Exciting things lie ahead with emerging browser technologies supporting the new HTML5  standard.

I found this blog post “Video Tag and Subtitles” which demonstrates the new video tag, but also uses JavaScript to add subtitles.

The demonstration requires a standards compliant browser supporting the HTML5 video tag, which currently is Firefox 3.1 / 3.5 or the nightly build versions of Safari (Webkit) or Opera.

You know its strange how some people think that the internet, with all of its interactivity, user colabration and social networking, is the place more of the same old, pump and dump.

The Smarthouse post, “Banned Freeview Video Reappears On New Web Sites”, explains how Freeview requested YouTube to pull a parody video of their advertisement. Freeview are promoting an internet TV service, where you can watch, as the parody puts it, more of the same old stuff that you can see on the standard free to air TV stations, but wait for this, you still can’t skip the ads.

And so now in true internet justice the same banned ad is now appearing again on many more sites on the internet. It reminds me of 2Clix’s attempts to stiffle public opinion. Some people just don’t have a clue.

Here’s the clip.

I’m currently working on Alan Moore’s SMLXL engagement marketing and mobile blog and adding podcast features as part of our internet marketing campaign.

I chose the PodPress plugin to manage and deliver his podcasts.

The online documentation for the plugin seemed unailable from the wiki that the author’s website directed me to. So I then did some searches and came up with a number of video tutorials. These are very nice because you can also see the exact options that they are talking about. There appears to be an explosion of video tutorials on the web as many are attempting to add value added service to their web sites.

Here is one of the best I found for PodPress.

From time to time I visit Reuters.com to look at the latest news events in video. How sorely was disappointed and quickly annoyed with the advertising that they’ve appended to EACH news item video. It makes it an absolute horror to watch. It is even worse than prime time television news broadcasting. At least they only hit you once every 10 minutes or so.

So greedy have they become, the same adverts that run in the video are also displayed as static image adverts along the side of the page. The adverts aren’t even contextual. So you could be watching a story about the latest horrific bombing of civilians after your happy family chocolates advert. Hardly the sort of product placement I’d want for my brand or product.

Many of the large corporations seem to be at a loss as what to do with online video. The bandwidth and storage it consumes is costly. And so they are left scratching their heads as to how they can possibly turn a profit from it.

The must be long deafening silences in corporate think tanks until some bright spark comes up with the idea of let’s do it the old way because we don’t dare try anything new. Just ram it down people’s throats. Why we’re so big, the audience doesn’t have a choice.

Or do they? The coporations seem to be longing for the silver bullet fix to this nasty new media technology, that gives the consumer, god forbid, a choice. As I wrote in my previous post about Facebook overtaking MySpace, the quickening pace of innovation is threatening the very foundations of the business models that have dominated our modern media.

New upstart startups can quickly rocket ahead of lumbering Jurassic giants leaving them scrambling in the dust to catch up. This can be seen the make overs, widgets and other functionality features that MySpace quickly sticky taped on to their website.

And now there’s a new can of worms called mobile media. With expensive data transfer rates and limited screen space on hand held mobile devices, there will be even less tolerance from audiences for advertising bully boy tactics.

A growing thorn in the sides of these media moguls is the fact that the audience is no longer a dumb mute consumer. They have a voice and are willing to share their opinions and experiences amongst their social networks. Enabled by the immediacy of networked digital technology they can quickly inform each other of where better opportunities or offers are.

Oft of late have I read the of the media complaining of this citizen journalism, complaining how they are leeches that take their hard work and regurgitate it. These same voices fail to  then acknowledge the two way street where the “professional” journalists are now trawling social media networks for the latest events as they are proving more immediate than the standard news networks, as evidenced recently with the Twitter and Gaza and plane crashes.

Think it impossible for the status quo to be challenged? Ponder this. Neither Google or Facebook have been sold into established media hands. They both rose from backyard obscurity to being two of the most powerful companies on the internet. They could challenge establishment because of their willingness to innovate. Both have been shrewd enough not to opt for the easy path and attempt to force advertising on their users.

But the question often asked in the media circles today, is how and when will they turn a profit from their huge user bases? The answer to that lies with how innovative and useful they choose to be for the people who use their services and paying close attention to how they are used and giving people what they want or need.

For the uber-geeks or the down right nerds, today is a day to rejoice. Monty Python have created their own YouTube channel. In their own words, "For 3 years you YouTubers have been ripping us off, taking tens of thousands of our videos and putting them on YouTube. Now the tables are turned. It's time for us to take matters into our own hands."

It seems the great comedians have come to agree with the maxim, if you can't beat them, join them, as digital age of media on demand is irrevocably changing our thoughts towards access and usage. 

It was also revealed today that their famous dead parrot sketch might not be so original.An ancestor of Monty Python's famous Dead Parrot comedy sketch has been found in a joke book dating back to Greece in the 4th Century.

Philogelos: The Laugh Addict, which has been translated from Greek manuscripts, contains a joke where a man complains that a slave he was sold had died.

"When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" is the reply.

Here's one for the nerds.

Joost, the internet TV platform being developed by the influential creators of Skype and Kazaa, has signed several new content distribution agreements, including one to show CNN programs.

Joost's strategy is to deliver content at no charge to viewers. The business model is to charge advertisers on a per-view basis, and to share the revenue with content providers.

Content is distributed by streaming video "peer-to-peer," or user-to-user, over the Internet. Consumers choose a channel via a software interface on their desktop that resembles a remote control.

Joost's global advertisers include Coca-Cola, HP, Intel and Nike, while US viewers will also see ads from companies including Electronic Arts, Garnier, Kraft, Microsoft, Motorola, Procter & Gamble, Sony, Taco Bell, United Airlines, the US Army, Visa, and Wrigley. For European audiences, the company has signed General Motors Europe (Opel/Vauxhall), IBM, L'Oréal, Nokia, Virgin Money, Vodafone, and Warner Bros.

The overwhelming response by high calibre launch partners proves that TV is a rapidly shrinking market. Advertisers are aware that the TV audience is slipping away to the Internet, especially amongst the younger generations. People want to watch their content, when they want it, and how they want it. The first part of this equation Joost understand, however the second is completely missed as evidenced by Alberdingk Thijm's following comment. 

"The company is still experimenting with when and how it will run ads, including short advertisements before or after programs, traditional 30-second ads in the middle of longer programs, and more experimental ideas such as ads that appear on the screen briefly and then fade away while a program is running. Overall there would be less advertising than on regular TV."

Joost seem to think that the option of more invasive advertising over the top of content is acceptable. What they haven't come to accept yet, is people are abandoning TV because the internet currently provides content that is free of advertising or the ability to filter it. In the beginning of course there will be less advertising, but we all know what comes later. Traditional TV started out the same way.

Joost is seen as one of the many candidates to become a distributor of television and video to the Internet, competing against Google Inc.'s YouTube, Revver, broadcasters' own websites, an as-yet unnamed cooperation between General Electric Co.'s NBC and News Corp, and file-sharing programs such as BitTorrent, among others.

What they will have to come to accept is that rehashing the same old advertising models on the Internet will not work. The average Internet user has a notoriously short attention span, because they know they have choice, surf off elsewhere or respond (blogging, social tagging). The quantification of audience attention is also immediately apparent through server statistics.

The Internet is a far more responsive environment. I would not use the descriptions of interactive or democratic as touted by some web evangelists. 

So if the large content providers want to stem the flow of unauthorized video content appearing on the Net, and monetize the new media, they'd better take a look at the lessons currently being learnt by their music counterparts with Digital Rights Management.

Listen to their audience.