While NBCOlympics.com has a really cool Twitter Tracker , much of its online strategy for the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver has left much to be desired. In addition to not airing events live to people on the West Coast, the network has made some downright bizarre decisions about what events to stream online at NBCOlympics.com.
China’s 400 million or so Internet users will soon be able to enjoy a new online video service. Baidu, the country’s top search provider, has announced plans to create a new video-on-demand website
Web video is expanding right now, and though a lot of attention is paid to episodes of network TV shows like Lost or The Office that you can stream online, there’s an emerging wealth of content made just for the web. There’s going to be even more of it in the future, so this is a great time to get in at the ground level and experience an emerging art form. Since September we’ve worked with web video analytics company Visible Measures to publish a monthly list of the top 10 most viewed original web series .
Betty White might actually make an appearance on Saturday Night Live — a victory for more than 400,000 Facebook users who became fans of a page lobbying Lorne Michaels to offer the comedienne the chance to host an episode. Entertainment Weekly reports that SNL might soon do a “Women of Comedy” special that would star White alongside younger female luminaries like Molly Shannon, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler
It’s Friday night, so before you shamble out to make copious mistakes at the clubs, you can brush up on your dance skills by catching the premiere of the new MTV flick, Turn the Beat Around , via Facebook and Ustream.
Today is the final day to enter Mashable’s Google Buzz contest and win one of two Google Nexus One phones. Since the product’s launch last week, we’re been using our Google Buzz account to discuss the social media topics of the day. Your comments have been smart, useful and sometimes hilarious
When the iPad was announced a few weeks ago, the lack of support for Adobe Flash prompted outcries from would-be users — largely because of what impact that would have on streaming video services. Today, AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka is reporting that Hulu for the iPad is indeed likely , but you might have to pay for it. Last year, the web went into hysterics when a representative from Fox (one of Hulu’s three owners — alongside Disney and NBC Universal/Comcast) announced that he wanted to start charging for Hulu .
A Facebook fan page set up to persuade Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels to let Golden Girls star Betty White host the show has officially become a phenomenon. White recently re-entered the pop culture consciousness after appearing in a popular Super Bowl Snickers commercial and in the romantic comedy The Proposal , also starring Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. However, the Facebook group called “Betty White to Host SNL (please?)!” — started by ardent fan David Mathews back on December 30, 2009 — has been garnering her the most press of late, as more and more people join the cause.
A YouTube prankster has been terrorizing a religious broadcasting channel of late, tricking unsuspecting hosts into reading the rap from the opening sequence of the ’90s sitcom, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air , starring Will Smith. The Telegraph recently reported on YouTube user raepmykipz ’s most popular scam, in which he sent an e-mail to the host of Genesis TV, a British Christian channel, telling a story of salvation identical to that of the protagonist’s in The Fresh Prince
What do you get when you cross social isolation, money and Google Maps? A truly odd live-streaming event from Justin.tv called “Man in a Box.” On February 15, controversial UK broadcast personality Tim Shaw will lock himself in a steel box that’s 3 feet high, 4.5 feet wide and 8 feet long. He will have no clue as to where the box is located — only that it is somewhere significant to him.
