If you’re going to the NAB Show, you may want to check out the schedule for their Podcasting Summit.

The Summit offers a 1-day boot camp, plus two days of additional training covering everything from planning to production through encoding, distribution and legal issues.

Internet video site Hulu launches today, offering full-length episodes of more than 250 TV series, including Lost and The Simpsons, along with older hits like Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In addition, Hulu will feature content from the Warner Bros Television Group, Lionsgate and from sports leagues.

According to the company, it has already attracted over five million viewers interested in catching up with long-form video online. With its library of older content, the site provides viewers a way for digging into the “long-tail” of television programming.

Even more important to the site’s long-term success is the fact that it launches with a mature advertising platform in place, and advertisers lined up to use it.

I’m still skeptical about Hulu’s ad implementation and navigation. The site’s top level navigation doesn’t give you any idea of the range of content hidden on the site, and browsing is equally clunky, with relies too much on Flash.

Hulu’s ad implementation is equally clunky – showing you long, poorly targeted ads and forcing you to grab a mouse and click to continue watching the show.

The site does a great job delivering the shows, though. I caught up with much of season 3 of Lost via the site, and the video has the best I’ve seen for streaming HD. This, along with the fact that it’s lined up an impressive range of content, should give the site a chance at taking on YouTube.

More at NewTeeVee, NYT

Natural/organic supermarket chain Whole Foods Market, is launching Whole Earth Generation, a video podcast series dedicated to raising environmental awareness among young people.

The podcast project is beginning with a search for six “fresh-faced personalities” aged 8 to 17, to be auditioned as hosts of this green-themed series. Children from all over the United States and Canada are invited to try out for the online series, premiering today and running through April 29.

“We are excited to celebrate Earth Month with this series … about eco-friendly actions and how they can make a difference,” said Heather Kennedy, Senior Coordinator of National Marketing for Whole Foods Market. “So many shoppers tell us they have learned how to be more environmentally conscious by listening to their kids. We hope this program takes that trend to an even broader audience via the Internet.”

Topics on the podcast series will address topics generated by “Generation Y and Z,” (which we guess means kids and young adults). Highlights of the series will include interviews with celebrities and peers, ideas for a sustainable future, cool green products, and how to convince skeptical families and friends that green is the way to go.

The Whole Earth Generation youth host casting call kicked off a couple days ago on YouTube. Additionally, in-person casting calls will be held throughout the month of March in some of the chain’s stores.

Submissions can be uploaded to this spot on YouTube, or youngsters ages 8-17 can show up at one of the Whole Foods Market stores on the designated audition date in New York, Chicago and Austin, for auditions.

Six winners — three from the YouTube entries and three from the in-store auditions — will be selected.

“The six young hosts will be the on-air personalities with the charge of engaging their peers and showing that tweens and teens can really influence how we protect our planet,” said Kennedy.

If you ever doubted that there was a future in podcasting, then doubt no more.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Douglas Sarine (L) and Kent Nichols (R), the creators of the hit video podcast Ask a Ninja, are making the jump to the big screen. The two are writing an adaptation of the 1978 cult monster movie Attack of the Killer Tomatoes!, which Nichols is set to direct:

“Attack of the Killer Tomatoes! is the masterwork of a generation,” Nichols said. “We can only aspire to recapture that magic.”

No changes to the original plot have been revealed, but it still is expected to revolve around killer tomatoes.

Nichols and Sarine’s satirical “Ninja” shorts have garnered more than 80 million Web views and won best series at the 2006 YouTube Video Awards. Their “Ninja” commentator has appeared on National Public Radio and VH1’s “Best Week Ever.”

The original “Tomatoes” spawned the Fox Kids Network’s “ATV” cartoon series and the feature sequel “Return of the Killer Tomatoes,” which helped launch George Clooney’s career.

Nichols and Sarine are repped by UTA and John Elliott of Mosaic Media Group.

You can find out more about Sarine and Nichols in our interview with them.

Every day, at least one news item makes us pause, and say, “Well, duh” (as in, “yeah, tell me something I didn’t already know.”).

Our “duh!” moment of today comes courtesy of a study on social networking by new media market research firm Grunwald Associates. Their scholarly finding: kids aged 9 – 17 are paying less attention to television than they used to. They are doing other (online or mobile media) activities while watching the ‘tube.

The study’s authors suggest that companies who want to sell things to that lucrative youth market must implement much more creative, multimedia marketing campaigns for their messages to get through to kids. (“Duh!” again).

I don’t purport to be an expert in marketing to teens, but I am the parent of several people in the study’s age range. I would go so far as to say that (at our house, anyway) television is a medium that gets no attention. They don’t have time to waste on weeknights (or weekends) on boring TV fare. Our kids are seeking out entertainment, news and information, and connecting with peers, through the Internet and via a variety of portable and new media.

Back to the expert study: While youngsters routinely go online while they watch television, only 11 percent of kids say that TV holds their primary attention while multitasking. Nearly half of the young people surveyed said that they focus more on Internet media when their attention is divided between TV and online distractions.

“Active multitasking and social networking present a tremendous opportunity to inform, engage and empower kids more deeply than ever before,” said Peter Grunwald, founder and president of Grunwald Associates. “At the same time, it’s important for commercial efforts to be credible and respect kids’ intelligence — and the content they produce. Kids are using social networking tools to create personal content and share their opinions with great speed, passion and influence.”

Grunwald Associates’ Kids’ Social Networking Study is comprised of three parallel surveys conducted in the United States: an online survey of 1,277 nine- to 17-year- olds, an online survey of 1,039 parents, and telephone interviews with 250 “school district leaders” who make decisions on Internet policy.

A scandal has broken out over the fact that the most-viewed video of all time on YouTube, Evolution of Dance, has been beaten by a fan video for the song Music is My Hot Hot Sex.

A lot of people are crying foul – not just because the Hot Hot Sex video is so bad, but because YouTube’s stats suggest that many of the video’s views may have been generated by spambots.

Does Hot Hot Sex Really Belong On Top?

Waxy.org did the stats rundown.

“There’s still a possibility that this torrent of traffic is coming from a legitimate external source, but it seems increasingly unlikely,” they concluded. “It’s either a bug or some form of cheating.”

ReadWriteWeb’s Marshall Kirkpatrick has a different view, suggesting that the clip is “a defining video for the current era online – the heady days and American flavored story of “well, golly look at that” user generated content are over.”

While Kirkpatrick acknowledges suspicions around the video’s ranking, he suggests that globalization may be a factor in the Hot Hot Sex video’s popularity.

“YouTube now gets a majority of its viewer ship from outside the U.S. so it only makes sense that the #1 video of all time isn’t from the U.S. There are now three of the 20 all time most viewed videos on YouTube with non-English titles,” notes Kirkpatrick. “Non-native English speakers and other languages are an essential part of US culture and English titled videos are of course viewed substantially outside of the US – but the growing internationalization of the site can’t help but increase the prominence of non-English videos. The victory of Hot Hot Sex is a strong signal of the global reach of YouTube.”

Jackson West at NewTeeVee offers a more skeptical take:

“After Andy Baio called ‘bulls**t’ on CANSEI DE DER SEX Music is My Hot Hot Sex, there‚Äôs been renewed interest in stats-gaming on YouTube,” notes Jackson. “The video is still online at 91,195,785 views and counting, but it‚Äôs no longer listed as the most viewed all time”

Is Google The Real Culprit Behind The YouTube Sex Scandal?

While these explanations are all plausible, there’s another, simpler explanation: Google may be responsible for the success of Hot Hot Sex.

Check out what Google brings up for “hot sex”:

If you’re at the top of number one search engine Google for “hot sex”, you’re going to get a hell of a lot of traffic.

Does Hot Hot Sex really beat The Evolution of Dance? I’m skeptical.

Videos after the jump. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Much as the movie industry would like to avoid having Apple becoming the dominant digital vendor for digital movies as it has in the world of digital music, Apple is doing it anyway.

While the movie and television industry experiments with a bunch of incompatible standards and technologies, Apple has been inexorably putting together a video ecosystem that just works.

Independent film studio Lionsgate announced today that it’s struck a deal with Apple to provide digitized versions of its movies that can play on iPods and similar devices. Buy a copy of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo or Jessica Alba’s The Eye, and you’ll get an iTunes code that you can use to download a digital copy of the movie that you can watch with iTunes compatible devices.

“Digital Copy for iTunes is a perfect example of how packaged media and new digital technology can work hand in hand for the benefit of our consumers,” Lionsgate president Steve Beeks said in a statement.

“Our consumers are always looking for new viewing options in terms of the motion pictures they buy, and we are always searching for new ways to deliver content in formats that reflect consumer preference across the entire home entertainment spectrum, from packaged media to digital storage to (video on demand).”

Last fall, 20th Century Fox introduced the concept to the market with the release of Bruce Willis’ Live Free or Die Hard.

The Association for Downloadable Media (ADM), an organization focused on creating advertising standards podcasts and Internet media, announced today the creation of a special advertising agency liaison to the organization, along with the confirmation of a fourteen-member Ad Council, made up of media professionals from leading interactive advertising agencies.

The council will act as a sounding board for the ADM committees, which are creating downloadable media advertising standards and guidelines. David Herscott, President of San Diego-based interactive agency MEA Digital, has been appointed the liaison between the Ad Council of media strategists and the ADM committee chairs.

The Association for Downloadable Media will be releasing initial ad unit standards and audience measurement guidelines for public consideration at the ADM Forum at ad:tech San Francisco April 16th from 9:00 am – 11:45 am at Moscone Center.

“People have been talking for years about the need for podcasting ad standards,” said ADM Chairman Chris MacDonald. “We’re taking the first big leap on standards-setting and are working proactively to verify that the ad formats and audience measurement processes we set will work for both the buyer and seller.”

According to reports, the Beatles will finally be coming to iTunes. Paul McCartney has reached a $400 million agreement with Apple for the distribution of the Beatles’ back catalog.

McCartney, Ringo Starr and the families of late Beatles stars George Harrison and John Lennon will share in the profits. Portions of the multimillion-dollar payout also will go to Michael Jackson, along with the EMI and Sony recording groups, who each own certain Beatles recording or publishing rights.

The LA Times has published an article by thirtysomething creator Marshall Herskovitz that responds to criticism of his show quarterlife, which was hyped beforehand as the first television-quality production for the Web.

The show bombed on YouTube and went on to bomb on network television.

Despite the show’s poor performance, Herskovitz thinks quarterlife is not just successful, but a hit, and challenges the coverage it has received from Podcasting News, the LA Times and others:

IT was a surreal moment when I learned of the “demise” of my online series “quarterlife” on the front page of Tuesday’s L.A. Times. Mark Twain notwithstanding, reports of said demise are not only premature but laughable.

To be fair, the paper printed a correction the next day, but the error didn’t happen by accident. The headline referred to the Big Picture column by Patrick Goldstein in that day’s Calendar section, and while Patrick didn’t write that headline or the one on latimes.com [” ‘Quarterlife’ Gets a Web Smackdown”], both reflect the sentiments in Patrick’s piece.

Goldstein — whom I like, by the way, and think is a very smart writer — put forth the thesis that “quarterlife” represents a “culture clash” between old and new media, wherein two old media types — Ed Zwick and myself — had “arrogantly” blundered into the new media world with the message that we could do it better, and as a result had received an astonishingly negative response online.

He described charts Podcasting News published about our performance on YouTube as looking “like a graph of Ron Paul’s delegate count” and quoted PN’s claim that we were getting fewer views than “sleeping kitties, graffiti videos or even a clip of Sims in labor.” With no other performance figures cited in the article, one was left to assume that “quarterlife” had in fact tanked on the Internet.

Yes, we did call quarterlife a bomb.

We did say that quarterlife episodes were getting fewer views than “sleeping kitties, graffiti videos and even a video of Sims in labor.”

And we did print a graph that showed the viewing trends for quarterlife on YouTube:

Herkovitz doesn’t really challenge the facts here; instead, he says that they aren’t important.