Giant Boobs, Pig-Faced Men and Shocking Violence – Now That’s a Book Promo

Publishers continue to make small forays into using short videos to promote their books.  This has taken every form from a simple talking head to an elaborate webseries.

According to AdRants, “Champagne-Fueled Jungle” a first novel by James Palumbo, is:

…about a society gone wrong. A society in which reality channel Shit TV (yes, that’s what it’s called) has overtaken the small screen and filled it with “homicidal dwarfs on rollerblades and obese mamas in tutus.” Title character, Tomas, has had enough and with the help of his tommy gun, he hopes to eradicate the world of this filth.

And if that doesn’t sound good enough for you, check out the lavishly animated promo video.  Beware, while entirely in black and white, the violence is quite graphic:

It’s great to see this level of attention and artistry dedicated to a book promotion.  Currently creeping near 4000 views, if just ten percent of viewers go get his book it would seem worthwhile.  Of course, that might be asking a lot from your average YouTube viewer.

Still, the combination of great animation and a violent, sexy story make this a video that could catch on and spread to some potential new readers Palumbo would never reach through traditional marketing.

Apple Releases New Sexy App Guidelines for Developers

After the release, and subsequent takedown of the first iPhone App to display naked boobs, “Hottest Girls,” Apple has put out a new set of guidelines to help developers steer clear of a similar fate.

Apple iPhone App “Sexy” Guidelines:

1) Apps containing nothing but pictures of women over the age of 18 will be permitted in the App Store as long as said women are not exposing any of their “bathsuit suit” parts.

2) Apps may allow users to undress said women as long as they only take off a single layer of clothing.  Removal of more than one layer of clothing will get you banned.

3) All said women must wear underwear that covers the entire pubic region (don’t make me say the v-word) and at least one-third of the tuchus while exposing none of the separation between cheeks.  On top, said women may expose as much boob as they can without showing the world even a glimpse of areola or nipple.  Therefore, the smaller said woman’s areola, the more breast can be exposed.  Now, nipples. They can poke through the thinnest, wettest fabric you’ve got, but the user may NOT see the actual nipple skin.

4) Apps may allow users to manipulate the breasts of said women via the touch-screen as long as they user is not able to see the actual flesh being manipulated.

5) Similar Apps featuring scantily clad men will be banned due to the fact that they may cause homosexuality, thus violating the App Store’s basic TOS.

Apple hopes this clears things up in the “sexy” App department.  Look forward to more guidelines from Apple including “Words and Phrases to Avoid in eBooks” and “What’s Ok to Gun Down.”

Veoh – That Site That Isn’t YouTube. Nope, not that one, the other one…

It’s not easy not being YouTube if you are in the online video distribution game.  Veoh, one of the many also-rans, is certainly showing signs of life and some of those signs are pretty interesting, indeed.

“The average viewer now consumes more than 1 hour, 37 minutes per month – the most time spent per month on any video site and twice as much as time spent on YouTube”

“– The average video view length on Veoh.com is now more than 10 minutes per video – up from six minutes the previous quarter - indicating an increasing viewer interest in episodic, long form content.”

While their total viewership is still lightyears behind YouTube these numbers bode well, if not for Veoh, than for online video viewership in general.

One grain of salt to take with this – these figures “are from the company’s internal systems and reflect the 3-month period from January 1, 2008 to March 31, 2008.”

(via)