mtv

This is sort of interesting. MTV Networks, which certainly has a lot of video content out there on the Web, on Wednesday released the results of an internal study to determine what kinds of advertisements are most effective and online-friendly matches for short-form online videos.

The conclusion? "Project Inform," the MTV survey, found that a five-second-long "pre-roll" ad in advance of the clip, combined with ten seconds of a semi-transparent ad unit that takes up the lower third of the video (and starts about ten seconds in), makes up "both the most effective and the … Read more

From the creators of "Drawn Together" comes "DJ & The Fro," a new daily, animated show on MTV. The 404 speaks to the creators, Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, about the show and talk about how Michael Jackson's death almost ruined the shows' first few episodes.

The show creators call it a rip-off of "Beavis and Butthead" for the viral video generation. DJ and the Fro are two twenty-somethings, who spend most of their day watching viral videos and commenting on them. Sounds eerily similar to what The 404 guys do all day long. Anyway, the guys tell us about how the show came into being and let us know that a "Drawn Together" straight-to-DVD movie is coming out as well!

"DJ & The Fro" reminds us a bit of "Tosh.0" on Comedy Central, which premiered just a few weeks ago. The 404 guys think we should have jumped on to this bandwagon a long time. This is what we do already for the show every day!

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the abbreviated show along with our Michael Jackson commentary. He will be missed. Spend your weekend listening to your favorite MJ jam and reminisce about the fond memories you had while karaoking to "Billie Jean."

LOS ANGELES--If you were among the thousands of people at Microsoft's E3 press briefing on Monday, it's a pretty sure bet that the appearance on-stage there of Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Yoko Ono was one of the most unexpected things imaginable.

But if you think about it, the very existence of the game that led to their showing up during the Xbox press briefing, Harmonix and MTV Games' "Beatles: Rock Band," is even more surprising. After all, the Beatles have, over the years, maintained a stranglehold over control of their music. For example the Beatles … Read more

This story has been updated. See below for details.

Can you really take everything that's going on with movies, TV shows, music, Internet memes, and social media, and wrangle it all into an hour of live television? MTV believes it can--with some help from Twitter, Facebook, and a quirky British model-turned-TV-host named Alexa Chung.

The pop-culture cable network's new daily talk show, titled "It's On with Alexa Chung," premieres at noon on June 15 and expectations are high. The show is taking over the time slot once held by "Total Request Live," or &… Read more

Rock Band has gone portable, kind of: MTV Games, Harmonix and EA have officially shipped Rock Band Unplugged to stores, meaning you'll finally have a new UMD game for your dust-gathering PSP. Although the game won't go on sale until June 9, we thought we'd give you an idea of what to look forward to just in case you find someplace putting this on the shelves a little early.

With 41 tracks on disc and a full World Tour mode, the band creation and unlockable wardrobe/swag are everything you remember from the console versions. But what, you may ask, has been done about all those plastic drums, guitars, and whatnot? Does it come with fancy mini-instruments that interface with the PSP?

How can Rock Band be portable?… Read more

Two new members have been added to the fresh lineup of MySpace's executive ranks, following the appointment of CEO Owen Van Natta last week.

Jason Hirschhorn, most recently president of Sling Media Entertainment and before that MTV Networks' chief digital officer, joins MySpace as its chief product officer. He's the second prominent MTV veteran to take on a role at the News Corp.-owned MySpace in the past year, following MySpace Music president Courtney Holt.

Hirschhorn is firmly on the digital-media and entertainment side of things, something that will invariably come into play as MySpace (ideally) restructures itself … Read more

Google and Universal Music Group last week announced Vevo, a music video site that will feature Universal's music videos running on YouTube technology. I use YouTube as my primary source of watching music videos, and I'm not convinced that I, personally, need a Vevo-like site in my life.

That doesn't mean there isn't room for a site like this. Vevo could still become a great site--but not if it just streams music videos. Here are five features that I'd like to see on Vevo at launch:

1. High-quality video Whenever you try to watch music videos on sites other than MTV.com, the video quality is usually poor. But if Vevo offers outstanding video quality, it will certainly make pople notice. If you're going to a site to watch music videos, wouldn't you expect them to look good? Yeah, me too.

2. An awesome community I love reading comments on YouTube. Popular music videos have hundreds, if not thousands, of comments from both fans and haters alike who want everyone to know their opinions. Vevo needs a community like that to be successful. Watching music videos is fine, but if Vevo really wants to keep people coming back, allowing them to comment is a must. There's a reason why most sites allow users to post comments; they keep people interested in content they've already consumed. That's what Vevo needs.… Read more

Viacom's MTV Networks has brought some of its television content to Netflix's library of streaming online video, the companies announced Monday.

The offering consists primarily of kids' shows from the Nickelodeon network, with select seasons from the shows "iCarly," "Blue's Clues," "Dora the Explorer," "SpongeBob SquarePants," and a handful of others, as well as the first nine seasons of "South Park," the Comedy Central animated series that you probably don't want your kids watching.

Netflix's streaming-video service still very much takes the back burner to … Read more

Here it is. It's the latest trailer for Batman: Arkham Asylum. The trailer is set to air Thursday night on MTV, but fortunately for us, Stephen Totilo, from MTV's Multiplayer, decided to post it early for everyone to drool over.

Eidos and developer Rocksteady Studios set expectations very high when the first trailer for "Batman: Arkham Asylum" debuted in November. The setting of Arkham Asylum combined with the dark tone of the story seemed to embody the feel of Batman's universe.

With Emmy Award-winning "Batman: The Animated Series" producer Paul Dini writing the … Read more