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This Saturday, YouTube will be hosting its first ever live streaming event. The broadcast will feature a music and variety show being held at Fort Mason Center’s Herbst Pavilion in San Francisco.

The event begins at 8pm EST and will feature Soulja Boy Tellam, Will.i.am, Tay Zonday of Chocolate Rain fame and a bunch of “talent” from the YouTube community.

Thankfully, Ask a Ninja will be there. He’s one of my favorite YouTube sensations of all time.

Most importantly, there will be dance. But will it top Justin Timberlake as Beyonce’s backup dancer on that other live variety show that airs on Saturdays last weekend? Me thinks not. (Dangit. NBC has still NOT posted that skit on Hulu.com. Really, NBC?)

Related Reading:
YouTube Rolls Out Sponsored Videos
YouTube Adds Search to Embeddable Videos
Yellowbook and YouTube Enter Content Distribution Partnership

Major hat tip to TechCrunch for sharing with the world a way to link to a certain time point within a video on YouTube.

Take for example this video of a clip from Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ

If you wanted to share the link but have the video start 56 seconds in where the film cuts away from Ginger Rogers in the Senate Gallery to Jimmy Stewart’s character speaking and barely standing as part of a filibuster, then you would simply add:

#t=0m56s

Those aren’t random letters and numbers. Put the minute number before the letter ‘m’ and the seconds number before the letter ’s’ to direct people to the portion of the video you desire.

Now the link is

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p1d19wV1GZQ#t=0m56s

Related Reading:
YouTube Insight Now Shows Which Part of Videos are Hottest
YouTube, Now with Click-to-Buy
Beam me up, YouTube!
YouTube to Launch New ‘HotSpots’ Feature

Lawrence Lessig, a Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, will be giving the opening keynote at Search Engine Strategies Chicago on Monday, Dec. 8, 2008. The title of his keynote is “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy.”

And, if you read the description of Professor Lessig’s keynote in the conference agenda, it says: “The content industry has convinced industry in general that extremism in copyright regulation is good for business and economic growth. That’s false. In this talk, Professor Lessig describes the creative and profitable future that culture and industry could realize, if only we gave up IP extremism.”

What is he getting at?

Well, “Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy” also happens to be the title of Professor Lessig’s new book, which just went on sale on Amazon.com.

And, according to the editorial reviews on Amazon.com, “The author of Free Culture shows how we harm our children — and almost anyone who creates, enjoys, or sells any art form — with a restrictive copyright system driven by corporate interests. Lessig reveals the solutions to this impasse offered by a collaborative yet profitable ‘hybrid economy’.”

It goes on to say that Professor Lessig, who is the reigning authority on intellectual property in the Internet age, “spotlights the newest and possibly the most harmful culture war — a war waged against our kids and others who create and consume art.” It adds, “America’s copyright laws have ceased to perform their original, beneficial role: protecting artists’ creations while allowing them to build on previous creative works. In fact, our system now criminalizes those very actions.”

How does it do that? Well, Professor Lessig argues that “biting” riffs from films, videos, or songs shouldn’t be crimes. Why? It makes felons out of some of today’s most talented artists.

Professor Lessig argues that the way to end this war is to embrace what he calls the “read-write culture,” which allows its users to create art as readily as they consume it. And he can already see glimmers of a new hybrid economy that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy” evident in such websites as Wikipedia and YouTube.

Wow. That’s strong stuff. And, if we play buzzword bingo at SES Chicago 2008, then there are a couple arcane business concepts that we can use on our bingo cards.

But, this short blurb may not do justice to Professor Lessig. So, I emailed him some questions about the topic of his opening keynote. And he emailed me his answers — quickly, I might add.

Here is our Q&A:

Q: Who benefits and who is harmed by extremism in copyright regulation?

A: Benefits: Lawyers (certainly). The record companies (maybe). Harmed: Artists, businesses, consumers — and a generation of (criminalized) kids.

Q: What are the “read-write culture” and the “hybrid economy”?

A: A RW culture is one where ordinary people are empowered to participate in the creation and recreation of their culture. Every culture in human history has been RW, save for a few dark years in the 20th century.

A hybrid is a commercial entity that tries to leverage value out of a sharing economy, or a sharing economy that tries to use a commercial entity to support it. Either way, two radically different cultures need to learn how to work together with each other.

Q: When will this war on our kids stop, the “read-write culture” be reborn, and the “hybrid economy” start to flourish?

A: When policy makers are woken up to the extraordinary cost this war is imposing.

Q: Where can we already see glimmers of a new “hybrid economy” that combines the profit motives of traditional business with the “sharing economy”?

A: I think everywhere around us. All of the interesting Internet businesses today are hybrid: Flickr, Second Life, Yelp!, even Amazon builds much of its business from the sharing activity of its customers.

Q: Why is IP extremism bad for business and economic growth?

A: Practice moderation. When the lawyers in the room start insisting that the licenses you create must impose perfect control over everything you have, ask them to prove it. Ask them to demonstrate that the business return from that relationship of antagonism is higher than its cost. Don’t give over your business’ future to those who don’t think like a business man or woman. Keep focused on the only undeniable truth: IP is an asset. Like any business asset, it should be deployed to maximize the value of the corporation.

Let me add that I’ve watched the 19-minute-long video of Professor Lessig speaking at last year’s TED Conference as well as the 4-minute 35 second video from OpenSourceCinema which is embedded below. So, I am confident that he will rock the house at Search Engine Strategies Chicago.

Lessig Remix

Professor Lessig was also named one of Scientific American’s Top 50 Visionaries, for arguing “against interpretations of copyright that could stifle innovation and discourse online.” He’s on the board of the Creative Commons project has served on the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. He was also a columnist for Wired, Red Herring, and the Industry Standard.

In other words, he’s a speaker worth coming to SES Chicago to hear. And, yes, I do think I’ll put some of his arcane business concepts on a buzzword bingo card.

On Friday, the YouTube Blog announced that the video sharing site was starting to test full-length programming. Apparently, YouTubers have been asking “to be beamed up with Scotty, to devise a world-saving weapon using only gum and paperclips, and to get your grub on at ‘The Peach Pit’.”

Hey, I’m not making this up. Go to the YouTube Blog and read it yourself.

Through a deal with CBS, YouTube is now offering “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” to the 91 million viewers in the U.S. who watch 5 billion videos a month (54.8 videos per viewer). Yes, yes, comScore Video Metrix reports there are another 19.7 million viewers in the U.K who watch 1.4 billion videos a month on YouTube.com (72.4 videos per viewer). But, I’m sorry, I can’t find out how many there are in Canada.

Nevertheless, the YouTube Blog says, “These shows will be available in the new Theater View style we rolled out earlier this week, which provides optimal experience for watching full-length programming on your computer.”

Yes, yes, but what does this mean to search engine marketers?

The YouTube Blog adds, “As we test this new format, we also want to ensure that our partners have more options when it comes to advertising on their full-length TV shows. You may see in-stream video ads (including pre-, mid- and post-rolls) embedded in some of these episodes; this advertising format will only appear on premium content where you are most comfortable seeing such ads.”

Ah, ha! You knew there was a catch!

Still, in order to make it clear to viewers, YouTube has labeled all full-length videos with a Film Strip symbol so they’ll know what kind of content they’re choosing to watch and what type of ads they might see.

I can’t wait to share this news with Matt Bailey, the founder of SiteLogic. My business partner, Jamie O’Donnell, talked with Matt about Trekkie lore and web analytics at SES San Jose 2008. Matt was the first to analyze “the Red Shirt Phenomenon.” (As any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam down to the planet with Captain Kirk, you’re gonna die.) But, check out the YouTube video below to hear Matt’s analysis for yourself.

Measuring Web 2.0 with Star Trek - & SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey

By the way, Matt Baily will be teaching one of the Search Engine Marketing Training Workshops at SES Chicago 2008. It’s the Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness, which will be held on Friday, Dec. 12, 2008.

To prepare you for Matt’s workshop, here are some basic stats:
The Enterprise had a crew of 430 during its five-year mission (although, the show was only on the air for 3 years). In the 80 episodes that were produced, 59 crewmembers were killed, which represents 13.7% of the crew. So, that’s what Matt uses as the overall “conversion rate.”

Heck, I can’t explain it as well as he does. So, watch the video interview above — read his article over on the ClickTracks site — or prepare to be amazed during his workshop at SES Chicago.

Human intelligence-based search company ChaCha has announced ChaCha 1:1, a mobile answers service designed for corporate mobile marketing campaigns. The service allows companies to utilize ChaCha’s SMS search product to initiate conversations with consumers.

“Through our sophisticated technology and human intelligence, we’re enabling anyone to harness the power of our mobile answers service,” said ChaCha co-founder and CEO, Scott A. Jones. “Now, ChaCha 1:1 Mobile Marketing Solutions ushers in the era of truly personalized mobile marketing which empowers companies to engage their target audience much more effectively.”

One of the first companies to utilize the service is Coca-Cola. The company kicked of their campaign at a NASCAR event, the Allstate Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway on July 27, 2008. Coca-Cola saw a 5.2% click-through rate, much higher than the industry average of 1-2 percent.

“You need the right partner to truly make mobile marketing work for your brand. Coca-Cola is excited to work with ChaCha and see its interactive mobile marketing service effectively reach consumers in a more personal and engaging way,” said Meghan Berigan, operational marketing manager at Coca-Cola. “We are excited about this collaboration and the opportunity to work with a market innovator such as ChaCha.”

Earlier this year, ChaCha launched SMS based search at the Sundance Film Festival. ChaCha also said they’re surpassing Google SMS as the fastest growing mobile search application.

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