One of the big struggles with user-created video is selling ads that don’t interrupt playback and turn users away. Egghead’s “viewer initiated brand experiences” are focused on moving beyond pre-roll ads with non-invasive opportunities (video demo) such as graphical tickers (see below) that animate on at a certain time and then disappear a few seconds later. Click it and the ad will play instantly in the same player. There are also text tickers that Egghead says can attract as high as a 5 percent click through, and they also have “end caps” that encourage you to click to watch an ad. The pricing model? You pay a low CPM for the invitation and a higher CPM for the ad that plays when they click. This isn’t entirely new, as Brightcove and a couple others have been selling similar ad overlays.
Nintendo is cautioning Wii owners to keep their hands dry and keep a tight grip on their controllers after growing reports of TVs and other objects getting smashed by the flying devices. “If your hands become moist, stop and dry your hands,” warns Nintendo. And remove fragile objects nearby. To keep up with the latest reports of Wii craziness, visit WiiHaveaProblem.com. UPDATE: Oops, the site has crashed.
As we’ve been reporting, broadcasters and media buyers have been up in arms over how to classify and value ratings data when it comes to commercials and time-shifted viewing. Now Nielsen says it will offer its clients raw data that will enable the industry to start using commercial ratings their own way — if they want. Also, it appears that a consensus is beginning to emerge on how to value time-shifted viewing. In a meeting yesterday, Nielsen released updated stats that showed that DVR playback is growing faster than the industry (but not Lost Remote) initially thought: 40 percent of all viewing in DVR households in the 18-49 demo is time-shifted. “The data you just showed is stunning,” said NBC research chief Alan Wurtzel, declaring, “The future of half of all viewing is time-shifted. If not now, certainly in a year or two, ‘live’ is going to be a completely irrelevant measure.” MediaPost reports that both ad buyers and broadcasters began to agree that time-shifted viewing should count when determining ad rates, although only time-shifted viewing that occurs “one or a few days of an original telecast.”
Via PaidContent, the Hollywood Reporter has let go 10 members of its editorial staff this week. The executive editor, editorial director, international GM, a VP and more senior staffers are all out. It’s another example of how the web kills the old publications that thrived on having the lock on information. It used to be that, if you wanted Hollywood insider information, you had to subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and Variety. They charge a lot for subscriptions: $329.99 a year for Daily Variety and $299 a year for the Hollywood Reporter. Now you can get box office reports, industry moves, production news, job openings and gossip all over the place for free and instantly.
You know by now it’s one of my quirks: I love Peter Gabriel. His dedication to technology and empowering people with video cameras in the name of social justice was years ahead of its time. As part of the excellent series, TED Talks, Gabriel discusses the Witness project, which arms citizens with video cameras to document human rights abuses. In case you think Citizen Journalism is a recent, web phenomenon - Gabriel co-founded it in 1992. Watch.
Suppose you’re a store that wants to drive foot traffic, and you’re smart enough to buy some keywords on Google AdWords. The only trouble is - you don’t have a website. Google will now give you a “landing page,” for free. People who click through the Google ad will be sent to a basic, no-nonsense page with information about your company - phone number, address and even a couple of pics. You can even offer printable coupons. Great idea.
We currently have a “Three Alarm Fire” going in Cambridge. All the channels have lower-thirds describing it as such. Let me ask you all, and be honest: do you know what that means? And if you do, do you think the audience knows what that means? We explain what the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Scale and the Richter Scale are, but not how many companies or pieces of equipment are involved in the number of alarms. It’s not a fixed definition - it varies from city to city. Take the extra step to put it in context for people.
Mark Cuban calls BitTorrent’s acquisition of µTorrent a non-event, but the lightweight client has the potential to take the most popular and powerful p2p platform to any device, anywhere, anytime. Wired’s take today notes that significant shifts are required for the Comcasts and Verizons of the world to get into it, but maybe the significance isn’t in what this will do for mainstream providers, but the ever-growing legions of peer producers who can now unbind their content from pcs.
More Turner properties are coming to the iTunes store, including a bunch of shows from Court TV. The shows Murder by the Book, Body of Evidence, Pychic Detectives, Beach Patrol: Miami Beach and The Investigators are now available for $1.99 each. Also available now are some more Adult Swim titles: Frisky Dingo, Class of 3000 and Moral Orel. The quality of encoding has improved on iTMS as well.
There have been scattered reports over the last week that the networks have been in discussions to put together a video joint venture to compete with YouTube. The idea would be to launch the site and sue YouTube at the same time, leaving the joint venture as the only legal place to watch the video. But Techcrunch reports the negotiations are tough going and that Viacom and Disney have dropped out, leaving Fox, NBC and CBS. And Google is offering big payoffs to the networks. Insiders told Techcrunch that the odds of a deal are now 50-50, and if one does come through, they would likely buy an existing site to convert to the joint venture. The likely candidate: Metacafe.
As we’ve been reporting, broadcasters and media buyers have been up in arms over how to classify and value ratings data when it comes to commercials and time-shifted viewing. Now 
Mark Cuban calls BitTorrent’s acquisition of µTorrent a non-event, but the lightweight client has the potential to take the most popular and powerful p2p platform to any device, anywhere, anytime. 
There have been scattered reports over the last week that the networks have been in discussions to put together a video joint venture to compete with YouTube. The idea would be to launch the site and sue YouTube at the same time, leaving the joint venture as the only legal place to watch the video. But 
