youtube

Full article at Flow TV PRELUDE: So I have an article out on Flow TV on the economic and ideological debate between web series producers and YouTubers. I wrote the piece in September after this debate, which sometimes comes back: YouTubers get views, but web series get quality, so which is better? In some ways, [...]

UPDATE: YouTube has bought Next New Networks for an estimated $50 million. ORIGINAL: As recapped in my weekly news roundup of the web video market, the New York Times shocked the web series world with a report that Google-owned YouTube was in talks to buy Next New Networks, an independent web video studio and distributor. [...]

UPDATE: For more information, check out my story on Tubefilter, which includes an interview with Xtranormal’s CTO. How do you make a viral video? Asking that question is kind of like asking how you make a half-court shot: unless you’re a pro, you can’t plan for it (and there are viral video pros). Still if [...]

So I have an article out this month in Communication, Culture and Critique! As is typical of academic publishing, I wrote the bulk of the article years ago, so if it reads very YouTube-circa-2007, that’s why. (I should also say I’ve more or less moved on from the theoretical concerns with identity and performance in [...]

Originally published at SpliceToday. Comment there! Let’s flashback — something I love to do — to 2007. Hulu was about to launch in private beta. The media world was talking about Viacom’s YouTube lawsuit and NBC’s decision to pull the rug out from under the video site. Media analysts satirized online video as a crowded [...]

Comedy tops virtually every “best of the web” list. From the top web series, top viral hits and YouTube’s most subscribed. Internet video, in many ways, is comedy. While major television networks search for new comedy formulas — though we might be seeing more classical sitcoms a la Hot in Cleveland and Big Bang Theory [...]

Thanks to Racialicious for reposting! In Brooklyn one night in May I was treated to my very first performance from Monstah Black, an artist who defies categorization, but whose show I would characterize as part-rock concert, part-live art theatre, with a black queer bent. Despite my awe I managed to divert my eyes long enough [...]

Remember vlogging? Yes, people still vlog. But seeing Creighton Bernette (John Goodman), 50-something non-telegenic English professor, turn on his webcam and rant into a camera without irony or zippy editing sent me running to Google to confirm Treme does, in fact, take place in late 2005. Vlogging, direct upload-style, seems so retro! [...]

Thanks to NATPE for linking! How many articles and blog posts have been written giving advice on how to create a successful web series? For lack of space, I won’t bother linking to the dozens of posts on useful sites like Tubefilter and the Web Series Network, both of which publish great advice from filmmakers, [...]

Next month, the world will fall prey to the most brilliant idea in cinema since the extremely popular March of the Penguins and the most popular movie in history Avatar: Babies (Bébés, dir. Thomas Balmes). [...]