The Simpsons - I Said Ha Ha

Hulu using Youtube to promote Hulu. Slick.

When Branding Goes Bad

Oh man, I have no idea what Home Depot did to the Onion News Network to deserve this - maybe pulled some advertising - but this is cringe-tastic.


Home Depot Honors Fallen Soldiers With Great Prices On Tools

Get Paid to Look for Jobs...Yes, Seriously

My friend Cat sent me this site Notchup -- they pay you (and handsomely) to go for job interviews. *head shake* -- is it really that competitive out there?

ibeatyou.com

I'm sure you've all seen the recent rise of this site. With Jessica Alb competing against Kev Jumba in a staring contest or beating Steve Nash in free throws. If you haven't you should check it out.

CAUGHT: Comcast paying to push public out of Internet debate

This debate is heating up. Very scary.

Church of the Child Molester

On MTV and pushing the limits Mark McKay is doing what most others won't. He desperately wants to be famous and his hip hop style crossed with Rick Moranis characture is engaging.

Check out his other videos as well. I see a reality show for this guy.

WARNING: I said he is pushing the limits and I mean it. If you don't like swearing and other vulgar stuff give this a miss. Now you just want to watch it more dontcha?

I Opt Out - Do Not Call List

From Michael Geist: IOptOut takes advantage of this approach by allowing Canadians to create and manage a personal do-not-call list that begins where do-not-call legislation ends.

Disney Copyright Law

Very, very good.

The Rant Puppets - Stop the Canadian DMCA!

From Michael Geist. Copyright in Canada.

Mesh Conference 2008 - Toronto

I am sitting at the conference now blogging live.

This is link to the schedule for today. It's easy to see why it is sold out when you look at the selection of speakers.

I'm currently listening to Ethan Kaplan from Warner Music. When he arrived at Warner he got rid of all the Flash websites that Warner had and switched to Druple as well.

More later...

Youtube has a stalker - Youtomb

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.

Jessica Alba The Stare Response

Staring at celebrities. Interesting concept. The whole I Beat You thing is interesting too. Heck, it's all interesting. Bet you blink first.

Apple Bloopers

If you think Apple has never had problems, think again. Very funny.

all about Steve - Boom!

This is part of a Youtube called a Supercut - editing together words or phases from your fave characters. Boom.

Growing Pains

Created by Rajan in Vancouver for Daily Motion. A good example of how brands may integrate into content.

How did I find this? I clicked on the banner on the Daily Motion website. Yes, yes I did. I wanted to win $10,000.

Click Link Here

Bill O'Reilly LOSES IT!

See more funny videos at CollegeHumor

Very clever.

Report: YouTube, Yahoo Relax Standards to Inflate Views

In the last year, both YouTube and Yahoo, two of the three biggest online video sites, have become more lenient about how they measure video views, according to TubeMogul, a video analytics startup.

Last June, we asked “Hey Guys, What Constitutes a View?” after Emeryville, Calif.-based TubeMogul released the first edition of this report. We were surprised to find out how much counting methodology differed between sites. This time around, we’re surprised to find that counting methodologies seem to have changed. It appears that YouTube and Yahoo now register a view every single time a visitor clicks play.


Full NewTeeVee article here

Lonelygirl becomes Hotpopulargirl

Cynthia Cynopsis

In a true marriage of new and old media, CBS has struck a partnership with viral web drama studio EQAL to create a slate of multiplatform programming for existing and future CBS television productions. The creators of lonelygirl15 and KateModern - Miles Beckett and Greg Goodfried - will consult with CBS to help create social experiences around traditional shows, working with CBS writers at the script level to tie online narratives in directly with TV plot lines. The deal also gives CBS "first look" at any new multiplatform show concepts developed by the studio.

Facebook's Beacon A Bust

ONLINE AD SPENDING ESTIMATES DROP FOR SOCIAL NETS
By HOLLY M. SANDERS -NY Post

May 14, 2008 -- Web ad tracker eMarketer cut its ad spending estimates for Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites amid growing questions over whether such sites will attract major ad dollars. Advertisers in the US will spend $1.4 billion to place ads on social-networking sites this year, down from an earlier estimate of $1.6 billion, eMarketer said in a report released yesterday.

The firm also cut revenue projections for MySpace and Facebook, the two largest social networks. Spending on Facebook will total $265 million, down almost 13 percent from a previous forecast of $305 million. The firm also cut its estimate for MySpace by 11 percent, to $775 million, down from $850 million. (The Post is part of News Corp., which also owns MySpace.)

While the weak economy is partly to blame, the bigger problem facing social networks is they're still trying to figure out what kinds of advertising will work on their sites. Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites boast massive online audiences, but they are having a tough time turning those eyeballs into ad dollars.

Last week, News Corp. said its Fox Interactive Media arm, which includes MySpace, would fall short of its $1 billion revenue target this year by about 10 percent.

Meanwhile, Facebook's much-hyped advertising program, Beacon, is considered a bust.

comScore: 11.5B Video Views in March

From Newteevee Article


Online video continued its ascent in March, with comScore reporting U.S. Internet users watched 11.5 billion online videos during the month. This was a 13 percent bump up from February, and surpasses the previous record-setting total of 10.15 billion video views in December.

Nearly 139 million unique U.S. viewers watched an average of 83 videos each in March. The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes with the average online viewer watching 235 minutes of video. Notably, the average duration has remained relatively flat since September, moving only slightly, between 2.7 minutes and 2.9 minutes. But the number of videos per viewer jumped to 83 in March from 75 in February.

YouTube continued to stomp the competition with 84.8 million viewers watching 4.3 billion videos, or 50.4 videos per person. To compare, second-place Fox had 47.7 million viewers watching 400 million videos on MySpace, or 8.4 videos per viewer. Altogether, Google/YouTube sites accounted for 38 percent of all video views, gaining another 2.6 share points over the previous month.

The Lord Blackberry Cometh

RIM has finally made the new version of its messaging phone, the Bold, official. No exact release date yet, but the press release does mention that the Bold should be available “around the world beginning this summer. ”

Full article at TechCrunch

Key points from the announcement:

* 624MHz CPU
* 802.11 a/b/g and GPS
* Half-VGA screen (480 x 320)
* Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP support
* microSDHC support up to 16 GB
* Quad-band EDGE, Tri-band HSDPA
* 2MP camera w/ flash and 5x digital zoom
* Replaceable “leather-like” backplates

Interestingly there is no touchscreen and the pricing should hit the $300-400 range, according to sources.

Many DVR owners largely tune out TV, Web ads

IAB SmartBrief | 05/09/2008

About 35% of DVR owners pay some notice to TV commercials when they screen shows, while just 9% pay some attention to the spots when watching programs online, according to a new study from Google's DoubleClick Performics unit.

Link to full Adweek Article

Advertising: What constitutes a unique visitor?

I am going to post a bit more about the advertising side of online in the weeks to come. In my opinion this is where the heavy lifting is being done. Once standards are established and the ad world feels in control again, I think, you will see a rush to the net like never before.

This is a great overview of what some of the challenges are at the moment.

From Cynthia Cynopsis

The IAB issued revised Ad Unit and Rich Media Creative Guidelines yesterday, asking for input from ad agencies, advertisers, online publishers and technology vendors. The guidelines cover formatting standards for banner ads, buttons, floating ads and other rich media products. Companies have 30 days to comment via the IAB site.

The IAB's Audience Measurement Working Group also expects to release guidelines soon that will finally define many of the metrics terms publishers throw around. If only standards could be set in time for the upfronts where web metrics are expected to play a major role. Experts say inconsistencies and confusion over web measurement issues have a more adverse affect on digital ad spending than practically any other issue.

Some of the issues that need reconciling include:

* What constitutes a unique visitor? A recent comScore study found that approximately 31% of U.S. internet users clear their cookies once a month or have them cleared by default. Some users clear cookies after each use, and these users have a profound effect on web metrics. Why? A cookie is a string of text counting programs use to determine unique visits, and if they're cleared monthly or more frequently, these users are then counted as "unique visitors" each time they return to favorite sites. Measurement firms say they factor in cookie deleters when counting unique visits, but estimates vary dramatically and accuracy remains a deep concern.

* How is time spent on a site measured? The explosion of widgets, blog posts and online video has lessened the impact of page views and put more weight on the average time spent metric. Nielsen Online announced last July it was scrapping page view rakings in favor of time spent. Time spent may be an improvement, but it's not without its own issues. Many browsers allow multiple windows to remain open simultaneously and indefinitely. Nielsen says it solves this by only measuring which tab is "in focus," but who's to say you're reading what you last clicked on? It's like the TV being on, but nobody's in the room watching. Time spent rankings also tend to reward sites that are clunky and hard to navigate, thus taking more time to wade through.

* How can panel based and server based measurement be reconciled? Advertisers get confused when web metrics vary considerably between third party estimates (usually based on a panel of users) and internal estimates (based on internal server log data). When numbers diverge by a factor of 2 or more, serious trust issues ensue. Media Ratings Council audits of both Nielsen Online and ComScore should help allay some concerns.

TimeTube - pure genius

I read the article below. I had to try it...so I typed in Star Wars. Above is the screen grab. 5 words: when will Google buy them.

Article from NewTeeVee -- Check out TimeTube, a mashup from San Francisco startup Dipity, which makes an interactive timeline out of any YouTube keyword. Videos are embedded directly into the timeline on the dates they were added. I’m a little unclear on what garners more emphasis within the timeline– it doesn’t appear to be number of views. Anyways, then you can grab whatever you make and embed it directly in your blog. Would have been great to have this for our Rickroll timeline last month!

Stats: Global Media Content Survey

Accenture's annual Global Media Content Survey indicated media executives are determined to focus on new platforms to drive growth in advertising, film, music, publishing, radio, the internet, videogames and television. When asked to identify the largest drivers of revenue growth over the next five years, two-thirds (66%) of respondents cited new platforms or new ways of delivering content. And nearly two-thirds (63%) of respondents said they will pursue a "multi-screen" distribution strategy, which includes television, online and mobile delivery.

* A leading 38% cited short-form video as the genre with the most potential, followed by online portal/publishing second (23%) and video games (18%).
* Social media and user-generated content are high-growth opportunities. Two-thirds of respondents also identified social media and user-generated content as a high-growth opportunities.
* When asked to identify what they believe will be the number one business model in five years, nearly two-thirds (62%) of respondents selected advertising-supported business models, compared with 25% who cited subscription-based services and 11% who cited pay-per-play services.

Sulekha merges Facebook and Craigslist in India

Link to article - Cecilia Aronsson May 6th, 2008

A merger between Facebook and Craigslist may seem like a pipe dream — but in India it’s already happening. The web community Sulekha has quickly grown to become India’s largest user-generated content site with 6 million users, a number set to double this year. Social networking features and classified ads take up equally big parts of the site.

The site targets Indians worldwide. India holds 60 percent of the users. Another 30 percent live in North America, which is gathering pace in many cities (more on that later). Almost every person online in India is fluent in English, so Sulekha knew from the start that competition from other social networks would be tough. There is no pure social network based in India that competes favorably with American social networks Myspace, Facebook or LinkedIn.

But Sulekha decided to expand beyond personal social networking. The network part of the site is divided in vertical sections like travel, news, sport and food. The idea is to provide useful content to anyone with interest in Indian culture and news. The Indian Premium League in cricket, IPL, attracts particularly strong interest with hundreds of people writing comments about it under a special “cricket caption”. Satya Prabhakar, CEO of Sulekha, says that the aggregation of social network content in vertical sub-sections makes it easier to attract advertisers who want to know their audience’s interests. General purpose social networks like Facebook and Myspace are all struggling to find a sustainable advertisement solution.

The Tangled Woven Web

This is a very good article about some of the challenges facing the Internet from a video perspective. Even if you don't really understand the technology try and muddle through. There are some good nuggets about how the big ISPs are going to deal with net neutrality. /g


The DCIA kicked off its P2P Media Summit on Monday with a panel discussion about P4P -- technology designed to ease the flow of peer-to-peer traffic by managing connections. Proponents of the system say it's no threat to privacy and proves that Net neutrality legislation isn't needed. But questions remain as to how much control P4P actually represents.

Rest of article here

Why no Hoosoft posts?

You may be wondering why I have said nothing about the Microsoft and Yahoo merger. It's like this, everyone in the valley knows that Jerry hates Microsoft. He will do anything to avoid a merger. His shareholders may have other ideas but for Jerry to sell out to Stevie B would make him a pariah in the Valley. When you have as much cash as these guys do it's all about the street cred in the end. Besides everyone is writing about this story and even the people I know inside Microsoft are bored of it.

Internet ad standards get , well, standard

This is what is going to change the growth of the internet. No ads, no money, no growth. Once everyone agrees on advertising standards for online the ad agencies and media buyers will feel more comfortable. I have even added the RSS feed from the Interactive Advertising Bureau to the right hand column of my blog just so we can all have the latest. /g

The Interactive Advertising Bureau released its long-awaited Digital Video in-Stream Ad Format Guidelines to help provide a template for digital media firms to deploy, track and monetize non-linear ads. The goal is to develop common formatting and practices to make video ads more interchangeable between publishers and advertisers. Included are guidelines on overlay ads and companion ads agreed upon so far by some 145 video providers and ad firms. The IAB has even provided a handy dandy Glossary of Digital Video Terms. Look for it on the Cynopsis: Digital homepage later this week.

Charlie The Unicorn

22 million+ views. Fantastic ending. It has been on YT over 2 years. Great example of the 'long tail' in action. The animator turned down a deal with Adult Swim saying he makes more money selling merchandise.

How Google Works

If you were wondering now you will know. A good little doc complete with snotting British woman doing voice over to make you feel inferior and 'stoopid'.

Rant: Musings of a conference survivor

Here's the question -- disclosure: I lifted it from a someone who was also at the CIX conference with me -- he asked, "Why - at conferences filled with smart people hearing excellent presentations - does anyone fail to pose questions? I can't figure it out: is it the venue, is it a Canadian thing, an ego thing?"

I say it's a combination of the venue and the Canadian thing but mostly, in my opinion, it's because they are all thinking about porn ;-)

I was very interesting how an entire room full of very intelligent (and rich) individuals who are used to grilling companies failed to do so during many of the presentations.

My feeling is this. The venue was big enough to be a 'bit too big' (it held about 400 people at round tables). With only one young runner - mic in hand sprinting back and forth across the room - led to a delay from 'hand up' to asking question that was awkwardly long. More mics peppered about the room would help this. Also, maybe more Americans to show us how it's really done.

Stats: Pity the fool who don't have a mobile site

A new cross-platform report from Nielsen Online finds that mobile internet sites are boosting traffic to conventional internet sites by 13% on average. Content that is easy to digest on the road such as weather and entertainment are getting even more of a lift. Adoption rates remain low in the U.S., however. Only 13.7% of the 87 million U.S. mobile users actively surf with their phones, according to Nielsen.

Total Web - Average Online Audience Lift Provided by Mobile Web (Q4 - 2007)
Category Ave. Lift (%)
Total 13%
Weather 22%
Entertainment 22%
Games 15%
Music 15%
Email 11%
Sports 10%
Business/Finance 4%
Source: Nielsen Online

From Cynthia Cynopsis

CIX Innovators

For the last two days I have been at the Canadian Innovation Exchange or CIX here in Toronto. A really good conference for understanding the Venture Capital world.

The best part for me was the 20 Canadian innovators who were selected, and then paid, to pitch to the room full of VC's. I didn't find out until the afternoon session that the companies had paid to present. I thought it was like a DemoCamp. I asked some probing questions that I though would help -- they didn't -- I sort of wished I hadn't now. Good times.

Some of the presentations were better than others, some of the ideas were better than others but the electricity in the room was palpable as you knew that some wily VC might be financing the next Apple or Ubisoft. I heard there were some deals done.

I must admit I drifted off during a couple of the presentations as a) I didn't really care about the idea or b) their presenting skills weren't up to snuff.

We all voted by text after the presentations and the winner was Octopz.

Most you can google easily so I haven't put links. But one was hard to find so I've put a link in.

Morning
Accipiter Radar Technologies Inc., Fonthill, ON - Radar technology
Acquisio, Saint Lambert, QC - Paid Search Management software
Brainpark, Inc., Toronto, ON - 'What are you working on' secure solution for business (Facebook meets Linkedin for your business).
CellWand Communications, Toronto, ON -#TAXI (mobile texting)
Coveo, Quebec, QC -Search powered info finding for business (like google mail)
HomeZilla, Toronto, ON -Real Estate search
Octopz, Toronto, ON -rich media sharing/ creative collaboration
Standout Jobs, Inc., Montreal, QC - Job / HR help
Streametrics Corporation Inc., Montreal, QC -video metrics
TimePlay Entertainment, Toronto, ON -Interactive devices for theatres

Afternoon
Akoha Inc., Montreal, QC - pay it forward game
Bitcasters, Toronto, ON -fantasy social networks
Blueprint Software Systems, Toronto, ON -in the requirements space
Digital Payment Technologies Corp., Burnaby, BC - speaks for itself
dthree Inc. Mississauga, ON - not sure what they do
Kaben Wireless Silicon Inc, Ottawa, ON - semi conductor designs
Mobidia, Inc., Vancouver, BC -wireless software
Planeteye Inc., Toronto, ON -travel aggragetor
Redwood Technologies, Calgary, AB -mobile billing
Level Spatial View Inc., Toronto, ON - 3D

Ad Agencies May Be 'Getting It'

GroupM, Ogilvy launch branding venture

Two WPP-owned companies, media agency GroupM Entertainment and advertising giant Ogilvy North America, have joined forces in a co-venture to create and distribute branded entertainment content across multiple platforms on behalf of their shared clients.

Full C21 Media Article Here