers, management, VCs in videos too.

Video will be Everywhere: in Ads

Videos won’t simply be on all websites; video ads will converge with rich media and display banners.  Publishers and ad networks will swap out low yield ad placements for videos that sell at a premium.  Rupert Murdoch is right to say that there isn’t enough advertising to make all publishing online profitable, but if you insert a video-enabled ad where a display banner exists today, maybe it will become more profitable, as video rates tend to generate a tenfold premium over display banners.  Of course, the flip side of that argument is that if video ad inventory lost all scarcity as display banners have, then it rates would also see a steep drop.

Video is the Anti-Search

Google’s dominance of the Web today stems from a perfect storm.  Search benefitted from low expectations.   Whereas Google’s competitors threw in the towel to focus on portaldom (or outright handed them the business), online video companies’ war chests seemingly have no bottom as they wage the war for the online audience.

With YouTube being a unit of Google, it’s hard to compete being a pure video aggregator.  Those who have tried are flailing badly.  Yet video’s expectations have always been high and will only get higher.

History Repeats Itself

Video will follow search in two ways though.

Search is software and Google is the only successful ad-supported technology company.  Video is media, which has a natural disposition to embrace ad-supported models.  As such, advertising will monetize video streams.  In fact, as large ad agencies and marketers shift online, they’ll embrace branding campaigns and push video advertising could eventually top search advertising.  Once that starts, online advertising will surpass television, it’s already happened in the UK.

Search for The Leading Ad Format

Everyone agrees that video advertising will be huge but what will the prevailing ad format be?

Stakeholders are obsessed with finding the ad format likely to follow television’s 30-second ad spot and search’s paid listings.

What might lead the way?

Pre-rolls are the equivalent of pop-ups (and mid/post rolls the equivalent of pop-unders) in that users hate them, but unlike pop-ups, I actually think pre-rolls won’t disappear, mainly because

• They’re the most in-demand ad format (according to Brightroll CEO Tod Sacerdoti)
• It is easier to include a pre-roll when you’re syndicating to other websites and platforms (says blip.tv co-founder Dina Kaplan)
• But largely because they’ll get more user-friendly: the 30-second ad will make way for 5-10 second interactive pre-rolls (SpotXchange CEO Michael Shehan).

However, there will always be properties which will forego pre-roll revenue to improve the user experience in order to build audiences, and all else being equal users will migrate to those sites.  So I’m not sure the pre-roll will remain all that ubiquitous.  The other problem with pre-rolls is lack of attention.  When a pre-roll starts, I tune out and look for my headphones or go grab a coffee.

That’s why I like the contextual display banner (and not necessarily the companion banner).  A companion banner comes bundled with the video pre-roll, but sits alongside the video  A contextual banner comes without the pre-roll.  Whereas most banners disappear quickly next to text with one downward scroll of the mouse, alongside a video player, that banner becomes quite valuable and top-of-mind since people are just staring at the video.

We’ve also seen the rise (and fall) of overlays, which is basically an expanded Picture-in-Picture (PIP) format; we know how that fared.

Of course, content producers are also salivating over branded content (more than product integration and product placement, the brand becomes central to the story) or outright sponsorships.

Finally, there’s the Web’s favorite offspring: the viral video.  Viral video is not an ad format, of course, but it is not quite branded content nor is it supported by ads.  As these become more common, achieving success with content alone becomes a sure-fire recipe for failure.  All content will need to be supported by a media buy or some kind of promotional push.  After all, on TV you spend millions creating an ad but you need to buy media spots to promote it.  It’s not going to be that different online.  Yes, it’s a meritocracy, but it’s a loud, cluttered one.

KISS: Keep It Simple Stupid

There won’t be a single dominant ad format but the holy grail will prove simpler than expected.  It always does.

Remember Don Lapre’s infomercials?  He would go on and on about placing “Tiny Classified Ads” in newspapers.  I never thought much of those ads until Google’s adoption of (essentially) little text ads next to search results led to their explosive growth.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Ashkan Karbasfrooshan *)

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts by guest writer Ashkan Karbasfrooshan. Previously, he wrote about the State of Online Video, and 12 Surprising Things Holding Back Online Video Advertising.  In part 3 today, he examines how videos are found and consumed online. Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of WatchMojo , a producer of premium, informative and entertaining video content. The company’s catalog of 5,000 videos has generated over 110 million streams since 2006.

To try to understand—let alone guess—the future of video advertising, one needs to start by looking at the biggest trend in media over the past few decades.  In November 2006, Bear Stearns Cable and Satellite analyst Spencer Wang published a study called “Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment”.  While Bear Stearns has since been acquired by JP Morgan and is now a mere footnote in business books, the study’s findings are more relevant than ever.  Let’s examine 8 key factors behind online video consumption

Factor 1: Media is Fragmenting

According to a recent NY Times article, in the 1952-53 season, more than 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, according to Nielsen.  In fact, up until twenty years ago, you could buy a 30-second spot on CBS, NBC or ABC and reach “everyone.”  Today, NBC’s prime time reach is 5%.  Sure, NBC is lagging CBS and ABC, but neither the Tiffany network nor Disney’s counterpart is faring much better.  The secret’s out: fewer people watch TV and teenagers spend every waking minute connected to the Internet, increasingly through the mobile web.

Factor 2: Deportalization is Here to Stay

As the media world becomes fragmented and consumers move online, the Web is following a similar path, known as deportalization: the move away from the dominant portals of old, as social networks gain huge followings and vertical niche sites gain smaller, but more loyal, followings.

Ten years ago, you could buy a banner on MSN, AOL or Yahoo and reach “everyone” on the Web.  Five years ago, you could get the same result by buying a text link through AdWords and reach consumers who were either searching directly on Google.com, or surfing on the countless number of websites that were part of Google’s publisher network through AdSense.

Suffice to say, times have changed.  In fact, less and less often do consumers even seek out content  by actually going to a given site.  To paraphrase Jeff Jarvis, if something is important, it will find me, be it via newsletter, Facebook, Twitter or a shared link in an email.  In fact, Facebook might very well be the last giant Web property and when it launched Facebook Connect, it too began to extend its tentacles across the Web.  Twitter’s growth has maintained thanks to its off-site (API) growth, while YouTube exploded due to its open embeddable nature from the get-go.

However, after YouTube sold to Google for $1.65 billion and the site’s aggregate traffic soared, some video producers tried to find a way to generate an audience—and revenues—outside of YouTube in order to build a legitimate business.  In other words, media is becoming fragmented, the Web is becoming deportalized, and the front line of it all is online video.

Factor 3: Content is Not a Zero-Sum Game

If we return for a second to television, it’s worth noting that with the advent of cable television, as the number of channels rose, so did overall content consumption.

Analogously, as the number of content producers and distribution points increases online, consumption increases exponentially.  For proof, look no further than the recent comScore figures touting over 31 billion videos were viewed in November 2009.

Factor 4: Content is King?

Indeed, to paraphrase Viacom’s Chairman Sumner Redstone: content becomes more important than distribution mechanisms; as new channels of distribution creep up, it is the content that is always going to be necessary, hence the adage “content is king”.  If you fast forward to 2010, it’s true that with all of these social media aggregation and distribution tools, you are seeing media rise to the surface.  No one, after all, cares about the pipes; it’s what flows through the pipes that matters.  The context—Facebook, Twitter, email—in which people are introduced to media and consume it is becoming more important than the content itself.  Content is no longer king, context is.

Factor 5: Demand for Content is Elastic, Supply of Funds is Not

The problem, as you can imagine, is that while it’s perfectly plausible for global advertising to grow, it will not grow fast enough to feed all of the mouths at the creative table.  As “consumer touch points” increase, the number of people that each piece of content reaches becomes smaller at the time of publishing/broadcast but can grow over time.  That’s the theory, anyway.

This is a double-whammy trend.  It is negative because the audience for something (and corresponding revenue) will be less than what the most popular event on television will be, which partially explains the cachet television still has over its online brethren.

But it is also a positive trend in that as a content owner you will be able to derive more revenue over the course of the content’s shelf life.  Don’t get me wrong, syndication on television is an enormous revenue stream, but that is not an option for all programming, whereas online, technically, anything has both a shot at building an audience and having some kind of residual revenue stream.  The problem is that there is no vetting process per se online so the lowest common denominator can be zero.

Factor 6: Chasing Hits Has Proven Futile

Ultimately, overall consumption of media will increase but hits become less frequent and each hit will become more niche.  The stats support this hypothesis, despite YouTube’s aggregate size and macro-level success, each clip’s average viewership shows that regardless of whether the video is user-generated, premium or super-premium (for a definition of the differences click here), on average:

• It will garner 500 views over time
• 25% of those views will come in the first four days and
• by and large, only the first 30 to 60 seconds will be watched.

How can you build a business on that?

Factor 7: Discovery vs. Recovery

Exasperating matters is how content is actually unearthed.  To borrow from John Battelle’s breakdown of search: videos are found via recovery and discovery.

Statistics show that:

• 45% of views come from direct navigation where a user goes to YouTube and searches to “recover” something they have already seen or are actively looking for.  Of course, YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine and most of those searches are now conducted on YouTube.com, which reinforces the argument that YouTube is now the best Internet M&A of all time.
• The other 55% of the time, users stumble upon a video and “discover” it.  That is right, over half of the time, users land on something randomly.

In other words, while traditional media views the web as a place where pirates turn to to rip off their copyright, the truth is, only half of all of the content consumed is actually searched for, the other half is stumbled upon, meaning you actually have to distribute it widely enough to increase the likelihood that people even notice it, let alone give a damn!

This is why you need both lots of content and a diversity of it.  Indeed, Time.com former Managing Editor Josh Tyrangiel admitted that “long form journalism, a staple of magazines like Time, is not working” online.  The same applies to long form video online, and by extension, on mobile.

Factor 8: Size Matters

So what works?  To gain more insight into that (and to avoid an overly biased outlook), I reached out to Dina Kaplan, who is the COO of blip.tv.  (We use blip.tv’s video player on our web property).  According to Kaplan, a Pyramid of Content is emerging on the Web.

I tend to agree.  Back in February 2007, I wrote an article called “The Commoditization of Distribution and the Scalability of Content”.  In it, I alluded to a rudimentary pyramid with super premium on top, premium in the middle and UGC at the bottom:

It’s certainly not rocket science, and Kaplan and I are not alone in having that view.  She continues: “Hulu is the best-known platform sitting at the top of the pyramid, in terms of hosting and distributing network content.  YouTube, which has long been known for hosting great viral and one-off videos, has owned the bottom of the pyramid.”

The question remains: who will own the middle.  A couple of years ago, YouTube made a move towards “torso content”.  Kaplan’s blip.tv is obviously making a play for the middle, “blip.tv [wants to own] the middle of the content pyramid: the best original shows produced for the Web.  These shows are produced by talented individuals and production companies who are building up loyal audiences for their shows, just as the producers of a traditional TV show would.”

With things like Apple launching the iPad and IPTV gathering steam, Kaplan is confident that “shows will move around from screen to screen and you’ll choose to watch content on whatever screen is most convenient for you at that moment.”

Of course, with Boxee’s struggles to get traditional media on-board, one wonders if new media producers have a golden opportunity to win traditional ad dollars, which dwarf new media dollars by a wide margin.  For all the talk and excitement about online advertising and online video advertising, TV advertising in the US remains a $75 billion industry.

When you realize the dichotomy between the existing business that is Television and the potential that might be Online Video, you realize why the stakes are so high.  Also read:

Part 1: State of Online Video

Part 2: 12 Surprising Things Holding Back Online Video Advertising

Posted by brian tiong at 09:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Giles Fitzgerald *)

Interesting how social networks have taken the old MTV formula and run with it...

Giles says...

Bebo and Samsung are teaming up on a new online TV initiative in order to promote Samsungs new Beat DJ Handset. As with previous tried and tested Bebo webisode models – Kate Modern, Sofia’s Diary, and The Secret World of Sam King -  the Beat series will follow a fully interactive pathway. Viewers will be given the chance to interact through blogs, upload track reviews, share music news and also be offered the chance to appear in the show itself. In addition Samsung and Bebo will also be running a nationwide promotion to find a co-presenter for the show. The deal will see Samsung promoting its new live venture, Samsung Bebo Nights, with an inaugural performance by White Lies and The Maccabees on 1st June.

Samsung have a long history dabbling with music - traditionally working with artists to endorse and support new product launches. In the past year or so they have used Girls Aloud, The Presets, Ozzy and Gabriella Cilmi. Not to mention signing up Lebanese singer Elissa as a brand ambassador and Korean singer Rain as their Olympic ambassador in China.  This new approach to supporting a series of live music initiatives such as Samung Bebo Nights is the first time they’ve branched out into what could be described as a marketing platform.

 

“Our belief is that credibility through association is tough to achieve, brands need to do something genuinely useful and interesting for the audience or they risk joining a long list of brands trying to absorb some ‘cool’. This new activity is a great starting point for Samsung, with appropriate partnerships in place, relevant products and creation of content at the heart of it all. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds”

Jack Horner, Creative Director, FRUKT

Posted by brian tiong at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MG Siegler says... Time Magazine recently called YouTube one of the of the past decade, which was hilarious. Hilarious in that the site is by far and away the most popular site for video on the web, and has revolutionized the way we view videos, period. Today brings another amazing stat about the site: Every single minute, over 20 hours of video are now uploaded to YouTube.

Think about that for a minute. In that minute, nearly a days worth of footage will have been uploaded. And the pace is quickening. Back in 2007, shortly after Google bought the service, it was 6 hours of footage being uploaded every minute. As recently as January of this year, that number had grown to 15 hours, according to the YouTube blog. Now it’s 20 — soon it will be 24. That’s insane.

It’s true that YouTube is not making Google any money, but when a site has this much dominance over a market, one way or another, there will be a way to effectively monetize it. The big Hollywood studios are already showing an increasing interest in using the platform, as are others — like ESPN.

Meanwhile, YouTube continues to become a bigger part of Google’s larger social picture. Today, the service added a way to immediately record a video response to a video after you watch it. Sure, this is basically what Seesmic has been doing for a while now — but Seesmic doesn’t have 20 hours of video being uploaded every minute.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

A study commissioned by NeoEdge Mountain View, CA-based casual gaming advertising network, says (surprise, surprise) that video advertising within online games is more effective than TV advertising. Preliminary results of the study, which will conclude at the end of this month, seem to indicate online gaming audiences are more inclined to remember and positively percieve brands who experiment with pre, mid and post-roll video advertisements inside Web-based games.

Of course, studies ordered by commercial companies with a clear stake in the subject of the research like this one always need to be taken with a grain of salt, but the results are interesting nonetheless, and deserve a closer look. After all, major companies like Google and Sony are eyeing in-game advertising revenues in a big way, and for good reason: depending on which research organization you trust, spending on in-game advertising is supposed to grow to between $732 million and $1.8 billion by 2010, although I personally believe the current economic climate might prevent spending to reach even the more conservative prediction by the end of next year.

For more context: some say in-game advertising will ruin the video game industry altogether, others believe standards will spur industry growth, and a recent article on our sister site Crunchgear (based on another study) suggested gamers don’t have a problem with in-game advertising at all.

Anyway, going back to NeoEdge’s study, which was conducted in conjunction with research agency Frank Magid Associates, this is how they came to their conclusions:

The research goal was to determine both the value of online video advertising inside of casual games and the most efficient use of video advertising in casual games. In partnership with advertiser Zappos.com, casual game players across the NeoEdge Network were intercepted with a survey request after game play. Consumers saw one of ten different online video advertising scenarios, which varied number of ads seen, frequency of ads and additional ad products. Over 2,000 consumers participated in the research study and over 1 million ad impressions were used to conduct the comprehensive research.

According to Vicki Cohen, Executive Vice-President at Frank Magid Associates, the preliminary results show a 5x increase in unaided brand awareness over TV advertising where a game included a Zappos.com ad. Other key findings according to the release: over 80% correctly linked Zappos.com as the advertiser who “allowed them to play the game for free” (who knew gamers were such a grateful lot?), while 56% had a more favorable impression of Zappos.com because of their trade-off of watching an ad for free game play.

I am skeptical that the reported uplift in percentages and absolute numbers can be generalized across all in-game advertising and more extensive research would be welcome for backing up the statement, although I am inclined to believe the notion that in-game advertising is generally more effective than TV advertising.

Then again, which form of digital advertising isn’t?

Posted by brian tiong at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

I’m not going to discuss the economic meltdown and its devastating effect on technology companies and internet startups in this post, but rather something that crossed my mind earlier this morning: “Web 2.0″ seems to become more and more a void (and an avoided) term. Of course, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it is definitely apparent.

So why do I say it’s fading? For one, because the number of startups that contact us and include the term Web 2.0 in the subject line or message is visibly dropping (and that’s a good thing), and I hardly ever see it mentioned anymore on other technology blogs and news sites either. That’s not really tangible, so I took a look at the number of mentions of the phrase across the web, and they seem to be decreasing significantly, reflecting my feeling on this.

Judging by Google Trends, which shows how often a particular search term is entered relative to the total search volume across various regions of the world (and in various languages), the term started being used at the end of 2004 when Tim O’Reilly organized the first edition of the Web 2.0 Conference. Search queries for the term started picking up in the middle of 2005, when TechCrunch was started - with the tagline “Tracking Web 2.0″ by the way - and the number kept increasing until the end of 2007. After that, the trend is clearly downwards, falling back to the level it reached in early 2006 today. If the trend continues, there should only be a handful of people left who scour search engines for “Web 2.0″ by 2011.

Also noteworthy: take a look at the geographic regions that have generated the highest volumes of worldwide search traffic for the term over the years - it’s Asia, with the top 5 regions being India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Malaysia (in that order). Furthermore, Google Trends pegs the number one language in which people search for stuff related to the topic of Web 2.0 to be Russian before English.

And just in case you’re curious: “Web 3.0″ doesn’t seem to picking up much.
Let’s all rejoice.

Google’s “Insights for Search”, a beta service that analyzes a portion of worldwide Google web searches from all Google domains to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you’ve entered - relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time - gives an even better overview:

Posted by brian tiong at 02:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason says...

Snackfeed, a video recommendation site that tries to aggregate the web’s hottest videos, has made impressive progress since its launch last fall. We were first introduced to the site at the DreamIt Ventures (a startup incubator similar to Y Combinator and TechStars) first funding day, and it held its private launch three weeks later. Since then the site has seen impressive growth, with a reported 150,000 unique visitors in November. Snackfeed is currently in private “b’alpha” but TechCrunch readers can grab one of 1000 invites by visiting this site and entering the code “snacktastic”.

The site presents videos in a basic feed that is populated with videos shared by your friends, your favorite shows (which you can sign up for during the registration process), and clips that are currently trending in blog posts, Twitter feeds, and other places across the web. Users can also follow eachother using a Twitter-like follow system.

Snackfeed’s Jason Laan says that while the company initially concentrated on an extensive recommendation engine that segmented viewers into personalized channels, it found that most people were primarily interested in watching the web’s most popular clips. The site now serves these first, and then tries to fill in “the gaps” with recommendations based on the user’s favorite blogs, recently watched Hulu and YouTube clips, and favorite topics. The site’s homepage also offers a listing of the web’s current most popular videos to non-members, and acts as a sort of Hype Machine for video. Laan says that the site’s rapid growth can be largely attributed to an aggressive marketing campaign on Twitter and other social sites.

There are a few other players in this space, including ffwd (covered here), which is focused on created a powerful recommendation algorithm that allows users to “channel surf” across the web.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Robin Wauters *)

Robin says...

Sony is set to announce a re-launch of video entertainment network site Crackle today, with a roll-out of a number of new web shows including sketches by L.A. comedy troupe “The Groundlings”, a video game show called “The Jace Hall Show” and a five-minute talk show dubbed “Anytime with Bob Kushell” hosted by a Hollywood writer.

Sony’s media business, Sony Pictures Entertainment, will be using the types of production techniques that it puts into movies and TV to resemble other online programming by staying short, often no more than five minutes long, reports Reuters. Crackle’s season begins December 1.

Last August, Sony Pictures partnered up with Rocketboom, acquiring the worldwide distribution rights to Rocketboom.com in all media, putting the daily show on Crackle.com, presenting the show with a Crackle player on the Rocketboom.com website and distributing it over its syndication network. See RocketBoom founder Andrew Baron’s take on the upcoming announcement here.

Crackle used to be Grouper, before Sony bought the startup for a reported $65 million in the Summer of 2006. The Reuters report cites 2.4 million visitors in October, according to research firm The Nielsen Online Co., while Compete shows higher number and a nice growth pattern.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Peter Kafka *)

Peter says... 

Conventional wisdom on YouTube: Eyeballs go in, but no money comes out. Google can't figure out how to sell ads against the videos it shows, so the people who make YouTube's videos aren't getting any money out of it.

Not true, says Terry McBride, who runs both a music label and management business under the umbrella of Nettwerk Music Group: There's plenty of cash. For instance, he told a London music conference this month, pop star Avril Lavigne, who Terry manages, is going to make a mint:  ”There’s about a $2 million cheque waiting for her for all her YouTube plays.”

How's that going to work? We called Terry to ask. The answer: He's not quite sure.

Here is Terry's basic math: By his count, Avril has already generated some 200 million streams on YouTube. He thinks, but doesn't know, that YouTube is paying out between $0.005 and $0.008 in revenue share each time it streams an officially licensed video. If YouTube is paying out 0.8 cents per stream, it means it is already on the hook for $1.6 million. And Avril will certainly keep cranking out videos, and streams, for some time to come. So there's definitely money there.

Video tracking service TubeMogul confirms Terry's estimate of Avril's YouTube popularity. In fact, it says, that 200 million number only accounts for officially licensed stuff -- if you include grey area clips, like those of kids lipsyncing to her songs in their bedroom, the total is closer to 1 billion. And Terry's 0.8 cents per stream estimate seems plausible: Guesstimates place YouTube's CPM at $15, which means it is generating 1.5 cents for every stream it generates. It may well be giving up half of that to content creators/rights holders.

But even those rough estimates are full of uncertainty: In addition to not knowing YouTube's aggregate revenue payout, Terry doesn't know how that money will be split between various rights holders: Avril's publisher, Avril's record company (Sony BMG) and Avril herself. He'll start to figure out some of that once he starts to see actual royalty statements. None of this going to happen anytime soon, Terry says: He figures Avril is another 2 to 3 years from seeing a significant payout.

So to sum up: Avril Lavigne's manager thinks she will get some money, some time, from YouTube. That's not as dramatic as the prospect of a $2 million check. But Terry says that no matter what the sum is, his larger argument is correct: Music acts should stop thinking of YouTube as little more than a promotional machine, and start thinking of it as a revenue stream.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *)

Video entertainment to rival sleep time.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jonathan Richards *) 

Eric Schmidt, the search giant's chief executive, said it "seemed obvious" that Google should be able to generate "significant amounts of money" from YouTube, on which hundreds of millions of videos are watched every day, but that as yet it hadn't figured out how to go about it.

In an interview with The New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, Mr Schmidt was cautious about how profitable YouTube might be, but said he believed the site could lead to "the creation of a whole new industry." He said his optimism was based on two facts: "We know people are watching it" and "We have the luxury of time to invest."

Google sees YouTube as a key plank in the strategy to grow its revenues beyond those it derives from the small text adverts that appear alongside search queries. The company is hoping it can use the site - which is visited by 129 million people each month - to expand into other types of web-based ads, including those which exploit the burgeoning popularity of internet video.

Last month Google said it would soon roll out a new type of video-based advertising on YouTube that would be different to the 'pre and post roll' adverts - shown before and after video clips - with which it has experimented to date, but declined to give details.

The company has also trialled so-called 'in video' ads on the site, which it bought for $1.65 billion two years ago, where a banner appears across the top of the screen while a video is played and test adverts are shown across the bottom, but the reaction has been mixed.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Compete *)

The song remains the same at the top of the Video rankings in March: YouTube continues to outpace the market, growing 7.8% while the video viewing sessions across the web grew only 2.3%.

Meanwhile Veoh narrowly maintained its spot in the Top 10, with phenomenal 23.8% monthly growth, edging out CBS Interactive by a very thin margin. The CBS Interactive division includes Sportsline.com, which scored a 154% gain as the prime spot for watching live streaming March Madness games.

Meanwhile Joost, which is backed by CBS, presented the games as a live streaming “experiment.” While Joost works via client, the March Madness offering did not bring much in the way of new visitors to the site to download the player.

Advertisers placed $545 million on TV for the 2008 NCAA Tournament, according to TNS, but just a tiny fraction of that followed online. With 8.5 million consumers watching next-day tournament highlights and interacting with NCAA Basketball content on the web, there was a huge opportunity to reach March Madness fans and perhaps to do it with more efficient media buys.

We used Compete’s BehaviorMatch, which can be customized for any demographic or behavioral segment, to call out the top video sites for March Madness fans.

While Sportsline came out on top in terms of Composition, predictably, some unexpected sports video sites like Runners World and The Golf Channel also scored high. Meanwhile, the largest sites like YouTube and MySpace aggregated the most eyeballs but had the worst Composition scores.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: PSFK *)

Colin Nagy says...

Today, online music hub Pitchfork Media announced the upcoming launch of their new music-oriented online TV channel, Pitchfork.tv, set to go live on April 7.  Pitchfork has already established itself as a respected source for independent music news, reporting and commentary across several genres, and now they’re branching out with some compelling video content — on their terms.

As stated by Pitchfork:

As a visual extension of the music coverage Pitchfork has provided for more than a decade, and a means of updating and advancing the music television format, the online channel will bring you closer to the artists you love, through original mini-documentaries, secret rooftop and basement sessions, full concerts, exclusive interviews, and the most carefully curated selection of music videos online. In addition, Pitchfork.tv will become the first online video channel to screen full-length feature films, vintage concerts, and music DVDs free of charge. From the Pixies’ 2004 reunion tour film LoudQuietLoud and Todd Phillips’ notorious GG Allin documentaryHated, to Jimmy Joe Roche & Dan Deacon’s acid-drenched visual art piece Ultimate Reality, Pitchfork.tv will highlight a different film each week in its entirety.

The announcement emphasizes the fact that Pitchfork is privately owned, with no outside investment or special interests. In their words, “We’ve waited decades for a music channel that respects our intelligence and reflects our ideals. Now that the technology is here, we’re finally able to do it the way that people who really care about music have always wanted to see it done.”

Pitchfork Media

Posted by brian tiong at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

Mike says...

We covered Stage6, a DivX-owned site, in October 2006 as part of a roundup of up and coming video sites. The site, which allowed users to upload video in the high quality Divx format, streams video that makes YouTube look shabby in comparison.

The site won’t be around long, though, Uploads have already been shut down, and the site itself will go offline on February 28. The official reason: “So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide.”

Translated, that may be that the pirates took over the site. New movies and tv shows were constantly being uploaded and then taken down by the site staff. Sites like Joox.net took all that pirated content and repackaged it on their own site. The combined costs of hosting, plus all the monitoring for infringement, may have been more than Divx was willing to deal with.

Update: Ok, we’ve been shaking the trees on this story a little. According to one source, the planned spinoff of Stage6 from DivX apparently had $24 million or so in committed venture capital but negotiations with the DivX board broke down over ownership percentages. We’re still digging.

Update2: Comscore says Stage6 has 17.4 million monthly unique visitors and 360 million page views. We also hear that their monthly CDN bill from LimeLight is $1 million, about 11% of their revenues. That’s going to hurt them.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: eMarketer *) 

Coming soon to a screen near you: Convergence.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kevin Riley *) 

According to data at Alexa.com which ranks websites according to their visitor traffic, Web 2.0 video sharing site Youtube.com has now overtaken Google.com as the world's second most visited website. Is this proof that video search marketing has come of age and is becoming a threat to traditional online search?

After noticing a massive spike in popularity and traffic at video sharing sites such as Youtube.com starting early last year, internet marketer and website traffic expert Kevin Riley decided to see for himself if online video had more than just entertainment value.

 
"As someone who had previously focused on online marketing through traditional search using PPC and SEO, I initially assumed that video sharing sites were going to be a fad with little marketing potential," explains Riley. "But when I noticed niche content videos posted to these sites were getting a massive number of views and also showing up high in the search engine results pages for relevant keywords, I knew the potential for marketing with videos was about to explode."

 
"Although I was excited at the traffic these videos received, I was even more surprised when I noticed that these promotions really did increase website traffic to our sites that converted into leads and sales," says Riley. "In fact, the conversion rates on some of our video promotions are as good as the results we get with some of our traditional search campaigns."

"Video search marketing is here to stay," proclaims Riley. "Although video search is more of a compliment than a threat to traditional search, especially since Google wisely acquired Youtube, it has already proven itself as a necessary component of any effective online marketing campaign."

 

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Soshable.com *) 

It’s time to run down to the nearest electronics store and grab a video camera while they’re still available.  Many of the businesses who haven’t been posting videos to YouTube will be jumping on the bandwagon soon.

There were 34 news stories listed on Google news for January 17th and 18th, 2007, stemming from the latest comScore video metrix results that have Google video sites owning over 31% of the online video market.  YouTube accounts for a huge portion of that.

Alexa data shows over 18% of Internet users worldwide visit YouTube, while Compete data has YouTube approaching 60 million visitors a month.

Perhaps most importantly, Google, Yahoo!, and some other search engines are starting to give very strong rankings to videos in their natural search results, especially those from YouTube.

All of these things point to one conclusion: the rise of video spam. Read more

Posted by brian tiong at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins *) 

Earlier this year, YouTube released a way to finally make a bit of cash off this internet video thing with the “Partner Program.” The program was widely panned for a number of reasons: CPC were thought to perform far inferior to CPM, and only a select few were being allowed into the program.

Now that folks know they can make substantial piles of cash monetizing with CPC ads with Revver and other places, folks have been clamoring to get into the limited beta program. In response to the overwhelming negative coverage of the fact that the Partner Program was limited to an ambiguous group of “YouTube Elites,” YouTube has created an expanded version of the program.

This applications process for this version is open to, and I’m quoting here: “anyone living in the United States or Canada.” On face value, it at least sounds less ambiguous.

Problem is, while you may be free to apply, those allowed to actually join will be limited to “the users who have built a significant audience on YouTube (as measured by video views, subscribers, etc.) and who consistently comply with the YouTube Terms of Use.” The program, as of the time of this writing, only has 100 extra users that have been accepted.

So, to recap and translate the YouTube-speak: “In response to the allegations that regular uploaders felt miffed they weren’t accepted into our limited beta, we’re having a limited beta.”

I’m really starting to wonder what’s going on over there at YouTube. I can’t tell if they just think we’re all stupid, or if they are actually, in fact, stupid. Phrasing this as if it’s opening it up to the wide wide world of the YouTube userbase while boasting of an additional 100 members to the program looks rather foolish in the face of the millions of users that YouTube presently has.

On that same note, I understand the legal need to mention that a user needs to comply with the Terms of Service to maintain the ability to stay within the YouTube Partner Program, but it probably wasn’t the best decision to include that in the “Wow, We’re Announcing New Awesome” verbiage. The first thing that comes to mind when they mention the Terms of Use is the shifting definition of what that means, and the many users world-wide that have their free speech curtailed as a matter course.

Regardless, YouTube is going about this thing all wrong. As a result, I predict that the level of serious producers that use YouTube as their primary distribution platform will go down. The strategy they want their users to employ seems to be: “Build it, get the people coming, and then if you’re lucky we’ll give you some cash.” That’s completely backwards. I understand how the behemoth can think this way - they’ve a glut of advertising inventory. The problem is that for serious producers, there are many other ponds to go swim in that will produced guaranteed revenue. You won’t perhaps get all the perks of the huge YouTube community by focusing on them exclusively. On the other hand, you won’t lose revenue by spending months building up a significant sticky audience only to later find out you may be turned down from participation in the Partner Program.

My advice to serious producers? Stick to respectable distribution methods with a history of paying their producers: BlinkX, Revver and Blip. Use YouTube as a promotions vehicle to funnel folks back to distribution methods with monetization on it. That means turning off viral features, and tagging your YouTube uploads with URL stamps leading back to your website or podcast feed.

Perhaps when YouTube gets their ad program figured out, I can change my advice a bit.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *) 

Gaia, the avatar-filled virtual world, has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Sony Pictures. You may be wondering why. It appears to be, in part, for building out Gaia theaters, where users can congregate in virtual rooms for the purpose of viewing video clips.

This was really brought to the forefront of Gaia’s feature set when it launched a VJ tool for users to create their own theaters and feature video clips from around the web. This concept has now been expanded to include content from Sony and Warner, who will be streaming films and television shows inside the virtual theaters found in Gaia. Some content will be pay-per-view while other content will be ad-supported.

This seems to be somewhat of an extension for centralized viewing options that broadcast companies like NBC have taken advantage of for streaming events such as concerts in virtual worlds like Second Life. What’s interesting is that we’re seeing these centralized streaming options pop up in multiple virtual worlds, not just one. It speaks to the importance of virtual worlds, and even moves attention away from the idea that companies don’t need to focus on certain avatar spaces for realistic quality alone.

As Sony has indicated its interest in finding more ways to distribute its content as a way to rival iTunes, this could be considered another way beyond Crackle and its other offerings, for Sony to do so. Gaia has a pretty large following, and while I don’t think television shows and pay-per-view films will make a major dent in Apple’s market share, I do like the idea of streaming content through more interactive and social places, like Gaia.

On the music front, Sony and Warner are in fact the two major labels that have not offered up DRM-free music downloads, which was highlighted in a recent announcement of Pepsi’s deal with Amazon for a promotion that will run beginning next year, during the Superbowl. As advertising and content owners look for more creative ways in which to insert marketing material and content into interactive and social areas of the web, perhaps the integration with Gaia will be a good way for Sony to test out more advertising options for its content.

[via paid content]

Posted by brian tiong at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfield *) 

Video sites are moving towards full-screen, immersive experiences where there are lots of things viewers can do besides hit play. One of the better examples of what is possible comes from a small Isreali startup with two 26-year-old co-founders and no VC funding called Tvinci. The startup’s media management technology powers the social video player for MTV Israel.

If you play a video on MTV.com, you see this MySpace-inspired train wreck:

If you watch a video on MTV Israel, which is in private beta and will launch early next year, you will see something like this:

The video control box can be dragged around the screen anywhere you want it. You can minimize or maximize the video to whatever size you like. You can add comment bubbles, reorder items in your playlist by dragging them around, check out your friends’ playlists, or see other peoples’ playlists who share your taste in music videos. You can preview other videos and channels through a Coverflow-like rotation of thumbnail images overlayed on top of the video you are watching, allowing you to browse while enjoying a video rather than stopping the video to find a new one. The sidebar with your playlist pops out when you need it and hides away when you don’t. When you get bored with your playlist, you can watch your friends’ or find videos by mood (the videos are tag-based, so this could be set up for other categories as well). Of course, you can rate each video or leave comments. There are also chat and RSS feed widgets you can add to the player.

Tvinci also supports video uploading from viewers and video recommendations based on what your friends like. MSN Israel also uses the platform. Hopefully, we’ll see this stateside soon. Co-CEO Ido Wiesenberg hints that he is in talks with major media companies to do just that. He is also working on Facebook and OpenSocial apps so that videos can be shared between social networks and sites like MTV.

Unfortunately, you have to be in Israel to experience this for now because most of the videos are geo-blocked (due to licensing). but TechCrunch readers can try this site that Tvinci set up for us that replicates what can be seen on MTV Israel, without the restricted videos.

Here are some screenshots:

Posted by brian tiong at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *)

New figures released by comScore show that YouTube remains the outright leader in online video.

Based on videos viewed, Google owned sites (YouTube + Google Video, but mostly YouTube) commanded a 28.3% market share in the United States in September with Fox Interactive Media (FIM) sites (MySpace and others) on 4.2%. The figures (see chart) demonstrate that YouTube doesn’t dominate video viewing as much as would be expected, suggesting that the long tail is alive and well in the sector given the top ten video sites only hold 45.2% of all videos viewed online.

The unique viewer numbers for video destinations also show Google leading, but by a smaller margin of 39.4% vs 22.6% for FIM sites. These figures are for people visiting the actual video sites themselves suggesting that much of YouTube’s dominance comes not from YouTube.com itself, but from people embedding YouTube videos (28.3% of all videos viewed vs 4.2% for FIM).

Notable in its absence from both top ten charts is the IAC owned Vimeo, who according to this post fired founder Jakob Lodwick today. Clearly Vimeo isn’t performing although it has positioned itself well with support for HD video. IAC usually takes long term positions in companies it owns (Ask.com for example) so it’s not on Deadpool watch yet but you’d expect IAC will be looking at ways of improving its performance going forward.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted by brian tiong at 03:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : Wired *)

Jenna Wortham says :

Posted by brian tiong at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : Walstreet Journal *)

A feel-good film about a girl from the Chinese countryside who moves to the big city to discover love, blogging and Starbucks will premier this month in an unusual venue: Shanghai's subway.

"A Sunny Day," is scheduled to play exclusively on thousands of high-tech flat screen monitors on Shanghai's subway cars and station platforms.

Girl meets boy and Starbucks in 'A Sunny Day,' to be shown in installments

Tailored for an audience of 2.2 million who cram onto China's biggest underground railway each day, the full-length feature film will be shown in daily segments of a few minutes each over 40 weekdays, soap-opera style. Subtitles in Chinese will help commuters follow the dialogue over the subway noise, and multiple daily rebroadcasts and tie-ins on the Internet are designed to ensure no one misses any of the cliffhangers.

Instead of an ordinary film, the so-called "subopera" is a blend of drama and advertising. A venture between Starbucks Coffee Co. and PepsiCo Inc. financed and helped produce the drama as part of a campaign that kicks off today in Shanghai to introduce bottled frappuccino drinks to the Chinese market.

"It's quite unique and demonstrates a departure from conventional marketing," says Howard Schultz, Starbucks chairman. The coffee company hasn't traditionally advertised, Mr. Schultz says, adding that a soap opera can be effective since it creates "real entertainment for our customers and along the way there is a complementary message." PepsiCo, which will bottle and distribute the Starbucks-branded drinks, referred questions to Starbucks

The film has a clear commercial bent. In some shots, the mermaid from the Starbucks logo gets as much face-time as the movie's big turnstile draw, Huang Xiao Ming, a 29-year-old pop star who is so well known he is sometimes called China's Justin Timberlake.

Still, "A Sunny Day" is no infomercial. Mr. Huang's character "CC" is a struggling musician who strums his guitar for coins in the subway, and falls for big-hearted Sunny, who is trying to get over the death of a boyfriend and fit into a new job.

During the shooting on a recent Sunday, as a gaggle of teenage women sneaked onto the set, Mr. Huang described the subway a "fashionable, very modern" venue that will appeal to a trendy audience.

Subways around the world have long featured visual distractions. A century ago, platforms were showcases for art, like the swank metro stations in Paris. In the 1970s, spray paint enlivened the dank and dangerous New York subway, and in the 1980s, the late Keith Haring helped make graffiti a respected art form with projects like "Studio in the Subway."

This year, the Berlin subway's 1.5 million daily passengers were the judges in a weeklong festival of 90-second, silent films called "Going Underground."

Advertisers are also pressing beneath the streets. Sidetrack Technologies Inc. of Winnipeg and New York-based Submedia LLC place light-board advertising in subway tunnels in several cities around the world, giving riders the motion-picture like effect of seeing a flipbook.

China's $20 billion advertising industry is increasingly adopting the global trend toward marketing disguised as entertainment. In addition to Hollywood-style product placements in TV shows and movies, a rapidly expanding segment is directed at an emerging middle class during the workday hours with slickly crafted TV-style ads in taxis, airplanes and even elevators.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 04:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : Adam Ostrow *)

Google Earth has integrated YouTube, allowing you to view videos from specified locations around the world. A new “YouTube” button in Google Earth places icons on a map to show you where the videos are located. Upon zooming in, you will see more videos for the location of interest. The YouTube videos are plotted according to geotags that YouTube users have placed on their content.

This is a really clever integration between Google products. Versus the Street View feature of Google Maps where the company is sending camera crews around the globe, all of the content here is user-generated. In other Google Maps developments, the company has also added community maps to find things like places to eat, events, and activities, also submitted by users.

Could Google Maps be turning into one of the major social initiatives at Google? Between integrating YouTube videos, user-generated local maps, and potential presence features from the recently acquired Jaiku, it seems like there might be something brewing here.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : MediaPost.com *)

Laurie Petersen says :

TURNER BROADCASTING SYSTEM, INC.'S NEW Products Group has signed a one-year deal with Kaneva to build and test virtual world extensions of its entertainment properties.

Each Turner Web community and corresponding virtual space inside Kaneva will contain video players for video streaming of select Turner network content.

"Our exploration with Kaneva of virtual worlds is yet another example of Turner staying at the forefront of consumer technology trends," said Blake Lewin, vice president for TBS Inc.'s New Products Group. "Through this opportunity, we hope to leverage the Kaneva platform to explore how users interact with our brands in a virtual world."

The agreement will grant Turner access to Kaneva's technology and tools to create and use Web communities and Virtual Spaces on the Kaneva Web site and in the virtual world of Kaneva.

"Turner is an ideal flagship media partner for Kaneva," said Christopher Klaus, founder and CEO of Kaneva. "Turner's high-quality programming and credibility is synergistic with our unique focus on delivering entertainment to the masses inside a virtual world. As a result of this partnership, we will provide entirely new ways for audiences to watch, participate and interact around their favorite TV programming."

Kaneva, which is Latin for "canvas," is a virtual entertainment world that unifies the 2D Web with a 3D experience. It integrates social networking, shared media and collaborative online communities into a modern-day, immersive 3D virtual world. Kaneva enables its members to hang out with their friends online and in 3D, share entertainment, express creativity and passions, and establish meaningful connections with others.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : Billboard.com *)

Michael Paoletta says : 

Missy Elliott

Missy Elliott is adding flair to a new ad campaign for Doritos Collisions, Billboard has learned. In a TV spot that debuts Sept. 17, Elliott is seen working on a new track and then pausing to snack on Doritos Collisions chips. Inspired by the two different-tasting chips in the same bag, Elliott has an epiphany: her song needs two different musical styles. So, she immediately injects her hip-hop track with a little bit of country twang.

The multi-platform campaign was created by the Goodby, Silverstein & Partners agency. According to Rudy Wilson, brand manager of Doritos, the campaign's multi-million dollar media buy is the brand's biggest advertising spend of the year, outside of its Super Bowl ad buy.

Elliott's manager, Mona Scott of Violator Management, says the campaign offered her client the perfect creative outlet. "The whole idea of the mash-up is so prevalent and popular in music today," Scott says. "It's so Missy. And the fact that the campaign takes place in a studio means that Missy remains in her element, which makes the whole thing authentic."

But Scott acknowledges there was another important element that helped cinch the deal: "The TV portion is fine," she explains, "but the Internet element provides us with a great back-end." A link takes fans to Elliott's Web site, where they learn more about the artist and her forthcoming, new album (tentatively titled "The Countdown"), due in December from The Gold Mind/Atlantic Records. "We see this as a great way to further maximize Missy the artist and the new album," Scott adds.

Wilson calls the online experience "a bold, intensive experience for our consumers." Visitors logging on to snackstrongproductions.com will be encouraged to create their own mash-ups (or "collisions"), using Elliott's track as the foundation. Completed mixes can be posted and shared in a "gallery" on the site. Five winners -- with prizes still to be determined -- will be selected.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 05:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : David Fishman *)

Posted by brian tiong at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source : Leigh Alexander *)

Launches The Sims on Stage Beta

Posted by brian tiong at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says:

Habbo, the online virtual world, is holding its first worldwide Habbowood Digital Movie Awards. Using the MovieMaker tool, filmmakers are encouraged to create animated movies. The top film in Habbo.com will be entered into the “worldwide” competition where it will go up against the top films from 18 other Habbo communities. The winner gets a trip for two to Hollywood.

With the MovieMaker tool, you can edit your film and use a provided set of sets, props, special effects, music, etc. to create sets for virtual avatars to act out your movie. This editing tool supports up to ten different scenes to create a film that’s 5 minutes in length. The Habbo community will choose the ten finalists, based on page views and ratings. Editors will choose a winner from the top ten, and there will be awards handed out for Best Director, Best Writer, Best Actor and Best Actress as well. These awards will be presented live at a virtual gala in Habbowood.

Clearly the virtual “movie” world is heating up. Origin Digital now offers on-demand streaming media to be used in virtual worlds, while the rights for a documentary filmed in Second Life have been acquired by HBO.

 Check Youtubevideo

Posted by brian tiong at 12:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *)

Kristen Nicole says : 

BlipBack is a new site that lets you offer video comments on your website, blog or social networking profile page.

This service integrates with your webcam to enable video comments. The widget player is very similar to what you’ll see with most video widgets from YouTube and other video-sharing networks, though there are thumbnails for you to view the upcoming comments from others, along with the number of views and the rating for each comment. Your sorting options are to view from oldest to newest or vice versa, or view from highest to lowest rated or vice versa. You can also sort comments by most viewed, and an option to subscribe to video comments via RSS feeds.

In order to add your own comment, you’ll need a webcam, though there is an option to take a video with your camera phone and send it in to the address provided for each widget. This way groups can have a remote way to create collaborative video streams on a website, similar to Cellblock or Pickle.

The other option offered is a BlipBomb, which is a comments widget you can insert in comments threads across various social networks and blogging platforms. Having an automatic play option to view all the comments in the widget as a streaming channel would be a good feature for this service.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: BusinessWeek *)

Neal Sandler says:

The startup proposes video sharing on mobile handsets—already, Universal Music Group is on board

The idea for his new startup came to Jon Medved two years ago at London's Heathrow Airport when he was trying to reach the Hertz (HTZ) call center. While waiting on hold, the Israeli venture capitalist was forced to listen to audio ads from Hertz about the various cars available. It suddenly struck Medved that it would be far more effective for Hertz to serve up images or even videos of cars.

Thus was born the idea behind Vringo, a startup launched last year by Medved and David Goldfarb, a leading Israeli mobile software expert. The idea is to capitalize on the popularity of social networks and digital video, marrying them with the phenomenon of downloadable audio ringtones—a business that already racks up $6 billion in annual revenues for mobile operators and content owners worldwide. Medved describes Vringo as a "sort of ICQ [instant messaging] combined with a personalized YouTube (GOOG) on your cell phone."

With conventional audio ringtones, customers download a short music clip—say, the theme to Hawaii Five-O—onto their own phones. Whenever somebody calls, the song plays instead of a regular ring. Aside from some possibly annoyed people in the vicinity, the only person who enjoys it is the owner of the phone.

Vringo Defined

Vringo's video ringtones turn that model on its ear. To use the service, customers join the Vringo community for free and install a small piece of software onto their phones. Then, when one Vringo member calls another, instead of a ringtone, the recipient of the call is treated to a video clip chosen (and paid for) by the sender. Every call thus becomes an opportunity to share content and to establish identity—the wireless equivalent of the "hey, dude, check out this YouTube video" culture of the Internet.

If it catches on, Vringo has the potential to be about far more than just sharing clips, though. Advertisers are intrigued by the idea of using mobile phones to pitch their products; Vringo offers the possibility of adding viral marketing to the mix—essentially, having enthusiastic consumers spread the word for you. What's in it for Vringo users? Instead of paying for a clip, a caller might get five minutes of free talk time for sending his buddies copies of a new ad.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 02:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mashable *) 

Another great compliation by the Mashable Team...

(* Source: Mashable *) 

Another great compliation by the Mashable Team!

Stickam - The best site for live video communications with multiple people. There is no major competition for Stickam just yet.
Blogtv - Blogtv is a recent discovery to the public.  It allows you to do a live video show, and you can stream it live, as well as archive it for later use.
ooVoo - This allows you to carry on video conversations with live video through a Skype-like program.
Mogulus - This site is basically an all in one broadcast solution for video.  You can create, edit, and add things similar to broadcast companies could add.
Ustream - Allows you to stream live video and you can also embed the player in to your own website.
HeyCosmo - A downloadable application that allows you to connect with other people in many ways, even play games and more.
Operator11 - Go live with your camera and create your own channels. You can also send video comments and remix your videos.

Online Video How-to

Better YT Video Quality - This guide helps you with getting the best possible video quality on YouTube, can be applied to other sites as well.
Make Internet TV - This guide has step-by-step instructions for shooting, editing, and publishing videos on the Internet.
How to put your readers at the scene - A scene-setting guide for online web journalists.
Tips for shooting better online video - learn the equipment, shooting and editing basics from this collection of tips.
Online video tips - a Squidoo lens with several useful online video shooting and editing tips.
Home video tips - Chris Pirillo’s tips for shooting better videos at home.
Camcorderinfo - Every online video comes from a camcorder, so here is the best place to get opinions on your next camcorder purchase.
5 Ways To Create a Great Video Podcast - A great article that applies to both video podcasts and video production in general.

Online Video Editors

Eyespot - add effects and transitions to the videos you upload, or use some of the large amount of free video clips and music from Eyespot’s media partners.
MuveeMix - Upload your movie, mix it with music, add cool effects and share it on MySpace, Friendster, Blogger, and other networks.
Motionbox - This service features the ability to link to a very specific point or “segment” within the clip itself.
Cuts - Insert sound effects in your videos, add captions, loop the best parts and in minutes you can share your creation with the world.
JumpCut - a free service that enables you to upload, edit and share your videos. Offers keyframe-based editing, effects, transitions and actions.
VideoEgg - A video editing platform that you can add to create a social network and offers opportunities for monetization.
Mojiti - Select videos from popular video sharing sites, personalize them with your annotations and share them with others.
Photobucket - Edit videos within a browser using Flash and remix photos and home videos with other elements, such as music, video captions and transitions.
StashSpace - Upload, store and edit your videos online. You can also record videos directly from your camcorder or digital camera.
BubblePly - Video annotating service where anyone can add text bubbles that are synchronized with video.
Veotag - Service that lets you display clickable text, called “veotags,” within an audio or video file.
Vidavee Grafitti - add graphics and text into any video; the service is called a “legal form of artful vandalism” by the creators.
Vmix - Vmix is a community and a hosting provider for your videos, aimed at creative authors who want to create remixes of their music and videos.
MovieMasher - a combination of a video editor with a timeline and lots of various effects, a standalone player and a media browser.
MixerCast - Mix your media with professional video, images, music, and network your MixerCast everywhere.
Fliptrack - Make a free musical photo slideshow and music video. It’s easy to do and you do it online.

Online Video Converters

Zamzar - converts all sorts of file formats, including several video formats.
Media Convert - a media converter with a huge amount of options; resulting videos can sometimes be out of sync with audio.
Vixy - a simple converter that can only convert Flash apps from the web to several other video formats.
Hey Watch! - an online video converter focusing on file formats that works on portable multimedia devices, like the iPod.
MediaConverter - a video converter that can be slow and needs polishing, but can sometimes yield really good results.
Movavi - another video converter that allows you to upload videos and convert them to formats you wish to use.

Video sharing

YouTube - YouTube is the king of the video sharing sites, it has more users and videos than the others. Any video you can think of it probably already on YouTube.
Google Video - Since Google bought YouTube, Google’s Video player is mainly used for for-pay content like TV shows. Also there is a search here that indexes all of the video sharing sites on the internet (well, most of them).
Blip.tv - Blip.tv is the perfect video sharing site for video podcast makers. It’s designed to let them easily upload all types and qualities of media and then send them to their feed for the users. They also let you add ads to you video so you can make some money.
Ourmedia - A great site where you can upload audio, video, images, and text and share them with the world. The OurMedia community contains over 100,000 members.
Veoh - Watch long form, television quality content and publish your own videos.
DailyMotion - Video sharing platform with multiple video search options. You can join groups of people who publish videos based on a common interest.
Metacafe - A site that helps you discover the best videos through a community that filters, reviews and rates new videos every day.
UnCut - Video uploading and sharing community by AOL. Embed all the videos you want in your blog.
ClipShack - video sharing community that allows you to upload video clips, make friends, keep a collection of your favorite videos and comment on clips.
5min - Video sharing site with a particular vision: collecting videos that can visually explain anything in 5 minutes.
Brightcove - Search, click and watch. Music videos, news, travel, recipes, adventure. Thousands of channels, including the best in online video.
Viddler - Viddler lets add tags and comments to video that will show up at specific times. It also has unique features like flickr and twitter integration.
Revver - The first video sharing site that provides users with the possibility to earn money from the videos they upload.
Vimeo - Vimeo is a video sharing site that has an emphasis on it’s users. The video’s you find there are more likely to be home movies or shorts by aspiring film makers, and also a lot of lip dubs.
Yahoo Video - Yahoo’s version of online video.  Similar to Google video, but done the Yahoo way.
HelpfulVideo - Share your knowledge and skills with others for free or little charge via video clips.
BroadbandSports - A video sharing site specifically for sharing sports related videos.
Travelistic - A video sharing site that allows users to post video content specific to travel.
Livevideo - Video sharing site that lets you create personal channels. Upload your own videos and share them with the world.
Kewego - A video sharing network where you can upload your own videos and view videos by others.
Godtube - It’s a Christian version of YouTube.  All things Christian welcomed.
Coull.tv - An interactive twist to video, this site allows you to view video and add interactive elements to it by using your mouse.
Mediabum - Video sharing site focusing on funny videos.
VMIX - Another video sharing website; All content is screened, so be sure everything you upload is legit.
Grouper - Video sharing site with a big selection of content; enables you to create playlists and easily upload videos to MySpace.
Break - Break is a video site and more for comedic based content.
Videosift - a Digg-like site which lets you submit, vote, and comment on videos.
GeeVee - GeeVee is a video sharing site specifically for sharing videos of game play in video games.
Stage6 - A video site that uses the Divx player so you can upload High Definition video, of course this also means longer upload times, and you need DivX support (usually a browser plugin).
Tube Battle - vote for the best videos, organized by category.

Video hosting

TinyPic - Host videos and images for free; it is possible to upload videos in the most popular formats and link videos on MySpace, eBay, blogs and message boards
Vidilife - Upload videos and store them online. There is no limit in terms of length of the files you can upload.
Dropshots - Good site that lets you upload videos, share them and embed them on other sites.
ZippyVideos - Upload and store video files (maximum 20 MB) in the most popular video formats.
Supload - Free service to host video clips and images. Maximum video file size allowed is 20 MB.
Rupid - Another provider of free video hosting: you can host your videos and share them with others.
Pixilive - Free images and video hosting for MySpace, eBay, Facebook and other sites. Maximum size for videos is 10 MB.
Mydeo - store and stream your videos online. You will be able to embed a video on any website and send streaming video messages .
YourFileHost - Upload files anonymously and share them with others. You can upload any file format up to 25 MB.

Video organization and management

Aggrega - create and organize your own music video channels and share them with others.
Feedbeat - a fantastic service that lets you create playlists with videos from different sources - YouTube, Google Video and others. Each playlist gets its own subdomain on feedbeat.net.
Ajaxilicious - an online movie catalogue which enables you to manage your movies and share them with others via RSS.
Cliproller - create custom video channels and add as many as you like to your personal Cliproller page.
CozmoTV - CozmoTV is a site that allows you to create and organize channels of video already existing online.

Vidcasts & vlogging

BlogCheese - a simple way to create and share a video blog - all you need is a webcam.
Revision3 - A video podcasting network that’s home to many well made video podcasts, including Diggnation, which is Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht’s video podcast about the top stories on Digg.
Jabbits - Social video blogging: Use your webcam to record your Post or Jab with an easy-to-use recorder.
Ask a Ninja - got questions? Ask a ninja! One of the most popular vidcasts in the world, and definitely the funniest.
Galacticast - a weekly Sci-fi comedy podcast, episodes usually consists of lots of really geeky parodies.
Scriggity - A news podcast, where the viewers send in the news that they think should be on the shows.
SuperDeluxe - A site to find videos that focus mainly on comedic content.
DL.TV - Some of the the old TechTV crew back at it again with their own own show on all things tech.  One of the best video podcasts for tech geeks.
Webnation - Amber Mac’s bi-weekly video podcast with news and interviews relating to current events in the tech world.
Tom Green’s the Channel - A daily video podcast that is recorded live and is hosted by Tom Green. He usually has a celebrity guest on the show.
GeekBrief TV - a daily podcast hosted by Cali Lewis, it’s a 3-5 minute update on the latest tech news.
This Week in Tech - famous tech vidcast by Leo Laporte, one of the most viewed vidcasts in the world.
The Broken - tech show for teh 1337 h4×0rz.
Digg Podcasts - a long list of popular podcasts, containing most of the vidcasts on this list and many more.

Video mashups

Virtual Video Map - YouTube videos on a Google map. Find out where do all those cool videos come from.
RealPeopleStuff - a site that combines CraigsList and YouTube, offering video clips related to ads.
TagTV - enter a tag and get results from Flickr and YouTube. Clean and simple design makes TagTV a very neat way to browse photos and videos.
I Love Music Video - combines YouTube with info from your Last.FM account. Great way to get videos (at least until Last.FM signs an evil deal with all those content providers and starts offering music videos).
MusicPortl - information on bands and musicians containing biographies, Flickr images, related blog posts and YouTube videos.
Magg - aggregates videos from several video sites. Also works as a search engine.
RateMyDanceMoves - Hot or Not-style site, presenting you dance-related YouTube videos to vote on.
ReviewTube - a site that enables you to add captions to YouTube videos. Nice idea, but relatively poor execution - the captions frequently overlap, making the text unreadable.

Mobile video apps

Youtube mobile - a stripped down version of YouTube tailored for use on mobile phones.
Shozu - a free service for your phone that makes it easy to send and receive photos, videos and music
Abazab - a universal video player that also works on your mobile phone.
Srobbin Mobile Video - An unofficial search for Google video on your cell phone.
Yahoo Mobile - Yahoo mobile allows you to search, find, and play videos right on your cell phone.
MobiTV - MobiTV allows you to watch television video from popular networks of all kinds.
MTV Mobile Video - Anything MTV related all for download to watch on your cell phone.
ESPN MVP - If you are a Verizon Wireless customer and have the V Cast service enabled, you can watch sports clips and more.
Moblr - Moblr allows you to view videos uploaded to the site directly on your cell phone.
Mobunga - This site allows you to download videos to your mobile phone, as well as iPod and PSP.

Video search

Blinkx - Perform searches within the most popular video networks, such as CBS, Reuters and CNN. Users can search for content and create TV channels that splice relevant content together.
PureVideo - Search within the most popular video directories and video sharing sites. PureVideo features up to six channels and each channel contains about six source sites.
SearchVideo - Search engine and directory created by AOL. Users can also search within specific video channels like MySpace and YouTube.
Search For Video - search engine and video directory that displays results from hundreds of video channels. Search For Video also provides an add-on for Firefox.
Yahoo! Video Search - Yahoo! has a video search engine that gathers videos from Yahoo! directory and from many other online sources. You can also search within specific domains or sites.
TubeSurf - Video search engine that gathers results from popular video directories, such as YouTube, Yahoo! Video, MySpace and Google Video. TubeSurf is also available as an add-on for Firefox.
ClipRoller - Search across popular video sites, such as: YouTube, Metacafe and more. As you continue to search for videos, ClipRoller learns your preferences and delivers content you like to watch.
Pixsy - A video search engine that lets users search content across dozens of video sites. Users are allowed to save searches and single videos.
ScoopVid - Search engine that enables you to either search for videos or browse through channels and categories.
Google Video Search - Google’s Video search recently was updated and now searches many video sites other than just YouTube and Google Video.
AOL Video - once known as the great media search engine, the AOL-purchased SingingFish, AOL Video kept some traits of the crowd’s favorite place to look for hard to find videos, but true fans claim that the site is not as good as its predecessor.
Truveo - Search videos or browse by either channel or category.
Altavista Video - good old Altavista isn’t what it used to be, but it does have a video search section.

Online video downloading services

VideoRonk - Search and download your favorite videos from YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, DailyMotion, iFilm, MySpace, Vimeo, Blip.tv, Revver and more.
VideoDL - Download online videos available on YouTube, Google Video and Break.com stright to your computer.
Vixy - Grab videos from popular sites and convert them into various video formats (including iPod and PSP).
KeepVid - Download videos from many video sharing sites, including YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Videos, DailyMotion, Blip.tv, Revver and other services.
VideoDownloader - Get videos from video sharing sites. VideoDownloader is also available as a Firefox extension, allowing you to seamlessly integrate it within your browser.
YouTubeX - Download videos from YouTube. It doesn’t have a lot of options in terms of video sites among which you could choose, but it is very easy to use.
DownThisVideo - This site lets you download videos from YouTube, GoogleVideo, MetaCafe, Vimeo and other services.
KissYouTube - A service that provides two interesting and effective ways to download videos from YouTube.
YouTubeDownloads - Another site that lets you download videos exclusively from YouTube (other sites are not supported).
Kcoolonline - Download videos on your hard disk from more than 90 sites, including YouTube, Google Video, Metacafe, iFilm and MySpace, Yahoo and many more.
YouTubia - A YouTube clone that lets you download and save YouTube videos within your IE or Firefox browser.
MediaConverter - A platform that lets you download and convert videos straight from YouTube.

Miscellaneous tools

Hellodeo - Record videos from your webcam and post them on any web page.
Flikzor - Send and receive video comments on your profile, blog and more.
Flixn - Record a video message right in the web browser and share anywhere including MySpace and eBay.
GabMail - Service that enable users to send unlimited numbers of free video email messages.
Bubble Guru - A site for recording webcam video messages and getting them onto your website or sending to others.
CamTwist - Software package (for Mac computers) that lets you add special effects to your video chats.
WebcamMax - Software that lets you add videos, screen, pictures, flash and effects to virtual or real webcam and broadcast on all messengers (Windows
only).
StumbleUpon Video - Just press “Stumble!” and a random video is presented to you, you can also ask for random videos with in categories like Humor, or Cats.
CrowdRules - video answers to your questions.
ClipSync - interact with other users while watching the same video as them.
ClipSyndicate - publish broadcast quality news on your web site.
Broadbandsports - a big collection of sports-related videos.

Online TV

For this section please visit our roundup of free online television services.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *)

Another great article by Dan Taylor, this time on DIY streaming services.

Dan says...

The lowly webcam has been enjoying something of a renaissance of late, aided by increased broadband penetration, improved streaming codecs, more kit being bundled with webcam functionality (e.g. mobile phones, laptops) and a mushrooming start-up economy, hungry for the next big web thing.

Stickam
http://www.stickam.com
Launched: February 2006



First out of the blocks (and actually predating Justin.tv by over a year) was Stickam, which bills itself as 'The Live Community' and offers a suite of tools including live video streaming via an embeddable player. Stickam recently hit the headlines over allegations that its parent company, Advanced Video Communications, also runs a substantial online porn operation, which hasn't been viewed by everyone as a particularly good fit with Stickam's predominantly teen user base. The teen user base also helps explain the site's scrappy, MySpace aesthetic and general incomprehensibility to an old geezer like me. Definitely one for the kids.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Ustream.tv
http://ustream.tv
Launched: March 2007



Ustream.tv was the first of the new generation lifecast sites to appear post-Justin.tv, reportedly bringing its launch date forward to capitalise on the surrounding publicity. The interface is pretty slick with a decent chat client and some nice extras such as a 'shout meter' and live polls, set by the broadcaster. It's also possible to pause the stream, which is cached until you resume playing.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

kyte
http://www.kyte.tv
Launched: April 2007



Like Stickam, kyte is something of a hybrid service of which live video streaming is just a part. Also in the mix are photos, music and polls which can all be packaged up within your embeddable 'channel.' However, kyte's key market differentiator is its mobile component which, assuming you've got a compatible handset and a sufficiently meaty data allowance, enables you to broadcast direct from your handset.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Operator11
http://operator11.com
Launched: April 2007



Operator11's USP is letting more than one person into 'the studio' allowing the operator/director/net jockey controlling the video stream to cut back and forth between various contributor feeds. It's an interesting development of the single camera model which potentially moves the medium nearer to broadcast TV, although it also serves as a reminder that successfully editing video on the fly is a great deal harder than it looks.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

blogTV
http://www.blogtv.com
Launched: May 2007



blogTV isn't short on functionality but suffers from a somewhat cluttered interface when viewed alongside the cleaner designs of Ustream and Mogulus. It's 7,500 channels are grouped into nine categories with 'My Life' predictably being the most populated. One nice feature for producers is the ability to pick a co-host whose video stream appears alongside your own with viewers able to interchange the two using a slider.

Ratings: Y
Tags: Y
Comments: Y
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Mogulus
http://www.mogulus.com
Launched: June 2007



Currently in closed beta, Mogulus focuses more on the production side of live video, offering a fully featured browser-based 'studio' (requires Flash 9) to finesse your broadcast. In contrast, the viewing experience is pretty basic, eschewing chat, comments, ratings and the like in favour of a more classically televisual interface (on/off, mute, volume and, er, that's it). It even goes so far as to mimic static as the channel 'tunes in'. It's certainly the least cluttered of the sites discussed here and should provide a good platform for them to gradually introduce more functionality. I've got five beta invites to giveaway - mail me if you want one.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Veodia
http://www.veodia.com
Launched: April 2007



Veodia is a distributed live streaming product for embedding in blogs and corporate sites and doesn't aggregate any content on its site beyond a couple of sample videos. Unlike most of the alternatives (which use Flash) it streams using MPEG-4/H.264. As a consequence the embedded video lacks any social media features such as comments or chat.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: N
Viewer count: N
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: Y

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

YouCams
http://www.youcams.com
Launched: Unknown



Like Veodia, YouCams' focus is on distributed live video (via an embeddable widget) rather than aggregation, although it positions itself as a facilitator of social networking chat rather than as a provider of streaming technology.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: Y
Embedding: Y
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

mystreams.tv
http://mystreams.tv
Launched: Unknown



The ugly sister of the live video streaming family, mystreams.tv is a UX disaster, plastered in large banner ads and forever opening new windows. Avoid.

Ratings: N
Tags: N
Comments: N
Live chat: Y
Viewer count: N
Embedding: N
Recorded shows: N

Design:
Navigation:
Features:
Overall:

Whilst it's ultimately a matter of horses for courses when it comes to choosing a live video streaming service, my personal vote would be with Ustream.tv with Mogulus the one to watch.
 

Posted by brian tiong at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Music mogul Sean Combs is looking for an assistant, but don't send a resume. The star is accepting only video applications uploaded onto YouTube.

Combs, known as Diddy, videotaped a help-wanted ad on the popular video Web site hoping to find a helper to replace his former assistant, who did everything from holding his umbrella in the rain to playing chaperone to his hip-hop group Da Band.

While Combs declined to comment on why he chose YouTube instead of a job-recruiting site like Monster.com, he offered some explanation in the video.

"It's a new age, new time, new era," he said in his first posting, a minute-and-a-half clip of him yelling behind his desk. "Forget coming into the office and having a meeting with me and being all nervous."

Hopefuls must audition by posting a video that is less than three minutes long explaining why they deserve the job. Initially, Combs opened it to anybody with a camera or a little creativity, but in a second posting, narrowed the applicant pool to only college graduates.

Combs's two short video clips did not provide a job description or list of qualifications. But if his previous actions are any indication of what the new assistant can expect, the job could be very demanding.

Combs once made members of Da Band walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn to fetch him a slice of cheesecake. And his last assistant, whom he named Fonzworth Bentley, became famous as the umbrella-toting manservant often seen fluffing Combs's bow ties on the red carpet. Bentley, whose parents named him Derek Watkins, has turned his job as Combs's assistant into endorsement deals, a record contract--and a line of umbrellas.

"What better job than that to have me scream at you, go crazy, keep you up at late hours, have you sleep-deprived?" Combs asked.

More than 600 people have submitted videos.

John Challenger, chief of the recruiting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, said Combs's online video search is more than a ploy to get attention. More applicants are adding video clips to their applications. "It helps put a face to all the faceless resumes," he said.

Viewers will pick the finalists on YouTube, but Combs will pick the winner.

"It's an interesting way to engage his fan base, and it's a creative way to do it," Challenger said. "It's like 'American Idol,' and you can only choose one."

Posted by brian tiong at 02:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

Constant Comedy is a new site that’s launched as a niche project for Crea8tivity, the content-sharing site.

The main differentiating factor of Constant Comedy is its live comedy show, where you can view ongoing videos and give your vote. This is an interactive tool, so other users and site visitors participating in the live comedy show will be able to view and vote along as well. There’s a live chat option included in this, though you’ll need to register to vote and chat. After a clip has played for 20 seconds, viewers will be allowed to vote. If the overall rating falls below 30%, the clip will be voted completely off the show, and the next clip will play. A “crowd” bar displays below the currently playing video so you can see how well each clip is doing.

The other aspects of Constant Comedy make for a good social network that revolves around niche content–view video clips from other users, vote and comment, bookmark your favorites and become a fan to the comedians you like best. Make friends, submit your own content, and see who tops the leaderboards. Stay updated with the programming guides, too. Jellyfish and SoLow are sites that incorporate live activities for more interaction amongst users.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

Buzzwire has launched its beta service for streaming mobile media. The service lets you create your own programming lineup and view it on your mobile phone. Buzzwire has received an undisclosed amount of funding by Matrix Partners and Spark Capital.

This service offers acess to a music and video library, which includes live Internet radio streams. The content provided through buzzwire comes from feeds found across the Internet. From international news to sports and entertainment, buzzwire is looking to provide content for all preferances. Content can be added to Buzzwire by users as well, via feeds. Search and collect the music and videos you like, and create your own streaming playlist of sorts. These playlists can be shared with friends as well.

The service will be offered through certain mobile networks, but will be available directly to consumers during the beta test phase. So far, Buzzwire works on most 3G phones, including the Motorola Razr, Samsung Sync and recent versions of the Palm Treo, and for a limited time is available directly to consumers. Buzzwire is scheduled to launch its service later on this fall, when access will be provided through select mobile providers.

While partnering with certain mobile networks can ensure face time with a large number of mobile consumers, limiting service to select carriers could hinder its growth potential in the end, and in some cases may compete with mobile networks’ own streaming content offerings, such as Verizon’s VCast Mobile.

Similar services include MeeVee and MyWaves.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: 901AM *)

YouTube announced its second major music promotion, the YouTube OntheRise Rap Edition. This follow-up to last year’s highly successful YouTube Underground contest is the first of three genre-specific music competitions. This first installment seeks to discover the best rap and hip-hop artists in the United States, inviting unsigned talent who aspire to be professional artists to submit their own original music videos.

Artists can submit original videos that best represent their talents from August 10 through August 17. 50 Cent, Common and Polow da Don will help judge the contest and will select 20 finalists to be presented to the YouTube community on August 29. The YouTube community will then vote on a final winner who will be unveiled on September 7.

Here’s the OnTheRise RAP Edition ‘07 by 50 Cent.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Kristen Nicole *)

Curse-Gaming, the game social network for MMOGs, has launched V4 of its site, and donned a new name.

Now called Curse, the latest version of this site has more social tools and is looking more to be a destination site for gamers. Some new features include MyCurse, highlighting social networking tools such as blogs, the ability to make friends, share files, and upload multimedia user-generated content. There’s also streaming video posting, and social bookmarking to track news within forums and blogs.

The Curse Client is a downloadable application that syncs with various games including Vanguard and World of Warcraft so users can grab screenshots, etc. The new Mini-Portals offer additional resources and add-ons for games, and the MMO Wikis, in partnership with Wikia, lets users better collaborate with each other.

In related news, GuildCafe has raised an undisclosed amount of funding for its MMG tools.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dennis Bouchand *)

MyLifeBrand, a social platform which allows users to aggregate and manage their favorite social networks, communities, services and friends on one site, announced today a new multimedia video platform, MyLifeTV.

The customizable multimedia platform enables any community on the social platform to create a fully community focused, immersive line up of video broadband channels for their specific community members. Additionally, community creators will have the opportunity to syndicate their channels into thousands of other target communities on MyLifeBrand, as well as more broadly across the Internet. This video platform will also provide some default channel content ranging from comedy to sports and lifestyle programming.

MyLifeTV provides users a unique experience specifically tied to whatever community they are a member of on the MyLifeBrand platform, and enables them to not only view, but organize, save, share and soon upload user inspired video content around a range of interests. MyLifeBrand has partnered with Brightcove and Revver, leaders in the internet video space to deliver the highly interactive MyLifeTV video platform.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Kristen Nicole *)

S-Curve, the record label known for hits like “Stacey’s Mom” and the launching of Joss Stone, is re-launching its full service music company and has taken on its first venture for online marketing with its equity stake in Nabbr, a company that creates and distributes viral video players.

The company will be expanding and adding to its larger scope of offerings, looking to the spreading of viral content as well as another tactic of artist management. After a nearly three year absence, S-Curve is coming back with a strong emphasis on Internet marketing, banking on the spreading of its content across social networks with Nabbr’s service. The video players will include video and audio content, as well as tour dates, personal appearance information, contests, merchandise, sales and the ability for artists to chat with fans.

Other Nabbr clients include Justin Timberlake, the Beatles, 30 Seconds to Mars, Amy Winehouse, and other S-Curve artists as well. The music company has also added two artists to its label; We The Kings and Tom Jones. Nabbr is one company that allows traditional media companies to leverage the power of web 2.0.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Cristina Ledesma *)

Paltalk, a real-time, video-based community with over 4 million users, today solidifies its leadership position in socialcasting with the launch of Screening Rooms. Socialcasting brings together high quality programming and video content with social networking and live interactive community. This launch also coincides with the release of Paltalk’s latest video community service called PaltalkScene. Screening Rooms, PaltalkScene and all of its features support an active and participatory, rather than a passive, online video experience, where users not only watch content, but can interact with it and each other in real-time.

Screening Rooms allow anyone to watch shows and pre-recorded video content, either licensed or user-generated, in a public or private video chat room with up to 5,000 other Paltalk members. In the Screening Room, viewers can watch synchronized video content together while interacting with each other in the room through voice, video and text chat as the video plays. Screening Rooms are available in beta starting today and will be offered in general availability later this year.

Screening Rooms are debuting with programming from many leading online video content providers including ManiaTV!, Heavy.com, Rip.tv. Starting today Paltalk users will have access to original video content ranging from extreme sports, professional mixed martial arts, entertainment news, comedy and serialized programs. Paltalk members will also be able to upload and play their own video content and home movies to share and comment about it with their friends and family.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source:Mack Collier *)

Over the last year or so, 'event-blogging' has become more popular. But the Asheville Citizen-Times is upping the ante as The Smashing Pumpkins roll into the North Carolina town for a 9-show gig.

Susan Ihne explains:

Music is not my forte. I had no idea who the Smashing Pumpkins were when they announced a nine-day play date in Asheville.

Thank goodness for Entertainment Editor Tony Kiss, who quickly put it in perspective: This is a BIG deal.

When the 8,478 tickets sold within minutes, I knew he was right.

And then with $20 opening night tickets scalping for $950 or more, I decided I’d never doubt him again — at least when it comes to music....So, when Kiss puts his seal on a big deal, we start planning.

Smashville.com

A couple of weeks ago, we launched a social networking site called smashville.com to connect band fans from around the world.

It’s where you’ll find our coverage — photos, video, audio and stories — of the band’s time in Asheville.

Fans are invited to share their thoughts in blogs, photos and video at the site throughout the band’s stay. About 60 have signed up so far.

Before each show, we’ll have a video of the smashing of something pumpkin. A ceramic pumpkin, a can of pumpkin filling, a frozen pumpkin pie, and a plastic pumpkin — whatever we can find.

The paper ran an article yesterday claiming there were 'about 60' members signed up at the time. I just checked and the site says there's 182 now. Members have already added numerous pictures and videos of the band, mostly concert shots.

Posted by brian tiong at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Nextgreatthing.com *)

Posted by brian tiong at 02:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Nick Gonzalez *) 

It may seem weird, but I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when I see ads in my viral video. eMarketer expects online video advertising to nearly double in 2008 to $1.3 billion, but no one’s really nailed a scalable ad platform for video. However, Google’s been quietly testing their own system and there are a bunch of other startups tackling it as well.

There are a couple key issues they’re all struggling with as they try and generate the greatest amount of ad revenue. There’s still some uncertainty about where to put the ads (pre/post/interstitial?). Even the type or length of the ad is up for debate. A recent study found longer ads were more effective at branding, while conventional wisdom has cast doubt on users sitting through the longer plugs.

After deciding on the format, determining the content of the video in order to generate relevant ads is yet another tough problem. It’s also a dire matter for big brands that don’t want to risk being associated with inflammatory content. Finally, these ad platforms will need publishers, advertisers and a marketplace to trade in.

Here’s a look at what people are doing in video advertising:

Definitely the team to watch, YouTube is treading carefully, experimenting with text ads running along the bottom of the video that users can click on for a full video ad. They’re going to be testing the system with some of their top content producers and word on the street is that the terms are pretty good.

Revver splits ad revenue 50/50 with publishers. They run ads at the end of viral videos, which might mean that people are still paying close attention after watching the main content. However, this also means they lose some precious real estate to help drive traffic to other videos on their network like YouTube does. Revver filters the content themselves, tying in the appropriate ads.

 

Similar to Revver, VideoEgg helps publishers deliver and monetize their video inventory. It’s a very hands on approach suitable for larger brands that have tight control over the quality and context of their content. They serve up over 20 million videos daily across their EggNetwork. Ads show up alongside lead ins to other videos as well.

 

ScanScout’s technology scans each video and determines content, with ads delivered contextually to match each scene. They run text ads along the bottom of the videos based on context derived from audio analysis and user behavior.

 

They’re like adsense for video, tying contextual text ads based on the content of a video. It looks similar to what YouTube is aiming for. When videos play, Adap.tv digs up relevant Amazon products and Looksmart ads to populate an ad bar on the bottom of the video at key moments. They use tags and other meta data, as well as speech to text translations to find out what the video is about.

 

AdBrite was one of the first to overlay ads on videos with their InVideo platform. Adbrite has created an embeddable video player similar to YouTube. If we choose to show a video on TechCrunch, we can use this embeddable player, and at our option it will include Adbrite ads and our logo as a watermark. Anyone who takes the content and embeds it on their own site will show the same video, with the same ads and watermark. And all click backs on the video go to the original site.

 

The most interesting ad play, BroadRamp wants to make everything you see on your video a possible point of sale. See a t-shirt you like? Just click the video to buy it now. Tagging or programmatically generating the links to products from the video may not scale or prove too difficult. Their core business is still video content delivery systems, however.

 

Formerly Podzinger, Everzing searches audio and video. Since they don’t own the content they can’t insert ads on the video content, but their speech-to-text transcription means they can help solve the problem of finding out the subject of a video.

 

 

A video search engine like Everyzing, Blinkx analyzes videos speech and meta data to tease out the content of the video. They also claim to use visual recognition as well. However, Blinkx has also leveraged their technology to launch adHoc, contextual advertising based on the content of the video.

 

Another video search engine currently running in private beta, Cast.TV looks at a video’s meta data and surrounding links to determine more context around the video. We’ve been impressed with how well it works. They haven’t discussed plans to incorporate advertising, however.

 

Coming up with a kick ass, scalable ad platform solution for social video that satisfies the needs of publishers, advertisers, and viewers is only a piece of the problem. While finding the most effective format will take a lot of testing until consumers reveal the most effective methods, the platforms will also need video content to monetize. Since well defined video properties with targeted content can work with sponsors on established video ad networks, the ideal market for these platforms remains effectively monetizing the jumble of amateur viral video floating around on social networks and YouTube. However, YouTube, which currently owns the lion’s share of video on the net, seems to be taking their time developing the solution in house.

That leaves becoming a destination, partnerships, or acquisition as possible outs. Video search sites like Blinkx and Everyzing are currently monetizing their search pages, but can’t take full advantage of their platforms by embedding ads into the content they link to. While these sites offer deeper video search, existing as a destination site is also a tough path that goes up against established web properties like Google, Yahoo, and AOL. In a slightly different way of going it alone, AdBrite has been going directly to publishers with their InVideo player. Adap.tv has been testing out partnerships, trying their platform out on MetaCafe.

As with most ad platforms, advertisers and publishers will be trying them out for effectiveness. In the end, the startups that can deliver the most return to these two will win out.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Duncan Riley *) 

A new data release from The Face of the Web, Ipsos Insight’s annual study of Internet and Technology trends, shows (probably quite obviously) an increasing use of video and social networking sites.

According to Ipsos, the evolution of Internet users’ digital media and online habits appears to be transitioning “to the digital video age”. At the end of 2006, online video activities had taken over from audio as the fastest growing sector in digital media.

Thes study found that one in five adults worlwide had visited a social networking website. South Korea was the leading social networking market with two thirds of all adults having visited at least one social networking site. In comparison, only 32% of Americans had ever visited a social networking website.

here

Posted by brian tiong at 01:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Joel Horowitz*)

Video game sales are gaining and will globally exceed music sales by the end of 2007 reports PricewaterhouseCoopers. The growth can be contributed to the fact that more and more devices like mobile phones, PDAs and laptops support broadband services, being able to download games.

The information not only reflects the gaming industry’s strong trajectory but also serves as a painful reminder that the music industry continues to suffer. EMI recently reported, however, that sales of its DRM-free songs and albums have been good since the launch of iTunes Plus, with CD sales of those same albums dropping during that time.

The comments below the article on Consumerist bring up a few very interesting arguments…

More at Arstechnica

Thanks, Consumerist!

Posted by brian tiong at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

 (* Source: Mashable.com *)

As promised, MySpace has just launched its YouTube-inspired video sharing site MySpaceTV. It’s a faithful YouTube clone: videos appear at the top left and the tabs, upload button and related videos all mimic the appearance of the more popular video sharing site. There’s no doubt that the developers were given a link to YouTube and told “clone this”.

But being inspired may be no bad thing: MySpace has enough users to make this a big success, and the copying of features from YouTube makes MySpaceTV 100 times more compelling than MySpace Videos, the previous version of the site. What’s more, there’s lots of content to keep you clicking, and the social filters seem to be delivering some interesting (although frequently imbecilic) clips.

And so to the integration: users have channel pages that aggregate their videos, and a link to their MySpace profiles. The site will eventually be linked from the navigation on MySpace.com and profile pages (right now we’re getting errors when clicking through from MySpace to MySpaceTV, which is pretty common with MySpace).

Bottom line: geeks are going to continue bashing MySpace, but MySpaceTV makes them the number one rival to YouTube’s dominance, and a potential market leader if they can refer enough MySpace traffic over.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Youtube *)

Posted by brian tiong at 01:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Ed Cotton *) 

At this year's Cannes Lions, jury wanted to show the world of advertising has changed, so they and gave the Grand Prix to Dove’s Evolution spot.

The effort was rewarded for two reasons:

1.    It shows that there’s life beyond the 30sec television spot.

2.    It demonstrates the importance and power of corporate social responsibility. It’s not just a statement, it’s an action; Dove isn’t just commenting on the state of women and beauty, it’s actively trying to do something about it.

The problem is that the media world has changed so dramatically in the last 6 months that it might be impossible for a brand to replicate the success of Dove. The ad was truly viral; it was even seeded by the writer directly on YouTube and took off from there.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Techcrunch *) 

An progressive move for Adobe the leading application player into the web2.0 space. 

Techcrunch reports... 

YouTube has officially launched YouTube Remixer, a new service that allows users to edit their videos from within YouTube itself.

The new feature is powered by Adobe Premiere Express and supports insertion of graphics, text and audio as well as overlays and in-video transitions. YouTube Remixer is nearly identical to Photobucket’s Remix tool; both are powered by Adobe.

This isn’t an offering that is going to be embraced by serious content creators but it is ideal for casual YouTube uploaders. The interface is fairly simple if perhaps a little bit dull and boring. Creating a one stop shop for all things video at YouTube is a natural progression path that gives prosumers another reason to spend more time on the site; it’s just that it’s grey, uninspiring and so very not Google. I can also find no personal appeal in adding Gingerbread men to my videos; however others may view the service differently.

Posted by brian tiong at 10:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Random Culture *) 

The homepage of YouTube just featured a great video that integrates online video and text messaging. The video, entitled "Text-Your-Own Adventures of Spiderman", allows viewers to vote via text message to decide what the fate of Spiderman will be in the next video installment. You can watch it below:

The video was created by a sketch comedy group called The Late Night Players, from Boston, Mass. It won't be long until we see an advertiser doing something similar. Mark my words!

I'd love to see a website for the effort, where we could see where the vote tally stands, and maybe even toss out some ideas for what Spidey turning evil would look like.

Update: When you text in your vote, you'll receive an email back that prompts you to register or login to Mozes.com, where you can see the alternate ending you voted for. If you haven't heard of Mozes, you should check it out. Great way that brands and others can utilize text messaging.

Posted by brian tiong at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)