Archive for May 3rd, 2007
YouTube Starts Paying Star Users
YouTube is going to start helping some of its indie video content creators make money, starting tomorrow. The company will launch a program that puts the creators of some of the more popular YouTube channels — including Lonelygirl15, LisaNova, HappySlip, renetto, Smosh, and valsartdiary — on the same playing field as large media partners like CBS.
“A select group of content creators will get promotion on the YouTube platform, and we will help them monetize their content,” said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing, in an interview on Thursday. “This will help erase the the stigma around the user-created content, and, to be honest, these guys are media entities in their own right.”
While YouTube had previously said it might populate videos with pre-or-post roll ads as soon as this summer, the monies for the new program will come from the sales of banner ads.
Spidey 3 Online Ahead of U.S. Release
It’s official: Spider-Man 3 has appeared online as an unauthorized download on public torrent trackers ahead of the release in theaters across the U.S. Just today, VCDQuality indexed two slightly different versions from the same source in China, presumably, as the recording is in English with Chinese subtitles according to one downloader who’s seen a portion.
Here are some stills that should give a good idea of the picture quality, and here’s a sample video (for now). “I’ve watched some bad releases in my time but this is a joke,” said one commenter.
FCC’s Martin: No New Regs for Net Video
Even as the commission he leads pumps out reports about the harmful effects of violence on old TV, don’t expect FCC chairman Kevin Martin to try to extend the agency’s regulatory reach to video on the Internet.
“We don’t play any role in regulating content on the internet video side,” said Martin, in a Q&A after a scheduled speaking appearance in Silicon Valley Thursday morning. While the FCC regularly draws criticism for its nanny-like tendencies, especially its fines for indecency violations, Martin said Thursday that the pick-and-choose nature that gives users control over their ‘Net video choices eliminates the need for regulatory oversight.
Joost Is Error-Prone
Apologies to all of you who’ve requested invites to Joost. We’d love to let you into the service, but over the past few days we have had trouble launching the application ourselves. I’d had no problems running earlier versions, but these days can’t even get the thing to start.
First I was getting an error message saying the software was “Unable to connect to network.” Now I’m hung on a screen saying “Channels pre-installed successfully.” And Om is seeing something saying “An unknown error occurred, sorry.”
We are both on Intel Macs. There seem to be plenty of people experiencing similar problems on various types of machines, many contributing to an enormous Joost forum thread under the header “I can’t get the application to run. What do I do?” I don’t see much in the way of useful responses from Joost itself.
Update: Joost CEO Fredrik de Wahl writes in to apologize and say the company is having trouble coping with demand. He promises to fix the issue.
DotBoom Revolutionizes Product Placement
Have you ever wanted to star in a sitcom? Have you ever wanted to be effigized as a puppet? Well now you can kill two birds with one stone. Brian Hogg of DotBoom, everyone’s favorite puppet show about life at web production firm, is presenting a a unique sponsorship opportunity — he’s auctioning off a personalized puppet to appear in DotBoom.
According to Hogg, you will feature in the plot and not just be an extra. Maybe you could even get a few lines, a la Merlin Mann’s appearance in “Flatworld,” part of the Paperdoll Epic.
Minisodes are TV Evolved (in a good way)
Sony, if you haven’t heard, will soon be launching a Minisode Network on MySpace that will show three-to-five minute versions of old TV standards like Charlie’s Angels and T.J. Hooker.
Another sign of our ADD culture? Maybe. The Web certainly privileges quicker/faster/cheaper videos that only demand a blipvert’s worth of your time. Most web shows, like say Eisner’s Prom Queen, go by so quickly you barely have time to register that you’ve actually watched something. But because we’ve evolved along with TV, that’s more than enough.
Thursday Morning Vid-Biz Headlines
Fresh off the NewTeeVee news ticker, headlines from the world of online video:
Brightcove to Syndicate CBS News Content to Blogs, allowing approved sites to embed CBS player directly on their sites. (Brightcove)
Cable Revenue a Plus for Time Warner, while AOL advertising also posts gains. (NY Times/AP and GigaOM)
UGC Still Scares Hollywood, say studio execs at OnHollywood confab. (ZD Net)
Spiderman 3 on Yahoo Movies, exclusive preview clip here ahead of movie’s Friday launch. (Yahoo Movies)
Carson Daly Helps Launch Me.TV, a home for “video-centric” social networking. (Demand Media)
Best HD Bargain? ‘Rabbit Ears’ Rule
Which types of HDTV connections provide the best possible HDTV quality — online downloads, cable, satellite or broadcast? You might be surprised to hear that of the four choices, broadcast is often the best and online downloads usually the worst, with cable often better than satellite.
The problem is that HD hardware manufacturers and content distributors are playing a shell game with the numbers. Yes, you may have 1080p capable hardware, but the key measure I focus on for video quality is not resolution but bitrate, and there’s a lot of room to move in that department. So which is the best for HD delivery?
Popular
- BitTorrent After The Pirate Bay: Do You Still Need Trackers?
- Tumblr Marriage Proposal: Behind the Scenes of Justin and Marissa's Engagement
- Get Ready for Flash Player 10.1 to Stream P2P Video to Millions, Swap Files BitTorrent-style
- Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents
- The Megawoosh Waterslide Viral: How It Was Really Done
- Six Steps To Get More HD From Your Scientific Atlanta Set-top Box
Recent
- BitTorrent After The Pirate Bay: Do You Still Need Trackers?
- Microsoft and Nielsen Partner for 1 vs. 100 Measurement
- Premium Content Drives Connected Device Adoption
- Site Sponsor: Twistage
- Tumblr Marriage Proposal: Behind the Scenes of Justin and Marissa’s Engagement
- Sungale’s Sub-par Portable Media Player
Network
- Weekend Vid Picks: Twilight Parodies For Bitter Boyfriends [NewTeeVee]
- Skype CEO Outlines Platform Ambitions, Hiring Plans [GigaOM]
- Earth2Tech Week in Review [Earth2Tech]
- WWD Weekend Reading List [WebWorkerDaily]
- WinMo Wrap: Marketplace Hits All WM 6.x Phones; Opera Mobile Advances [jkOnTheRun]
- Weekly App Store Picks: November 21, 2009 [TheAppleBlog]
© 2009 The GigaOM Network. Marketing consulting by ACS.
