Social Cache.
A Nemo blog. Dealing with uncommon cents.

Radiohead’s ‘Down Is The New Up’ is no longer an ironic title – take a listen. Radiohead – Down Is The New Up

Found on The Music Slut.

I’m confused by this TechCrunch end of year story entitled Top Social Media Sites of 2008. YouTube is nowhere to be found in the top 20..? Does this mean that YouTube no longer counts as a social media site or is it just that getting 5.4 billion views puts it in a rank all of its own? This chart from May 2008 puts YouTube at the pole position.

Regardless of rank YouTube had a great year; or rather companies who understood its power learned how to use it well. Salon.com points out in The Year of Viral Video that even political junkies jumped in, as can be seen in this example of a campaign message for Obama, a brilliant retelling of the “Wassup?” Budweiser ad.

As anyone who hasn’t been living under rock knows, SNL, Tina Fey and Hulu had a lot of fun at Gov Sarah Palin’s expense. Hulu, the joint NBC-News Corp. service, which launched publicly back in March, now ranks sixth among Web video sites. Between Hulu and NBC.com, more people watched “SNL’s” Sarah Palin sketches online than on TV. Their Clinton-Palin opener, which aired on Sept. 13, has been viewed more than 8 million times on the “SNL” Web site.

Salon also pointed out that “The smaller Web video site, Vimeo, continued to expand its catalog of beautifully produced videos available in HD and struck gold with Capucine, an adorable little French girl. The pint-size Amélie enthralled us with her storytelling, her imagination — and her accent. She even befriended a boy online; it was like e-Harmony for kindergartners.”

Capucine meets Alex from Capucha on Vimeo.

Click the image and watch the action…

In today’s Brave New World, beware of those amongst the social media chattering classes advising companies and brands who throw around phrases such as “you need a Facebook page” or better yet, buzz words like viral as in “you should make a viral video,” perhaps even “are you Twitting.” Facebook is getting called out as the place for narcissists [who would ever have thought...!] meanwhile pundits are trying to get their heads around The Naked Generation [Hint: they lay their lives bare online and understand that Britney flies close to flameout but dig the fact that she's a fascinating spectacle all the same.]

I’m not certain if Nintendo has a Facebook page for its game, Wario Land but if you want an example of an online marketing campaign that is simple, effective and fun then this YouTube video is for you.

As CNet reports today, Hollywood and YouTube may be edging towards their own version of Pax Romana. Meanwhile, beyond the learned walls of the law courts and Google’s battle with Viacom, we here at Social Cache have been scratching our heads over Viacom’s position.

Obviously Viacom is up in arms over what it argues is copyright infringement whenever one of its artists’ songs are used in a user-generated video. Their lawyers are even arguing that in most cases they want to set aside the notion of fair use. That in itself is ridiculous as in a lot of circumstances Viacom has stepped over the edge of copyright boundaries. In 2007 Viacom sent YouTube 100,000 takedown notices! And as this video from the EFF points out, many of those videos that Viacom had asked YouTube to remove, were not infringing anyone’s copyright.

We ourselves received a takedown notice and had a video removed from YouTube. The video was of one of our numerous snowboarding expeditions to Mt Hood and it included a clip of a song by the group White Zombie. We could have argued that under the law if we had used the music for parody, for comment, for criticism, for news reporting or for non-commercial use then we’d be in the clear. In this instance it was the latter – non-commercial use. We couldn’t be bothered, we weren’t that attached to the video and anyway, like millions of other folks, we put up videos at an alarming rate. Here’s our latest.

So here’s the Nemo and Social Cash POV. By removing our video Viacom denied thousands of people the pleasure of hearing a White Zombie song. One of its own artists! And no money was changing hands. One solution – Viacom should provide YouTube with a license from a roster of its artists who agree that their music can be used in a video for non-commercial use. In return YouTube provides its users with a simple license that allows users to add music from these artists to their amateur videos for non-commercial use for a small fee of, perhaps $3.00. Now Viacom and its artists get a share of this revenue, YouTube users won’t receive takedown notices, and Viacom can go a long way to recouping its, no doubt, millions of dollars it is spending on these lawsuits.

You’re welcome. Let me know why it won’t work….

Meanwhile over at MySpace, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation has a business that’s built on the backs of thousands of unsigned musicians. Who is looking out for them?

Well, either Gary Busey has or GotVMail has. Gary appears to be “tired and emotional” as Private Eye would say, so it’s sure to be viral.