Online Video
YouTube Goes Widescreen
YouTube tonight blanketed its site with widescreen players, changing the aspect ratio for all its videos (and adding vertical black bars to all those in traditional 4:3). Seems like the site is upgrading from its accessibility-trumps-quality mantra (and no doubt hearing the drumbeat of demand for high-definition content).
From the YouTube blog:
We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don’t worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.
This is a pretty major change that will no doubt anger some users. Where as YouTube’s “watch in high quality” option requires users to click to activate it, the new aspect ration comes as a default. From what we can tell, embeds remain 4:3, with widescreen videos being shown using horizontal black bars (see above).
Monday Vid Picks: Shiba Inu Puppies Funtimes
They regularly trend as a hot topic on Twitter. The cast and crew of The Guild watch them on set. And they spend most of their time sleeping in a giant, snuggly pile, but that hasn’t kept them from becoming the hottest new stars in the livecasting world — darn right I’m talking about the Shiba Inu puppy cam.
Free live streaming by Ustream
Hosted by Ustream and viewed by over 4 million people, the six adorable puppies in this litter are now six weeks old, and they are getting awfully big. Which is a little terrifying for those in the Web 2.0 community — as their owner said on the live feed just as I was writing this, “they won’t stay puppies forever.” Fans of individual pups will be able to watch them at their new homes, courtesy of Ustream. But in the meantime, here are a few of their greatest moments… Read more of this story
Luke 11:17, Bruce Lee Plays Ping-pong: NTV Station Today
Yep, today we have yet another viral ad appropriating the image of a dead famous person to sell a product. I love the visual look of this Bruce Lee piece, though — the blurry black and white makes this game of ping-pong almost look like a dream.
And today we look at a series singled out by Wes Craven this past Halloween. According to Julia Diddy, Luke 11:17 “more than holds its own within the confines of its genre.” Check out this ably produced and acted horror treat at NewTeeVee Station.
Was YouTube Live a Success? That Depends
After much talk about experimenting with live streaming video, YouTube dipped its toe in the water on the weekend, with a much-hyped event (at least in blogosphere terms) called YouTube Live, featuring some of the “cewebrities” that have emerged on YouTube over the past year or two — including Tay “Chocolate Rain” Zonday, LisaNova and Chad Vader, as well as a few big-name entertainment-industry stars like Katy Perry and Will.i.am. The show had the feel of an awards show, although it was one featuring stars most people probably wouldn’t recognize. So was it a success for YouTube? That depends a lot on your perspective. Read more of this story
Is Hulu “Just Reruns”? CEO Says There’s Value in That
“We don’t look at Hulu as a replacement for TV. We look at it as a replacement for reruns.” — Peter Chernin, president and COO of News Corp, Oct. 16
“It’s not an end game. It’s a middle game, maybe. It makes NBC and FOX think they’re in the new media. It makes them feel like they’re doing something…It’s not just about taking television and repurposing it on the Internet. It’s about discovery, It’s about community, it’s about interactivity.” — Michael Eisner, new media investor and former Disney CEO, speaking about Hulu on Oct. 7
When we ran into Hulu CEO Jason Kilar in the hallway at our NewTeeVee Live conference, we asked him what he thought of the criticism that Hulu is just a place for TV reruns on the web.
“Reruns is not enough,” he replied, “but it’s a critical, important part.”
What about doing more than reruns? We also spoke with Kilar about the persistent rumor that Hulu wants to make its own content. Given that Hulu’s expertise is in making a web service, not storytelling, it would seem like a leap. Still, when we asked Kilar if Hulu was planning move into producing original content, he didn’t entirely rule the concept out, saying, “Not anytime soon.”
19-year-old Commits Suicide on Justin.tv
In a striking display of the power of live video, Abraham K. Biggs committed suicide on Wednesday while broadcasting himself on video site Justin.tv. As we understand it from various forum posts, the 19-year-old Floridian was apparently egged on by commenters on Justin.tv and fellow forum users on bodybuilding.com. Biggs overdosed on pills while on camera and appeared to be breathing for hours until watchers realized he might be serious, at which point they alerted the police. The video kept running until police and EMTs broke Biggs’ door down and blocked the camera’s view.
We confirmed Biggs’ death with the Broward County medical examiner. The Justin.tv video and many of the forum posts have been taken down.
When asked about the broadcast via email, Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel said:
As for the broadcaster incident last night, we don’t comment on individual videos, however, our policy prohibits inappropriate content on Justin.tv. We rely on the community to flag videos that they feel are objectionable. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed and quickly removed from the system if it violates our Terms of Use.
Monty Python’s Sales Spike, Star Trek 90210: NTV Station Today
It’s nice to see the medium of online video used to its greatest potential. Today’s pinnacle: a mash-up of the new trailer for J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek and the Beverly Hills 90210 theme song. Magnificent.
And sometimes making your content available to the masses pays off. Big time. Today Steve Bryant breaks down how Monty Python’s new YouTube channel has spiked their Amazon sales, to the point where “the nearest sales competitors include two DVD packages of perennially popular TV series 24, the new release of Monarchy: The Royal Family at Work, and one of the most popular films of the year, The Dark Knight.” Not bad for a group of blokes who haven’t done anything new since 1983. Check out the full analysis at NewTeeVee Station!
Photos from NewTeeVee Live 08
Here are some of the scenes and many of the shining faces from our second-annual NewTeeVee Live conference in San Francisco last week. All of the photos were taken by Katie Basso. Read more of this story
Indy Mogul’s New Kids, Phil Collins In The Subway Tonight: NTV Station Today
Lots of great stuff in the viral world today (see our video ribbon above for more), but here’s my favorite so far: via the EPIC-FU blog comes this live performance from the group Naturally 7, who went all Improv Everywhere on the Paris subway with their a capella cover of Phil Collins’ In the Air Tonight. Yes, it’s from 2006 — that just means it’s so old it’s new again.
And today we congratulate Indy Mogul on the newest additions to its happy family — but how well do Beyond the Trailer and Best Short Films In The World fit in with older sibling Backyard F/X? Our thoughts at NewTeeVee Station.
The Science Behind Dogs on Skateboards: Researchers Study YouTube Success Stories
YouTube users upload tens of thousands of clips every day, and only a select few go on to become true viral success stories. But what’s really going on when videos that feature things like a dog on a skateboard, otters holding hands or the evolution of dance go viral? Two Switzerland-based scientists have analyzed the popularity of nearly 5 million YouTube videos over a period of eight months to find out.
Riley Crane and Didier Sornette of The ETH Zurich found that 90 percent of all YouTube videos never get any significant bump, but instead just attract a steady flow of viewers. Meanwhile ten percent of them, according to the study that was just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences magazine, exhibit “herding behavior,” meaning that the clips either become viral or get a spike in views because of being featured on YouTube or elsewhere. Further, viral videos tend to get more views on average than featured content or one-hit wonders.
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