Tag Archives: celebrities

Online Video

YouTube News You Missed

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Okay I forgot I had a blog again. The past two weeks have included trips to (in sequence) Virginia, Minneapolis, NYC, Washington, D.C. and NYC again.

Shitty clipart makes a blog visual

Enough about me. Let’s focus on YouTube today, since it’s turned 6 (that’s a near-death 94 years in TechCrunch years). If you missed the comment stream on my last post, you’ll want to catch up. It’s steamy, and Sukatra’s on a Charlie Sheen tear.

And after this humble attempt at “aggregation,” stay tuned for my patented “synthesis” below… what all this means to a changing ecosphere-marketplace-ecosystem-valuechain-universe.

    What Does All This Mean?

    • YouTube is going mainstream with musician chart-toppers exceeding the once amateur-only club. Alas, the site is a free jute box rivaled only by Limewire in the day.
    • YouTube is embracing its new role, hoping attracting familiar faces will attract a larger base of “regulars,” who until now have chosen their own weblebrities.
    • Still, amateur hour isn’t over… especially if you’re a quasi professional. While no YouTube star has yet jumped mainstream with any endurance or consequence, we may see that change in 2012.
    • Most importantly, albiet somewhat tangental, what the hell happens to the sales of my “Beyond Viral” if Borders goes bankrupt? Perhaps you can find a local Borders that’s folding, and snatch a discounted copy of the book. Be sure to take a photo and let me know.

    This post has been brought to you by the letter S. Big S.

    book, Online Video

    YouTube Documentary: “I Want My Three Minutes Back”

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    youtube film by chuck potterNewTeeVee teased us last month about first-time director Chuck Potter (thirdcareerfilms) and his new YouTube documentary, “I Want My Three Minutes Back.” Now the film has a website with a blog, the trailer and some more information about Potter’s efforts to get the new film into film festivals.

    While it’s true there’s only a niche of people that even know what a YouTube weblebrity is (I’ve only been recognized once at LAX), the story is deeper. It’s about the struggles of amateurs who have “overnight success,” and their years of effort to turn online-videos into a passion-filled career.

    I missed the debut this month in California, but I’m looking forward to seeing how Chuck tells this story.

    YouTube

    New Book: “15 Minutes of Fame: Becoming a Star in the YouTube Revolution”

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    youtube bookI thought I knew my fellow YouTubers well, but I learned some interesting facts about some of my favorites in a new book by Frederick Levy (see his YouTube channel). Levy covers some famous YouTubers, and me too. There’s a Q&A and some coverage about the NAPPY campaign I had almost supressed.

    Worth a read for those interested in the culture beyond the “cat videos,” or for those already steeped in the social aspect of YouTube. Of course I haven’t read a book completely in about a decade, so I’ll have to trust the book cover. Link below to Amazon if you want your own copy.

    • An explanation of how to take advantage of YouTube’s far-reaching
      resources and potential
    • Expert advice on how to get your video seen
    • Insightful strategies on how to make your video stand out from the
      crowd
    • Instruction on uploading videos from a mobile phone
    • Simple ways to capture video directly to YouTube from a webcam
    • Tips on embedding videos into personal webpages or blogs

    book, Future of Online Video, Killer Video, Making Videos, metacafe, Nalts, Online Video, popular videos, Video, Viral Video, viral videologist, vlogging

    New Weekly Show Featuring 50 Interesting Online-Video Personalities in 2008: The Bubblegum Tree Show. Yey!

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    Bubblegum Tree Show logoHad enough of horrible big-media interviews of your favorite online-video “weblebrities”? The same questions over and over? The 7 hours you spend, as a video creator, meeting with a television network, only to find your interview has been reduced to a 12-second soundbite?

    Well it’s time for The Bubblegum Tree Show! Yey! (See trailer).

    It’s my new weekly show that will feature 50 of the most interesting (not necessarily the most popular) online video personalities in 2008. There is, of course, no shortage of shows that feature online-video creators. In fact I also do one for Metacafe called Metacafe Unfiltered. And then there’s Veoh’s Viral.

    But this one’s different. You see, there’s bubblegum. The interviewed guest will be chewing gum, and send it to me at the end. Next, the gum will be affixed to the official “Bubblegum Tree,” which eventually will be populated by dozens of pieces of chewed gum (each beside the name of its weblebrity chewer). The show is designed to be fast, quirky, informal and interesting. The balance I’m trying to establish is making it cheeky, but giving people a real glimpse of the creator’s personality.

    Subscribe now (only 25 elite subscribers as of this post), and be the first to catch the premier. Who will be first? CharlesTrippy? MarkDay? LisaNova? We’re after all of them. And if you’re an interesting online-video personality with a fat talent agent, send them our way via “bubblegumtreeshow dot com at g mail.” Because before long getting booked on The Bubblegum Tree Show will be like trying to get your book on Oprah (a woman who has a television show).