Archive for February 20th, 2007
Is NHL putting YouTube Sharing on Ice?
Update 2: NHL now says the problem was a glitch/miscommunication on their end. The conclusion to the story (hopefully this is it?) got so long, we wrote it up in a separate post.
Update: NHL tells us: “We’re trying to determine why this happened…it wasn’t at our request. We have a call into YouTube and should be able to tell you more later today.” Also several of the NHL videos on YouTube that we linked to have had their embed tags reinstated — this is what those looked like before the fix.
Media companies are struggling over how to work with YouTube. Is the video site a friend or a foe? Even those that are embracing Google’s online video company aren’t so sure where to draw the line.
The NHL, which gained nearly universal praise for its decision to allow widespread use and sharing of highlight clips on YouTube, seems to be putting the practice of allowing embedding on ice, with some NHL clips on YouTube now sporting the line Embedding disabled by request in the embed code field.
On the Road with The Walkstars
Megan over at Valleywag tipped us off to a project from Meetro’s co-founder Paul Bragiel’s brother, Peter Bragiel called “The Walkstars.” Peter and his friends Josh and Sean are taking a week off and walking from Los Angeles to San Diego. That’s right, walking.
“It is definitely not LA to walk — it’s like taboo,” Peter quipped on the phone from CompUSA in Long Beach where they were shopping for a memory card reader.
“This new form of travel video blogging — live, so that people can kind of join us,” he suggested. For instance, Peter’s brothers Paul and Daniel are currently accompanying the trekkers in a show of “brotherly love,” and anyone following the show can leave comments on the blog to send suggestions and support. They’ll probably get your messages tonight when they hope to arrive in Huntington Beach.
PrudeTube: Violence Up, Boobs Down
When the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock, and subsequently repaid the kindness of local tribes with wholesale slaughter, they bequeathed upon America the birthright of double standards. And lest you think that nearly 400 years later we’ve figured out that when given the choice between sex and violence, sex would generally seem the preferable option, take a look at YouTube and other popular video sharing services.
To illustrate my case, a couple of weeks ago a friend of mine came over and clued me into the All Hip Hop Rumors blog, which is a great source of hilarious YouTube clips. One clip in particular was footage of a rap battle that turns violent. In it, MC Nyckz spits a line that has become an instant classic and has inspired a trend: “Oh you mad ’cause I’m stylin on you.”
(Warning: This and other YouTube clips referenced may not be safe for work.)
The clip is behind YouTube’s ‘may offend’ warning wall, which seems practical. Other, vastly more violent clips associated with a “narco trafficante” blood feud, were pulled only after a media firestorm last week. While network execs whine about YouTube being able to filter out boobs but not clips from the boobtube, what I wonder is why they’ve put age and content controls in place to allow violence, but not sexuality? But first, let’s take a look at the rap-battle clip and the meme it started in order to give it some context.
Photobucket Adds Video Editing
Partnering with Adobe and using their Flex software, Photobucket has added rich video editing tools. Currently run as a beta program available to paid Premium users, Photobucket CEO Alex Welch assured us in a phone interview that all 35 million users would have access in March.
According to Comscore, Photobucket is the sixth most popular ‘Entertainment’ site with more than 17 million visitors. With 35,000 new videos uploaded every day they also claim themselves the third most popular video-sharing site behind only YouTube and MySpace. Additionally, Welch says over 50,000 slideshows with photos and sound are already being created each day.
Joost gets some Viacom Love
Joost, the P2P TV venture from European hit makers, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis has signed on Viacom as a content partner, a move that will bring content from various Viacom properties – MTV, Comedy Central and Showtime – to the P2P service, reports the Wall Street Journal.
The deal, of course was helped by the fact that a trio of former MTV executives are in pretty senior positions at Joost aka The Venice Project. David Clark (EVP, Global Advertising and GM North America), Yvette Alberdingkthijm (EVP, Content Strategy & Acquisition) and Henrik Werdelin (Chief Creative Officer) form the trio that are charged with bringing content partners to the Joost platform. Of course they started with the company they know best – Viacom.
MTV is Poised for a Comeback
Still think Viacom is stuck in the old media mud? Robert Young would beg to differ in a post over on GigaOM Tuesday where he details why he thinks Sumner Redstone and the folks over there have a good thing going, especially with their made-for-online-sharing content found on MTV and other Viacom properties:
Simply put, Viacom has the richest resource of short-form, high-production-quality videos in the media world… exactly the same kind of “video snacks” that are so popular on online video-sharing sites like YouTube. But given that, the real key to success depends on how Viacom goes about unleashing their video assets onto the Internet… In short, Viacom needs to pursue a strategy that causes death by a thousand cuts.
Read more in the full post over on GigaOM.
LisaNova Debuts on MADtv
By Minic Rivera
Over the weekend, Lisa Donovan, better known by YouTubers as LisaNova, made her network television debut on FOX’s MADtv.
If it wasn’t spectacular, neither was it a pratfall, and it might not have even been noticable as anything out of the ordinary had we not been so interested in the online star-crosses-the-chasm element of it all. In an interview with Lisa afterward, she acknowledged the fact that it was because of the video-sharing site that she is seeing some success and crossing over at mainstream entertainment. She is not, however, turning back on her YouTube roots.
“How could I leave the place that has given me so much,” Lisa said.
Old Media offers Video to Oscar Crowd
Old media offers vids, blogs for Oscars — A slew of popular magazine rack titles are devoting sections of their Web sites to Oscar night in the hopes of converting viewers to subscribers, reports the New York Times. People magazine, Vanity Fair, The Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, E! and many others are promising more video, blogs and interactive features focusing on Oscar night. Also in the Times today: A profile of Audible Magic, the company that provides video filtering services to MySpace.
Newsweek’s Steven Levy poo poos Wal-Mart’s download store – Technical difficulties, DRM, no bonus material and a price point that isn’t competitive with regular DVDs.
Online vid business beginning to consolidate — So says this article in TVweek, noting that new media publisher Anystream is poised to acquire software firm Cauldron Solutions, which helps TV networks manage rights and revenues for their digital content.
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