Bloke named Ben Lehmann turned on his windshield wipers on the viper, but that didn’t work. The snake manages to slither along the driver’s side window, and holds tight even as the car begins to pick up speed.
So that reminds me… a guy was at a movie theater last week to see the Catching Fire debut. He notices what looks like a snake sitting next to him. “Are you a snake?” asked the man, surprised. “Yes.” “What are you doing at the movies?” The snake replied, “Well, mate, I liked the book.”
I didn’t care much when some of the online video sites retired “consumer generated” accounts, and killed my Nalts channels. Metacafe, Revver, Yahoo video, Google video. But I’ve been rooting for the Blip.tv underdog since its infancy. So when I learned today they deleted my account, I felt totally betrayed.
Blip.tv is now owned by Internet studio, Maker. They’ve never much liked me, unfortunately.
Unfortunately many of my Blip.tv videos are gone for good… not uploaded to other video-sharing sites and not backed up. Whey they began killing some accounts I wasn’t surprised. I expected some of my secondary “staging” accounts at Blip.tv to go away, so I backed them up. But didn’t expect they’d kill my Nalts one. 🙁
Part of my Internet youth died today. Not since Revver closed shop has the internet made me so sad.
The creators of the Walkhub snuck batches of the devices into Ikea and captured hidden camera responses of intrigued customers… who of course couldn’t purchase them but got them free.
The creators of Walhub, an electrical switch cover that has storage features, snuck a batch of products into Ikea to demonstrate demand. It’s a clever way to put a new product on a radar, and connect it with an existing brand (Ikea) without, of course, permission. I proclaim “Hacking Ikea,” featured in Adage, the best guerilla campaign of 2013. If you know of something more clever, let me know!
I can only suggest 3 things to improve it:
I wanted to know the people behind the stunt. Text overlay in introductions are cold, people. How about hearing briefly from the creators? Make us care about their plight. Make us believe they’re creative artists who built something cool but don’t have the retail muscle of the big boys. And be sure that the average video grazer knows that many of the “victims” got free products (which is only obvious when watching most of the video).
Team should focus viral-video seeding on the YouTube version not the Vimeo one. The latter may be for groovy artists, but YouTube views beget views. In general, if you can get people viewing a YouTube video, it will produce more downstream views for two reasons: first, it will SEO optimize. Second, it will show up as a “related” video when YouTube’s algorithm senses it’s being shared. I’m still perplexed as why anyone would ever seed a video that’s not on YouTube.
Laughter behind the camera. This is something I discovered accidentally when creating Farting in Public because I didn’t have hidden mics and fancy equipment. We want to hear the crew laughing. It’s an authentic laugh track.
Surprising news from NPR about the implication of AOL buying Adap.tv.
AOL is now above Google/YouTube in online-video advertising views. In ComScore’s Web video rankings for September, AOL topped Google as the property with the most video ads watched last month, with 3.7 billion views compared to the YouTube parent’s 3.2 billion.
AOL’s purchase of Adap.tv puts it above Google in online-video ads.
This is a bit misleading, however. Google/YouTube’s income and profit from video ads is likely far higher than Adap.tv and some AOL ads. Adap.tv is an intermediary, and much of the revenue from its advertising income is shared with both the creator of the video or the site where the video appears.
Here’s an example. AOL sealed a partnership with ESPN to syndicate ESPND clips on AOL Web sites, including owned sites like Huffington Post, and onto connected devices through its AOL On app. That means when advertisers pay AOL, much of that revenue is shared with ESPN and some would be shared with non-AOL sites where the videos are further syndicated.
Of course Google/YouTube also pays its content creator a portion of the revenue. But when you buy an ad with Google/YouTube, there’s no ad network involved to take a split. And because Google/YouTube hosts its own videos, they don’t need to share with another site or syndicator.
This explains why AOL is partnering with A-list celebrities like Sarah Jessica Parker, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Jonathan Adler to either host or star in original Web series for its AOL On Network, the company’s video platform. Ads around these types of program deals don’t have to be shared with anyone except the creators and AOL. Advertisers will pay far more to be a part of custom programing if it gets decent views. AOL can snatch even more if it can get a sponsor or exclusive advertiser.
One in four people (25%) of Americans have uploaded a video, according to a recent Pew Research report.
That’s driven by two factors:
Mobile — more than 40% of us record video on our cell phones and 40% watch videos on our tiny screens.
Social media uptick going from 8% in 2005 to 72% in 2013.
The percent of online adults who watch or download videos has also grown from 69 in 2009 to 78 in 2013. Here’s a little video of results, although I’ve pretty much stolen its thunder.
Internet ad revenues grew to a unprecedented $20.1 billion in the first half of 2013. That’s an 18 percent increase over 2012’s first-half ad revenues of $17 billion.
Mobile revenues soared to $3 billion in the first half of 2013, representing triple-digit growth at 145 percent, from $1.2 billion in the same period in 2012.
Search revenues in the first half of 2013 totaled $8.7 billion, up 7 percent from $8.1 billion in the first half of 2012.
Display-related advertising revenues (the category that includes online-video ad spending) in the first half of 2013 totaled $6.1 billion, accounting for 30 percent of revenues in the time period. That’s up 9 percent from $5.6 billion in the first half of 2012 — but as mentioned the video portion of this is up 24 percent.
The top three advertising verticals accounted for 46 percent of advertising revenue, including Retail at 20 percent, Financial Services at 14 percent and Automotive at 12 percent
eMarketer predicted more growth than this new IAB report shows.
Here’s a chart I made based on IAB’s reported first-half of the year data just to give you a general sense of growth over time. Sorry it’s backwards. My excel skills are rusty.
Note: Spending is for first half of each year only. Source: IAB, Oct. 2013.
A man spills his coffee. A woman gets angry. Using telekinetic power, she sends him flying upward against a wall. Then she sends coffee tables sliding away with the wave of her hand. Finally she screams, and pictures fly off the wall and books fly to the ground.
This is one of the best pranks I’ve seen, and it’s also a masterful promotion for Carrie, the new movie adaptation of Stephen King’s classic. So it wins the official 2013 WillVideoForFood Best Viral Video Promotion award.
YouTube just released 150 free music tracks that you can download and use royalty-free in your videos. Unlike the existing150,000 audio tracks that video producers can use as background music for their videos, these new tracks can be downloaded or remixed. This is a nice alternative to the free, royalty-free music Kevin McLeod has offered via Incompetech.com.
To be clear, “free” means you don’t buy the music
“Royalty free” means you can use it without penalty or paying the artist.
In case you share my obsession with “My Singing Monsters,” you’ll need a breeding guide to get the advanced monsters. Download the images below to your phone so they’re easy to reference. And friend me: 2846120DC – or visit me on YouTube!
The Canon EOS R50 is my favorite entry-level mirrorless for video creators and photographers who can’t afford a pro camera but need more than their phone.
Real quickly- if you happen to be looking for a great entry-level digital camera, be sure to check my review of the Canon EOS R50– which is designed to help creators make better videos than with their phones and for a price tag ($799) that doesn’t get into the $1000-$3000 range.
For a birthday gift try the Verenix Hyehehe plush doll – as one commenter says, “”If misfortune befalls you and you hear a snickering laugh nearby, you’ve been pranked by the one and only Hyehehe.”
Or here’s the ultimate My Singing Monsters birthday party decoration kit that includes a 5×3 background, 24 inflatable balloons for less than $15… pro-tip- you can gently iron the back side of the backdrop but put a layer of cloth down first.
Photos of the Best Gifts
Here are just a few of my favorite “My Singing Monsters” gifts, toys and shirts – that have the best ratings on Amazon.
Now On to the Breeding Guides!
Here is the Nalts pictorial guide on how to breed such monsters as Shrubb, Oaktapus, Forcuron, Fwog, Drumpler, Maw, Pummel, Clamble, T-Rox, Entbrat, Dandidoo, Pango, Ccybop, Spunge, Thumpies, Congle, Bogart, Quibble, Dedge, Cybob, PomPom, Scups, Riff, Reedling, Shellbeat, Quarrister, and Shugabush.Go get ’em! NOTE: for advanced monsters, your odds could be as low as 1% so keep trying!
Sure this has nothing to do with online video, but I figured the blog has been dark for a while… so why not?
Here’s the “My Singing Monster” sticker collection for less than $10.
Sticker kit with 64 My Singing Monsters stickers for laptop and phone
