JCpenny’s “The Doghouse” viral short film

As a rule I generally have a low opinion of buzz words and corporate market speak.  It’s a vocabulary too often used by the uninformed trying to pose as the overly informed and in the end those fancy words we come up with to describe new trends grow stale and wind up ridiculed by just about everyone in the know.  Well at the risk of ridicule I’m going to break my own rule and become a contributor, nay a revivalist to the buzz word lexicon with “Advertainment.”  Sure it’s not my own invention and you’ll find it floating around on the blogosphere here and there, maybe in a few industry articles etc. but it hasn’t really found a catch yet.  I’m using it now because there really is no better word to describe the growing trend I’ve been seeing from big brands experimenting with long-form-video-entertainment-advertising (see why we need a buzz word?).

(more…)

This is an article I found yesterday which takes a look at the potential effects the economic recession may have on broadband video.  It is definitely something worth checking out, it has some interesting ideas as to why broadband video will survive in tough economic times despite some labeling the media format as ‘experimental’.  The part I found fascinating, yet not suprising is that the fundamentals of broadband video have been laid down and in tough times, people would rather stop paying for cable TV over broadband internet.  High hopes for our industry in 09′!

-Reid

I just saw a piece in the New York Times about YouTube’s new approach to the problem of user-uploaded commercial content. Previously, copyright holders could use the site’s Video ID feature to scan for infringing content, and could then at their discretion issue DMCA takedown requests.

(more…)

Sometimes it’s better to avoid MTV. Promoting their new unpronounceable album “Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust”, Sigur Rós’ video for Gobbledigook (NSFW… why do I find myself typing that so often?) isn’t the kind of thing the FCC smiles upon. I don’t think most people would find it offensive - far more disturbing things routinely make it onto afternoon television - but naked Scandanavians frolicking in a forest are more of an online-only thing. And while the Internet isn’t free from content censorship either (you won’t find this on YouTube), this is a nice way to take advantage of online freedom. It’s the kind of thing that otherwise would only find distribution on DVD or in a gallery, but can reach a much wider audience this way (and better serve its purpose as a promotional film).

-Nick

via TechCrunch: Veoh is now displaying ads using a behavioral targeting algorithm based on its related-video recommendation engine. This is already being done with traditional banner content on other sites but is new for video portals. Right now it still only tracks user interaction on its own site, but as the article points out, ad relevance could be increased through data sharing partnerships (if the privacy details can be worked out).

-Nick

I wrote earlier this week about EMI’s legal attack on Hi5, and the advertising value its subsidiary Virgin Records got from the Daft Hands meme (which was exactly the kind of material EMI objected to Hi5 serving).

I’ve been listening to the new album from mashup artist Girl Talk (Gregg Gillis) a lot over the past couple of days and it brings up some issues in the same vein.

2006’s “Night Ripper” (torrent | complete list of samples) launched him into Pitchfork shininess, and the critical acclaim is well deserved. To give you an idea, here’s “Hold Up”, in which the samples range from Ludacris and 50 Cent to Weezer and the Pixies (NSFW):

(more…)

Last week EMI filed a lawsuit against the social network hi5 for allowing its users to upload videos with unlicensed music on their audio tracks. EMI alleges that hi5

“allowed infringement to go unchecked, content to profit handsomely from advertisements that appear side-by-side with infringing content, and from the draw created by their dissemination of [EMI's] copyrighted works.” (from the lawsuit)

OK. It’s understandable that EMI wants some control over how its content is used, who profits from it, and how much they pay for the right to do so. But this music-industry-has-hopelessly-oldschool-economic-model thing is becoming a tiresome truism. EMI is not going to be able to make money from teenagers using EMI songs in their homemade videos. EMI wishes it could. But that doesn’t mean the solution to the situation is to try to stop teenagers from using EMI songs in their homemade videos.

(more…)

Over the years, Apple has built a juggernaut of a brand that positions its products at the center of everyday consumers’ digital lives. It all began with an explosion of translucent candy plastic in 1998 with the release of the first iMac. iMovie showed up the next year, followed by iTunes and the iPod in 2001. The iTrain hasn’t stopped since, with most consumer-aimed offerings from Jobs’ cool-factory bearing the prefixed i.

Starting any word you please with a particular lowercase letter is not a registerable trademark. And so came the imitators, seeking to capitalize on the indefatigable momentum of the 21st century’s alphabetical dernier cri. They’re everywhere. An in-classroom digital response system from MacMillan called the iClicker. An interactive shop-window touchscreen foil technology called iWindow. Even our own wine show produced in partnership with the iYellow Wine Club.

(more…)