background preloader

Second Screen

Facebook Twitter

‘Just Between Us’ Co-Host Dishes On Financial Hardships Of YouTube Success - Tubefilter. Two years ago, we published an article equating the then-current state of the online video industry to a gold rush. Two years later, there’s still plenty of money to be found on websites like YouTube, but many successful content creators are struggling to see a livable portion it. In an article she wrote for Fusion, Gaby Dunn--who co-hosts the web series Just Between Us with her friend Allison Raskin–lays out the financial hardships she has experienced since starting her YouTube channel about two years ago. On the surface, Dunn seems like she should be able to profit from her YouTube business. Just Between Us has more than 500,000 subscribers, its new videos often achieve several hundred thousand views, and its informal, vlog style seems like it would be inexpensive to produce.

And yet, despite these factors, Dunn is struggling. “It’s not enough to live, and its influx is unpredictable,” she writes of the money she makes from her work. Google, With Latest Acquisition, Moves Toward Kid-Friendly YouTube. In December, YouTube announced its plans to build a version of its site aimed at children. Now, thanks to Google’s latest purchase, we have a better idea of how that site might take form. Google has acquired Launchpad Toys, a maker of mobile apps for kids. Launchpad is known for a series of apps called Toontastic, which each allow young users to create stories in which they are the characters. YouTube plan seems to be most relevant to a Toontastic app called TeleStory, which, according to The Guardian, allows each user to “write, direct, and star in your own TV show.”

TeleStory creations were collected on ToonTube, a website where content was created by children. Launchpad is now shutting down ToonTube, with March 4th noted as the final date on which parents can download their kids’ videos. Presumably, Launchpad is shutting down ToonTube because YouTube plans to launch something similar. Google did not disclose the terms of its acquisition of Launchpad. YouTube Reveals Its New Original Content Plan For 2015. Back in the fall of 2014, YouTube announced it would bring back an incarnation of its $100+ million Original Channels initiative and fund originals once again from some of the site’s most prominent and promising creators. The video sharing platform then promptly reorganized its content division to better handle doling out presumably five, six, and seven-figure checks to its stars in exchange for premium programming.

Now, the head of YouTube’s new Originals division, Alex Carloss, has revealed more details on this content push and what it means for developing Google’s online video site. According to Variety, Carloss told an audience at the NATPE conference in Miami that YouTube hopes to launch the content initiative by the end of 2015. While the executive didn’t specify how much money Google’s online video site would be investing into the content efforts, he did note the programming produced via the initiative would tie into the Google Preferred ad program. Vimeo To Fund Exclusive Content From Maker Studios, YouTube's Biggest Network. While YouTube has kinda sorta resurrected its multi-million dollar Original Channels Initiative and is on the job to finance new content from some of its top creators, one of the site’s largest multi-channel networks just inked a deal to receive cash for exclusive programming from a different source.

Vimeo announced today a partnership with Maker Studios in which the video-sharing site will fund original content from the massive MCN and its roster of over 55,000 creators and distribute that content by way of exclusive windows on Vimeo On Demand. “We’re excited to welcome Maker’s incredible community of creators to the Vimeo On Demand platform, allowing them to bring their content to new audiences and earn more revenue through direct VOD sales,” said Vimeo’s CEO, Kerry Trainor in the release. Details aside from the fact the deal exists are scarce. The deal is a huge coup for Vimeo. And Vessel isn’t the only company with plans for a subscription-based service offering premium programming. The Stars of YouTube and Vine | The New Yorker. If you haven’t watched YouTube in a while—if you’ve joined the Amish, or you’re Edward Snowden—a lot has changed. Early on, the platform was a salmagundi of out-of-focus lifecasts. The viral hits were cats getting wet and one-offs like “Charlie Bit My Finger—Again!

,” a 2007 video whose exposé of House of Atreus-style family strife has earned it more than eight hundred million views. (Spoiler alert: a baby bites his brother’s finger.) Nowadays, YouTube is almost alarmingly professional. So it wasn’t entirely surprising that some of the most eager participants at this summer’s VidCon, a conference celebrating YouTube, were those who’d been displaced from the platform’s dynamics: adults. Sitting opposite Katzenberg, in the role of the skeptical father of the bride, was the thirty-four-year-old Hank Green, one of VidCon’s founders.

Because people can watch whatever they want whenever they want on their phones, digital platforms reveal what tweens and teens really like. Fox Orders New Series Based On Jukin Media's FailArmy YouTube Channel. Fox wants to bring some of the most epic internet fail videos to its TV channel. The network has picked up a new comedy series based on the FailArmy YouTube channel.

Tentatively titled World’s Funniest Fails, the hour-long show will take many of the internet’s most viral fail videos and place them in front a panel of comedians. Each week, these comedians will “analyze” the clips (whatever that entails) and determine which video deserves the title of “Fail of the Week.” Owned by Jukin Media, the FailArmy channel is no stranger to being in high demand. Earlier this year, Jukin Media and Dick Clark Productions started shopping a TV format of the channel to international markets. Fox hasn’t yet announced which comedians will be the panel of judges in World’s Funniest Fails, or if the group will consist of the same members each week. Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide • Week Of 11/14/14. [Editor's Note: Tubefilter Charts is a weekly rankings column from Tubefilter with data provided by OpenSlate. It's exactly what it sounds like; a top number ranking of YouTube channels based on statistics collected within a given time frame.

Check out all of our Tubefilter Charts - with new installments every Friday - here.] Scroll down for this week's Tubefilter Chart. It's another installment of the weekly Tubefilter Chart of the Top 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels Worldwide and a familiar channel is in the top spot. Chart Toppers After a one-week hiatus in second place, everyone's favorite YouTube channel featuring videos of adults playing with children's toys is back in the #1 spot on the charts. The Ellen Show jumped up a spot to third place. And rounding out the Top 5 for the third week in a row is LittleBabyBum. Top Gainers The honor of one our Top Gainers this week goes to Selena Gomez. Distribution Tubefilter Top 50 50 Most Viewed YouTube Channels This Week • Worldwide Legend. Devices are to blame for TV ratings tumble, Nielsen says. Oculus is developing software for watching movies, and it's one of the best VR experiences out there. Virtual reality can transport you to distant space to participate in an epic starship battle, or it can drop you in the ocean, with sharks swimming all around.

But its biggest act yet may be showing you a plain old movie. For the past two years, developers large and small have been toiling away hoping to create the app that becomes synonymous with VR and helps the technology really take off -- its "killer app," as it's called. That may have already happened, and it isn't a game, a panoramic photo application or a calming simulation of a beach scene; it's movies.

As VR technology begins its march to store shelves, manufacturers like Oculus are recognizing the potential for their immersive technologies to deliver the works of Hollywood. When Oculus first unveiled its headset two years ago, it was pitched as a next-generation video game device. We've been here before A movie theater experience. Cheer up, the mobile app economy isn’t doing that badly — but it is maturing. In June, Apple announced it had reached 75 billion downloads in the App Store. In July, Google Play said it had crossed the 50 billion download milestone. These impressive figures painted a rosy picture for the app economy: An enormous smartphone user base, with 1.9 billion devices expected to sell before 2015 and mobile data traffic accelerating, seemed to promise exponential growth to the app economy in the years to come.

That’s not the whole story, though. An August ComScore report found that nearly two out of three U.S. smartphone users don’t download any apps in a given month. Where does the app economy really stand today? Have the mobile enthusiasts been wrong this whole time, or are industry naysayers too quick to blow the whistle?

Growing pains of the app economy The app market has a classic long-tail profile in both distribution and monetization. Finally, consumers are also reportedly not willing to pull out their wallets and pay for an app. A deeper look at the data. Ooyala: Mobile Video Viewership Up 127% in One Year. The proliferation of small mobile screens and accelerating deployment of the latest generation mobile broadband networks continue to drive mobile video viewership higher and higher. Mobile video viewership more than doubled in the past year and now represents over 25 percent of all online viewing, according to Ooyala’s Q2 Global Video Index Report.

Over the past year, mobile video viewership rose 127 percent. It’s grown 400 percent in the past two years, according to Ooyala’s latest report. Between February and June, mobile video’s percentage of online video viewing rose six percent – from 21 percent to 27 percent of all online video views. As Ooyala notes, Cisco forecasts that mobile video traffic could account for 69 percent of worldwide Internet traffic by 2018. That, Ooyala adds in a press release, is “reinforcing the opportunity for content providers, broadcasters and publishers to build business-sustaining revenue streams with digital video – particularly on mobile devices.” Report Sees Jump in Willingness to Pay for TV Everywhere - Telecompetitor. People around the world are watching nearly as much streaming video as traditional broadcast TV programming, with the desire for “Anywhere Access” fueling the rise. In just two years, there has been a 25 percent increase in the number of consumers willing to pay to access content on any device, according to the latest annual edition of the “Ericsson ConsumerLab TV & Media Report.”

Interviewing more than 23,000 people in 23 countries, market researchers found that 75 percent of consumers watched streaming video several times a week. That’s nearly equal to those watching scheduled broadcast TV programming several times a week (77 percent). Willingness to Pay for TV Everywhere Nearly one in five (19 percent) are willing to pay for access to their favorite content on any device, an increase of 25 percent in two years.

Forty-one percent of consumers said they would like to be able to watch their favorite TV shows anywhere. “The results of the study are clear,” Heyman Ronnblom stated. Explore the bridge of 'Star Trek: Voyager' through Oculus Rift. Netflix Surpasses HBO in U.S. Subscribers. Netflix reported 29.17 million domestic subscribers in the first quarter of 2013, surpassing HBO for the first time. SEE MORE: From the April 30, 2013 issue of Variety Netflix, which ended 2012 with 27.15 million domestic subs, added just over 2 million subs, according to first quarter results issued Monday. HBO ended 2012 with 28.7 million subscribers, according to data from SNL Kagan. The new figures will likely escalate the rivalry simmering between the two companies, given the barbs Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Jeff Bewkes, chairman of HBO parent company Time Warner, have traded over the years That said, Netflix has a ways to go before catching up worldwide.

HBO has 114 million subscribers across the globe, a far cry from the 7.14 million Netflix has outside the U.S. Netflix also added just over 1 million subs internationally in US., bringing its global total to over 36 million subs–more than 3 million than last quarter. NBCUniversal’s Transmedia Gamble, Defiance, Grabs 1.3 Million Adults 18-49. Easily NBCUniversal’s biggest cable launch this year, the $100 million-plus science fiction series Defiance bowed last night to 2.73 million total viewers.

That puts its far ahead of the season-to-date average for Smash on Syfy’s sibling network NBC. According to a source, the network had 200,000 pre-orders for the game by the time Defiance hit GameStops and Best Buys on April 2. At $60 a pop, that gives Syfy and developer Trion Worlds $1.2 million back on their investment immediately, and the game continues to push against the reigning king of the gaming charts, BioShock: Infinite (no shame there—the latter was called the best game ever by a number of publications).

Syfy has a number of deep partnerships on the show—you will notice that a lot of people drive future-fitted Dodge vehicles and take refuge in Dodge dealerships—so much of the show’s mammoth expenditure should be under a certain amount of control already. But it needs to pull in plenty of eyeballs, and reliably. Cable TV faces creeping obsolescence amid OTT gains, analysts say. Skip to main content Browse All Briefs by Topic Cable TV faces creeping obsolescence amid OTT gains, analysts say Forward to a friend 04/3/2013 | Advanced Television · Houston Chronicle (tiered subscription model) An increase in mobile-device use and the introduction of Internet-enabled televisions will fuel a surge in over-the-top video, eMarketer predicts in a report.

The report, "Digital TV and Movie Streaming: A Rising Tide of Devices, Content and Viewing," says more consumers say they would consider dropping cable in favor of online services such as Netflix, with digital-TV viewers forecast to account for 50% of the U.S. Internet population by the end of next year. View Full Article in: Advanced Television · Houston Chronicle (tiered subscription model) Tech | Electronics Published in Brief: Entertainment Matters Digital Content SmartBrief SmartBrief Job Listings for Tech View More Job Openings ©2014 SmartBrief.

Microsoft’s Next Xbox Said To Shift To x86 Architecture Courtesy Of AMD System-On-A-Chip. Microsoft’s next Xbox, which could get an initial unveiling as early as next month, will use an AMD system-on-a-chip according to a new Bloomberg report. The new AMD SoC will mean that Microsoft is moving to an x86-based system architecture, which Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 4 is also adopting. The change is great news for AMD, and for gamers, and bad news for AMD’s chief rival Intel. The new Microsoft console will be running a “Jaguar” CPU, which is also what’s going into Sony’s PS4, alongside a Radeon graphics processor from ATI, an AMD subsidiary. The similarity between the two SoCs employed in each next-gen console should go a long way toward silencing complaints from developers that it’s too difficult and resource-intensive to develop for each type of console. A shared x86 architecture means that it’ll be much easier to port titles, both between consoles and from the PC.

Another party left out of the fun might be the Wii U, which uses a PowerPC based processor under the hood. Accenture: Consumers take control.