YouTube on the Path to monetization??

read at Business Insider how YT is bragging on its recent success monetizing UGC and professional content...Let's see...

How is the news business changing

After TMZ broke the news on MJ's death, some unknown news site founded by a 19 years old, was the first to release a full Osama Bin Laden video back in 2007. And now this news site is ready to create an iPhone App and charge a 99cts monthly subscription fee for it.

Check out the full story about the Breaking News Online network @ ReadWriteWeb.

United: You Broke my Tailored Guitar

If you haven't heard about Dave Caroll's broken by United guitar, watch the video on YT (hitting 2.8MM views at the time of this article) and read this great article on the difference between effective and ineffective social media, good and bad customer relationship, and learn what to do next time an airline mishandles your luggage (that one really strikes a chord with me...)
* @ Smartblog on Social Media

"Twitter is for old people"

And "I phone my friends from my games console while I play Call of Duty."
Check out this great article to learn how a 15 years old is telling investment bankers around the world, through his internship report 'How Teenagers Consume Media"
* at Timesonline.co.uk

Sluggish 2009 US Upfront

The ad dollars are not abundant this year, for one thing, and the online ad dollars either. In a market where people spend less, buyers are not eager to change their marketing mix and are still on a reach and frequency strategy (TV) more than on an efficiency one (online).
Still online video keeps steady growth compared to overall online ad $$ or TV ad $$ (see chart from emarketer)
* More at paidcontent.org

Manage abundance and not scarcity

Just read a great article in WIRED giving another perspective on the digital business model issue and around the theme of Chris Anderson's latest book 'Free: the future of a radical price'.
Made me want to read the whole book and also the part about the allocation of memory for WIRED' staff mailbox made me smile and cringe at the same time.
Anderson goes from nature wasting life to how YouTube makes sense in a word where production and distribution costs literally close to 0.

Read it for yourself @ WIRED

The next big thing:: Augmented Reality

Thanks to CA for this great article on augmented reality.

If you've ever visited le Louvre and followed Japanese tourists looking at the centuries-old art from their camera and wondered how on earth could these paintings indeed be looked at through a 5mm lense, just wait for the world's smartphones to be equipped with these augmented reality apps that will allow you to see how buildings looked 100 years ago, how much a the apartment on the street you're walking on costs, or how high is the mountain in front of you during your week-end hike.

* Read at VentureBeat

Short is sweet

New report from F Magid - sponsored by metacafe - reporting the rise of online short-form video. More on the report here.
* 7/10 males 18-24 view online video weekly.
* Consumer-created and uploaded clips are still the most popular particularly among young males, accounting for 42% of videos viewed among males 12-17.
* Over half of TV viewers go online while watching TV; 13% report do so "all the time"
* 70% of weekly online video viewers play video games regularly, compared to 47% of non-online video viewers
* 41% own a personal digital media player for music and video vs. 23% of non viewers
* 28% rent DVDs weekly (vs. 17%)
* 11% own a smartphone, compared to 7% of non-online video viewers

More findings include:
-- 50% of all respondents watch online video weekly.
-- 11% of all respondents watch online video daily.
-- 28% of those who watch online videos report watching less TV as a result.
-- 19% of those who watch online videos report regularly sharing a link to a video with someone else.
-- The top-five most commonly viewed types of online video content, based on respondents reporting that they watch regularly, are:
-- Comedy/jokes/bloopers (37%)
-- Music videos (36%)
-- Videos shot and uploaded by consumers (33%)
-- News stories (31%)
-- Movie previews (28%)