In less than a week since we first announced our final sendoff to Vine and the incredible creators that once made up its thriving community, a lot of those creators’ libraries of six-second online-vide-ephemera-turned-entertainment-masterpieces are in the running for BEST VINES EVER! In addition the the earlier mentioned King Bach, Brittany Furlan, Jake Paul, and Logan Paul, we’ve now got Lele Pons, Rudy Mancuso, the National Basketball Association, Thomas Sanders, and Turner Sports on board to name a few. Oh, part-time Viner and full-time international pop star Justin Bieber is in the mix, too. And we’re just getting started.
345 of the now-defunct-but-not-forgotten platform’s all-star creators are in the mix along with their collective nearly 150,000 Vines. We got Anwar Jibawi, Brandon Bowen, Brandon Calvillo, ChloeLMAO, David Dobrik, The Gabbie Show, Jérôme Jarre, Ry Doon, and so many more inspired individuals whose creations are all in the mix. Like we said before, we’ll dive into more of their individual Vines and what made them amazing in the near future, but be ready to vote on your faves for the BEST VINES EVER contest and awards. As a reminder, all the voting will culminate in a Top 100 countdown, along with an in-person awards and a celebration in Hollywood on April 10, 2017 befitting of the unique video medium and its creative class.
And you can start your voting right now on Snakt. Just download the app right here and watch and click away. For the uninitiated, key dates and details are below:
Wednesday, May 17 – Invite Only Honors and Party Time
How It Works:
Any former Vine creator can participate by filling out the entry form. Then all your Vines – complete with original captions – will be available on Snakt for fans to vote. Fans can vote within the Snakt mobile app with just one touch of a Vote button.
Once again, thank you for helping us pour one out to Vine one last time.
Filed under: Articles, Best Vines Ever, News, Vine by Tubefilter Staff Comments Off on Lele Pons, Rudy Mancuso, NBA, Thomas Sanders, Turner Sports, And WAY More In Running For BEST VINES EVER!
A handful of the world’s top influencers have teamed with the actor Ben Stiller and Turkish Airlines to fight a famine that has swept Somalia in recent days, where roughly half of the country’s population cannot access food due to a severe drought.
A GoFundMe campaign dubbed Love Army For Somalia launched today by Jérôme Jarre, Juanpa Zurita, Casey Neistat, Stiller and others has already raised almost $200,000 in just three hours, with a goal of raising $1 million in 10 days. The idea for the campaign began when Jarre took to social media in a bid to convince Turkish Airlines to fill one of its flights to Somalia with food. He posted a video to Twitter with the request (below), whereupon a chorus of like-minded voices eventually grew to include the aforementioned stars as well as Colin Kaepaernik, Gabriel Conte, The Eh Bee Family, and others.
Subsequently, Turkish Airlines not only agreed to fill a full cargo flight with 60 tons of food, but also agreed to ship food containers on commercial flights until the end of the famine. The first flight is scheduled for takeoff on March 27, and so the Love Army has taken to GoFundMe to raise money to buy 60 tons of food, as well as water truck deliveries. Shortly after Turkish Airlines agreed to provide its flights, Stiller’s charity, The Stiller Foundation, stepped in to receive and manage any funds raised so that donations would be tax deductible.
“What we want to do together with you isn’t like anything done in the past,” the team wrote on their GoFundMe campaign page. “We are promising you, the makers of this movement, full transparency…you will know where every dollar went, you will know all the successes of our mission, and all the struggles.”
Click here to contribute, and check out the video Neistat made about all about the genesis of the initiative (and the connected power of social media and its influencers) below:
Filed under: News by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on Jérôme Jarre, Casey Neistat, Ben Stiller, More Launch GoFundMe To Fight Somalia Famine
The U.S. has declassified video records of its nuclear weapon tests from the atomic age, and if you’re curious to witness the destructive power of the bombs in our arsenal, you’ll need to take a trip over to YouTube. There, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has uploaded dozens of digitized nuclear weapon tests in an effort to preserve that historic and important footage.
As Livermore’s Greg Spriggs explains in an introductory video, the collection of nuclear test films are degrading, and by uploading them to YouTube, the lab can “obtain better data for future physicists” who would otherwise have no way to measure the above-ground impact of a nuclear weapon.
Even if you’re not a scientist, however, you can still be amazed by the awesome power of Cold War-era nuclear weapons. The explosions on display vary in shape and size, but most of them look like nothing else I’ve ever seen. Some commenters suggest watching at one-quarter speed to pick up the details.
These videos join the growing library of interesting archival footage on YouTube. Whether you’re interested in British history, the O.J. Simpson trial, or these test videos, the world’s top video site has you covered.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on A Lab Is Digitizing Dozens Of Nuclear Weapon Test Videos And Posting Them To YouTube
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s (WBIE) Russell Arons has been tapped to lead gaming-focused digital network Machinima, the company announced today. Arons will replace Chad Gutstein, who has served as Machinima’s CEO since 2014, and who is departing the company to “pursue entrepreneurial projects,” according to a release.
In her new role as Machinima’s general manager, Arons — who formerly served as SVP of worldwide marketing at WBIE, the company’s gaming unit — will henceforth lead Machinima’s creative, marketing, data, business development, and operations. She and Gutstein will work together on a multi-week transition plan prior to his departure.
“With deep knowledge in gaming, she speaks the same language as our Machinima creators, community, and team, and has the proven ability to build and unlock strong consumer relationships,” said Craig Hunegs, president of business and strategy at Warner Bros. Television Group (WBTVG) and president of Warner Bros. Digital Networks Group (WBDNG). “I’d also like to thank Chad for his many contributions over the last three years.”
Machinima was acquired by Warner Bros. — an early investor in the multi-platform network — last November in a deal reportedly worth less than $100 million. Today, Machinima says it’s the 10th largest digital video entertainment company in the U.S. in terms of unique viewership, citing comScore data, with a total of 3.8 billion monthly views. It distributes content across Playstation Vue, Amazon Prime, Verizon’s go90, China’s Sohu, and The CW Network.
Prior to joining WBIE, Arons served as head of marketing for Electronic Arts’ EA Play division, where she was responsible for The Sims and Harry Potter video game franchises.
Filed under: Machinima by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on CEO Chad Gutstein To Depart Machinima; Russell Arons Named General Manager
One of YouTube’s classic features is about to go away for good. The video site has announced its plan to phase out its annotations system in favor of more up-to-date features it has rolled out over the past few years.
Annotations won’t disappear immediately. Instead, beginning on May 2nd, creators will no longer be able to add new annotations to their videos or edit existing ones, but will be able to delete them. After that date, YouTube users who wish to add notes to their videos or link to external URLs will have to make use of cards, which were introduced in 2015 as a replacement for annotations. For those who wish to continue the common practice of using annotations in the final seconds of a video, YouTube’s end screens, which launched in 2016, will be a useful tool.
In a blog post, YouTube explained the rationale behind the decision to drop annotations. Most significantly, the outdated tool was introduced in 2008 and was therefore not designed with mobile compatibility in mind. Cards and end screens, on the other hand, work well on mobile devices. YouTube also noted that cards and end screens have higher click-through rates, which backs up our belief that not all annotations were good ones.
At this point, cards and end screens are clearly better options, but we’ll miss the old annotations. We saw some inventive videos based around them, and creators like Chad, Matt, & Rob built entire formats powered by them. I think I’ll send annotations off my choosing my own adventure one more time.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, YouTube by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on YouTube Is Phasing Out Annotations In Favor Of Cards And End Screens
Several YouTube creators whose content touches on or is squarely focused on LGBTQ issues have made a disappointing discovery in recent days. They say when viewers enable YouTube’s Restricted Mode — a filter users can switch on and off to “screen out potentially objectionable content” — videos featuring LGBTQ titles and themes are being unfairly censored, even when the content in question is child-friendly.
Rowan Ellis, a creator whose videos tout a self-described “feminist and queer perspective,” addressed the issue in a vlog yesterday. She noted that when viewing YouTube in Restricted Mode, 40 of her videos can’t be seen. LGBT creator Callum McSwigganis experiencing a similar issue; Ellis says you can only find one of his 40 videos in Restricted Mode. Additionally, vlogs in which British YouTuber Neon Fiona discusses having a girlfriend have been removed in Restricted Mode, while those in which she discusses having a boyfriend are visible.
Here’s a screenshot of Fiona’s channel’s Video tab with Restricted Mode turned OFF. You can see the two videos referencing “Girlfriends” crudely circled in yellow:
And here’s a screenshot of Fiona’s channel’s Video tab with Restricted Mode turned ON. The two videos referencing “Girlfriends” are no longer visible, but you can see two videos referencing “Boyfriends”, again crudely circled in yellow:
“This is something that no one’s really sure how it’s working,” Ellis claims in her vlog (below), “but we know that it has some kind of targeted effect for LGBT individuals.”
Other creators whose videos cover issues related to sexuality and gender — including Irish vlogger Melanie Murphy (whose We’re Both Bisexual video is reportedly blocked), as well as transmasculine musician Jeff Miller, who is based in Fargo, N.D. and says any videos in which he discusses his identity have been flagged — are noting a similar trend.
Can’t believe YouTube would restrict content that is more PC than what you’d see on daytime T.V, and is educational/explorative in nature https://t.co/ArVYPvSbd3
“Restricted Mode is an optional feature used by a very small subset of users who want to have a more limited YouTube experience,” a YouTube spokesperson told Tubefilter in a statement. “Some videos that cover subjects like health, politics, and sexuality may not appear for users and institutions that choose to use this feature.”
On its support page, YouTube says it uses “community flagging, age-restrictions, and other signals to identify and filter out potentially inappropriate content” in Restricted Mode — which is turned off across the platform by default. And videos that are unavailable in Restricted Mode can still be monetized. To enable the feature and check whether or not your videos have been affected, the Restricted Mode option is available in ‘Settings’ in both YouTube’s Android and iOS apps. On desktops, simply scroll to the bottom of any page on the site and click the Restricted Mode drop-down menu.
To YouTube’s credit, it’s worth noting that the company has made LGBTQ advocacy a key componentof itscorporate identity over the years. There are also obvious LGBTQ videos that are not affected by the Restricted Mode. Ingrid Nilsen‘s coming out video, for instance, is still searchable and watchable with the featured turned on:
Filed under: LGBT, Uncategorized by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on YouTube Creators Allege LGBTQ Videos Are Being Unfairly Filtered In ‘Restricted Mode’
On April 4th, RocketJump will premiere a new show, and this one looks like it’s going to get weird. The digital studio co-founded by Freddie Wong has launched a short teaser for Dimension 404, an anthology series coming soon to Hulu.
Each of Dimension 404’s six hour-long episodes will tell a self-contained story, with the Internet serving as a consistent plot device throughout the series. The general understanding is that Dimension 404 will be a Twilight Zone for the digital age, a la Black Mirror. A press release says the show “aims to evoke that 3 a.m. feeling of wandering onto the weird side of the web, stumbling upon stories that cannot be explained in the world that we know.”
A big selling point of Dimension 404 will be its talented cast, which will include Lea Michele, Joel McHale, Megan Mullally, and Patton Oswalt. Mark Hamill will serve as the show’s narrator. At the same time, as the show’s teaser shows, it will be a visual feast. Showrunner Dez Dolly and his team will look to deliver the polished, effects-laden action the RocketJump audience has come to crave. He and Wong hosted the fresh teaser, which introduces Dimension 404 and gives viewers a quick peek.
Dimension 404 will be RocketJump’s second scripted series, following Video Game High School, and its second collaboration with Hulu, following RocketJump: The Show. If you’re in the U.S., you can check out the studio’s new effort on 4/04. For other viewers, unfortunately, the series is going to be a file not found for now.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, RocketJump by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on RocketJump Shares Teaser For Hulu Series ‘Dimension 404,’ Coming April 4th
Musical.ly, like many other online video platforms, is launching a tool that brings more collaboration to its content. The app, known for letting its users set their videos to popular songs, has announced a new “Duets” feature. To draw attention to it, Musical.ly has teamed up with Bruno Mars for a contest set to his song “That’s What I Like.”
With Duets, Musical.ly users can splice multiple videos together in a split-screen format, which allows for coordinated musical performances. It’s basically a first-party, Musical.ly version of the YouTube Doubler, albeit with a much simpler layout. A few examples of videos made with the new feature can be found on YouTube.
With its new contest, Musical.ly hopes to promote Duets by offering up a shout-out from Mars as the top prize. Contestants are invited to record a Duet that complements a clip from the “That’s What I Like” music video and then tag their entries with #DanceWithBruno. Mars will feature his favorites on his personal Musical.ly channel. The app itself has also shared some Duet ideas in order to help its users get their creative juices flowing.
Musical.ly, which claimed to have more than 40 million monthly active users last December, has been one of the big winners in the mobile video boom that has taken place in the digital media industry over the last few years. The app’s highly-engaged community has been one of its big selling points, and with Duets now bursting onto the scene, Musical.ly’s users have a chance to be even more social.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, Musical.ly, News by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Video App Musical.ly Kicks Off Collaborative “Duets” Feature With Bruno Mars Contest
YouTube beauty creator Carli Bybel, whose twochannels have amassed roughly 5.6 million subscribers, has been named global ambassador for the WAH Foundation. WAH stands for water and healthcare, and the non-profit is dedicated to improving the lives of rural communities in Cambodia.
Bybel has launched a scholarship with the WAH Foundation to provide 120 girls with college educations at Cambodia’s Bright Hope Institute. In order to fund the endeavor, Bybel has established Pranava Beauty, a new company that will vend crystal charity bracelets — and, down the road, other products — for $20 apiece. Bybel is aiming to raise a total of $100,000, and, next month, she will travel to Cambodia to personally deliver the check.
“Carli’s global influence will help change lives and give underprivileged girls an opportunity for a brighter future,” WAH Foundation founder Christopher Wilson said in a statement.
In coming weeks, Bybel will share other vegan, cruelty-free, and purpose-driven products she loves or has created via Pranava Beauty. In 2015, for instance, Bybel launched a makeup palette alongside BH Cosmetics. This summer she says she’s launching a perfume called Opal, which is her birth stone. The word ‘Pranava’, she explains in an announcement video, means ‘Om’ — a sacred yoga mantra.
Check it out below:
Filed under: News by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on Carli Bybel Named Global Ambassador For WAH Foundation, Launches New Company
Insights is a new weekly series featuring entertainment industry veteran David Bloom. It represents an experiment of sorts in digital-age journalism and audience engagement with a focus on the intersection of entertainment and technology, an area that David has written about and thought about and been part of in various career incarnations for much of the past 25 years. David welcomes your thoughts, perspectives, calumnies, and kudos at david@tubefilter.com, or on Twitter @DavidBloom.
Walter Iuzzolino is an unlikely gold miner. Italian born and a long-time British resident, he has an unusual mid-Atlantic accent and a doctorate in American literature at the University of Genoa. Among other TV jobs, he was commissioning editor for Channel 4, programming and producing prime-time shows for the big UK network. Then, in 2014, he caught the bug. He wanted to launch his own TV channel.
The result is Walter Presents, a subscription video-on-demand channel driven by the curatorial preferences, prerogatives and prowess of one quirky man.
Walter Presents launched on most U.S. digital platforms this week (though not smart TVs yet). The network launched in the United Kingdom a year ago – after Iuzzolino spent 18 months and 4,000 hours watching and licensing all kinds of international dramas – as part of Channel 4’s ad-supported All 4 VOD service.
Walter Presents’ U.S. version debuts with 34 foreign-language TV dramas from 12 countries, including Norwegian thriller Valkyrien, French political drama Spin, and Dutch crime tale Black Widow, part of more than 300 hours of on-demand programming chosen by Walter himself. The channel promises to introduce two more series each month. It will cost $6.99 a month.
I have no idea what the channel’s chances of success are. But as it begins prospecting for gold in the recently opened fields of digital video, it will face lots of competition for viewers (just check the dozens of options on the Amazon Channels webpage, or in the depths of your Roku or PlayStation 4). And Walter Presents, like just about all those other channels, will face plenty of questions about how it will sustain itself for the long term.
That may depend on how well Iuzzolino can continue to uncover, and license, more great global content for discerning viewers willing to pay for his choices, on top of all the good stuff they already pay for. He’ll have to become something of a brand-name curator, the way a Maria Popova or Jason Hirschhorn have done in other media.
Television has seldom been a place where a single mind can impose its creative vision (the few examples include Fred Silverman at ABC in the 1970s, Brandon Tartikoff on NBC in the 1980s, Les Moonves at CBS forever, arguably Shonda Rhimes on ABC’s Thursday nights now). Walter Presents may be a chance for the solo curator as viewer’s champion to finally shine in the digital video universe.
And to be sure, Walter Presents is more than just Iuzzolino, whose own media kit declares him “a passionate, warm and compelling eccentric.” Jason Thorp and Jo McGrath, veterans of outlets such as Fox International and Channel 4, are CEO and head of marketing respectively.
The company also has big backers, an excellent first year of results in the UK (admittedly a slightly different business as an ad-supported VOD channel tied to Channel 4), and a comparatively low cost of product. It’s not producing shows, merely using Walter to bird-dog the best of foreign-language drama, then licensing it.
And there’s clearly a market out there for quality dramas, no matter the language or country of origin.
PBS has long trafficked in such international fare, especially from the BBC, while Netflix early on licensed plenty of UK dramas and police procedurals that still dot its offerings. Los Angeles-based Israeli producer Alon Aranya has sold U.S. networks more than 30 shows based on formats license from international shows. More recently Netflix has begun commissioning its own original foreign-language shows such as the hit Narcos.
And companies such as the Spanish-language Pongalo and Korean-language DramaFever have profitably mined the soapy dramas of Venezuela, Columbia, Mexico and South Korea for audience love and even, in Pongalo’s case, the U.S. version of Jane the Virgin.” Beginning in the 1990s, Criterion began creating definitive DVD editions of the world’s great films, material that is now the backbone of streaming site FilmStruck.
For his part, Iuzzolino said he initially wanted to create a “channel complementary piece” that could sit next to Channel 4’s linear programming and build audiences for both.
“To me, SVOD was absolutely what made sense,” Iuzzolino said. “The broadcast environment is changing forever. Three to five years from now, TV won’t be what we call TV. What was niche will become mainstream. I had no doubt that our product was sophisticated, upmarket. It wasn’t elitist, wasn’t cine club. It was very shiny and glossy but wasn’t bland. It’s very much like a premium TV channel” such as HBO.
Indeed, based on what little I’ve seen of its shows, Walter Presents is complementary to Netflix, Amazon Prime or Hulu, targeting an audience that buys premium apps such as HBO Go or the Showtime and Starz apps. What Iuzzolino is doing for his individual channel will be what, more generally, each of us will be doing in the future as we build our own custom TV lineup.
“You construct your own package in a more personalized fashion,” Iuzzolino said. “You also embrace your own curation back into a world of supermarkets” such as Netflix and Amazon.
Short-cutting that construction process, I expect, will be groups of “over-the-top” channels that band together to appeal to a shared demographic. They can provide value ($10 for five channels, say, instead of $5 each) and ease of use that will appeal to many viewers.
One current example is VRV, launched last June by Otter Media’s Ellation unit. It provides nerd-culture fans with a tightly focused and very skinny bundle that includes anime powerhouseCrunchyroll, Rooster Teeth, Funimation, Nerdist Alpha, Geek & Sundry Alpha, Mondo, Tested, and Frederator’s Cartoon Hangover. The “combo pack” of eight ad-free channels costs $9.99 a month. An additional five channels, including gamer-focused Machinima and NBC comedy app Seeso, are available a la carte through the service, with CollegeHumor.com on the way.
Walter Presents is betting that one man’s curatorial tastes can drive a business. It certainly provides a more personal model of programming choice beyond the tyranny of the “You Also May Like” algorithm. Iuzzolino, and his channel, may indeed dig up gold in the crowded fields of digital entertainment. Good luck. In the meantime, I’ll look forward to that future complementary bundle of Film Struck, Walter Presents, BBC America and more.
Filed under: Articles, Industry, Insights, News by David Bloom Comments Off on Insights: The Great SVOD Land Rush – British Invasions And The OTT Channel Grab
As one major executive enters Studio71, one of the company’s foundational members is leaving. As first reported by Variety, Michael Green — who co-founded music-management company-turned-digital-video network The Collective, will step down from his role as Studio71‘s chairman.
When Green founded The Collective in 2005, it was a music industry business, but in the 2010s, the company’s Collective Digital Studios network emerged as one of the top MCNs in the online video industry. In 2014, The Collective’s original music management business shut down entirely, with Green acknowledging that his heart was “no longer in the management world.”
“I saw my vision to fruition,” said Green. “There are a lot of people who have represented the biggest talent. What there aren’t are a lot of people who can leverage that and pivot into a real asset-based business.”
Variety hinted that Green’s next move would be something “that returns him to his entrepreneurial roots.” While his chairman role will become vacant, Reza Izad will remain the CEO of Studio71.
Studio71’s 1,200-plus partner channels include several run by top YouTube stars. The latest additions to the company’s network include Joe Santagato and Julian Smith.
Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Studio71 by Sam Gutelle Comments Off on Michael Green, Co-Founder Of The Collective, Steps Down From His Studio71 Post
Kin Community has signed Mr. Kate, Tubefilter has exclusively learned — a multi-platform lifestyle channel headlined by designer Kate Albrecht and her husband Joey Zehr. As part of the partnership, Kin will team with Mr. Kate on ad sales and content production.
Albrecht and Zehr’s YouTube channel just surpassed 1 million subscribers, and the Mr. Kate business also comprises a bustling retail component, with apparel, jewelry, and temporary tattoo freckles for sale in 100 countries as well as national chains like Free People.
“Mr. Kate is one of the most innovative faces in the lifestyle space, known for their rich and endless creativity,” said Reena Liebling, VP of partner strategy at Kin Community, which represents a total of roughly 130 influencers like Rosanna Pansino, Hannah Hart, and Byron Talbott. The network says its channels clock 478 million YouTube views per month — and 70% of its viewers are females aged 18 to 34.
Albrecht and Zehr launched their YouTube channel back in 2009 — though it has recently gained significant traction thanks to two hit series: OMG We Bought A House, in which they chronicle their own home renovations, and OMG We’re Coming Over: Digitally Famous, in which the duo conducts room makeovers for some of YouTube’s biggest stars, including Lilly Singh, Eva Gutowski (below), and Andrea Brooks.
Apart from YouTube, Mr. Kate has struck production deals with HGTV and Entrepreneur, releases books (including A Hot Glue Gun Mess) alongside Harper Collins, and has created branded content in partnership with Pepsi and Disney. Mr. Kate is repped by Alec Shankman at Abrams Artists Agency and Danny Passman at Gang, Tyre, Ramer & Brown.
Filed under: Kin Community by Geoff Weiss Comments Off on Kin Community Signs Buzzy Lifestyle Channel ‘Mr. Kate’ (Exclusive)
