Well it looks like Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone has a new vehicle for choosing talent for his many television networks.
YouTube today announced that it will hold the first YouTube Video Awards to recognize the best-user created videos of 2006. The awards will be handed out in seven categories: most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy, musician of the year, best commentary and “most adorable video ever.” Source: LA Times.
My thoughts on the categories and potential winners in this video.
The nominees, picked by YouTube, are compiled in a gallery here. (Note- this link isn’t working as of 6 a.m. EST). YouTube community members can vote on their favorites between today (March 19) and March 23. The winners, as chosen by the community, will be announced March 25. Each will be prominently featured on YouTube and receive a trophy.
“We wanted to call out some of the most popular videos and let the users choose which ones deserve some additional recognition,” said Jamie Byrne, head of product marketing at YouTube. “We want to see how the community responds to it, but we can see this being something that grows as we continue to grow and becomes a bigger and more exciting event in the future,” Byrne said.
An in-person ceremony is possible in the future (Nalts ain’t touchin’ that one).
Google-owned, San Bruno, Calif.-based YouTube Inc. was founded in February 2005. Last week, media conglomerate Viacom Inc. sued YouTube for $1 billion, claiming the site infringes on copyrights on a “huge scale.” Several other media companies have reached agreements to supply YouTube with clips.
According to comScore Media Metrix, YouTube attracted 133.5 million visitors worldwide in January.
UPDATE: March 19, 4:50 EST. Playlists can be found here.
Someone let that out of the bag a little too soon it seems. I imagine there will be a ton of vlogging about this.Especially when it comes to how youtube made their choices. I can almost taste the whine now.
Leave it to YouTube to announce a contest in a press release and ignore it on their channel. The highschoolers just didn’t get their homework done on time – again. What’s the excuse this time – the dog ate the channel?
>>>>”Nalts ain ‘t touchin’ that one.”
Be careful here. Everything started going down hill for Mr. Safety once he started referring to himself in the third person. . .
I wanna win, I wanna win!
Under the category “Most varied youtube channel”
Congrats to Mark Day Comedy for being nominated for the Smiley Intervention! It is in the commentary category. Also, he’s up against Renetto!
I was going to say that this is just another dumb popularity contest, but as I see I’m actually in it, I now consider it an important step in recognizing some of the most talented people on YouTube. A vote for me is like a vote for Nalts. Sort of. You know you want to.
Actually “some of” the people I’m up against are “known” (ahem) for having a lot of fake accounts (alledgedly). So I’m not holding my breath.
Geriatrics real name is on the wii article I read. It only mentions Renarto and Gerry as nominee’s 😀
I voted 4 Mark – Where’s Nalts? Where’s God Inc? Where’s Tripplehelix?!
Are they going to have a round two?
It’s about time. The Oscars have become irrelevant.
I agree with jishinger: there’s no nalts, no God, Inc., no Mr. Deity, all of which are some of my favorite channels. And only one Barats & Bereta, and, imho, not one of their best. Who picked these entries?
On the bright side, there is an entry each from HappySlip and MarkDayComedy. I voted for them, and against LG15!
Appscout and PCMag made their picks right here:
http://www.appscout.com/2007/03/the_best_youtube_video_awards_nominees.php