Instagram has rolled out an update today enabling users to share as many as 10 photos or videos within a single post, where viewers can swipe through as they would a slideshow.

It’s an option that could present new storytelling opportunities for digital creators, as, Instagram notes in a blog post announcing the new capabilities, a food influencer might “create a step-by-step cake recipe that people can always find on your profile.”

Beginning today, a new icon will enable users to select multiple photos or videos, with the ability to tap and hold to change their order, and apply filters for one or all of the pieces of content. Slideshow posts will be denoted in users’ feeds with a blue dot at the bottom. For now, Instagram notes, these carousels must have a single caption and are only available in square format. Users can like and comment just like any other post.

Check out a video of the new feature in action right here.

In addition to encouraging users to share more content on Instagram, Recode reports, the image and video carousels could ultimately come to serve as yet another venue for advertising. Recode reports that Instagram has also been looking to develop ways that make sharing content on Instagram less precious — given the picturesque and idealized imagery that tends to proliferate across the platform. This, for instance, was part of the reason that Instagram launched a clone of Snapchat’s massively popular disappearing Stories feature back in August.

Filed under: Instagram by Geoff Weiss
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New research from YouTube posits that although black millennials represent an increasingly important viewership demographic on its platform, they are being underserved by today’s advertising industry.

In a blog post written in honor of Black History Month, YouTube’s global director of diverse marketing, Oona King, notes that, in 2014, “African Americans made up only 5.8% of the ad industry [workforce]” — this despite the fact that millennials, arguably the most important demographic in marketing today, “are the most diverse generation in our nation’s history.”

Consequently, YouTube has partnered with market research company Ipsos and measurement firm Nielsen to better understand what black millennials want to see in ads. Three-quarters of those surveyed, King writes, want to see more diverse representation, while 70% say they are more likely to buy from a brand that takes a stance on race. “In other words,” she writes, “don’t just reflect society — push it forward.”

In terms of mobile viewership, black millennials watch “substantially” more YouTube than other demographic — 73% more per person than the general population of the same age. Perhaps, King writes, this is “because they feel represented there in a way they don’t in traditional media.” In order to help brands seize this unique opportunity, YouTube surveyed some of the creators involved with its #YouTubeBlack initiative, which seeks to support and encourage diversity on YouTube, about some of their thoughts for best practices moving forward.

“We’re black and hispanic. We’re gay. We’re women. And most importantly: We’re parents,” says Denise Nunez of the family vlogging channel OliviaHas2Moms. “This generation wants to see more diverse families like ours in parenting ads. Fewer and fewer families in America identify with a straight white mom and dad.”

Adds beauty creator Whitney White, aka Naptural85: “We’re not all one shade of black. We have so many different skin colors…We notice when advertisers go the extra mile to acknowledge that.” White also suggests that if marketers are using slang terms, it can be wise to “check your script with a YouTube creator” to make the conversation feel more authentic.

Check out a playlist featuring more suggestions below:

Filed under: advertising, Uncategorized, YouTube by Geoff Weiss
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More than a year after the creators of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (MST3K) raised more than $5.7 million on Kickstarter to bring their series back, the cult classic TV show is set to make its return. The revived version of MST3K will arrive on Netflix on April 14th, with 14 episodes slated for its new season.

As it did in its original ten-season run, which aired on channels like Comedy Central and Sci-Fi from 1989-99, MST3K will use its new episodes to riff on the spotty acting, cheesy effects, poor plotting, and other lampoon-able elements of old B-movies. Original series creator Joel Hodgson is involved in the revival as well, but most of the cast will consist of newcomers. Nerdist’s Jonah Ray will star as a man who, accompanied by a pair of chatty robots, is forced to watch the B-movies in question. Felicia Day, of The Guild and Geek & Sundry fame, will portray the mad scientist who holds Ray’s character captive. Ray and Day are connected not just by their rhyming surnames but also through Legendary, which owns both Nerdist and Geek & Sundry.

Thanks to its wit and its amusing characters, the original MST3K has endured as one of TV’s most notable hits. The show picked up many fans during its run, as evidenced by the big names who have come on board to participate in the Netflix revival. Actor Patton Oswalt has a role in the show, Community notables Dan Harmon and Joel McHale are among its writers, and Adam Savage of Mythbusters is involved on the production side of things. Will that star-studded approach allow MST3K to recapture its former glory? We’ll find out once the show blasts off in the not-too-distant future.

Get ready for the Robot Roll-Call: @MST3K is coming to Netflix April 14! pic.twitter.com/iYVT7RhcTo

— Netflix US (@netflix) February 22, 2017

Filed under: Articles, Featured, Netflix, News by Sam Gutelle
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Recently, video site Vimeo has increasingly appealed to businesses. The latest feature aimed at the platform’s most professional users is a panel within Adobe Creative Cloud that lets editors upload videos straight to Vimeo.

The panel can specifically be found within Adobe Premiere Pro, the video editing software included in the Creative Cloud. Users can choose the privacy settings on their videos as they are uploaded while also adjusting details such as available resolutions.

“This year we set out to make Vimeo an end-to-end workflow solution for video professionals and today that solution extends to anyone using Adobe Premiere Pro CC,” said Anjali Sud, GM and SVP of Vimeo’s Creator Platform, in a press release. “The video editing tools in Adobe Creative Cloud are a go-to source for Vimeo creators, and our new panel fundamentally simplifies their post-production process.”

The Adobe Creative Cloud integration is available to Vimeo users at the Pro ($17 per month) and Business ($50 per month) levels. The latter of those subscriptions, a five-month-old product aimed at Vimeo’s professional class, ties into several of the platform’s other recent developments. For example, Vimeo recently launched a Video Review feature to allow easy collaboration between creators and editors, and Adobe Premiere users can now fire up that process directly from their video editing software.

More information about the new panel can be found on the Vimeo website.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Vimeo by Sam Gutelle
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AwesomenessTV co-founder and CEO Brian Robbins is stepping down from his post to pursue other ventures, he wrote to staffers today in a memo shared with Tubefilter.

“The time is right for me to pass the baton and seek new challenges,” he wrote. “We’ve exceeded any expectations I could have set when Joe [Davola] and I started this journey. What began as a YouTube channel has turned into a global brand and the essential next generation media company for Generation Z.”

Going forward, AwesomenessTV president Brett Bouttier will continue to lead the company, and he is currently seeking a new creative partner to help him co-pilot the ship. Robbins will stick around through this transition, he said. “Use this change to discover new talent, break boundaries, and have no fear,” Robbins urged his team. “I know that you all will continue to create awesomeness.”

His departure was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter.

Robbins’ move follows the sale of DreamWorks Animation — AwesomenessTV’s parent company — to Comcast for $3.8 billion last April. Although Hollywood luminary Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former CEO of DreamWorks Animation, left his post following the acquisition, he did stay on for a short while as the chairman of a newly-formed new media division that included AwesomenessTV. However, Katzenberg relinquished that role last month after launching his own digital media and tech venture WndrCo, which has thus far raised $600 million in funding.

In addition to its flourishing YouTube channel, Awesomeness produces series and feature films for a whole host of social platforms and distribution outlets. It also comprises a multi-channel network of digital creators, the talent management company Big Frame, and Awestruck, a lifestyle brand for millennial moms.

AwesomenessTV was acquired by DreamWorks for $33 million in 2013, and then sold a 25% stake to Hearst for $81.25 million the following year. Last year, AwesomenessTV sold a 25% stake to Verizon in a deal valuing the Gen Z media brand at a reported $650 million. As part of that investment, Verizon and and AwesomenessTV were set to launch a new premium video service — though plans for that platform have since been scrapped.

Check out Robbins’ memo to AwesomenessTV staffers in full below:

Team ATV-

After an amazing ride, five fantastic years building an awesome company and brand alongside an incredible team of people, the time is right for me to pass the baton and seek new challenges.

It’s not a decision I made lightly. I love AwesomenessTV and all of you; I will really miss coming in here every day. I’m enormously proud of what we have been able to build together.

We’ve exceeded any expectations I could have set when Joe and I started this journey. What began as a YouTube channel has turned into a global brand and the essential next generation media company for Generation Z.

AwesomenessTV is built to last and there is so much talent here who will carry this company forward, especially Brett who has been a partner with me nearly the entire time. He will continue to lead the company and, along with me, will find a creative partner to help continue the expansion of this business. I’ll be sticking around through the transition and Joe will be staying on in his role.

I will always carry this company in my heart and I am forever grateful to each of you for the hard work, dedication and love that you have put into our business. You should be proud of what we have built together, I certainly am. And I can’t wait to see what’s next for AwesomenessTV’s success.

This company was built on a culture of creativity. I urge you all to keep forging ahead on that road. Change creates opportunities for creativity to blossom. Use this change to discover new talent, break boundaries and have no fear. I know that you all will continue to create awesomeness.

Once again, thank you all for five unbelievable years.
Brian

Filed under: AwesomenessTV, Uncategorized by Geoff Weiss
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Ahead of Sunday night’s Oscar ceremony, YouTube has determined the most popular movie trailers on its platform among the nine films nominated for Best Picture. Using official movie studio channel viewership as well as figures from popular trailer aggregators, the most popular trailer of the year, YouTube found, was for La La Land (below).

All told, YouTube said, the trailers for the nine nominated films led to 3 million hours of watch time. After La La Land, the most-viewed trailers were: Arrival, Hacksaw Ridge, Lion, Fences, Hidden Figures, Manchester By The Sea, Moonlight, and Hell Or High Water. Google also sought to determine where each of the aforementioned movie trailers was most popular geographically across the United States, which you can check out right here.

Movie trailers are the most popular kind of movie content on YouTube, according to research firm Pixability, and, among trailers, superhero-themed content tends to be the most-viewed overall. Superhero, animated, and science fiction trailers comprise 74 of the 100 most-viewed trailers on all of YouTube, according to Pixability.

And music-related videos from movies also tend to perform well, including clips and fan covers alike. Among the nominees for Best Original Score, YouTube found, the film with the most-viewed music-related videos was La La Land — which, being a musical, naturally racked up more than 1.5 billion views. In terms of music video views, La La Land was followed by Lion (265 million views), Jackie (180 million views), Passengers (168 million views), and Moonlight (156 million views).

Filed under: Academy Awards, Trailer, YouTube by Geoff Weiss
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As Snap Co-Founder and CEO Evan Spiegel continues his Wall Street roadshow to drum up hype and quell apprehension about his company’s impending initial public offering at a (relatively new) valuation somewhere in the ballpark of $19 to $22 billion, enterprising journalists are still finding interesting tidbits of information in Snap’s S-1 regulatory filing. Like this one.

Snapchat thinks YouTube is pretty good at advertising.

Our knowledge of that assessment comes by way of Snap’s inclusion of a September 2016 Digital Campaign Management System Report conducted by the research-based advertiser insight and guidance entity aptly named Advertiser Perceptions. The report ranks seven top-of-mind, advertising-based tech companies (Snapchat along with YouTube, Google Display Network, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest) in the categories of advertisers’ Satisfaction Rating, Plans To Increase Ad Spend, and Likelihood to Recommend. YouTube tops all categories except Satisfaction Rating, where it’s second to Snapchat. Check it out:

Google doesn’t break out YouTube revenue in its quarterly earnings, but esearch outfit eMarketer estimates YouTube revenues grew by 30% over the course of 2016 to roughly $5.6 billion. UBS analyst Ed Sheridan also predicts YouTube to have revenues of $27 billion in 2020. Meanwhile, Snap reported 2016 revenues of $404.5 million in its aforementioned regulatory filing and Goldman Sachs (one of the lead banks on the company’s IPO) estimates revenues could bump $2 billion in 2018.

Filed under: advertising, Articles, News, Snapchat, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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Baseball buffs are counting down the days until Opening Day on April 3rd, and when the season arrives, those fans may have a new way to watch. A report from Reuters claims that Facebook wants to stream one MLB game per week as a way to bolster its lineup of live programming.

For Facebook, the appeal of baseball games is clear. The social media platform is eager to invest heavily in live streaming, and sporting events make for popular live broadcasts. The first NFL game to be streamed on Twitter, for example, drew more than 2.3 million viewers.

The MLB, for its part, could use a deal with a social media network to increase its appeal among young fans. Twitter has also made overtures to the top baseball league, but Facebook has a more international audience and baseball is a more global game than, say, American football.

“The scope of their audience is worldwide,” said sports media consultant Lee Berke in the Reuters article, referring to Facebook. “They have a range of audiences and sports loyalties they can appeal to.”

Both Facebook and the MLB declined to comment on Reuters’ report.

Filed under: Articles, Facebook, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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The adult animation boom has brought a new project to Cracked. The humor website’s YouTube channel is home to People Watching, an anthological animated show that features thoughtful musings from series creator Winston Rowntree.

Rowntree is best known for his webcomic Subnormality, which has been praised for its verbose approach and fresh visuals. People Watching is similarly wordy, and its characters are colorful in more ways than one. The first episode goes inside the world of speed dating, where it highlights a motor-mouthed stripper, a frank virgin, and everyone in between.

On Cracked, several of Rowntree’s observations on modern culture have received high-six-digit view counts, and People Watching serves an attempt to translate those articles into a video format. Rowntree’s art previously showed up on the Cracked YouTube channel (which has more than 1.5 million subscribers) last year.

People Watching is one of the most notable projects Cracked has unleashed since former owner Demand Media sold it to E.W. Scripps last April. The humor website is certainly past its prime, but its latest project shows that it’s still capable of producing witty, edgy material. Keep an eye on the Cracked YouTube channel to see new People Watching episodes as they arrive.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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For years, YouTube has told advertisers that its pre-roll ads are a reliable way to reach the young generation of digital-first consumers. Judging by the size of some of the upfront deals Google has landed, brand partners are buying that spiel, but some of them also want reassurance that YouTube ad impressions are as valuable as the video site claims. To help gain trust from marketers, YouTube has announced that the data it sends to several of the third-party tools it uses for viewability reporting will be independently audited in order to gain accreditation from the Media Rating Council (MRC).

The audit will target the data YouTube sends to companies like Moat, Integral Ad Science, and DoubleVerify, which ad managers use to track the impressions gathered by their campaign. With this action, YouTube hopes to convince potential partners that the impressions it counts are of sufficient quality. In doing so, it could assuage fears some marketers have about digital advertising. AdAge, for example, notes that Facebook had to increase its connection to MRC after flaws were uncovered in the way it counts unpaid views.

“Transparency and trust are the core principles of our measurement strategy,” reads a Google blog post introducing the new audit. “We strongly believe in the need for third-party accreditation through the Media Rating Council (MRC). We gained our first accreditations back in 2006, and for over ten years we’ve partnered with the MRC, advocating for standards across the industry and contributing to ongoing discussions that set guidelines for measuring the effectiveness of ads.”

Increased transparency from YouTube’s end could help the video site as it gears up to give its annual Brandcast pitch to advertisers. That address will take place in New York on May 4th.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle
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Sony Music Entertainment and Joel McHale‘s Free Period Productions have premiered a new series on Verizon’s go90 mobile video service entitled Crashed. The 10-episode reality show features appearances from top influencers including Meg DeAngelis, Joey Graceffa, Ricky Dillon, and Timothy DeLaGhetto.

Crashed, which debuted earlier this month, documents unsuspecting fans who are nominated by friends to have their favorite celebrities show up on an “otherwise normal day and turn it into an unforgettable experience.” In addition to the aforementioned YouTube stars, other crashers are set to include musicians Tinashe, All Time Low, and Ashanti, as well as Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas.

Check out a clip from Dillon’s episode below:

“I’m thrilled to be partnered with go90 and Sony Music Originals to bring you Crashed, which has nothing to do with what happens to you after you have 12 Sugar Daddies,” McHale, who serves as a producer on the series, said in a statement.

Noted go90 chief content officer Ivana Kirkbride: “Joel and Free Period have mastered a fun, innovative format with Crashed that taps uniquely into the fandom of today’s top stars.” Added Lee Stimmel, head of original content at Sony Music Entertainment: “Sony Music Originals is focused on expanding the relationships between artists and their audiences through original video content, and Crashed allows them to do that in memorable and amusing ways.”

Roughly one-year-old go90 is reportedly in the midst of a revamp of sorts. Verizon is said to have laid off 155 employees on the go90 team last month, with the platform to be helmed, going forward, by the team behind Vessel, which Verizon acquired last October for an undisclosed sum. Verizon said, however, that it remains committed to go90 and that new shows will continue to roll out as normal.

Filed under: Go90, Joey Graceffa, Sony Music by Geoff Weiss
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Jukin Media’s library of user-generated clips is a hit in the United States, and now, the media company is coming to the Far East. It has announced a partnership with top Japanese multi-channel network UUUM for Video Pizza, a destination that will share short, funny clips in the Land of the Rising Sun.

As it does in other territories, Jukin will partner with the creators of viral clips and will repackage those clips for distribution on other platforms. In the case of Video Pizza, many of the featured videos will come from local creators, but as the channel’s trailer shows, it will feature an international mix, with several of Jukin’s most common categories — such as funny pets, cute babies, and fails — well-represented.

Additional Video Pizza content will work in the partners of UUUM, who are some of the most popular YouTube stars in Japan. The network was co-founded by Hikakin, who has more than 3.7 million subscribers on his personal channel. “It is an incredible honor to be able to work with Jukin, whom I’ve always admired for their work,” said UUUM CEO Kazuki Kamada. “I am very excited and confident about this partnership.”

UUUM will oversee Video Pizza’s day-to-day operations, while Jukin will bring strategic guidance and its library of clips to the table. Beyond YouTube, the two companies hope to bring their new co-venture to several other platforms, including TV.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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