Here’s What Caught My Eye This Week
Couldn’t have been a crazier week. Some advice - being out of the office for two weeks makes coming back pretty difficult. So here’s whats sitting in my “blog about this” list.
YouTube jumps into Live Event streaming. Ok. Its video, and when YouTube does something, its basically news. They’ve got the audience and the infrastructure, but will they be taken seriously against some of the other dedicated live event streaming companies, like Mogulus or Ustream? Maybe they’ll be the de facto destination for streaming your 3 year old’s birthday party, but I’m doubtful they’ll make any seriously headway for professional live streaming. But they do have that audience. If you stream a live event and nobody watches……
ProTail Hits the Scene: Gartner has slapped a new label on a market segment that is already difficult to define, but as I told Contentinople, its a pretty good description. For the past year, we’ve been focused on where the content has lived - aka the “mid-tail” - but hadn’t quite slapped a monicker on the content itself. In my consumer electronics days, we focused on the level of equipment used to produce the content, and who was doing it. Pro-sumer. Not a handicam, not a $25k HD camera in a studio. ProTail, the content segment between professionally produced content and user-generated clips. Hmmmm…I like it.
More importantly, Gartner said there was a 600% increase in the availability of higher-quality niche content that provides advertisers a safe, targeted inventory in which they can place ads.
Michael Learmonth, now over at AdAge, breaks down YouTube’s deal with MGM, and why Hulu does’t have anything to worry about.
Instead of plopping your kid down in front of the boob-tube, now you can drop them in front of the computer. Sesame Street hits Hulu, iTunes, and (again) YouTube.
If this isn’t the All YouTube edition, I don’t know what is. But Googlevision also signed Fremantle Media, producers of American Idol, to a deal. Jeeez, they’ve been busy.
And to end on a worthwhile note, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA) joined with the Ad Council to launch a national multimedia public service advertising campaign. The campaign directs veterans to the first and only community exclusive to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans through a new social networking website, www.CommunityofVeterans.org, where they can listen, share their experiences and access resources. Support our troops and stream some video.