Posts Tagged ‘YouTube’

 

Cable, Netflix, Hulu and Now YouTube

Saturday, August 11th, 2012

We knew the day would come.

The day when cable and satellite TV were not our only choices.

Netflix started it’s digital distribution of video content in 1999, growing steadily for many years. Recently consumers grew cold with price hikes and poor selection. I’m still digging it… for the most part.

While Hulu and Hulu Plus compete fiercely with Netflix, the amazingly priced Amazon Prime account (shakes out to less than $7/month plus a lot of free as a bonus).

And over the past year, YouTube’s presence has steadily gained traction as a serious contender to play (and often produce) high-quality video content.

Until recently, YouTube had only a handful of webisode offerings, but just this past week Forbes reported a new series by Warner Brothers titled “H+ The Digital Series” run exclusively on the YouTube platform.

By Mark Nye

So why on YouTube and why now?

From Forbes:

What’s always been missing is a genre of movie that is good enough, well enough produced, smart enough and of the times to make Web TV more than a distraction, to create an artistic base so that it can grow.

Creator John Cabrera tries to put it in context. When I asked him had Web TV as an original content format begun to take off, he responded:

“We haven’t gotten there yet but we’re closer than we’ve ever been. Where we are now has little to do with the content. It’s the hardware that’s holding it back. If you had YouTube or Hulu on the remote control, letting you find the content from your couch then you’d see it really take off. As this happens we will see the massive shift we’ve been talking about for ten years.”

In other words, as soon as regular flatscreens and outdated console TV’s are replaced by the ever growing web-based streaming capable TV, the studios will begin producing programs geared for online consumption.

Time for an upgrade?

 

Social Media Helps Make a Benchwarmer a Star

Monday, February 13th, 2012

On February 3th, very few people actually knew that the New York Knicks had a player by the name of Jeremy Lin.  He’s the latest athlete from Harvard that has taken the sports world by storm.

This is Lin’s second year in the NBA, but he made a splash on February 4th of this year when he put up 25 points against the New Jersey Nets.  Since that game, he hasn’t scored less than 20 points.  Against the Lakers on February 10th, he outperformed future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant with a 38 point performance.

But, while Lin’s performance is certainly something to talk about, it’s not the first time a player has come off of the bench and performed well.  This time, it just seems a little different.

Maybe it’s the fact that he played at Harvard, he is the first Asian-American to play in the league in decades, or he’s just got a magnetic personality.  Whatever it is, all we can say is that Jeremy Lin has combined all of these things with his outstanding play on the court to become a hit on social media.

If you don’t believe me, let’s just say that this is a rap created just for him on YouTube:

In today’s world, stars aren’t just made on the court or field.  They’re also made on Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. Unfortunately, there’s not a defined recipe that can be replicated.

However, there are a few key characteristics that sports/social media stars tend to have in common.

First, it goes without saying that they are really good at what they do.  Athletes that have bad performances may start trending, but it’s generally short-lived.  To have a big impact on social media for days or weeks at a time, you must continually have outstanding performances.

Second, social media stars tend to be underdogs.  There aren’t very many Asian players in the NBA, and Lin is the only player from Harvard, which isn’t necessarily known as an institution that churns out basketball stars.  Also, for example, look at Tim Tebow.  Obviously, he had a great college career, but many NFL analysts said that his style of play would never translate to the next level.  As he began to prove people wrong week after week, you couldn’t get on Twitter or Facebook with out reading his name or seeing a picture of someone “Tebowing”.

Lastly, their popularity seems to be genuine.  By that, I mean that their social media fame appears to be generated in a way that wasn’t promoted by the star himself.  Others did it for him, and that makes people more likely to support it.

Who knows if the Jeremy Lin buzz will continue for the rest of the season.  He’s filling in while other stars are injured, and many wonder how he will be used when they come back.  But, for now, it’s fun to get behind such a likable player that is really giving his team a boost when they needed it the most.