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Ferrell, little Pearl team for another online comedy video

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ferrell-cop.jpgComedian Will Ferrell, riding high on the Internet waves via the success of his online video The Landlord, is teaming with 2-year-old co-star Pearl to debut another video. Good Cop, Bad Cop will be available for viewing on Funny or Die at 8pm on Monday, June 25.

Ferrell portrays “Angel, a hard-nosed criminal who refuses to cooperate with the police, leaving them no choice but to call in their toughest lieutenant — a baby cop, known in the precinct as The Confession Machine.” This video marks the end of Pearl’s acting career for the time being – at least until she gets an agent by age 10.

The Landlord has been quite the hit indeed, being viewed over 35 million times since it debuted a few months ago.

Originally posted on June 22, 2007 @ 1:56 pm

Its JerryTime video blog snags Emmy

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jerrytime.jpgIts JerryTime, a funny video blog which is a semi-autobiographical Web series on one of its founders, recently took some gold home from a traditional media event. The blog apparently won an Emmy at the 34th Annual Creative Arts & Entertainment Daytime Emmy Awards on June 14.

Its JerryTime, created solely by brothers Orrin and Jerry Zucker, chronicles the tales of an “everyman whose life is just a bit harder than it should be.” The video series, which was nominated for an Emmy last year but lost, won in the Broadband Variety category, beating out competition such as Guiding Light’s 70th Anniversary Celebration, Procter and Gamble Productions; Dexter Blood Spatter 101, Showtime; Icons of Science Quantum Theory, Discovery Education; The Extreme Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments, EepyBird.

The series has received acclaim as well from Time, Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Wired, and The Hollywood Reporter, as well as numerous festival nominations and awards, including the Ottawa International Animation Festival.

Originally posted on June 22, 2007 @ 1:39 pm

CastTV helps power TV Guide’s Online Video Guide

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tvguide.jpgCastTV announced its first customer agreement, licensing its innovative video search technology to TV Guide. TV Guide’s Online Video Guide uses CastTV’s proprietary technology to help power its search index.

TV Guide’s Online Video Guide is focused primarily on professional and independent entertainment video available on the Internet, and provides users with better, more relevant, targeted search results in an uncluttered manner. Under the terms of its two-year customer agreement with TV Guide, CastTV’s video crawler automatically indexes content from top entertainment destinations including major broadcast and cable networks, movie download sites, sports sites and aggregators of professionally produced content.

“CastTV is helping us to extend our powerful brand, and guidance and navigation leadership to the Internet,” said Paul Greenberg, general manager, TV Guide Online. “Using CastTV’s indexing technology, we have been able to ensure that TV Guide is providing users of our Online Video Guide with a unique and relevant way to search for entertainment video on the Internet.”

Currently in private beta, users will soon have a chance to experience CastTV this summer with the launch of its consumer destination.

Originally posted on June 21, 2007 @ 9:30 am

Comedy Central debuts 2008 presidential race comedy site

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Comedy Central got more into the festive mood over the 2008 presidential election today by unveiling Indecision2008.com. The site “revels in the absurdity of campaign news on a daily basis.”

Comedy Central is using Indecision2008.com to aggregate related video content daily from shows such as The Daily Show With Jon Stewart, ‘The Colbert Report and Lil’ Bush. The site will also post up-to-the-minute coverage of election happenings via its own blogger who will hunt the Web for “the most absurd campaign tidbits.” This is joined by widgets which provide random campaign factoids, interactive polls and downloads such as IM icons and wallpapers.

Future plans call for an expanded offering of widgets, a public forum to discuss all things political, online fantasy gaming and user generated video contributions in the spirit of the election.

“The presidential election has long been a source of comedic inspiration for our shows and our network,” said Erik Flannigan, executive vice president, digital media, Comedy Central. “With Indecision2008.com, Comedy Central is augmenting the best of our on-air coverage with programming exclusively created for the Web audience which is cordially invited to participate and join in the fun.”

indecision-2008.jpg

Originally posted on June 21, 2007 @ 5:09 pm

MTV Networks, Visible World partner to offer targeted dynamic advertising solutions

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mtv.jpgMTV Networks and Visible World, a video advertising technology and services company, are partnering to give advertisers the ability to dynamically customize and target video ads in real-time across MTVN’s premier U.S.-based TV channels and websites, including the MTV, MTV2, VH1, CMT, Spike TV, Comedy Central, TV Land, Nickelodeon and Nick At Nite brands. The partnership marks the most extensive national deployment of dynamic video message customization across channels, programs and audience demographics.

“Our goal is to fundamentally change the way our viewers experience advertising by giving them an innovative experience, and our partnership with Visible World gives us the leading edge,” said Judy McGrath, Chairman and CEO, MTV Networks. “Our consumers can access relevant information from our marketing partners across every screen.”

“We are excited to partner with MTV Networks to offer advertisers new strategic capabilities that optimize the effectiveness of their messaging across many platforms in this rapidly evolving media landscape,” said Tara Walpert, President of Visible World.

Visible World’s technology and services enable advertisers to target, tailor, monitor, and actively change video ads within seconds. Now, MTV
Networks’ marketing partners can pre-program and proactively edit across all channels and websites their ad content on-the-fly.

Originally posted on June 18, 2007 @ 2:09 pm