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A new website aims to compete with YouTube by offering premium quality music videos. The Santa Monica, CA based start-up is PluggedIn Media, and their strategy is decidedly different from Google’s “homemade” video site. PluggedIn is firmly within the parameters of Web 2.0, using personalized profiles, blogs, WIKIs, and sharing features to lure young internet users. The site differs from its trendy peers by rejecting user-generated content. Is this necessarily a bad thing? Are laughing babies and disturbing rants really what keeps YouTube raking in the revenue, or is it sponsored content and professional videos like those that PluggedIn will feature?

The site’s founders are betting that premium content will translate into advertising dollars. Investors from Overbrook Entertainment, a film/TV production company owned by Will Smith and Lassiter, are backing PluggedIn and they may expand content beyond music videos, though plans are unclear at this point. PluggedIn has also forged relationships with three of the largest music companies. Vivendi SA’s Universal Music Group, EMI, and Sony BMG will all provide videos of their artists in exchange for a share of advertising revenue. A fourth company, Warner Music Group, has released a few of its videos for the site’s launch and could possibly enter into a deal in the future.

PluggedIn’s user interface is easy to navigate and sleekly designed. The quality of the videos is unmatched by competitive sites, and they keep their quality when enlarged to full-screen. Flash player is required, of course, though the videos have an annoying habit of “following” you as you scroll down for additional content. Users can read reviews of songs, biographies of artists, see other fans of their favorites, and find merchandise and concert tickets. The non-video content will be pulled from artists’ web pages, Wikipedia pages, and even Amazon’s MP3 music store and iTunes, where users can buy the songs.

CEO of PluggedIN Jeffrey Somers told the Wall Street Journal that professional video, “seems to be what people engage with the most.” Indeed, some of YouTube’s most popular videos are those uploaded by recording companies. Rihanna’s video for her hit song “Umbrella” has received over 37 million views on YouTube. By contrast, PluggedIn’s identical video has been viewed just 387 times since being added in January. They have some ground to make up if they’re going to rival YouTube, but the web video market is ready for professional content.

As the success of Mog and iLike (social networking sites for music fans) have shown, there is no single site that is all things to all music fans. For example, YouTube hosts dozens of old videos of John Denver in live performances, while PluggedIn has none. The latter site, however has a detailed biography of the country singer and links to buy his classic albums.While PluggedIn may well take some viewers away from YouTube’s grainy music videos and create a new community online, the marketplace is plenty big enough for both sites.

America’s popular spoof news source, The Onion, has launched a web video version of their popular newspaper and website. Onion News Network (ONN) is reaching out to readers with high quality video clips that mimic the style and tone of a popular cable news channel. The site will likely be wildly popular with procrastinating college students and bored wage slaves alike, a target demographic who tend to get their real news online as well. The ONN website takes parody to the next level and reflects the growing popularity of online video.

ONN features news clips, generally about two minutes in length, which poke fun at everything from the 2008 Elections to immigration reform. One clip, headlined in classic journalistic fashion, is called “Diebold Accidentally Leaks Results of 2008 Election Early”. The deadpan anchor interviews an official from Diebold (manufacturer of electronic voting machines), as well as getting reactions from people on the street. The hilariously played Diebold official apologizes, saying “This country is based on the fantasy that the government is the voice of the people. Going through the motions of voting… is central to our culture.” One woman on the street complains about the leak, arguing, “If you can’t trust your shadowy overlords to keep a secret, what is the purpose, really, of voting in a puppet democracy?”

The videos are produced and styled to look very realistic, even promoting a fake TV show called “Scarlet” at the beginning of each clip. This gives them an air of legitimacy that reflects very badly on our mainstream TV news. Indeed, this week ABC has been roundly criticized for their handling of the Democratic debate in Pennsylvania, where the focus of questioning was on sniper fire comments and flap lapel pins instead of on issues. ONN’s mockery of the election process calls attention to the media’s inability to reflect the views and desires of middle America. The success of fake news outfits like The Daily Show and The Onion suggest that people have very little faith in the “talking heads” on television, and ONN’s website takes advantage of the shift towards online “infotainment”.

The New York Times has run a very insightful piece about the value of The Onion and its place in online video circles. “ONN has dialed down the corny, fun reworkings of platitudes (“Hotcake Sales Brisk”) that continue to have a place in The Onion’s print and online newspaper. Instead, the series tries to dramatize the more complex and newsy headlines.” This focus on skewering and twisting actual events lends itself extremely well to the YouTube generation. The largest video site online is full of remakes and spoofs of commercials, music videos, and movies, many of which are more popular than their original incarnations. ONN takes this trend and runs with it, even featuring fake anchor biographies. The lead anchor, generically named Brandon Armstrong, is praised as “a five-time recipient of the DuPont Award for Outstanding Coverage of the Dupont Corporation,” an obvious dig at the credibility of journalists and news outfits with ties to corporate interests.

In my brief exploration, I ran across a hilarious parody of an FDA recall on “piping hot” pot pies with crusts of “a flaky consistency and a golden brown color”. The actor stumbles along in typical bureaucratic doublespeak, with a backdrop of blue curtains and flanked by American flags. He deadpans, “We’re instructing all U.S. citizens in possession of one or more pot pies to send those pot pies to FDA headquarters, attention FDA Panel conference room.”

The Onion’s ONN website is likely to stand out in a growing crowd of video sites on the web. Their timely reflection of the public’s general distaste for network news, coupled with a format that entertains and informs, will win over viewers who previously had to subsist on YouTube’s low quality and amateurishness. Who knows, maybe we’ll even see parodies of ONN showing up on YouTube’s “most popular” page.

YouTube is the most popular video-sharing community online today. Recently, YouTube officials have announced the launch of their newest marketing tool called YouTube Insight. This feature tracks the views of each video a user posts, and provides the users with potentially valuable marketing information. According to YouTube’s blog, this tool “enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time.” The blog goes on to list other advanced feature of this service, such as tacking the life cycle of an upload (which also helps to measure the popularity of the video over time). YouTube asserts that Insight will help increase the popularity of user videos by helping them to target specific users.

The catch? Some of the more advanced data will be reserved for paid advertisers. Industry experts believe that this is part of Google’s initiative to turn a profit on its $1.76 billion purchase of YouTube back in 2006. According to an article released by CNN.com, marketers will now have access to more refined data about the geographic popularity of their advertisement campaigns. While advertisers currently get large amounts of data about the performance of their ads on YouTube, this new feature will help them to target areas where their ads are most viewed. This will also, in turn, help to generate profits from YouTube’s thriving community. As the CNN article points out, “Despite growing interest in online video ads, many marketers have stayed away from user-generated video like what’s on YouTube.” This new feature will, hopefully, draw new advertisers to invest in YouTube.

However, individual YouTube users will also be able to benefit from this new tool. According to Tracy Chan, a YouTube program manager, YouTube Insight will give ” a lot of context around the performance of video over time, where are your audience coming from and how your message is connecting to your audience.” For the average user, this has positive implications. Amateur video producers, new and upcoming bands, and fresh entertainment acts (comedians, troupes of actors, etc.) could use this new feature from everything from planning a tour schedule to targeting new and bigger audiences (at least in the U.S.; one of the few criticisms of Insight is that it does not yet provide in-depth data on viewers or video popularity outside of the United States). This could potentially be a very useful marketing tool for the next generation of entertainers.

As Mr. Chan said in a recent interview, “Effectively, YouTube has become an ad-effectiveness, or an insight-effectiveness, tool. YouTube has millions of viewers every single day, and has become the world’s largest focus group.” YouTube Insight will undoubtedly add to the already enormous popularity of the YouTube web community. By being able to specifically target areas where a certain genre of videos and ads will be most popular, users and marketers alike will have a lot to gain from the use of this service. It looks like Google can soon expect to see that profit margin it has been hoping for from this website.

Online video continues to rise in popularity, and advertisers are still scratching their heads about how to make money from the YouTube phenomenon. According to a recent press release from Comscore, “More than three-quarters of the total U.S. Internet audience (75.7 percent) viewed online video [in January].” And that’s only U.S. internet users. Despite this growing trend, online advertising giant Google has yet to make money on web video ventures, despite owning the largest and most popular site, YouTube.

One reason advertisers haven’t jumped at the online video market may be the nature of user-generated content. They’re afraid their message might be associated with unflattering videos. As a recent article in the Globe and Mail explains, “Many advertisers, for now, are staying away for fear their ads could inadvertently appear with clips that have nudity, foul language or perhaps criticism of their brand.” After spending $1.76 billion dollars to acquire YouTube, though, Google is determined to soothe these fears.

One new strategy is to place advertising in the form of banners or clickable text within a larger video. This will allows advertisers to partner with appropriate videos for their products. For example, a banner for iTunes might be placed on a video for the latest band to hit it big in the viral world. The service also allows advertisers to target ads based on a number of criteria. Their ads can be direct by demographic factors like age, gender, geographic location, or even time of day, eliminating the risk of placement solely based on content.

The other strategy which Google is pushing is for clickable video ads to appear on sites that are a part of their content network and as a sideline on Google search pages. The ads will play with a click, not automatically upon navigating to a page. A good example of this can be seen with this Adobe ad featured on AppleInsider. This also allows clear, directed targeting to eliminate some of the guess work in online video advertising. For example, a Google user who searches for “flower arranging” might be greeted not only with websites on the topic, but also with a 1-800-FLOWERS video about their latest promotion.

In addition to the promise of targeted ads, Google is trying to lure advertisers with the promise of measuring user interest, something which traditional advertising venues cannot provide. As their AdWords page on clickable video ads explains, “We’ll report a clickthrough whenever a user clicks the display URL and visits the advertiser’s site, rather than when a user clicks the play button or image.” This is a more accurate count of interest in a product, as it can measure how many users take action, not just how many users view the video. The pricing for AdWords video is also prorated based on clicks, making it more accessible to companies of all sizes.

While these new services do not guarantee that online videos will start making money for Google, they do pose a significant threat to television and print advertising. It is much cheaper to advertise online than on a television broadcast, and the ROI of any given campaign can be measured immediately and accurately. These benefits could lure companies away from traditional advertising venues to take advantage of the popularity, low cost, and targeted nature of online video. If Google’s plans are successful, we’ll be seeing a marriage between sponsored and user-generated content on our favorite web video sites.

This has been an historic election year in the United States (and not just in regards to the Democratic nominee). With the introduction of Web 2.0 strategy to political campaigns, the candidates have reached voters from previously apathetic or uninformed groups. Campaigns have hired CIOs, launched creative websites, and set up donation systems and volunteer opportunities online. We’ll explore the Web 2.0 efforts, both fun and informative, of each of the remaining candidates in the race for the 2008 presidency.

Barack Obama’s website also allows voters to learn about the candidate issue by issue; visitors to his website can find his views on health care, education, the environment, immigration, Iraq, homeland security, etc. In addition to sharing their candidate’s plans and views, Obama’s website invites visitors to sound off on the issues of the day with a “MyPolicy” function on each issue page. This appeals directly to the increasing atmosphere of participation on the web. People want to influence content and have their voices heard. It’s a subtle way for the Obama campaign to say to voters, “We listen to you.”

In addition to his main website, Obama’s campaign has created a my.barackobama.com portal which allows strong supporters to create their own profiles, organize events, meet like-minded voters, blog about their activities, and help with fund raising efforts. This social networking approach to gathering support has increased Obama’s presence among young voters.

In another attempt to reach grassroots voters, Obama’s website also hosts downloads of widgets (like news feeds for Google Gadgets and a video widget for MySpace). Another great feature was created by Substance, Inc. as a social experiment, and is not officially connected with Obama’s campaign. Their website, Logobama, lets supporters create customized images using the candidate’s logo. The site allows you to upload a photo, position it in the logo, and customize the color scheme. You can then save it in a number of sizes and send it to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Digg, MySpace, LinkedIn, and a number of other Web 2.0 sites. I used a photo from Obama’s Flickr page to create this image.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has also been successful in reaching out to voters online. Her website, which is available in Spanish and English, features many of the same Web 2.0 tools as Obama’s, including an Issues section where voters can share their thoughts with the candidate. Clinton’s main site links to a news feed site called HillaryHub, which pulls the latest stories about her campaign from sources across the web.

Another way in which Clinton’s campaign reached out to wired voters is through the Hillary TV section of her website. It features videos from campaign rallies, speeches, and media appearances. This not only makes the best use of TV advertising dollars, but it also reaches out to the YouTube generation, who tend to get their news and entertainment online. The site is home to the now famous (or infamous, depending on your politics) 3 a.m. advertisement.

Last but not least, Republican nominee-to-be John McCain has maximized his reach on the internet through high-quality videos featuring historical footage. This spot, called Man in the Arena, uses speeches, news footage, and photos from Winston Churchill interspersed with McCain’s own experience as a prisoner of war during Vietnam. One particularly poignant moment shows McCain being released from prison while his voice over declares, “I owe America more than she has ever owed me.” The message is crafted less to the YouTube generation and more to the “Greatest generation”, which is likely to make up McCain’s patriotic support base.

McCain’s website does not feature widgets or logo customization tools like Obama’s. It’s clearly geared at an audience who seeks information, not entertainment, on the internet. However, his blog has won acclaim from the political technology watchdogs at techPresident, a forum which examines the role of technology in campaigns. In this article, techPresident explains how they posted numerous comments on blogs, YouTube accounts, and candidate websites to see if negative commentary would be filtered out. McCain’s blog allowed every comment, positive and negative, to be posted on the site.

While all the candidates have had success reaching voters online, it’s clear which campaigns are trying to attract which demographic of voters. If politics keeps you entertained, the candidates have obliged with all the widgets, videos, photos, and customization tools that Web 2.0 voters want. If you follow politics online to educate yourself about the issues of the day, you’re also in luck. Through blogs, informative websites, and user comments/forums, this year’s candidates invite you not only to explore their plans but also to add your own two cents to the debate.

Finding a job is all about connections. It’s about networking with former colleagues, clients, vendors, classmates, and friends. However, with the increasingly important role of technology in the job hunting process, how do employers and job hunters find or develop those connections? Just as friendship has gone the way of Web 2.0, with sites like Facebook and MySpace becoming the norm for socializing, so have corporate recruiters embraced online networking as a means of establishing professional relationships with potential employees.

One way in which recruiters are reaching out to job hunters is through targeted ads, groups, and messages on social networking sites. For example, Victoria’s Secret hosts a Facebook group which directs members to internship opportunities with the clothing and lingerie retail giant. Southwest Airlines has a similar group, offering not only internships but also job openings targeting college students studying in technology programs. The post specifically invites software engineers from six Texas/Oklahoma schools to apply, since Southwest is based in Dallas.

The idea is that by reaching out to current students and recent graduates, recruiters will be able to speak directly to potential entry-level employees. Also, as Southwest’s efforts demonstrate, those who spend time on Facebook and other social networking sites are more likely to be tech savvy, hence the job postings for their technology group. Employers have had great success with these targeted messages. According to the Wall Street Journal, Verizon Communications also used sponsored posts and groups on Facebook, which resulted in over one million clicks on their career site.

Recruiters and job hunters alike are also using video sharing sites to promote themselves and connect face-to-face with each other. A good example of this is the proliferation of recruitment videos up on YouTube and other video sharing sites. For example, this spot from Cisco highlights the diverse workforce, the fluidity of roles within the organization, and the personal interests of their employees. The actors (or real employees?), none of whomlook older than 35, are shown not just at work, but also at the beach surfing, at sporting events, in volunteer roles, and traveling around the world. The message is strong, the video is high-quality, and the market they want to reach is active on YouTube.

Job hunters are turning the tables on recruiters by using YouTube for self-promotion videos. This clever spot follows a graphic designer as she hands out resumes around town. The videographer asks her potential interview questions which highlight her passion for her field. Another great idea? Model Tomiko Foster created a video of the best shots of her portfolio, giving potential clients not only a look at her past work, but also an idea of her presence in front of the camera. The video also features a plug for her agency, Ford Models, and invites interested parties to visit their website.

Recruiters and potential employers are also utilizing video technology to set up interviews and meetings without the commitment of flying candidates across the country and picking up a large expense tabs. Employers can virtually meet with job candidates, and executives in offices around the country could potentially participate or observe the interview. Industry experts predict that more and more computers will feature video conferencing technology to allow the average job seeker access to employers all over the world.

Perhaps one of the first web tools to be utilized by recruiters and employers was the search engine. Most hiring managers spend a few minutes “Googling” job candidates before calling them for an interview, and if they find something unsavory or unattractive, the job hunter may not make it to the interview stage. If a potential candidate is featured in drunken photos on MySpace or wrote an inflammatory blog post about a past employer, recruiters are going to think twice about hiring him or her. It may be judgmental, but it’s the nature of business. Recruiters want to meet with people who conduct themselves professionally, and a racy Facebook profile could work against a job hunter.

Those candidates who are tech savvy are creating websites and profiles on business networking sites like LinkedIn. LinkedIn is essentially Facebook for business. Job hunters and employers alike create professional profiles which showcase their experience, opportunities, and best qualities. One can connect with former coworkers and find job opportunities through the online network. Once you establish a connection with a professional contact or colleague, you have access to all of their connections, etc. The site is fast becoming a new frontier for turning personal and business contacts into job leads and professional opportunities.

While a personal connection is always a sure way to find job leads, Web 2.0 technologies are helping to bridge the gap between technology and face-to-face contact. Through video conferencing, social/enterprise networking, and personal promotion, recruiters and job hunters are making it easier to get to know each other on the internet.

Professional athletes have always been big business for advertisers, but recent trends show that the pros are taking the lead when it comes to low-budget, online ads. Instead of allowing big-budget companies like Nike and Gatorade to create their images, athletes are reaching out to fans with Web 2.0 technology. Many have Facebook and MySpace profiles, contribute videos to YouTube, and write regular blogs. This grassroots marketing effort shows that celebrity athletes are stepping up to the plate to showcase their personalities, and it has helped them establish public identities outside of traditional sponsorships.

Perhaps no athlete has done a better job of web self-promotion than Chris Bosh, the charismatic forward for the Toronto Raptors. This rising star in the NBA is card-carrying member of the Web 2.0 generation. In addition to being the fourth draft pick in 2003 and taking the Raptors to their first ever division title, Bosh has his own YouTube channel, the only athlete to claim this “honor”. Bosh got the channel following the success of his hit YouTube video, in which he asks fans to vote for his inclusion on the NBA All Star team. Dressed in a cowboy hat and a bolo tie (Bosh is a native Texan), he stumps using the classic language of a used car salesman: “You think it’s $20? No sir. You think it’s $10? No ma’am. Even five? Uh huh! It is free! That is right, it is free!” In case you’re wondering, “Bubba” is played by Bosh’s brother.

Bosh’s hilarious self-promotion was a success, and he will be playing in the All Star game on February 17th. Fans on YouTube have commented that his sense of humor won their votes. As one commentator wrote, “NBA should be THRILLED to have this guy! Young superstar coming into his prime. Tech savy for the internet.” The video has received nearly 500,000 views, all for a production cost of approximately $20. As Bosh told the Wall Street Journal, $15 of that was for the cowboy hat. On his official blog, Bosh expresses his interest in continuing his YouTube success: “I think I’ve found a way for me to show people how I like to have fun. I have a few ideas for new videos so I want everyone to be on the lookout.”

Another NBA star has also taken his branding into his own hands. Steve Nash, an All Star who plays guard with the Phoenix Suns, enlisted amateur filmmaker Lola Schnabel to put together a web ad for Nike. The unusual part of this is that Nike had no creative control or financial stake in the beautifully shot and expertly edited ad. It features Nash’s other athletic talents like soccer and skateboarding, and he felt it could better reflect his personality than a big budget masterpiece produced by Nike. While Nash isn’t quite as wired as Bosh, the two NBA and YouTube stars may represent the future of how professional athletes interact with fans and advertisers.

The biggest surprise in this new trend is that advertisers have not objected to these independent ads. While Nike has not specifically promoted Nash’s spot, a spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal, “If an athlete remains true to him or herself and respectful to others and the brand, then it is hard to envision a conflict.” Nike’s position acknowledges that athletes are essentially brands or commodities, and as long as their self-promotion efforts align with those of their corporate sponsors, the benefits are universal. As more and more tech-savvy sports stars emerge in the professional leagues, we can look forward to an increase in viral, web marketing efforts by athletes, and for athletes.

Web video continues to amaze and amuse users, and the options for watching high quality content continue to expand. Now advertisers are getting in on the game, but not in the conventional (i.e. Google-run) way. Time Warner’s popular website, Very Funny Ads, highlights the best and funniest commercials from around the world. Launched in 2006 to coincide with TBS’s annual World’s Funniest Commercials special, the site gives viewers access to highly entertaining and frequently updated content while showcasing the brightest talent of the advertising world and the companies who use humor to hawk their products.

Advertising firms are well aware of the power of humor. Funny commercials make us stop and actually watch the duration of the ad. They feel more like a short film, and they are often shared around the water cooler or dinner table. Advertisers have long harnessed the power of funny during the biggest ad spectacle of the year, the SuperBowl. Funny commercials aired during the big game often spawn entire campaigns and recurring characters who become the backbone of future ad efforts.

One of the most successful of these funny ads aired during the Superbowl last year and is now featured on Very Funny Ads. This spot shows Kevin Federline, the ex-husband of Britney Spears, daydreaming of his life as a rap star while actually serving up fries in a fast food restaurant. The commercial is for an insurance policy through Nationwide, but the product seems overshadowed by the hilarious situation. The ad was wildly popular, generating thousands of news stories and millions in free publicity for the company, though whether it sold insurance policies is another question entirely. The commercial has had a second life on Very Funny Ads and YouTube, which helps keep Nationwide Insurance’s name in people’s minds. We remember it only because it’s funny, and web allows us to enjoy it again and again.

Another benefit of sites like Very Funny Ads is allowing users from all around the globe to see commercials aired overseas. This ad for Hydro, a Norwegian energy company, features daring and dangerous youngsters rerouting a train for their entertainment. The video is shot documentary style, as though one of the children is filming the incident. The captioning on screen says, “There are many young engineers. We can’t wait till they grow up.” The humor of the ad is universal, and it is a prime example of good content enabling a product to reach a global market.

While many forms of humor are universal (i.e. unexpected endings like in the Federline ad, absurdity like in the train commercial), sometimes companies who try to be funny in their commercials end up issuing formal apologies, pulling ad campaigns, losing customers, and probably firing their advertising firms. A great example of this can be found in this GM spot that was also featured during the SuperBowl last year. The commercial features a lovable yellow robot who makes a mistake on the factory floor, loses his job, and becomes so despondent that he jumps off a bridge. Alert readers will already have spotted the problem with this “funny” ad. Perhaps unemployed, depressed, and suicidal auto workers (be they human or robot) aren’t universally funny. The ad was also criticized for featuring the robot in the first place, since many auto workers have lost their jobs to automation in recent years. GM was forced to change the ending of the commercial so that the bridge jump was only a dream, but they never issued a formal statement.

Very Funny Ads streams videos and supplies links to the commercials they feature, but they do not allow downloads or embedding. Their content is updated frequently, and users are encouraged to suggest ads they would like to see featured on the site, though they cannot directly upload á la YouTube. This forum, and others of its type, give commercials which use humor a second life on the web. Perhaps we’ll see more and more advertisers using humor to give their commercials a longer lifecycle through video sharing and hosting websites. It certainly maximizes those advertising budgets.

The election season is reaching a fever pitch, and this election year the candidates are reaching out to voters in unique ways. All of the top contenders have some type of online presence, though some have been more successful in their social networking efforts than others. They have created Facebook pages and groups, MySpace profiles, YouTube videos, and encouraged their supporters to organize through Meetup.com. So far, Republican Ron Paul has focused on Web 2.0 tools more than any other candidate, and he tops the list of candidate Google searches for 2007. He has certainly started a trend, but the question remains: will hits and Facebook friends translate into votes?

The candidates have used different means of reaching voters who hang out online, and with varying degrees of success. Democrat Barack Obama’s Facebook group, “One Million Strong for Barack” was created by a supporter, and infamously joined by Rudy Giuliani’s daughter. Other candidates have copied the verbiage, including TV personality Stephen Colbert, though to date the group is home to just over 400,000 Facebook members. The group is a grassroots effort run by supporters, and is not affiliated with Obama’s campaign. This is in contrast to the other candidates Facebook groups, which are calculated PR moves. Perhaps this puts Obama ahead of the curve when election time arrives.

Another frequently used site is YouTube, where the candidates have jointly posted over 2500 videos since last January (452 of those belong to Republican Mitt Romney, never one to be camera-shy). Perhaps the most entertaining of these comes from Mike Huckabee, who is clearly trying to capitalize on the recent endorsement from Chuck Norris, a.k.a. Walker, Texas Ranger. Huckabee asserts (with straight face) that “there’s no chin under Chuck Norris’ beard, only another fist.” It’s clear this ad is meant to appeal to the YouTube demographic, as I’m sure my grandmother wouldn’t laugh at this joke.

Perhaps the most influential of the Web 2.0 sites used by presidential candidates is Meetup.com, a networking site which allows users to connect with others in their communities with similar interests. Their website states: “We want to see the world’s people self-organize. We believe that people can change their world, or the world by organizing themselves into groups - Meetups - powerful enough to make a difference.” Ron Paul has had tremendous success with Meetup, and his approximately 82,000 supporters have organized 21,000 offline events to fund raise and generate support for him. Whether he wins or loses the nomination, his success using Meetup and other social networking sites will likely be emulated in future election campaigns.

Web analytics company Compete has created a tool to track the candidates and their successes and failures using online networking. Candidate Facetime breaks up the candidates by party and shows what percentage of their “hits” are on their official websites, how their hits stack up against their competitors, and how many total hours people have spent learning about them through their Web 2.0 efforts. November’s data shows Ron Paul as a clear Republican frontrunner when it comes to generating online buzz, while Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards are neck-and-neck for the Democrats.

As Mike Huckabee points out on his Facebook group, “I believe that the internet will play a huge role in the 2008 campaign and sites such as this are wonderful tools for people to come together and show their support for the candidate of their choice.” Right he is, especially when it comes to gathering support among younger, more wired voters. Or are they “voters” when all they’ve done to express their political beliefs is to post a candidate’s name to an online profile? Are these groups just a way for lazy voters to establish a political identity, or will they transform into actual support for these candidates? We’re about to find out.

The day is soon approaching when the major electronic devices in our lives will become integrated. Our phones are already MP3 players, our digital cameras are already phones, and our phones are becoming more and more like laptops. The TV set seems to be the last man out in this trend, like the wimpy kid who gets picked last for the dodge ball team (no offense meant, I was that wimpy kid). In our heart of hearts, we all expected to be surfing the internet on our TVs by now, and it’s disappointing that it hasn’t come to fruition. However, some folks are working on providing internet video through our TVs, and the challenges they face are immense. With the high cost of service and hardware, the lack of quality content, the slow download speeds, and the complications of setup, there are definitely hurdles that these companies are going to have to jump.

Apple TV is a serious contender in this market, and some industry experts expect their business to grow significantly in 2008. Their relatively small box would be fairly easy to find room for in your entertainment center, but the 40GB version retails for $299.00, which is a bit much for the pleasure of watching YouTube on a widescreen. In addition to other internet video sites, Apple TV can access your iTunes library and display your downloads on your TV. The device works with a wireless connection, so it wouldn’t be practical if your home connection isn’t wireless.

Sony also released a device called “BRAVIA Internet Video Link”, which will be integrated into most of its new television sets to allow them access to free internet video content from providers such as AOL, Yahoo!, Grouper, and of course, Sony BMG and Sony Pictures. The BRAVIA link will access your broadband Ethernet connection, so it won’t be a problem for non-wireless subscribers. There’s also no extra fee for the service, though how long that will be true is another question. One is immediately suspicious that ISPs or cable companies (which are mostly the same these days) will find a way to charge you extra for downloading and watching videos on your TV. After all, as a Canadian man found out recently, providers always seem to find exceptions to the term “unlimited”.

There is another concern for companies looking to bring web video to the living room. Those Marshall McLuhan scholars may recall the mantra, “The medium is the message,” and while television is the medium of passivity, the internet is the medium of creativity, at least when it comes to user-generated video content. People do not contribute to their favorite TV shows, but they do increasingly contribute to the content we view on the web. People watch TV when they want to absorb, not create, and it’s unclear as to whether these two desires can be balanced.

So the question is: does anyone really want to watch YouTube on their TV? Do they want to flip on their TV and actively search for shows or do they want to consume whatever FOX, NBC, ABC, and CBS has planned for the evening? Forrester Research indicates that 80% of responders would not pay for an internet video TV device at any price (Wall Street Journal article). The makers of these adaptive devices may find that there simply isn’t a market for their product.

Another challenge they face is the rise of web-enabled cell phones. It seems that we’re watching internet video on increasingly smaller screens rather than on our increasingly humongous television sets. Web-enabled phones have seen huge growth this year, and their ability to entertain us seems endless. Who wouldn’t want to check out last night’s episode of The Office during the morning commuter rail ride?

Internet video TV devices may be barking up the wrong tree, but it’s not entirely a lost cause. The industry needs to do some serious thinking about their target market, and they need to make the devices less obtrusive and more affordable. Whether or not web video is brought to our TV screens, the idea of consolidating electronic devices will live on, and eventually our TVs will be able to join the rest of the proverbial dodge ball team.