Online project challenges traditional advertising model

According to Ultra Marketing, a new online project has the potential to end the traditional client-agency-production company relationship for TV advertising.

"Admade puts the new generation of YouTube ad makers in front of clients direct removing the need for the agency intervention.

The way it works is this. The site hosts ad project briefs from partners - businesses, charities and ‘causes’, “that are sick of making the same old boring ads that we all have been subjected to.”

Ad makers are then encouraged to submit their work in a bid to win a cash prize.

“Your idea is more important than the video production value,” explains co-founder Jake Lawton. “I think we all would rather watch low-production clever commercials, like the MAC versus PC ads, than watch big budget ads, with CGI effects..."

Users are asked to vote for the best work, which is then drawn into a shortlist for the client to pick a winner from."

Survey: Web watchers are multitasking

According to the results of a new survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of video search service blinkx, some 78 percent of adults who watch TV while online claim to be using the Web at the same time, while a further 35 percent said that simultaneous Web surfing and TV watching is something they engage in consistently.

In an area of the survey that’s bound to interest product advertisers, around 62 percent of those polled returned that they surf Web content connected to whatever it is they’re watching on the TV.

[via The Tech Herald]

Cars from The Sopranos up for auction

A total of eight Cars and SUVs from the popular TV series The Sopranos are set to go under the hammer in March including Tony Soprano’s 2003 Cadillac Escalade ESV.

The sale at No Reserve will take place during the 6th Annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Event on March 26-30, 2008, in West Palm Beach, Florida, with net proceeds to go to the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles.

[via Gizmag and Jalopnik]

YouTube to Add Live Video

According to NewTeeVee, YouTube will support live video before the end of this year.

'CSI murderers' fail to trick police

Two CSI: fans who killed and dismembered their half-brother, and then tried to use knowledge gleaned from the American television drama to outwit detectives, were facing lengthy prison terms today. Times Online reports [via TV Tattle].

"... Detectives said they found a host of CSI: DVDs at the Baigents' house and there was evidence that the brothers had tried to use “forensic” knowledge to cover their trail.

The court heard that Charlotte Baigent also told friends how they took ideas from CSI:, which stars actor William Petersen. They dismembered Mr Scanlan’s body and hid the parts in separate woodland graves, wrapping their hands in sticky tape to clean a car the victim had travelled in. They also used an ultra-violet light to search for tell-tale fibres in the car and sent a fake text from Mr Scanlan’s phone to give the impression that he was still alive.

But real scenes of crime officers and forensic scientists had been too clever and were led to the killers by following a trail of mobile phone calls.

Related:

-- CSI: Underpants sees scientist dismissed over test that trapped cheating husband - A forensic scientist who performed a CSI-style examination of her husband’s underpants to see if he was cheating has been fired from her job for misusing the police crime lab.

-- 'CSI effect' is teaching criminals to cover tracks - Forensic science professionals, police departments and criminal prosecution lawyers are now complaining that these shows have educated criminals about the best way to cover their tracks.

MySpace, Tudou Join CCTV for Olympic Streaming

China Central Television (CCTV) will allow two China-based Web sites to offer streaming broadcasts of Olympic events, the companies announced Wednesday.

Joining CCTV, the Beijing Olympics' official Internet and mobile phone broadcaster, are popular online video site Tudou.com (China's most popular online video site) and MySpace China. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

[via PC World]

Web-based series "Quarterlife" bombs on US TV

According to Reuters, the highly touted Web-based drama series "quaterlife" proved a television flop in its US TV debut, drawing the NBC network's worst ratings for its time slot in at least 20 years.

"The show's dismal performance in its prime-time network launch on Tuesday threw its immediate future into doubt at the General Electric-owned network, where a source said the series could end up cancelled before its next airing.

... NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman acknowledged in remarks to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday the experiment did not live up to expectations, but was "so worth the try."

"The website traffic went up a huge amount, and we continue to try new things and new models," he said. "It's very inexpensive but we hoped for higher ratings."

VAEmergency Channel launched on YouTube

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management has launched a VAEmergency Channel on video-sharing Web site YouTube.

The channel will provide public service announcements from Gov. Tim Kaine and has the potential to provide critical information to the public during emergencies, the department announced Wednesday.

[via the Daily Press]

YouTube Restores Video Appearing to Show Prisoner Abuse in Russia

YouTube Tuesday reinstated a video clip appearing to document abuse of prisoners at a Russian prison camp. The Wall Street Journal reports.

"Lawyer Robert Amsterdam posted the video to YouTube in December with the explanation that the 2006 footage comes from a prison camp in Yekaterinaburg and was discovered by Lev Ponomarev, co-founder of the Moscow-based Foundation for Defense of Rights of Prisoners.

The six-minute clip includes scenes of a troop of men in camouflage uniforms and helmets marching into a building and then beating unarmed individuals with clubs. A Feb. 12 The Wall Street Journal editorial-page article discussing Mr. Ponomarev and cruelty to prisoners in Russia, which appeared before the clip's removal, directed readers to the YouTube video.

Google Inc.'s YouTube video-sharing site Tuesday reinstated a video clip appearing to document abuse of prisoners at a Russian prison camp.

"In this case, our general policy against graphic violence led to the initial removal of a video documenting alleged human rights abuses because the context was not apparent," said a YouTube spokesman. "Having reviewed the case, we have restored the video."

Video's New Friends

Social-networking sites are taking the plunge into original Web video series to lure ads and compete with YouTube. The Wall Street Journal reports.

"Bebo with "KateModern and other social-networking sites like MySpace with Special Delivery" and "Roommates" are taking the plunge into original Web series at a time when the popularity of online video is surging.

To promote "KateModern", whose first season drew an average of 1.5 million video views per week, Bebo relies on the interaction among the Web site's users. It sends alerts to members to tell them when new episodes are posted. And it allows members to send messages to characters.

The social sites hope to use the shows to attract advertising revenue. More importantly, they are banking on the original content to keep users from fleeing to popular Web sites such as Google Inc.'s YouTube that focus almost exclusively on video."

Facebook film ad pulled over violence

A controversial online marketing campaign for the thriller Untraceable has been pulled from Facebook and the video community Seesmic after concerns about the violence of its content, reports The Guardian.

"The promotional page on Facebook called "Kill With Me.com" ahead of the film's UK launch this Friday, was posted five days ago with The Kill With Me page gradually revealing more and more of a visceral torture scene from the Untraceable movie to Facebook.

...Both the clip and the fake murder were very violent, but said the agency wanted to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in an online community with the Untraceable marketing campaign."

The White House Movie Theater

Spotted on Gizmodo, pictures of the White House movie theater, re-decorated by Laura Bush, and below, the way it was, a former cloakroom converted by FDR into a theater in 1942.

Advanced episodes of Underbelly pirated on net

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Channel 9 is facing another headache over its hit crime drama Underbelly after advanced screener copies of six episodes were released onto the internet.

The leaking of the episodes four to nine, which are yet to be screened, add to Nine's woes over the series.

The $13 million program has already been banned in Victoria due to an underworld murder trail and the network's bosses are already investigating how advanced episodes got into hands of underworld bosses in Victoria.

The advanced episodes, tagged as screener copies, were posted onto the internet yesterday afternoon.

... About 1,273,000 viewers watched episode three, making it the top rated show in Sydney, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Educational programs lift online television in Asia

For companies selling interactive television over the Internet, soaring demand in Asia for high-quality education for children, as well as demand from people looking to change careers, offers a potentially lucrative market and the chance to lure customers away from cable television and the computer. IHT reports.

"South Korea, where children spend hours studying in a gruelling battle to enter the top schools that can guarantee a job at the big conglomerates, is at the vanguard of educational television over the Internet in Asia.

South Korean companies, like KT, which plan this year to upgrade their Internet-powered television services to full Internet protocol television, known as IPTV, are spearheading the move.

KT says online education for children ranks among the most successful programs on its "MegaTV" system, which also offers after-school tutoring and adult education courses.

... On IPTV, lectures can be repeated at any time and they allow students to take quizzes or pose questions in real time.

In China, where history and geography programs are already offered, education is set to become the fastest-growing part of BesTV's business, Lee said, referring to the IPTV unit of Shanghai Media Group.

"In traditional TV, it's difficult to find these programs," Lee said, because of inconvenient times and limited slots. He expects overall IPTV users in China to reach two million by the end of 2008 from 600,000 now."

YouTube Plugs in HBO

HBO has inked a deal with YouTube to create a signature channel on the video-sharing site to air highlights from some of the premium cable net's most popular shows—Entourage, The Wire, Flight of the Conchords, Real Time with Bill Maher, Extras and Def Comedy Jam, among them.

Most notably, however, will be full-length episodes of HBO's newest hit, In Treatment, as well as Habla y Habla, the net's in-depth look at what it is like to be a Latino living in the U.S.

[via E! News]

How Pakistan knocked YouTube offline

A high-profile incident this weekend in which Pakistan's state-owned telecommunications company managed to cut YouTube off the global Web highlights a long-standing security weakness in the way the Internet is managed. News.com reports.

"After receiving a censorship order from the telecommunications ministry directing that YouTube.com be blocked, Pakistan Telecom went even further. By accident or design, the company broadcast instructions worldwide claiming to be the legitimate destination for anyone trying to reach YouTube's range of Internet addresses.

The security weakness lies in why those false instructions, which took YouTube offline for two hours on Sunday, were believed by routers around the globe. hat's because Hong Kong-based PCCW, which provides the Internet link to Pakistan Telecom, did not stop the misleading broadcast--which is what most large providers in the United States and Europe do."

Locking in Viewers to Watch the Commercials

Looking to strike a blow against the proliferation of digital video recorders, the ABC network, its affiliated broadcast stations, and Cox Communications’ cable systems are establishing an on-demand video service that would allow viewers to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” any time they choose.

The catch: It uses a new technology that disables the viewers’ ability to fast-forward through commercials.

[The New York Times via NewTeeVee]

Divx To Shut Down Stage6

The Web video portal shakeout continues: DIVX will shut down Stage, its would-be YouTube rival, to focus on its video encoding software/licensing business. The company tried to sell/spin off the site last July, but couldn't find a buyer. Instead it will shutter the service on Thursday.

Why? Because unless you can reach massive scale, which Stage6 didn't, hosting Web video is a money-losing proposition. "The continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide," the company said this morning on its blog.

From West Wing to the real thing

There's a reason why the parallels are so uncanny: "I drew inspiration from (Obama) in drawing this character," says "The West Wing writer and producer Eli Attie, a former Al Gore speechwriter, who wrote many of the Santos episodes.

Attie tells the Guardian: "When I had to write, Obama was just appearing on the national scene. He had done a great speech at the convention (which nominated John Kerry) and people were beginning to talk about him."

Attie even called Obama's aid to say, "'Tell me about this guy Barack Obama.'" As The Guardian puts it, "The result is a bizarre case of art imitating life -- only for life to imitate art back again."

[The Guardian via TV Tattle]

Europe funds internet TV standard

According to the BBC, the European Union is spending 14m euros (£10.5m) to create a standard way to send TV via the net.

"An additional 5m euros (£3.7m) is being contributed to the project by 21 other partners including the BBC and the European Broadcasting Union.

The project will create a peer-to-peer system that can pipe programmes to set-top boxes and home TV sets.

It will be based on the BitTorrent technology many people already use to share movies and music.

Dubbed P2P Next, the four-year research project will try to build a system that can stand alongside the other ways that broadcasters currently get programmes to viewers."

Poles Apart on Online-Video Habits

The New York Times reports that the gulf between casual and heavy consumers of online video is startlingly wide, according to figures released in mid-February.

The difference between the heaviest users and the lightest users is something like 24 times.

"It’s a clear indicator of how early we are in online video,” said Jarvis Mak, a vice president at Media Contacts, an online ad buyer that did the study with the research firm comScore. Mr. Mak predicted that this disparity would narrow as television networks continued to put programs online, attracting novice users.

ComScore gathered the data using special software installed on the computers of a panel of Internet users."

Latest Video Hit: Sarkozy Calls Citizen "Idiot"

"Sarkozy was filmed smiling and shaking hands with visitors as he arrived on Saturday for the opening of an agriculture event, dubbed the "world's biggest farm" which draws an average 600,000 people to celebrate French farming. Reuters reports.

As he moved through the crowd, Sarkozy drew near the man, who told him, "Oh no, don't touch me." The president, who kept smiling, responded: "Go away, then." "You disgust me," the man said. "Go away, you bloody idiot," Sarkozy responded."

The encounter posted on the website of the French daily Le Parisien had received some 330,000 hits by midday Sunday and was also featured on the popular YouTube and Dailymotion sites. Sarkozy's office refused to comment on the incident."

Global flat TV demand 'to double by 2012'

Demand for flat panel televisions is expected to more than double to 180 million units by 2012, driven by strong sales in China and the United States, a Japanese industry group said, reports Reuters.

"Demand for liquid crystal display TVs is likely to reach 155 million units in five years, up from 74.8 million sold in 2007, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Association (JEITA) said on Thursday.

Demand for plasma TVs will likely total 25 million units in 2012, compared with 11.4 million sold last year, it said."

Smile, you're on a bar Webcam

Bar Webcams are a growing phenomenon in cities like Boston, Denver, Chicago, San Diego, Minneapolis, and even tourist spots like Key West. News.com reports.

"Webcams have been around for a long time. One of the most famous was JenniCam in the late '90s--the girl who broadcast her every move inside a dorm room via the Web.

Today, with a Webcam installed in a bar or restaurant,potential customers can call up the live video stream online or by mobile phone so they can survey the crowd before venturing out.

People who want a quiet night can scout for a bar with a mellow scene, and those who want a lively night can look for the crowds. (Webcam bar promoters say it's typically a 50-50 split between the two camps.)

... For promoters, the online traffic equals money. Relatively new services like Barmigo and Barseenlive sell flat-rate subscriptions to the bars for licensing the Webcams and promoting their sites, and other upstarts like Baroptic.com are seeking to sell advertisements to liquor companies like Coors and Bacardi to run against those video streams.

Regarding privacy, bar promoters say the live video typically isn't a clear picture, doesn't include audio, and isn't recorded, so it's not archived. "In terms of legality, if you're in a public place, I can take your picture," said Jesse Newsome, founder and head of "hiring and firing" at Barmigo, based in Phoenix, Ariz.

NBC and CBS offer vintage TV episodes online

According to Newsday, NBC and CBS have just announced free streams of vintage TV episodes on their Web sites.

NBC.com's "The Way Back Wednesdays" will show: "Miami Vice," "Emergency," "Buck Rogers" and "The A-Team

NBC-owned cable channel sites SciFi.com. ChillerTV.com and SleuthChannel.com plan to start vintage streaming this month with: "Tek War," "Night Gallery", "The Alfred Hitchcock Hour", "Swamp Thing," "Kojak" and "Simon & Simon".

CBS Television Classics will include: "The Twilight Zone," "Hawaii Five-O," "MacGyver," "Star Trek" and "Melrose Place."

They will all have commercials.

NBC's Way Back Wednesday streams are not yet online. CBS' Television Classics are already available. But when I click on play, I get a voice message saying "This content is currently unavailable". So I'm not sure if that's because I'm trying to watch from Europe or if there is a problem this morning. Will try again later.

PTA blocks youtube.com

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) ordered ISPs in the country to block access to a popular video-sharing website,YouTube, all over the country on Friday.

The ban was supposed to be imposed on a specific URL, featuring a 04:58-minute-long trailer from Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ controversial anti-Islam movie. The video had been uploaded to the website on January 28, 2008, and had remained largely unnoticed by the internet-savvy community in Pakistan.

Local ISPs went a step ahead, however, and blocked the entire youtube.com domain.

[via The International Times]

Obsolete (TV) Skills

A lengthy and fun list of Obsolete Skills. Related to television:

-- Adjusting rabbit ears on top of a TV

-- Adjusting a television's color and hue adjustments

-- Cleaning head of a VCR

-- Getting off the couch to change channels on your TV set

-- Recording a TV show with a VCR

I would add:

-- Watching commercials

-- Watching TV series on Television

[via [BB-Blog]]

Web TV Celebs

Great article from The Guardian on the new Web TV celebs from DiggNation, RocketBoom, boingboingTV...

... The new wave web stars come from different places and have different aims, but on one thing they are unanimous - the intimacy of the medium.

... Is a sense of connection - either with the web stars or with each other - what viewers find appealing about these shows? DigNation's Alex Albrecht, believes so — at least when the mainstream popular culture is so anodyne and uniform and young people are looking for new tribes.

... Another theory about why it is easier to connect with viewers using internet video: "When you watch TV, you're seven feet away and sitting back. But when you watch on your iPod or your laptop, it's only inches away or you're holding it in your hands.

... The video boom is similar to the growth of young British music, where artists such as the Arctic Monkeys and Kate Nash are often seen as the products of MySpace. But these new TV stars are building their support out of the structure of the internet itself. Things are still in flux, however, and even those who might be the TV stars of tomorrow don't know what tomorrow will look like."

Belgrade smash 'n' grab becomes YouTube hit

A video of two young women looting with abandon during rioting in the Serbian capital Belgrade was becoming a Balkan smash hit on the video-sharing site YouTube on Friday. News.com reports.

"... Police arrested some looters, but public humiliation by YouTube may prove a far more painful punishment for the pair>, whose spree on Thursday night was also aired on local television stations and was being discussed across the Internet.

The video was titled "Swapping Kosovo for a pair of sneakers" and the person who posted it, "Gvantanamo," gave a description:

"Belgrade bimbos exploit unrest to steal from smashed-up boutiques without the slightest shame. They are so greedy they even have to carry things in their teeth."

ISPs could face piracy sanctions

Internet service providers must take concrete steps to curb illegal downloads or face legal sanctions, the government has said, reports the BBC.

"The proposal is aimed at tackling the estimated 6m UK broadband users who download files illegally every year. The culture secretary said consultation would begin in spring and legislation could be implemented "by April 2009".

... Earlier this year it was reported that the government was considering a "three strikes" approach to tackling persistent offenders in the report.

But Mr Burnham denied this was the case and told the FT that the strategy had "never been in the paper".

If the government goes ahead, the UK would be one of the first countries to impose sanctions. "

Related article from The Guardian:

-- Filesharing law 'unworkable' - The UK government's plan to fight online piracy is doomed to fail... clamping down on illegal sharing of copyrighted music and movies would be technologically unworkable and create a legal minefield, experts have warned.

... "The big issue, frankly, is the impossibility of the internet service providers getting in amongst it and monitoring what goes on on their networks," warned Alex Brown, internet law specialist at Simmons & Simmons. Technically speaking, it's near impossible to do. The sheer volume of traffic means it just cannot be done fast enough.