Google starts its ambitious plan to lead the coming video ads market
Many bloggers and web users are putting YouTube clips on their sites without reviewing if the content is copyrighted, and knowing that many of these clips are recorded from television programs without the owner's permission. Now Google and Viacom, one of the biggest creators of television programming, are trying to create a legitimate business model for this trend.
Google, who has an ambitious plan to become a big player in video advertising, has struck a deal to allow Web site owners to put video clips from Viacom, including SpongeBob and MTV's shows.
The clips will be accompanied by advertising; Google, Viacom and the site owners will divide the ad revenue, but Viacom will receive more than two-thirds of the revenue. Most of the other companies that are trying to build video advertising networks, like AOL, Brightcove and Rewer, are paying about half of the revenue to the content creator.
YouTube, the top-rated video site, is testing this revenue model
After the test with Viacom, which will start at the end of this month, Google will allow any video programmer to use its system to distribute programming with advertising. YouTube, which never has done regular payments to site owners, is testing the sale of advertising to accompany its videos.
Concerning ad formats, Google will put traditional television commercials before or after the clip, as well as somewhat less intrusive format like static images that appear on the screen.
The disease of modernity, the continuous partial attention
One of the diseases of our age is what the former Microsoft executive Linda Stone labeled "continuous partial attention". This malady of modernity happens when you are on the Internet or cellphone while also watching TV, typing on your computer (disclosure: as I'm doing now) and answering a questions. That is, you are multitasking your way through the day, continuously devoting only partial attention to each act or personal.
Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times prestigious columnist points out that we have gone from the Iron Age to the Industrial Age to the Information Age to the Age of Interruption. "All we do now is interrupt each other or ourselves with instant messages, e-mail, spam or cellphone rings. Who can think or write or innovate under such conditions? One wonders whether the Age of Interruption will lead to a decline in civilization -as ideas and attention spans shrink and we all get diagnosed with some version of Attention Deficit Disorder."
MTV to launch user-generated TV channel
At the beginning of September MTV Networks will launch in the U.S. and U.K. MTV Flux TV, a channel that will feature user-generated video clips and messages. Consumers will be able to choose which music videos are played on the channel, upload their own clips, send on-screen messages using cellphones and communicate with each other with each other. Now is in beta mode.
MTV Networks is the latest media giant to embrace the social networking craze and the first to adapt it to traditional cable TV programming. MTV hopes to capitalize among teenagers its 25-year-old brand. "MTV is challenging the status quo in TV programming and transferring control directly to its audience," said Angel Gambino, vice president of commercial strategy and digital media for MTV Networks UK.
Watch your video iPod on a bigger portable screen
Unhappy with the tiny image displayed on your video iPod? Memorex will release in September its iFlip device, that connects to any iPod and reproduces small-screen images on an 8-inch monitor, with 480-by-234 pixel screen resolution.
It will cost about $200, and will be available through major electronic stores. It is thought for life on the road, since it has an integrated battery to provide five hours of working, and comes with dual headphone jacks.
Trends in old think versus new-think in the media world
The corporate media world is losing touch with their reality. They need a new way of thinking. Mark Glaser PBS columnist, new media expert, decided to go through trends in old-think versus new-think. "The big companies are more concerned with prosecuting file-traders than helping create easy digital avenues for customers to get what they want when they want it", writes.
Some examples, some scenarios:
Oldthink: Relying on mainstream media TV coverage to follow wars and conflicts.
Newthink: Reading bloggers or citizen journalists who are eyewitnesses to wars, or soldier bloggers who are participants and can share their own stories in words or video. Seeing photos from people with cameraphones at the scene.
Oldthink: Believing the major news organizations will always get big stories right, and not make any mistakes along the way.
Newthink: Following credible bloggers who can unearth Photoshopped photos from a war zone, mistakes in coverage or bias, and faked sources for stories in mainstream media articles.
Oldthink:Thinking professional editors are the only ones who can decide what the important stories are each day.
Newthink:Realizing we have the power to choose what’s important, whether through aggregation services such as Google News or people-powered news sites such as Digg or personalized sites such as My Yahoo.
Oldthink: Forcing people to register in order to read a news site or watch a video service, and then inundate them with targeted advertising.
Newthink: Letting people view a site without registering, and serve up targeted ads based on the interests of that person — a.k.a. behavioral advertising
Oldthink: Video services such as MTV Overdrive that limit the user base by requiring Windows PCs with the Internet Explorer browser.
Newthink: Video services such as YouTube that use technology such as Flash that doesn’t shut out Macs and Firefox web browsers.
Oldthink: Turning on car radios to hear the music or radio shows we enjoy.
Newthink:Getting satellite radio or plugging in portable MP3 players to our car stereos so we can listen to hundreds of commercial-free stations on satellite or thousands of podcasts downloaded from the Internet.
Oldthink:Using focus groups and customer surveys to learn what people want.
Newthink:Employing real-time feedback loops such as online forums, blog comments, and wikis to capture the input of people.
Here is Mark Glaser's brilliant column.
