Reddit is using video to appeal to its brand partners. Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that the self-proclaimed “front page of the internet” is rolling out video ads that will be sold through a self-serve platform and by the Reddit sales team.

The video ads, which will appear within Reddit discussions, are notable because the popular hub of crowdsourced content does not let users upload their own videos through an in-house player. “It’s really exciting for us because Reddit does not currently host video,” Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian told The Wall Street Journal. “It made a lot of sense and we had a lot of advertisers asking us for it, so we built it.”

A few early partners have helped Reddit test out its new offering. “Advertising clients have been asking for video since the Reddit ads platform launched,” said Reddit exec Ben Miller. “We are thrilled by the reception from our entertainment partners like Universal Pictures and A24 Films, who were the first to test the new format.”

Given Reddit’s popularity — it is currently the fourth-most trafficked site in the United States, according to Alexa.com — its new video ads could be very useful for advertisers, though the WSJ’s report speculates that “brand safety,” which has been a hot topic in 2017, could be a potential issue for Reddit. Many of the site’s users have reacted negatively to attempts to clean up some of its more hateful subreddits, and an increased ad platform could lead to more clashes in the future. Still, there should be plenty of partners who will be excited about the prospect of running videos next to Reddit content.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, reddit by Sam Gutelle
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Going Out of Style—Challenging Beauty Norms of Traditional Media

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at Busby’s East
Early Bird Tickets have already SOLD OUT – Get your tickets now!

Beauty norms continue to evolve with each new generation of creators, who are presenting new ideas of what it means to be beautiful while challenging old pardigms. One thing that remains constant is the power of personal identity and the authenticity that can only come with being true to yourself.

In this second installment of the Tubefilter + SNARLED Women In Video Panel Series, we tackle the important issue of established beauty norms and how those norms affect creators and viewers alike in their personal and professional development. More importantly, we will hear from leading voices on what they’re doing to change the beauty business—both from the inside and out.

New Panelists Announced:

Kristin Chirico | Senior Editor, BuzzFeed; Cast Member, BuzzFeed’s Ladylike

Chrystina Woody Train | Brand and Influencer Marketing Expert Clients: BeautyCon Media, StyleHaul, Real Techniques, VidCon

Jasmine Brown | YouTube Beauty Personality, 1.3 MM+ YouTube Subscribers

Olivia Saperstein | Manager, Talent & Development, HISSYFIT

Moderator: Drew Baldwin | Founder of Tubefilter and Creator of the Streamy Awards

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at Busby’s East
Early Bird Tickets have already SOLD OUT – Get your tickets now!

Tubefilter + SNARLED Women In Video Series

It’s back! By popular demand, the Tubefilter Meetup is coming back to Los Angeles. We’ve teamed up with SNARLED, one of the fastest-growing alternative women’s networks, to bring a new series of meetups throughout the year focused on new creative and diverse female voices.

For too long, the mainstream media has trivialized young women’s needs, wants, and concerns with a deluge of vapid editorial. Traditional publishers struggle to maintain the “authenticity” they have been selling their advertisers as their influence declines. Women focused groups and interests that used to be considered fringe or niche are finding massive audiences with their unique points of view. And with the rapid evolution of online video and social media, young women are gravitating toward creators across multiple platforms to find voices that represent their own.

Join us as we sit down with some of the most successful creators, talent, and programmers who are leading the charge in bringing niche female programming from alternative to mainstream.

Going Out of Style—Challenging Beauty Norms of Traditional Media

Tomorrow, Tuesday, June 27, 2017 at Busby’s East
Early Bird Tickets have already SOLD OUT – Get your tickets now!

The Tubefilter Meetup

With over 25,000 members on its roster, the Tubefilter Meetup brings together the most dynamic group of online entertainment professionals in the industry.

Check out the schedule below for our entire Tubefilter Meetup schedule. Mark your calendars accordingly.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017 • Bringing Alternative Mainstream—How Niche Female Programming Is Capturing Big Audiences

Tuesday, June 27, 2017 • Going Out of Style—Challenging Beauty Norms Of Traditional Media

Tuesday, September 19, 2017 • Social (Issue) Media—Women Creating Meaning Through Creativity

Tuesday, December 5, 2017 • The Evolution of Females In Comedy

Filed under: News, Tubefilter Meetup by Drew Baldwin
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A two-day bash will give online video fans in Birmingham a chance to witness their favorite online video stars in real life. The English city will play host to HelloWorld, which will bring together some of the UK’s top YouTube stars for a series of performances, skits, and interactive engagements with fans that will take place on October 28 and 29, 2017.

The list of creators who will appear during HelloWorld includes Caspar Lee, Jim Chapman, Joe Sugg, Louise Pentland, Marcus Butler, KSI, Alfie Deyes, Rose & Rosie, and Zoella, all of whom are among the biggest YouTube stars in the UK. Additional talent is expected to be added to the guest list in the coming weeks.

The creative team behind HelloWorld is led by Paul Caslin, who has experience in the world of Gen Z entertainment thanks to his work on the MTV EMAs. “HelloWorld is without doubt the most ambitious and exciting project I’ve ever been involved in,” said Caslin in a press release. “The aim is to create the world’s first fully immersive live show featuring the biggest online and social media talent from across the globe all under one roof. Think Woodstock for the iPhone generation.”

Caslin believes HelloWorld is ambitious, and he’s not kidding. Beyond musical performances and comedy showcases, the event will also include games, parades, bake-offs, fashion shows, signings, and talks. Birmingham’s Genting Arena will be transformed into a so-called “Main Street,” where the featured creators will entertain their fans during a pair of four-and-a-half hour shows.

Tickets for HelloWorld go on sale on June 29th at 9 am GMT. The most basic pass for the event costs £27.50.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Uptime, a Google app first announced in March that enables multiple YouTube viewers to watch the same video in real-time while chatting and sharing reactions with one another, is officially out of beta.

The app, which can be downloaded right here, is now available to all iOS users, Variety reports. Uptime overlays comments and emojis on top of videos — with replays of shared videos also touting these same interactions. The latest version of the app includes several new updates, per Variety, like the ability to share music videos, and the ability to find friends on Facebook with whom to share videos.

Uptime is a creation of Area120 — a Google-led incubator that encourages employees to pursue compelling side projects.

Check out the app in action right here:

Filed under: YouTube by Geoff Weiss
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In 2016, as niche subscription video on demand (SVOD) services became a major trend in the online video industry, Vimeo announced its plan to launch an SVOD destination of its own. The video platform, best known as a home for artists and independent filmmakers, planned to employ its keen ability to spot rising talent in order to build a lineup of eye-catching original programs that would be available to paying subscribers.

Now, that plan appears to be dead. Vimeo has issued a short statement claiming that it will not move forward with its SVOD service. “Vimeo has confirmed that it has decided not to proceed in offering a subscription based original program service scheduled to begin in ’18,” the statement reads.

Beyond those few words, Vimeo has offered no explanation as to why it decided to abandon an initiative that seemed to be well on its way. Some have speculated that the video site struggled to acquire the compelling content it would need to compete with the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime, and that seems like a pretty good guess. Vimeo CEO Joey Levin (pictured above) had previously said his company planned to put together its lineup fraction of the cost “at a fraction of the cost of other major competitors.” Given the massive amount of money currently being thrown around by premium distributors, it would make sense if Vimeo owner IAC decided that an SVOD push was not worth the price.

The decision to scrap the SVOD initiative will lead to the departure of three execs — Alana Mayo , Kesila Childers , and Kelly Miller — who Vimeo hired this past March, ostensibly as part of its hunt for premium programming.“This was a difficult decision – the idea of pursuing an SVOD service for Vimeo has always been intriguing, and I would have loved to see the incredibly talented Alana Mayo’s programming vision realized here at Vimeo,” said Levin in a statement. “She and her team are creative, sharp, risk-takers, and I believe will all, to a person, have an incredible future in programming. But the opportunity ahead for Vimeo to empower creators is too large and too important for us to attack with anything other than absolute focus and clarity.”

While Vimeo will not go forward with its SVOD service, it could still distribute premium content, as it has in the past. The video site previously used its Vimeo On Demand platform as a hub for original programs like High Maintenance, The Outs, and several other shows.

Operating an SVOD platform is expensive, so Vimeo’s decision to change its plan may not be a bad decision. Still, it is undeniably a bummer for consumers. The original programming Vimeo has done has been consistently creative, artful, and smart. It would have been a treat to see more shows like that grouped together in a convenient location.

Filed under: Articles, Featured, News, Vimeo by Sam Gutelle
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Facebook is trying to compete with the Netflixes and Amazon Primes of the world, and in order to build a strong library of original content, it appears to be ready to shell out quite a bit of money. According to a new report from the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has shown a willingness to pay as much as $3 million per episode for the highest-profile shows within its programming push.

That figure comes from “people familiar with the situation,” and it’s quite a bit higher than the six-figure per-episode budget that had previously been reported by Reuters as the price Facebook is willing to pay to acquire its shows. The WSJ article refers budgets of that size as well but groups them in a lower tier than the seven-figure budgets, which are reportedly for “high-end cable-TV shows.” Both Reuters and WSJ also discussed Facebook’s plan to mix in short-form content, which will cost much less to produce and, unlike the long-form shows, will not be owned by Facebook itself.

Details about specific shows on Facebook’s radar remain limited, though the WSJ report did note three programs that could come to the social giant’s shores. There’s Strangers , a relationship drama that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival; Last State Standing , a game show; and Loosely Exactly Nicole , a comedy led by Nicole Byer. The last of those three series, which Facebook content exec Mina Lefevre helped develop during her time at MTV, lasted only one season on cable, thus indicating that Facebook is willing to pick up programs that have been cancelled by other networks.

The current consensus is that Facebook’s original programming lineup will arrive in late summer.

Filed under: Articles, Facebook, Featured, News by Sam Gutelle
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Former Walt Disney Studios chairman and co-founder of DreamWorks Jeffrey Katezenberg wants to turn video consumption into reading a Dan Brown novel.

At least, that’s what he recently told reporters at Cannes Lions International Festival, according to Quartz. With his new company, WndrCo, Katzenberg aims to make TV-style content for mobile formats. He’s going to do that, he revealed, by putting out shows with six to 10-minute episodes, perfect for the time it takes to get from point A to point B on the subway or wait for a friend who’s late for a dinner date.

Katzenberg likened this to a novel such as The Da Vinci Code because of its many, short chapters. As he told Quartz, authors like Brown “reinvented the consumption of a novel—they didn’t reinvent the novel.”

WndrCo has been underway for months, with Katzenberg having procured around $600 million to found the company as of January 2017. He plans to invest in other tech and media companies through WndrCo and tap partners who will be adept at reinventing TV, presumably by looking to people with experience in both traditional and new media. So far, Katzenberg has been in talks with Ron Howard and J.J. Abrams as well as Viacom CEO Bob Bakish.

The case for Katzenberg’s “new TV” is that traditional TV viewing has been steadily declining, especially among younger audiences. Nielsen’s Total Audience Report from Q4 2016 showed that weekly TV hours decreased yet again for 18 to 24 year-olds, a downward trend that has been going on for years. Meanwhile, viewership on smartphones and TV-connected devices has continued to rise.

Though Katzenberg has yet to announce a revenue model for a new video service, he is considering many options, including ad-supported and product placement. “Everything is on the table,” he said at Cannes.

Filed under: Nielsen, Uncategorized, Viacom by Jessica Klein
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Capping off the slew of updates it unveiled this year at VidCon, YouTube announced at a session on Saturday evening that it is rebuilding its Creator Studio on desktops and revamping comments with new machine learning technology.

The all-new YouTube Creator Studio — which the company is renaming YouTube Studio — will still feature a suite of channel management tools aimed to make creators’ lives easier. Updates, the company said in a blog post, will make it possible to accomplish even more in less time with a streamlined design and new features. A smart inbox, for instance, will give creators personalized suggestions for engaging with fans or collaborating with other creators. YouTube says it’s rebuilding the Studio with creator input, and is inviting interested parties to sign up for a beta test right here.

Another update announced at VidCon will seek to improve the platform’s notoriously dicey comments section. YouTube said that updates to comments, including the ability for creators to bestow hearts and pin comments, are seeing great success. These types of notifications are resulting in 3x more engagement than other notifications, writes VP of product management Manuel Bronstein, and creators are sending 1.7 million hearts every day.

A new, optional feature currently in the works called “comment topics” will harness machine learning to give fans the ability to browse comments according to which topics being discussed. The technology will also parse through comments to look for common themes and topics, giving creators a sense of what viewers are talking about at a glance.

Finally, YouTube addressed the hot topic of monetization. Despite the fact that some advertisers paused their spend on the platform after learning that their campaigns were running against inappropriate videos, YouTube highlighted alternative revenue streams, including Super Chats. The company says that 65% of the channels using Super Chat have doubled their income during live streams, and the feature is now available in 38 countries.

YouTube also highlighted its acquisition of influencer marketing agency FameBit, which helps creators land brand deals.

Filed under: News, YouTube by Joshua Cohen
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Burnie Burns, who helped grow Rooster Teeth from a hit show (Red vs. Blue) into a thriving 300-person digital media empire, shared tips with aspiring creators during an intimate discussion at VidCon today entitled Gaming New Media.

Burns, 44, who founded Rooster Teeth before YouTube existed back in 2003, discussed the importance of honing a diversified business with varied revenue streams — especially in light of the YouTube ‘Adpocalypse’, in which many creators have seen their ad revenues plummet. Burns said that, in building Rooster Teeth, he aimed to never let any one tier of the business comprise more than 30% of the company’s total earnings.

In the very beginning, Rooster Teeth started vending video subscriptions and DVDs, Burns said, before branching out into merchandise and live events. Pre-roll ads on YouTube were the final piece of the puzzle. As a result, the company has emerged from the Adpocalypse relatively unscathed.

And whereas creators may fear that launching new businesses might be offputting to fans, Burns says they actually tend to present new opportunities for engagement. Events like RTX, which expects to welcome 60,000 guests in Austin next month, have opened up a two-way dialogue between Rooster Teeth and its fans, while selling T-shirts enables members of the community to identify and interface with one another IRL.

Looking ahead to future endeavors, Burns said he always strives to keep in mind that “the internet demands progress, but hates change.” It takes time for people to acclimate to new mediums and shows — and, therefore, persistence is key. For instance, when Rooster Teeth launched the gaming competition series The Gauntlet in 2012, it was met with criticism. After a few alterations, however, the show ultimately became a predecessor to Rooster Teeth’s massively popular Let’s Play gaming channel.

Filed under: News, Uncategorized by Geoff Weiss
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Mystery Science Theater 3000 is landing on Twitch and staying there for six days. The marathon will air on Shout! Factory TV’s new Twitch channel starting June 26 at 11AM PT.

Consisting of 38 episodes that first aired on Comedy Central and later the Sci-Fi Channel, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 marathon will take viewers through about a fifth of the show’s total episodes, which ran for 10 seasons from 1989 to 1997. The show follows a man kept by mad scientists on a space satellite where he has to watch barely watchable, usually (very) low budget films as part of the scientists’ evil plot. The protagonist, played at first by the show’s creator Joel Hodgson, creates robots to keep him company and make witty commentary as they watch B movie after B movie together.

The show is coming to Twitch in part because it reflects what people do on the social streaming platform already. “Because Mystery Science Theater 3000 mirrors the viewing experience on Twitch given that the show is all about people watching other people and making comments, it is right in the wheelhouse of our viewers and should make for a memorable communal event,” said Twitch’s VP of business development, Ben Vallat, in the release.

Mystery Science Theater 3000 isn’t the first show to get a marathon on Twitch. Carl Sagan’s Cosmos: A Personal Voyage got a Twitch marathon, along with Bob Ross’s The Joy of Painting, Saban’s Power Rangers, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and others. The theme pretty clearly seems to be one of nostalgia. It makes sense with Twitch’s wide viewer demographic age range, mostly males between 18 and 49.

Shout! Factory acquired Mystery Science Theater 3000 back in November 2015, when it started laying out a strategy for keeping the show top of mind for former and new fans. The show has already shown popularity among current audiences, with a Netflix reboot that came out in April.

Filed under: Entertainment, Shout! Factory TV, TwitchTV, Uncategorized by Jessica Klein
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Instagram Stories is crushing the competition—namely Snapchat—when it comes to users. While active daily users has jumped to 250 million on Instagram Stories from 200 million in April, the corresponding number has decreased on Snapchat, which has just 166 million daily users across the whole app.

People seem to be losing enthusiasm for Snapchat Stories, which social analytics company Delmondo’s CEO Nick Cicero said lost 50% of its average unique viewers per story between June 2016 and today, according to Mashable. And the company’s first earnings report since going public, which took place in May, saw a disappointing $150 million in revenue, $8 million short of what analysts expected. Its shares lowered as a result.

Instagram, meanwhile, keeps on making its Stories look more and more like Snapchat, giving those who use the two platforms less incentive to keep up with both. In May, Instagram launched Geostickers, which look a lot like Snapchat’s location filters. Users can also add finger-drawn details to their Instagram Stories and use “face filters,” which are very easy to mistake for Snapchat’s Lenses.

Instagram is also embracing a popular area that Snapchat has yet to explore–live video. A new feature lets Instagram users download and save their live streams to their Stories for a full day after broadcasting. The company has yet to disclose how many people are using the feature, which just debuted on June 20.

Snapchat should still get credit for inspiring so many of its competitors. Earlier this month, Skype announced a Highlights feature that also acts like Snapchat’s Stories, in that users can cover their videos in captions and watch them disappear after a set amount of time (one week as opposed to Snapchat’s one day). Time Warner also just made a $100 million original content deal with Snapchat, providing the platform with 10 series per year for a two-year period.

So while Instagram keeps picking up speed, it may also be worth paying attention to what Snapchat has in the works.

Filed under: Instagram, Snapchat by Jessica Klein
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Beloved vlogger and noted author John Green has announced his first new novel in five-and-a-half years — the follow-up to his 2012 smash The Fault In Our Stars.

Titled Turtles All The Way Down and hitting shelves on October 10, the YA novel will center around Aza Holmes, a young woman grappling with mental illness as she investigates the disappearance of a fugitive billionaire, reports The Los Angeles Times. “This is my first attempt to write directly about the kind of mental illness that has affected my life since childhood,” Green, 39, said in a statement. “So while the story is fictional, it is also quite personal.”

Green, who suffers from OCD and anxiety, has been open about the pressures of helming a follow-up novel that could live up to the massive success of Fault, which was subsequently turned into a film starring Shailene Woodley and Ansel Elgort. Green even posted a brutally honest video about that pressure on his VlogBrothers YouTube channel — which he headlines with his brother Hank — last September.

Green won the Printz, the YA genre’s top award, for his debut novel Looking For Alaska. He is also the author of An Abundance Of Katherines, Paper Towns, and Will Grayson, Will Grayson — written in collaboration with David Levithan. Paper Towns also became a movie in 2015.

“Turtles All the Way Down is both a singularly personal read and a catalyst for conversation and community,” Julie Strauss-Gabel, the president and publisher of Dutton Books For Young Readers (a Penguin imprint) said in a statement. “It is with tremendous pride and great excitement that his longtime Penguin family can finally shout this news to the world.”

Check out Green’s announcement video below:

Filed under: News by Geoff Weiss
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