Foursquare Cops Fight Against Social Media Abuse
As a casual user of the location-based social networking service Foursquare, I will admit to executing the occasional misdemeanor — checking in at a local sandwich shop I visited earlier in the day from the comfort of my own couch, seeing what might happen if I repeatedly check in over the course of a night...
Reservation Brings an Intimate Touch to Superheroics
Comparing a web series to a TV show isn’t something I love to do, because the playing field is pretty uneven. But in the case of the indie series Reservation, when compared to the NBC drama Heroes, I don’t mind doing so because Reservation wins. Directed by Matthew Balthrop of g14 Productions and distributed via...
A Treadmill Helps Keep Quiz Show Red Carpet Run Moving Fast
I knew I was going to enjoy the entertainment quiz show Red Carpet Run the moment I saw the words “on a moving treadmill.” Sure, it’s a gimmick to have contestants answer questions while running on a treadmill, but it’s a great gimmick. In fact, I’d probably enjoy Red Carpet Run more if they spent...
The Case in Defense of Sony PlayStation’s The Tester
When Sony announced the premise of its first reality series for the PlayStation Network in February, I wasn’t the only one who thought that a competition to win an unglamorous entry-level position was kinda dumb. Internet mockery didn’t, however, keep The Tester from racking up a total of 2 million downloads over the course of...
Minus Pre-Rolls, Luck and the Virgin A Tight and Intriguing 60 Seconds
If I were given the power to make rules about online video advertising, here’d be one of them: No pre-roll ad can be longer than, say, 20 percent of a video’s run-time. I do not have this power, though, and thus I am sad to say that of the four and a half minutes of...
#CelebrateTheWeb Changes The Post-Streamys Conversation
The tone for last night’s Celebrate The Web event was set with its rebranding. When Tubefilter Associate Editor Jenni Powell and Guild producer Kim Evey announced that they were putting together a “do-over” for Streamy Awards winners who thought that Sunday night’s ceremony didn’t properly represent the spirit of web video, they referred to...
Supernatural Spinoff Ghostfacers Brings Funny, Lacks Freshness
Watching Ghostfacers, a new WB TV series spun off from the long-running supernatural series Supernatural, I am struck, once again, by a yearning for a time machine. This parody of docu-soap reality shows like Ghost Hunters is well-made and well-written. It also feels painfully behind the times.The episode of Supernatural that introduced Ed (A.J. Buckley),...
Remember When: The Next Great Indie Comedy To Maybe Go Big
There is something fascinating about the fact that it is still possible to make a piece of content about three or four white guys in their 20s goofing around (a genre of comedy so old that I’m sure it’s in Aristotle’s Poetics somewhere) that manages to also be distinctively fresh. Of course, a good...
The Streamy Awards: A Producer’s Apology And Its Three Fails
UPDATED: Web chatter panning last night’s Streamy Awards show was fast and furious even before the final award was handed out, thanks to a combination of three different fails: Tech Fail, Taste Fail and Attitude Fail. And via phone, executive producer and Tubefilter CEO Brady Brim-Deforest apologized for these things, saying that “Last night’s show...
2nd Annual Streamy Award Winners
I’m going to have a whole lotta thoughts on last night’s Streamy Awards later today — trust me on that — but for right now let’s just celebrate the lucky recipients of the 2nd annual awards show for web video, all of whom save Zach Galifianakis were there in person to pick up their prizes.Best...
Where to Watch the Streamy Awards Online
You could call them the Oscars of the web, the Emmys of online video, or the Webbys of… webby things with moving images, I guess. Either way, the Streamy Awards, which are happening this Sunday in Los Angeles, are indisputably the most prestigious awards show of this newteevee world. This year’s...
Megan Fox, Brian Austin Green Face Off Against Schwarzenegger for Public Schools
The quality of public education in California right now is a pretty depressing topic, and as discussion of yet more cuts builds, it’s no wonder that local parents are turning to humor. It is however impressive that they’re enlisting movie stars as well — not to mention the Funny Or Die brand.In Hot for...
