Archive for March 8th, 2007
A parody of Heroes on YouTube called “Zeroes” — which features “ordinary people with pointless abilities” — is actually the work of NBC’s own promo department. “It was an experiment,” says NBC’s Vince Manze of the clip, which contained no NBC branding. “We wanted to see how far we could go, and we wondered if (the audience) knowing we did it would be a detriment.” Manze said the clip was so clandestine that Heroes‘ creator wasn’t even told about it. “People don’t want to feel as if they’re being intruded upon,” Manze says. “When they find out it’s from us, it’s like, ‘They fooled us.’” Interestingly, NBC’s attorneys are still holding YouTube to the fire on copyrighted clips.
Adds Hussman in comments: “Excellent. You know, it’s funny… when I watched that clip, and saw the ‘Zeroes’ animation at the end I was very impressed because I wondered how the people who did it were able to get such a close match to the ‘Heroes’ animation. In other words, the end animation looked too well done. Still, very clever.”
March 8th, 2007
Light Reading breaks down the numbers to find out which user video sites pay the most money. Blip.TV leads the list, with Revver close behind. Meanwhile, Mashable conducts its own survey and concludes that Revver brings in the most cash for users, with Blip.TV in second. Still a variable: YouTube has announced that it will share revenue with users, but it has yet to disclose the details.
March 8th, 2007
I have Comcast at my home in a bedroom community outside Boston. I have it, in fact, in my bedroom. And I’m damn near close to kicking it out of bed, too. On Friday, Comcast and I will mark our fourth (maybe fifth, I’ve lost count) date together since I “upgraded” to Digital Voice. But that’s not my point. My point is that I’m an idiot. More after the jump…
(Cory adds: I had to post this because Safran’s internet service is down.)
UPDATE: I have service back today. The fine folks at Comcast have, once again, fixed the problem. And, once again, I am mollified. They even escalated it so that a member of the management team saw to it that I was called before I had a chance to call in and whine some more. They have credited me for a full month. As ever, they are taking excellent care of me. So once again, I ask - am I still in the Comfy Trap? Is part of the Comfy Trap “I’ll give ‘em just one last chance, but this is it.” Is this the consumer version of Stockholm Syndrome? And where are Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba when I need them most?
Read the full post March 8th, 2007
The IAB says internet advertising grew 32 percent in Q4 over the year before, to $4.8 billion. But the big question is how long this torrid growth rate will last. A report by eMarketer predicts it will slow this year to 18.9 percent, pick back up a little to 22.1 percent in 2008 before it cools off for several years therafter. “Lower annual growth rates are inevitable for any growing market,” reads the report. “Still, the widely expected fall in US economic growth will have the very real effect of constraining advertising budgets in 2007.” The eMarketer chart by year…
March 8th, 2007
Solution Watch has assembled a great list of web-based tools for developers, designers and project managers. The tools cover project planning, system administration, usability testing, collaborative development and web services. Geek out.
March 8th, 2007
This from CBSNews.com SVP/GM Betsy Morgan, speaking at the Online Publishers Association conference: “We’ve got a team of lawyers that goes through pirated CBS News videos on YouTube and calls up YouTube every day and says ‘you’ve got to take down these clips’. Every pirated 60 Minutes clip that goes up on YouTube, we’re putting up the authentic, authorized version of that clip. We’re sensitive. If we’re going to take down that illegal video, we are certainly going to give you the experience of that piece [by supplying a new clip] and often the quality is considerably better.” Morgan said CBSNews.com has been focused on providing video to its syndicated partners without worrying if it will cannibalize visitors to the main site.
March 8th, 2007
A graduate student at Ball State University, Nick Geidner, is researching whether people develop virtual bonds with bloggers similar to the way viewers develop bonds with TV anchors. Fascinating stuff, and we’ve agreed to let Nick use Lost Remote as a test case. So if you have a few minutes, please take this quick survey. Once Nick’s research is complete, we’ll post the results. If you have any questions, you can email Nick at nwgeidner at bsu.edu, and we thank you for your help.
March 8th, 2007
Rep. Dennis Markey (D - Mass), who chairs the House panel on telecommunications and the Internet, blasted new federal rules that will force Internet broadcasters to pay higher fees to record companies. Markey said, “This represents a body blow to many nascent Internet radio broadcasters and further exacerbates the marketplace imbalance between what different industries pay.” The rules of the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board, which were passed Tuesday, are subject to appeal. RealNetworks general counsel Robert Kimball suggested the proposed merger between XM and Sirius should be put on hold until Congress “corrects the Copyright Act’s bias against the Internet,” thereby allowing Internet radio companies to compete more fully with satellite firms.
March 8th, 2007
FIM says it served up 40 billion (that’s right, billion) page views during the month of January, or about 9.2 percent of all page views in the U.S. Of course, MySpace was the biggest driver by far. FIM president Peter Levinsohn says he’s working with the nation’s top advertisers to create new engaging experiences on MySpace. For example, MySpace is creating “custom communities” — profile pages for clients with a corresponding ad campaign — which cost as much as $1 million.
Also, Levinsohn said News Corp. is still working on a YouTube alternative, as we’ve reported throughout the last few months. The idea is to bring together a number of major media companies — NBC is interested, for example — to aggregate professional video in a single video site. Negotiations are ongoing.
March 8th, 2007
Among the founders of Next New Networks include former Nickelodeon exec Herb Scannell and Fred Seibert, the first creative director at MTV. They plan to launch a series of websites featuring niche video. For example, ThreadBanger.com covers do-it-yourself fashion. FastLaneDaily.com is a daily show for auto enthusiasts. The company has $8 million in seed funding, and former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller is on the board. “The nature of big media companies is about incumbent brands and repurposing and refashioning their material for the web,” said Scannell, the chief executive. “We have no incumbent brands. We’re a white sheet for creative people.” Sounds like a smart idea.”
Folks, this is what TV needs to do — especially local TV in local niches.
March 8th, 2007
Just a week after NBC reassigned the executive producer of Nightly News, CBS has replaced Evening News EP Rome Hartman with former MSNBC president Rick Kaplan. ABC World News is the only network evening newscast to grow viewers over the last year.
March 8th, 2007
Yes, I admit, I’m a huge Heroes fan. And that’s saying something, because I’m watching less TV these days. NBC has done a tremendous job integrating the web with the show. For example, you’ll soon be able to buy the cool, original artwork shown on air (drawn by graphic illustrator Tim Sale) in an auction on NBC.com, with the proceeds going to the Epilepsy Foundation. And you can upload your video to NBC.com with your theories how the show will evolve over the next several episodes, and some clips will be shown on the air. And it’s all sponsored by Cisco. Screen grab…
Adds Laurie in comments: “I signed up for the ‘job’ from the Primatech Paper site and since then i’ve been getting emails from the girl who appeared on the episode where Parkman and Ted got together. Those emails have linked to a MySpace address, a blog and ’secret portals’ within the Primatech Paper site, not just the Cisco-sponsored NBC site! Why can’t more interesting tv shows be like this? Oh wait, I asked for an interesting tv show.”
March 8th, 2007
