Video screen ads maybe watching you too

Watch an advertisement on a video screen in a mall, health club or grocery store and there's a slim — but growing — chance the ad is watching you too. Yahoo Tech reports.

Small cameras can now be embedded in the screen or hidden around it, tracking who looks at the screen and for how long. The makers of the tracking systems say the software can determine the viewer's gender, approximate age range and, in some cases, ethnicity — and can change the ads accordingly.

That could mean razor ads for men, cosmetics ads for women and video-game ads for teens.

And even if the ads don't shift based on which people are watching, the technology's ability to determine the viewers' demographics is golden for advertisers who want to know how effectively they're reaching their target audience.

While the technology remains in limited use for now, advertising industry analysts say it is finally beginning to live up to its promise. The manufacturers say their systems can accurately determine gender 85 to 90 percent of the time, while accuracy for the other measures continues to be refined.

Youtube AdBlitz Coming February 1st

This is your chance to watch all the commercials from the super bowl and vote on your favorites. Check back after the big game on February 1st.

To find out where to watch the the Superbowl game online, check with NewTeeVee who's got all the links.

YouTube: crisis a boon to online video ads vs TV

The online video advertising market will emerge a winner from the global economic downturn as firms seek cheaper and more precise ways to promote their products, YouTube's co-founder said on Friday, reports Reuters.

Chad Hurley, chief executive of the business which is now owned by Google Inc, said rapid growth in demand for online video meant his website was tapping larger and commercially more valuable audiences.

"The market for online video is reaching critical mass. Some of these audiences are similar in size to what you can reach in television programing," he told a panel at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum.

Your Window to Davos

Over the last few months, thousands of you joined the Davos Debates at youtube.com/davos, and answered four big questions the World Economic Forum posed to the YouTube community:

• Economy: Are you confident that global growth will be restored in 2009?

• Ethics: Should company executives have a code of ethics similar to doctors and lawyers?

• Environment: Will the environment lose out to the economy in 2009?

• Politics: Will the Obama Administration improve the state of the world in 2009?

Today on YouTube's homepage, YouTube is featuring four mash-ups of citizen responses to the questions above, in addition to some of the videos submitted by those in attendance at the Forum.

PTC outraged by 'Nip/Tuck' self-mutilation. Rightly so

The Parents Television Council has (rightly so) objected to an episode of "Nip/Tuck" " (surely they've not objected to just one episode). The scene in question, video here, "depicts a woman using an electric carving knife to cut off her own breast."

Not content with depictions or descriptions of bestiality, incestuous necrophilia, or blood-soaked stabbings, the narcissistic sociopaths behind the production and distribution of Nip/Tuck have chosen to establish yet another low-point in the history of television. Tuesday’s episode portrayed sickening and bloody images of a woman who takes a mastectomy into her own hands in the crowded lobby of a doctor’s office.

... Most Fortune-500 advertisers who have purchased advertising on Nip/Tuck in prior years are no longer doing so, and we believe their rationale is that the program’s content does not reflect well on their corporate brands,” Winter concluded. PTC President Tim Winter said.

[The Live Feed via The Hollywood Reporter]

Obama's first interview as president (Al-Arabiya TV exclusive)

Al-Arabiya TV Washington, DC, bureau chief, Hisham Melhem, gets the first, exclusive interview with president Obama.

Everyone From Don Draper to the Sterling Cooper Copy Machine Has a Voice on Twitter

Mad Men's appeal extends beyond ordinary television viewing. But with Twitter, fans not only share their appreciation but have also created their own personal parallel universe. To learn more about this social-networking phenomena, AMCtv.com spoke with Bud Caddell, an advertising strategist in New York City who runs the Mad Men fansite We Are Sterling Cooper. In the Twitter world, he's known as Bud Melman, the self-anointed Sterling Cooper mailroom clerk.

Read full interview in AMC Blog.

[via TV Tattle]

iSlumDog Millionaire - a sucker app

A new app dedicated to Slumdog Millionaire - nominated for ten Oscars including Best Picture and winner of 4 Golden Globes.

In their own words: iSlumdog Millionaire allows you to listen to Oscar nominated song and Golden Globe award winning sound track (preview), Check out the Production photos and exclusive stills and the 10 Oscar nominations.

And that's it. The opening screen shot is the poster shot for the movie with the sound track blasting and credits. The only thing you can do is click on one of 16 other stills from the movie to change the background of your iPhone screen.

No games, no quizzes. And it cost $ 4.99. Definitely an app that means only to exploit the popularity of the movie.

YouTube Close to Video Deal for Pro Talent

According to The New York Times, YouTube and the William Morris Agency, the Hollywood talent agency, are close to signing a deal that would place the company’s clients in made-for-the-Web productions.

The deal would underscore the ways that distribution models are evolving on the Internet. Already, some actors and other celebrities are creating their own content for the Web, bypassing the often arduous process of developing a program for a television network.

The YouTube deal would give William Morris clients an ownership stake in the videos they create for the Web site.

Lipstick Jungle Rescue Attempt Number… ?

NBC is planning on resurrecting Lipstick Jungle via what has been coined the “Friday Night Lights Treatment” through a deal with DirecTV. NBC has admitted that Lipstick Jungle’s fan base has been impressive enough to make them consider what it will take to keep it up and running, much like last year’s Friday Night Lights sister network deal to save the show.

[via The Inquisitr]

Sexy PETA Super Bowl Ad Banned by NBC

A sexy PETA commercial deemed "too hot for the Super Bowl" is has been banned by NBC, the network airing the game. But you can watch it on YouTube. ... PETA has always subscribed to a "sex sells" philosophy. Who could forget those famous "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" ads? Also on YouTube.

[via Gather.com]

Movie channel to go live on Web before TV debut

A premium movie channel backed by MGM, Paramount Pictures and Lions Gate is expected to debut as an on-demand Web site months before its traditional TV launch. cnet reports.

The new channel called Epix is expected to launch as a subscription-only Web site in May that will stream its content on the Internet--five months before its planned TV launch in October.

he new channel, which is intended to compete with HBO and Showtime, will feature such hits as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Iron Man, and other movies from the studios' libraries. The channel is also expected to produce original programming and present live concert performances, as other premium channels do.

Read full article.

Brits watch a day's worth of TV a week

Britain is a nation of telly addicts, according to a new report by TV marketing body Thinkbox. TechRadar reports.

The report, based on figures taken from research body Barb, says the average TV viewer in the UK clocked up a horrifying 26 hours' worth of TV watching a week over the last year.

... Thinkbox also found that online TV viewing was not cannibalising broadcast TV figures as first expected, with 78 per cent of people using IPTV as a means to catch up on shows missed on traditional broadcast telly.

Tess Alps, Chief Executive of Thinkbox, said: "The broadcast audience may not always be watching the same programme at the same time as it did when there were a handful of channels... but viewers haven't gone anywhere."

Grey's Anatomy prompts penile Google Search

In case you missed Grey's Anatomy last Thursday, Dr. Mark Sloan suffered a rather compromising and cringe-inducing injury to his pelvic region, reports The Telegraph.

To put it bluntly, he endured a penile fracture – and the resultant spotlight thrown onto that particular affliction has prompted a flurry of internet searches on the subject.

The Daily Telegraph reports that as of Friday, "broken penis" and "penile fracture" were two of the three most Googled items. A search on Google Trends revealed that "penile fracture" was the seventh most popular search in the US as of Friday afternoon.

[via The National Post]

Hulu To Launch Ad Campaign During Super Bowl

According to Broadcasting & Cable, Hulu, the NBC universal-News Corp. joint venture, will finally launch an advertising campaign during Sunday’s Super bowl telecast.

The company, headed by former Amazon executive Jason Kilar, hasn't purchased any advertising up until now, instead relying on word of mouth and linkage online.

Something to reflect on, from the dotcom era:

From CNN, February 1999.

CEO Jeff Taylor of Monster.com spent $4 million for three 30-second TV ads that he hoped would make his electronic job-search business a household name. And it did.

... Prior to the Super Bowl, it had been averaging five million visitors per month and 600 job searches per minute.

At 10:30 p.m. or 11 p.m., after the Super Bowl was over, we were doing almost 2,900 job searches per minute," Taylor said. That spike leveled off to 1,500 later in the week, still 400 per minute more than the pre-Super Bowl high.

But others were not so lucky.

From MSNBC, January 2005.

More than a dozen Internet companies spent an average of $2.2 million for 30-second spots, amounting to more than $40 million dollars of stockholder cash and not-so-hard-won venture capital.

... These startups hoped that Super Bowl exposure would sear their web address into the minds of consumers. But most viewers were left with only vague memories of chimpanzees dancing to "La Cucaracha" to promote whatchamacalit.com ... while the businesses themselves were left with empty wallets.

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Melding Obama’s Web to a YouTube Presidency

President Obama is trying to bypass the mainstream news media and take messages straight to the public. The New York Times reports.

The most prominent example of the new strategy is his weekly address to the nation — what under previous presidents was a speech recorded for and released to radio stations on Saturday mornings. Mr. Obama instead records a video, which on Saturday he posted on the White House Web site and on YouTube; in it, he explained what he wanted to accomplish with the $825 billion economic stimulus plan working its way through Congress.

By late Sunday afternoon, it had been viewed more than 600,000 times on YouTube.

President Obama's Weekly Address

In his first weekly address since being sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, President Barack Obama discussed how the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan will jump-start the economy.

Sling.com Lands Viacom Deal for Online TV

Sling Media's Sling.com portal just got a significant boost: the company signed a deal with Viacom so that users can watch shows like Nickelodeon's "SpongeBob Square Pants" and MTV's "The Hills" on the fledgling Hulu competitor, shows that Hulu itself lacks, according to Silicon Alley Insider via AppScout.

TED Conferences iPhone app

TED conference sare now available under a Creative Commons license on iPhones thanks to a dedicated TED app.

You can watch and listen to the latest videos and audio published by TED, search their vast collection of content on your iPhone, bookmark your favorite talks to share with others or enjoy later.

The TED app is this week's App Store Pick of the Week.

The Vudu Movie Catalog app

The Vudu Movie Catalog app allows you to browse and search through Vudu's expansive movie catalog from anywhere an Internet connection is available.

After finding something that suits your mood, rent or purchase the movie using your Vudu account and it will be downloaded to your Vudu box automatically, ready for you to watch it at your leisure.

[via Ubergizmo]

Mrs. O’s Designers Speak

A Today Show segment looks back at Mrs. O’s inaugural wardrobe and interviews designers Isabel Toledo and Jason Wu.

[via Mrs.O]

Trial has TV shows broadcast to mobile phones

A mobile TV trial in Sydney is broadcasting nine channels to participants' mobile phones, including Channel 7, ABC, Fox Sports and MTV, in a service that could be widely available by the end of the year.

Mobile TV broadcasts similar to traditional radio and television signals and can be picked up by a receiver inside a mobile, avoiding the expensive practice of downloading video clips to a handset.

[via Courier Mail]

White House on YouTube Forever?

Checking out the new White House blog, beet.tv saw the YouTube clip of the President Barack Obama's Inauguration speech. But they wonder if all the White House videos will be hosted by YouTube. Sure, YouTube has massive reach and scale but there are issues about YouTube's tracking of cookies and privacy, as Chris Soghoian pointed out on CNET News.com this morning. Also, the content will be hosted on YouTube servers, not government ones.

Sony Pictures updates iPhone app

Sony has released an update of the James Bond 007 appJ launched first in September to promote Quantum Solace.

Now you can have access to all the latest upcoming trailers in HD, access movie info, get showtimes and tickets for the movies. See whats available for film and TV shows released in iTunes, and play the hottest games like Wheel Of Fortune and Jeopardy.

Media Firms Team Up to Test Online-Video Ad Formats

The recession is making for some strange ad fellows, reports the WSJ. Media companies including Microsoft, Yahoo, CBS's CBS Interactive and Hulu.com are joining forces to attract more money to the fledgling online-video advertising marketplace by testing ad formats.

The project, dubbed "the Pool," is the brainchild of Publicis Groupe's Starcom MediaVest, which buys roughly $16 billion in U.S. ad time and space annually for big advertisers like Procter & Gamble.

Starcom MediaVest and sister agency VivaKi say they are trying to create standards in the online-video market, which is popular with consumers but hasn't turned into a serious money maker.

Watch it on YouTube, then Click-to-Buy

Today YouTube is expanding it's eCommerce platform beyond the US and the UK.

Links to songs from the iTunes Store will now appear in Germany, Spain and the Netherlands, so users from those countries who are drawn to a particular song can easily purchase it. And it's not limited to tracks on videos uploaded directly by YouTube partners – partners can add these links to videos uploaded by users by using their Content ID tools to claim videos that match their content.

[via YouTube Blog

Obama speech does a dip on Google

Interesting from All Things Digital via Smart Mobs.

A chart on the Google Blog shows a sharp drop in Google searches during the Obama inaugural speech. The post gives an array of facts about Obama-related searches. It then introduces the chart with the dip at the bottom of the piece with this:

Finally, this demonstrates one other interesting search pattern that we saw: the overall query volume of Google searches dropped in the U.S. from the time President Obama took the oath of office until the end of his inaugural speech, demonstrating that all eyes were on today’s festivities.

SpongeBob Squarepants Tickler cell phone app

SpongeBob Squarepants Tickler is the first app released by MTV Networks.

You can:

-- Tap him to make him talk
-- Tap the screen to blow bubbles
-- Slide your finger on the screen and SpongeBon will follow you with his eyes
-- Play music with his record player and watch him dance
-- Shake your phone and watch him jump
-- Tilt him and see Gary hand onto the side
-- Zoom on SpongeBob to stretch his face.

Barack and Michelle Obama's "First Dance"

Barack and Michelle Obama's "first dance" at the Neighborhood Ball on Inauguration Day - January 20th, 2009. Aired on ABC TV via YouTube.

Bing, Bong, the Bush is Gone. END OF AN ERROR

Clever lines, from boingboing with a link to a video of the "helicopter of happiness" carrying George W. Bush mercifully out of our lives. Filmed by Eddie Codel.