Recently, we’ve had not one but two
“professional”
video sites launched, although one has no content to speak of
yet, just an e-mail form and a press release.
That one is 60frames.com,
which according to the press
release
was “incubated by leading Hollywood talent and literary
agency United
Talent Agency (UTA) and innovative Internet-based advertising agency
Spot Runner” and has raised $3.5-million in funding.
60frames, which has apparently signed filmmakers Joel and
Ethan Cohen
to an advisory board, looks to be more like an aggregation and
advertising play.
It says consumers will “be able to view
60Frames” original programming through top video portals,
social
network Web sites, and mobile and emerging broadband
outlets.”
The site, which is being run by United Talent Agency exec
Brent
Weinstein, says that it will also help advertisers “create
immersive
online branding to better connect their company and products to
targeted audiences.”
Wow, I can hardly wait for that stuff. Sounds
great, doesn’t it? Hopefully, 60frames has learned a lesson
from the
train wreck that is Bud.tv, and the failure of HBO’s This
Just In.
My Damn Channel
The second of the online video experiments is called
MyDamnChannel.com, which we covered in depth recently, and sounds a bit more
promising.
It looks very
similar to a site called FunnyorDie.com, the Will Farrell
project that
got much buzz for a hilarious series of videos starring his
friend’s
infant daughter as a
foul-mouthed landlord (a video that has been watched a
staggering 41 million times).
MyDamnChannel even pays tribute to its predecessor in a
parody of that video.
The new project is the
brainchild
of former MTV and CBS Radio executive Rob Barnett. The site has signed
on comedian and Simpsons’ star Harry Shearer (who also writes
for
Huffington Post), musical genius Don Was, comedian Paul Reiser and
filmmaker David Wain.
Shearer has already contributed a funny clip in
which he plays Dick Cheney (in a suit and very convincing prosthetic
makeup) and sings
a torch song about Scooter Libby.
Will these new sites succeed? I have no idea. But the site
that wins
will do two things: it will make it easy for people to effectively
distribute its video, and it will be funny — and the second
of those is
by far the hardest.
Written by Mathew Ingram, a technology journalist. Catch his views on the intersection between media and the web at MathewIngram.com. This post is licensed under the Creative Commons.
