YouTube

Old Spice Guy Is Back

Yes, the Old Spice Guy is back in all his buff, towel covered glory for a series of quick video clips in a similar fashion to last year. Only this time, he’s taking on Fabio in a “Mano A Mano in El Bano” steel cage video match to the death (or, until one of them gets more votes online).

A handful of the Fabio videos are kinda funny. But more striking to me is the clear awkwardness of Fabio while recording these videos. I don’t know if that is part of the act or not, but looking at the Fabio videos head to head against the Old Spice Guy (Isaiah Mustafa) makes you really appreciate the Old Spice Guy’s skill and talent.

Movie Time On My Site

YouTube just jumped with both feet into the streaming movie market, releasing YouTube Movies. What’s interesting is that they allow you to embed these full length movies into your website.

For example, here is the classic “To Kill A Mockingbird“. I think this is really really great, but I’m also pretty surprised that the studio/content owner would be ok with this with their obsession over controlling distribution and piracy in their never ending quest to keep their industry from getting “napster-ed”.

The service has some pretty decent movies, but most seem to be ones “on the fringe”. As a Netflix subscriber, and now looking at YouTube Movies, I am completely stunned at the volume of low grade movies that at face value have no redeeming appeal whatsoever. But I guess the stars have to start somewhere.

Googleheim Museum

Google is taking its popular site YouTube to NYC’s Guggenheim Museum. The search company will set up shop in the Guggenheim’s main atrium with all sorts of TV and video displays promoting the finalists from a recent promotion they ran.

The exhibition, set for October, will showcase videos from as many as 20 finalists of YouTube Play, a contest for graphic artists and users of Googles GOOG video site. A celebrity jury that includes Japanese pop artist Takashi Murakami and The Wrestler director Darren Aronofsky will wade through about 200 videos whittled down from thousands submitted in July.

The goal of this initiative is to try to re-position YouTube as a site/service that can cater to a more upscale, arts driven clientele and move it beyond the perception that its content is, er, lowbrow.

Beam Me Up, Scottie

You Tube is testing out some long form video. Its added several episodes of Star Trek, Beverly Hils 90210, and MacGyver in a very “tech-geek” influence choice of programming. Similar to other online streaming video, the episodes will have pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-roll ads.

Now I’m not terribly surprised by this move, you knew they could never make a decent dollar on user generated content. Advertisers avoid this like the plague. I do find this interesting for several reasons:

  • Google has been testing out digital TV advertising and reporting via Dish Network. Obviously, this is the next extension of that
  • The obvious popularity of watching video online and the digital convergence of over the air and digital TV. The fairly strong debut of Hulu, the joint venture from NBC and 20th Century Fox Studios, along with Joost is proving this out.
  • The challenges they have had in finding a viable revenue stream for YouTube.

If this ends up working, then the implications of this are wide and deep. Google has been dabbling in original content partnerhsips and I am sure this may give them some leverage in dealing with the studios.