Advertising sources say YouTube is revamping the homepage to accommodate a huge new banner ad that will span the entire width of the page. The ad will is roughly the same height as the current video ad unit on the upper right of the page, and designed to accommodate high-definition video, similar to the campaign Sony Pictures ran on YouTube to market “Pineapple Express.” Sources who have seen the unit describe it having multiple tabs that activate when rolled over by a cursor.
And now for the “Viral Video of The Day”…as featured on ViralVideoChat.com as the most viral video of today. Stats:
I was playing with Stumble Upon and discovered a great depiction of a world without internet, in cartoon narrated story form (with pop-ups). Very entertaining if you need a break from work….
Kevin David Mitnick is a computer security consultant who was a controversial computer hacker in the late 20th century. In 1999, Mitnick admitted to the authorities [...]. Mitnick served five years in prison, of which four and a half years were pre-trial, and eight months were in solitary confinement. He was released on January 21, 2000. During his supervised release, which ended on January 21, 2003, he was initially restricted from using any communications technology other than a landline telephone. Mitnick fought this decision in court, and the judge ruled in his favor, allowing him to access the Internet. (Wikipedia)
As for the weaknesses in Web2.0, quoted from Forbes:
What do you see as the biggest threats to cybersecurity today?
Cybersecurity used to be about the network or operating system. Now it’s more at the application layer. Companies and their contractors build their own applications hosted on a public Web site, and the people who write them aren’t trained in secure coding. The mistakes they make can be leveraged to break the system.
…and he’s right. People are pumping out web-based applications all the time and I imagine the only protection they have remain vulnerable hackers like Kevin. I imagine this will become a bigger issue as software becomes a thing of the past and everything is web-based.
I’m pleased to write that North Carolina decided to “ok” 16 year old Blake Peebles decision to drop out of high school and pursue his dream of becoming a music legend – on Guitar Hero!
Say it out loud this time “Blake Peeble’s “Guitar Hero” Career”. Feels weird to say it, but according to the RollingStone article Teen Drops Out of High School To Become Professional “Guitar Here” , “Peebles was doing poorly to begin with in school, and his parents have since hired him a private tutor.” His parents basically let him drop out of school to persue a career of his choice…one of which I feel is necessary to define Guitar Hero to truly get an understanding and illustrate the current situation. As defined by Wikipedia…
Guitar Hero is a series of music video games published by RedOctane in partnership with Activision. The series is notable for its use of a guitar-shaped peripheral to simulate the playing of music, represented on-screen by colored notes that correspond to fret buttons on the controller.”
EscapistMagazine article Teen Dropout to be Pro Guitar Hero quoted his parents saying, “We couldn’t take the complaining anymore,” said [his father] Hunter. “He always told me that he thought school was a waste of time.”
He must have had a real taste of the “good life” and sense of success from his earlier winnings to make such a life altering situation…right? Well, let’s see what lead Blake Peebles to make this decision: “At the contests he has entered thus far in his career, he has won the typical takeaway prizes for local game contests: $1000 in prizes, gift certificates, gaming equipment and chicken sandwiches.” (escapistMagazine)
It is possible in some parallel universe that one could earn up to $80,000 a year on the competitive circuit, though I imagine those are 1 in a million. Could this be Blakes break? Could he be the 1 in a Million? Well, to get an idea of what he’s up against I took a look at the Guitar Hero Community, where I found no sign of Blake Peebles anywhere…though it could be that his username is one of many attempts to sound more like a distant cousin to R2D2.
Oh and I have great news…. Blake was just on Dr. Blogstein’s radio show. I have t admit this is a great attempt to get some serious attention. I’m not saying he’ll find Michael Phelps level endorsements, as I discussed last week in my article Michael Phelps Pulls in $5MM in Endorsements, but he’s definitely on his way to gaining Activision’s attention. He may remain a “blip” on our radar, but in the world of gaming, this is real news.
On a more personal level, I just want the world to know I LOVE GUITAR HERO! I’m not afraid to admit it. My past room mate and good friend, Mitchell Goldford and my room mate and my true Guitar Hero, Sam Shron have been rocking the plastic guitar and mastering the game on Expert. You try “Through Fire and Flames” on Expert without ending up with some level of Alzheimer’s! Try and imagine a world without Guitar Hero? …wait, stop, that’s just not okay for me to make such demanding requests. Instead, just imagine that there would have been no “South Park” episode about Guitar hero…
…and that’s just not right to say! Either way, I promise to follow up on him in due time. Until then, he needs our support and I have no doubt there’ll be a “fan” site where we could all do just that.
Every time the TV is on or the internet movie is rolling, everyone knows not to bug me during “commercial” time. I once thought that I was part of a small sect of “commercial” lovers, commenting on them, critiquing them, or simply sitting back and enjoying them. Well, I recently discovered an article that claims there are many more “commercial lovers” out there…
As I was browsing the AlleyInsider Blog for some good material and up-to-date news, I came across Video Ad Companies: People Love Watching Video Ads! …That’s right! 3 Companies support the idea that someone “out there” manages to make it through the commercial. Now I’m not going to go as far as to say they enjoy the commercials as much as I do, but at least they’re not flipping the channel any-time soon. Check out the stats below as quoted from AlleyInsider:
Tremor Media says [...] only 20% of Web video watchers give up and leave when confronted with the pre-rolls it serves up. Or, as Tremor is putting it in a release later today, 80% watch the ads all the way through. [...] [A]udiences are willing to accept pre-roll advertising in exchange for content they want, on demand.” And Tremor also says that its stuff is so good (it measured 65 million ad impressions across 100 different ad campaigns) that the bail-out rate didn’t change if the ads were 15 or 30 seconds long.
Break Media is claiming an even higher “completion rate” — 87% — for its pre-rolls, which includes a whole lot of user-generated video. Break’s sample was a lot smaller than Tremor’s — 5.85 million impresssions. But we’re equally skeptical of both numbers. We’re certainly not anti-advertising, and we will indeed sit through some pre-rolls, when we know were getting good stuff we want to see. But there’s no way we do that 8 out of 10 times.
Now they haven’t exactly pinpointed WHY, but the money is there and that’s usually all that matters in order to convince the public that this form/method of advertising works. As for my commercial loving companions, our time to shine is just over the hill. Beware!
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