People of color make up more than one-third of the American population, but despite their numbers, they remain dramatically underrepresented in many major motion pictures. Critically-successful and racially-sensitive movies like 12 Years A Slave and Selma may mask Hollywood’s race problem to a degree, but a new Tumblr blog and YouTube channel is out to show us just how white our movies really are. Dylan Marron is the man behind Every Single Word, a project that compiles every single line spoken by people of color in well-known films.

Marron, who is a contributor to the podcast Welcome To Night Vale, began posting Every Single Word videos to his YouTube channel on June 17th. Since then, he has pointed out the singular (re: white) racial makeup of a dozen films, and has received several hundred thousand views and widespread media attention along the way.

Some of the more egregious examples, such as Noah, have no lines spoken by people of color at all. Most of the films Marron highlights, however, throw a few token lines to Black, Hispanic, Asian, or Middle Eastern characters.

As Marron told BuzzFeed, the under-representation of people of color can have an effect on non-white cultures:

“I read The Fault in Our Stars and cried my eyes out. I love that book. But nowhere in John Green’s exceptional novel was any character’s race ever mentioned. So why is whiteness the default? The story is not about whiteness, it’s about love and loss and mortality. If Hollywood keeps using white actors to tell universal stories then it is suggesting that people of colour don’t fit into the zeitgeist of human emotions.”

We expect Marron to put together a lot more Every Single Word episodes as his project becomes more popular. He certainly has no shortage of fresh material.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Web Series by Sam Gutelle
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Meerkat just introduced a useful new feature which should appeal to brands and users alike. The live streaming app, which touts high-profile users like Madonna, has launched a mode called Cameo that lets users turn over their live streams to new hosts who can continue the broadcast.

Cameo (which is consequently the same name as Vimeo’s video-editing app) lets live streamers invite viewers to participate in broadcasts by tagging them. Invited viewers then get 60 seconds to live stream their own feeds. Both users can end the co-hosting broadcast at any time, and the stream will return to the user who originally started the live feed.

Additionally, when users participate in a Meerkat Cameo stream, their friends and family will be notified of the broadcast on connected social media outlets. This becomes a powerful way to gain more viewers and possible co-hosts, especially considering Meerkat is working to integrate Facebook into the app as a way of logging in.

“By connecting Meerkat with Facebook, we greatly increase the chances that you will be able to take part in conversations, events and moments with those whom you are most familiar,” Meerkat said, as reported by CNET.

Interestingly enough, Meerkat’s new co-hosting feature works similarly to how Facebook’s experimental app Riff functions. That collaborative app lets users film videos of up to 20 seconds in length and set a theme related to the clip, such as “happy birthday” or “vacation time.” Then, those users’ friends on Riff can add to the initial clip and create a longer video thread.

Meerkat confirmed with AdWeek several brands and creators have already started testing Cameo on their accounts. These users include Michelle Phan, Mastercard, TMZ, Fox, CW, and the Weather Channel.

Filed under: Articles, Meerkat, News by Bree Brouwer
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In 2013, Upworthy had a moment. The news aggregator’s ridiculous headlines, which often resemble the one I used above, drew in millions of clicks from social media sites, especially Facebook. However, for the past year and a half, Upworthy has seen its user base shrink significantly, with a change to Facebook’s News Feed algorithm serving as a major culprit.

Clearly, if Upworthy wants to stick around, it needs to figure out how to move on from the clickbait that made it famous, and that’s exactly what it’s doing. It has announced its plan to focus more on original content that will be driven by user data.

Upworthy’s shift toward original content is led by editorial director Amy O’Leary, who was hired away from the New York Times in February. Under O’Leary’s guidance, Upworthy is transitioning to a new model, and in a new report, it has shared the insights it is using to power this original content push.

“This is really a natural part of our evolution,” said Eli Pariser, CEO and co-founder of Upworthy. “But I think as we’ve grown, we’ve come to understand our audience better, we’ve come to understand that there are some stories that we think are important to tell from a mission perspective that no one is telling.”

Upworthy is following BuzzFeed’s lead by mining user data to figure out what sort of original content will stick on social media. It cites an uplifting video about an altruistic pizza parlor as an example of how it has applied its findings.

We don’t expect Upworthy’s signature content curation model to disappear from the site anytime soon, but with its original videos, Upworthy can  stay relevant, all while creating content that will be more welcome on our Facebook News Feeds.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Comedy Central has made a deal with South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone to keep the show running for another four years. On top of the news of the animated series’ extension, Hulu has paid Viacom and the South Park team $192 million to retain the streaming rights to the show through 2019.

Thanks to a previous contract with the South Park creators and its parent network, Hulu has been the exclusive streaming home for the show for a while now. The new South Park streaming deal adds another three years on to the current agreement. The show’s extension on both linear television and Hulu’s platform means the brash, iconic series will reach the milestones of 23 seasons and a 300th episode.

“Very few shows in the history of television will have made it to 23 seasons,” said Hulu’s VP of Content Acquisition Lisa Holme to The Hollywood Reporter, who originally reported the story,

THR claims Hulu’s $192 million deal is the largest the streaming platform has yet paid for any content. Previously, Hulu paid at least $130 million for the streaming rights to all nine seasons of Seinfeld, which debuted on the platform on June 24, 2015.

New episodes of South Park will be available on Hulu the day after they air live on Comedy Central.

Filed under: Articles, Hulu, News by Bree Brouwer
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Wil Wheaton has parlayed his acting career into a number of hosting gigs, none more significant than his gig as the ringleader of Geek & Sundry’s TableTop (and its recent spinoff, Titansgrave). In his latest role, Wheaton is back in the host’s chair, and he is joined by accomplished video game developers. Wheaton is the central figure in the PlayStation web series Conversations With Creators, which has now launched its first episode.

In each episode of Conversations With Creators, Wheaton sits down with the team behind a popular video game. The maiden episode spotlights the developers at Bungie, who after turning Halo into an Xbox staple have moved on to create another hit, Destiny, for both PlayStation and Xbox consoles. The tone of the interview is a bit dry, but there’s plenty of interesting commentary within it, and Wheaton proves to be a knowledgeable host. Think of Conversations With Creators like Inside the Actors Studio, but for video games.

Conversations With Creators is part of PlayStation’s original content push, which has also seen the Sony console serve as the home for superhero series Powers. While the PlayStation YouTube channel is the easiest place to find Conversations With Creators, episodes are also available through the PlayStation Store. The series is free, but the games it spotlights are not, and based on the design of the Conversations With Creators PS Store page, Sony is very much hoping to use the series to market some of its console’s top titles.

Three more episodes of Conversations With Creators, featuring Naughty Dog, Treyarch, and Santa Monica Studio, will arrive over the next three weeks.

Filed under: Articles, Channels, Featured, News, PlayStation Network by Sam Gutelle
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Twitter has a new way for brands to promote their smartphone apps. The social media site has introduced the ability for marketers to purchase and display app-install video ads.

App-install advertisements are what they sound like: ads which direct users to download a company’s smartphone application. Twitter introduced this ad format for marketers back in April 2014. The social site’s VP of Global Online Sales Richard Alfonsi told AdWeek app-install ads have been a “major focus” for Twitter over the last year.

It only makes sense then that Twitter would now upgrade the app-install ad format to include video. The new app-install video ads allow marketers and brands to showcase more of what their smartphone app is about through short video clips. Twitter users can click on the video ad to be taken directly to a page where they can install the corresponding app.

“The union of video and a call to action—driving app installs—that’s new,” said Alfonsi. “It’s an immersive experience to have video directly in the tweet. It creates great performance and lets marketers convey a lot more about what the app does.”

Currently, Twitter works with brands like Postmates, Comedy Central, and Lyft to run app-install video ads and promote the installation of the companies’ apps. Lyft in particular has found the ad format to be effective in its own marketing strategies.

“Twitter has become our go-to channel for social media marketing. We’ve seen tremendous results with up to three times better performance than other social media channels,” the company said in Twitter’s announcement, as reported by AdWeek.

In addition to introducing the new app-install video ads, Twitter is letting marketers bid and pay for these ads using a pay-per-install method it calls “optimized action bidding.” “This new bidding type allows app install advertisers to optimize their bids according to install, while still paying by app click—offering another way to lower cost-per-installs and yield the highest possible ROI,” Twitter explained.

Twitter’s app-install video ads are the most recent addition to the social site’s video-centric updates. In addition to letting users embed native videos on other websites, Twitter has started auto-playing videos (and Vines and animated GIFs) without sound on users’ feeds. With this update, Twitter promised brands they only have to pay for video ads when they’re in 100% viewability of a user’s screen and have been watched for at least three seconds.

Filed under: Articles, News, Twitter by Bree Brouwer
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Welcome to the Fund This column! Each week, we’ll look at a planned web series or other online video project currently in search of funding on crowdfunding sites. We’ll tell you what the series is all about and explain why it is worth your money. Do you have a project that’s currently being crowdfunded? Contact us to let us know and we may feature it in upcoming installments and check out previous installments right here.

Project Name: Automata

Asking For: $322,637 on Kickstarter

Amount Raised Thus Far (At Time Of Post): $55,329

Days Remaining In Campaign (At Time Of Post): 32

Description: In 2009, seminal video game webcomic Penny Arcade released ‘Automata,’ a one-shot strip set in an alternate 1920s universe where robots walk among us. Since then, ‘Automata’ has picked up a following among Penny Arcade readers, and the comic came close to scoring its own Hollywood adaptation. That plan didn’t work out, but Penny Arcade creators Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik still want to realize a screen version of ‘Automata.’ In order to turn it into a five-episode web series, they have turned to Kickstarter, where they are hoping to raise funds from among their devoted fans.

The Automata web series will take on the same film noir feel as the original comic strip, while exploring issues of prejudice in the robotic 1920s. Filmmaker Van Alan, who has worked with Penny Arcade on other video projects in the past, will return to work on the Automata episodes, which will each be 10-12 minutes long. Alan appears with Holkins and Krahulik in the project’s pitch video:

Creator Bio: Holkins and Krahulik (aka Tycho and Gabe) have developed a reputation as webcomic innovators across their 17-year career with Penny Arcade. They also have plenty of experience with Kickstarter, having served as two of the site’s first high-profile uses back in 2012.

Best Perk: The $50 perk will include a signed Blu-Ray copy of the series once it comes out. If this seems old hat to you, Holkins and Krahulik would like to inform you that “Discs are still cool guys!!!”

Why You Should Fund It: Penny Arcade has spread from its initial webcomic to encompass charity drives, conventions, and video games, but despite all of those projects, Holkins and Krahulik haven’t made much scripted video over the years. Their fans know Penny Arcade is capable of much more than just jokes about video games, and Automata will showcase their talents while opening up their work to new audiences. The series is driven by an undeniably cool concept, and Holkins and Krahulik are 100% forthcoming about what they can accomplish. Let’s make it happen.

Got a crowdfunding campaign you’d like to see featured in Fund This? Be sure to contact us here.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Fund This, Kickstarter, News, Penny Arcade by Sam Gutelle
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With over 37 million subscribers and nine billion views on his PewDiePie YouTube channel, it’s no secret Swedish gamer Felix Kjellberg makes a small fortune from his online videos. Swedish newspaper Expressen reported on July 3, 2015 the 25-year-old online video gamer and South Park guest star pulled in somewhere in the arena of $7.4 million USD in 2014.

That seven-number figure apparently upset a small, but vocal minority of online video viewers, who then proceeded to complain about the digital star’s financial success. In response to the haters calling him a hack, Kjellberg issued a candid response. In a video from July 7, the affluent YouTuber addresses his fans about the subject of money. But instead of verifying the $7.4 million figure and discussing any details about his income, PewDiePie emphasizes how he started out simply making videos because he loved it, not because he knew how much money he could make.

“It seems like the whole world cares more about how much money I make than I do myself,” Kjellberg explains in the video. The Swede also brings up the ironic fact that he has helped raise plenty of money for charity, but no media outlets or fans seemed to mention the accomplishment compared to how much money he personally made last year.

Kjellberg also had something to say to the people who thought it was unfair he makes so much money from YouTube videos. The vlogger directly tells his viewers life is not fair, and that he actually invests a lot of work into his content. PewDiePie then goes on to read some of his favorite mean comments about his income, refuting each one with either a word of support or sarcasm.

“I really think that money doesn’t make you happy,” Kjellberg said. “I’m just as happy now as I was five years ago.”

Filed under: Articles, News, PewDiePie by Bree Brouwer
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Netflix will bring back its first original Canadian series. The streaming video-on-demand platform has renewed the epidemic survival thriller Between, starring Jennette McCurdy, for a second season.

Produced in association with Canada’s City TV, Between tells the story of the Pretty Lake community, whose residents can’t figure out why an outbreak is killing off people over the age of 21 and forcing the rest into quarantine. McCurdy, previously known for her work in iCarly, stars in the lead role of Wiley. The actress made the announcement about the Netflix show’s renewal via a tweet, stating that “the quarantine is not yet over.”

The quarantine is not yet over…Season 2 of #Between confirmed for 2016 @Netflix @City_TV #PrayForPrettyLake

— Jennette McCurdy (@jennettemccurdy) July 8, 2015

The debut episode of Between season one premiered on May 21, 2015 for Netflix subscribers outside of Canada. With Between, Netflix broke its traditional method of releasing all episodes of a season at once; instead, Netflix released a new episode of Between every week on the platform. Rogers Broadcasting and Canadian streaming service Shomi also released the show episodes every week, making the series available to citizens north of the border.

No release date has been announced for the second season of Between as of yet. However, McCurdy’s tweet indicated Netflix is looking at releasing the next season’s episodes sometime in 2016.

Filed under: Articles, Netflix, News by Bree Brouwer
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Louise Pentland (aka Sprinkle of Glitter) joined the ranks of published YouTube stars on July 2, 2015, with the release of her first book Life with a Sprinkle of Glitter. Now, less than a week later, Pentland has become a bestselling author in her native UK.

Pentland, who boasts a combined 3 million subscribers across two channels, took to Twitter on July 7 to tell her fans (known as “Sprinklerinos”) about her book’s bestseller status. In a series of tweets, Pentland digitally hyperventilates before sharing a tweet from her manager Maddie Chester about Life with a Sprinkle of Glitter hitting the #1 spot on the UK’s The Sunday Times book list.

#LifeWithASprinkleOfGlitter IS THE TIMES NUMBER ONE BEST SELLER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— Louise (@SprinkleofGlitr) July 7, 2015

Couldn’t have done it without you <3 <3 <3 https://t.co/6Yfz5ehAHh

— Louise (@SprinkleofGlitr) July 7, 2015

Life with a Sprinkle of Glitter was announced in April 2015. The non-fiction book published by Simon & Schuster entails various advice and tips from Pentland to her fans, covering topics all the way from love to “glitz.” Pentland recently appeared on British broadcasting network ITV on July 2 to promote her book launch.

A photo posted by sprinkleofglitr (@sprinkleofglitr) on Jul 2, 2015 at 3:39am PDT

You can purchase Pentland’s Life with a Sprinkle of Glitter book on Amazon.com.

Filed under: Articles, News, Sprinkle of Glitter by Bree Brouwer
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Before the end of 2015, Netflix will distribute its first two feature film acquisitions, with Beasts of No Nation arriving in October and Ridiculous Six following two months later. As it looks to legitimize its film business through big-budget movies, Netflix is also investing in smaller projects to round out its library of original films. According to Deadline, it has acquired a number of indie films, which it will distribute both in theaters and online.

Deadline’s report discusses three films Netflix has acquired as part of its indie push, two of which include notable names within their respective casts. Modern Family’s Sarah Hyland will star creative studio Walter Robot’s as-of-yet untitled film about electronic music, while a biopic called The Most Hated Woman In America will be led by Academy Award nominee Melissa Leo. The third film, a psychological thriller called Rebirth, is currently casting.

These films join a handful of other indie projects in Netflix’s developmental pipeline. Specifically, the streaming platform has a four-film deal with indie darlings Mark and Jay Duplass, who will distribute their movies on Netflix 30 days after premiering them in theaters.

The new additions to Netflix’s film slate may be indie projects, but according to Deadline, they didn’t come cheap. The report claims Netflix paid between 120-130% of each film’s seven-digit budget to acquire all distribution rights.

The films don’t have specific release dates yet, but the Walter Robot film and Rebirth are expected to arrive in Q4 2015, while The Most Hated Woman In America is planned for next year.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Netflix, News by Sam Gutelle
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Once again Tubefilter and Big Frame are taking over the racetrack for our annual VidCon kickoff party. Drop in, hang out, and race with some of the biggest names on YouTube! Each year, online video creators and fans get together on the eve of VidCon’s Industry Day for a night of epic fun before all the madness begins. RSVP at tubefilter.com/speed before tickets run out!

5th Annual VidCon Pre-Party
Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at K1 Speed

Google Play is hosting a high-stakes tournament that offers fans the chance to compete against top online creators in Google Play mobile games, all in front of a live audience. Come by the Google Play Observation Deck to watch the competition in action and even test your mettle on stage.

Epoxy invites Guests of VidCon to take a break from the action in the Epoxy Creator VIP Lounge, located in the F1 Room adjacent to the lobby.Chill out with fellow YouTube stars and learn more about Epoxy’s awesome tools for YouTubers!

Join Beachfront Builder for free margaritas and beer (21+) in the Epoxy Creator VIP Lounge. Rock out to sweet tunes from DJ ∆WSUMØ, powered by Monster Energy!

Snap a photo of yourself in the Streamys Winners Circle powered by Snap Yourself!, and become a part of the Streamy Awards, the biggest awards in online video. The Streamys will be broadcast LIVE September 17, 2015 on VH1 television and digital networks.

Racers, show us what you got! GarageMonkey is giving away a GoPro at the first annual GarageMonkey Grand Prix. Look out for announcements from the GarageMonkey Pit and get ready to test your racing skills on the track—good luck!

Welcome to Food Truck City, located in the parking lot right outside the entrance. Samurai Burrito, Quesadivas, and Classic Tacos will be there, along with Scooter’s Italian Ice!

The Gibson Bus will be rolling in with top stars fromYouTube and the Streamys! Get there early and you might just score a ride! Check out the Gibson YouTube channel to learn more.

RSVP at tubefilter.com/speed before tickets run out!

5th Annual VidCon Pre-Party
Wednesday, July 22, 2015 at K1 Speed

Filed under: Articles, News, Tubefilter Meetup, VidCon, YouTube by Drew Baldwin
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