Erin Andrews Nude Video Went Wide Thanks to ESPN

File this one under “when will they learn.”  According to Page Six, the nude, peeping tom video of ESPN sportscaster Erin Andrews had been posted online way back in February to little notice.  However…

.Last Thursday, NSFWPOA.com, which had linked to the Andrews shots, got a letter from ESPN counsel David Pahl demanding the “pictures of a young, blonde woman” be removed. It didn’t take long for Web sites to identify the blonde as Andrews.       LINK

And just like that, everyone and their mother knew about the video.

The lesson is pretty clear: the quickest way to unwanted publicity is to issue a takedown notice against something nobody had even noticed.

Nice work, ESPN.

Five Bucks a Month for New York Times Online? Yeah, Right.

Lot’s of people are talking about a New York Time’s survey asking if folks would pay $5/month for full online access to the “paper.”

Gawker thinks its a great and necessary idea while Business Insider says they should charge more.

They’re both wrong.  Here’s why:

1) If the NYT erects a pay wall bloggers will be far less likely to link to them and their own readers will be less likely to share links. This is the life-blood on the online world and without it no site can survive.

2) There is FAR too little original content to convince readers to pay the New York Times for news that is widely reported by, well, everyone else.  Unless every single news reporting site agreed to similar pay walls (not gonna happen) the New York Times simple places itself in a barren desert with nary a reader in sight.

There are more minor reasons this would fail, but those are the big two.

Oh, and in response to Business Insiders comment that:

Kindle pricing also forces the question: If Times stories without video, without interactivity, without color — and without all the other stuff at nytimes.com — are worth $14 a month on the Kindle, why in the world is the web site only worth $5?

Except, how many Kindle owners are actually subscribing to the NYT via their Kindle?  Even if a good number are doing so, Kindle owners are by definition affluent and so what’s another few bucks.

Should CNN Pay it’s iReporters?

The major news suppliers have been making a lot of noise lately about how “people” should pay more for the news that they are supplying.  They argue that news is expense to report and if the “people” don’t pay for it than the “people” will simply now longer have any news.

That’s absurd, of course, but that hasn’t stopped the AP from threatening bloggers kind enough to link to their content or stopped a possibly illegal meeting of newspaper execs colluding over erecting paywalls.

Now comes the official uprising of the citizen journalist in Iran and one really has to begin to wonder just how much longer the traditional news model can last.  According to Beet.TV:

CNN’s iReport has been getting many uploads about the Iran crisis, about 4600 over the past week, including 1600 last weekend alone. While these user-generated videos go up on the site without filtering, CNN producers vet these videos for use on the air and on CNN.com

The network has pulled 150 user generated clips from iReport, we have been told by a CNN spokesperson.    LINK

That’s right, CNN is using over 150 clips of reporting they did not create OR pay anything to broadcast.  Yes, people voluntarily sent in their clips and I am sure they clicked on a box giving CNN the rights to do anything they wanted with that footage without providing any compensation but one has to wonder how much longer that concept will work.

There seems to be a great opportunity for a savvy team to start a competing citizen news web site that pays its “iReporters” for exclusive rights to their content.  CNN might currently have a bigger audience but we all know the potential audience online is impossible to rival.

If anyone is interested in joining forces to start just such a competing site, drop me a line.  Together we can take down CNN/FOX/MSNBC!

Watchitoo Has One Great Use. Home Movies.

A new website currently in beta, Watchitoo is a web video site with a twist:

What makes Watchitoo stand out is the synchronized experience. Users watch media and each other, via webcams, at the same time in one browser-based interface. They also can share control of the screen, rather than being restricted to one presenter controlling the content as with a webinar/demo situation. LINK

Now, it seems like the site is focused on groups watching various types of pro content together, like a LOST viewing party in cyberspace but I think they are missing the best market for a service of this kind.  Families and friends sharing home movies.

Think about it for a minute.  You just shot a video of you son taking his first steps.  In minutes you can have it uploaded to Watchitoo, send the link to your son’s grandparents who can jump online and then all of you can watch the video together and enjoy eachothers reactions to the video in realtime.

If this doesn’t sound like a big deal, go ask for a beta invite and try it for yourself.

I witnessed a demo of a very similar website about 18 months ago using the basic scenario I just proposed and an entire hall full of jaded webheads “ooooh”d in unison.

OVGuide Gets $5 Million and Pirate Bay Goes to Court?

This is why the internet will keep lawyers in business forever.

As I write, extremely popular P2P BitTorrent site piratebay.org, is in court defending itself for providing links, but not hosting, content that might violate copyrights.

Meanwhile, OVGuide, a website that provides searchable links to literally thousands of sites that illegally stream major movies and television shows has just gotten $5,000,000 in venture financing.

Can someone please explain to me why one of these sites is in court and the other one is rolling in cash?

Conde Nast Takes Big Risk Pulling Back Online Efforts

It is being fairly widely reported that dead tree media giant Conde Nast is pulling back on plans to launch new websites for a number of it’s key magazines includng Details and GQ.

Conde Nast recently took a bit of a hit online recently, finally calling it quits on tween-girl site Flip.com – though I’m not sure it was ever a central effort.

The question is, while it is surely a tough time financially for Conde Nast, is it wise to circle the wagons around the shrinking print editions and ignore the obviously expanding world of digitial media?  There are very few reasons left to buy magazines and  the number of reasons is not likely to go up as technology expands.

We will have to see if this is just a calculated delay by CN while they figure out their strategy or is just burying of heads in the sand?

Ludacris and WeMix Let You Phone Your Way to Phame. Phat!

Ludacris and WeMix are teaming up to give budding musicians a new way to be heard:

“WeMix, the site he founded with former reality TV producer Matt Apfel, already accepts amateur recordings through a web-based upload tool. But on Tuesday, they announced that users will be able to call a number and enter a code to record directly onto the site from any phone, thanks to a partnership with In-Call Network Exchange provider VoodooVox. And this is no land grab — users keep the rights to their uploaded material.” (link)

And according to Mashable, they have a small cashification plan:

“The way the partnership keeps this service free is by placing a short advertisment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising at the beginning and end of each song or track. But I don’t think this will be any sort of reason for complaint for the artists, who will soon be able to easily make a name for themselves thanks to the service.”

Is this the future of music?

Related articles

• Rap star Ludacris launches online record label Wemix [via Zemanta]
• WeMix’s Never-Ending Remix Contest. Collaborate with Ludacris. [via Zemanta]

Jackasses Get It

PaidContent has a quick look at the new site being launched by Johnny Knoxville’s rowdy group known collectively as JACKASS, in conjunction with their longtime partners, Viacom.

Called JackassWorld the site will feature original video stunts that have made the group famous.  I like what Knoxville had to say about the opportunity:

“It’s fun, man, having this outlet, you don’t have to wait for months to have something come out you can just shoot it and get it up and be on to something else… like productivity in the a**hole department is going to be up 73 percent, you know what I mean?”

The sort of content Jackass is famous for is perfect for the web.  It might not be everyone’s cup of tea but for those who like this stuff, this will be a regular stop on their daily surf.