Archive for December 12th, 2006
Today was former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon’s first video blog post on ABCNews.com. As Chris writes in comments, “It looks like Rocketboom with an ABC logo to me.” Yes, you’ll recognize the Rocketboom influence, from the set to the camera turns to the story selection. Now, I have mixed feelings about her new gig. Kudos to ABCNews.com for having the guts to go beyond traditional repurposed TV on the web. Yet I wonder if the “garage cool factor” is gone now that she’s part of a professional ABC News production. Sometimes slapping a big media brand (or a 30-second pre-roll ad) on something can ruin it. But Amanda doesn’t seem to be too influenced by it all. Right out of the gate she dissed ABCNews.com’s pop up video player (she likes embedded players) even declaring, “Javascript sucks.” A young, hip person poking fun at a traditional network on the network’s own site? Now this could get really good.
Did you watch? Tell us what you think in comments…
December 12th, 2006
Few things on this planet, at least in the media-internet space, are getting as much pre-buzz as Daylife and Venice. Neither site has launched, but Venice co-founder Janus Friis (you know, the guy behind KaZaa and Skype) says the site is in beta. “We set out to try to merge the best of TV and the best of the internet,” he writes. “I think we have just taken a big step in a long journey.” If you’re not familiar with Venice, the idea is to allow users to upload and download full-length, high-quality video clips through a peer-to-peer network — with copyright protection built in. Friis says they’re expanding the beta test to more people, but you have to get an invitation from an existing beta tester to join (we’d love one, if you’re a tester). In the meantime, Friis was light on details but offered some tasty screen grabs. Click beneath the grab below for two more… (Thanks, Matt!)
Read the full post December 12th, 2006
If you check out a video clip on one of AP’s nearly 1,500 OVN affiliates, you’ll find a revamped player that looks suspiciously like MSN Video (see below). It should, as MSN is driving the technology and the advertising behind AP’s OVN. The new player features larger graphics and a “top video” tab, as well as an email sharing tool. “We now have twice as many videos in each section,” said Jessica Arnold, AP’s director of online video operations. “We’ve found that people tend to stay on the tab they entered on, so we want to surface as much content as possible on that first page.” And coming in January, AP will beta test a new feature that will allow affiliates to upload local video to their own OVN player. The new feature is scheduled to roll out nationwide in March.
December 12th, 2006
Yahoo’s much-anticipated search advertising network, Panama, is now up and running for U.S. advertisers. Yahoo hopes Panama will challenge Google’s AdWords program on performance — a key weakness for Yahoo to date. “In the past two months we have gotten nothing short of extraordinarily positive responses,” Steve Mitgang, SVP of Yahoo’s advertising products and platforms unit, said of the beta testing. “The reaction has been ‘Wow!”‘
December 12th, 2006
Granite has filed for Chapter 11 as it struggles to make interests payments on its $400 million of debt. The station group tried to sell its Detroit and San Francisco stations last summer to pay off debt, but the deal came apart after the creation of The CW network. “Under the reorganization process Granite will continue to operate its businesses in the ordinary course, and its stations will continue to serve their local communities, including their viewers and advertisers,” the company said in a statement. Granite owns or operates 23 stations in 11 markets.
December 12th, 2006
MediaPost unwrapped an early present for media buyers, marketers, ad directors and rate-setters everywhere when it opened up mediapostratesanddata.com, featuring 37,000 listings of major print and electronic media including rate cards, contacts, and a slew of handy tools to take the guess work out of making media buys. And to sweeten the deal, they also put the MediaPost wiki into beta. All this can be yours too for a free registration, which is significantly cheaper than all the whitebooks and directories that professional associations are trying to stuff in my crowded and threadbare stocking at year’s end.
December 12th, 2006
The other night on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, there was a skit that featured a guy sitting at a computer watching a manatee (another guy in a costume) touching himself. Then Conan cracks an ad-libbed line that he must be watching HornyManatee.com. That was at 6:30 p.m. in the taping — the show aired later that night — and NBC execs realized that HornyManatee.com was an open domain. What if someone put up a porn site? Or worse? Writes the NY Times, “In a pre-emptive strike inspired as much by the regulations of the Federal Communications Commission as by the laws of comedy,” NBC bought the domain. Shortly thereafter, Conan’s staff launched HornyManatee.com, a hilarious spoof on a manatee porn site that encourages users to send in their own “amateur horny manatee pictures or stories” for possible use on the air. (One user sent in a poem with the line, “I want to freak thy blubber rolls.” Conan read it on the air.) By yesterday afternoon, NBC says the site has received 3 million “hits” — which we assume they mean page views — and it’s well on its way to become a viral phenom. Well done. When you think about it, this has to be the fastest launch of a new site by a big media company in history. Sexy screen grab…
December 12th, 2006
Kudos to the National Geographic which sent a team to cover the traumatic medical aftermath of the Iraq war on U.S. and Iraqi troops and their families for this month’s issue. The photos are painful to see (they’re in color in the magazine but in black and white online), but regardless of your position on the war, you have to admit this kind of reporting has been virtually non-existent. (Thanks, Justin!)
December 12th, 2006
While we’re wishing for more foreign news and fewer local news cliches, YouTube and Coke are teaming up to allow people to send their own holiday wishes. The “Holiday Wishcast” page on YouTube has some cute pre-created holiday wishes from such YouTube celebs as geriatric1927, renetto and LisaNova. Or they’re encouraging people to upload their own videos under the Wishcast label. Kind of a more personalized video Hallmark card. Another way that Google is starting to monetize its YouTube purchase.
December 12th, 2006
Over the weekend I asked you what you wanted for a holiday news present. Many of you had a wonderful and reasonable request: more foreign news channels carried in the U.S. The LR Faithful want to get news from a variety of points of view and we completely support the notion. Cable and satellite services are afraid of the backlash they would get (and they would get plenty) from carrying the likes of al-Jazeera. That’s too bad, because it’s always good to know what other people are saying. Mindy McAdams wants al-Jazeera English and BBC International. Mike Escutia dittos the BBC news, and Alan A. Reiter added: “I’d love to get (and even, gasp, pay for) a package of news channels such as CNN Europe, CNN Asia, BBC World News, Al Jazeera (English), France 24, etc.” Keep the wish list going…
December 12th, 2006
From the excellent online media site ClickZ, the monthly list of top 50 internet advertisers by media value. In October 2006, the top five were: 1. NexTag Services, 2. E*Trade Financial, 3. University of Phoenix Online, 4. Monster, 5. TD Ameritrade. NexTag got $15 million in media value in October alone. Get a piece of that ever-growing ad pie!
December 12th, 2006
A survey by MobileWeb Metrix found that people say they’re visiting weather and sports sites on their mobile phones at much higher rates than they visit online via their computers. For example, 22 percent of mobile users say they visit Weather.com, compared to 12.7 percent via computers.
December 12th, 2006
