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Matt's take on interesting news.

Outcome of an Ad Contest Starts an Uproar on YouTube

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/technology/27malibu.html

Some YouTube users cried foul this week when they saw the winning video in a Malibu Caribbean Rum user-generated advertising contest. The contest, which began in early May, solicited videos about Malibu Banana Rum set to the tune of "Banana Boat Song," also known as "Day-O." It offered a prize of $25,000 or, if the winner preferred, a banana grove in a tropical location.

My View: The only words that come to mind is the acronym "lol." It reminds me a lot of the recent story about the man that sued his drycleaner for $54 million over a pair of lost pants. Other than "lol-ing" at the people that are complaining, I don't really have too much to say about this.

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:: Permanent Link :: Posted 6/28/2007 :: 0 Comments :: Links to this post ::

SpeedBit's Incredible Shrinking Download

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/apr2007/gb20070411_663218.htm

Downloading a movie or a TV episode over the Internet and watching it in the comfort of your own home may become the next major consumer trend. But even with a high-speed Net connection, a full-length movie clocking in at 1.5 gigabytes still takes hours to buy and download. Industry analysts concede that this remains the major roadblock preventing online video from catching on as quickly as music did. After all, even compressed movie files are at least 100 times larger than a song. Now an Israeli startup called SpeedBit says it has devised a solution that can dramatically accelerate video downloading over the Net - potentially opening the door to much wider use of the technology.

My View: What a great story. I just commented on Internet video on March 20th with my analysis of Viacom's move to build its video sites. While broadband internet is reaching more and more people, it still takes a long time to download any kind of large video file. If large videos can be downloaded quicker, it will greatly increase the attraction of the online movie market. The movie distribution industry should evolve quite a bit in the next five years.

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:: Permanent Link :: Posted 4/18/2007 :: 0 Comments :: Links to this post ::

Viacom's Full-Court Press for Online Ads

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/19/business/media/19viacom.html

Video advertising, while less than 5 percent of online spending, is the fastest-growing advertising category online, generating $410 million last year, an increase of 82 percent from 2005, according to eMarketer, an online advertising research firm.

My View: As much as some people hate to admit, the Internet has become a huge marketing tool, especially among today's kids (born in the mid to late '90s). While Viacom is going in the right direction with it's creation/purchase of websites directed at this crucial demographic, this is only one step in the right direction. I see pay per episode/season TV show downloads becoming the ultimate standard in TV viewing. We'll see how things turn out within the next 10 years since you will certainly see significant change by then.

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:: Permanent Link :: Posted 3/20/2007 :: 0 Comments :: Links to this post ::

Look at Me, World! Self-Portraits Morph Into Internet Movies

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/18/arts/design/18schn.html

Noah Kalina flew to Switzerland last month to attend the opening of "We're All Photographers Now," an exhibition at the Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne. The show is a survey of trends in digital photography, particularly portraiture, and Mr. Kalina produced its foremost example of how technology is changing the genre. His globally popular video "everyday" is composed of 2,356 daily self-portraits shot from Jan. 11, 2000, to July 31, 2006.

My View: Perhaps I can't truly appreciate these more abstract forms of art but I don't see what is so great about these. I watched "me" and "everyday" on YouTube and was kind of disappointed that I actually spent 7 minutes of my life watching it. But like I said, it is probably because I can't appreciate this kind of art... I mean, I don't want to sound like Richard Benson: "They are people who don't know what they are doing and who celebrate themselves," Mr. Benson said. "I find it completely boring."

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:: Permanent Link :: Posted 3/18/2007 :: 0 Comments :: Links to this post ::

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