Dr. Horrible Fans, Bush vs. Batman on NTV Station Today
Today’s video is one I’m selecting with a caveat — because it’s a good opportunity for me to make a public service announcement. Secret Pants Sketch Comedy’s Bush or Batman? documents a really funny experiment: Can people on the street tell the difference between George W. Bush quotes and those from the Adam West Batman series? But it also has a fatal flaw, a 38-second title sequence. Online video makers of the world, please pay attention: If your short is under 4 minutes, anything more than a title card is simply unacceptable.
The video itself is great, though, so I recommend skipping to 0:40 and watching from there…just this once, though.
And today we also track the emergence of fan films from the world of everyone’s current favorite supervillain musical web series. As Jill Weinberger notes, “You can’t blame the fans. Joss Whedon’s latest groundbreaking project is, after all, called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. It’s right there in the name.” What exactly are Whedonites up to? Check it out at NewTeeVee Station!
The Data Center in Your Living Room
European and Australian researchers want to build a giant P2P network on the basis of TV set-top boxes, Computerworld Australia reported this week. The so-called Nanodatacenters project is based on the idea that you don’t need giant data centers as long as you have increasingly powerful devices in millions of living rooms, capable of doing so much more than suffering through all those Law & Order re-runs.
Nanodatacenters is part of the FP7 research program, which is funded by the EU to the tune of several billion euros per year and covers everything from advances in agriculture to space programs. Nanodatacenter’s goals are also rather broad. A researcher told Computerworld that the set-top box network could be used to power anything from a Flickr-type of service to an online gaming platform. Of course, there are also interesting use cases for online video, ranging from HD delivery to huge, decentralized libraries of on-demand content.
Clipped! RedLasso Suspends Beta Service
Nothing like a lawsuit to put a kink in your business plan. Just days after NBC and Fox sued RedLasso, the service that allowed bloggers to create custom video and audio clips from news sources, the company announced today that it has suspended blogger access to its beta site. But even in its press release, the company stuck to its Constitutional guns:
“The now-suspended Beta site provides bloggers with online broadcast content tools that enables them to exercise their first amendment rights to comment on newsworthy events, by searching blogger-selected TV and radio segments and creating limited duration clips for usage in blog posts.”
The company will continue to offer a business service that allows companies to create clips for internal use, and a radio service that allows stations to clip their content and post it to their sites.
RedLasso has had a short but interesting history. Check out our timeline of major news events for the company.
Weekend Vid Picks: Girl Fights
I know that this is the Weekend Vid Picks, but the truth of the matter is that I wrote it on Wednesday. Why? Because by Wednesday, we already had enough examples of girls fighting it out on tape to complete this piece. There are times when I’m not sure the Internet makes the world a better place.
Monday, the big searches on Google Trends all had to do with Danica Patrick, an auto racing driver who got into a tiff with competitor Milka Duno. As fights go, this one was pretty unimpressive — a lot of shouting and one tossed towel. But that didn’t stop a large portion of the Internet from checking it out (or wondering what Danica Patrick looks like in a swimsuit — “danica patrick swimsuit” is Google’s one related search for her name).
Last Lecture Lecturer Randy Pausch Dies at 47
Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch became an Internet inspiration when he uploaded his Last Lecture to the Net in the fall of 2007 — an academic exercise (if you were going to give one last lecture, what would it be?) that in Pausch’s case was all too relevant, as he had recently been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. In the 100-minute talk, Pausch refuses pity, does push-ups, and preaches tenacity, saying, “If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself.”
Pausch died today from complications due to cancer. From the USA Today obituary:
“I knew what I was doing that day,” he wrote in the introduction of his best-selling book, also titled The Last Lecture. “Under the ruse of giving an academic lecture, I was trying to put myself in a bottle that would one day wash up on the beach for my children.”
Here’s the full lecture.
Verizon FiOS Gets Into Web Video
Verizon is beta testing web video on its set-top boxes, according to a post this week by Dave Zatz. Initial partners include YouTube, Veoh, Blip.tv and Break.com.
According to Zatz, rather than pulling content from YouTube’s H.264 servers the way TiVo and Panasonic do, Verizon is using its Media Manager PC software. Video sites will be indexed regularly and when a user calls up a video on their DVR, Verizon’s content will transcode and stream content on the fly. Read Zatz’s full article for a complete rundown.
With so many services offering up web video, it’s increasingly difficult to call it — well, “web” video. The oldteevee is fast becoming the main newteevee.
Coast-to-Coast Craigslist Tour of Web Shows
Want to know what the next next hot web show will be? So do we, which is why we scoured Craigslist “gigs” sections to find out what was in production around the country. What did we discover? As you’d expect, New York and L.A. had the most options for aspiring web stars — just don’t expect to pay rent with what you make (unless your landlord accepts “bupkiss”).
Some of these opportunities may have already passed (lesson: always check Craigslist), but I doubt any web production would turn down free work if you wanted to help out.
SAN FRANCISCO
Looks like Break a Leg better watch out, it’s got some Arrested Development-inspired competition in the works:
New comedic web series to be shot in San Francisco seeks additional actors for guest starring and series regular roles…
The style of the show will be somewhere between “Arrested Development” and “Sex and the City”; it follows a small group of twenty-somethings through some of the trials and tribulations of trying to balance various romantic opportunities and advenures as their lives unfold.
Top BitTorrented TV Downloads This Week
| Rank | Last Week | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | One Piece |
| 2 | 2 | Heroes |
| 3 | 3 | Lost |
| 4 | 4 | Prison Break |
| 5 | 7 | Smallville |
| 6 | 5 | Grey’s Anatomy |
| 7 | 6 | Dexter |
| 8 | 8 | South Park |
| 9 | 10 | How I Met Your Mother |
| 10 | 12 | Family Guy |
| 11 | 11 | Desperate Housewives |
| 12 | 9 | Supernatural |
| 13 | 13 | The Simpsons |
| 14 | 14 | Stargate Atlantis |
| 15 | 17 | House, M.D. |
| 16 | 16 | Battlestar Galactica |
| 17 | 18 | My Name Is Earl |
| 18 | 19 | One Tree Hill |
| 19 | 22 | Weeds |
| 20 | 20 | Scrubs |
According to the latest data from Big Champagne, One Piece continues its Torrent dominance for the fourth week in a row, leading off the top four rankings that remain unchanged from last week.
There are no big or surprising jumps elsewhere on the chart this week, either. It’ll be interesting to see if the needle moves for any shows after the big Comic-Con in San Diego this weekend.
NOTE: Rankings are based on global download volumes as measured by swarm sizes, swarm speeds and file sizes. These data reflect the collective global popularity of all available show content from all seasons current and past, not just the most recent broadcast.
Hulu CTO on HD and Video Beyond the PC
Hulu CTO Eric Feng rolled into NewTeeVee HQ this morning to give us an update on what the company has been up to since launching in March. He told us a little bit about audience engagement (users are spending more than an hour on the site), why the company has neglected its HD offerings, and how Hulu is currently focused on the PC experience over porting to other set-top box options. And, of course, no Hulu conversation is complete without discussing the popularity of Airwolf.
John McCain, Paper Planes on NTV Station Today
What could be better than a well-known vlogger doing an acoustic cover of MIA’s Paper Planes? Clearly, the answer is: three vloggers. YouTube users charlestrippy and sxephil joined davedays for a slightly nerdier, but adorable new take on the track.
And in the world of politics, the John McCain camp finally stepped up their game online, attacking the media’s fascination with the Democratic nominee with the snarky Obama Love. What does this mean for the final stages of the campaign? Find out at NewTeeVee Station!
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