Archive for the ‘Google’ tag
YouTube As A TV Channel – Part 2
As an addendum to my post about the Italian government classifying YouTube as a TV channel, in looking through J. Walter Thompson’s top 100 things to watch for 2011, coming in at number 100 is:
As YouTube transforms, there will be host of challenges ahead.
It will be fascinating to see the response of the networks & Hollywood. Thus will get ugly, as the old guard fights a turf war with the new kid.
A kid that can purchase them with the cash it has on hand.
Italians Classify YouTube As A TV Channel
What an interesting way to start the year!
According to Geekosystem, Italy’s version of the FCC (Italian Authority for Communications Guarantees) has classified any UGC (user generated content) site as television stations.
The reasoning is that if a site in any way curates their user generated content, even with automatic algorithms, “this amounts to editorial control,” and the site should be held to the same rules that apply to Italy’s broadcast television stations. This would subject these sites to a small tax, would require them to take down videos within 48 hours of the request of anyone who feels they have been slandered, and to not broadcast videos unsuitable for children at certain times of day (whatever that would actually mean for a completely online service).
Most importantly, however, the new resolutions would make YouTube and other sites legally responsible for all of their content.
Wow. Keep in mind that
Last Februrary, four Google employees were arrested and charged with “criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code” in regards to a clip uploaded to Google video that none of them appeared in, filmed, uploaded, or even found out about until after it had been taken down.
I’m sure there are many people in this country that would like UGC sites and aggregators to be held responsible for all their content. I wonder if this will affect the continuing Viacom/YouTube copyright litigation & appeals in any way.
If it gains any traction, this line of thought might have ramifications in the net neutrality debate, too.
We’ll have to watch this one closely in the coming months.
The Goggle Beat – Search Trends “Web Series”
As their reporter says “Direct from the Googleplex…” there is now a weekly web series reporting on the top search trends taken from Google Trends.
New Tee Vee comments that “The valuable thing that Google Beat provides is some brief context as to why a particular search term is trending, which is something anyone who regularly checks analytics will appreciate.”
Watching the show, it sounds like someone reporting on the weekly Hollywood Box Office. Do people at Google actually come in on Mondays to check the charts? Will there be a market for search trends in the future?
SES Marketing Expo
I stopped by a SES/SEO Marketing Expo at Moscone earlier this week.
It was humorous to see Google & Microsoft Bing next to each other. And it was fun asking the reps why they were better than each other. Spin, spin spin…
I asked the Googlers about the Verizon-Google stance on Net Neutrality and though they didn’t want to comment, they did mention it had come up a lot.
Net Neutrality and Hollywood
While most of the media and blogosphere centered on Google and Verizon and their stance on net neutrality and wireless, the MPAA and the Writers Guild are taking sides on other sections of a new FCC proposal.
From the LA Times Technology blog by Jon Healey:
“The main point for the MPAA and its allies is stopping online piracy and imposing the lightest regulatory burden possible on broadband providers. For the Writers Guild, concerns about piracy are balanced against a desire for maximizing outlets for their work. While the major studios in the MPAA may like the idea of paying broadband providers for superior access to Internet users, the Writers Guild sees such online toll lanes as a threat to their ability to compete online.”
I recall in the early days of the Internet, it was compared to the ‘Wild Wild West.” It now looks like everyone wants to appoint their own Sheriff that does their bidding – like the cattle ranchers in the past. No surprise.
Meanwhile – Comcast, my ISP, has raised my cable modem rate by 3%, despite record profits.
AdWords TV Ads – for as little as $100!
Earlier this year, Google announced a service for allowing anyone to upload their own commercial and place it on cable TV – for reasonable prices.
Slate.com recently gave it a try:
When this catches on it will change the way cable ads are bought and placed forever.
It proves that it can be possible to run a nation-wide TV campaign from your computer, with no Ad Agency involvement.
I’ve used Google AdWords for text ads and have gotten great results
I may have a project that is perfect for this later this year. I can’t wait to try it.