Kassia is fond of saying that around ‘Loper HQ, April Fools isn’t a day, it’s a season. However, this year, real life has gotten in the way, so in honor of that, I’ve decided to point out a few actual real things that are far more absurd than most of the jokes you’ll see today.

Let’s begin, shall we.

• Continuing Record Company Cluelessness About the 21st Century
  Last week, there was an article in Entertainment Weekly about the rush-release of the new Gnarls Barkley album. Apparently, the fact that it leaked online a few weeks early caught Atlantic records by surprise.

Read the entire entry …

I don’t have the juice to go in-depth about anything this week, so I thought that I’d take a few swipes at some things:

Download Service Explosion — With Nokia’s recent announcement announcement of their download service on the heels of CD Baby and Wal-Mart’s services, it looks like we are in another round of download service offerings. Add these to the DRM-free service that Universal announced last month, and the long-rumoured Amazon download stores, and consumers will have every type of choice.

Read the entire entry …

Throughout the year, we are going to be subjected to various and sundry “YouTube killers”. One such animal is (was?) Bud.tv. Launched with the full faith and credit of the mighty Budweiser empire behind it, the site promised to be an edgy, Bud-oriented alternative to existing online video services.

Since then, numbers have declined from the reported 250,000+ viewers per month to approximately 150,000 viewers. These are not bad numbers, you might think, especially for a new venture. Today’s audience is fragmented enough that these numbers should not the be reason for the Bud.tv to commit the virtual version of hari kari (see: the short-lived Pirate TV or whatever it was called).
Read the entire entry …

It’s not easy being an industry leader these days. The moment you hit the top, every time your competition releases a new product, it’s going to “kill” you. The Zune was the iPod killer. Microsoft’s new and improved search was the Google killer. And NBC Universal/News Corp’s new service is, naturally, being touted as the YouTube killer.

All which makes for violent headlines, but the proof, as we all know, is in the audience. It’s not enough to release a new service into the wild and expect it to take the Internets by storm. YouTube didn’t become the go-to online video service simply because it was there. And that is the lesson big media needs to learn.

I think it’s important to review what makes YouTube, well, YouTube. It’s obviously not the only video sharing site out there. Grouper, Revver, and a host of other services allow users to easily upload video. If rumors are to be believed, Revver is the place to go if you’re trying to make a buck off your work. But the zeitgeist — that intangible thing — is with YouTube. Users cross the myriad cultural divides. My mother-in-law finds stuff on YouTube, because YouTube is pretty close to foolproof. It’s designed for the casual user.
Read the entire entry …

I’ve started and stopped a good half dozen posts about the Viacom/YouTube breakup. Like most business deals, this one came down to money. The amounts offered by the Google team didn’t meet Viacom’s notions of what their programming is worth. This makes me wonder if Viacom has a clue how the Internet works — to date, I have not seen evidence that anyone is better at leveraging online eyeballs and advertisers than Google.

For all of the press and hype, it is still not known whether or not YouTube is just a flavor-of-the-month. The kind of audience we’re talking about is very fickle. Yet, the evidence shows that right now, the viewers are at YouTube. Water cooler discussions make it clear that the site is the first, second, and third choice for those who don’t TiVo — “I’m sure it’s on YouTube” isn’t just conversation, it’s a belief.
Read the entire entry …

I am mildly fascinated by the recent revenue sharing (for lack of a better term) announcement from YouTube. Now that the site is strong and part of the Google family, content owners will get a bit of the advertising dollars that will inevitably flow into the site’s coffers. It will also require a lot more of the diligence that copyright owners desire — demand — from the Internet.

This might appease some of the major players who are reluctant to “share” their videos with the YouTube nation. Once their eyes grow glassy with visions of millions of passive dollars flowing into their company coffers, surely they’ll open the vaults o’content, eager to offer more, more, more to make more, more, more.
Read the entire entry …

Recently quasi-celebrity P-Diddy and Burger King conducted a master class on how NOT to use the evolving Web 2.0 environment to build a brand. This cautionary tale is not only highly amusing to those who have any leanings towards schadenfreud, but also speaks volumes about the dangers of trying to import traditional “talking at consumers” brand-building approaches into the Brave New World of user-generated content.

This e-disaster started with a tin-ear, cringe-inducing video posted on online video megasite YouTube, which showed famous-for-being-famous P-Diddy going into “his local Burger King” to “have it his way.” Implausible as it is that Mr. Bling would actually deign to enter a Burger King, the brand destruction really gets under way when Diddy says that “Burger King has named me ‘The King of Music and Fashion.’” This hit another false note, with the wanna-be icon spouting a blatant attempt to connect his brand with that of BK.

Read the entire entry …

So, reading Monday’s New York Times business section was like reading a week’s worth of Medialoper articles. Except, of course, that the Times did actual reporting, but, really, did they have to pay salaries and benefits to come up with an article entitled Hollywood Asks YouTube: Friend or Foe??

I think not.

A key quote in an article at Newsfactor, says it all:
Read the entire entry …

It’s beginning to look more and more like 2007 will be the year that gap between Web Video and your TV will be closed.

Sling Media, who make the Slingbox, a device that allows you to watch your TV’s programming on pretty much any compter anywhere, will be joining the parade of manufacturers who want to help cross that last 10 feet from the laptop to the big-screen.

Read the entire entry …

I was reminded of Lonelygirl15 recently when the December issue of Wired magazine mysteriously turned up on my coffee table. It was only last September that Lonleygirl’s YouTube videos were revealed to be a hoax, yet somehow it seems like decades. The fact that Jessica Rose finally made the cover of Wired in time for the holiday shopping issue says more about the limiting nature of print publication cycles than it does about Lonelygirl’s staying power. Wired might as well have run a picture of Ellen Feiss on their December cover.

Read the entire entry …