Tag Archives: hbo

Nalts, Online Video, YouTube

HBO Web Series “Hooking Up” to Star Popular YouTubers

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Lonelygirl15 and naltsI’m just so glad this cat’s out of the bag, so I can officially boast that I used LonelyGirl15’s Visine in the dressing room. Too bad the set was closed to cameras. In one of those moments I wish I had on tape, I had to ask the star of LonelyGirl15 what we should call her, because I couldn’t remember if Jessica was her real name or stage name.

Says the Hollywood Reporter about the HBO Labs web series debuting October 1, “”Hooking Up” could prove groundbreaking for the nascent webisode genre by amassing a sizable viewership, given its aggregation of Internet personalities who can promote the production to their devoted audiences of millions of young viewers.

Tilzy called it “a small scale Ocean’s 11 for the YouTube set.” I don’t know what I’m allowed to say or not say about this production, so I’ll keep it safe and say that some of the people that work for HBOLabs are so cute and talented I’d buy McDonald Happy Meal toys of their likeness. And this post is not a McDonalds or Visine promotion anymore than yesterday’s Twinkie post. I got contacted last night by a Forbes.com guy writing about sponsored blog posts, and I groaned at the thought that anyone would think my pop culture references have backdoor incentives. Ewww!

YouTubers of the HBO web series include whatthebuckshow, sxephil, lonelygirl15, kevjumba, charlestrippy, smpfilms and nalts. Honestly I thought I was an extra, until I was walking off the set and I saw some people I didn’t know. “They’re extras,” someone explained.

And for the record, this isn’t the first time all of us have been scripted. In a grade school production of The Wizard of Oz, I was the soldier that leaned over upon the dying Wicked Witch of the West and said, “she’s dead… you’ve killed her.”

“Hooking Up,” by the folks who brought you RunAway Box, can be seen at www.hookingupshow.com or www.hbolab.com. The YouTube channel is here. See more coverage of the series in The Huffington Post, Tilzy, TechRadar, and Silicon Alley Insider. NewTeeVee is the only publication that didn’t bury its lead (Chris Albrecht used my name in the headline a opposed to “the show also included…”). Hee hee.

What do you think? Do Jessica (LonelyGirl15) and Sxephil have chemistry?

advertising, book, Future of Online Video, Making Money, Making Videos

10 Famous People That Are Less Popular Than Me (Nalts)

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In a move so brilliantly self promotional that I myself am in awe, TubeMogul ranked the top 40 most-viewed users. This is a delicious marketing tactic because (a) we popularity whores cannot resist bragging rights on this, and (b) if you want to pull a “whose your daddy” on me, you have to use TubeMogul. Now I’ve been a TubeMogul fan before TubeMogul existed. I was spending hours a day uploading to multiple sites, and hating every second of it. When my YouTube views took off, I stopped uploading routinely to the wealth of other sites that got paltry views but provide access to long-tail viewing. TubeMogul solves this for me. If I get no views on yourstupidvideosite.com, at least I don’t have to manually upload or confront that sad fact daily.

So here’s the list of famous people that aren’t yet as popular as me. Wowza.

  1. HBOTubemogul nalts
  2. Rocketboom
  3. CBS Interactive
  4. National Lampoon
  5. PBS
  6. Billboard.com
  7. Warner Bros
  8. Fox
  9. Nike
  10. Sony Pictures

I boast playfully about my popularity in this video (which also addresses recent allegations that I abuse animals for video entertainment). Mind you that TubeMogul is measuring creator stats  based on videos that flow to YouTube and other popular sites via Tubemogul’s upload tool (which captures downstream data as well). The larger media properties have two arms tied behind their back on this ranking.. First, they may choose to upload directly to some sites and circumvent Tubemogul.com. Second, many of them are selective about distribution. Does HBO want to provide content to a website that is a potential competitor and doesn’t share advertising revenue?

Interesting stuff, and the ego role I play in this video is really just a mask worn by a child who fears for the end of a nice era.. one where amateurs with low production costs can, even for a moment, rival larger media plays.

P.S. This post was edited this morning once Ambien wore off. You really shouldn’t blog on Ambien.

Nalts discusses animal abuse and Tubemogul