Qaddafi YouTube Spoof by Israeli Gets Arab Fans

A YouTube clip mocking Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s megalomania is fast becoming a popular token of the Libya uprising across the Middle East. The New York Times reports.

By the early hours of Wednesday morning, Noy Alooshe, an Israeli journalist, had uploaded the electro hip-hop remix to YouTube, and he began promoting it on Twitter and Facebook, sending the link to the pages of young Arab revolutionaries. By Sunday night, the original clip had received nearly 500,000 hits and had gone viral (at the time of this post, 803,354 hits).

Read full article.

Music labels making millions from YouTube, says Google

YouTube has revealed that its music partners, which range from Sony, Warner, Universal and EMI to independents and individual artists, have doubled and in some cases trebled their monthly revenues over this time last year. [via The New Zealand Herald]

Patrick Walker, senior director of content partnerships for YouTube in Europe, Middle East and Africa, said that after a slow start, the labels saw the site as an important revenue stream. "A few years ago the cheques were pretty small," he said.

"We laugh about that now." There are currently 3 billion "monetised" video hits a week, 50 per cent higher than in May.

Read full article.

Stanford researchers demonstrate NFC TV applications

[via Near Field Communications World]

Researchers from Stanford University's MobiSocial lab, who last month demonstrated the first Android NFC peer-to-peer applications, have now developed a number of applications which show how NFC could be used to interact with TVs.

Watch video.

‘American Idol’ Enabling Facebook Voting

According to Entertainment Weekly, “American Idol,” will make allow fans to vote via Facebook for the best performers starting March 1.

Users will be able to use their Facebook accounts to reach a dedicated Idol voting page that will include all the current contestants. Each fan will be able to vote 50 times during a telecast’s voting period. Viewers will still be able to vote via text messaging and toll-free phone calls as well.

via [All Facebook]

TV watching trend taps Twitter, Facebook and apps

A growing trend among TV watchers are plugged in to the Web at the same time. USA Today reports.

A Nielsen and Yahoo! joint study found that 86% of mobile Internet users use a mobile device while watching TV — social-networking, texting, browsing for related or unrelated content.

"The most accessible device while you watch TV is actually not the remote. It's probably your iPhone," said Somrat Niyogi, the chief executive of Miso, one app for TV watchers.

Read full article. Nielsen study: The Global Online Landscape (pdf)

Amazon Streaming Movie Service Now Available for Prime Subscribers

How much would you pay annually for "free" streaming of over 5,000 movies and TV shows? $79? If that sounds like a fair price to you for all-you-can-eat viewing, Amazon Prime's streaming service can be used from today.

[via Gizmodo]

Videos of Self-Injury Find an Audience

YouTube videos are spreading word of a self-destructive behavior already disturbingly common among many teenagers and young adults — ‘cutting’ and other forms of self-injury that stop short of suicide, according to a new study, reports The New York Times.

As many as one in five young men and women are believed to have engaged at least once in what psychologists call nonsuicidal self-injury. Now the behavior is being depicted in hundreds of YouTube clips — most of which don’t carry any warnings about the content — that show explicit videos and photographs of people injuring themselves, usually by cutting.

They also depict burning, hitting and biting oneself, picking at one’s skin, disturbing wounds and embedding objects under the skin. Most of the injuries are inflicted on the wrists and arms and, less commonly, on the legs, torso or other parts of the body.

Some of the videos weave text, music and photography together, which may glamorize self-harming behaviors even more, the paper’s authors warn.

Read full article.

TV Industry Taps Social Media to Keep Viewers’ Attention

By the time the first ballot is opened at the Academy Awards next Sunday, millions of people will be chatting about the awards show on the Internet. And ABC will be ready, writes The New York Times.

Trying to exploit viewers’ two-screen behavior, the television network has built a companion Web site with behind-the-scenes video streams, so Oscar winners will be seen accepting an award on the TV set, then seen celebrating backstage on the stream.

Experiments like this one are a sudden priority in television land. As more and more people chat in real time about their favorite shows — on Facebook, Twitter and a phalanx of smaller sites — television networks are trying to figure out how to capitalize.

Read full article.

'Hurt Locker' lawyers launch nationwide copyright fight

After several setbacks, Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver, the law firm that last year filed copyright suits against thousands of accused illegal file sharers on behalf of independent filmmakers, has made good on promises to push on with the cases. News.com reports.

Dunlap has begun to refile lawsuits across the country against people accused last year of pirating movies via peer-to-peer networks. To do that, Dunlap established a network of lawyers who are licensed to operate in different federal districts.

Dunlap, which also works under the name U.S. Copyright Group, made headlines last year by suing thousands in a federal court in Washington, D.C., on behalf of the makers of such films as "Far Cry" and "The Hurt Locker," last year's Oscar winner for Best Picture.

The Washington court, however, appeared hostile to Dunlap's strategy of filing against thousands of people from outside that jurisdiction. That's when Dunlap changed strategy.

Read full article.

Previously:

-- Judge denies 'Hurt Locker' subpoenas

-- Here come the "Hurt Locker" file sharing subpoenas

-- Is your IP address on the "Hurt Locker" hit list?

-- "Hurt Locker" file sharers ordered to pay $1,500

-- Hurt Locker downloaders, you've been sued

-- TorrentFreak on Hurt Locker's upcoming massive lawsuit against pirates

-- Hurt Locker Producers Take Up Arms Against Pirates

Google Ready To Spend $100 Million To Get Celebrities Building YouTube

According to New York Magazine via The San Francisco Chronicle, Google is talking to Hollywood agents about building YouTube channels filled with original video content centered on celebrity personalities.

To get the celebs on board, Google is offering up $5 million per channel. The money would cover salaries, and production costs. The celebs would get ownership of the shows.

Google would make the money back through premium advertising.

Read full article.

IntoNow app identifies TV choices by sound

Early iPhone app Shazam was unmistakably cool. Hold a phone up while a song was playing in the background and Shazam could name that tune.

Now, according to USA Today, there's a clever and free iPhone app called IntoNow that works similar magic with television.

Tap a green button, and four to 12 seconds later IntoNow can figure out from the audio what you're watching. IntoNow can tell whether the show is live. It serves up a brief descriptor of the episode.

Read more.

Richard Hammond launches internet-only TV series

Richard Hammond, the Top Gear presenter, is making his online debut with a new internet-only series which will take an irreverent look at technology.

Richard Hammond's Tech Head will air every Monday on a dedicated YouTube channel, beginning today with a look at a bewilderingly sophisticated coffee maker.

[via The Telegraph]

Showtime’s “SHORT stories” recruits YouTube finest to make short films

For “SHORT stories,” Showtime contacted cutting-edge creators from across the Web and asked them to tell a tale in an innovative way. The series sports the work of some of YouTube’s top creators.

[via YouTube Blog]

Science's soap opera seen in 'The Lab'

An interactive online movie, The Lab: Avoiding Research Misconduct, has just been released by the federal Office of Research Integrity, the science misconduct investigating arm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.USA Today reports.

The ORI produced the film to help the nation's science and medical researchers avoid the kind of bad decisions that lead to misconduct allegations.

In the online movie, you become these characters and others, and face some tough choices along the way.

Make the wrong choices and your lab is disbanded, your university tarnished and your dream destroyed. Just like in a real-life lab.

... The two-year effort was filmed at night in labs at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the actors carefully studied the real dress (no white lab coats) and lives of real researchers to make their dilemmas real.

Read more.

Filesharing prosecutions will face serious problems, says judge

A senior court judge has pointed to severe problems with the way the Digital Economy Act enables copyright owners to prosecute people accused of illegal filesharing. The Guardian reports.

Judge Birss QC said on Tuesday that the process of connecting copyright infringement to a named individual based on their use of an internet address is fraught with difficulties because internet connections, or IP addresses, are often used by more than one person.

In a ruling in the Patents county court, Birss asked: "Does the process of identifying an IP address in this way establish that any infringement of copyright has taken place by anyone related to that IP address at all?"

He said that the assertion did not hold up: "Even if it is proof of infringement by somebody, merely identifying that an IP address has been involved with infringement [does not make it] clear to me that the person identified must be infringing one way or another. The fact that someone may have infringed does not mean the particular named defendant has done so."

The use of "unsecured" internet connections which allow others to "piggyback" on their network leads to more complications, Birss said, adding that these issues are "key" in proving copyright infringement before a court of law.

Read full article.

The World According to the Winkelvi

Spotted on Bits, the Winkelvoss twins interviewed by The Daily.

Their claim to Facebook is so unfounded. «Mark Zuckerberg should grow up». Really Winkelvii? Wake up and move on!

Oscars Launches Live Streaming to Attract Younger Viewers

The Hollywood mystique has been built on glamor and exclusivity. But this year's Oscars -- with an assist from Pixar chief John Lasseter -- will be all about accessibility. AdAge reports.

The goal is to make the Academy Awards more inviting for younger audiences. The ABC broadcast is the second most-watched TV event after the Super Bowl and drew an impressive 41.2 million viewers last year -- a five-year high.

But although the event remains pricey, at $1.7 million a spot, the broadcast's median age in 2009 was 49.5. Last year's ratings among 18- to 34-year-olds actually decreased 3% despite the increase in total viewers.

Read full article.

New Video-Sharing iPhone App Supports 30-Minute Clips

Mashable, reviews Thwapr, an iPhone application Monday that helps users upload and share videos up to 30 minutes in length.

Thwapr for iPhone enables users to easily capture and share videos and photos with friends on any mobile phone, or via Twitter and Facebook. Recipients can then view and add comments, or share their own video and photo responses via mobile browser, web or the app.

Videos shared via the app are geo tagged, and iPhone 4 owners can capture and edit video in portrait and landscape mode using the front or back camera.

Read full review.

Film Fans Say: Don’t Make Me Steal

We’d pay for content if we would get it our way: That’s the gist of the Digital Media Consumption Manifesto that was collectively written by audience members of this week’s Lift conference in Switzerland.

Supporters of the manifesto promise to never illegally download any movie again, if the film industry offers them a legal alternative that is meeting their demands.

[via GigaOM]

Super Bowl Ads Live On at YouTube and Facebook

YouTube and Facebook will be streaming Super Bowl ads online after they air on TV, with contests in which people can vote for their favorites.

And interesting, this year, for the first time also, YouTube will offer remarketing. That means that if you watch an ad on YouTube, it might follow you and appear again on another Web site you visit in Google’s display ad network.

[via Bits. Above, still from Coca-Cola commercial.]

Firm stops pursuing net pirates

MediaCAT, a firm which has sent thousands of letters to alleged illegal file-sharers in the UK, has ceased trading, according to its law firm.

[via the BBC]

Previously: - Law Firm ACS: Law Stops Chasing Illegale File Sharers

Kiefer Sutherland to star in Web series 'The Confession'

According to The Washington Post, Kiefer Sutherland, star of Fox's long-running drama "24," will be starring in and executive-produce a 10-part, scripted, online-only series.

"The Confession," a drama about a hit man spilling his secrets to a priest, will also star John Hurt. Premiering sometime in March, it will be available on Hulu.com, Digital Broadcasting Group's online platforms and on gaming systems.

[Read full article in The Washington Post]

Report: Study finds iAds twice as effective as TV ads

According to a study, obtained by Advertising Age but not publicly released, Nielsen claims that people exposed to iAds in the study were twice as likely to remember the ad than people who watched a television ad. In addition, five times as many people reportedly remembered the Campbell's brand from the iAd.

In what is surely an important factor for advertisers, the rate that iAd viewers reported intent to purchase the advertised products was four times that of television viewers.

Apple launched iAds in April 2010 to provide a more interactive look and feel to mobile advertising.

Read full article.

Court Advised to Permit Viewers Access to Pay-TV From Any Broadcaster

In a move that could tear down national borders in the European television business, an adviser to the top European Union court said Thursday that viewers should have the right to buy pay-TV broadcasts from any provider within the 27-nation bloc.

[via The New York Times]

MTV UK Tries Charging For Online Catch-Up TV

MTV has launched a dedicated UK VOD portal, MTV OD, costing £1 ($1.61) a day or £2 ($3.24) a week. PaidContent reports.

Twenty-six shows include em>Jackass, Jersey Shore and The City. Payment is via SMS and, soon PayPal and debit card.

In the U.S., viewers can catch up with full MTV episodes on MTV.com for free.

Read full article.

Google using YouTube to highlight Egyptian protest footage

YouTube has been highlighting Egyptian protest footage for days, but Google has now outlined the ways it is making sure the world knows what's going on in the unstable country. TechSpot reports.

In addition to developing a "speak-to-tweet" service that lets anyone send messages over Twitter without an Internet connection, the search giant is helping those in Egypt fight the good fight in three ways:

-- Highlighting the latest footage on CitizenTube, the company's news and politics channel, and inviting people to submit video they've come across.

-- Pointing our users directly to these videos through banners at the top of YouTube pages, and through links alongside YouTube videos.

-- Streaming live coverage of Al Jazeera's broadcasts about the unfolding events, on both their Arabic and English YouTube channels.

Read full article.