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YouTube

online video

YouTube goes live after all

On November 22nd, YouTube will host a two-hour event in San Francisco, "a celebration of the site's vast user communities." Looks like we can expect performances from Akon, Soulja Boy, will.i.am and a bunch of online video-powered Weblebrities. And it will be broadcast live over the Internet. So, it turns out that Steve Chen was right after all — YouTube will have introduced live streaming video by the end of the year. More »

online video

YouTube adds ad format Google derided

So-called "postroll" ads — commercial clips which play automatically at the end of a video — are coming to YouTube, NewTeeVee reports. It's an embarrassment for Google CEO Eric Schmidt, who had insisted users hate postroll ads and predicted YouTube would find a new, more effective ad format. The postrolls, while they may make ads on YouTube more desirable, don't solve YouTube's real problem: The vast majority of its videos aren't suitable for carrying ads, because of their content or uncertain copyright status. As a result, YouTube has a far smaller share of online-video revenue than it does of online-video traffic.

self-promotion

Googling "I Google Myself"

Funny because it's true: Web-video comedienne Kara Luiz's "I Google Myself" aptly charts the YouTube's generation self-obsession. The best part: A blog post about the video is already the No. 2 Google result for Luiz's name.

great moments in pr

YouTube PR's own financial crises

YouTube announced a new channel called "Your Money" yesterday, describing it as place to "learn more about borrowing, investing, and saving, along with Financial News and Analysis." YouTube said the channel would feature content from Bloomberg, Reuters, Wall Street Journal. But now YouTube Your Money is gone. So is the blog post announcing its arrival. A Twitter message from YouTube PR, a Google search result and a logo screen-captured by Epicenter remain and are copied below. I have two theories on why this happened. More »

youtube

Commercials your new punishment for not clicking on ads

YouTube will now run a post-roll commercial after you watch a clip if you don't click on the overlay advertisement that pops-up on partner videos. It's the kind of exciting, innovative thinking from re-hire Ben Ling, who was brought back into the Google mothership to figure out how to turn YouTube's revenue deficit frown upside down. It's also the kind of thinking that YouTube once attempted to scientifically prove users didn't like, but not the kind of thinking that Eric Schmidt has been telling anyone who will listen. The news also comes on the heels of YouTube's release of "hot spot" tracking — so you can better craft your narrative to make sure people stick around long enough for the commercial to play. (Image via NewTeeVee)


distractions

Wii ad's HTML tricks more fun than the new Facebook

Stupid yet clever enough for Monday-afternoon viewing is this Nintendo Wii ad on YouTube that shakes apart the whole page during gameplay. Drill into it and you'll find it's not a standard YouTube video page, but an oversized Flash animation. Well done! But if the Wall Street Journal's Ahead of the Tape page does this tomorrow, I'm unsubscribing.

online advertising

Pity the poor 13-year who clicked on this "Let's Get Naked" video

In character, the used-car dealer is a close cousin to the Web spammer, so he appreciates the advantages of misleadingly labeling a car ad as porn in order to drive up views, which is what Massachusetts-based Clay Corp. did with a YouTube video titled "Let's Get Naked." Expect much, much more of this to come: There are 20,800 car dealerships in the U.S., and one in four use Web videos to market themselves, reports Ad Age. In 2006, General Motors stopped marketing its used cars anywhere but online. GM marketer Larry Pryg says car dealers made the move because Web video is often free to distribute and even cheaper to make than your average BUY! BUY! BUY! NOW! NOW! NOW! local car-dealer commercial. Clay Corp's deceptive video: More »

copyfight

Sarah Palin swimsuit video inevitably returns to YouTube

Everyone knows that Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, was once Sarah Heath, beauty pageant contestant, right? Someone in Alaska claims that a clip posted to YouTube is a legitimate video of the vice presidential candidate's appearance in the 1984 Miss Alaska show. (She was runner-up.) Versions of the same clip have been posted on YouTube, only to get yanked down in a game of whack-a-mole. How long did you think it took the McCain campaign to find a pageant organizer who can file a copyright claim to get the video taken offline? Paul Boutin says they should keep it on the site: "This video is of vital importance to national security — why else would all our media-hipster friends in New York be reloading it over and over again?"

online advertising

Interactive agency's favorite new model: free

Here's a new problem for the people running popular online properties like YouTube and Facebook to complain about: Ad agencies love using those sites to market their clients, but advertisers are beginning to realize they don't have to spend a dime to do so.Even when they do, the platform companies aren't the ones who see the profits. Lonelygirl15's creators, for example, make most of their money selling product placements in their videos. YouTube doesn't get any cut of that revenue. A top exec for a major interactive agency told me yesterday: "I keep telling my guys I"m going to do a contest next year to see who can come up with a media plan that costs $0, outside of our fees, of course." It shouldn't be too hard. Marketers create free Facebook pages for all kinds of brands. It's just as free to upload a YouTube video. And if an agency uploads one as clever as the above American Express ad, and its sequel, below, the agency won't need to pay anybody to promote it. More »