Paris Hilton never met a camera lens she didn’t like. But this time the lens isn’t for a reality television show, the paparazzi, or even a jail mugshot — it’s that of New York-based startup For Your Imagination, which is debuting a new, branded web series tomorrow featuring Paris, her mom Kathy and her sister, Nicky.

The six-part series A Day With the Hiltons will follow a mother-daughter duo that won an all expenses-paid trip to L.A. to spend the day with Paris, Kathy and Nicky “while they visit a salon, attend an intimate brunch and spend the afternoon shopping.” Not exactly my thing, but an interesting example of a new media distribution partnership nonetheless.

Continue Reading at NewTeeVee

Jon Stewart’s interview with Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense, architect of the Iraq war and (via HuffPo) the man Tommy Franks called “the stupidest f***ing guy on the earth” is now available online.

The full 22-minute interview was cut down for air for obvious reasons, but it’s great to be able to see it in its entirety.

Above: Part 1

Above: Part 2

Some insight into the state of the Telco vs. MSO convergence battle offered by Light Reading Senior Analyst Adi Kishore:

Telcos are having some success with IPTV deployments, Verizon is close to becoming a top 10 provider.
- Advantage in clean slate, ability to lay new fiber.
- Disadvantage is going up against established MSOs.

Cable is having greater success rolling out VoIP services
- Advantage is that they are well-established, large number of multi-service subscribers.
- Downside is the legacy infrastructure.

Kishore showed a “back of envelope” analysis of the potential incremental value derived from next-gen advertising. Pegged the potential increase due to addressable / VOD / Enhanced advertising at a 46% over traditional linear means.

Mitch Oscar, Executive VP & Director, Carat added some insight on Project Canoe
“We know more about what it’s not than what it is.” The cable operators that generate $5b-$6b in ad revenue and $60b in subscription revenues, all have legacy box issues, it takes time to build out new boxes, maybe we could build out a system…integrated across the 30m digital homes right now.

Cable networks and Cable operators - “poor form of coopertition.” In the future there might be this relationship where they create some inventory where the combine local and national for increased effectiveness. In some cases there may be a cable network that has national advertiser relationships, if the national advertiser wants to have a relationship we can start to grow that out locally.

“And we have very few metrics.” Historical set-top box viewing, aggregated set-top boxes forming segmentation pockets…scale and representation could bring national money to local coffers.

A year ago at this time I was splitting time between Light Reading’s Future of Broadband conference and Streaming Media East. I barely covered the conference at the time because it was so technical, laden with acronyms like GPON, EPON and FTTH, but I came away with the following thoughts:

We aren’t there yet but networks are moving toward smart gateways and routers that will personalize the digital media experience for each user across platforms and standards.

The future is a universal cross-platform personalized media experience allowing users to consume content on any device combined with relevant advertising based on their history.

Last year’s conference focused on video as the future of broadband because as Light Reading Chief Analyst Graham Finnie put it this morning “it’s a much more flexible means to deliver video.”

This year, Finnie spoke more about the two way experiences that can be delivered (think applications) as well as the emergence of mobile broadband. Video has not taken a back seat, but it’s no longer the end all of broadband.

Above: Broadband Penetration, EOY 2007 (Source: LightReading)

I loved the lead in today’s Broadcasting & Cable newsletter in regards to upfronts Flat Is the New Up: “CBS is down 8%, while Fox and ABC are down double-digits — 11% and 15%, respectively. Fourth-place NBC is flat. Buyers expect the networks to ask for CPM inflation increases, but this season’s poor ratings may make higher ticket prices hard to justify.”

But brand advertisers still look to TV for reach, and well positioned TV networks will be in prime position to sell them digital. That was more or less the sentiment offered by Les Moonves earlier this year at the McGraw Hill Media Summit:

We haven’t had original programming since November 20th, that’s a big chunk of time, furthermore we’ve changed our ratings system…so by definition the numbers are different…

We’re more of a mass market mass-medium so ultimately we say you want to buy for national we’ve got that you want to buy local we have billboards we have radio we have local stations…if you have a dollar to spend we can spend the whole dollar for you, we can show you how it can fit for our CBS properties without having to go elsewhere.

And this continues to be the general perception of most network media execs. While media fragments, TV is still the biggest draw. At the same time networks are branching out into digital programming and other advertising platforms which combined with their traditional ad sales should place them in a very competitive position.

For example, I spoke with a FOX executive at the IAB forum last week who mentioned the power of selling MySpace advertising as a digital and international extension. This adds tremendous, measurable value across the board, and is a present day example of media convergence, if not one directly visible to users.

While it’s easy to say new media is hurting networks, because of their entrenched position and scale, it is more likely to help them in the long run so long as they’re smart about integration.

People around the world at 2PM ET today will simultaneously watch a program of 24 short films selected from more than 2,500 entries, the realization of TED Prize winner Jehane Noujaim’s wish to create a day in which “people come together through film.

The four hour program will be shown publicly in a number of Venues. If there’s not an event near you, the program will also be broadcast live on Current_ in the U.S., on TV networks worldwide, and streamed live online and on mobile. The films will be available online here.

My short list: Encounter Point | J’Attendrai Le Suivant (I’ll Wait for the Next One) | Laughter Club | Operation Homecoming: Road Work.

Immersive Media, the company that brought us Google Street View, is now offering 360 degree video recently entered into a partnership with the William Morris Agency Digital Department “to develop, implement and deliver worldwide media and entertainment services.”

The partnership should lead to new uses of Immersive’s video technology in online advertising and entertainment. Check out the demo below:

Above: imShowcase, Click on the video to view move around.

(h/t FlashComGuru)

There continues to be a very bright light at the end of the content tunnel for those of us looking for more than YouTube clips to define the online video industry.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Alex Woodson today writes that Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe will be bringing their skills online in a joint venture with Media Rights Capital. MRC previously announced deals with Raven-Symone and Seth MacFarlane, putting the smart money on people who know how to create good content for any medium.

Second City’s Quarantine will launch with “six or seven” mini-shows and be syndicated across a number of yet unnamed syndication partners. As Second City already has a division dedicated to doing corporate events, MRC digital media president Dan Goodman told the Hollywood Reporter that Quarantine will provide “interesting and innovative” opportunities for marketers, and it plans to “bring brands into the story.”

CBS Interactive President Quincy Smith just wrapped up the morning keynote at the IAB Digital Video Leadership Forum, key notes:

Some CBS Stats:
#1 in engagement
#1 download on iTunes (Dexter)
#1 Facebook app (March Madness)
#1 TV channel on YouTube
Avg median age of CBS viewer on TV is 53, avg median age online is 37.

Web as a complementary platform:
- Re-broadcast
- Cross-platform / brand extension “holy grail of media”
- Original content “we’re doing it probably half as well as other companies out there…it’s small peanuts, also it’s good margins.”

Web is not cannibalistic to our audience, but from an engagement perspective it very much is.

[Regardless of location] fact is that’s our content, we have to make our content more compelling, that’s not a broadcast mentality, that’s I think our greatest challenge going forward.

Catch up vs. Cannibalization:
- Big Brother 9 - 40% of streams were not the most recent episode. We see very little cannibalization.
- 92% of MMOD viewers stramed at work. Total complementary audiences. Online mirrors TV during Championship game. Less half-time dropoff online.
- The Grammys: 15.9 million households on TV. 50 of top 100 Google trends that night were related to the Grammy’s…how do you get a chance to monetize more and more of that show going forward….take a 1 day event and turn it into a 365 day event.

On Users as Curators: YouTube user MangoFace94 put up a Letterman clip, often more views when not on the CBS YouTube channel. “When content on YouTube is successful, claim it…need to be more comfortable with users as editors”

On Original Content: When television came around it was originally staffed by people on radio putting programs on television…took a long time to see that creativity, I think we’re beginning to see that here.

On Mobile: “Mobile’s funny, it’s always two years away” Need to fix mobile in the U.S., Big change here is they’re looking for more and more content… carriers are seeing original mobile content that is really original.

Labs: Video player: “Everybody’s got an HD player, it’s interesting…this player was built by our team in about 6 and a half hours…the team, engineers, that’s why we have a Menlo Park office, it’s key.”

Where can we go with it? We can go with community, recommendations, making it more interesting, even if they’re watching two minutes of things, they’re interested, and then sharing.

Monetizing Social Networks: I think there’s got to be an effort across this industry to monetize those networks. It seems to me that putting an ad on your own profile page is the equivalent of someone walking across your room and putting a poster on your wall…teenagers won’t react well…this is one of the things we thing about all day long…

The answer has got to be thinking about it all day long…the pre-rolls and post rolls aren’t that bad but “how do we think about adding more value to the advertiser…ad is content.” There are certain areas like widgets where we don’t monetize them yet…monetization and promotion at the same time.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau today announced a set of format guidelines for in-stream ads. Drawn up by the IAB’s Digital Video Committee, the guidelines are aimed to simplify and standardize in-video ads.

While 145 industry members took part in developing the guidelines, 44 are currently in compliance with them.

Download the full guidelines here.