Behind the Vines

This is freaking AWESOME.

Rhythm & Vines are doing an incredibly awesome and interesting promotion to give away tickets for R&V2010 this year. I gotta say, its one of the most impressive marketing campaigns that I have seen in a little while and massive props to whomever is behind it. Totes impressed.

So, what the hell am I going on about.

You can read about it in full here, but basically following the success of the brilliant Parisian Love ad for Google:

Google and You Tube have created Google Search Stories where you can input what you want searched, overlay music and upload your own search story to You Tube.

Fun fun fun.

So R&V have put it to their public to create their own search story to win 2 x 3 day passes for Rhythm & Vines 2010. No bands have been announced yet, but you can guarantee that its gonna be a good one.

At any rate, here is my one:

There was something very satisfying about watching this screen load:

Anyway - what are you waiting for? Go. Make your own. SO MUCH FUN. (Yes, I know I am a geek - what about it?)

Making Money on YouTube

Nice work CBS, you must be raking in a pretty penny with your You Tube advertising!

So (yes - this is the point where I have to admit my awful viewing habits, I swear I don't like Survivor really) I was checking out the promo for Survivor Heroes vs. Villains but first up, check it out, I have to watch an ad for Sears:

It even has the "Advertisement: Your video will commence in 9 seconds" at the very very bottom.

If you look at the kind of stats that they're pulling in for the youtube channel too, they must be doing well:

CBS Profile

Channel Views: 8,368,933

Total Upload Videos: 596,793,625

Subscribers: 175,079

This is cleaver. I like it a lot. I do wonder how they charge for the advertising though. If the videos are loaded with the commercial, or if there is some way to serve the commercials. Very smart.

Back on the 14th of Feb this year, You Tube turned 5! Can you believe it? Only 5. A few articles have talked about how, while it was sold to Google in '06 for $1.65 billion, there hasn't been much money made from the site.

Yet I am sure that YouTube have been making some really smart advertising dollars. They must be making some money with the iTunes/eMusic purchase options. Right?

Of course now I can't find where I read that You Tube wasn't making as much coin as you would think. Maybe I imagined it. Has to be doing well.

When I grow up

Fark, this is awesome!

"Have my arse kissed by every media rep on the face of the earth"

That pretty much covers it.

New Favourite Site of the Week 240709

So, just to be a little different, this week my favourite site is actually You Tube.

Bit of a cop out, I know. But here are some of my favourite clips on You Tube...

Les 7 Doigts (I was lucky enough to see these guys at an arts festival - most magical stage show I have seen in my whole life):


Nevermind the Buzzocks (It upsets me that NZ cannot air this show. I have had lengthy conversations with the programmers at TVNZ and Mediaworks - they cannot obtain the music licences and therefore can not air the show on NZ TV):

This clip is just the best bits from when Amy Winehouse was on, for the full episode, check out this.

You and I both know that there is much more greatness to be found on You Tube, but I've taken up enough of your time. Happy weekend.

#IranElection #Neda

"In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences"

That is the title of an article published on Sunday the 21st of June on Time.Com which for us in NZ is like sometime during our Sunday night, Monday morning. It has already had 1,975 diggs at time of writing this blog. I picked up on this video this morning as I was reading through Mashable, the video footage of this young woman dying on the street is incredibly distressing, and unless you are watching through an rss feed, YouTube require sign in to view the video to try to contain it to an R18 audience. I am not honestly comfortable about embedding the video on my blog, but the footage certainly made me stop and reassess my day, so if you would like to see it, it is here. It is graphic so this is your warning.

Barely up for 2 days and has had more than 200,000 views. A little over 14 hours ago they had to disable comments. This footage has rocketed through Twitter and Facebook. For some time now Iran and #IranElection have been at the top of 'Trending Topics' but I have a feeling that #Neda is going to go straight to the top of that list. For so many of us who have a freedom to live our lives how we decide, what is happening in Iran is so far removed from what we know, that it is just another story on the news. This video (and I am amazed they have not taken it down from YouTube) has had the power to really confront people about what is actually happening. Social media has been the key driving factor in the development in this story, and whether you think it is a good thing or not, I think the more people having the conversation about what is happening, the better. We should care. We should be concerned. We should do something to help, if we can.

I really do hope that somehow Neda's death can change something.
Neda is the same age as me.

The unexpected.. & MC Hammer

Ok, so I enjoyed the T-Mobile Liverpool Station dance. It was pretty choice. It looks a little like this:

However, I have to say, favourite dancing-flash-mob-on-YouTube would have to be this Hammer Time video. Oh my lord.

I guess Hammer was my generation, but it makes me want to buy gold hammer pants and re-create this in like, Kirkcaldies or something. I can just imagine it. 2 words - Multi. Level.

As a complete aside - LOVING the new embedding options that YouTube are providing. HOT. Borders, HD where available, size options, delayed cookies, related videos. Way to go YouTube, just keeps getting better