slutty salad dressings: Sprays in the City

Candace Bushnell has so much to answer for. These animated webisodes, inspired by Sex and the City and starring Spraychel, the captivating I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!® spray, and Spritzy, the feisty Wish-Bone® Salad Spritzers® Dressing, are categorically a bad thing. Tim Gunn, heretofore idolized in these parts, shills himself out...

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But Why Is The Rum (Contest) Gone?

While YouTube and hard alcohol might sound like an ideal weekend to you, it’s only been the huge headache afterwards for Malibu Rum. Like so many consumer product companies before them, Malibu Rum conducted a video contest on YouTube, soliciting YouTubers to make a commercial set to that well known Trinidadian folk song, “The Banana Boat Song...

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MySpace Vidoes To Become MySpace TV, YouTube Competitor

MySpace will rename and relaunch its video sharing service as MySpaceTV Thursday, according to the NY Times.MySpace TV will operate as a standalone service and is being billed as a direct competitor to YouTube.

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Kiptronic Adds Advertising Insertion For Video

Advertising insertion service provider Kiptronic has announced support for dynamic ad insertion and campaign management for video content.



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BLOG BRIEF:YouTube Local Lauching Local Sites

YouTube will launch nine country specific versions of YouTube today.YouTube local versions will be available for Brazil, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, and the U.K, complete with relative country specific domains such as youtube.fr and youtube.jp.



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This Bud's Not for Everyone - Part Deuce

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is part two of a continuing series about Bud.TV and advertiser generated content. The previous posting in the series is from June 13th.

The underlying question of the whole thing still remains what is the point of Bud.TV for Auhiser-Bush when doled out at a 30 million dollar price tag? How many eye-balls will see this content and will they even deliver the message they are looking for. I’ve scene a lot of online ads looking to find a way around the cost of broadcast, but the truth is that TV is expensive for a reason it has a built in audience that’s be growing for years.

Bud.TV is an attempt at vertical integration but with restrictions on who can access the site (which a number of state attorney’s generals have said aren’t strong enough) there is no way for it to ever achieve the viral status of a YouTube video. The most watched videos that I have found so far on Bud.TV have play counts around 25,000. Bud Cursing jar video on YouTube has achived close to a half million views. Yet despite all that success that number of viewer times ten could be achieved by running during Dr. Phil, times a hundred and it would be on the Super Bowl.

CBS said in their first month of launching their inter tube player they received more than 11 million views. I haven’t seen any metrics since then but we can only assume the numbers have sky rocketed since then. This are established content providers though. Will Bud.TV ever be able to establish themselves?

Well the news from A-B is not good for Bud.TV and the project is expected to be scraped at years end.

But the idea of ad-supplied content is far from gone.

ABC is currently running a fun little show twice a week called Fast Car & Superstars - The Gillette Young Guns Celebrity Race and is streaming the episodes via the ABC viewer. One might see the show and think it is just chocked full of product placements, especially for Gillette who the announcers plug about once a minute as they talk about the Gillette Young Guns, a group of young superstar Nascar drivers who guide celebrities like Jewel, Bill Shatner, John Elway and other around the track.

But for those who stick out the credits and stay till the end will see that the show is actually a commercial caulked full of content. In prime time it is a paid presentation of Proctor and Gamble, the owners of Gillette and the largest TV ad buyer in the world.

When judged as a show, I’m not sure if I can say it’s that good, when judged as an infomercial, it’s fantastic. Nascar may be one of the only venues that can support this much product placement while still fooling people into thinking it’s a real show. On the other hand P&G has scored what some might consider a miracle; an ad so attention getting that they can sell ads for it.

What the financial arrangement between P&G and ABC is for the show is not clear though based on the amount P&G paid for the production (co-produced by ad firm BBOD) I wouldn’t be surprised if ABC got the show for free and called it a day.

The ratings haven’t been great but you know that people aren’t fast-forwarding through it on TIVO. These sorts of shows aren't going to be replacing the fall lineup anytime soon, or at least I'd like to hope not, but everyone is pitching their advertiser created content and at some point some of these are going to start sticking to the wall.

Four Eyed Monsters For Free (but you should really pay for it)

One of the best, most original uses of a webisodic for marketing has to be Susan Buice and Arian Crumley, the creators behind Four Eyed Monsters. In a style uniquely their own, they created a movie to retell the story of falling in love with each other without words. But while doing so they also opted to make a webisode chronicling the creation of the movie.

Quickly the webisodic shot to the top of iTunes but their film, sadly, was not as successful. Failing to get into Sun Dance and failure get a distributor in many ways tanked the main stream possibilities of success for the film. But with a cult following of hundreds of thousands because of the webisodic, they've since opted for self distribution.

During the past week they've been offering the full 70 minute film for free on YouTube, where its been watched more than a quarter million times. They are also offering the film, starting at only three dollars, via their Web site.

In a strange arrangement, to say the least, the movie review, social networking start up Sprout.com sponsored the YouTube appearance by paying the monsters a dollar (to help repay the debt from the films production) for everyone who signed up for Sprout as a response to a short plea at the beginning of the film.

When I signed up, on the second to the last day of the film's seven day run on YouTube only about 20,000 people had signed up, far short of the sated goal of 100,000 the approximate amount needed to cover the about of debt the couple cites as having amassed. It appears web celebrity has still yet to come with wealth.

Take a look at their webisodic, it defiantly ranks as one of the top ten defining series of the genre. Episode three is my favorte and it doesn't just have to do with my unexplicible large attraction to Moulin Rouge. If you have a chance also sign up for Spout at www.spout.com/foureyedmonsters. It helps two struggling artists and it's actually a pretty good site.

If you haven't seen the film and missed the YouTube viewing, you can download the film from their site here.

This Bud's Not for Everyone

Bud TV was launched by Anheuser-Bush earlier this year to great fanfare from the advertising world. It wasn’t that everyone thought it was a great idea, it’s just that they were excited to learn how it was going to turn out. A-B, one of the top five advertisers in the country was going to be re-directing a large part of their 2007 ad budget away from conventional TV and putting it into their own online content channel.

So, now, half-way through 2007 is Bud TV paying off?

It terms of content, they’re doing alright. There are some shows that have garnered decent attention, Replaced by a Chimp, is one of the most well recognized series. But it only has a few episodes and they loose their appeal pretty quickly. Swear Jar, has done well after leaving the confines of Bud TV and being seen almost a half million times on YouTube. But it's not anything new, it's just another one of A-B's creative but old school advertisements. There are also accusations that it plagiarizes an early 90's episode of the Simpsons.

Afterworld is one of my favorite shows though it play count only barely breaks 2,000. It’s a post apocalyptic piece that is done in a jumpy animation style. Afterworld's plot is some where between Lost and Jericho but the story telling style approaches noir in tone. Though when placed against boob feasts like What Girls Want, it’s hard to see how it advances Bud Light’s goals at all. Maybe they are trying to depress us into drinking more, but the plot is so depressing I would skip the light stuff and go straight for the scotch.

A new interactive game show called Hardly News is also going to be launching soon which I think is one of the most creative items on the site from a use of the medium standpoint. Using multiple screen video clips provides humorous clues and a host narrates from another screen. The series is light in nature, ties back into the product subtly but most importantly is interactive, it draws people in, it's a show you literally can't fall asleep watching.

One of my biggest issues with Bud TV is not the quality of the content but that the content really is just short snippets that make a larger show. When given such a budget, 30-million dollars to be precise—about the same as an entire prime time season series—you’d think A-B could have come up with something more interesting that what are essentially bad mini-tv-episodes.

Now this may also be what are called webisodes, but websiodes when done well are not one-beat jokes or sixty minutes long stories told in three minute segments. Afterworlds is the rare exception on Bud TV of a webisodic done right and taking advantage of the medium. But shows like Sebastian on the other hand is literally a funny comedy show broken down into 20 three-minute segments. Some of the episodes separated by nothing more than an edit.

Bud TV is on the brink of releasing a desktop player to access their site. Not exactly a novel idea, it may help retain the viewers who are already visiting Bud TV. As that audience has slipped from a few hundred thousand to only a little over a hundred thousand in a few short months, there may not be an audience left to save.

Editors Note: This posting is part one of a series about Bud TV. In the next segment learn how Anheuser-Bush is hoping to bring Bud TV back from certain cancellation.

Insightful Human Dog: Haberek Webisodic Review

In an eight part series, Human Dog Productions has created an insightful and shockingly honest documentary profile of Ben Haberek. Haberek follows a high school math teacher in metro Detroit, Mr. Haberek, as he has become disenfranchised with teaching in the weeks before summer break of his seventh teaching year. Beat down by students, parents and administrators, Haberek takes you to the front of the classroom and shows it's really like for a teacher who has poured his heart in to the job, but doesn't know if he's getting anything back.

In one of the most standout episodes, episode five, Mr. Haberek debates with a student over the benefits of private versus public school students. Is it a conspiracy? Why does the administration keep dumbing down the curriculum? Is free quality education really a right, or a responsibility?

Haberek doesn't paint a politically correct picture of how teachers should think. It even leaves you wondering how a teacher could feel secure enough in their job to go on the record in such a way without some retribution.

In one of the funniest episodes, episode three, Mr. Haberek and fellow teacher Mr. Brown show how they used to patrol the restrooms for smokers, and effectively at that. But when trying to discipline the students, the administration didn't support them. Before long Mr. Haberek and Mr. Brown begin to stop even trying to catch the students. What's the point when the administration doesn't even believe them?

The final episodes flashes forward more than a year. Test scores are still bad, students still aren't paying attention, No Child Left Behind is starting to leave its mark, and to make it worse the teachers union is in a nasty battle with the district.

Haberek is distinctly just one person's story, but an important one for anyone concerned about the future of America's education.

There are eight episodes in all, including the flash forward and run about five to seven minutes each. The files are on the smaller side, but provide plenty of quality. As striking as the images are, what people are saying is the most important part. Editing is simple but effective, it has a very raw documentary feel to it that matching to tone of the context.

You can view the full series here.

Apple Seeks to Rent Movies on iTunes

According to reports from the Financial Times yesterday, Apple, Inc. is in talks with a variety of Hollywood studios to rent newly released films for $2.99 each. The films would then expire after a certain number of days. Studios seem to be worried by Apple's plan to allow videos to play on iPods, fearing a cut into DVD profits.

According to the Wall Street Journal this morning, Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures seems to be interested though GE's Universal Stuido's is opposed.

Older films are currently available for purchase from Lions Gate Entertainment and MGM (about $9.99 each) but only Walt Disney Studios provide new films via the iTunes store. However, Disney's involvement may have more to do with Apple CEO, Steve Job's seat on their board than true good business sense.

If the deals are made iTunes would not be the first store to allow for online video rental, but with Apple's dominance in the paid online video content sector it would be a dramatic shift.

It's like the Osborns but with God

Strife with biting quips about brimstone miners and Pat Robinson on God's speed dial, Mr. Deity is one of the most well put together webisotics this year. With an undersold, The Office style quality, the expertly crafted episodes focus around a slightly timid and vaguely homosexual Mr. Deity (Brian Dalton) but don't call him God, it's just a stage name.

Featuring stand out performances from the cast of four, Mr. Deity is a well thought out use of the medium. Using minimal locations and scenes lends an intimacy to the show that could be an hindrance for some but has been turned into an asset in this show. Some of the episodes are shot entirely as two person scenes in front of a white wall, but it takes nothing away from them.

Brian Dalton's protrail of the title character anchors the show with a casual yet agitated tone. At times he drifts into an ad-lib state of misdirection, but quickly corrects and pulls off some zinging one liners.

Lucy, short for Lucifer, played by Amy Rohren, portrays one sexy devil. She might consider brimstone to be a great interior decorating accent but she has a more sorted past then that. Her on again-off again boy toy happens to be Mr. Deity himself.

Mr. Deity's assistant, Larry, played by Jimbo Marshall, is a questioning man servant that grounds the absurdities of the series. He also holds one of my favorite lines of the series when he thinks Lucy is calling him while as he leaves an office supply store, "Oh! No way you she-devil!"

Sean Douglas plays, Jesse (Jesus) a fresh out of business school type kid trying to work his way up the corporate ladder who when given a chance to be partners on the Earth project jumps on board. Though after he does, he seems to pick up a grudge against crucifying, but who would blame him?

Episodes run a little over four minutes and there are currently ten posted. The site's FAQ claims they produce an episode every two weeks, though according to the fan blog, mrdeityfan.blogspot.com, the show has been on hiatus since early April as a potential deal is in the works.

Mr. Deity is webcasting at its best. There is no wonder why such creative team is getting interests from the networks, though how the show would translate into a half-hour format is unclear. The episodes - and in a way the creativity of the show - thrive on its brevity. Flushed out, the show would be a whole other kind of series, yet with what I've seen from Mr. Deity so far, I would wait with baited breath to see it on primetime.

You can find more about Mr. Deity at their Web site, or see the entire current series embedded below:

Day Zero is No Go

Heavily run ads on Fox's full episode viewer at MySpace promote a Degree for Men Deodorant sponsored prequel of 24 called Day Zero. Despite fancy Flash graphics leading into the site the four two minute websiodes, (only three of them are currently live) remind us, at best, of the dull moments of 24.

Animated with comic book styling, they follow Jack Bower as he breaks into an office trying to grab information from a computer and discovers a bomb.

It sounds as if the real actors voices are used over the animations, but their hands are tied when trying to build any real suspense in such single beat episodes. The 'previously on' flash backs take up a third of the episode and you have to laugh when Jack says "The follow event take place between 10:19 PM and 10:21 PM."

Their attempt to tie into the actually show is impressive. Though I was skeptical to see that they were being done as animated segments. Yet their style's ability to reflect the show over shadowed my hesitation relating to its lack of live action. Though, in the end, Day Zero fails the story test.

Based on the viewership from Quantcast, Day Zero also has failed the viewer ship test as well. Though released in mid-May and with the June numbers not out yet, it doesn't look like Day Zero will break out of the low tens of thousands of views.

Streaming High Def Coming at ABC

On ABC's development team blog they recently released two screen shot from Lost as shown via their new HD streaming videos. Filling the screen at 1280x720, the new feed, would the highest quality video of any of the big four networks' players.

ABC plans to first release only a few of their top shows in the HD format when the new 2007-08 season starts in September. As the kinks are worked, out the full online lineup will also be made available in HD.

Since rolling out streaming Flash video last May, ABC has kept on the leading edge with the sharpest quality of any of the networks.

However, the viewers was plagued by bandwidth issues causing jumps and pauses often requiring episodes and the viewer to be entirely restarted.

When ABC launched their newest version during the 2006-07 mid-season, most of their bandwidth issues were corrected. Issues do still arise however, though the viewer no longer require restarting to correct them.

While the current 700x394 full screen mode pulls 1.5-megabits per second, when going to HD in September, their full screen 720i will require 2-megabits.

Powered by New York based On2 Technologies, ABC is able to compress the HD video to a usable size for streaming. The data stream is considerably less than required for HD cable signal, ranging from 15- to 20-megabits, yet reportedly will still provide far superior quality to other current offerings.

More detailed technical information can be found at MultiChannel News.