The New York Times has published an article that looks at costs of running contests for user-generated advertising, suggesting that it’s actually more costly than traditional advertising, and that most amateur ads are terrible. “That‚Äôs kind of a popular misnomer that, somehow, it‚Äôs cheaper to do this,” said David Ciesinski, vice president for Heinz Ketchup. […]

Google has introduced a variety of new formats for video ads. The three new formats include: 728×90 Leaderboard 120×600 Skyscraper 160×600 Wide Skyscraper. Previously, video ads were only enabled for the 300×250 Medium Rectangle, the 336×280 Large Rectangle, the 200×200 Small Square, and the 250×250 Square. Advertisers can chose a cost-per-thousand model for displaying ads, […]

An unusual ruling in Finnish courts appears to have declared that it’s open season for hacking DRM’d media. In an unanimous decision, the Helsinki District Court ruled that Content Scrambling System (CSS) used in DVD movies is “ineffective”. The decision is the first in Europe to interpret new copyright law amendments that ban the circumvention […]

CBS Interactive has announced that it is partnering with community-building websites and social application providers to let users put CBS clips into their profiles, websites, blogs, widgets, wikis, and community pages. “Today, we are taking the CBS Audience Network directly to the user,” said Quincy Smith, President, CBS Interactive. “We now want to empower our […]

Media conglomerate Vivendi has formed a new unit called Vivendi Mobile Entertainment that the company hopes will compete with YouTube and MySpace. The site will distribute multimedia for PCs, televisions and mobile phones. The site is expected to first launch in France, eventually expanding to neighboring countries in Europe. The venture will be Vivendi’s second […]

The head of the New Jersey Turnpike Authority yesterday announced a new policy limiting the number of employees allowed to make copies of videos captured by highway surveillance cameras. The new policy was prompted by the release last week of a video showing a fiery, fatal car crash at the Great Egg Harbor Toll Plaza […]

George Lucas has had his chance to remix Star Wars, and now he’s wants you to give it a try. This week, Lucasfilm will make clips of Star Wars available on the Internet for fans to use in remixes. Over 200 clips, taken from all six Star Wars movies, will be available on StarWars.com beginning […]

Companies hoping to create the “AdSense for video” just got some major competition. Google has announced that it is launching a pilot with a small group of publishers to test streaming video ads in their online video content. With this pilot, publishers control when the ads play in their videos and choose which videos get […]

A new plugin for Apple TV called “A Series of Tubes”, now in advanced hacking stage, promises to bring YouTube to Apple’s media set-top box. The YouTube plugin isn’t available yet, but its author “XDog” has published a video that shows how it will work: The plugin delivers a number of playlists, including spotlighted YouTube […]

Wallstrip, the Rocketboom of financial news, has been purchased by CBS Interactive for a price in the millions, with a multi-year commitment to continue show and enhance its site. “You can make money from blogging!” said Wallstrip’s Howard Lindzon. The show, described as “Cramer with breasts” by its creator, is a short (about four minute) […]