This year spring happened to be warm and sunny. I beg your pardon! Fool’s Day also brought some surprises. I believe it’ll bring some more weird and wonderful news. There’ve been loads of peculiar and quirky rumors and facts in online video and web TV sphere over the last few weeks.

Sure thing, the People’s Republic of China brought bad news on the threshold of the summer Olympic Games in Beijing. Media services look concerned. Like-minded people, who are going to visit these games, will wear a badge with the word “Freedom”

As of developing countries like Afghanistan, Reporters Without Borders is shocked by a campaign being waged by the ministry of information and culture, the lower house of parliament and the Council of Ulemas against privately-owned TV stations, especially Tolo TV, for broadcasting footage of men and women dancing together.

What should we advice them in this case? Let it takes its course with a glance that Muslim countries live on their own. They haven’t come of age.

But let’s get back to the subject. What do you think of amateur video blogs and their close cooperation with professional bloggers and journalists on the web?

Journalists of traditional media have been actively discussing the future of paper newspapers and magazines. Surely, most of them predict that online content will prevail over other sources of information. The strength of the Internet as a source for news increases daily.

Moreover, in a number of countries professional journalists and reporters began to teach others how to change into probloggers, who are able to talk about cutting edge WEB trends, content, news, standards, blogging, techologies. For example, if you want be a freelance writeк or blogger, you should satisfy these requirements:

• Be enthusiastic and have a sense of humor!
• Be creative, critical and articulate in your English mother tongue.
• Have strong research/analysis skills.
• Your location is flexible.
• Generate 1 to 3 quality posts a day.
• Become a producer. Use a digital or video camera, record stuff and upload it on YouTube, Google, Revver, etc.
• Watch other videos on video-sharing web-sites like YouTube, download video and podcasts via a video iPod, mobile phone, etc.

Mark Glaser shares his ideas on media shift and change in media usage. It goes without saying, that there is a vivid move away from traditional media and toward online media. Web TV and online video sites with user-generated content whether intentionally or not do news. (via)

TV is a root of all evil. Nobody has to refuse its existence and influence on people’s minds. On the other side, web television is of a greater importance both for viewership and media bloggers as a source of information and entertainment.

Frank-Washkuch says that online magazines increase videos and readership. Many online publications - most of which are traditionally text-based - are increasingly employing video to escalate readership. Many general news Web sites, such as CNN.com, have sections exclusively dedicated to video footage, and politics Web site TalkingPointsMemo.com uses a video section to supplement its news coverage.

According to the new State of the News Media 2008, the main TV network news programs averaged 23.1 million viewers a night, a drop of 5%, or 1.2 million viewers compared with data from 2006. Over the past 25 years, the audience has fallen around 1 million per year.

Our habits and attitude toward online space is rapidly changing. There are new rules of media, according to which the audience knows more than the journalists. We see in what way amateurs cooperate with probloggers. Without dialogue there won’t be success on the web. Owners of amateur video blogs shouldn’t compete, but team up with probloggers. (via)

Technorati Tags: video blogs, vblogs, media, bloggers, news, journalists, magazines, web, video, internet, TV, IPTV, posts, video sharing, user-generated content, ipod, mobile

What are the problems regarding virtual worlds on the web? People are getting crazy about virtual worlds. Everybody have every prospect of success being a part of one of the massive social communities (MySpace, Second Life, Facebook, etc.). In virtual worlds nobody knows whether you nerd or smart, ’cause you seem to be clever and pretty cool. It’s really easy to sweet-talk and give baloney to everybody one mixes with.

What are virtual worlds? “A virtual world is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.” (wikipedia)

On the one part, we see the growth of the Internet, and can’t turn a deaf ear to this process of convergence. Folks got into the habit of hacking and talking, watching and uploading their fave videos, partaking in discussions on blogs, forums, etc. On the other hand, we don’t have to forget in what way the internet may have a bad and good influence on humankind.

Virtual Worlds are around the web. You’re already probably a member of Second Life, Active Worlds, Kaneva, vSide, Entropia, Novoking, Ogoglio, etc., and the list can be extended. Such Worlds, let you visit and chat in incredible 3D worlds that are built by other users. Visitors to these online worlds can build themselves digital bodies, move into digital rooms, make friends and hang out with them in three-dimensional play spaces, shop online, explore unique virtual worlds.

According to the 2007 Influence Forum, ICANN CEO Paul Twomey told that virtual worlds are the future of global commerce, advertising, thereby suggesting the world of tomorrow is virtual one. I reckon it’s in our hands to change the world to better and decide the outcome of the world.

According to Stuart Dredge, there are 20 trends defining virtual worlds in 2007 which he compiled after the conference. The blogger supposes his ideas to be subjective but interesting:

• There’s a problem with communication. As a semi-outsider, one thing I noticed is that a lot of virtual worlds people are good at talking to other people within the industry, but struggle more to explain their worlds in language that normal consumers would understand. There’s still a bit too much jargon, and high-falutin’ language that makes virtual worlds sound eminently geeky.
• Is it an online game or a virtual world, or both? One of the most interesting trends highlighted at the conference was the blurring of the boundaries between virtual worlds and online games.
• Advertising is another wild card. Everyone knows that brands are doing Stuff And Things in Second Life and rival worlds, but that’s more branding / marketing than pure advertising.
• Media streaming is more common, but strangely low-profile. Maybe this was the result of this bunch of speakers at this particular conference, but there wasn’t much talk last week about the challenges and opportunities of streaming music and video into virtual worlds.

By the way, players hope to connect their separate domains to form a 3-D Internet, writes Erica Naone talking about Virtual Worlds. Currently users (namely geeks) hang out in 3-D virtual worlds feeling lack of chance to move freely from one world to another. Virtual Worlds should join hands and combine resources to give users what they really need.

“To make the virtual-world experience as rich as possible, developers need to find ways to consistently render objects…” adopting 3-D web standards “someone who has built a car in MTV’s Virtual Pimp My Ride might want to take it into Linden Lab’s Second Life to show it off. In order for the car to remain the same in both worlds, its underlying programming must make sense to both systems.” (via)

All the same we can’t exclude the fact that 3-D Internet may be very dangerous. Virtual crackbrains will never be the same again if they fall into virtual world and couldn’t find a way-out of there. In philosophy we can come across a term “duality”, the state or quality of being two or in two parts. For example, a gamer can’t switch over to a call or fire alarm, therefore he can’t distinguish reality and virtual world.

Take part in our poll “Virtual World for You Is”

Technorati Tags: virtual worlds, second life, videos, movies, media, streaming tv, web television, shows, games, Active Worlds, Kaneva, vSide, Entropia, Novoking, Ogoglio, research, digital media, 3-d reality, myspace, facebook

Nobody will deny the fact that online video advertising is one of the effective ways for reaching the young and the old. Daily we become casual victims of advertising while watching our fave TV shows, video clips and movies. We can’t but give preference to different consuming activities even if we have to watch pesky ads. It goes without saying “no pain, no gain”!

Just recently we got inVideo ads from Google, one of the powerful and most outstanding online advertisers. In few weeks YouTube and Google brought to perfection the quality of advertising in order to attract as many as possible potential (preferably young people) viewership. As far as you know, REVVER reached one million dollar mark, PlugAdPlay gave an opportunity to coin in.

By the way, there are several methods available to monetize your blog or site. “The methods and approaches to monetize online video keep growing by the day, with new solutions and formats that are seeing the light of the day now for the first time. Pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll, overlay tickers, contextual, on-demand, are just a few of the many new online advertising video formats that have appeared in the last year.” (via)

Various apps, new video sharing sites, video aggregators, etc. have been mushrooming on the web. On the one hand, you have an opportunity to monetize and proof yourself as well as one or another web-site offers to make use of their services and activities. On the other hand, they are too many out there and it’s a bit difficult which one to opt.

According to comScore Networks, the male audience is much more engaged with video, with the average male viewer seeing nearly two hours per month, while females consume approximately one hour and twenty minutes of video per month. Overall, males in the highly-coveted 25-34 age group have the highest intensity of video consumption, with an average of 140 minutes of video consumed per month.

“According to eMarketer, spending for online video advertising will cost around $410 million this year, a great gain compared to the $225 million of the last year’ (a 82.2 percent jump). In next two years, US marketers will invest about $1 billion, and in others two years after Internet video advertising will become a business of $3 billion. an investment opportunity.”

Keep in mind, audience is too quirky and profound to resort to various tricks in order to get undiluted video material. According to Nielsen Media Research, more than one-fifth of the viewership does their utmost to skip the commercials. Everything points to the fact that folks prefer watching TV shows offline (e.g. recorded) to live (premier) ones. The table speaks for itself.

To sum up, we should think of advertising and its impact on us either positive or negative.

Technorati Tags: onlive video, inVideo, ads, advertising, google, revver, coin, monetize, blog, video sharing, webtv, streaming video, video on demand, internet

It is wonderful if you have another one chance to change your low-quality mobile phone, digital camera video for the better. MotionDSP, a digital video company, launched a new service called Fixymymovie.com, where users are given an opportunity to make their videos look great.

Fixmymovie.com can take any video file from a mobile phone or digital camera and make it better. FixMyMovie’s suite of automatic enhancements improves overall resolution, corrects for poor lighting conditions and removes the blockiness and other artifacts that ruin most cell phone and low-end digital camera videos. Check this software out, seeing is believing.

Process if fixing is as clear as daylight. To begin with, sing up and upload the videos you want to improve. Surely, the gear thinks over whether your video really requires any quality improvement and then makes a decision. Fixmymovie.com fixes only 10 seconds of your video, and after you should make up your mind whether you want to do ahead with adjusting the rest of it later.

And it should be added Fixmymovie.com shows before and after results by sliding bar giving an opportunity to save fave frames for your own. What else: uploading to various video sharing sites, embedding on your blogs and sites, watching via your PS3 or mobile phone.

“Fixmymovie is a video sharing site powered by MotionDSP’s patent-pending video enhancement technology. It makes movies from your mobile phone, digital camera, or webcam look great.”

Technorati Tags: fixmymovie, for free, online tool, web tv, video software, digital cameras, improvement, webcam, mobile phones

Can you really make any extra money on the web? Earning money online is a science. Building internet business is a fine workmanship. Not this time! PlugAdPlay opened up possibilities for video amateurs and professionals. Just try to fulfil yourself by way of videos! “Plug Ad Play is the advertising provider for all video producers, video artists, video maker, comedians, musicians, directors, and every one who can to shoot a video.”

PlugAdPlay is a video advertising web-portal that gives an opportunity to coin in. Various kinds of adverts and streaming banners can be added both at the beginning and at the end of video clips. You’ve got 3 way to earn money:
1. Upload your video on any video sharing site like YouTube – up to $1 per 1 uploading
2. You get money for each viewer who watches your video and clicks it
3. You must reap as you have sown. Extra bonus – your video is very popular!

And it must be said that embeddable videos will inevitably yield a good return. Add the site’s video player on your blog or website and the result won’t keep you waiting.

They say: “The quick growth of websites like Youtube offers video makers the possibility to spread through the web their home made video Plug Ad Play offers people the possibility to earn money through their video, displaying of messages of advertisers who want to advertise their website or products. We believe this kind of advertising, usually named viral advertising, is going to have many chances of growth in the future. These consumer-shot videos are typically non-commercial videos intended for an audience of friends or relatives. Now with Plug AD Play these consumers have the possibility to insert small advertising message on their video and earn money.”

Technorati Tags: video advertising, ads, invideo ads, video sharing, streaming video, video on demand, web tv, free videos, revenues