VentureBeat reports that Vevo generated 35 million unique visitors and a staggering 13 billion video views in December.
The easiest way to understand VEVO is that it is to music videos what Hulu is to TV shows: a corporate (in this case record labels) founded, ad-supported way to aggregate and serve up videos on the Web. Instead of having to wade through all the user-made junk on YouTube to find the real, high-grade and high-quality music videos, VEVO's channel features only label or artist-produced videos, with great sound and video quality (though not HD yet).
Vevo really does appear to dominate the music videos on YouTube. Most of the official professional music videos on YouTube now seem to be from Vevo. They also have embedding turned on which helps them dramatically increase views. A lot of music publisher stupidly turn off embedding.
The BBC reports that Fede Alvarez, a Uruguay producer, landed a $30 million contract for a Hollywood film because of his YouTube movie that cost just $300 to make. Sam Raimi (Spider-Man, Evil Dead) is sponsoring the Youtuber.
A producer from Uruguay who uploaded a short film to YouTube in November 2009 has been offered a $30m (£18.6m) contract to make a Hollywood film.
The movie will be sponsored by director Sam Raimi, whose credits include the Spiderman and Evil Dead films.
Fede Alvarez's short film "Ataque de Panico!" (Panic Attack!) featured giant robots invading and destroying Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay.
When you watch the short film you will see why he landed a movie deal. The film is very impressive for its $300 budget. Take a look:
YouTube announced this week that they are now serving one billion video views each day. They mention basic principles they implemented that have since become fundamental tenets in the world of online video.
Speed matters: Videos should load and play back quickly.
Clip culture is here to stay: Short clips are voraciously consumed and perfect for watching a wide variety of content.
Open platforms open up possibility: Content creation isn't our business; it's yours. We wanted to create a place where anyone with a video camera, a computer, and an Internet connection could share their life, art, and voice with the world, and in many cases make a living from doing so.
They missed one: embedding. Embedding has been extremely important in helping YouTube grow quickly and the embed code has been adapted by many other video websites as a tool to get content widely distributed.
We have microblogging, so why not microvideoblogging. That's the idea behind Robo.to, a website that lets you publish micro videos - or visual status updates - that are no longer than 4 seconds in length. The videos can be distributed on Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites.
Bits reports that the idea is also meant to serve as a digital calling card for users.
The idea behind the platform is simple: In addition to the microvideos, which can be uploaded from a webcam or a mobile phone camera and pushed out via Facebook and Twitter with a few short lines of text, Robo.to is meant to be a digital calling card online or a hub that houses information about an individual's identity on the Web. That's what helps separate the service from other microvideo services like 12seconds.
Bits says Robo.to already has 100,000 plus users, thanks in part to Justin Timberlake regularly posting the tiny videos on his Twitter account, @jtimberlake.
YouTube has a post today that says Google is opening up the YouTube Partnership Program to include "individual popular videos." Basically, if a video goes viral YouTube wants to give the creator of the video the opportunity to monetize it. The program being used is Google's Adsense program.
We decided it was time to spread the wealth. Today we're excited to announce that we're extending the YouTube Partnership Program to include individual popular videos on our site. Now, when you upload a video to YouTube that accumulates lots of views, we may invite you to monetize that video and start earning revenue from it. To determine whether a particular video is eligible for monetization, we look at factors like the number of views, the video's virality and compliance with the YouTube Terms of Service. If your video is eligible for monetization, you will receive an email and see an "Enable Revenue Sharing" message next to your video on the watch page, as well as in other places in your account:
If a video uploaded to YouTube accumulates enough views and meets YouTube's terms of service than a "Enable Revenue Sharing" message will appear.
ReadWriteWeb has posted some rules of thumb that people looking to monetize "one-hit wonders" should keep in mind.
It's interesting YouTube did this. It's possible they have some users with some fairly popular videos that have not considered joining the partnership program or are not even aware it exists. By putting the button on the Youtubers page they may get more signups and therefore more ad views and ad revenues.
Vatican Launches YouTube Channel as Pope Warns About Social Networks
The Vatican has a new home on YouTube. They have embraced video sharing but the Pope isn't as keen on Facebook. That's because the Pope thinks too much obsessive social networking can be harmful. The Pope warned that social networks like Facebook and MySpace can "foster friendships and understanding, but warns they also can isolate people and marginalize others."
A puppy cam that shows Shiba Inu puppies sleeping - and sometimes playing - has generated over 18 million views reports NBC. Some places are calling it the most watched video of all time but that's incorrect. There are plenty of music videos on YouTube that already have three to five times the views of the Shiba Inu puppy cam. Still 18 million is significant and all it took was a live video feed of six baby Shiba Inu puppies. Maybe it is that people are looking for something to cheer them at a time when the economy is not doing well. Or they are simply bored at work. The Shiba Inu Puppy Cam can be found here on Ustream.tv. There are lot of other puppy cams on the Internet and there are sure to be more now because of the success of the Shiba Inu cam.
The New York Times has an article about how a few YouTubers using YouTube's partner program are generating six-figure incomes. It isn't surprising considering the huge number of views some of the top YouTubers are generating. Michael Buckley - who covers celebrities on his What the Buck Show - has garnered over 100 million views. Making videos has become a full-time job for him.
For some, like Michael Buckley, the self-taught host of a celebrity chatter show, filming funny videos is now a full-time job.
Mr. Buckley quit his day job in September after his online profits had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company. His thrice-a-week online show "is silly," he said, but it has helped him escape his credit-card debt.
Mr. Buckley, 33, was the part-time host of a weekly show on a Connecticut public access channel in the summer of 2006 when his cousin started posting snippets of the show on YouTube. The comical rants about celebrities attracted online viewers, and before long Mr. Buckley was tailoring his segments, called "What the Buck?" for the Web. Mr. Buckley knew that the show was "only going to go so far on public access."
"But on YouTube," he said, "I've had 100 million views. It's crazy."
Michael Buckley isn't alone in covering celebrities on YouTube. He has competition from Maria Sansone at Poptub and many others. That said Buck's energetic style may be hard to beat. Other YouTubers mentioned in the Times story include Cory Williams at smpfilmes - he made the Mean Kitty song - and LisaNova, who parodies Sarah Palin and makes other humorous videos. There is money to be made in videos but the path to success is not going to be easy and those planning to launch new YouTube channels should expect plenty of competition.
YouTube Implements Stricter Standards on Content and Thumbnails
YouTube recently announced some changes that includes stricter standards for mature content and methods for preventing users from gaming YouTube with false descriptions or thumbnails. The point Youtubers seem most upset with is the thumbnails.
Improved thumbnails - To make sure your thumbnail represents your video, your choices will now be selected algorithmically. You'll still have three thumbnails to choose from, but they will no longer be auto-generated from the 25/50/75 points in the video index.
Youtuber Philip DeFrance posted this in the comments. He sounds unhappy with the quality of the randomly assigned shots.
Shhhhh VP be quiet. Let YouTube keep shooting themselves in the foot. It makes them feel like they are improving the website. Why let users make sure there is a steady but related center shot, when they can provide 3 perfectly good blurry possible center shots randomly?!!
Venetian Princess was also unhappy with the changes. She posted this comment.
I understand that you are trying to avoid situations where people abuse the system and game the thumbnails, however this new process is an extreme misfortune to partners. Thumbnails help us brand our content, just like a cover to a cd or DVD. I have spoken to many other partners and all of us are very disappointed with this announcement. Many of us do vlogs or music videos, and we are more than likely going to end up with an unattractive thumbnail mid-sentence with the subject's mouth wide open, a goofy face, or motion blur that no one will want to click on. Even with three options, that is simply not enough. Video thumbnails play a key-role in whether people choose to watch our videos or not. We as partners should have the right to ensure that our thumbnail image is interesting and choose what we want to creatively represent our content, as long as it goes with the video. Many other video sharing platforms such as Revver and Vimeo offer at least 15 thumbnail options. Ifilm, Spike.com, and Vimeo even offer the ability to upload our own choice
of thumbnail. Perhaps you might want to think about offering this as a feature exclusively to partners, so that we can still optimize branding. Even a slider that would allow us to pick any frame from the entire video would be very beneficial. I ask you to please consider these options. The new system is a
huge disappointment as far as branding goes. I'm really hoping you will hear our side on this. Thanks
Youtubers may be unhappy but YouTube users may be pleased that an image that has nothing to do with the video can no longer be used to represent the video. YouTube probably should find a happy medium here and find a way for YouTubers - who don't abuse the privilege - to select their own thumbnail if it is consistent with the video clip itself.
YouTube's live show YouTube Live was a lot better than many people thought it might be. Kate Perry performed and a lot of YouTube stars performed including Tay Zonday, Esmee Denters, William Sledd, Lisa Nova and Fred. Queen Rania was awarded the first YouTube Visionary Award for her YouTube channel that discusses stereotypes and answers questions about the Arab World. Alphacat did a pretty good Barack Obama impression - see here. Another highlight from YouTube Live was Bo Burnham's song "Welcome To YouTube." The song has a lot of positive buzz on Twitter as you can see here. Take a look:
There is some truth to this humerous fake news report from the Onion that says YouTube is running a contest for a "good" video. They say that "YouTube is offering a cash prize to the first user to upload a video with a shred of originality or artistic merit."
Following the launch of her steamy new video, Britney Spears has come out with a revamped britneyspears.com website. The website includes a blog about Britney Spears updated by Team Britney and guest bloggers.
The new site also includes video blog posts from Britney Spears. Here's the first one where she explains what her new website will offer. Britney says, "I'm taking you where no paparazzi lense ever could. I'll be updating the site all the time with new videos, photos, and lots of other cool stuff." (via Pleasant Morning Buzz)
CNET reports that new House rules allow members of Congress to post content on third-party websites such as YouTube or Twitter. This is good because without this rule it made it difficult for members of Congress to take advantage of some of the newer web publishing tools. Of course, some members were using sites like Twitter anyway.
"In addition to their official (house.gov) Web site, a member may maintain another Web site(s), channel(s) or otherwise post material on third-party Web sites," the new House rules read. They also allow members to provide links to or embed outside content on their official sites, provided they include an exit notice indicating the visitor is leaving the House.
The Senate rules also allow for links to be added to official sites. They allow senators to use any third-party site of their choice, but the senators will have an "approved list" of sites for reference.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) called the change "a significant step forward toward bringing House rules into the multimedia age and allowing for members to effectively communicate with their constituents online."
FCW.com has quotes from a couple other Members of Congress including Twitter user Rep. John Culberson, (R-Texas). Culberson said the new rules are "Truly a victory for all those seeking increased transparency in our government, the use of online video and other online technologies." The new rules were announced on October 2nd. PolicyBeta also has a post about the new rules abtly titled, "Yes... Our Congress CAN Tweet."
CNET's Politics and Law blog also notes that there is now a Capitol Tweets widget that lets you keep up on the latest tweets from members of Congress who use Twitter. You might also be interested in this list of Members of Congress who Twitter.
Southwest Airlines is looking for a new blog-o-spondent. This is someone who will be traveling to Southwest cities across the country and filming short segments for Southwest's blog - sort of a traveling video blogger. Gadling suggests acting quirky and sharing your love of flying in your video submission.
Over the past few months, the airline took one of their lucky employees through a whirlwind tour of the company as she video blogged the entire experience. Now, they're looking for a Southwest fan to hand off the reins. The lucky person will be assigned a year's worth of excitement as he or she jetsets around the country, video blogging on the entire airline, experience and any excitement that's going on in the Southwest community.
Obviously the airline is going to pick someone that's quirky, loves flying and is great on video, so try to emulate those traits if you don't have them and put together a one minute video application.
The contest started earlier this month and is already nearing an end but you still have several days to upload a video explaining why you should be Southwest Airline's Blog-o-spondent. The submission deadline is August 31st. You can see the website here and a page with rules here. Below is a video from Southwest about the contest.
Google's YouTube has blogged that they have acquired a video editing/mashup tool called Omnisio.
As you probably guessed, we're big fans of anything that lets people interact with online video and gives the YouTube community the chance to express themselves in creative ways. New features such as Video Annotations, which allow you to insert comments and information into the video itself, are just one example of how we're beginning to expand what you can do with your videos on the site.
It's in this spirit that we're thrilled to announce Google's purchase of Omnisio, a small California-based startup that's focused on making online video more useful and collaborative. The Omnisio team has tremendous technical expertise when it comes to advanced video tools and having this kind of talent at YouTube should help us further explore ways to enhance your YouTube experience.
A post on NewTeeVee describes Omnisio as a tool that lets people pull shorter clips out of videos and string them together. People could also use the tool to add comments to videos like they can with the Video Annotations feature YouTube added in June. Ominiso's website also mentiosn a feature in the works that will let you "tag people and interesting highlights in videos." That sounds similar to the tags people sometimes add to Flickr photographs.
Editing tools are an obvious move for YouTube. The more features they offer for users the better the user-made videos will be. This could help increase the quality of YouTube's content but it will probaly also help to make owners of video content more nervous.
Omnisio has a blog post here about being acquired by YouTube.
Music videos are dominating YouTube's list of the most viewed videos of all-time. Avril Lavigne's "Girlfriend" music video recently pushed out Judson Apply's Evolution of Dance. Artists with music videos on YouTube's most watched page include Rihanna, Timbaland, Alicia Keys, Chris Brown, My Chemical Romance and Akon. Only a few of the most-viewed videos are not music videos from top music labels - these include Judson Apply's funny dance video, a laughing baby and Jeff Dunham's Achmed the Dead Terrorist video.
The fact that some music videos can attain massive views probably explains why you are starting to see music videos debut with special sponsorships. For example, Rihanna's Umbrella music video begins with a brief graphic showing it was presented by Covergirl. 50+ million views is something advertisers are not going to ignore.
YouTomb Site Keeps Data About Videos Removed From YouTube
Everyday numerous videos are removed from YouTube. Often videos are removed because of an alleged copyright violation. A judge recently sided with Viacom in its request for the records of every video YouTube users have watched including IP data. Wired says Google was also ordered to provide "copies of all videos that it has taken down for any reason." The process by which YouTube removes videos is complex but a site called YouTomb is dedicated to tracking the videos removed from YouTube because of a copyright complaint. It is an interesting compilation and includes videos that have been on YouTube for over two years before they were taken down. YouTomb says it is a research project by MIT Free Culture.
YouTomb is a research project by MIT Free Culture that tracks videos taken down from YouTube for alleged copyright violation.
More specifically, YouTomb continually monitors the most popular videos on YouTube for copyright-related takedowns. Any information available in the metadata is retained, including who issued the complaint and how long the video was up before takedown. The goal of the project is to identify how YouTube recognizes potential copyright violations as well as to aggregate mistakes made by the algorithm.
The videos discussed on YouTomb cannot be viewed. It is merely a research project to find out more information about how YouTube goes about removing videos.
Google and MacFarlane Cut Web Video Distribution Deal
Google and Seth MacFarlane have cut a distribution deal that will send fifty short two-minute episodes of a MacFarlane-created show called Cavalcade screaming around Google's AdSense network. It's an interesting use of the AdSense network and one that is likely to garner Google new content partners if it is successful.
Silicon Alley Insider notes that Kim Malone Scott from Google Adsense boldly claims that Google has just "recreated the mass media." Silicon Alley Insider also notes that MacFarlane is wisely keeping his hefty Family Guy job with Fox.
Lots of interesting implications here for publishers, content creators and advertisers here if this takes off. Google's Kim Malone Scott, who runs sales for AdSense, modestly suggests "we have recreated the mass media."
But one thing isn't changing in the short term: If content creators want big paychecks, they had better stick with big media. MacFarlane's deal with Google is a side project, not one that will interfere with his day job working for Rupert Murdoch's Fox network. Good call: The Times notes that he's just signed a multiyear deal with Fox that will pay him more than $100 million.
It is certainly a unique deal and it will be fascinating to see how it all pans at both for Google and MacFarlane but also for the future of online video. Eric Berlin as Online Media Cultist reminds us that the "quality of the new show is obviously going to affect how popular it is, but more than likely that won't be a huge factor in the overall storyline." This is a good points because the public often surprises tv execs with what shows they love or hate. Unfortunately, sometimes shows people love are also canceled because of these same tv execs. How this all translates to online media remains to be seen.
Usually it is YouTube that tells you when a video is no longer available. This time the Associated Press posted a video to its YouTube channel that states that the video is no longer available. The video also includes a soundtrack with the speaker saying, "This video clip is currrently unavailable."
The video contains the following description:
Entertainment ExtraThis Video Is No Longer Available.This Video Is No Longer Available.The Associated PressThis video is no longer available.This video contains ONLY natural sound. No script is ava...
The video also contained the following keywords:
emergency clip video available
Clearly the AP posted the video in error but it is amusing to read some of the comments and watch people give the video 5-stars. Other bloggers including DJPalmer.com are also posting the AP's odd video.
Google announced that they are providing a little more data about YouTube videos for the people that uploaded them.
Today we're taking our first step towards answering these questions with YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account -- users, partners, and advertisers -- to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks. For now, you can find currently available metrics by clicking under the "About this Video" button under My account > Videos, Favorites, Playlists > Manage my Videos.
That's useful information but Google Operating System notes that data about where videos have been embedded is not included.
The analytics data is really basic and doesn't include a lot of interesting information like the sites that embed your videos, the most important sources of traffic, how many people view the full video or play it again etc.
Where online these videos are being watched is likely of great interest to YouTubers. YouTubers would probably find this information as valuable as where in the world people are watching them. There is a little bit of data underneath the videos about where people clicked from and you could post the video's URL into Technorati but this probably wouldn't turn up all the embeds. Pulse2.0 found this video about YouTube Insight.
Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee says that YouTube has promised to eventually include this valuable referrer information.
In a packet of emailed information, YouTube pointed out that its partners (which include established users and media companies) can utilize the Insight stats to increase their revenue. But to truly offer useful analytics YouTube needs to show the relations between videos, track search engine keywords, and measure the portion of a video a viewer watches before clicking away, among other things. YouTube did say it will soon add in referrer logs to show how viewers discovered a video.
On an unrelated note Google/YouTube also posted the message about YouTube Insight on the YouTube blog. Based on the comments some people are very angry that YouTube took away the "sort by most viewed" feature from the YouTube search. That was a useful feature - why did they take it away?
Steve Outing Launching Resource For Online News Publishers
Steve Outing blogged recently that he soft-launched a website called GrowingYourNewsWebsite.com. As the website's name suggets it offers tips and ideas for online news publishers.
I've just debuted a new website/blog designed to be a resource for ideas, tips and advice for online news publishers. It's called GrowingYourNewsWebsite.com, and it's NOT another industry news blog. The focus is exclusively on advice. I hope you'll find it useful.
I soft-launched the site yesterday, so hardly anyone knows about it. I'd love it if a few of you checked it out and maybe commented on the early posts. My intent is to post a tip a day. There will be ideas on how to increase traffic and earn more money, primarily. I'm aiming for actionable tips and advice.
Steve Outing writes the Stop the Presses column for Editor & Publisher so this should be a great resource for news publishers. One of the entries on the new blog suggests that some news providers should just use YouTube instead of trying to overcomplicate things by hosting their own videos. A few news outlets and news tv stations are already using YouTube (see Fast Lane Daily, KTLA, KMBC, KRQE, Chicago Tribune, FoxNewsBlast and Martha Stewart) but it is surprising how few are taking advantage of YouTube's easy distribution service. This could be why YouTube recently launched a new service that allows publishers to make their own YouTube-type services.
Video Mysteriously Takes YouTube's #1 All-Time Most Viewed Slot
Reel Pop, ReadWriteWeb and others are blogging about a home-made music video called "Cansei de Ser Sexy Music is My Hot Hot Sex" that has bumped Judson Laipply's popular Evolution of Dance video off the #1 spot on YouTube's all-time most viewed videos list. A post on Waxy.org analyzed the video's stats and found an unusually high views-to-ratings figure of 21,487 as well as a low number of comments. The video also has only has two honors. One would expect a video that suddenly takes YouTube's all-time most viewed crown to have more than two honors.
Most of the comments on the video indicate disbelief that this video could garner so many views so quickly. It is hard to believe this video legitimately made its way to the top of YouTube. Here are some of the comments.
ikill4u784 says, "OMG! it cant sneak up as most views in less than a week. i've never even seen this with 25m views b4!"
Chargrad says "What... The... Hell... even with hot hot sex in the title how can this have got so many views?!?"
mattjsrules says, "This only had 4 million views 2 weeks ago wtf? someone must of refreshed it 80 million times or someone hacked."
It will probably get many views now that it is #1 on YouTube. Cansei de Ser Sexy is also known as CSS. They are a Brazilian band. They received a fortuitous popularity boost when their "Music Is My Hot Hot Sex" song (the same song as in the suddenly popular video) was featured in an iPhone commercial. Here's the video that is now listed as #1 on YouTube'a list of the all-time most popular videos.
There was a lot of Internet buzz when Quarterlife, a show about twenty-somethings, was moved from web to NBC during the Writer's Strike. Unfortunately, online buzz does not always translate into offline success - just ask Snakes on a Plane. Quarterlife turned out the lowest ratings for its time slot in over twenty years for NBC reports Reuters.
The highly touted online series about a group of young artists bombed in its NBC debut on Tuesday night, drawing the network's lowest ratings and smallest audience for that time slot in at least 20 years, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The show ranked a distant third place for the 10 p.m. hour, averaging just 3.1 million viewers and a meager 1.3 rating among advertisers' favorite demographic, adults aged 18 to 49, the precise audience for whom the series was designed.
The program had been scheduled to move to Sundays on NBC starting March 2.
But two sources close to the program, though not authorized to speak publicly about its scheduling, said "quarterlife" has been removed from the NBC lineup.
Reuters also says NBC may move the show to Bravo - a network best known for its reality tv programs. The show's protagonist Dylan Krieger blogs in the show as Jeremy Axelrod explains in this post. The show was originally meant to be shown on MySpace.com - the MySpace page is here. As an Internet show it was a hit and it will always be known as the first web show to make the jump to network television. But as a regular tv show it was a big dud. If the WGA Writer's Strike had continued maybe people would have eventually tuned in.
The BBC is reporting that Pakistan's attempts to block YouTube resulted in an hour-long nearly worldwide blockage of YouTube's website.
BBC News has learned that the outage was almost certainly connected to Pakistan Telecom and Asian internet service provider PCCW.
A leading net professional said the global outage was "probably a mistake".
Pakistan ordered internet service providers to block the site because of content deemed offensive to Islam.
The BBC News website's technology editor, Darren Waters, says that to block Pakistan's citizens from accessing YouTube it is believed Pakistan Telecom "hijacked" the web server address of the popular video site.
News.com reports that the Revver.com video sharing website is trying to sell itself for $300,000 to $500,000 (plus the company's estimated $1 million debt). This is a small value compared to some of the very large venture capital investments social media startups have received. News.com notes that the sale price is also a small percentage of the $12.7 million Revver once raised in venture funding. News.com also says a deal from LiveUniverse to acquire Revver never materialized.
In response to questions from CNET News.com, Angela Gyetvan, Revver's vice president of marketing, said: "I'm not at liberty to discuss any of this with you. I can't comment."
Mark Elfenbein, LiveUniverse's chief operating officer also declined to comment.
Revver gained some notoriety in 2006 when video-sharing became a worldwide craze. YouTube dominated the sector but Revver tried carving out a niche by catering to videographers.
The company, backed by such investors as Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners, and William Randolph Hearst III, offered to share advertising revenue with makers of the most popular clips. The thinking at the company was that if Revver could win over the best creators, audiences would follow.
Ad revenues cannot sustain an infinite amount of social networking and video sharing websites so at some point there was bound to be huge consolidation in these types of businesses. 2008 may be the year that many of the social media websites people were so excited about in 2006 and 2007 get purchased or go out of business. However, it did seem like Revver was one of the more popular video sharing sites at least early on. If Revver really is carrying a lot of debt it is likely the reason why they are not getting bigger acquisition offers.
This is a clever and funny video that plays on the privacy concerns with Google's Maps Street View feature. Privacy concerns were raised when Google's cameras captured people and their thongs. There is a point at which Google's efforts to map our cities will have to stop. The tagline of the video is "Two young men take a turn down the wrong street view." (via Valleywag)
Hammer Time: MC Hammer to Launch Video Sharing Website
Here's a new web launch that didn't make anyone's list of 2008 predictions. The BBC is reporting that MC Hammer plans to launch a video website that will challenge YouTube. The site will be called DanceJam and will let people share dance videos.
Famous in the early 1990s for his hit song "U Can't Touch This" and very baggy trousers, Hammer is launching a website that hopes to rival YouTube.
Due to debut later this month, DanceJam will allow users to share and watch their own dance videos.
If the website is a hit, it could help Hammer's finances - he went bankrupt in 1996 with debts of almost $14m (£7m).
The BBC article says the website will launch later this month. It will be advertising based. MC Hammer reportedly told the AP that he is well informed on Internet technology. Hammer said, ""There is no high-tech lingo or business strategy that you can talk that is above my head. I breathe this stuff." There is truth behind his bold statement. MC Hammer has been actively blogging at mchammer.blogspot.com since he launched his blog in February, 2006. He has blogged about the power of blogging to connect with others. YouTube is likely too large and powerful for even the Hammer to overcome but he may be able to get something going with a niche video sharing website.
The Queen of England and the British Monarchy have launched a YouTube Channel. The Channel will features The Queen's Christmas message as well as current and historical footage of the monarch and other members of the Royal Family. The site contains a number of videos already including this video clip of the Queen's Christmas broadcast from 1957.
Among the older clips is footage from a film by Lord Wakehurst called Long to Reign Over Us, which has never been released to the public.
The former Tory MP, who died in 1970, was a keen amateur film maker and charted many key royal events, including the death of King George VI, the Queen's accession and her coronation.
The site also has footage of Queen Alexandra's West End tour among the rose-sellers in 1917, and silent newsreel of the 1923 wedding of the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon - the Queen's parents.
Announcing the launch of the channel, a spokeswoman for Buckingham Palace said the Queen "always keeps abreast with new ways of communicating with people".
"She has always been aware of reaching more people and adapting the communication to suit," she said.
"This will make the Christmas message more accessible to younger people and those in other countries."
The BBC says this year's holiday address will appear on the site at about 1500 GMT on Christmas Day.
Singer Alanis Morissette has started vlogging on her YouTube channel. She answers questions in a video interview while she's taking a walk. Some of the younger stars who established YouTube sites early on now have tens of thousands of subscribers. Ashley Tisdale of High School Musical fame has over 60,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel. Alanis just has a couple hundred so far so she has a ways to go to catch the YouTube early birds.
In Alanis' first video blog she talks about her upcoming tour and her next album. She also says she is working on a book. Watch out for that tree Alanis.
Oprah Winfrey has launched a YouTube channel. The Hollywood Reporterreports that Oprah will have YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen on her show. YouTube stars like Judson Laipply will also appear on the The Oprah Winfrey Show.
She's dominated TV talk for decades. Her recommendations send shockwaves through the publishing industry, She's even conquered Broadway. And now, Oprah is set to go viral.
Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Prods. has announced a partnership with YouTube to launch a new Oprah channel on the video site. The new channel, which went live Friday, features a collection of supplemental video from "The Oprah Winfrey Show," including backstage footage, highlights from guests' appearances, and even videos that Oprah has shot herself.
To help kick off interest in the new partnership, Oprah has booked YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen to appear on her show Tuesday. Oprah will also feature several YouTube-discovered stars on the program, including Tyson the skateboarding dog and Judson Laipply, the creator the much-streamed Evolution of Dance clip.
One downside to Oprah's channel is that embedding has been disabled on the videos. It's smart launching a YouTube channel but not allowing any of the videos to be embedded seems like an odd tactic if you are trying to go viral. If you have video clips and you want them to be broadly distributed the smartest thing to do is to utilize the power of the blogosphere and let bloggers embed the clips. By disabling embedding these videos will not be nearly as popular as they could have been. Oprah also has an unembeddable welcome message to her YouTube channel that can be found here.
YouTube.com is considering some changes and they have a preview of a redesigned website you can view. The navigation changes seem useful but the site is a little on the bright side. Download Squad is warning its readers to have their sunglasses ready before viewing the redesign. YouTube's blog post about the preview says there will be a number over large changes over the next three months.
In a constant effort to improve the user experience and incorporate your feedback we'll be making a number of large changes to the site over the next few months. In addition to making improvements upon existing features, we'll be rolling out some brand new items that are still in the works. We can tell you there is a lot to look forward to, but in the meantime we offer you this sneak preview of the new YouTube video browsing page (our "Videos" tab) and invite you to share your feedback with us.
-- Categories will now be found under the "Videos" tab.
-- Dropdown menus make for a smoother transition when clicking through popular pages, ie. "Most Viewed," "Top Favorites," "Recently Featured," etc.
-- Tabs and video browsing pages have a new overall look and feel.
YouTube has also merged the videos and category links but you can still make all the same popularity searches as before. It would be helpful if they would include a few more categories since there are so many videos on YouTube now.
Until there are more categories you can always run a search for tags using this search string and changing KEYWORD to the tag you want to use:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=KEYWORD&search=tag
Use Halloween as the keyword and you get videos tagged Halloween.
They seem very eager for feedback at YouTube and they are requesting feedback on the right hand side of the preview page.
Last year, NBC set up a channel on YouTube that featured clips from NBC including Saturday Night Live clips. One of the first videos they uploaded was a clip of Jay Leno pointing out some interesting clips he found on YouTube - that was September, 2006. NBC was blasted when they pulled the funny Lazy Sunday SNL clip from YouTube in February, 2006. Now by pulling the YouTube channel NBC has done it to bloggers once again. Any YouTube videos from NBC that bloggers had embedded will now display a message declaring the video unavailable. That includes the Jay Leno clips and all the SNL clips. Even the popular Christmas Box video is displaying the no longer available message. This videos can probably still be found on YouTube or another video sharing website but not on a legitimate NBC channel. Valleywag asked whether this sudden move by NBC meant its Hulu.com video site would soon be launched?
NBC got buzz for a revived Saturday Night Live and The Office, and YouTube, through the sheen of legitimacy NBC gave it, got a $1.65 billion buyout. With NBC set to launch its own video site, the laughably named Hulu, the pulling of the YouTube plug was just a matter of time. Speaking of time: Could this move be a sign that Hulu, scheduled for "private beta" testing this month, is finally ready?
It turns out that it was because of Hulu.com and NBC may launch the site as early as next week. There doesn't appear to be a precise launch date scheduled. Will bloggers and webmasters be ready to trust that videos from Hulu.com won't vanish several months after they embed them?
Here is what videos from the deleted NBC channel now look like:
The New York Timesreports on Google's clever plans to turn its very popular YouTube video sharing service into a video syndication service.
The Internet search giant is expected to introduce a service on Tuesday to allow Web sites in its ad network to embed relevant videos from some YouTube content creators. A Web site or blog specializing in hiking, for instance, might choose to embed hiking videos from YouTube.
The service, which represents the first major combination of a Google product with YouTube, will give video creators wide distribution beyond YouTube via Google's network, known as AdSense. Since the videos will be surrounded by ads, the service is another way for Google to cash in on the huge number of video clips stored on YouTube.
Several other networks distribute videos and ads on the Web, but none reach as many Web sites as AdSense.
Google said it would share revenue from the ads with the creators of the videos and with the Web sites that embed them, though it declined to specify what percentage of the revenue will be kept by each party.
If the television networks aren't going to turn website into syndication channels Google will it seems. For now these are generally just very short video clips but in the future full television shows could be syndicated in a similar manner.
Google has an introductory post about the new video units here. There is also a faq. The faq says the ads in the video units will be both pay-per-click and CPM based. It says reporting will be different for these ads than other AdSense ads. Website owners can select video content by selecting specific categories or by choosing a specific provider.
This will be a big deal for video publishers. Google says AdSense publishers can select specific providers so video publishers will be trying to get AdSense users to syndicate their videos. NewTeeVee has a short list of who some of the early video content providers are.
Read/WriteWeb says Google is expected to expand the number of video providers -- currently only a few YouTube user channels are being syndicated.
Ads have been run along side a very select few user channels on the YouTube site for a handful of months but these reports indicate that the program will be made much wider and be taken off of the site all around the web.
Here is an explanatory video from Google about their video units.
Chris Crocker quickly became one of the most well-known YouTubers when his Leave Britney Alone video hit the mainstream. Crocker's video defense of Britney's troubled performance at the VMAs has received over 8 million views. It was so popular that it was even parodied by actor Seth Green. Now Variety is reporting that Crocker has signed a deal with 44 Blue Productions that could result in Crocker's own tv show. CNET's The Social blog says Crocker was on 44 Blue's radar before his popular Britney video.
But don't hold your breath. That impassioned young fellow is Chris Crocker, a 19-year-old from Tennessee whose 15 minutes (seconds?) of fame just might not quite be over: Variety is reporting that a television production company, 44 Blue Productions, has inked a deal with him for a potential TV show. It's not totally serendipitous, as the entertainment site explained that Crocker has actually had a sizeable MySpace following for some time now, and that he's been on 44 Blue's radar for almost a year.
It isn't surprising that 44 Blue has been following him. Chris Crocker has been making popular videos on YouTube long before he became famous for the "Leave Britney Alone" video. He has a pretty funny video about MySpace's top friends lists here. Crocker's channel has over 51,000 subscribers. If Crocker gets his tv show and it is a success he might even be able to make popular celebrity blogger Perez Hilton a little jealous.
There are some events that celebrity and music bloggers cannot miss covering and Britney Spears' awful performance at the 2007 Video Music Awards is one of these events.
The vast majority of bloggers agree that Britney's performance was not good. Some say it was a bomb while others argue that it was not a total bomb. You can read some other blogger reviews here, here, here, here,
here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The song Britney sang at the VMAs was called "Gimme More." It received mixed reviews -- some people didn't care much for the song before they had even seen Britney's performance. The analysis of Britney's performance is sure to continue as more facts come in. People is already talking about how Britney is now embarrassed and Kanye West claims they were both exploited by MTV. That should keep the gossip blogs posting.
Music bloggers also regularly cover events like the Video Music Awards. MTV was smart enough to put the entire show on its website in segments which
makes it easy to link to a particular part of the show. They did claim to offer embedding but when the embed code was posted into a blog and played the video wouldn't run. Instead viewers only see a message that says the video was only available on the MTV website. When are the big media companies going to realize that if they make short video clips available properly for embedding (even with a non-annoying ad) they are going to get much more exposure than they would by only allowing the video to be seen on their website? Here's what happens if you try to embed the video clip from MTV.com that contains Britney's sad peformance. As of this writing, it only shows a message that the Britney video can only be found on MTV.com. The player then starts running other performance from the show which are halted by yet another message sending viewers to MTV.com.
If MTV is going to go to the trouble to offer embedding, make sure it works properly and isn't some kind of bait and switch trick to get people to the website. Either it's embeddable or it isn't. Don't make viewers watch an ad, then not provide the video: that's obnoxious.
MTV should have simply noted that embedding was not available for this video. The video clip of the Britney's clumsy performance also appears frequently on YouTube, but it looks like it is being removed almost as quickly as it can uploaded. You can probably still find it periodically on YouTube by plugging in a Britney VMA search. There are also embeddable clips of the performance elsewhere like here on Brightcove.
InfoWorld has an article that discusses Google's latest round of Blogger bugs. In addition to pointing out the need for "professional-grade uptime" from Blogger the article also talks about Blogger now allowing video uploads. This post on Blogger Buzz also discusses Blogger's video upload feature.
Today we are releasing video uploading to Blogger! This feature allows you to upload videos and create a video podcast with the same ease that we currently provide with photo uploading.
When you go to the Blogger post editor, you'll see a new button () next to the image uploading one. Just select a video from your computer, wait a few minutes for the upload and processing to occur, and voila! Now when you visit your blog, you will see something like this (of course without Tomo, the Blogger Akita):
The Blogger Buzz example features an uploaded video of the Blogger dog Tomo. Videos uploaded with Blogger are hosted by Google Video. However, Google says videos uploaded to Blogger are kept private and are not part of the Google Video search. Blogger also provides a video upload resource and a video uploading faq.
YouTube blogs that they have started running YouTube InVideo ads on some of the YouTube videos for "select partners."
Over the past few weeks, you may have noticed that we've been working with select partners to improve YouTube's presentation of advertising on their videos in a manner that brings you creative, compelling content and should also increase revenue flow to artists and content owners.
So what's new? Today we're offering select partners the ability to incorporate YouTube InVideo ads into their content. These are animated overlays that appear on the bottom 20 percent of a video. If you're interested by what you see there, clicking on the overlay launches a deeper interactive video ad that we think is relevant and entertaining. (The video you were watching is temporarily paused.) If you choose not to click on the overlay, it will simply disappear, so that you're in full control of your YouTube experience.
Google spent a long time trying to come up with this ad concept and it seems like they went for a concept that is fairly unobtrusive. The ads can easily be turned off and appear at the bottom of videos. A last100 post which says the YouTube ads "are not that bad" has screenshots of a few of the ads including an ad for The Simpsons movie that shows Homer chasing after a donut. The Homer donut ad can be seen on Madina Lake's "House of Cards" music video. The Crime Mob - Rock Yo Hips music video contains an ad from Warner Brothers. The YouTube ads start up 15 seconds into the video and take up the bottom 20% of the screen.
The San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times have more details about the YouTube ad concept. The comments on YouTube's post about the ads range from those grudgingly accepting the ads to outright annoyance.
Some people will tolerate the ads:
jernov: "i personally don't like it that much, but it's better than an advertisement movie playing in front of the video you want to see, making you wait for the whole thing to start. i don't like it, but it could be worse."
123woow: "i think its a good idea people will see the advertisements more often and they cant really complain about it annoying them or being intrusive to the video because you can manually click it away easily. Good job YouTube"
randiicom: "I'm okay with this, but eventually it would get boring. I wouldn't subscribe to anyone who does this, but it wouldn't stop me from watching one of their videos. It'd be great though to get money for the videos you've made."
The negative comments indicate some YouTube users may even unsubscribe from videos that contain the ads.
johnbrouwer1: "It wrecks your youtube video! Terrible TERRIBLE idea!"
sjmaerz: "I knew the team at Google would find a way to screw this up. Goodbye, YouTube, it was fun while it lasted."
splitforces: "gawd advertising is in everything now. first it wuz comerrcials in the middle of my shows and now the middle of my fav online videos. i shall unsubscribe to any1 who would do that."
losereligionrem: "sounds dumb... if i wanted to see advertisement... i'd just watch tv..."
Updates: CNET says Matt Harding from the popular "Where the Hell is Matt?" videos doesn't like the new YouTube ads. And a post on Wired's Epicenter blog says the Chief Marketing Officer from VideoEgg says Google's new YouTube video ads are just like theirs.
Here's a great example about how YouTube is becoming the top choice when people search for videos - at least funny ones. A Hitwise entry shows that searches for "funny videos" have been falling while search for "youtube" have become more frequent.
Muhammad Saleem notes that while we can't forget the "correlation doesn't imply causation" rule from statistics class there does seem to be a correlation in this case. Note: This data is UK specific so it may not correlate with search trends in the U.S. and other countries.
Billiam the Snowman and the Republican YouTube Debate
Billiam, a snowman living in Point Hope, Alaska, was one of the Americans asking questiions during the Democratic CNN/YouTube Debate that took place in July. In the first debate Billiam asked a question about global warming. GOP candidates been slow to sign up for the Republican YouTube Debate. One of the GOP holdouts, Republican Candidate Mitt Romney, went beyond simply holding out and leveled a huge insult on Billiam the Snowman. Romney said, "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."
Romney, the lone GOP holdout, has posted more videos on his YouTube channel (283 as of Sunday afternoon) than any other presidential candidate, Republican or Democrat. But he has resisted the debate, in which videotaped questions are submitted through YouTube. In an interview with Manchester Union Leader, Romney said, "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman."
That drew a video response from Billiam, the snowman who questioned the Democrats on global warming last month in their YouTube debate. This time, he riffed on another Romney quote from the campaign: "Lighten up slightly."
Sources at CNN said the debate, co-hosted with the Republican Party of Florida, will be held at the Mahaffey Theatre in St. Petersburg. Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube, said that more than 1,100 videos have been submitted, and the popular video-sharing site will allow YouTube users to upload their videos until Nov. 27.
Billiam formulated a clever response to Mitt Romney which can be seen here or below.
Billiam and his son Billiam Jr. have received both criticism and support (see here, here, here, here and here). Some people are even trying to save Billiam by with t-shirts. Billiam was created by two St. Olaf college students. There is a silly, absurd quality to the snowman questioner but the question itself is legitimate. Americans want to know the GOP candidates' positions on the serious issue of global warming. The YouTube debates have already generated a lot of great content and discussion and a GOP debate would put more helpful information out there for voters.
GOP candidates John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have already signed on according to CNET. This may have been in response to questions posted by conservative blogs like this post from Pajamas Media that asked, "Are the GOP Candidates Afraid of a Snowman?"
Now that McCain and Giuliani will attend hopefully the rest of the GOP candidates will too. The Republican CNN/YouTube Debate has been pushed back to November 28th, 2007 -- originally it was set for September 17th. Ron Paul, Mike Huckabee and Tommy Thompson had confirmed for the earlier date. Thompson has since pulled out of the race. Huckabee did well at the Iowa Straw Poll so hopefully he will attend the later date. Ron Paul has been a social media sensation so it seems likely he would attend providing he remains in the race. Fred Thompson has not yet agreed to attend the GOP YouTube Debate but there are lingering questions about whether Fred Thompson plans to run. Mitt Romney was directly challenged by Billiam and surely he would not backdown from such a challenge?
Using the power of Billiam CNN and YouTube may be able to get most or all of the GOP candidates to attend. People can submit questions on YouTube up until the November 28th date.
Sometimes amateur videos can generate quite a following. The Battle at Kruger is an amazing 8-minute video shot by US tourist Dave Budzinski at South Africa's Kruger National Park. The video has been linked to by over 3,000 blogs according to Technorati. The video shows a complex battle between a lion pride, a herd of buffalo, and 2 crocodiles at a watering hole. You can watch the video below or view it on YouTube.com.
The BBC reports that the video is fast become one of the biggest web video hits.
An amateur video of an amazing animal confrontation on the African savannah is fast becoming one of the biggest hits on video-sharing website YouTube.
The footage first shows how several lions attack a group of buffalo, snatching a buffalo calf.
As the lions wrestle with a calf by a watering hole, a crocodile joins in the battle, pouncing on the buffalo.
The lions win the tug-of-war, but then the buffalo herd returns, chasing away the lions and freeing the calf.
The current count for the Battle at Kruger on YouTube is over 12.5 million views. What's also interesting is the broad international viewership of the video. If you click on the little honors link on the YouTube page it shows the video has been popular all over the world including Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, Poland and Brazil. This international viewership is clearly helping the video generate so many views. The video is also rapidly moving up YouTube's all-time viewed list. The Battle of Kruger is currently 31st on the all-time viewed list. It still has a ways to go to catch Judson Laipply's Evolution of Dance which has over 55 million views.
YouTube's Promised Filtering Technology Still on the Way
Google has continued to promise sponsors that filtering technology to remove copyrighted content would come to YouTube eventualy. A Times Online article says that technology is expected to arrive in September.
Google has said that it hopes to have technology in place by September that would prevent copyright-infringing videos being posted on YouTube, its video-sharing site.
A lawyer for Google told a judge presiding over a copyright action that YouTube was working "very intensely and co-operating" with content-producing companies to introduce video-recognition technology that would detect illegally copied material before a clip is posted.
At present, companies must find illegally uploaded videos themselves and alert Google, which will then take them down.
Philip Beck, who is representing Google in the action, told a judge in Manhattan that the filtering technology would be introduced "hopefully in September". He said that Google hoped the technology would "eliminate such disputes in the future."
For copyright owners the filter would simplify the problem of copyrighted content continuously reappearing on YouTube even after some instances of it have been removed. For people trying to find videos on YouTube the filter might make it more difficult. Today you can easily find some copyrighted video content on YouTube even if the copyright holders are trying to remove it because people continue to upload the material. This is especially true of video footage that is being widely discussed in blogs and on social media websites. When Beyonce slipped and fell at a concert last week BMG tried to have the video footage removed from YouTube. Many of the videos were removed and a BMG copyright claim appeared instead but if you search Beyonce Falls on YouTube you will have no problem finding a video showing you the incident.
The Democratic party is holding a unique debate tonight on CNN. In the debate all the questions will come via videos submitted by YouTube users. A WebWare post says that CNN's Senior VP David Bohrman says there are some questions there that the mainstream media would "would never think to ask in the presidential debate."
Even though users can submit their own questions, CNN is ultimately in charge of picking the questions that are going to be asked. Still, this is a promising development. According to an article on CNN.com, there is a small committee at CNN that is in charge of selecting the questions. David Bohrman, Senior VP for CNN and a member of the selection committee said, "There are questions that we, the journalists, we, the mainstream media, would never think to ask in the presidential debate."
The fact that this debate is even happening just goes to show the enormous impact that user generated-content has had on society. Ten, even five years ago, something like this would have had no chance of happening. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this turns out and hopefully this type of debate becomes more typical in the future.
It should be interesting to see what questions are used. Over a thousand questions have already been entered for the CNN YouTube debates. The Democratic YouTube Debate is tonight on CNN tonight at 7pm ET. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is hosting. The Republican YouTube Debate will be held on September, 17th in Florida. You will also be able to watch the debates on youtube.com/debates.
YouTube also has a political video blog called Citizen Tube that contains some citizen questions and a tour of the set. There is also a YouTube interview there with candidate Ron Paul who has been popular on YouTube and other social media sites. This blog also has a subscriptions page that has links to some of the candidate's YouTube sites.
The Washington Post ran this article last month about how GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul has become a big name on the web thanks to social media sites like Digg and video sharing website like YouTube.
No one's more surprised at this robust Web presence than Paul himself, a self-described "old-school," "pen-and-paper guy" who's serving his 10th congressional term and was the Libertarian Party's nominee for president in 1988.
"To tell you the truth, I hadn't heard about this YouTube and all the other Internet sites until supporters started gathering in them," confessed Paul, 71, who said that he's raised about $100,000 after each of the three debates. Not bad considering that his campaign had less than $10,000 when his exploratory committee was formed in mid-February. "I tell you I've never raised money as efficiently as that, in all my years in Congress, and all I'm doing is speaking my mind."
That means saying again and again that the Republican Party, especially when it comes to government spending and foreign policy, is in "shambles."
But while many Democrats have welcomed the young and fresh-faced Obama, who's trailing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) in most public opinion polls, Paul is barely making a dent in the Republican polls.
Republican strategists point out that libertarians, who make up a small but vocal portion of the Republican base, intrinsically gravitate toward the Web's anything-goes, leave-me-alone nature. They also say that his Web presence proves that the Internet can be a great equalizer in the race, giving a much-needed boost to a fringe candidate with little money and only a shadow of the campaign staffs marshaled by Romney, McCain and former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani.
A month later it looks like all that web popularity has turned into cash for web star Ron Paul. Ron Paul raised $2.4 million in the second quarter. That doesn't make him a top contender but it does keep him in the race and it is shows that web popularity means something. CNN reports that Ron Paul now has more cash on hand than John McCain.
NewsFactor reports that the Live Earth concert set a record for simulateneous viewers with 10 million streams.
This past weekend's worldwide Live Earth concert might eventually impact the rising water level caused by melting glaciers, but it has already been a "watershed" for simultaneous video streams.
By Saturday afternoon, MSN said it had set a new record for the "most simultaneous viewers of any online concert ever," with 10 million streams.
The event represents a "milestone in live Internet broadcasting," said Joanne Bradford, MSN chief media officer. She predicted "an even greater number of streams" as viewers return to watch on-demand footage of the performances of about 100 artists, which will be available at LiveEarth.MSN.com for the next several weeks.
The concert can still be watched online at liveearth.msn.com. There are also many clips on YouTube. A Live Earth search on YouTube generates 29,800 results.
It helped drive viewers and blog posts that the global concert had famous artists playing in all seven continents. Even Antarctica was accounted for thanks to Nunatak, British Antarctic Survey's band that played live from Antarctica. As you might expect there have also been a huge number of blog posts about Live Earth. Technorati's index includes over 660,000 Live Earth posts. Some highlights from Live Earth included Al Gore's hologram, Rio de Janeiro's massive crowds, Spinal Tap, Madonna's original Live Earth song "Hey You" and Yusuf singing Peace Train. Idolator and Arjan Writes approved of Kelly Clarkson's performance. Stereogum provides some more highlights in this roundup post.
Sexy Video Generates Traffic for EU's YouTube Channel
The BBC reports that a video clip called Film lovers will love this! has given the European Commission's YouTube channel an unexpected traffic boost. The video is a compilation of sex scenes from European cinema. The video clip has generated some controversy from those objecting to the video's sexual content.
But while videos on the CAP and road safety are barely getting touched, a clip of sex scenes from European cinema has become a runaway success.
Titled Film Lovers Will Love This!, it shows men and women having sex in different ways and places, and ends with the words, "Let's come together."
Supporters say it celebrates European cinema, but others term it "soft porn".
British Conservative MEP Chris Heaton-Harris told BBC News the European Commission was wasting taxpayers' money.
"They do have an image problem but I think cobbling together 44 seconds of soft porn on the internet is not a brilliant way of solving it," he added.
The sexy video clip has 283,770 views. Not surprisingly most of the EU's other vidoes like Securing Energy and Receiving a call abroad have less than 1,000 views on YouTube. However, there are a couple EU videos with over 30,000 views like this video about ECHO, the humanitarian aid department of the EU.
MySpace To Launch Minisodes and Independent Video Website
MySpace has partnered with Sony Pictures Television for a new video service called the Minisode Network. Oddly the new site will contain condensed versions of old hit shows like Charlie's Angels. CNET's Crave blogs that MySpacers will be able to embed the minisodes which are each about 3 to 5 minutes in length.
You can think of it as TV on Cliff's Notes. Each 'minisode' is three to five minutes long, but Sony and MySpace have assured skeptical viewers that the story arc of the original TV episode remains intact.
On the Minisode Network, you can now watch three shaved-down episodes from a total of 15 TV shows. Many of them, like Starsky & Hutch and Charlie's Angels, predate the average young MySpace user, but a few, like Dilbert, are a bit newer. According to a release from MySpace, new ones will be added each week and more than 500 total will be online by the end of 2007. It's not clear whether this means that new shows will be added as well or if the 'minisodes' will remain restricted to the current 15.
The bigger news is that MySpace will be launching MySpace TV on Thursday. MySpace TV will be independent of MySpace.com and people will not need to be logged into MySpace to view the videos. It is direct competition for YouTube. You can read more about MySpace TV here on Search Engine Land and here on the New York Times. You can expect to see some of the minisodes of old shows on MySpace TV when it launches.
Update 6-28-07: MySpace TV, "a place for videos," is live. It looks a lot like YouTube especially when Video Charts are viewed. MySpace will have to work very hard to challenge YouTube which Hitwise says has 50% more traffic than all the other video websites combined.
The video site, owned by Google, has launched nine versions across Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain and the UK.
Each site is translated into local languages and has country-specific video rankings and comments.
"Video is universal and allows people around the world to communicate and exchange ideas," said Chad Hurley, YouTube co-founder.
Hurley also said that half of YouTube's visitors are from outside the U.S. Bloomberg also has an article about the new YouTube sites. The article says that a German YouTube was not launched because YouTube co-founder and CTO Steve Chen said "it wasn't ready in terms of products or partnerships."
Reuters reports that YouTube is close to launching a video fingerprinting technology called video ID that will be tested by Time Warner and Disney.
The technology, developed by engineers at YouTube-owner Google, will help content owners like movies and TV studios identify videos uploaded to the site without the copyright owner's permission, the company said on Monday.
The so-called video fingerprinting tools will be available for testing in about a month, a YouTube executive said.
YouTube has also been testing technology to help identify the audio tracks of video clips with major record labels using technology provided by privately held Audible Magic as early as the first two months of 2007, the company said.
Eventually content being uploaded to YouTube will probably be scanned and rejected almost immediately if is found to have copyrighted content. Content owners have continuously complained that they are forced to wait until their copyrighted content is already on YouTube before they are able to get it removed. The article says the video ID will be available for all content providers by the end of this year.
Video Blogging Advice From Two Very Different Sources
Two recent advice offerings for video blogging success come from very different sources: one is the most popular business daily and the other is a star in the YouTube video world. The Wall Street Journal is offering some how-to advice for would-be YouTube stars with an article called "How to Be a Star in a YouTube World." Some of the advice includes have sex appeal and be familiar with web popular culture.
It turns out that success in the new-media world depends on a lot of the same things as in the old-media universe. Just as in Hollywood, becoming a hit takes talent, effort, timing and some luck. Sex appeal is just as valuable online as off. And getting noticed by the "mainstream" press also helps build buzz.
With over 900 reviews on Yelp.com, posting reviews online isn't as much about stardom for Megan Wade, it's about talking up local businesses like Weird Fish.
Most important, though, is the way Internet stars exploit the power of the Web. They employ all the social-networking tools available on new-media sites like Google Inc.'s YouTube, inviting fans to comment on their work, link to it and even copy it. And they draw on email, subscriptions and other tools to alert fans about new offerings.
"The most popular are the ones who have really tapped into the social fabric" of the Internet, says Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube.
Other advice includes be consistent like Rocketboom was with their daily schedule. The WSJ article also tells would-be YouTube stars to "work your network" noting that in the early days of LonelyGirl15 they would make comments about other YouTube videos using the LonelyGirl15 user name. Another suggestion from the WSJ article is to find a niche like Grammar Girl has with her popular grammar podcast.
One piece of advice is somewhat unhelpful.
GET IN EARLY
When "Rocketboom" went online in late 2004, the idea of a video blog -- posting commentary and news in video form instead of regular text -- was still novel. Andrew Baron, the program's producer, says that the program had a small but loyal audience of about 700 daily viewers within a few weeks of launching.
That isn't really helping because without a time machine you can't go back to 2004. That said just because there are already established YouTube stars doesn't prevent you from becoming one and technically these are still the early days of online video.
The other how to source is Brookers, who is already a YouTube star with over 48,000 subscribers. Brookers has a video called "How2 : Make a Video Blog" with some tips for making a video for YouTube. Brookers can be a little silly so don't take it personally when she is laughing at you because you don't know how to make a YouTube video.
YouTube's importance as a news source continues to grow. TVWeek reports that Hearst-Argyle Television has established YouTube channels for five of its local television stations. Here are the five stations' YouTube channels.
The embed feature has been left on so bloggers and social network users will be able to embed these videos. TVWeek also notes that these videos are hard to find on YouTube but the local stations should be able to get the word out on their websites and people will be able to go over to YouTube and subscribe to the channel.
VentureBeat 
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The New York Times has an 
Following the launch of her 
Google's YouTube has 
Everyday numerous videos are removed from YouTube. Often videos are removed because of an alleged copyright violation. A judge recently 
Google and Seth MacFarlane have cut a 
Steve Outing 
There was a lot of Internet buzz when 
News.com 
Here's a new web launch that didn't make anyone's list of 
The Queen of England and the British Monarchy have launched a 
Oprah Winfrey has launched a 
YouTube.com is considering some changes and they have a 
Chris Crocker quickly became one of the most well-known YouTubers when his 
Music bloggers also regularly cover events like the Video Music Awards. MTV was smart enough to put the entire show on its website in segments which
makes it easy to link to a particular part of the show. They did claim to offer embedding but when the embed code was posted into a blog and played the video wouldn't run. Instead viewers only see a message that says the video was only available on the MTV website. When are the big media companies going to realize that if they make short video clips available properly for embedding (even with a non-annoying ad) they are going to get much more exposure than they would by only allowing the video to be seen on their website? Here's what happens if you try to embed the video clip from MTV.com that contains Britney's sad peformance. As of this writing, it only shows a message that the Britney video can only be found on MTV.com. The player then starts running other performance from the show which are halted by yet another message sending viewers to MTV.com.
InfoWorld has an 
Billiam, a snowman living in Point Hope, Alaska, was one of the Americans asking questiions during the 
The Democratic party is holding a unique debate tonight on CNN. In the debate all the questions will come via videos submitted by YouTube users. A WebWare 
The Washington Post ran this 
NewsFactor 
MySpace has partnered with Sony Pictures Television for a new video service called the Minisode Network. Oddly the new site will contain condensed versions of old hit shows like Charlie's Angels. CNET's Crave 