Reel Pop

Radiohead Rings in New Year on Current.com

By Andrew Wallenstein
Given the fact I have been searching for TV alternatives to Dick Clark on New Year's Eve since about...oh, I don't know, 1982 or so, I will stick to my PC this year and see how Radiohead's pre-recorded concert goes on Current.com, Al Gore's media venture (concert will also be shown on Current's cable channel).
As 2007 comes to a close, it could be argued that Radiohead's pay-what-you-want-online distribution strategy for new album "In Rainbows" was the single most audacious move in a year that was both swamped with rapid change and yet underwhelming all the same given what lies ahead in the digital world.

Gotta Digg

So there's this video. Cute girl, acoustic guitar, filmed in a living room, backup singers behind the couch.

And there's this site. Digg. Aggregates links. People vote. Links get popular. Linked sites get traffic.

And so: Cute girl sings about Digg. Diggers dig her. Video gets popular. Girl approached by a record company.

If you want to be cynical, call it pre-selling out. A sycophantic ditty, a song of themselves.

Of course this works. I remember. Three years ago I was the editor of a small site and heard that Slashdot was planning a redesign. I asked a designer in New York, now the design head for one of the world's largest news sites, to write a commentary piece, recommend design direction.

The article was slashdotted. My editors were agog. There was a meeting. We should write an article on Fark. On Drudge. On BoingBoing.

Not a new strategy. Not 3 years ago, not now. Talk about a crowd, the crowd responds. These days, the crowd responds despite their geographic dispersal. That old trope, the eclipse of distance.

And look, mediocrity. The video is horrible. Seriously. Very. But hopefully a record label will sign her, so we can bemoan the sordid state of pop music, how the labels appeal to the lowest common denominator and mass taste, churn out big hits at the expense of developing artists, and then promote the vast variety of the interwebs as a music industry panacea, all the while forgetting about the online demographic gerrymandering that got this latest sensation started.

Ugh. Stop making the web into top 40 radio. And may this girl have a long and happy life playing comic tunes at tech conferences. She belongs right up there with those guys who can't even write their own melody. Huzzah.

Steal This Film II

Free doc about the history of piracy includes interviews with the EFF, MPAA, Mininova, The Pirate Bay, and others. You can find the original Steal This Film here.

"Atonement," Sin and Cinea

By Andrew Wallenstein
Known to gorge exclusively on sci-fi and cartoons, P2P pirates have suddenly developed refined cinematic tastes. How else to explain the appearance of high-toned Oscar fare like "Atonement" (pictured above) and "3:10 to Yuma" among the most pirated movies online this week, right?
Well, not exactly. As blogs Gizmodo, Torrentfreak and Engadget have discussed lately, Oscar "screeners," or freebie DVDs of nomination-friendly films mailed to Academy voters, are ending up online despite piracy-protection measures.
What the aforementioned blogs get wrong, however, is the cause of this Oscar breakout. They seize on the retirement of the Cinea S-View, a customized DVD player put out of commission ironically enough because Oscar voters didn't like its onerous DRM. I know because I broke that story in September.
But blaming Cinea is ridiculous; the technology hasn't been used all that often going back several years now because the studios felt their own watermarks did the trick just fine. Of course, as several commenters noted on Torrentfreak et al, the watermarks aren't that difficult to bypass, so there's the real culprit.
Seeing the likes of "Atonement" isn't even a particularly new phenomenon; Oscar films always spike this time of year because of screener availability.
Here's Wired with a list of the top 10 most pirated songs, tv shows and films of 2007. Keira Knightley is high on the list, but not for "Atonement." For that she has pirates of the "Caribbean" variety to thank.

Ross Levinsohn On (and in) Online Video

By Andrew Wallenstein
As the year draws to a close, the journalist in me seeks out the stories that can wrap up 2007 in a tidy little bow, or better yet, set the stage for the year ahead. The latter landed in my browser via Wall Street Journal's AllThingsD blog, which featured a video interview (above) with Ross Levinsohn, the former Fox Interactive Media chief who brought in MySpace before decamping for a venture capital firm to call his own (see THR coverage).
Levinsohn nicely encapsulates the tension between old and new media, and the potential pivotal roll VCs can play. As for online video, he's got high hopes: "I think video '08, probably latter half of '08, -09 is going to be really important," he says. "The real challenge is, how do you find video, how do you organize video?"
Don't be surprised if his firm figures it out before yours does.

Wal-Mart Scrooges on Movie Downloads

By Andrew Wallenstein
Big-box behemoth Wal-Mart has pulled out of the movie download business it entered to considerable hoopla less than a year ago, having signed up all the major studios. As Gizmodo noted, the surprise exit occured just four days before Christmas, posted plain as day on Walmart.com....but no one noticed, which should give you an idea of just how popular the service was. A Wal-Mart spokesman pretty much confirmed that to Reuters, saying the service didn't perform "as expected."

So tempting to point to some kind of confluence of events between this exit and Apple's own entrance into the rental model (revealed just yesterday). Bottom line: is download-to-own a limited business? God knows Forrester Research has been banging that drum for quite some time. But given the fact that NBC Universal couldn't have exited iTunes fast enough and claimed to have made only $15 million, perhaps there's plenty of circumstantial evidence pointing to the fact that there probably isn't significant demand out there for long-form videos that one must pay double-digit dollars to store on a hard drive, especially while the free equivalent is swimming around P2P circles.

The questions now are: 1) Does Wal-Mart switch to a rental model like Apple? 2) Do others exit the download-to-own business?

Survey Says

And now, a few recent surveys and reports released in the past week. The Deloitte survey is especially interesting, as it supports the recent realization that video ads aren't getting that great a response from vid enthusiasts.

• Deloitte: Web users would rather view ads than pay for content online
  Survey of over 2,000 web users. "Ads inserted into videos are among the most hyped by big media companies, but they appear to be the least effective among users. Less than a third want to watch commercials that appear before the start of a clip and only 17% said they will watch an ad that plays during a video."
• Choicestream 2007 Survey of Viewer Trends in TV and Online Video
  Basically argues that consumers would watch more video if they had a viewing guide similar to their TV's. Not surprising, given that Choicestream is a personalization technology provider for portals.
• Experian: Online ad viewers 47% more engaged
  Based on 74,996 interviews; also finds that print is more engaging than TV or online.

YouTube's 2007 Top Ten

Of all the facets of online video, one that's consistently unremarked upon is the degree to which videos' appeal is confined to niche audiences. Unless you're a media omnivore, there's a low probability that you've seen both Chocolate Rain and UFO Haiti (or Otters Holding Hands and Soulja Boy Tellem's "How to Crank That").

And if you think that's not true, just ask people in your family while you're working fireside. They may be fellow travelers online, but odds are they're not following the same path. And although social networks generate a greater degree of audience overlap -- i.e., i saw "Chocolate Rain" b/c someone I barely know watched it and it popped up on their Facebook feed, and thus my news feed -- they don't make us indiscriminate consumers of content.

It's only when videos break the niche barrier and hit major news outlets -- The NYTimes, TMZ or Perez, the WSJ -- that they become pancultural phenomena. The Internet is substrate.

I only mention this because YouTube released its Year End Video Roundup today. It's an interesting, nontopical selection of videos. I've seen seven of them, and I spend 10 hours a day online. My sister, 19, a freshman in college, is sitting across from me. She's seen four.

In a way, this mimics traditional media, where people of different tastes aggregate around specific shows. In another way, it demonstrates the limits of viral media. No matter how popular a video may be, it's hard to traverse the invisible gaps between unconnected fellow travelers.

YouTube's Brain Trust

Trying to find intelligent videos on YouTube is like looking for philosophical erudition in the gloss-lipped puckerings of Paula Abdul. Or taking anatomy lessons from "The Crying Game." You'll learn ... something. But at such a price.

Happily, OpenCulture has compiled a list of 10 YouTube channels that offer quality educational videos, e.g., UC Berkeley, @GoogleTalks, The Nobel Prize, and Philosophers and Theorists.

Just something to keep you warm during this winter of writer's strike discontent.

The Hottest Web Trend? TV

By Andrew Wallenstein
Deloitte & Touche's "State of Media Democracy" survey out this week isn't quite revealing of anything about the future of the Internet, except maybe the surprising continuing appeal of the medium it is supposed to decimate: television.
Favorite and promising new television shows beat the Web as the most frequent media conversation topics for all generations. Approximately half of both millennials and GenXers visit television Web sites every week. Plus 64 percent of millennials want to easily connect their television to the Internet for viewing videos and downloading content to their television.
If anything, the Web seems to be a "amplification" tool for millennial TV watchers: When they find a particular television show or Web site they enjoy, they tell an average of 18 people, compared with only 10 people for all age groups.

Fox Leads Apple into Film Rentals

By Andrew Wallenstein

The oldest rumor in history may finally be true: Financial Times reports that Apple's iTunes is getting into the movie rental business with first partner 20th Century Fox. Wall Street Journal and other blogs have followed, which likely means this time the news is the real deal.

So many more questions need to be answered, and likely won't until Macworld goes down: What's the price point? How long does the rental period last? Is there a subscription model? Will Fox be the first of more such deals?

Nevertheless, iTunes' foray into rentals is significant if for no other reason than this may signal a newfound flexibility in stone-hearted Steve Jobs' attitude toward the studios, which frustrated NBC Universal enough to pull out. What a way to start the new year.

Horn tootin' time: I pretty much saw Apple relenting, albeit to NBC Uni, not Fox, in THR's predictions for 2008.

Steve's .02: The other compelling point of interest here is News Corp's strategy, which seems to be to spread their video bets across multiple platforms -- MySpace, Hulu (with NBC), and Apple's iTunes. Though some may see the move with iTunes as undermining the Hulu effort, I would suggest that News Corp will receive a good deal of experience with iTunes rentals that it can apply to its other ventures. What's more, I'm not convinced that exclusively selling your videos via one provider is the way forward.

One other thing: Anybody notice how the WSJ -- owned by News Corp -- didn't break the story? But, once it followed the story, it cited a source familiar with the matter (not the Financial Times), suggesting an editor at the WSJ or someone at News Corp was none too happy with being scooped, and called upstairs to get confirmation. That's the biggest indicator of this anonymously-sourced news' veracity.

Roger Clemens YouTube Denial is Folksy, Effective

I'm a few days behind on this one, but Krismuh got in the way. So:

Roger "The Rocket" Clemens, he of the bloody sock (ed: err, no) and seven Cy Young Awards, took his vociferous denials of steroid use to YouTube on Sunday. In the 1:48 vid, he reiterates his innocence, but it's a clumsy -- folksy? -- reaffirmation. Rather than explaining the background of his predicament, Clemens obliquely references an L.A. Times article from last year that connected him with steroid use, then thanks his supporters and fans. Then he just sorta mumbles until the screen goes black.

Not exactly a professional entree into public relations. Or is it? Consider the setting and timing of the piece. The background -- the Clemens 300 Wins logo, and what seems to be a painting of pitching practice. Very orchestrated, in the George W. Bush sense of set design. And the timing -- Clemens is scheduled to be interviewed by "60 Minutes" this week. Great way to garner fan support, many of whom will look for clues to his innocence in his on-camera appearance.

But despite the vids' popularity (about 300k views since Dec 23), I wonder how long these personal appeals on YouTube will continue to be effective. Will they become so de rigueur that they lose their folksy direct-to-the-masses charm? How many young public relations executives -- how many agents -- are already putting their arms around clients and urging them to listen, listen, forget the press circuit. There's this thing called YouTube.

I Can't Handle the Truth About "Rewind"

By Andrew Wallenstein

Can't say I'm too impressed with the "Be Kind Rewind" online promotion in advance of the film's Jan. 25 release. Here we have a movie all about the Internet-friendly concept of the "swede," a slang term invented by the movie for re-creating -- and satirizing -- popular movies by performing deliberately ersatz versions of them for home-video tapings (see "Rewind" stars Jack Black and Mos Def swede "Ghostbusters" below). Given the potential to have YouTube fans shooting their own swedes, why aren't we already seeing a full-blown, user-generated festival under way on that site's sponsor page to chum the waters for the film? If the best New Line Cinema can do on the otherwise cute Web site for the film is offer the ability to insert my head in movie posters (see unfortunate collage above), it's not good enough.

Survey Says

Just a quick note to say that in 2008, we'll be keeping track of reports on consumer behavior via the Research and Reports tag. If we think that any reports/surveys/research papers concerning online viewing habits are noteworthy, we'll mention them briefly and tag them for easy reference.

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday,
Steve

Perez Pulls YouTube Vids

Hollywood celeb blogger Perez Hilton says he'll likely refrain from posting his videos on YouTube after the vidshare site pulled some of his content for supposed copyright violations, and then had the temerity to treat him like an average user.

"I don’t have any more incentive to make any more videos on YouTube,” Perez told TelevisionWeek. "I have sent them millions and millions of page views and the way they treated me … they aren’t respecting me enough to treat me like a valued partner. I am so heartbroken because I was the biggest YouTube fan."

'Course Perez never mentions that YouTube's also given him millions and millions of views, but hey, who's counting?

Now How Did This Product Get Here!?

By Andrew Wallenstein
You know there's too much product placement going on online when the very fact there is product placement becomes a meta-joke. To wit, this semi-funny plug for new movie "Walk Hard" in which the movie's executive producer, Judd Apatow, walks on camera to ponder the segment's raison d'promotion:

That's nothing compared with the disaster that is this series of online spots for Garnier Fructis Style Bold It, a hair gel for men. Rather than just pitch product attributes, GF goes for the most labored this-is-a-commercial-by-not-being-a-commercial you've ever seen, positioning the promotion in the context of a renegade blog by a sitcom actor disenchanted by all this damn product integration. NY Times has more.

Parker Lewis Can Lose,And on MySpace No Less

By Andrew Wallenstein
It was about five pages into the 2005 Neil Strauss best-seller "The Game: Penetrating the Secret Society of Pickup Artists" that I knew his story was headed for other mediums and lots more money. This well-told memoir of how a nerd learned to transform himself into a consummate ladies' man would resonate with any guy who ever struggled to meet girls (not including me, of course).
In short order, the movie deal got made, then came the VH1 reality series "The Pickup Artist," the only series on that network I can enjoy without wanting to take a shower with my clothes on.
So perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised this week to see "Game" get the Internet treatment courtesy of MySpaceTV. Makes perfect sense: What could be a better place to teach young males the art of seduction than the virtual ground zero of this sacred practice?
But if the first of eight three-minute videos (see above) are any indication, MySpace could not have given this promising material more asinine treatment. Rather than take it the obvious cinema-verite route, MySpace took the bizarre step of hiring forgotten teen stars Corin Nemec ("Parker Lewis Can't Lose") and David Faustino ("Married...With Children") to demonstrate the "Game's" principles. They ham it up for the cameras, but as the VH1 series ably showed, "Game" is not comedy; it's actually a feel-good show about young males searching for a shred of self-respect.
As heartwarming as it is to see "Parker Lewis" back in action, MySpaceTV fumbled badly here. Executed properly "Game" could have been the hit it so desperately needs to get buzz going for the platform (it's not like "Roommates" is doing the trick). This could have been a guilty pleasure worth enjoying were I not so devoted to bible study, soup kitchens and my wife (not in that particular order).

Throwing Cold Water on the Exaflood

By Andrew Wallenstein
Hey, Hollywood miniseries producers! Looking for the next source material for a great disaster scenario, the kind where you hire Rob Lowe and an actress half his age to run from one control room to another, bellowing, "We can't stop this thing!"
Check in with blog Ars Technica, which weighs in on the "exaflood," the potential threat of the Internet slowing to a crawl due to the growing tsunami of data clogging its virtual veins (see video above for demonstration). Content players are part of the problem of course, with their two-hour movies filling P2P channels. Luckily, AT finds the fears overblown, but not without pointing out speculation of a "zettaflood," which could be an even bigger problem.
Can someone say sequel?
For more on my inability to take exaflood seriously, read on.

The "Awesome" Power of Brotherhood 2.0

Two days ago was "Project Awesome Day " on YouTube, in which self-styled "nerdfighters" attempt "to decrease World-Suck Levels by spotlighting a few charities and organizations that could use our help."

Each webcammer who participated created videos mentioning local organizations -- community theaters, ma and pop stores, etc.

Judging by the view counts on just today's "most discussed" page, the videos racked up almost 60,000 comments. The video that started it all, courtesy of Brotherhood 2.0, (more below), has garnered over 125,000 views. That's only the minor leagues of virality, but, like the YouTube NYC Meetup vids earlier this year, a testament to the power of community action.

Behind Project for Awesome: Brotherhood 2.0, a year-long stunt by a pair of brothers who're only communicating by video blog. An interesting effort, undermined only by one of the brother's propensity to deliver his lines exactly like Ze Frank.

Poor Ze. Judging from the sheer number of imitators out there, his unique voice has metastasized throughout the Net, which has adopted his cadence into the Internet's own newscaster tone. Y'know that tone. The same one every TV newscaster uses to emote appropriately. Everyone's a talking head now.

Thanks to Jeff Yamaguchi over at Working For the Man for pointing me towards a vlog I'd completely overlooked.

Review: Jackass 2.5

It's hard to imagine a more merry confluence of audience and medium: devotees of "Jackass," the prank-filled, deleterious TV series-cum-movie franchise-cum-lifestyle brand, and the Internet, home to skateboarding dogs and boys launching bottle rockets betwixt their buttocks. Stupid human tricks, you've come home.

Thus "Jackass 2.5," the 64-minute distraction that began streaming todayfilled with footage that didn't make the cut in "Jackass 2" (plus some between-scenes commentary from the stars). And if the realization that self-flagellation needs a degree of self-editing doesn't boggle the mind (true jackassery, apparently, is a matter of curation), consider you're about to watch stunts deigned so ill-conceived that the Internet was considered the most appropriate venue. What are we, if not men of the people?

Examples of what you get: Fat Preston Lacy dressed up like King Kong and lurching at remote-controlled airplanes atop a Port-O-Potty. Bam Margera flying a kite with his butt. Two fellas trying to box in a conference room after being spun to dizziness in wheeled office chairs. "Straight to the DVD," says an onlooker at one point. "Straight to the DVD."

It's sometimes hilarious stuff, but it does feel like you're watching DVD extras tethered ever-so-loosely into a contiguous whole. Not that "Jackass" stunts need so much context. That's the genius of the series. It's high-margin inanity, nicely done.

But this is hardly worthy of the superlative "first broadband movie ever distributed by a major studio," as described by its co-producers Paramount Pictures Digital Entertainment and MTV New Media. What we have here is simply extra footage, along with the star jackasses explaining why the footage didn't make it into a real movie.

The Fine Art of Facebook Friending

By Andrew Wallenstein
As an increasingly addicted Facebook member, it's been fascinating to follow the growing debate from New York Times to UK's Guardian on the nuances of maintaining Facebook friend lists. I seem to engage in a moral debate assessing every individual who "friends" me--are we really friends, am I being too literal, etc.--so to read Mark Cuban's savvy dissection of the subject was enlightening. He identifies three different levels of Facebook friends, and the third is most interesting: a "power" tier of people he isn't actually friends with, but realizes it's mutually beneficial to just have them in stock. Guess even billionaires need friends in high places.

ALSO: So your clients aren't working because of the strike and the holiday vacation to Bali doesn't start until the weekend. How do agents fill their time? Apparently there is this website called Facebook where they can waste their days "friending" everyone in sight, reports NY Observer. Let's hope they find Twitter by 2009.

JibJab Returns With '07 Salute

By Gretta Parkinson
Good news for Hollywood’s 15-minute club: America may have forgotten you and your ponyhawk for a time (Sanjaya), but JibJab.com has offered this year’s favorite train wrecks another minute or two in the limelight. The humor site's latest Flash cartoon, “In 2007,” does for the year what the Spiridellis brothers' “This Land” pardoy did for the presidential election in 2004 by exposing its utter ridiculousness...but sugarcoated, of course.
Watch this and and then try to listen to the parody's inspiration, Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” without picturing an animated Sen. Craig surrounded by dancing angels in a bathroom. I dare you. With “cameos” by Miss Teen South Carolina, Michael Vick and Britney Spears in disastrous VMA peformance mode, JibJab will make America remember a year that should be forgotten. At least there was the iPhone.

Straight Outta "Boondocks"

By Andrew Wallenstein
THR reports today on "Boondocks" creator Aaron McGruder making a foray into online entertainment with a new comedy show for Super Deluxe. McGruder is one of the sharpest satirists out there on race and other social issues, this is one to watch come January.

Forbes Today, Gone Tomorrow

By Andrew Wallenstein
Either it was the vodka I had substituted for milk in my Corn Flakes that eased the pain of my not making Forbes' "Web Celeb 25" list or the heartening realization that half of last year's list failed to make the cut this year, including flavor-of-2006, Lonelygirl15. The turnover just goes to show that the Internet's still-forming media lanscape will likely experience more seismic shifts for years to come, which will create countless shakeouts. We're barely into the first inning of this thing. Now where's my damn pine tar!?

2 Reasons Not to Throw Your TV Out

By Andrew Wallenstein
New trailers just arrived online for upcoming seasons of "The Wire" and "Lost" finally making the rounds. Advantage goes to "Lost," which delivers a heart-pounding return to the suspicious rescue effort unfolding in the island during the May cliffhanger episode. Not so thrilled with "Wire" trailer, which tries to pump some hype into the final season with a discordantly fast-paced clip set to "White Lines." Get the drug reference, but don't get how you can try to patch over this show's bitter, non-marketable soul.

Now This Is Just Sad

VideoJug: Roseanne On Politics
By Andrew Wallenstein
Oh, Roseanne. It didn't seem that long ago you were the queen of primetime, with the No. 1 comedy on television. Fast-forward a few decades and how far we've fallen: You've launched a Webisode series on that entertainment hub known as VideoJug, which is billed as "the world's largest, all-encompassing libraries of factual video content online."
Roseanne. How-to videos on knitting and interior decorating. How can you miss the connection?
Kids, let this be a lesson to you should you ever get yourself a top TV show. Pick a good agent, marry only three times at most and when all else fails, don't try to copy Rosie O'Donnell with a video site filled with political ramblings.

Velocity Accelerating Deals for Striking Writers?

By Andrew Wallenstein
Read with considerably more skepticism than my colleague Mr. Bryant of the supposed frenzy of activity between striking writers and venture capitalists just eager to throw millions their way. Always be suspicious of these kind of trend stories that talk more of deals in the making than deals actually closed.
But coming across today's news of keen interest from new VC group Velocity in getting scribes on board is something I'll take seriously. In principals Ross Levinsohn and Jonathan Miller you have two individuals who have made these kind of deals at News Corp. and AOL; they know how to handle Hollywood. That says a lot.

YouTube Lawyers Miffed Over Songza?

When YouTube first became popular, I remember hearing RIAA lawyers say that one reason the site was dangerous was because people could use streaming music videos like their own personal radio station. That just sounded retarded to me. An interesting use of YouTube, sure, but I didn't see any way users would widely adopt that feature.

Of course, I didn't predict Songza, the online music streaming service that pulls songs from YouTube vids. Over at Valleywag, there's anonymously-sourced reports that Google's lawyers are in a tizzy over this.

"I've heard that YouTube's engineering staff loves Songza," our source says. "But apparently the legal department has been saying things like they "revoke" Songza's rights to use YouTube." Which of course makes sense, considering YouTube signed deals with record labels to split ad revenues.

Dear Santa, please gift Songza with a cease and desist from YouTube. All I want for Christmas is irony.

TorrentSpy Loses Copyright Lawsuit

In a continuing sign of legal troubles for popular torrent-trading site TorrentSpy, a federal judge in California ruled today against the site on grounds that its operators engaged in "willful" deletion of important evidence.

The ruling opens the site to charges of copyright infringement in the U.S. The MPAA originally filed suit against the site last year. The judge then ordered TorrentSpy to track users so that the data could be given to the MPAA, but said that the service could mask IP addresses for the time being. TorrentSpy then decided to block US visitors, after which its traffic plunged.

TorrentSpy's servers are located in the Netherlands, and has continued to serve international users. There are several tools available to get around TorrentSpy's geographic restrictions.

IMHO: Despite the ruling against TorrentSpy, the MPAA and other interested parties are fighting a losing battle when pursuing individual sites. New sites and sharing methodologies appear regularly, making litigation at the site level not unlike a losing game of whack-a-mole.

See THR Esq for more on TorrentSpy ruling.

Why Online Doesn't "Ad" Up

By Andrew Wallenstein

If I'm a company dependent on significant growth in online advertising revenue, the end-of-year navel-gazing going on right now isn't going to inspire much confidence. Perhaps we should be happy that the sector is now a $20 billion slice of the $250 billion overall advertising pie in the U.S., but there's only gloom and doom in this assessment from the Associated Press. There's serious concerns that if the Internet can't clean up its measurement analytics, Madison Avenue isn't going to support migrating more TV or print dollars.

One savior could be the auto industry, according to Advertising Age. A new report from the Kelsey Group projects that global auto ad spending will rise to 13% in 2011 from 5% in 2007. Not exactly skyrocketing, but given that the overall auto ad allotment isn't likely to budge next year, it's good news indeed.

2011 may be the year to set your time machine to on Madison Avenue. A new report from eMarketer projects that by then social networks will have half the adult Web users in the U.S. as regular users, up from 37% now.

Just don't look for the money to come from politics any time soon. Despite projections of a windfall hitting local TV stations next year in the lead-up to the presidential election, there will be little trickle-down for the Internet, according to this Wall Street Journal interview with Evan Tracey of  Campaign Media Analysis Group:

"You will see record spending on Internet advertising in this cycle, but it will still amount to little more than a rounding error when put next to the money spent on television. Right now, the campaigns are using the free part of the Internet -- things like email, blogs, and YouTube and MySpace -- to fund-raise and take advantage of grass-roots organizing, but not doing much from a paid standpoint."

Ouch.

Simpsons' Kalina Tribute

"The Simpsons" spoofed photographer Noah Kalina's "Everyday," the popular vid released last year that compiles six years of Kalina's self-portraiture.

On his blog, Kalina said of the tribute:

"A few months back a producer from "The Simpsons" contacted Carly about using her song "Everyday" for an upcoming episode in which they were going to parody my video. She was negotiating a rate for the song, until they never got back to her. No fee was agreed on, no contracts signed. She and I both assumed that they were no longer interested in using her song for the show. Last night the episode aired and sure enough her song is part of the show. What’s up with that?! I am thrilled that "The Simpsons" parodied me, but Carly should have been compensated.

Last year at the Webby awards, host Rob Corddry said of the video: "Jesus. Five years. Do you think that guy was disappointed he never f#cking changed?"

Striking Writers Starting Own Studios?

"Dozens" of striking writers are negotiating with venture capitalists in efforts to establish their own online entertainment studios and bypass the traditional studios, according to the LA Times.

Tech investors have been reticent to fund entertainment ventures in the past, largely because they see programs/movies as one-offs with low post-debut margins compared to tech ventures, which have more of an innate ability to grow virally and with less overhead.

Earlier this year, Will Ferrell's FunnyOrDie.com had a hit with the vid "Landlord," essentially making the Web safe for A-list talent.

A handful of web companies, like Revision3 and Yahoo, are currently attempting to produce original content for the web, with mixed results. Yahoo's had the most experience -- Wow House, Richard Bang's Adventures, In the Hot Zone -- but has often fallen short of its stockholder's expectations. Perhaps the most successful original entertainment initiative from a tech company is AOL's Gold Rush which, while not successful across all demographics, did attract a large number of women age 35 to 44.

Al-Qaida's YouTube Debate

Al-Qaida's No. 2 in command is soliciting questions from sympathizers, which he will answer in an online interview next month.

Sounds like an unintentional parody of the CNN/YouTube debates. It would please me and Allah greatly if someone would use a snowman to ask a question.

Bursting YouTube's Bubbles

By Andrew Wallenstein

Not a fan of a new tool YouTube has quietly begun deploying that allows you to find videos similar to one you have already discovered. See it in action at this link for a Jewish parody for "Soulja Boy"; expand the video to full screen, click on the triangular logo in the bottom left, and get ready for some trippy imagery.

While some really dig the interface, I couldn't think of a less intuitive navigational system. For one thing, actually clicking on the bubbles bouncing all over the screen (each representing similar videos) is like herding cats. Second, most of the videos linked to "Soulja" have about as much to do with a hip-hop parody as they do tea in China. No wonder YouTube hasn't really said anything about this yet; the bubbles are too much trouble.

 

A Ringtone for the Dictator in Your Life

By Andrew Wallenstein

Remember that time Dick Cheney dropped an F-bomb on Sen. Patrick Leahy and he had the cojones to refuse to apologize? If only he could have recorded it. Political disaster maybe, but it could have been a profitable one if the the latest sensation in Spain's mobile ringtones is any indication. After a video of Spain's King Juan Carlos giving Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez a verbal smackdown went viral about a month ago (see above with English translation), the part where Carlos tells him to "shut up" has become a best-selling ringtone.

Radiohead's Commercial

After dominating music news this year by offering their new CD, In Rainbows, at user-decided pricing, Radiohead is now showing a series of commercials for the CD's January physical release on YouTube. They're pretty horrible -- gloved magician hands? Really? -- but do a passable job of demonstrating the CD's slimmed-down packaging, i.e., it's in a sleeve instead of a jewel box.

The digital purist's move would have been to forego the physical release entirely. But if they're wed to in-store distribution, creating a slimmer package is a good way of reinforcing the message tendered with the download plan -- less is more.

"Cloverfield" Widget Contest

By Andrew Wallenstein
Producer J.J. Abrams is doing a masterful job of whipping up a nice Internet frenzy a month ahead of his thriller "Cloverfield." The Web is already teeming with the scary trailer, and now he's gone and one-upped himself with an interesting contest that ties dispersal of the widget to a special hometown screening. That and a full five minutes of footage from the movie in the clip above. Just goes to show there may be no such thing as overexposure when you are promoting a movie online.

Ex-MTV Guru Tom Freston Unplugged

By Andrew Wallenstein
If Tom Freston was hoping to dispel the widespread impression that Sumner Redstone pushed him out of the top spot at Viacom due to his failure to acquire MySpace, a video interview he did with new site Big Think ain't gonna help. Asked what his biggest mistake was, he launches into a meandering meditation on the unpredictability of hits in the entertainment business, noting that every studio in town passed on "Lord of the Rings" before New Line. Though he never mentions a certain social networking phenomenon by name, you can't help but read between the lines.

Murdoch: Let Them Eat Internet

By Andrew Wallenstein
If Rupert Murdoch sees any upside in Internet video, he certainly didn't seem so Thursday on Fox News with Neil Cavuto. Queried about the strike, he clearly pooh-poohed the notion that the writers were on the right strategic course, dismissing the notion that the Internet was a "holy grail."
Not to be outdone, Patric Verrone threatened the writers will simply start taking their business directly to the Internet rather than dealing with the middleman.
Methinks Murdoch will call his bluff.

Vid Share Site Dailymotion Fast Riser Outside U.S.

Was just perusing the 2007 Google Zeitgeist, wherein the company compiles the most searched for terms of the year, and noticed that one of the fastest movers outside the U.S. was video share site Dailymotion:

1. iphone
2. badoo
3. facebook
4. dailymotion
5. webkinz
6. youtube
7. ebuddy
8. second life
9. hi5
10. club penguin

This compared to the fastest rising in the U.S.:

1. iphone
2. webkinz
3. tmz
4. transformers
5. youtube
6. club penguin
7. myspace
8. heroes
9. facebook
10. anna nicole smith

France-based Dailymotion is similar to YouTube, in that users upload and share videos. The site faced some backlash last year for its extensive catalogue of copyrighted works (one of my favorites being their collection of every Simpsons episode ever), but earlier this year cleaned up its servers and partnered with Warner Music. Peter Kafka over at AlleyInsider recently speculated that DailyMotion could partner with Viacom.

"Pilot Season" Comes to Comics

By Andrew Wallenstein
What do you get when you mix television, Internet and comic books? Something like Top Cow Prods.' Pilot Season, a MySpace-based contest that begins Dec. 17 allowing fans to vote among five characters into one of two slots for their own comic books. Borrowing the TV industry's concept of creating an initial "pilot" episode for prospective series, Top Cow has five test issues ready along their creators' blogs, forums and promotional wallpaper. Personally, I heart Cyblade (above), but I'm a sucker for cleavage and blue hair dye.
Which reminds me, I've got to call my Mom back.

Criminals Gone Wild

Anyone who watched WNBC News at 11 in NYC last night saw a piece on Criminals Gone Wild, a DVD about gun violence in New York that includes apparent footage of robberies, carjackings, and one possible murder.

The NY Daily News also did a piece on the DVD, which was filmed by Ousala Aleem, and who said "You try to make a product for the family, something that everybody can see, and nobody wants to buy it...The minute you come out with crime footage everybody wants to buy it. My pockets are fat now."

The DVD promo video on YouTube has over 100k views so far. The DVD's blog includes videos of gun and gang violence found online.

Don't see how Aleem benefits from this DVD. If the footage of the killing is real, NY city will prosecute him for being an accessory. If the footage is fake and Aleem is forced to admit it, he'll face some tough questions from thugs/wouldbe thugs who bought the disc.

On the other hand, the DVD's probably helpful to investigators in the city. Not only do they get supporting evidence against suspects, they'll also ostensibly benefit from the street conversations about the people in the DVD. This reminds me of the method used by Florida special agent Tommy Ray to get criminals talking about earlier crimes:

[Ray] made his own deck of cards, each bearing information about a different local criminal case that had gone cold. He distributed the decks in the Polk County jail. His hunch was that prisoners would gossip about the cases during card games, and somehow clues or breaks would emerge and make their way to the authorities. The plan worked. Two months in, as a result of a tip from a card-playing informant, two men were charged with a 2004 murder in a case that had gone cold.

New Jackass Movie to Premiere Online

In yet another departure from traditional distribution models, Paramount and MTV will release the next Jackass movie, Jackass 2.5, online. The movie will be available for two weeks at blockbuster.jackassworld.com. More info at HollywoodReporter.com.

Earlier this week Universal announced that it would allow purchase downloads of The Bourne Ultimatum on set-top box Vudu the same day as the DVD release.

Both announcements come as the business of selling DVDs posts a year-over-year sales decline for the first time since the format's debuted a decade ago.

DVD sales are declining as video game sales rise. Analysts blame everything from new social-oriented games and platforms (the Wii, Guitar Hero III and Rock Band, Halo 3) to the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD war that's confusing consumers.

From my own anecdotal perspective, the reason for the DVD's decline is clearly video game platforms. Not only do I keep in touch with friends through Xbox and play Wii at parties, everyone in my family plays video games now. For Thanksgiving, my uncle bought a Wii, which entertained everyone from the toddlers (playing Super Mario 8) to the adults, playing tennis and Tiger Woods golf. Later that weekend, at my friend's 30th birthday party, everyone in the 50-person crowd took a turn at Guitar Hero III.

Video games are the new Pictionary.

SNL's Fred Armison Explains the AMPTP Proposal

I'm a week behind this video, but it's so hilarious it needs to be seen. Again.

"$250. Thats a 2 in front of that number. $250. Not once, not twice, not three times, but once. We give you $250 once to run your show online for up to a year. $250. That's serious radio contest winner money."

The AMPTP Needs a Widget

I'm not often that enthusiastic about widgets -- I think the hype outweighs the benefit -- but in the case of the AMPTP's strike cost calculator, they should commission a widget that can be embedded on blogs sympathetic to their cause, or at least interested in covering the ramifications of the strike. Just sayin. The more ubiquitous that ticker, the better they get their point across.

Pale

I try not to post too much video effluvia these days, but this is too disturbing: just ran across (via Waxy) a CPR/defibrillation community on YouTube. The community has 193 members, and the videos -- of people being resuscitated (or not) -- have been viewed tens of thousands of times.

The videos are the work of 911Bio-Med.com, "a very unique and bizarre-art website displaying pictures and videos of staged emergency medical resuscitation. (CPR, Defibrillation, etc.)". The site's organizers are also working on a web series called Pale, "an odyssey of the medical macabre".

I would watch that, but only if Zach Braff died every episode.

I still won't pay $399 for Vudu

Set-top box content delivery service Vudu announced today same-day DVD downloads of Universal's Bourne Ultimatum, plus episodes of "24," "Prison Break," "NYPD Blue" and other 20th Century Fox Television titles.

The same-day DVD download marks a shift in Universal's distribution methods, which thus far have limited downloads to availability after a DVD's release window.

Unlike other films in Vudu’s library, Bourne is available only for purchase (not rental) for $24.99. The download-to-own TV shows are available for $1.99 per episode, with the initial beta test featuring only shows from News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox.

Vudu went on sale back in September and costs $399 for the box itself, though there's no subscription fees to pay. Their library has about 5,000 rental titles from 22 independent and international film distributors, but does not allow transfers to portable devices. The rentals cost between $0.99 and $3.99.

Vudu plays in a crowded market, less one since Moviebeam recently announced it was stopping service. IMHO, Vudu's a great service that's completely unnecessary when you consider your less expensive movie options, e.g., Xbox 360, Apple TV, TiVo, and Akimbo, just to name a few.

Adding the ability to buy movies same-day-as-DVD makes the service more attractive, but not enough to surmount that ludicrously high price barrier to adoption.

   

Adult Vid Producer Vivid Sues PornoTube

Adult vid producer Vivid Entertainment filed suit today against PornoTube, an adult video site largely recognized in tech circles for its success in glomming off YouTube's name -- though to be honest, you could call the site Grandma' Quilted Daisies and Kittens.com and it'd still get absurd amounts of traffic (copy of the actual lawsuit here).

Although porn producers have done better than mainstream media companies in adapting to Internet delivery, they've recently seen free adult sites negatively affect their bottom line.

"We've decided to take a stand and say 'no more,' " Vivid co-Chairman Steven Hirsch told the LA Times. "We will go after all the free sites."

Well now. I guess that means any potential deal between Vivid and YouPorn, another YouTube knockoff and the no. 1 most visited adult site in the world, is off. Hirsch told Portfolio magazine in November he was considering purchasing the site (at least enough to take a meeting with YouPorn's founder), though he later said "It doesn’t make any sense! They’re giving porn away. You can’t make money on this." Still, that doesn't explain why Vivid wouldn't sue YouPorn instead. Perhaps there are aspects of PornoTube's business model that make it more vulnerable to rightsholder lawsuits; a victory would give Vivid the legal precedent to advance litigation against other offenders.

The Portfolio article has some good deets on how Vivid's biz model is changing as online video takes over:

Three years ago, 80 percent of Vivid’s income came from DVD sales. Today, Hirsch puts that number at about 30 percent, with the rest coming from a fragmented range of sources: subscriptions to Vivid.com, pay-per-view TV, internet video-on-demand, merchandising, and mobile-phone deals. Domestic DVD sales are down 35 percent this year alone. His revenue is flat, he says, but that’s mainly because he’s been cutting costs. Within five years, he claims, DVD sales will be close to zero.

Vivid isn't the first adult producer to sue a video-sharing site. Titan Media, a publisher of gay erotica, sued Veoh last year. As of September 18, that lawsuit is pending trial.

Related: Penthouse Media Group is investing $500 million in the adult properties of Various, Inc., which include AdultFriendFinder.com, says the New York Times.

NBC Uni's Screw iTunes Tour Continues

By Andrew Wallenstein
NBC Universal has signed yet another Internet platform for its video content, cementing its quest to working with just about everyone but Apple. Its latest paramour, Fanfare, comes with a twist: It allows you to move the programming from PC to TV through a handheld device from SanDisk called the Sansa TakeTV (check the video demo above).
Here's the part of the press release that gives Steve Jobs a subliminal middle finger:

"NBC Universal will provide Fanfare BETA users with a variety of attractive ways to purchase and view TV shows, including offering discounts for multiple episode purchases and entire seasons, as well as incentives to purchase a bundle of different TV shows at one time."

Announced in October with initial partners including CBS and TV Guide, Sansa SanDisk TakeTV only works off of Fanfare, which is in beta. Why simplify things with just one brand name when you can confuse the consumer with four?

"Dewey" Does 10-Minute Movie Preview

By Andrew Wallenstein
If only this was something we saw more often in film marketing: Sony released the first 10 minutes of new comedy "Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story" free online at sites including MySpace and IGN (see here). A few cable TV channels have been used for this kind of promotion over the years, but not the Internet to my recollection. Makes you wonder why this is the kind of stunt you don't see more often: Ten minutes with "Dewey," a parody of rock 'n' roll biopics like "Walk the Line," is enough to convince you the movie is funny. The trouble is that many films are all marketing, no material--even five minutes would be enough to send you running away from the multiplex. But releasing a comedy that spoofs an Oscar-nominated film in the thick of Oscar season begs further explanation, and Sony is smart to oblige.

Jump Rope

There's something sad about jump rope.

Not the old style, the Harlem rhythm style, or the boxing style. There's not much that equals the twirling dervish of Floyd Mayweather and the way he makes skipping look brutal yet beautiful simultaneously.

But the suburban style. No matter how athletically accomplished, there's something too wooden, too cute, too professional. Maybe it's unfair to compare a world champion boxer to teenagers. Or maybe I'm just glad I escaped a potential childhood of predawn double dutch practice.

YouTube isn't Populist. It's Pragmatic.

YouTube may play the populist card well, but at its heart it's simply an efficient money-making machine. The latest example: YouTube's partner program, which it expanded today to allow more amateurs to earn monetary rewards for their videos. And while some starry-eyed pundits'll tell you YouTube's rewarding their loyal consumer base, the truth is that the video site's simply been learning (since May) how to deal with advertisers and their tentative approach to UGC. This latest rollout isn't populist, it's pragmatic.

The first step was to take some of the most successful videomakers -- lonelygirl15, Smosh, etc. -- and let them choose the videos they wanted to monetize. The videomakers got a small cut, and YouTube gained the benefit of understanding advertiser concerns with UGC. Now they're rolling out to a larger group, which includes Tay Zonday and hotforwords (pictured). I'm willing to bet that at least some of the new participants were requested by advertisers.

What's most intriguing about the YouTube partner program is that it does the opposite of what amateurs videophiles think it does, i.e., removes the stigma from user-generated content. Instead, it incents amateurs to create more professional content, pushing the wild west of video toward civilization. Don't look now, YouTubers, amateur hour's almost over.

Commodore 64 Orchestra

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Commodore 64, the first computer my family owned/cussed at. The Computer History Museum in Mountain View is celebrating the anniversary today. Jack Tramiel, founder and CEO of Commodore, will be there, along with Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and William C. Lowe, father of the IBM PC.

The Netherlands' C64 Orchestra plays music from the games. Their tunes'll be familiar to anyone who ever waited for the 64's damnable disc drives to load the game visuals.

As If the Strike Isn't Complicated Enough...

By Andrew Wallenstein

Leave it to industry visionary Shelly Palmer to add a few more layers of complexity to that Jell-O pie writers and moguls are trying to slice called digital revenues. While everyone obsesses over the uncertainty of money, Palmer recasts the issue in a different light: metrics. From what little we've heard about what's going on at the negotiation table, the very notion that they are trying to assign any monetary value to "streams" really steams Palmer:

Who in their right mind thinks that the "number of video streams per quarter is a readily ascertainable number." First of all, what is a stream? Is it defined as an open socket between a server and a client? What if the stream is peer-assisted? Does that count? How about progressive downloads that are abandoned before they are viewed in their entirety? Are they considered downloads or streams? What about downloads? Do they count? How about off network plays of previously downloaded material that actually has a reported playcount? Wait … there’s more. How about VOD streams over closed IPTV networks? That’s what the cable industry is about to turn into – technically every one of those plays is a video stream. Does it count if you stream data that updates creative on an HD-DVD or BluRay to change story arch or release additional material that creates a derivative work? I could go on for about thirty pages and not come close to creating a complete list.

Better yet, Shelly, why not type up those 30 pages, send them to Patric Verrone and save everyone from having to go back to the negotiation table two years from now to rethink the whole thing...

The Wire Prequels at Amazon

In the vein of ABC's Lost minisodes, HBO drama (and best television show, ever, of all time, what?) The Wire is offering three prequel shorts at Amazon to promote its season 4 DVD, as well as on other digital platforms. The two minute clips show Prop Joe hustling in middle school circa 1963, Omar robbing a man with his friends in 1985, and Bunk and McNulty meeting on the late shift in 2000.

Despite the passable acting -- the actor playing a young Prop Joe is a great mimic -- the episodes feel superfluous and disconnected. Most obviously missing, and to the minisodes great detriment, is any piece of The Wire's opening credit song, "Way Down in the Hole". That blues song, originally recorded by Tom Waits but covered by a different artist every season, sets the mood of the show. And throwing a viewer into the clips without so much as a sample of that song, or even a logo montage, feels shoddy. The clips feel like an afterthought.

And unnecessary. They don't add enough by way of context to warrant inclusion. I think it was the writer Alice Munro (somebody correct me if I'm wrong) who once said that the best short stories show only a small snippet of action, and it's the implied history not written that allows the imagination to play. It benefits me too little to see these clips.

One other thing about the sound: There's no music in the clips. That's not odd, since The Wire only has music when it occurs from a source inside the frame. But combine the lack of intro with lack of music, and you have some very sterile video.

Instead of watching the prequels, I suggest something more enjoyable and jarring: The Wire with a laugh track.

Finally, An Online Usage Stat Worth Noting

By Andrew Wallenstein
A flurry of eye-glazing new studies on online/TV video consumption have been released in recent days from Nielsen, Horowitz Associates and European Interactive Advertising Assoc. Nothing revelatory in any of it, just the very things you've intuited already: More people are watching video online? Check. Younger viewers more likely to sample on new platforms? Check. TV networks are doing a goozzzz...zzzzz.....zzzzz (snore)....

Yet another such study comes courtesy of ChoiceStream today that covers the same ground (reported here by THR's Alex Woodson), but also keys in on an interesting point that doesn't get much mention: discovery, or the amount of time it takes to find a video worth watching. The stat to note: 62% of online video watchers say it takes at least a few minutes to find the vidoes they want to watch, faring slightly better than TV (72%). 34% of respondents for both online video and television reported frustration with the amount of time it takes to access the video they want to find.

Now if I'm in the online video business, I should get a wake-up call from those numbers. Basically, viewers see only minimal improvement in terms of discovery time when the PC is stacked up against TV; given all the customization available online, shouldn't online do a lot better than that? For all the focus devoted to "time spent" o