Starting this weekend, YouTube will be dipping its toe into the waters of paid content.
This behavior follows a trend we've noted in traditional media outlets. First, media mogul Rupert Murdoch said no more freebies for search engines, then the New York Times hinted (and today confirmed) that users would have to start paying for a certain amount of access to articles. Now, YouTube is partnering with the Sundance Film Festival and filmmakers to charge users around $5 to view a range of movies from the 2009 and 2010 festivals. It's still cheaper than a movie ticket - but is this a direction users will follow?
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Five Sundance films have been selected for this venture - what we'd consider a test run to see how users will respond to paid content on the site and whether this could be a new revenue stream for the web video giant, which has historically struggled with profitability.
The films include The Cove, an underwater adventure about dolphin capturing in Japan; Bass Ackwards, which chronicles an improvised road trip; Children of Invention, about two Bostonian orphans; One Too Many Mornings, a "coming of age comedy about two guys who are too old to be coming of age"; and Homewrecker, a comedy about a locksmith. The filmmakers will determine the exact asking price for viewing each movie, but all will be in the range of $5.
YouTube execs told USA Today the move is helping independent filmmakers find distribution avenues for their films. The movies will be shown without ads, which would be an aesthetic disaster for any director who chose to put his creation online.
What do you think: Would you pay $5 to watch an indie flick on YouTube? What other revenue models should YouTube be considering? Let us know in the comments.
A year-end thank-you note from Hulu CEO Jason Kilar offered some statistics to show us just how much the nearly three-year-old service has grown.
Back in April, the service became one of the top three Internet video providers, alongside Google - which includes YouTube and Google Video - and Fox, according to comScore. Kilar includes a number of statistics in his note to show that the site has continued its climb in popularity during the rest of 2009.
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"Monthly users of Hulu, as measured by comScore, grew to over 43 million, a 95 percent increase over this time last year.
Monthly streams, as measured by comScore, grew to 924 million, a 307 percent increase from this time last year.
Hulu's content library doubled over the past year. We now offer over 14,000 hours of premium content, up from 5,600 hours at this time last year."
The addition of Disney as a content partner last April surely provided a traffic boost, as the ABC owner brought television sensations like "Lost", "Grey's Anatomy" and other prime-time hits to the site.
A live video of Obama's inauguration topped the list of embedded videos for 2009, while "Saturday Night Live", "Family Guy", "The Office", "The Simpsons" and "Naruto Shippuden" were the most popular shows of the year.
But what was the overall winner for 2009 on Hulu, you might be wondering? A decidedly NSFW SNL short called "Motherlover".
For those of you who still haven't made the digital television switch but still want to watch, Hulu will be streaming the ball drop in Times Square tonight starting at 10 pm EST.
In a breathtakingly risky move, a former Russian police officer has taken to the Internet in full uniform to detail the corruption, danger, and brutality of his line of work.
In an open video address to Prime Minister Vladmir Putin, Alexei Dymovsky says, "Maybe you don't know about us, about simple cops, who live and work and love their work. I'm ready to tell you everything. I'm not scared of my own death." How much does Dymovsky have to fear? The answer might surprise those of us who are accustomed to the relative freedoms of self-expression.
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Over the past week, Dymovsky's videos have gotten more than a million views altogether and have created quite an uproar in Russia. In the videos, he speaks with an air of desperation, frustration, and resignation rarely seem on camera. He speaks of the ten years he spent serving and protecting his country.
Dymovsky served in the Russian army from 1996 until 1998. After that, he worked as a district commissioner of the city police in the Amur region. In 2004, he was transferred to the city of Novorossiysk police department, where he eventually advanced to the post of senior security officer and oversaw crimes related to drug trafficking.
"We are working as hard as we can with all our souls," Dymovsky says. After referencing losing two wives, who refused to put up with his work, and problems with "relationships with the bosses," Dymovsky says, "I want to talk about it now." He speaks of being denied leave of absence or medical treatment for illness, about police taking bribes and about pervasive corruption. "I am not afraid," he says, "I am telling my name... But I cannot stand detecting the nonexistent crimes, imprisoning people who are not guilty. I can't stand it anymore."
Take a look at one of the videos Dymovsky has posted so far:
These videos bear significant political impact, but they also speak to the importance of the Internet in acting as our generation's soapbox. Any wronged person has an almost infinite capacity to express, persuade and convince. Currently, a source at the Russian Interior Ministry's internal security department has confirmed to at least one publication that representatives of several human rights organization actively support Dymovsky.
The officers mentioned in Dymovsky's reports have filed libel suits against him, and the Russian interior minister has said his office is investigating the former police officer's claims.
This week, Justin.tv is rolling out new measures to protect copyrighted live video streams from being pirated on their site. The technology the company is using will allow them to remove pirate channels without having to issue a takedown notice first.
Using technology from Vobile, an online video publishing company, Justin.tv partners (including FOX), will be able to use VideoDNA™ "fingerprinting" technology to watermark their digital content. If the content is spotted elsewhere on the site, Justin.tv will automatically remove the infringing channel. Think of it as DRM for real-time, streaming media.
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These measures come in the wake of Justin.tv's legal and PR woes last year, when television broadcasters found that the site was being used to illegally redistribute their channels - especially sports and pay-per-view events - online. At that time, the site claimed traffic greater than Hulu's; however having to uphold stricter piracy standards has hurt those stats, too.
"This has been part of our long-term effort to work with copyright holders... How can we help them automate the process of removing content?" said CEO Michael Seibel in a recent interview with NewTeeVee.
Vobile's solution, VideoDNA, is a compact, unique digital signature, a.k.a. a fingerprint, that can be attached to online video without changing the source content. To identify an unknown video, its fingerprint is found and matched against the entries in the reference database, known as the Vobile DNA Database. If a match is found, the querying application is provided with comprehensive data on the match. The VideoTracker component of this solution is intended specifically for content creators and has reportedly been adopted by many major Hollywood studios.
Using this huge library of fingerprints, Justin.tv has worked with publishers to integrate digital fingerprinting with live, streaming media. It's a complicated solution requiring the proactive responsibility of the copyright holders.
Check out NewTeeVee's video interview with Seibel below, and let us know in the comments what you think of the new measures for copyright protection of live, streaming media.
As America celebrates its 233rd year of independence from England today, many red-blooded Americans will celebrate the old-fashioned way, by going outdoors, having a picnic or barbecue, decorating everything in red, white and blue and watching or holding their own fireworks displays. But in this rough economy lots of people are choosing to stay close to home. Who really wants to spend lots of money traveling, fighting huge crowds at the day's events and possibly blow off your fingers or light yourself on fire? Luckily we've got you covered.
This is a good day to stay home, watch a baseball game, throw some hotdogs on the grill, eat some apple pie and watch fireworks on your computer. earthTV, an international live TV channel, has cameras located in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York City, Niagara Falls and Honolulu and will be broadcasting live streams of fireworks displays beginning at dusk in those cities. If you just can't wait until then, go check out its timelapse showing Independence Day displays from years past.
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The fun is not limited to fireworks. Today Jimmy Fallon will emcee a special concert featuring the Foo Fighters and Michelle Branch from the South Lawn of the White House. Look for exclusive live video at whitehouse.gov/live beginning with President Obama's opening remarks at 7pm EDT. According to the White House blog, "the concert, put on by the USO honoring the hundreds of service members and their families who will be in attendance, will begin at 8:10 pm ET, followed by fireworks over the National Mall at approximately 9:10pm".
For those of you that are really feeling the American spirit today, check out this silly video we found. After all, it's not really a party until someone shoots rockets out of their butt or blows a hand off, right? (WARNING: Do Not Try This at Home)
Starting this weekend, YouTube will be dipping its toe into the waters of paid content.
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As America celebrates its 233rd year of independence from England today, many red-blooded Americans will celebrate the old-fashioned way, by going outdoors, having a picnic or barbecue, decorating everything in red, white and blue and watching or holding their own fireworks displays. But in this rough economy lots of people are choosing to stay close to home. Who really wants to spend lots of money traveling, fighting huge crowds at the day's events and possibly blow off your fingers or light yourself on fire? Luckily we've got you covered.