Jon Stewart and the crew of The Daily Show, arriving in Minnesota for the Republican National Convention took time out to pause for photos outside the Minneapolis St Paul airport bathroom where former Senator Larry Craig had his famous moment in the spotlight:

Above: Stewart outside the MSP Bathroom where Larry Craig was arrested

You gotta love the power of online video to capture these little moments. (via Wilshire & Washington)

It’s official. DSL Reports has confirmed that Comcast will officially implement a 250 GB cap on bandwidth for broadband subscribers beginning October 1.

This has been a long time coming, after the spotlight was shone on Comcast for their unorthadox network practices, and the FCC ruled against their policy of throttling P2P applications on their network, Comcast has finally taken steps toward challenging those who use their network to transfer massive levels of data.

This is a smart policy, in the vein of what was previously advocated by Google’s Vint Cerf, that will allow Comcast to manage the traffic on their network more efficiently.

UPDATE: Thanks to Vint for the clarification, this policy isn’t as smart as his idea:

“I advocated limiting RATES not limiting total bytes transferred. The aggregate transfer cap deals with averages while, as Tony Lauck has pointed out, the issue is instantaneous data rate congestion - too much being transferred at the same time. Different metrics and methods are needed to limit the maximum rate at which a user can accept or emit data.”

No word on the penalty when users go above the 250 GB threshold, though this type of tiered pricing seems preferable to the metered pricing proposed by companies like Time Warner.

A press release from WebTrends highlights the massive traffic Chinese state broadcaster CCTV experienced during their coverage of the olympic games. While we hear the CCTV online video coverage was delivered at lower quality than NBC due to the current state and capacity of Chinese networks, CCTV.com managed to average more than 6 million unique viewers per day during the games versus 4.3 million per day for NBC.

This is not an apples to apples comparison, China has more than 4x the population of the U.S., so more viewers is to be expected. But 100 million total viewers is nothing to sneeze at and a testament to how far China’s networks have come. CCTV.com streamed more than 3,800 hours of live coverage, 1,600 more than NBCOlympics.com. To a large extent the Chinese public is skipping cable and going directly to broadband for their media experience.

Too much legalese to get in to. Bottom line: Court says that Veoh - and presumably other video sharing sites - are protected under the DMCA provided they make a reasonable attempt to remove copyrighted content.

Peter Kafka at Alley Insider has the deets and the full court doc.

Interesting to Peter, and to me as well, that the court is getting into the distinctions between what a platform “can” do and what it was “designed” to do. I didn’t see the Napster vs. Veoh comparison coming at all. Have enough legal content, and the law gives you a pass on the copyrighted stuff as long as you make an attempt to monitor and remove it. Good deal.

On the same day rumors circulated that Microsoft is seeking to offload Agency Avenue A Razorfish to WPP, they  announced a strategic investment with Move Networks. Both of these are very good moves.

Say you’re Microsoft, the former king of the software biz which is trying to stay relevant as digital invades and transforms media. Old enemy Apple is encroaching on core businesses, won by focusing on usability. Google has beaten them by aggregating global audiences and changing how ads are sold.

What Microsoft lacks focus, they make up for in talent and critical core competencies like scale, global reach and relationships with multi-billion dollar corporations. Microsoft must reassert itself by positioning Silverlight and other key products as the technologies used by mainstream media and major corporations.

By investing in Move, Microsoft gets a partner with which to push their NextGen video technology to major media. Among its partners Move counts ABC FOX, and a growing number of international broadcasters. While currently most Move partners use ON2’s VP7 codec, there’s no reason they couldn’t switch to Silverlight and VC-1 at any time.

It’s interesting to consider the Move-Microsoft relationship in the context of larger working relationships with CDN Limelight, design firm Schematic, as well as Disney, FOX and a number of other mainstream media companies. Together these powerbrokers have formed something of an oligarchy in online video player development and content delivery which could become a front for Microsoft and other Adobe competitors.

The Democrats have teamed up with Move Networks to offer an HD Silverlight experience at this year’s National Convention which unlike NBC’s 2008 Olympics player, showcases the power of Silverlight as a platform.

Above: DNCC Video Experience Homepage Player

While the excitement of the DNC may not rival the Olympics, the player offers an awesome full screen 16:9 experience, two camera angles and a separate spanish broadcast, (though that one taps into Comcast’s lower quality 4:3 feed) leaving NBC’s player in the dust. If you’re just looking to watch the convention, look no further.

Above: DNCC Move Networks Player - Full Screen in 16:9 HD

If you’re looking for commentary and independent coverage, all the major online video live broadcast companies are partnered with most of the new media sources that have sprung up over the past four years and are now offering their own live feeds. The democratization of media is pretty cool, PaidContent and NewTeeVee have pretty good lists, though there are almost more independent live streams than we can count.

Seth Godin wrote an interesting post today that sparked some debate within a networking group that I belong to.

Since I honor the “what is said on the list stays on the list,” I can’t bring you the whole discussion. Suffice it to say the debate was about whether or not what Seth was encouraging was click fraud or not. Just for fun on a Friday afternoon, I decided to take the contrary point of view, and I’m going to share it with you here. Its worth some consideration.

I’ll bite on the controversial point of view.

I’m a bit amazed that he didn’t get into more specifics, since CPM based advertising provides the content producers with some revenue whether the user clicks or not. Maybe the “tip jar” analogy doesn’t work for everyone, but people should thank the advertisers for bringing us all this great, free content. All we’re really asking for is the user to give our clients a little consideration when they are making their next purchasing decisions.

As a staunch defender of pre-roll, I often find myself explaining a contrary point of view. As (I hope) most of you saw, there were three independent pieces that came out in support of pre-roll this week. Tremor (self interest disclosed right here), Break/Panache, and Nate Elliott’s report for Jupiter. We all understand that there is a value exchange that has to take place in order for our business to survive. Sure we want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of our advertising and marketing efforts, but at the end of the day, someone or something has to pay to produce that content. We work in an ad-supported industry. So don’t the ads actually have to support the industry somehow?

When I see a pre-roll (reasonably targeted, appropriate length for the content, but not the point of this discussion) that “presents” or “sponsors” or otherwise enables me to get the content that I want for free, I say “Thank you” in my head, because the alternative is paying for it. Do most of us buy the NY Times at the newstand or read it for free online? Thought so.

Seth didn’t get into enough detail to make a strong case for “saying thanks” vs click fraud, and thats a shame. While display and text ads are much easier to avoid, tune out, or not engage with than video ads are, without clicking, we’d all need to go back to a straight CPM based pricing model to ensure that revenue moves into the hands of content producers. If content providers and producers dont get paid, then what we have is a hobby and not a business.

Performance based pricing models put the pressure on all of us to make our advertising really work, and that is certainly a good thing. But doing whatever it takes to ensure that people can continue to bring us the content that we want for the price we want to pay (read: nothing), then the tip-jar-click shouldn’t really be considered fraud. Advertisers don’t have to pay, and content producers don’t get paid, when we see an ad and it registers and reminds us to buy something in the store over the weekend. Maybe Dynamic Logic can introduce a “pay per brand consideration” pricing model. Again, I’m just taking the other POV for fun this afternoon. Don’t hate me because I pre-roll.

Just to keep the conversation lively, is the idea so different than Radiohead’s “pay whatever you want” to download their last album? The people that liked what they got said thanks by paying for it. Comscore reported that 38% of the people who downloaded the album paid for it at an average of about $8.

I’m well aware that we’re talking aout paying directly for the content vs. forcing an advertiser to pony up for someone elses product, but is it really “click fraud” or just the natural course of events of the business model we operate in? Maybe Seth - or all of us, for that matter - should just slap a PayPal button on every article and allow the money to flow straight to the publishers. Whatever happened to that micropayment concept anyway?

Internet ratings company Quantcast picked up another online media star for its senior management team. Former SVP of Yahoo’s Publisher Network, Todd Teresi, has joined the fast-rising new media measurement firm (no, not by their own measurement) as Chief Revenue Officer.

Teresi brings his media expertise - and more balance - to the mathematician and engineer heavy leadership, along side Chief Marketing Officer Adam Gerber, who joined The Q last November from Brightcove and previously Mediavest.

The blogosphere (read: ValleyWag) seems concerned that the company currently doesn’t have a product to sell, but we’re not. My conversations with CEO Konrad Feldman, combined with Gerber’s and Teresi’s track record of growing successful media businesses, leaves little doubt in my mind about their future successes.

As Abbey Klaassen reported in AdAge, the company believes that display advertising (and video, I presume) should and can be as targeted as search advertising. Teresi told her:

“The tailoring of content and media to individuals should apply to all aspects of advertising, not just the bottom of the funnel,” he said. “We operate in unit-based media economy where everyone gets the same content and sees the same ad. We’re moving to an impression-based economy. We’ll provide the platform that will enable the industry to do that. And as we introduce those sorts of services, we’ll charge for them.”

Congrats on the new gig, Todd!

Just went to the wrong page on Hulu and they managed to both entertain me and make money off me - they’re selling overlay ads on video on their 404 error page.

Above: Hulu’s 404 Error video

Corey Adds: Not one to pick on one of the best in the biz, and hell, it is only a 404 page - and a funny one at that - but the mismatched ads isn’t something that advertisers like to see too much.

Overlay during video:

End frame:

Corey Adds II: Looks fixed. Overlays and last frames from the same advertisers today.

Not in the best taste, but wouldn’t be the Olympics without at least one:

via TheDailyTube