Music and Movie Discovery, Brought to You by YouTube

Rosie Siman — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 23:52:48 +0000

We’ve seen two big announcements from YouTube this past week.

The first is the launch of their new Music Discovery Site. Likely inspired by Pandora’s Music Genome Project, YouTube has launched a section of their site where you can enter an artists’ name and you’ll be supplied back with their videos as well as suggestions of other artists you may enjoy. Why is this smart? Not just because it adds a layer to an already robust site, but because YouTube’s most watched videos are already music videos.

I tested the service out with a relatively small artist, Allison Weiss, and YouTube immediately gave me a 6 music videos by Allison as well as a handful of other artists that some of which, surprisingly, I hadn’t heard of:

While the music industry is generally known for being slow to adapt when it comes to sharing content in the digital space, labels are working with YouTube. They were working with YouTube prior to the launch of the Music Discovery section of the site, and because Vevo has promised increased ad revenue, they’re likely going to continue working with YouTube as the Music Discovery section grows.

On another note entirely, starting today YouTube will expand its offerings so that consumers will be able to rent full length movies from Sundance Film Festival through January 31st. Five films from the 2009 and 2010 festivals will be available for rent via YouTube with Google Checkout managing payment. YouTube also has put out an open call asking independent filmmakers to join the rental program.

Here’s to new music and new movies in 2010! Thanks, YouTube!

Everybody Loves a Remix

Bea Villamor — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 20:38:46 +0000

We recently attended “Brave New (Open) World: A Producer’s Primer on the Latest Open Source Software,” hosted by the Producers Guild of America at The New School. We think user-generated content is king, so the coolest portion of the talk was on users remixing content. Kaltura, an open source video platform, talked about how they have two sites that offer remix tools: kaltura.org, which is free, and kaltura.com for corporate clients.

They highlighted some of their work to demonstrate how remixing videos engages users – for kaltura.com, a great example is their work with the TV show “Heroes.” In partnership with MetaCafe and Universal, a Heroes microsite let users “remix preloaded videos, photos and audio from the show’s second season. Users created new ‘Heroes moments’ or remixed existing moments, complete with transitions and soundtrack.” The result? In just a few days, “hundreds of new mashups“ were created by fans, who expressed an increased interest in the show:

Heroes Remix

For kaltura.org, they showed how the 2008 US elections inspired many to remix videos. Here’s how a Remix America user utilized Kaltura’s remix tool:

In terms of marketing, remixing videos is not just about fun for the users – the increased engagement makes them more invested in the brand, which is especially evident in the Heroes remix. By personalizing content, users become brand ambassadors who share their new, original video with others.

Cake New York » online video

Music and Movie Discovery, Brought to You by YouTube

Everybody Loves a Remix