by Joshua Cohen on June 20th, 2011
The last CollegeHumor prank war was an epic, escalating battle of sado-one-upmanship between Amir Blumenfeld and Streeter Seidell involving, but not limited to, a $500,000 half court basketball shot, a non-working parachute, and a nonexistent television cameo.
One of the best CollegeHumor original web series is a talk show comprised of improved conversations between an irreverent Michael Showalter and a rotating cast of well-known comedians.
The above programs are very good and display CollegeHumor’s prowess with things both prank and talk. That’s probably why the humor website decided to combine the two entertainment genres for one of its latest online originals.
Midnight Talk Show Prank was conceived by a slightly masochistic Dan Gurewitch. He gave a two-week window and copy of his house keys to fellow CollegeHumorer Josh Ruben with instructions to sneak into his apartment way after bedtime and wake him up to host an impromptu, short-form talk show dubbed The Late Late Late Show. And that’s basically what happens in the series.
by Joshua Cohen on June 18th, 2011
According to the recently acquired online database of internet culture Know Your Meme, Nyan Cat (aka Pop Tar Cat) is an “8-bit animation depicting a cat with the body of a cherry pop tart flying through outer space.”
On April 5, 2011, YouTuber saraj00n took an animated version of the cat flying through a starry background leaving rainbows in its wake and set it to the song Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya (which kinda sounds like the Meow Mix theme song on amphetamines).
Obviously, the video’s currently up to 17 million views. Give it a look:
I don’t get it either! But did you notice something particularly interesting about the clip above? Check out the progress bar. It’s a Nyan Cat leaving a rainbow in its wake! Pretty cool, right?
YouTube reps tell me the the custom progress bar is the latest in a series of shenanigans by the fast-moving and fun-loving engineering team at the world’s largest video sharing site. Previous quirky features meant for the explicit enjoyment of YouTube users include the Vuvuzela button, the playback option for comments, and The Onion’s “Actually Good” tab.
by Joshua Cohen on June 17th, 2011
There are 508 days until the next Presidential Election on November 6, 2012. So, that means it’s about the right time to queue the myriad politically-oriented web shows discussing the idiosyncrasies of the US government, its 307 million or so constituents, and those that want to be the leader of both.
The first such program I’ve seen from a major media company comes from CBSNews.com and the broadcast network’s online channel’s Senior Politial Reporter Brian Montopoli. It’s called The Drive for the Nomination and begins with the kind of football-friendly animation that you’d expect from an Onion parody and continues with the sports theme into a whiteboard sectioned off with yard lines and speckled with heads of GOP contenders. But that’s about where any hint of entertainment value begins and ends. The rest of the installments are filled with straight up political talk that’s delivered with a style somewhere in between the Boom Goes the Dynamite Guy and Brian Williams.
by Joshua Cohen on June 17th, 2011
You watched one video ad on Hulu every five minutes and 27 seconds in October 2010 according to comScore’s U.S. Online Video Rankings. By December 2010, the frequency of video ads served on Hulu increased to one every four minutes and 37 seconds. If Hulu kept up with that same rate of increase in its video ad delivery, we’d now be watching an ad on Hulu every two minutes. But we’re not.
Hulu seems to have comfortably settled into delivering one online video ad a few tenths of a second shy of every four minutes and 35 seconds. The internet’s top destination for streaming premium quality content delivered an average of 215.5 minutes of video and 47.1 video ads for every viewer in March 2011. That equals one video ad delivered every four minutes and 34.52 seconds of content. The April numbers average out to one video ad every four minutes and 34.53 seconds. The latest figures from May are a touch higher at one video ad every four minutes and 34.67 seconds.
Given the fact that Hulu’s the biggest in the video ad delivery business (the company delivered over 1.26 billion video ads last month, eclipsing the number of any other U.S. online video property), I think it’s easy to argue they put a lot of time into thinking about things like how often they should deliver video ads. The company has settled on a sweet spot in terms of frequency of video ad delivery against long-form content that balances the scales of revenue generation and user experience. And that sweet spot is four minutes and 35 seconds.
by Joshua Cohen on June 17th, 2011
Rebecca Black – the 13-year-old online sensation whose bubble-gum-pop-meets-Blues-Clues spring jam Friday captivated YouTube, Funny or Die, and the internets at large – is learning legal battles are not fun, fun, fun, fun!
Black escalated her custody battle over the rights to Friday with the LA-based vanity record label ARK Music Factory by requesting YouTube take down her hit single. It’s the latest major move in a months-long complicated legal struggle over the song. Eriq Gardner at The Hollywood Reporter wrote an excellent breakdown that basically boils down to this:
Rebecca Black and her mom went to ARK Music and paid the studio some nominal fee to use their recording facilities and production capabilities to create a music video. Black allegedly never received her master recordings of the track and ARK allegedly never received the right to exploit the song in all the forms its currently doing so (via YouTube, ringtones, paid downloads, etc.). All this wouldn’t normally be an issue, but of course Ryan Seacrest took Black under his wing, the song went gangbusters, Black now appears in the music videos of big name pop stars, and everyone wants a piece of Friday.
by Joshua Cohen on June 16th, 2011
The Daily is an iPad-only news publication brought to you by Rupert Murdoch’s global media conglomerate News Corporation (which, from a business perspective, may or may not be doing very well). Soo Youn is a report at The Daily who wrote a story earlier today about an “insider” who “tattled” and said Dave Chappelle is coming back to the world of show business via the web.
Youn wrote that six years after Chappelle walked away from a $50 million deal with Comedy Central to continue his eponymous Show, he’s planning another one. The comedian is back on tour reportedly perfecting his act for a program to be distributed by a Netflix (because the company recently inked a deal for David Fincher and Kevin Spacey’s series House of Cards) or a Crackle (because the company picked up the star-studded original web series Backwash).
The news got people very excited! So, is the guy who created the most popular catch phrase of Spring Break 2004 (the Lil Jon “What?!” for all those not paying attention) really going to create and star in a web TV skein? Probably not!
Chapelle’s publicist Carla Simms is telling reporters the story has no legs and whoever tattled to The Daily now needs to change his or her pants because they’re on fire. There’s still a chance a show could happen, of course. Maybe Chappelle will be encouraged by all the press or maybe the dude who once ran away from a huge payday for a respite in Africa just changed his mind and will change it back.
by Joshua Cohen on June 16th, 2011
Speaking of nerd culture, Jeff Koenig and the crew at OMF Geek recently put the call out for contestants for their “upcoming reality game show” Geek Vs. Geek.
The program poses the question, “Are you geek enough?” and then seeks out answers through a series of head to head competitions hosted by Anyone But Me’s Rachael Hip-Flores and shot by The Hayley Project’s Andy Park. Participants debate age-old topics like Han Solo or Indiana Jones, Metachlorine counts versus angels incarnate, and Frodo or Willow. Judging from the trailer, it looks a player vs. player version of Beat the Geeks for the online generation.
Geek vs. Geek is slated to start shooting in November, but not before announcing its final eight contestants during New York Comic Con on October 16.
If you think you’ve lived in your parent’s basement long enough, been ridiculed in school for a sufficient amount of time, and are lacking enough in social skills (three cheers for stereotypical nerd jokes!) to provide some fierce competition to your geeky peers, then be sure to complete the application process. Also be sure to be over the age of 18 and available for filming in New York City later this Fall.
by Joshua Cohen on June 16th, 2011
Zachary Levi is a huge nerd. The star of NBC’s Chuck started a website in 2010 with David Coleman to show how much he admires and embraces things Picard, Jedi, Tolkein, and all else the comic book guy from The Simpsons would hold near and dear. That website is called The Nerd Machine. Levi describes its purpose as follows:
My hope is that this site will become a hub for all things nerd. From gadgets and gizmos aplenty, to whozits and whatzits galore. Entertainment, news, hardware, software, and just all around kickassery….So, let’s start assembling the machine, rallying the troops, and marching toward our ultimate goal of proving once and for all that the geek shall inherit the earth.
To help Levi accomplish his Nerdolution (though maybe it’s already been done?), he’s teamed up with Break.com for an original web show culminating in a series of events at the 2011 San Diego Comic-Con.
Levi and as of yet unnamed “celebrity friends” will create a handful of original videos which Break will release straight from the Nerd HQ, “a home base at Comic-Con for fans and famous faces in nerd culture.” To promote those videos, Break will produce and distribute a trio of “nerd-themed public service videos,” promoted and distributed on Break Media properties Game Front and Screen Junkies, as well as a custom Nerd HQ channel on Break proper.
