Remember when the M in MTV stood for music? Sure, now the TV channel shows more "reality" content than music. But if you wake up early enough in the morning you might still be able to catch a music video or two. And the network's website is chock full of music video goodness. Of course, most kids these days would rather go find videos on YouTube.
So what's a music network to do? How about offering a new multimedia service that helps you answer that age old question: who the heck sings that song stuck in my head? CNET's WebWare reports that MTV is about to roll out new lyrics-based services for TV viewers, website visitors, and cellphone customers.
Leveraging Gracenote technology, MTV will let you type out lyrics on your computer or cellphone and get a bit of information about the artist and song. There'll also be trivia, games, and a link to purchase the song. Odds are MTV will tie the service into its own music store because, you know, they have to make money off of this thing somehow.
What better company to get into the social network game than MTV? The Viacom owned property hits the perfect user base for social gatherings and has the backers on hand that can make a difference.
The idea came out of a youth survey in 2006, with the chief aim for the ThinkMTV network being to gather activists together and interact both on and offline. Topics will range from HIV, global epidemics, health and environmental concerns.
As for backing, numerous celebrities have lent their faces including Leo DiCaprio, Bono and John Mayer. With cash flowing in from The Case Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation.
MTV is expected to announce today that it will partner with RealNetworks, merging the two company's online music services.
This probably means the end of MTV's URGE music site, which probably won't affect much of anyone. As far as we can tell, you could count the number of URGE subscribers on one hand. And you might not need all your fingers.
Anyway, URGE had been a partnership between MTV and Microsoft. But Microsoft has been focusing on its Zune Marketplace since launching its iPod competitor. So it makes sense for MTV to partner up with RealNetworks, the company behind the subscription-based Rhapsody music service.
Whether MTV/Rhapsody will make a dent in Apple's market share remains to be seen. But so far Apple has yet to offer a subscription model for iTunes, so it should be interesting to see if Rhapsody's pay a monthly fee for all the music you want model will gain any traction with MTV's brand name and music library.
Verizon Wireless has also signed on to distribute MTV/RealNetworks content to mobile devices.
Warner Music is working with Premium TV to create an online site featuring the record label's entire music video library. The service will be supported by advertising, and the videos will be available to stream for free. You'll be able to download videos for a fee.
While you can currently access some Warner content from the label's website, the deal would include Warner's entire library, plus previously unseen content.
As CD sales continue to decline and online video continues to grow in popularity, the move seems to make sense. But most music fans don't really associate artists with the labels they're on. In other words, even if Warner posts its complete catalog, there's a good chance you wont' find the artist you're looking for on Warner's site.
It'll be hard to compete with existing sites such as YouTube or MTV's Overdrive that have videos from multiple labels.
Joost seems to be at the forefront of an explosion into public realm care of one of the worlds top ad locations, IndyCar. What does this mean? Is Joost really ready to go mainstream? If anything they just stepped up their marketing efforts this past weekend with a 7th place finish.
Joost -- the so-far leading IPtv application -- is getting pretty big in the "tech" world, with thousands of users logging in to check out the services offerings, if not tuning in on a daily basis. Could it be that this Web 2.0 service is ready to launch into the mainstream marketplace where armchair beer drinking sports fans tune in online to catch their favorite shows?
Earlier this month Joost and the IndyCar Series teamed up to broadcast races online, and have seen so much success that they are planning on adding more channels in short order. Joost currently has over 150 free quality channels of programming on its roster including Comedy Central, IndyCar, MTV, Warner Bros, National Geographic, and Reuters.
Viacom's strategy of providing an immersive entertainment experience will now be monetized throughout their portfolio of properties with Yahoo's new Panama ad platform.
In this ad deal, Yahoo's newly launched search marketing platform will be the exclusive provider of all contextual and sponsored search ads for a first run of 33 Viacom sites, with the strong potential to expand to another 140 additional Viacom sites under a multi year deal.
The current site roster that will be participating in the partnership includes MTV.com, VH1.com, Nickelodeon.com, comedycentral.com and BET.com. Viacom is the number one online entertainment destination with over 90 million unique viewers in February 2007.
Yahoo's Panama ad platform has only just been released, but its growing strong. Viacom has just jumped on board as a huge partner, who could be the next one to steal valuable space away from Google?
Pimp out your ride, without having a knock on the door from X to the Z (Xzibit). If you aren't familiar with MTV's Pimp my Ride series, it features rap superstar Xzibit surprising viewers owning junky cars with a fresh custom ride from customization specialists GAS.
This little flash eCard builder plays off the Pimp my Ride series. Choose your ride, Ol'Skool, Coupe or SUV. Slap on paint, wheels, chrome, parts and finish it off with a unique scene. Save it out and send it to a friend and maybe start a battle of custom work.
UPDATE:MTV has just informed us that a new wilder Virtual Pimp My Ride is launching tonight at 9:30PM ET where you can trick your ride, then race it on the open road or drag strip.
Torrentfreak is reporting that BitTorrent has struck deals with several entertainment companies including 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures, G4, Kadokawa Pictures USA, Lionsgate, MTV Networks (Comedy Central, MTV etc.), Palm Pictures and Starz Media, which will make those companies' movies and television shows available in BitTorrent's upcoming download store. Among the properties named are X-Men III, Mission: Impossible III, Prison Break, Laguna Beach, and South Park. These companies join Warner Bros. in partnership with BitTorrent, the launch of whose digital media store has been pushed back to early next year.
iFilm, grandfather-in-spirit to the current crop of booming video sites, has quiety launched a totally revamped beta version of the site at beta.ifilm.com. The new site is a breath of fresh air compared to the outdated, cluttered, graphics-heavy site of yore. The navigation is much-improved and all videos now play an embedded Flash player, finally! iFilm was acquired a year ago by MTV Networks and content from MTV, MTV2, and Logo are featured heavily, but not too heavily. Unlike the old iFilm, the beta takes a cue from the new breed of video-sharing sites with a prominently-displayed "Upload a Video" button. I don't know if this new direction for iFilm will be enough to shore up its flagging popularity, but it's certainly a step in the right direction.
Universal Music has accused YouTube and MySpace of infringing on the rights of their artists music videos during an investors conference. Universal's chief executive stated that the two companies owed them tens of millions of dollars in copyright infringement money. Universal is expected to release a statement about how they will deal with the infringers in due time.
YouTube has been known to take down copyright related materials when they have been notified by rights holder. It should be interesting to see how this pans out. The greatness behind sites like YouTube is held in the mass video appeal, from personal videos, to artist music videos. Take the music, and music videos away, and what are we left with? This could cause a little bump. However, what if YouTube and MySpace were to pay per view for each music video played?
In Universals Chief Executives speech to investors, he did state that record companies are keen at avoiding the mistakes that were made when MTV was set up, by letting artist's music to be aired for free, creating a multi-billion dollar company in the process.
Google has started dropping some tests of their streaming video ads and video content from the recent deal with Viacom's MTV Networks.
The deal sees MTV Networks providing content for the ads that will run in place of Google's AdWords on websites. Through the ads, Viacom can showcase clips of such premium programs as SpongeBob SquarePants, Laguna Beach, The Real OC, and the MTV Video Awards.
There were a handful of publishers that were chosen to be included into the beta test of the program, and one of them has provided a link to where their test is occurring. The document that was provided to publishers explained that Google's Streaming Video Content and Ads enable website publishers to display streaming video ads and video content from MTV Networks on their sites. Publishers were instructed that they will get the specific JavaScript that will embed a Flash player into their website. The ad will still be served off of Google's servers and viewers of the ad must have the Macromedia Flash plug-in installed in order to view the streaming content.
Revenue for these ads is generated on a CPM basis depending on the number of views on each ad in the content. So if someone watches the whole video and sees five ads, the publisher will be paid for those five views. If no ad is seen by the user, there will be no payment for the ad. Revenue from the ad will be split between the content provider, Google and the publisher.
Google is hitting up Viacom's MTV Networks to try out some video ad testing using the network's content. The deal was sparked due to the recent great demand for online video through broadband connections.
Google will utilize two to four minute clips promoting the shows in their Video AdSense experiment. The mini ads will be clips of SpongeBob, Laguna Beach, The Real OC, and the MTV Video Music Awards.
Revenue generated from the clips will be divided between Google, Viacom, and the website that has chosen to carry the clips. The deal also sees full length episodes of MTV Network shows like South Park and Jackass available for download on Google Video for $1.99 each.
Last night
Bill Gates, assisted by Justin Timberlake, used his CES keynote to officially announced Urge, the new music and media
store from Microsoft and MTV that we reported on a few weeks ago.
The service will have two million songs, more than 100 CD-quality radio stations, and exclusive MTV content. Currently
Urge.com is a "coming soon" placeholder, curiously hosted on a Sun server.
In December 1990 there was a single web site on the Internet, and by the end of 1991 that figured had jumped to ten.
Today there are millions of sites and billions of pages, and the web is a universe unto itself. It's impossible for any
one person to keep track of even one percent of the interesting stuff happening on the web, but still we try until our
favorites folders are overflowing, our social bookmark sites crash, and our inboxes choke on forwarded links.
Occasionally, though, all of that collective interest organizes itself into something more orderly and, for a moment,
it seems like everyone on the web is thinking about the same thing. Below are ten moments from the past year that the
people who make the web found coolest, most interesting, funniest, and most throught-provoking.
10. Numa
Numa Dance
What do you get when you combine a Romanian chart-topper, an American teenager, and a
webcam? The Numa Numa Dance. New Jersey 19-year-old Gary
Brolsma found Internet fame when he not only lip-synched, but did a slick choreographed routine—albeit without
leaving his chair—to "Dragostea Din Tei,"
a dance track by Romanian pop trio O-Zone.
Though Brolsma ultimately shunned his fame, his performance is among
the most-linked, forwarded, and immitated videos of
the the year, even earning him a profile
in the New York Times.
Remember when the M in MTV stood for music? Sure, now the TV channel shows more "reality" content than music. But if you wake up early enough in the morning you might still be able to catch a music video or two. And the network's website is chock full of music video goodness. Of course, most kids these days would rather go find videos on YouTube.
