Are There any Negative Revues of The Dark Night ?

Sure there are a few negative reviews of The Dark Night but most people seem to being going Gah Gah over Heath Ledger's performance and some are saying Oscar worthy.

All of that is fine and dandy but what I like is the extremely long hold on Heath Ledger in the middle of the above video.

For those of you not yet familiar with the dark arts of viral videos, the exact mathematical middle frame of your YouTube video is the one that YouTube will use as the little picture that represents your video on Youtube or what we call a video thumbnail.

How do you get to select the video thumbnail photo for your YouTube Video?

If you want to make sure you have yourself covered and know that you are going to have the perfect picture selected for your little YouTube photo make sure you stay on an emotionally engaging image in the middle of your video and you will get the YouTube video thumbnail that you want.

No Joke. Just look at the Joker.

Is Michael Eisner Still Pissed at Steve Jobs?

Last year Michael Eisner said, "Steve Jobs, not the studios, is the one making money on digital distribution," Eisner said at the Media and Money conference according to Remy Davison at Insanely Great Mac.

Yesterday Michael Eisner’s Vuguru and book publisher Putnam, launched the first of a 50 episode online video series called Foreign Body. It's a prequel/promotional vehicle for the soon to be released Robin Cook novel title Foreign Body. The video series is produced for Eisner by my paintball buddies over at Big Fantastic who also did Prom Queen for Michael and sold him their original series Sam Has 7 Friends.

I have great hopes for the Foreign Body series not only as an online video series but as a ground breaking business model for monetizing online video. Eisner has always been and continues to be a man with a vision of the future. (I like to tell this story so if you've heard it before please bear with me.) Years ago I had the fortune to work as a production assistant for Michael on the opening segments of the Disney Sunday Movie where Michael would say, "Hello, I'm Michael Eisner and Welcome to the Disney Sunday Movie." I was a terrible PA, always trying to do more than I was asked to do, but I did manage to learn a lot watching the leader of the Disney empire and how he handled things while he worked.

Way before the Internet, each morning Michael would be handed several sheets of paper that listed all the news worthy items of interest to a CEO of a entertainment conglomerate. Now you can subscribe to Emails, Blogs and RSS feed readers that assemble all the same information but back then when I was a kid I thought this was WAY cool. Another thing I saw Michael do was that he never got mad at anyone. Well at least not that we could see. If something or someone was bothering him he would call over his assistant Art who was also his pitbull. Art would take care of all the dirty work and Michael would smile and say, "Hello, I'm Michael Eisner and Welcome to the Disney Sunday Movie."

Years later as a producer I had the pleasure of traveling the country interviewing Michael Eisner's teachers. I video tapped his kindergarten teacher, the head master of his all boys school and even the professor that Robin Williams' character was based on in Dead Poets' Society. During that project I learned that Ethan Frome was Michael Eisner's favorite book as a young man. Knowing that really makes me examine the way Eisner is playing with online video.

Now I've not spoken with the Big Fantastic boy since they started working on Foreign Body and I sure hope I don't get them in any trouble with this post but I have noticed that the man who seams to be putting the most skin into the original content creation /online video game at the moment is not playing with all of the players.

You can find Vuguru's videos on Youtube, Blip.tv and of course on Veoh the video site that Eisner has invested in but you won't find Prom Queen, Sam Has Seven Friends or Foreign Body on the iTunes Store...yet.

If you visit Foreign Body's website you will find a link to iTunes but when you click on it you get a message, "iTunes Podcast coming soon. Check back June 3rd."

This makes me wonder, Is Michael Eisner still pissed at Steve Jobs? Or has he moved on? Or are there other reasons Michael hasn't been using the iTunes to get the views of his online video up?

Most of us online video producers have found iTunes to be the best thing in launching our viral video successes, including the Big Fantastic guys but for what ever reason Eisner hasn't been embracing Steve Job's wonder toy.

Any ideas?

What Makes a Video Have Over 2 Million Views?

Examine any popular video and you will find components that move human emotions. Examine any viral video and you will find that two or more emotions are moved.

Take for example the above video titled: "Baby Got Back In Department store." This video has had over two million views on YouTube and depending on who you are just the title itself could have an emotional effect on you but the video itself can take you through a list of questions that evoke emotions.

As you watch the video your mind goes through a series of thoughts about what these kids are doing, what things you did as a kid, what kind of trouble they are going to get into, what people in the store must have thought when they did this, what the Walmart people thought, how many other kids have done this and other questions that support the main question: What is the story behind this video?

Are there viral videos that you've seen that make you experience more than one emotion?

Media Buying

In his article for iMedia Connection Jay Friedman asks, "Will online kill the annual plan?" and that is the question I've been waiting to hear for two years!!!!!

What does an annual plan have to do with making money with viral videos? Well for starters the big bucks that are spent on TV advertising are planned a year in advance so that the TV Networks can raise the money needed to produce the TV shows that advertisers are going to advertise on. This process is known in the advertising and TV worlds as the "Upfront." At the "Upfront" that takes place each year in May the TV Networks each rent out a big space in New York city like Carnegie Hall and invite media buyers from ad agencies and large brands to come and watch Upfront Presentations of the Networks new Fall Schedule then party. The presidents of each Network will come out on stage and introduce a trailer of each TV pilot episodes and then based on those trailers media buyers will buy advertising time on the new shows ahead of time. - WITHOUT EVER SEEING A SHOW OR ITS RATINGS! The Networks will then take the money and go make all the new shows for Fall.

So this last May; ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and the new CW each showed a bunch of trailers of their TV Pilots and their old shows as well and then the media buyers broke out their check books and wrote checks for advertising on these new shows.

Now this week all the Media Buyers and TV Execs are waiting to see if the shows they spent money on are going to have good ratings when they premier this week. If they don't do well "heads could roll" TV shows will get canceled and Networks will have to "Make Good" or work out deals to make their advertisers happy.

It's a very inefficient way to spend advertising dollars compared to how things can be done on the Internet but because of the cost of the TV Shows and how long they take to produce that's they way they've been doing it for 50 years.

Well with internet video that all is changing and this Friday at 7:30 AM just before the start of the Podcast and New Media Expo there is a small group of us showing up in a donated ballroom to have the first meeting of the Association for Downloadable Media where we will try to create standards for online video and audio advertising so that media buyers can buy advertising on audio programs and viral videos.