A long while ago, I got my degree in film theory from Columbia University. I was lucky enough to have James Schamus as my thesis advisor, who kindly tolerated my thesis focusing on Women in Prison films, dripping with feminist theory, Lacanian analysis and other semiotic psychobabble. When I graduated from school, I first took a production position at Mister Rogers Neighborhood, and found my way to San Francisco to take a job working with Don Johnson on Nash Bridges.

While that period of my life is long ago, and I have traded in “traditional” for digital and interactive, I still get a thrill of thinking that I was somehow distantly connected to Miami Vice even if I was too young to even consider working on the show when it first came out.

So imagine my excitement when I got my beta invite to Hulu and discovered that I can view each episode of Miami Vice for *free* on Hulu! I know what I’m doing tonight…

At first glance, Hulu seems like a great service, with access to some of the hottest shows around, including The Simpsons, 24, and Heroes, as well as some rather seemingly random ones like WKRP in Cincinnati.

While the overall content is currently small, there are plenty of shows to occupy your time through many months of a WGA strike. Partners include Fox, NBC Universal and other quality content developers, so I expect that the range of content will continue to expand as Hulu moves out of beta.

Similar to Joost, Hulu takes a “sponsored” advertising approach. One show I watched was sponsored by Intel, and another by esurance, so for the time being, it seems that Hulu is taking a one show-one advertiser approach. Which is probably bearable by most people who watch the programming.

Unlike Joost, you don’t have to install an application to view the content – you simply watch the content directly on your Internet browser. That’s probably going to be a big differentiator when it comes to user adoption. Even though it is browser based, the performance seemed ok, and rather zippy in delivery, but there definitely is a lower-quality level than what you see on iTunes downloads. Hulu also just introduced HD content – and while the HD programming is limited, it is another reason to play with the service while you are waiting out the writer’s strike….
Overall, Hulu is a great looking, clean and simple to use site that will definitely give Joost a bit more competition in the online streaming video space. I’ll definitely be using it until Big Bang Theory, Weeds, and Entourage return to air.

It turns out that the widely popular lonelygirl15 on YouTube is a concoction made up by Hollywood. Lonelygirl15 (a.k.a “Bree” on her video posts) began posting her videos in early June 2006, and quickly became a phenomenon, jumping to the second most subscribed channel on YouTube, and people even started to respond with their own video responses to lonelygirl15’s video posts. While the details of who really is behind the posts (and why) are yet to unfold, there are plenty of upset fans who feel duped.

The discovery was made by lonelygirl15 fans who as internet sleuths detected that the IP address from emails sent by lonelygirl15 were coming from CAA (Creative Artists Agency) fueling speculation that the video posts were a viral campaign for an upcoming horror film release. Furthermore, the creators posted a message on a fan website for lonelygirl15, where they admitted she was an actor, but failed to provide any further information, stating:

Right now the biggest mystery of Lonelygirl15 is “who is she?” We think this is an oversimplification. Lonelygirl15 is a reflection of everyone. She is no more real or fictitious than the portions of our personalities that we choose to show (or hide) when we interact with the people around us.

Regardless if CAA is behind this new approach of marketing, the real question is should marketers consider this to be an appropriate way of reaching their audience. When it comes to advertising, there has been a current debate on whether it is ok to essentially hide the true origin of a campaign in a online teaser or viral component, or whether the true intent and message should be transparent to the audience. The repercussions of keeping the true intent (i.e. marketing campaign, advertisment for a movie, etc.) from the audience could include the potential of the viewers feeling alienated or angry by being duped. And that, could cause serious brand management issues.

In an effort to have a viable business model, YouTube recently announced a new brand channel, with the first channel being develoted to Paris Hilton and the release of her debut album. Their press release also mentions the introduction of Participatory Video Ads (PVA):

The new Participatory Video Ad is a user-initiated video advertisement with all of the YouTube community features enabled. Consumers can rate, share,comment, embed, and favorite advertising content that they find interesting, informative and entertaining. Rather than interrupt a consumer’s experience, we have created a model which encourages engagement and participation.

Initial PVA participants include a promo for the Weinstein Company’s upcoming release of PULSE, and Fox Broadcasting for the promotion of Fall season launch of Prison Break. Will this approach work for bringing dollars into YouTube? For the short-term, it is very likely, as advertisers are swarming around YouTube currently. But in other news, the blog Will Video for Food has started a betting pool to determine when YouTube will fall from glory…

The editors of the online culture network Flavorpill have just announced the launch of Activate, a weekly email digest that focuses on world affairs. It is certainly an interesting approach for a network that is known for art, lifestyle events and music listings to venture into politics.

With Microsoft’s recent purchase of Massive, lots of corporate sponsors are jumping into in-game advertising as a way to reach the younger demographic that is watching less and less TV. The problem is trying to figure out how to do it in a way where it makes sense and doesn’t offend the gamer. While many advertising agencies are scrambling to throw corporate dollars for product placement within existing games, game advertising company Play, a unit of Publicis’ new media consultancy, Denuo, is taking a slightly different approach.

First, as creators of Miller Beer Run, Play focused on creating an advergame that was specific to Miller Beer, but also paid homage to the TV spot created by Y&R taking an interesting storytelling approach where the narrative was played across multiple media platforms. Second, instead of hosting the game on Miller’s corporate website, Play worked with Yahoo and MSN to release the game on their game-specific portals, with the logic that the game would have a greater reach on those portals, rather than attempting to funnel visitors to Miller’s website via banner advertising. The result was successful from Play’s POV — with over 3MM game plays and 1.2MM unique players.

(note: you must use Windows Media to view the premiere)