AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

LA Times Blogger David Sarno discovers online sensation Fred, here:
Last week, someone in the online video business gave me a simple tip.
“Fred,” the guy said.
“Fred?” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “Kids love Fred.”
I had not heard of Fred, much less known that kids loved him. But that would swiftly end. As soon as I could, [...]

[Read more →]

With ‘Screening Room,’ YouTube dips its toe in the cinema world
At the Henry Fonda Theater on Hollywood Boulevard last night, YouTube introduced its new “Screening Room,” an area of the site devoted exclusively to selected independent films. The Screening Room will feature four short films every two weeks, as well as the occasional full-length feature. [...]

[Read more →]

Advertising Age

Google, Looking to Monetize Video Site, Is Letting Content Producers Sell Advertising on Their Branded Channels
Google has struggled to find the best way to monetize YouTube. The latest idea: Let content creators sell ads.
Professional content producers — those who come equipped with their own ad-sales teams — are now able to sell advertising on [...]

[Read more →]

Forbes
Google is turning YouTube into its own kind of data gold mine. So what if a few founding employees wind up in the dust?
Google drew sneers when it paid $1.65 billion for YouTube in November 2006. Only 63 people worked at this little video distributor in San Bruno, Calif. It had minimal revenue but more [...]

[Read more →]

Silicon Alley Insider
The old wisdom: YouTube (GOOG) dominates Web video but can’t make any money from it. Forbes’ wisdom: YouTube still doesn’t make much money, but a bit more than people think.
The mag says YouTube will make $200 million in revenue in 2008 and $350 million in 2009. These are unsourced numbers, but also not [...]

[Read more →]

Advertising Age
At Microsoft Advance ‘08: Strong Content Also Needs Interactivity, Community
According to Michael Eisner, story-driven online content is the next big app. “YouTube is to the internet what a nickelodeon is to the movies. It’s the preliminary installment of what is to come,” he said So what is to come? “Great, creative storytelling.”
He continued: “YouTube [...]

[Read more →]

The New York Times
What do video artists make of YouTube? Every minute, 10 hours of video are uploaded to the video-sharing site, which now shows hundreds of millions of videos each day. The place is a mess. Maybe artists should avoid it altogether.
The curator and Internet-art booster Rachel Greene has come up with another suggestion: [...]

[Read more →]

Content Agenda
While studios and the movie download industry wait for the PC to be connected to the TV for real video growth, a new report out shows that more and more consumers are already using their PCs in the same way they use their TV set.
While nearly half of all consumers, 43%, watch user-generated [...]

[Read more →]

YouTube Blog
Generally speaking, Cannes is considered the grand-mère of all film festivals. For 11 days every spring, the cinematic world descends on this beach town in the south of France to celebrate everything film, from the lowest-budget student shorts to the summer’s biggest blockbusters.
Starting today and for the next 11 days, we’ll be featuring [...]

[Read more →]

Reuters
Getting Hollywood actors paid for their smallest performances — video clips on the Internet — is shaping up as one their biggest sticking points in stalemated contract negotiations with major studios.
Whether actors must give consent for snippets of their film and TV work to be displayed online, and how much they should earn for them, [...]

[Read more →]