by Joshua Cohen on November 15th, 2011
Speaking of online videos featuring the workout techniques of humans who populate the socioeconomic class of ‘super fit,’ the now seemingly fallible, but still in very good shape Filipino politician and professional boxer Manny Pacquiao will teach you how to get the Vitruvian Man body and those washboard abs you always wanted.
Pacquiao is the latest in a roster of professional sports figures to be featured in the Yahoo original web series Elite Athlete Workouts. The program is exactly what the title suggest. Cameras follow Olympians and NFL, NBA, boxing, and UFC stars (like Apolo Anton Ohno, Larry Fitzgerald, Rudy Gay, Floyd Mayweather, and Georges St. Pierre), documenting particularly peculiar, rigorous, or interesting parts of their workout routines while we learn about their diet and caloric intakes, as well as what drives them to be the best ice skater / wide receiver / shooting guard / pound for pound boxer / mixed martial artist they can be.
by Marc Hustvedt on November 14th, 2011
Video games brought into live action—with the help of a little well placed VFX— have been an ongoing theme in online video for year, some even making a multi-season hit web series (The Legend of Neil) around it. Some are taking advantage of the trend to make a name for themselves. Little Rock, Arkansas-filmmaker Andrew McMurry is just 18 years old but already partnered up with YouTube’s mega-network Machinima with his growing channel of more than 36,000 subscribers and over 3.5 million views.
McMurry’s first breakout with the Real Life series was a minute-long Real Life Super Marios Brothers (watch it below) that playfully took the live actor, McMurry’s brother Seth, through a magically appearing landscape of pipes, koopas and bricks. It notched a respectable 750,000 views on YouTube. Rather than a beat for beat copy of the Nintendo hit, there’s a twist—one of the mystery boxes deploys a 9mm handgun for this real life Mario to unload on the game. McMurry made use of some Mario theme music freely available at Super Mario Brothers fan site, and sounds from The Mushroom Kingdom.
by Joshua Cohen on November 14th, 2011
Online video hosting, distribution, and advertising network of choice for thousands of creators of original web series blip.tv will soon be operating under new management.
Peter Kafka at AllThingsD broke the news late last week that Mike Hudack, one of five of the company’s co-founders and its CEO with a six-and-a-half-year tenure, has been on an indefinite medical leave since at least mid-October. In his absence, entertainment industry alum and blip.tv COO Steve Brookstein has taken over day-to-day CEO responsibilities while the company’s board of directors spearheads a search for an individual with extensive new media experience to fill the role full-time.
Dina Kaplan, another of blip.tv’s five co-founders, is making her way out of the company, too. “I’m so excited for blip.tv and all that’s ahead as the company continues to scale,” Kaplan told me over e-mail. “I will be transitioning on from the company, which is in great hands now. I look forward to focusing on a new project and passion I’ve been incubating. After a respite on a bamboo hammock, I’m looking forward to fully diving into what’s next.”
Kaplan and Hudack follow Charles Hope, one more of blip.tv’s co-founders who left the company in early September of this year to focus on personal projects, including the potluck organizing website Please Pass the Gravy. Blip.tv’s remaining two co-founders, CTO Justin Day and Cheif Engineer Jared Klett remain on board.
Brookstein explained to me over the phone how this movement among the company’s upper echelons of management is nothing more than business as usual. “As a startup becomes a mid-stage company and moves into being more of a growth business, some of the entrepreneurs and founders who put so much effort into getting the company off the ground move on to do other new and exciting things.”
While those new and exciting things from some of blip.tv’s co-founders have yet to be revealed, Brookstein was a little more forthcoming about the future of blip.tv.
by Drew Baldwin on November 14th, 2011
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.
Now 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.
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.
by Joshua Cohen on November 14th, 2011
Whether its Adele, Nicki Minaj Lil Wayne, Justin Bieber, all of the above, or some other international music sensations who take home accolades from the American Music Awards this Sunday, November 20, they’ll be accompanied by a set of new media honorees.
For the first time in the AMA’s nearly 40 year history, the major American music awards show is honoring the work of “web content creators who leverage their musical talent to engage viewers and audiences worldwide.”
Orly Adelson, president of dick clark productions (the production company behind the AMAs) told Tubefilter the addition of the New Media Honorees to the Awards show’s list of recognitions of achievement is an indicator of the impact online video has had on the music industry and music fans:
In the last few years, web content creators have established themselves as the new mainstream, this opportunity to acknowledge pioneers in the space who are engaging millions of viewers and fans worldwide – in this case through music – signifies how important new media is to us and to our audiences.
So, who exactly are the inaugural American Music Awards New Media Honorees in the three categories of “male,” “female,” and “group”? They are respectively DeStorm, Christina Grimmie, and Karmin. And how do DeStorm, Christina Grimmie, and Karmin feel about receiving such an honor? We asked them:
by Marc Hustvedt on November 11th, 2011
YouTube is wasting no time in getting their crop of 100+ newly funded original channels up and running. It’s somewhat fitting that the first of this freshman class CleverTeVe is launching today—in Spanish. YouTube’s advertising partners are hungry not only for more premium content, but as is now well known, for more options to reach a booming hispanic millennials market.
It also helps that LA-based Clevver Media can meet the agressive output requirements set by YouTube as part of the seven-figure funding deals. Their existing channels ClevverTV, ClevverMusic, ClevverGames and ClevverMovies churn out dozens of videos per day and racked up over one billion combined views.
The CleverTeVe channel is releasing some 20 videos today and then an average of 60 per week moving forward. One of them is a recap (see below) of Taylor Swift winning Artist of the Year at the CMA’s, or as I’ve just now learned to write in Spanish, “Artista Del Ano En Los CMA’s 2011.”
by Marc Hustvedt on November 10th, 2011
ust a few seconds of watching this one and you can tell Code Monkeys’ creator Adam de la Peña is behind it. Your Dungeon My Dragon bowed this week as one of Microsoft’s most ambitious multi-platform animated series to date. The 8-bit styled animated comedy is a classic incompetent faceoff of good vs. evil guilds fighting in a neverending daily grind of mediocrity.
Microsoft is calling this a first-ever on Xbox and MSN, with an original episodic series woven together with two original games. For now the episodes are not embeddable, so you’ll have to click out to the microsite to watch. A YouTube channel is being set up for the series, but as of now has not launched.
by Joshua Cohen on November 10th, 2011
YouTube NextUp announced its sophomore initiative to foster and train fledgling online video talent in the hopes of upping that fledgling online video talents’ production skills and YouTube savvy from the level of amateur to professional back in mid-October.
Content creators from the two distinct content verticals of Cooking and Training submitted their YouTube channels in hopes of being one of the 16 partners selected to participate in virtual classes on how to master the idiosyncrasies of making it big on the world’s largest video sharing site and be on the receiving end of “an equipment kit worth more than $5,000, mentoring from industry leaders, filming and editing lessons and more than $10,000 worth of promotion on YouTube.”
This week, YouTube announced its 32 selections. The next generation of online video’s finest cooks and physical health educators and enthusiasts respectively include “self-taught chefs, cookbook authors, and former restaurants owners” and an international group that can teach you “exercises using city landscapes, fitness routines made for athletes, safe parkour training exercises, pilates made simple” and more.
