If you though the million dollar homepage was a great idea, you may like this one that utilizes video.
Jose Augusto is hoping to sell advertisers a single frame in a TV ad for just $39. From the press release…
“For $39, the price of one frame, everyone can have their 15 minutes of fame. Well, it’s not really 15 minutes, but only 1/25 of a second. But still, YOU can be on TV. Of course the risk no one will notice it when buying onl

It’s somewhat of a slow news day, at least when it comes to the search engines - they’re all in NYC for Search Engine Strategies. While we may hear some announcements later in the week, here are three Google items worth a quick look. Techdirt is spot on with their attack on the publishing industry’s claims that Google “stealing” their content. If publishers are so worried about this, go ahead and ban Google’s

Yep, they’re at it again: user posts something offensive to country on YouTube, country blocks YouTube. First it was Brazil protecting beloved soccer star Ronaldo, then Turkey in a conniption over insults aimed at its founders. Now Thailand is upset because a video insulted their king. As Search Engine Land quoted Mail & Guardian: The most offensive to Thai Buddhists was the juxtaposition of a pair of woman’s feet, the lowest

I’ll just have to assume that these announcements aren’t April Fools jokes. The Washington Post launched a reader loyalty program for subscribers to earn points by reading stories online. Earn enough points and you can get gift certificates, travel and more. The points can also be earned in the real world with a keychain used at participating companies like CVS. Steve Hills, president of Washington Post Co., says that you can ea

Now that we’ve established that you can use the exact same commercial is more effective online than on TV, we should also point out how much more effective video is than static advertising, even online.
A DoubleClick (they’re for sale, folks!) study released this week that states that Internet users itneract more with video ad than they do image ads.
Here are the hard numbers: Online video ads experience click-through rates ranging f

We have some news and then a big ‘ole mess to bring to your attention.
First, the news. AOL has announced that it’s Advertising.com unit would manage advertising sold on the new online video site being built by NBC and News Corp.
Ok, now the mess. Google owns 5% of AOL, yet AOL is involved in what might be Google’s biggest video competitor.
Will Advertising.com now exclude the management of video campaigns outside of this new v

Remember when video site Joost stormed on to the scene, when it snagged the Viacom distribution deal out from under YouTube?
In case you’re still not sure what Joost is all about, they’ve created their own TV commercial. Oh the irony of using YouTube to share a Joost commercial. Via Adverblog.
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We’ve long been told that to appeal to an online audience, traditional advertisers must change the way that they create their video ads. But studies say . . . no. A study by Millward Brown now indicates that the online video audience receives the same 30 second video ad spot quite similarly to offline viewers—nay, better than their offline counterparts.
eMarketer reports: Web spots increased the viewer attention rate by 53%, awarene

Nothing creates more speculation on Google’s next products, than spying on their open job vacancies.
Digit Online is doing just that and, based upon what they’re seeing, makes some (not so) far-fetched predictions on Google’s television ambitions.
“The Google VOD [video on demand] experience is something that they could easily convince Comcast or Time Warner or Cox or insert cable provider here that that’s something

A couple of quick announcements for you. As of May, every Yahoo Mail user will have unlimited email storage. Will they still delete your account if you don’t sign in for 3 months?
Meanwhile, YouTube will launch a mobile version of its web site in June. Pilgrim Partners: Buy Text Links - Buy text links and increase your site’s traffic!

Yahoo’s had a busy start to the day, announcing three new mobile initiatives. They’ve launched Yahoo! Mobile Publisher Services, “a suite of services designed to enable publishers to increase the discovery, distribution and monetization of their content on mobile phones.”
They’ve opened up oneSearch to aforementioned Yahoo Mobile Publishers Services.
They’ve announced a new mobile advertising alliance that see

You know, my Google Reader link blog would be even more useful, if I could add my thoughts to each added item. Instead, I’ll share some interesting news right here! If little Zimbra can figure out how to make web applications available offline, why the heck can’t Google?
Movie Marketing Madness reports the Federal Trade Commission is about to take another look at how well the movie industry polices its own advertising. Is it time for

How in the world did my local paper get this out before I heard about it? I was getting so used to browsing the business pages and pointing out the articles we’ve already covered.
Well, now that I’ve been thoroughly humbled, on with the news. TV Guide is gearing up to offer a better online video search.
Wait before you rejoice. TV Guide will only cover fully licensed content—and not home movies. (I know you guys wanted to watch

Microsoft’s video site, Soapbox, launched in September, has temporarily closed to new users. This comes in response to the (inevitable) video piracy on the site.
As a part of the NBC/News Corp/AOL deal in the works, Microsoft is trying to ensure that videos they’ll be paid to distribute won’t simultaneously be pirated on their video site. Think that ever happens on YouTube?
Or maybe the move has something to do with a certain

Rumors tend to have a little more substance when they’re reported in places like the LA Times and TechCrunch. With both of these outlets reporting News Corp. and NBC are joining forces to create a video-sharing site to challenge YouTube, it’s likely going to happen.
News Corp. and NBC Universal plan to announce as soon as today that they are creating an online video site stocked with TV shows and movies, plus clips that users can modi

Despite as many as 80% of online video viewers finding ads annoying, marketers are still debating whether pre-roll ads (before) or post-roll ads (after) are the best way to utilize advertising in video.
Marketers continued their debate at a ClickZ forum in San Francisco this week.
Those for pre-roll…
“We’re qualifying pre-roll as the television advertising model, but everything is going to change. We’re working with c

Okay, I couldn’t resist. MediaPost today blogged about CBS using YouTube for their free NCAA tourney highlights. Not that there will be any highlights, since both my team and my alma mater got knocked out in the first round. Stupid upsets. Ahem. Anyway. This comes after CBS partnered with CSTV for their user-generated content contest. This new move is especially important for CBS because they were having trouble accomodating the high traffic levels on their site.

It seemed for a while there that CBS was with Viacom on the “kill YouTube” boat—but apparently not. Guess what, big, huge, YouTube-hating networks. As I just said, “Give the milk away, and make tons more money than you could from selling the milk by slapping some ads on the cow.” The new agreement will offer ad-supported highlight reels through YouTube. YouTube and CBS will split the revenues.

Google has just launched a gadget for Google Talk. It works similarly to the version embedded into Gmail, but it’s created in Flash, so it has a richer interface. Each conversation has its own tab, so the gadget doesn’t occupy too much space. It’s also easier to search your contacts and to invite other people.Some extra features:* paste a link to a video from YouTube or Google Video and you’ll see the title of the video and a thumbnail. If you cl

Reuters reports that Viacom sued the Google-owned YouTube for “more than $1 billion over unauthorized use of its programming online”. Viacom says that YouTube hosted more than 150,000 videos from its programs and these videos were watched 1.5 billion times.Viacom doesn’t think that YouTube videos increased the awareness of its shows. “YouTube’s strategy has been to avoid taking proactive steps to curtail the infringement on its site. Their busine

It appears Google’s finally starting to realize that if YouTube is to continue its success, they need to figure out how to protect copyright holders from video piracy.
I’m guessing losing big deals to your rivals and watching others being proactive on copyright protection, finally got Google’s attention, but apparently only just recently.
“We just reviewed that (issue) about an hour ago,” Schmidt told Reuters when asked what Google was doing to make anti-piracy technologies widely available to video owners

If you’ve been following Gareth Davies ECommerce Rocks video series, you’ll already know that he produces some fantastic stuff.
I recently worked with Gareth on a new video that has just launched. In it, I discuss recent developments with keyword suggestion tools and then discuss some basics of keyword research.
Now, I may be biased, but wouldn’t you agree this is one of the best produced SEO tutorial videos ever? (emphasis on the “produced”).
Enjoy and please share.

BTW, Gareth’s looking for more experts to join him on future videos and is also providing his video producing talents to clients, looking to “jazz-up” their content

We should have suspected YouTube’s chances of signing a deal with Viacom were nil, when the cable company demanded more than 100,000 video clips be removed from the Google-owned video site.
Now comes news that Viacom is about to sign a distribution deal with the up-and-coming video site Joost.com.
Viacom will provide Joost hundreds of hours of licensed programming from Viacom cable networks such as MTV and Comedy Central as well as movies from Viacom-owned Paramount studios

Jessica Pfund, a Google employee, talks about a program you may have heard about: Google Earth. The one-hour video takes you “through some of the most powerful, yet overlooked, features of this program and how people are using it”. Some notes:* Google Maps is a 2D view of the world, while Google Earth is a 3D view of the world.* Google Earth shortcuts: double click to zoom in, double right-click to zoom out

A very patient individual decided to test Vista’s speech recognition. Admittedly, it’s not an easy task to build a software that actually works well and Microsoft doesn’t have a brilliant history in this area (remember the demo from July last year?).Microsoft is proud: “Windows Vista includes a built-in speech recognition user interface designed specifically for users who need to control Windows and enter text without using a keyboard or mouse

It’s true: newspapers are outperforming TV in video ads. In 2006, newspapers’ websites sold $81 million in local online streaming video advertisements. Local TV broadcasters’ websites sold only $32 million. Even taken with the other $48 million spent on online video advertising, it’s not much compared to the advertising industry total of $280 billion

Now that Gmail is open for everyone, Gmail team posted a funny 4-act puppet play that shows why it’s a good idea to try Google’s mail service. Their reasons are: better spam protection, threads, fast search and built-in instant messaging.

Hat’s off to Read/WriteWeb for their outstanding compilation of companies in the online video space.
This is definitely something to go in your bookmarks, with info on:

Video Sharing
Intermediaries
Video Search
Video eCommerce
Video Editing & Creation
Rich Media Advertising
P2P (Peer To Peer)
Video Streaming
Vlogosphere

Good stuff!

If you think you’re safe behind your YouTube username, think again.
ASPnews.com is reporting Google’s YouTube has complied with subpoenas issued by the U.S. District Court in Northern California, and turned over the identities of two users who illegally uploaded entire episodes of “24″ prior to its broadcast and DVD release.
“We intend to use the information provided to pursue all available legal remedies against those who infringed our copyrights,” 20th Century Fox Television Vice President of Media Relations Chris Alexander.

Google’s compliance has ramifications beyond just the uploading of videos

Media Post suggests that smaller companies are providing better solutions for searching video content on the web.
However, no one has cracked the code yet on how to sift through these videos. Once they do, the ripple effect in advertising should be massive, as marketers will be able to couple their ads with the videos returned, just as they do in text search.

While you may see a ripple effect, with better ad targeting, what about the tidal wave coming in the other direction? If video search technology does indeed get to the level of sophistication, that it can identify your favorite video clip, content owners are going to demand it be used to identify and filter copyrighted content.
Here’s a conspiracy theory for you

Googlezon has long been the benchmark video for spreading fear about the power of Google. Now comes a new entrant, “Master Plan - about the power of Google“.
It’s a sobering video, suggesting that Google is collecting far too much information about you and perhaps sharing it with the CIA.

Hat-tip Brian
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MySpace has announced a partnership with Audible Magic to identify and screen uploaded videos for copyrighted content.
Audible Magic uses audio fingerprinting technology to identify the audio digital signature in any video file and then looks for matches against a database of copyrighted content.
MySpace said it maintains a database of fingerprints uploaded by content owners

Yikes!
That was my response when Barbara Coll shared with me the type of search results we can expect to see, with the integration of YouTube content with Google’s search results.
The “Webmama” searched for the rather innocent “shoes” on Google and discovered content that you wouldn’t expect, and certainly wouldn’t want your kids to see.
The description reads like - well - someone who uses a lot of swear words to get their point across

So, I was one of the 90+ million viewers who tuned into Super Bowl XLI last weekend, and like a lot of folks I was curious to see the latest batch of multi-million dollar commercials, partly for the sheer flash and glam of it all, but mostly because our extended Yahoo! team here played a part in bringing the first “user-generated” commercials to the Super Bowl.

The commercials were for Doritos and were actually two of five final contest entries that our very own Jumpcut community created and voted on last fall

How about that attention-grabbing headline? See, I read the articles on the importance of headlines too, you know.
Anyway, it’s all true. Michael Jackson, the former president of cable channel USA Networks (oh wait, you thought it was the “ch’mon”, “hee, hee, hee” Jackson?) is just one of the signs that suggests Barry Diller and his formidable IAC network of companies (including Ask, Ticketmaster & CitySearch), is getting ready to branch out into online video content.
According to CNET…
Some observers expect Diller to soon branch off in yet another direction: online video

Advertising.com has released a study that indicates that 66% of Internet users age 18 and up surveyed viewed online video content at least once a week. Advertising.com divided their results into two age demographics: 18 to 34 and 35 and up.
Key findings for each demographic included:

18 to 34

44% of online video viewers fell into this age group

Web 2.0 is a buzzword that encompasses a lot of concepts and doesn’t have a comprehensive definition. Wikipedia says: “Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Web-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies—that emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.”Here’s a visually-brilliant video that tries to define Web 2.0 in less than 5 minutes.

I just read an interesting MarketWatch piece on the issues Google faces with the policing of copyrighted content on YouTube. Because YouTube allows videos to be uploaded, without first being screened or approved, it’s very easy for a pulled clip to be replaced within minutes.
“It’s now a game of whack-a-mole,” said John Palfrey, a Harvard law school professor, and executive director of the school’s Berkman Center For Internet & Society.

I’m jealous that Palfrey was giving\ the opportunity to provide MarketWatch with such a cool sound-bite, but it certainly sums-up the game YouTube is playing, perfectly

Posted by Anisha Malhotra, Software EngineerWe’ve all been obsessed lately with watching videos on the web. And when we come across something that strikes our fancy, we can’t wait to share it with our friends. That got us thinking: rather than sending multiple emails and IMs to share the video URL, wouldn’t it be nice to have a feature for sharing videos on orkut?From now on, when you see that crazy video you feel is a must see for all your friends, now you can create your own video playlist on orkut to share with anyone who visits your profile

I must admit that I’m not an avid viewer of Technorati’s Buzz TV. I’ve seen it a couple of times, and host Aaron Krane is perfect for the role - when you have only two minutes, you need to be that energetic - but I just don’t have the time to tune in each day (I know it’s only 2 minutes long!).
Anyway, maybe it’s part of Aaron’s plan to get me to talk about Buzz TV - in which case it’s worked - but Marketing Pilgrim is featured on today’s episode.
So like the pavlovian blogger I am, he sent me the embedded video and I came running to hit “publish”

I’m with Pete Cashmore on this one. Popular video search engine, Blinkx, had launched a widget for blog owners and social networks (MySpace etc) that allows them to display relevant videos on their site.
But why?
Ok, so the videos are targeted, and the widget is not very intrusive, but where’s the benefit for me? Us? Bloggers?
I already have a number of widgets on Marketing Pilgrim - each already slowing down load times

As you know, I’ve been consulting with Gareth Davies of the UK search marketing firm GSINC Ltd. Gareth’s background not only includes search marketing and web development, but he’s also a whiz when it comes to video production.
Seeing an opportunity to bring web marketing lessons to the masses, Gareth has thrown out the notion that all advice must be delivered by means of a 800-1000 article and decided to expand on his recent video tutorials.
We asked Gareth to provide us with a sneak peak of his new ECommerce Rocks series, which you’ll find below

The BBC is reporting YouTube will shortly launch an advertising revenue share model with users who upload their own unique videos.
Following a model that has helped Revver gain popularity, YouTube founder Chad Hurley indicated the goal was to “reward creativity” of users that upload popular content.
The system would be rolled out in a couple of months, he said, and use a mixture of adverts, including short clips shown ahead of the actual film.

Also coming is a new system to identify copyrighted material.
The company…was currently working on “audio fingerprinting” technologies to identify copyrighted material…

I’m guessing the identification of copyrighted material would come before the revenue share rollout

Google has just announced the first step in integrating Google Video with newly acquired YouTube.
Google search results already include links to content that’s hosted on YouTube. Starting today, YouTube video results will appear in the Google Video search index: when you click on YouTube thumbnails, you will be taken to YouTube.com to experience the videos