Tubefilter News

Some exciting updates! “Sheriff of YouTube” TheWillof DC will be joining us at the Tubefilter Meetup on Monday.

It’s time to get dirty.

Join us as we explore the seedy underworld of “cheating”—a controversial practice among online video producers. What is cheating? Is it really wrong? Where do you draw the line?

We’ll be surveying the most ingenious techniques in use and decide whether they qualify as “cheating” or not. By discussing and defining “cheating” we can more successfully identify the industry’s best practices in online video distribution. It is our top priority to ensure Tubefilter continues to be a platform for constructive dialogue and a safe environment for opposing views of both attendees and panelists.

From category jacking and bait-and-switches, to alliances and straight-up bribery, we’re going to get down and dirty with some of the worst (or best) offenders.

You won’t want to miss this.

Panelists:

Benny and Rafi Fine, TheFineBros
These YouTube veterans, whose channel is ranked #36 Most Subscribed Channel of All Time and #12 Most Subscribed Comedians of All Time, boast an encyclopedic knowledge of the wide-open opportunities on Facebook, Twitter, and even YouTube itself that video producers exploit to pump up views and subscribers.

William Hyde, TheWillofDC
A dedicated YouTube Partner since 2009, Will is an expert in creative video marketing and has earned the title “Sheriff of YouTube” among fans. His weekly news shows YouTube News and YouTube Winners and Losers feature the latest on the YouTube Community with a focus on the top 100 YouTube Channels of All Time.

Moderator: Drew Baldwin, Tubefilter
Drew is the Co-Founder of Tubefilter and Executive Producer of the Streamy Awards.

This year we’ve been exploring how YouTube and its partner program have opened a clear path to online video monetization.

As we’ve learned from our contentious Beyond YouTube event, advertising revenue share on YouTube is just the tip of the iceberg: producers are maximizing their online video business with their own websites, platforms like Blip.tv, smartphone apps, merchandising, licensing, and more.

Being a successful online video producer is about being both a creator and a marketer. And in our Social Video on Steroids, the experts shared how to engage and drive audiences using best practices in social media marketing and promotion.

When you watch a new original web series (or an Australian TV-show-turned-web-series), it’s usually easy to describe it as “this show meets this show.” But good luck finding a simple way to describe Danger 5. Created by the same guys behind Italian Spiderman, Dinosaur Worldwide’s Danger 5 is a five-part action comedy series about 1960′s inspired spies [...]

Clevver Media scored three YouTube Original Channels—the most number of channels awarded to any single producer—and like fellow trifecta recipient Maker Studios, one of the channels is also in Spanish.

Last month YouTube announced a slate of nearly 100 Original Channels as part of its $100 million premium content initiative. Only six other producers were given three channels: Bedrocket Media, BermanBraun,Demand Media, Electus, IconicTV, and Maker Studios.

Clevver repeatedly enjoys status as one of the Top 10 YouTube Patner Channels according to comScore, and generates over 60 million views a month across its current YouTube channels, which include ClevverTV, ClevverMovies, ClevverMusic and ClevverGames.

“We are taking advantage of the YouTube initiative to broaden our audience reach with channels targeting new demographics for Clevver Media,” said Michael Palmer, Clevver Media’s Co-Founder. Indeed, the first of Clevver’s three new channels is ClevverTeVe, which brings the leading Hollywood headlines to a Latino audience completely in Spanish. Latino celebrity entertainer Gwendy Rodriguez hosts.

“The YouTube original channels initiative will also enable us to expand our international reach,” Co-Founder Jorge Maldonado added. “Our new ClevverTeVe channel is designed to tap into the rapidly growing Latino market, hungry for high quality and up-to-date entertainment news content.”

The ClevverTeVe channel launched November 11 with three original programs:

Teve Hollywood – An up-to-the minute daily entertainment news show covering the latest headlines from Hollywood.
Radar Latino – A daily news show covering today’s hottest Latin celebrities and entertainment headlines.
Teve Moda – Twice a week, the show will feature the latest celebrity fashion coverage hot from the red carpet at major events and premieres
Clevver’s other new channels slated to launch this winter:

ClevverNews will deliver daily, up-to-the-minute entertainment news featuring the hottest celebrity interviews, pop-culture and Hollywood headlines with a positive, upbeat angle for fans who have graduated from teen focused ClevverTV.
ClevverStyle provides a positive and upbeat destination for today’s modern woman. The channel will offer the best fashion and beauty advice from savvy hosts, famous style experts and celebrity guests.

Watch out Dooce. Move over Soleil Moon Frye. Make way Daphne Brogdon. There’s a new mom in the wide world of video blogging, and she has one helluva disposable income, a famous family (or infamous family, depending on whether or not you like reality TV and basic social units that made it into American pop culture by way of a sibling’s sex tape), the backing of a cable television network, and a pretty great fashion sense.

Kourtney Kardashian is the latest mother to get in front of a camera and talk about her adventures in parenting. Of course, those adventures in parenting don’t touch on hot button child-rearing issues or other concerns that may be more familiar to the 99%, but so far focus on multi-colored baby moccasins and the importance of layering for the sake of fashion while living in New York City.

And actually, I think that’s okay. It’d be easy to critique this show with a lot of snark, but not every program (parenting or otherwise) always needs to be about something with some gravitas. Kourtney’s Mommy Blog is the reality TV version of Momversation or (insert your favorite mom-oriented online video program here). It’s superficial, pretty to look at, and unoffensive and appealing to the lowest common denominator. Sometimes, we want to be entertained and educated. Other times, we want to chillax and see a closet full of adorably small Ralph Lauren jackets and size two golden sneakers. (Of course, there’s an argument about how showcasing this kind of unattainable – for most Americans – level of consumerism is bad for the world at large, but let’s save that argument for a different article.)

Republican presidential candidate (and sometimes frontrunner of the GOP Horse Race) Herman Cain released a video on his YouTube channel on Sunday that attempts to lend some context and clarity to his seemingly impossibly simple solution for the perennial woes of the American tax system.

Cain’s 9-9-9 Plan for Economic Renewal proposes a 9% business flat tax, 9% individual flat tax, and 9% national sales tax and purports the aforementioned reforms will “expand GDP by $2 trillion, create 6 million new jobs, increase business investment by one third, and increase wages by 10%.”

Cain’s video explains all of the above and more by way of informal animation with lots of numbers, nondescript human beings, primary colors, a friendly voice over, and five minutes and fifty seconds of exposition on the fundamentals of taxation in the United States. Take a look:

I’m no James Carville, so for a political critque of the short film, let’s see what the experts have to say.

Alexander Burns at Politico thinks, “It’s the kind of thing that Cain fans may enjoy, that Cain detractors will laugh at, and that shows, in any case, how little Cain’s message has evolved since the summer.” Maggie Astor at International Business Times writes, “The return-to-roots strategy of the movie makes sense in that Cain’s “9-9-9″ plan is the most eye-catching part of his platform…On the other hand, returning to the “9-9-9″ plan may reinforce the growing perception that Cain is a one-trick pony, especially since the shift in strategy comes on the heels of several foreign policy missteps and unclear statements on hot-button issues like abortion.” And Lucy Madison at CBS News believes, “When it comes to analyzing the basis for Cain’s claims, however, that the 9-9-9 plan would be a simple route to economic success, the film falls short.”

One big news item to come out of comScore’s latest Online Video Rankings is the total US internet audience viewed over 42.6 billion videos in the month of October, which makes for an all-time monthly high.

One predictable news item to come out of the same Online Video Rankings is YouTube maintained its position as the #1 video site across the categories of Total Unique Viewers (160+ million), Videos Viewed (almost 21 billion with a “b”), and Minutes Per Viewers (424.2, which equates to 7.07 hours).

One unexpected news item is Facebook’s jump to the #2 spot behind YouTube in that comScore Top 10 List of Total Unique Viewers. The world’s largest social media site saw 166+ million unique visitors in the month of October. Of those 166+ million, 59.8+ million of them watched a video. That puts Facebook ahead of its closest competition, Vevo.com, by just under three million monthly views, and in front of the rest of the usual suspects on comScore’s charts by far more substantial numbers. For those keeping score at home, back in September, Facebook occupied the fifth spot behind YouTube, Vevo, Microsoft and Viacom.

And one more unexpected news item is the Top 10 List of YouTube Partner Channels saw a couple of name changes just a month after the chart appeared all but stable. Schmooru and Warner Bros.’ The Ellen Show claimed the #4 and #8 spots with a respective 9.8 million and 7 million viewers, bumping Revision3 and ClevverTV out of the top 10.

Marc Wolf’s one-man Off Broadway show took an interesting twist during its transformation into a digital series. For starters, it was originally titled Another American: Asking and Telling. The play, based on Wolf’s interviews with over 150 gay and lesbian military personnel (as well as others) deeply affected by the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, premiered at the 99 seat DR2 theatre in New York City.

In a miraculous twist of fate, one of the theatre patrons was former Disney CEO and Vuguru founder Michael Eisner. He liked the show and left the theatre with the idea of turning Wolf’s work into the digital program that would soon become Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

Adapting a one-man show isn’t a normal occurrence in the web series world, but Vuguru brought in a director and well known creative consultant to turn the play into a multi-platform property. “Turning a one man show into an engaging project to be seen as a whole or in chapters is a challenge,” said Kristin Jones, Vuguru’s Chief Creative Officer. “But John Walsh (director) and Mary Harron (creative consultant and director of American Psycho) had an amazing vision and knew how to best showcase Marc Wolf’s amazing performance.”

In the play and subsequent series, Wolf portrays a broad range of people who have differing opinions and experiences with the military’s now-repealed “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, including Charles Moskos, the author of the policy. “Each of these characters has such an incredible story to tell, and encompasses such a range of emotions” said Jones when asked about how the play appealed to Vuguru.

With the Jason Segel-starring and scribed Muppets movie on pace to gross more than $40 million at the box office by the end of Thanksgiving weekend and the uncanny ability of Jim Henson’s puppet creations to maintain a perennial place in US pop culture, it’s no wonder Kermit and company were everyone’s favorite choice to replace Eddie Murphy as host of the next Oscars.

The powers that be at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences want to put on a show hosted by a human, but they also know the American people like their Muppets. That’s why we’ll most likely see a few of them alongside Billy Crystal and Hollywood’s finest, bestowing honors amongst exceptional individuals in the film industry come February

The Golden Globes don’t want to be left out.

A representative from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association with a nondescript, non-US accent recently caught up with Miss Piggy to talk love, Vogue Paris, a love of assistants who will get you coffee, and what she’ll be wearing to the Golden Globes if nominated in the category of Best Female Actor. It’s an impromptu interview with fastball questions, but Miss Piggy handles it all with honesty and aplomb.