By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, Saturday, November 15, 2008 @11:29AM, EST (USA, NY).
Mentioned in an earlier Mstardom blog was the search bar present in YouTube videos. It was surprising that the major news sources including news websites didn’t notice the new sponsored search bar feature before it was visible to web users, until days later. What could have happened is that the official news sources didn’t realize that this new invention by Google for YouTube would have been news worthy enough. Whatever the case may have been, they were many days late on this one, or maybe it was designed that way, no one will know for sure. The news broadcasted the story days after it was already visible on YouTube videos embedded on websites accross the web. One can see the date the news was first published by official news websites and the dates it was published on Mstardom.com. One will see that there is a stark difference in the publishing dates between Mstardom.com and other official news sites, with Mstardom being the first to publish an article about the new YouTube search bar feature.
It felt really good to being the first to notice and publish such an important internet video feature, as in the new sponsored search bar feature of YouTube videos. A situation like this one has really shed some more light on the power of the internet, and the power of blogging or publishing what one sees happening on the internet. Therefore, anyone can be the first to publish an article or story about a particular subject on the internet. Long gone the days of professional news journalist being the first and only source of news publications.
The point of the story is that one should not be hesitant to write about anything that seems a little different from the norm (new sponsored search bar on YouTube videos). Who knows, one could be the first to publish an important internet feature before even the popular and influential news websites does so.
(Glenford Robinson is a staff writer for Mstardom.com News and Entertainment. He is also the founder of Mstardom.com (MyspaceStardom.com), which is a News and Entertainment website informing and entertaining the public with breaking news, free full-length film, and video entertainment. The website also provides free promotions for videos hosted anywhere on the web. So, if a person has Myspace, Youtube, or Dailymotions videos, those videos will receive increase views when added to the Mstardom.com free advertisement program. For more information about our free video promotions, please send correspondence to Mstardom.com/ranja or post a response to this blog)
Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, Thursdays, November 13, 2008 @5:41 AM, EST (USA, NY).
According to a Reuters article, YouTube will be posting full-length MGM Films to its website. This move is to directly compete with its rival Hulu. Hulu.com was the first website to introduce full-length movies to internet users for free. The website has brought a level of professional standards to online videos. In most cases, the viewing quality of the movies is better than regular TV. One can say the quality is very much like high definition TV.
It is very interesting to see if YouTube will adapt a similar video player to Hulu’s. The wide-screen approach used by Hulu has been so effective that Viacom implemented a similar version to its new website, Mtvmusic.com.
The article stated that MGM Studios will post episodes of its long-time film “American Gladiators” on one channel, and other channels will consist of full-length action films such as “Bulletproof Monk” and the “Magnificent Seven.” Clips from popular movies such as “Legally Blond” will also be a part of the lineup on other channels.
YouTube had forged other deals with TV stations such as CBS to run TV shows. However, those TV programs were short clips, nothing to the magnitude of full-length films. YouTube, the most popular video sharing site on the internet, is owned and operated by Google.
Hulu on the other hand, has been showing up-to-date shows and movies on its website to US web users ever since its inception in 2007. The site is owned by News Corp and General Electric’s NBC Universal.
(Glenford Robinson is a staff writer for Mstardom.com News & Blogs. He is also the founder of Mstardom.com (MyspaceStardom.com), which is a News and Entertainment website informing and entertaining the public with breaking news, free full-length films, and videos. The website also provides free promotions for videos hosted anywhere on the web. So, if one has Myspace, Youtube, or Dailymotions videos, those videos will receive increase views when added to the Mstardom.com free advertisement program. For more information about our free video promotions, please send correspondence to Mstardom.com/ranja or post a response to this blog)
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, Sunday, November 9, 2008 @1:15 PM, EST (USA, NY).
Viacom who owns MTV Networks consisting of MTV, VH1, and CMT has been really busy trying to nab a larger piece of the online video revolution pie. The company launched a new website for its videos called MTVmusic.com. It is very similar to Hulu.com the popular movie and TV show website, which shows full-length movies and TV shows for free.
The quality of Hulu’s shows and movies are so high in quality that Viacom couldn’t resist the temptation of making a website that is very similar in video and player quality. If one takes a good look at the Hulu video player and the Mtvmusic video player, one will see that they are both very similar. Unlike the Hulu video player though, the Mtvmusic version doesn’t give the viewer the option of adjusting the starting point of commercials that appear in the video. There are some advantages of the Mtvmusic version, however.
The MTvmusic version provides the enlargement nob, so when it is embedded on a third party website, the viewer has the option of enlarging the video to fit his/her entire computer screen. The video enlargement nob is also available when the video is resized to a smaller size; I resized it to a width of 300px and a height of 250px, and it worked fine.
A very good feature of both video players is the ability to maintain high picture quality when resized to different sizes, smaller or larger. This characteristic demonstrates the evolution of online videos. In the not so distant past, when a video is resized to a larger size, it often distorts the quality of the image.
These technological advances in online video technologies are showing us that the popularity of online videos will soon surpass the popularity of television the way television is today.
Therefore, the television industry should hurry up and develop technologies that will help it synchronize with the internet. Pretty soon, people won’t be sitting in front of their television sets; they will instead be sitting in front of their computer screens. It is already happening. I can use myself as an example; I very rarely sit down to watch TV; the only time I do so is when I am watching a live basketball, football, or baseball game. In fact, professional sports games will soon be streaming live on the internet in high quality online video format on a large scale basis, not only audio. When this happens, television as we know it today will no longer be. It will have to change to survive. Remember that advertisers always follow the footsteps of the herds.
Therefore, where ever the views are advertisers will be there too, and advertiser’s budgets can only go so far. Why would they advertise on TV when there is no one watching? I hope I am wrong and this doesn’t happen, but I would hate to be right. In this instance, I don’t want to be right.
In conclusion, we can see here that Hulu.com and MTVmusic.com have introduced us to a higher standard and quality for online videos, video players, and a whole new experience in watching online videos. Both companies have made it possible for anyone to watch top quality movies, TV programs, and music videos all for free. There services and online concepts are so good that it is hard to imagine that television as we know it today will ever survive.
Thanks for reading my blog!
(Glenford Robinson is a staff writer for Mstardom.com News & Blogs. He is also the founder of Mstardom.com (MyspaceStardom.com), which is a News and Entertainment website informing and entertaining the public with breaking news, free full-length film, and video entertainment. The website also provides free promotions for videos hosted anywhere on the web. So, if a person has Myspace, Youtube, or Dailymotions videos, those videos will receive increase views when added to the Mstardom.com free advertisement program. For more information about our free video promotions, please send correspondence to Mstardom.com/ranja or post a response to this blog)
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, Saturday, November 8, 2008 @12:06 PM, EST (USA, NY).
Google has done it again by propelling YouTube into Technological invincibility. Has anyone noticed after a Youtube video has finished playing a search bar appears within the video, at the top? Well, I have noticed it, and it is a brilliant feature. If I am not mistaken, this special feature appears in Youtube videos that are embedded onto other websites because I haven’t seen it on YouTube. I have embedded a few Youtube videos on the Mstardom.com website and this was where I first saw the display of this invideo search bar feature.
You and I know what this means for Google and Youtube, advertising wise. Well, Google has been looking for ways in which to monetize the videos on Youtube because as they put it: “Youtube wasn’t providing optimal revenue to show investors that Google made the right decision in paying $2.5 Billion for the legendary video sharing site.” And ever since then, Google has been working hard, trying to develop technologies in which to help the search giant monetize Youtube to its fullest potential. Well, they have certainly made great strides in doing just that. What this search bar feature means on Youtube videos is that when a video is finished playing, the viewer can easily type in a search term, which will show a series of video ads for the viewer to choose from. For example, I typed in “yellow pages” and I instantly saw several video ads displaying Yellow Pages commercials. Google can then charge advertisers a fee for clicks or views of these video ads. They may even charge impressions, who knows. This is definitely a brilliant strategy for monetizing videos with the use of key words. Therefore, where ever Youtube videos are embedded, Google will be making money. This is a very outstanding feature, indeed.
Advertisers too can benefit from the Youtube in video search bar. The only party that won’t directly prophet from this particular feature is the website publishers themselves because it is not necessary for Google to pay publishers for videos people will automatically embed on their websites anyway. Don’t get me wrong, Google does have video features that make it possible for publishers to monetize their ad inventory, but not in this instance. At least, it is not evident here. It would be a great idea if the publisher could get a piece of the revenue pie that Google will be generating from this feature, hope this occurs in the not so distant future.
Thanks for reading my blog!
(Glenford Robinson is a staff writer for Mstardom.com News & Blogs. He is also the founder of Mstardom.com (MyspaceStardom.com), which is a News and Entertainment website informing and entertaining the public with breaking news, free full-length film, and video entertainment. The website also provides free promotions for videos hosted anywhere on the web. So, if a person has Myspace, Youtube, or Dailymotions videos, those videos will receive increase views when added to the Mstardom.com free advertisement program. For more information about our free video promotions, please send correspondence to Mstardom.com/ranja or post a response to this blog)
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, Saturday, November 8, 2008 @5:39 AM, EST (USA, NY).
According to a Reuters article, (Reported by Robert MacMillan; Edited by Tim Dobbyn) MySpace on Monday declared that it and online advertising technology company Auditude are working with Viacom Inc's MTV Networks to make money from video clips that have been illegally uploaded by Myspace members. When Myspace members upload illegal video clips, they will not be taken down or deleted; they will just become an object of advertisement for the rightful owner (Viacom) to use for advertisement purposes in which the company will authorize Myspace to run ads alongside them. The article stated that MTV Networks, Viacom, and Auditude will make money from running ads alongside video clips of shows such as “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” whether or not the uploading persons have permission to publish them on the internet. This advertising feature will be facilitated by using Auditude’s advertisement technology.
Viacom has finally gotten with the program. They have finally realized that it made no sense trying to fight against the inevitable of people uploading contents that they do not own. All it had to do was capitalize on the free promotions that these illegally uploaded videos were receiving and thus convert that into capital. Viacom and others like it should have been doing this from a long time ago instead of fighting against the people who uploaded these illegal videos. There are ways in getting even without spending large sums of money doing so. It is unwise to fight fire with fire, and this is what Viacom and others like it have been doing for such a long time. Now they can reap the benefits of their own works. Why spend millions of dollars in court fees and attorney fees in suing someone while one can capitalize on ways of making money from the infraction.
The world of internet videos is a new phenomenon and will be with us for a long time to come. Therefore, now is the time for companies to discover ways of extracting revenue from this trend. The company that comes up with the most effective approach or business model for generating revenue from online videos will undoubtedly be the last one standing when the dust clears. It is much like the gold rush of the Wild West. Internet video ventures or business models are the gold to be had, while the Wild West is the internet itself. One just has to go with the flow and learn how to gain an advantage. Viacom’s suing of Google was an attempt to stop the inevitable gold rush, but no! This is the wrong approach. So, it is a pleasure to see that Viacom has finally saw that it was going about it all wrong by suing Google and threatening people who upload videos that they do not own. Now Viacom and others like it will begin to see some real revenue instead of seeing court and attorney fees arise from suing. Great job Viacom!
(Glenford Robinson is a staff writer for Mstardom.com News & Blogs. He is also the founder of Mstardom.com (MyspaceStardom.com), which is a News and Entertainment website informing and entertaining the public with breaking news, free full-length film, and video entertainment. The website also provides free promotions for videos hosted anywhere on the web. So, if a person has Myspace, Youtube, or Dailymotions videos, those videos will receive increase views when added to the Mstardom.com free advertisement program. For more information about our free video promotions, please send correspondence to Mstardom.com/ranja or post a response to this blog)
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, Sunday, November 2, 2008 @6:36 AM, EST (NY, USA).
As a result of the overwhelming popularity of online videos, advertisers are now buying ad spaces within the videos themselves more often now than they did in the past. This trend has been noticed on sites such as Hulu, Youtube, Bliptv, and many other video publishing websites. In the past, advertisers were reluctant to take full advantage of such an opportunity, fearing that questionable video contents could tarnish their brands. Things have changed however, and more and more companies are joining in on the inline video ad opportunity. If one takes a trip over to Hulu.com, one will see the amazing display of commercials appearing in videos.
With all this said, one should take a closer look at the video content themselves, especially on Hulu or even on Youtube. One will see that the video content themselves will determine whether or not that video will be displaying ads. So, even though there is an inclination for advertisers to display their commercials in videos, they pretty much screen these videos thoroughly before hand, and choose whether or not they want their ads running in them. We can then conclude that content of the particular video is what determines whether or not it will show ads, not necessarily content on the website itself. On Youtube for example, things are a lot more of the Wild West variety, in terms of video content. One will see millions of video clips on Youtube, but only a few will have inline video ads running in them. Hulu on the other hand, has much more of a tighter control over the videos that appear on its website. These videos are not user generated; they are video contents from popular TV Shows, Movies, and so on, but regardless of the fact that these contents are more professional in nature, they still have short comings, in terms of how they are perceived by advertisers. So, although Hulu videos are not user generated and are therefore, professional in nature, they too are under the advertisers’ scrutiny of not allowing their ads to run in all available videos, and one will see that it is not all videos on Hulu that show ads.
This is to further support the idea that advertisers are willing to take a little risk in order to follow the online herds; where ever the foot prints of internet visitors appear, that is where the advertisers will show up. This makes very good business sense, and we shall see more and more advertisers taking advantage of this means of advertising.
Advertisers don’t necessarily have to advertise in every single video to reach their audiences; all they have to do is advertise in a video next to one that is not so pleasant and their image will remain intact. This way of thinking is a consequence of how we perceive the internet today; every aspect cannot be one hundred percent controlled or regulated; or else, we wouldn’t have a successful Youtube or a successful and profitable internet for that matter. So, there could be questionable video content streaming on one side of the street, but on the other side of the street, there are acceptable video content plugged with numerous inline video ads by well respected companies promoting their products and services, and the same visitors who look at the questionable contents will also look at the unquestionable ones, plugged with commercials. This is the advertiser’s way of staying out of arms way while getting his/her message across to consumers.
The nature of the internet has forced us to look the other way in many instances, and this is what the advertisers are taking full advantage of. People don’t care if the advertiser is promoting on a particular website even though the website streams videos not digestible by everyone, simply because every aspect of the internet cannot be controlled and every aspect of Youtube cannot be controlled either, in terms of video content. Regardless of this fact, web masters who own video publishing websites should take full advantage of this trend of online video advertising.
Not because most webmasters with smaller websites won’t be selling ads in their own published videos, but they should nevertheless make sure that their websites are clean and free of objectionable contents, so when they embed video from larger more popular websites to their websites, the ads in these videos from the more popular websites will have a clean and objectionable-free place to display. This is not asking for much, considering the fact that embedded videos carry excellent content and display ads belonging to very large and respectable corporations. “If the content is embedded by you to your website that means you like it, which means it is excellent, right? This approach will only make your website more attractive for future advertisers who have the big money to spend with you and your website. So as webmasters, let us do all that we can to protect the integrity of the advertisers and the positive display of their products and services."
Thanks for reading my article! I will continue to post contents that are helpful in nature, so we all can get the most out of this incredible world called, the internet.
(Glenford Robinson is a staff writer for Mstardom.com, a website bringing you the latest news and entertainment 24 hours 7 days a week. To contact Glenford Robinson, please send an inbox message to Mstardom.com/ranja)
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News, Thursday, October 29, 2008 @7:09AM, EST.
Here is an example of the quality of movies, videos, and film provided by Hulu.com. The website is truly a head of the rest in terms of providing free full-length movies, film, and TV shows for the viewing public. In one of my previous blogs I had mentioned Hulu, expressing the fact that it was the first website to provide full-length movies, film, and TV shows for free. This website is definitely a pioneer in this area. These videos have commercials that appear in the videos before, during, or after the show. Viewers can adjust the settings on the video player to place the starting point of the commercials. This is great for people who don't like to be shown ads at the beginning of videos. I have added a few of the videos for you to see for yourself. So, please enjoy. Other websites and blog owners should do the same; just make sure that your site or blog is appropriately presented, meaning that you should avoid putting questionable contents on your site or blog which could alienate your affiliates.
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News and Entertainment, October 19, 2008, EST (USA, NY).
Online videos have taken another giant step forward in the TV-style quality department; Now-a-days when a person is watching videos on the internet, it is just like watching TV on the living room couch. Saturday Night Live was once only for TV audiences, but things have changed dramatically, and internet audiences all around the world can now enjoy professional quality videos (HD-style quality) just as TV audiences can. Long gone the days of watching fuzzy internet videos without the choice of switching to a website that delivers high quality videos. A perfect example is the Hulu video below, depicting Republican Vice Presidential Candidate, Alaskan Governor, Sarah Palin who appeared on the popular comedy show along with her look-a-like, Tina Fey, and who actually performed two skits. The video says it all.
Lets elaborate a little about Hulu. Hulu is not like your typical video sharing website like Youtube; it is much more sophisticated, in terms of not-seen-before services and features. The most astounding evidence of this is the website’s marriage to network TV. I am stating it this way because it is usually only in a marriage relationship that one finds mutual agreements in the equal sharing of valuable resources. This is exactly what is happening over at Hulu.
We have been taking full advantage of these resources and services that they have provided. If one looks around the Mstardom website, one will see the Hulu brand in action as well as see other brands in action. Everyone pretty much knows about Myspace, Youtube, Facebook, etc; but Hulu is a new kid on the block who is making his presence felt in a big way. The website has teamed up with Network TV to bring actual full-length TV shows and full-length movies to the internet. I just never thought I would ever see this happened so soon. I will stop here, so one can run over to Hulu, and see exactly what I am talking about! I would like to make it clear to my audience that I was not paid to write about Hulu, so these thoughts were put to pen and paper by moi and only me, although others have spoken about this topic in different contexts. Again take a look at the video player below and try out the features to get your own take on things. Try the full screen button; that is one of my favorites.
By Glenford Robinson, Mstardom News, October 17, 2008 @ 9:27PM, EST (USA, NY).
What goes up must come down, especially if one is greedy. A couple years ago, Yahoo was the standard for successful internet companies, and all of a sudden everything came crashing down like a pile of bricks falling out of the back of a pick-up truck. What the heck happened to Yahoo? It was one of the first websites to introduce quality online videos; it was the first website to introduce the search engine, and it was the first website to worth hundreds of millions of dollars; so what in the world happened? I know what happened! Yahoo became fat and complacent and did not take full advantage of the free social network technology that was available; they did not develop a social network site like Myspace to give people a free place to express themselves and did not take full advantage of the social sharing of videos like YouTube; If it was up to Yahoo, Myspace would have charged people to set up their profiles, and they would have charged struggling artist to upload their music and videos.
Yahoo was too greedy, not willing to let the little man upload his own videos; this is why YouTube got fat. YouTube allowed the little man to promote himself via user generated videos. Yahoo was more interested in maintaining the status quo because the status quo was working fine, and they were continually getting richer and richer.
Now as a result of its selfish nature, it is sinking faster than the Titanic; Yahoo did not allow Microsoft to buy its shares; why? Selfishness! However, times have changed and things aren’t the way they used to be. Now, Yahoo is laying-off thousands. I just feel bad for those poor folks who are getting the pink Merry Christmas Cards; by the way, December 10, 2008 is when the layoffs will begin.
In order for any internet enterprise to be successful; it has to let others in. Google has long known this fact and still continues to take advantage of it. This is why Google currently dominates and will always dominate because it is willing to let others eat too. The moment it stops allowing others to eat, that will be the time its dominance ends. This goes for its enterprise YouTube also—better let those folks continue to upload their low-budget videos to promote themselves or else you maybe barking down the Yahoo tree.
YouTube is currently working on and experimenting on many ways to monetize its website. As a result of this, many people are watching with 4 eyes wide open, looking to see if YouTube will stifle out the little man who creates his low-budget user generated video contents. Google is too smart to allow this to happen, though. This is one of the main reasons why the United States of America will always be powerful. It is powerful because it welcomes everyone with opened arms, and allows everyone to contribute what they can to its being. It allows everyone to prosper and benefit from its support structures, just like Google does. If you need examples, visit Google Gadget website and take a look at the different Application Interfaces (API) available to any Joe the Plumber.
The United States of America is a melting pot of every nation on the face of the earth for a reason and that reason is to be strong. The more one helps the other, the stronger the helper will become. Now, we can see why 700 Billion dollars were injected into the banking system by the government to finance banks and help solve the financial turmoil in the United States. Therefore, the more the larger internet companies help the smaller ones, the larger that internet company will become. Yahoo has not realized this fact as yet. I wonder when they will. I wonder what would happened if we had to wait on Yahoo to bail us out of our country’s financial crisis; I know for a fact that they would have let us down the same way they are letting down those poor folks who are getting the early Christmas Vacations. Yahoo have tried to copy the Myspace-style social network idea, but that didn’t work out too well, and they had to scrap it. I wonder why it didn’t work! They were probably restricting photo uploads to 2 bytes only.
The Great Roman Empire ruled for hundreds of years, but it met its demise; not to say this will happened to Yahoo, but it is hard to think otherwise. Yahoo will continue to crumble if it doesn’t change its board of directors. They are too closed minded and selfish. They have failed miserably; and have continued to fail over and over again; no wonder Icahn wanted them fired. It is a shame to see such pioneer of the internet age goes under as a result of some selfish… head gaskets!
