High Profile New Media Studio Seeks Intern (PAID)
A high profile new media studio in Beverly Hills with an ongoing slate of projects seeks a general intern. Tasks include following digital media trends, ad hoc research, tracking viewership, building social communities, occasional script reading/coverage, and other office tasks.
Must have a passion for the online space and be fluent in social networks and online video.
2-3 days a week. $10 / hour. Available immediately.
NewMediaIntern2009@Gmail.com
High Profile New Media Studio Seeks Graphic Design / Video Editor Intern (PAID)
A high profile new media studio in Beverly Hills with an ongoing slate of projects seeks an intern to handle all video and graphic design tasks. Duties include outputting video in various formats, editing highlight reels, burning DVDs, uploading videos to various distribution sites, designing YouTube pages, creating banner ads and other related tasks. Must be fluent in Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, DVD Studio Pro or Toast, Compressor, video formats, and have a passion for the online space.
2-3 days a week. $10 / hour. Available immediately.
NewMediaIntern2009@Gmail.com
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The Warner Archive
On Sunday, Warner Brothers released 5,000 films on DVD.
Well, sort of.
Warner Brothers set up shop way back in 1918. It’s been producing films, and buying them from other people, for over 80 years. And it has a catalog of over 6,000 titles.
But they’ve only released 1,200 of those titles on DVD.
But the new Warner Archive changes all that. It’s the first of its kind: a manufacture-on-demand DVD service, and will–eventually–leverage a much greater proportion of the Warner library, compared to today.
For $20, the price of a normal DVD, the Warner Archive will print up a disk–complete with cover art, labels, everything you’d expect from a retail DVD. It’s not a bad deal.
The site launched with 150 titles, none of which have appeared on DVD before. That doesn’t sound like all that many–but it increases the total number of DVDs available from Warner Bros. by more than 10%, just like that. And they’ll add twenty new titles every month. Fans can vote on the pics they want to come out next.
Sure, you haven’t actually heard of any of these films. Neither have I. But that’s simply because they haven’t been available until now. A lot of these look like the A-list films of yesteryear. Stars like Clark Gable abound. No Douglas Fairbanks Sr/Jr yet, but I’ll be keeping my eye out.
The film industry has its long tail, and now, because of the web, studios can take advantage of their vast libraries, filled with history, and make effectively lost films available to a new generation.
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Yahoo’s New Approach
Yesterday’s New York Times had a great article about Yahoo’s push for original web content.
Yahoo was an early pioneer for web video back in the heady days a few years ago when anything more complicated than Flash was something of a novelty. Hard to believe how quickly we’ve advanced.
So Yahoo’s first shows didn’t work out quite as well as they had hoped. They modeled their plan on what already worked: traditional television. They tried to port that model to the web with lengthy and expensive talk shows and sitcoms. You can’t blame them for this; they were venturing into uncharted wilderness. But it didn’t work.
The Yahoo team created a variety of high quality, TV-like productions that simply didn’t have enough of an audience. The article quotes Yahoo’s head of entertainment, who acknowledged that their early shows “didn’t target any existing need.”
They did something that has been done before.
But, as the last few years have shown, web video has its own paradigm. It succeeds not in spite of its differences from traditional TV but because of them. Shorter form, more interactive content–whether it’s lonelygirl15 or Dr. Horrible or Prom Queen–rules the web.
So Yahoo is giving it another go.
Their new series won’t be anything like TV. They won’t reach as large an audience as TV. They won’t need to.
But, at least in the development stage, Yahoo’s new shows won’t be exactly like other web shows either. Most creators, amateur and professional, make whatever they feel like making, send it out there, promote it, and hope to find an audience. An “if you build it, they will come” sort of mentality. Sometimes it works spectacularly, but most of the time not so much. But Yahoo has a resource most video creators don’t have: a massive collection of data about user preferences and interests. It is, after all, a search engine, and like any good company it knows what its customers want.
So instead of throwing series at a dart board and hoping they stick, Yahoo’s going to skip that step and just give their already huge audience what they like.
It makes a lot of sense, at least in theory. We’ll see how it turns out. Their first new series, “Spotlight to Nightlight,” will showcase celebrities who are new to motherhood, and how their lives have changed. Yahoo’s team strongly believes that this series will appeal to their female userbase; State Farm is sponsoring it, just as confident that a female audience will love it.
We’re looking forward to the series, set to debut later this year. Yahoo’s new, focused approach definitely sounds promising, and we hope it bears out.
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Hulu Now #2
Thanks to Nielsen’s latest February numbers and a report on Ad Age, we can see just what a Super Bowl ad can do.
Hulu’s numbers for February–both for total views and unique viewers–were up over 30%. We watched over 309 million videos on Hulu last month, and that number will continue to grow.
In fact, the new growth pushed Hulu to the vaunted position of second best. It overtook the formidable video sites of both MySpace and Yahoo to claim the silver medal. Only one other site showed more videos.
You know perfectly well who has the gold, and that Hulu probably won’t be taking it anytime soon.
YouTube, the long-reigning champion, streams 5 billion videos a month (check the Ad Age report if you don’t believe me!) That’s a very large number. But so is 300 million, especially for a site that just celebrated its first birthday.
May there be many more.
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Tags: hulu
Vuguru didn’t launch anything new in February, but lots of other people did. Check out these two great shows which debuted in February:
What if President Obama’s life was like Lauren Conrad’s? This hilarious series from Newsweek presents the new president’s administration like a reality TV series. And the voiceover talent is so good that you’ll think the president himself is narrating.
A look at the inner workings of Ashton Kutcher’s production company. It’s no surprise that ridiculous antics go down behind the scenes–anything can happen. Exclusively on Facebook’s FunSpace application
March will be another big month on the web:
On March 17th, the new series Harper’s Globe will debut. It’s made by our friends at EQAL (lonelygirl15) in conjunction with CBS, and it will tie in with the very exciting mystery series Harper’s Island, which debuts on traditional television later this spring.
On the very same day, The WB will launch Rockville, CA, their look inside the hippest club in Los Angeles. This series will feature not only drama and romance, but brand new performances from hot bands. We’re excited.
Don’t feel like waiting two weeks? Head on over to Crackle and check out Angel of Death, a brand new series packed with action, assassins, and fantastic production values. Definitely, without question, worth your time.
That’s only the very tip of the iceberg. If you want more news about the latest series, check out the top news sites for online video: NewTeeVee, Tilzy, and Tubefilter
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Last week we talked about the spat between TV.com (owned by CBS) and Hulu (a joint venture between NBC Universal and Fox). As expected, things didn’t stop there, and a lot happened over the last few days.
Luckily, all of it is good for you.
Hulu’s content still isn’t on TV.com. But TV.com’s content is now on your iPhone. Streaming. For free. Whenever. CSI, Stark Trek:TOS, Gossip Girl, all yours on the go, with more coming soon. This isn’t just a step in the right direction. It’s exactly how mobile video should be done. Good job, CBS! If only I had an iPhone…
But Hulu hasn’t sat idle either. They just announced a new partnership with the popular video site DailyMotion. Hulu’s content is live on DailyMotion now, so feel free to check it out.
Look what a little competition can do… and it only took a week. Let’s hope this is just the start of the great new features the two sites have in store. As web video gets bigger and bigger (Hulu alone has seen strong double digit growth in the last month), we’ll continue to see dramatic new innovations like these. I can’t wait.
(Thanks to Silicon Alley Insider and Gizmodo for the stories)
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Tags: dailymotion, hulu, oldmedia, tv.com
The Beginning of a Brouhaha?
Last week, everybody’s favorite video portal, Hulu, pulled all of its content from everybody’s other favorite video portal, TV.com.
You can read more details about it at NewTeeVee.
But here’s the long and short of it.
Hulu is a joint venture between NBC and Fox. TV.com is owned by CNET, which is owned by CBS. Up ’til today, the sites were playing nice and sharing content.
But now, if you want to watch The Office, 30 Rock, Family Guy, the Simpsons, or any other show from NBC or Fox, Hulu is the only place to go.
But even a more exclusive Hulu is a win for the Internet. The notion that we could watch traditional television shows online, legally, and in high quality seemed far-fetched just two years ago. And so what if you can’t see your favorite show on both sites?
I am perfectly willing to use both.
You would never see The Office broadcast on the CBS television network. The networks have always kept their shows separate
So let’s keep an eye on how these events turn out. Maybe the two will come to an agreement. Maybe not.
But I am more than willing to use both sites to see all my favorite shows. It’s a great thing that Old Media is playing nice and happily living alongside New Media online.
That’s right–Hulu and TV.com aren’t just for television anymore. They both have some web originals, too! Hulu has Dr. Horrible, Pink, and all of Vuguru’s series, from Back on Topps all the way to Prom Queen. TV.com has its own selection, including Easy to Assemble and Novel Adventures.
So if you’re that teary eyed about this new separation between Hulu and TV.com, there are still lots of other things to explore.
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Tags: hulu, oldmedia
Names
Welcome to the Vuguru blog. We produce original video content built from the ground up for a web audience.
But we can talk about that later. For now, let’s talk about names.
Think about the biggest companies on the Internet.
Amazon. eBay. Facebook. MySpace. Google. Yahoo.
None of these names convey what the companies do (Well, maybe Facebook. But not really). Nevertheless, I think it’s safe to say that the name Amazon is more likely to conjure up images of Super Saver Shipping than the Brazilian rainforest.
Not what you thought of when I said 'Amazon'
Before these sites were registered by their respective founders, all of whom are now tremendously wealthy, none of these names had any particular value, and the average person had no idea what the names meant.
But still, every now and then, we see a site with a generic name and no content whatsoever sell for huge amounts of money. But can you think of any sites with a generic name as successful as those above? Buy.com does fairly well, but it’s no Amazon. And even though About is a regular ol’ word, I don’t think you’d know what the website was for if you hadn’t been there. It isn’t really generic. Who goes to movies.com instead of Fandango, or Computers.com instead of Apple or Dell?
There’s no equivalent for generic URLs in the real world.
Last week I bought a cheeseburger from the worldwide restaurant chain, Cheeseburgers. I ate it in my sedan, manufactured by Cars, Inc.
Doesn’t work like that.
It used to, back in the ’80s, during the recession. Then you could buy the delicious-looking soft drinks to the right.
Do these products proclaim quality?
Names are powerful. Even on the Internet. Especially on the Internet. Generic domains sell for lots of money, then squeak by for a few years and eventually disappear, then sell for lots of money again. The value is only in a generic name.
But sites like Amazon–their name does not start off valuable. It becomes valuable because of what it represents.
So don’t head to internetvideo.com if you are looking for quality content.
Look for the name Vuguru instead.
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YouTube’s Video Downloads
NewTeeVee has a story about YouTube Going Offline with Downloads.
This move seems to have several potential benefits:
1) A viable source of income for Google. It’s a small step in diversifying the revenue stream which is nearly entirely dependent on advertising.
2) A marketing move to get Google Checkout some exposure. Google has been trying to challenge PayPal for some time now with moderate results.
3) An iTunes competitor. If you can subscribe to channels and download episodes you like, the strategy seems to blend iTune’s podcast strategy with its TV shows, except you can watch a full episode rather than a 30 sec clip.
4) Higher YouTube quality videos. If individuals are allowed to sell their shows through Google’s worldwide distribution channels, there is a high incentive to make some better content. Maybe some well-written shows will replace the most recent clip of someone getting hit in the balls.
Of course, you can already download .FLV versions of YouTube videos with a variety of simple plug-ins from Mozilla.org if you are using Firefox as your browser…
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