Media

YouTube bashers often argue that the video-sharing site offers little more than a place for people to watch other people behave as fools.

Fans say that YouTube, a service that allows anyone to post videos on to the Web, is a new form of communication. On Monday, Time magazine sided with the latter group by naming YouTube "Invention of the Year."

San Bruno, Calif.-based YouTube beat out such innovations as Gardasil, a vaccine that fights off a sexually transmitted disease and the Hug Shirt, which simulates the feeling of being embraced by a loved one.

"YouTube … Read more

NBC has begun streaming a full-length soap opera online, becoming the first of the major networks to offer a daytime drama on the Web.

Web video is blossoming into a new distribution platform for media companies and none of the big players wants to be left out--even while the public has yet to show much of interest in watching TV on a PC, according to analysts.

The good news is that technology improvements are sprucing up the Web TV experience. The bet is that the day is coming when people can download shows or movies on their traditional TV sets. … Read more

While everyone's favorite journalist Borat is out advancing various cultural learnings of America for make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan, late '90s Internet celebrity Mahir Cagri apparently thinks comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is exploiting Cagri's real-life persona to make benefit glorious box office hit.

Remember Cagri? Right around the time the world was getting hip to the viral reach of the Web, the English-impaired, moustachioed Turk put up an earnest site inviting women the world over to visit him (Welcome to my home page !!!!!!!!! I kiss you!!!!!) and fast found himself an international Net celebrity and the subject … Read more

One of the wonderful things about Wikipedia, and probably the thing that makes it work so well and grow so big, is that anyone anywhere can submit an article.

But there are some rules governing what makes it onto the site, and Wikipedia has assembled a crack team of administrators who enforce the rules: for example, no articles about yourself or people/organizations you're intimately involved with. Also, articles about people or things should have subjects that are well-known or at least considered somewhat important.

Along the way, the administrators make a lot of these decisions, accepting many articles … Read more

Comcast has had talks with video sharing sites, including YouTube and Revver, about adding user-generated content to its video-on-demand service, according to a Saturday Wall Street Journal (subscription required) story.

Comcast's plan, the story says, includes organizing the videos by genre and sponsoring contests for best content in each category.

Los Angeles-based Revver--known for its model in which content creators get a share of advertising revenue--announced in August that new investors included Turner Broadcasting and the venture capital division of Comcast.

This will be a gigantic revenue quarter for many American media selling advertising. There's another $2 billion pouring into the swelling bank vaults of big media. What's going on?

It's the election, stupid. The most expensive set of campaigns in the history of the storied American republic. And who's getting that money? The ad producers, the videographers, the people who own billboards, newspapers, TV, cable and radio companies.

In 2004, the Pew Internet & American Life Project studied campaign advertising. Way back then, it found "the presidential campaigns...virtually ignored the Internet as an advertising … Read more

A model and mom, claiming an old title as most-downloaded woman on the Internet, is now a Playboy nude. She's Cindy Margolis. You Internet pioneers may recall the name, or the body, though it was always partially covered.

Margolis says she finally accepted a Playboy invitation to shed her clothes, for two good reasons. She's past 40 now, and therefore old enough to shun her mother's disapproval and make her own decisions. And she wanted to raise money for her foundation, Resolve.

Margolis and her husband have three children. But she says it was difficult because of … Read more

Conde Nast's Wired Digital has bought online news aggregator Reddit.com for an undisclosed sum, the publisher said Tuesday.

Wired Digital, based in San Francisco, will add Reddit to its stable of online properties, which include Wired Magazine and Wired News. Reddit's four founders--Steve Huffman, Alexis Ohanian, Aaron Swartz and Chris Slowe--will relocate from Boston to Wired Digital's San Francisco headquarters.

"Our goal will be to build Reddit as an independent company by collaborating with Wired through the integration of its core technology, and by offering partnerships to allow other companies to do the same," … Read more

An anonymous blog posted on Mark Cuban's Web site accuses Google of paying off large media companies to make YouTube's copyright troubles go away.

The unidentified blogger claims that he or she is a veteran digital-media executive with knowledge of Google's purchase of YouTube.

"Some of this is based on talks with people involved," wrote the blogger. "Some is speculation based on my experience working in the industry, negotiating settlements and battling in court."

Among the claims are that YouTube agreed to set aside $500 million of the $1.65 purchase price paid … Read more