YouTube Announces First Award Winners

NinjaTurtle writes to mention the first winners of YouTube's awards series. Several of the site's (hoped-to-be) annual awards went to video series that have become very popular on the site, including the 'Ask a Ninja' segments and the pop band OK Go. "'Ask a Ninja' triumphed over what may be YouTube's biggest celebrity, Lonelygirl15. That bedroom production finished fourth, behind 'Ask A Gay Man' and 'Chad Vader.' Terra Naomi won for best music video for her song 'Say It's Possible,' a one-shot clip of her playing acoustic guitar and singing. Naomi has parlayed her online success into a record deal with Island Records and will release her debut album this summer."

Comments

Re:Youtube award Link please

[chalkyj]

Here you go: http://www.youtube.com/ytawards

Damn pirates!

[imadork]

None of these clips would have existed if it weren't for Viacom....

wierd voting system

[lortho]

I didn't like the way YouTube structured their voting for these awards. I went on solely to vote for Ask A Ninja, and found that you were pretty much required to submit an entire 'top 10' for the category. What's worse, the 'ballot' was filled w/ the current top 10 vote-getters (in their current order) by default, so I'm guessing a lot of lazy vote-casters (like myself) ended up giving videos they'd never seen undue credit.

(Still glad the Ninja won, though.) :)

Take Down Notice

[Grashnak]

Dishonourable YouTube, It has come to the attention of the ruling masters of the Shinobi-ryu that you are allowing the depiction by various mystic means of moving picture of an imposter claiming to be a Ninja. As the only true remnants of the proud Bushido tradition that is ninjitsu today, we insist that you cease and desist allowing our image and trademarks to be blatantly stolen by this gaijin. Please accept this message as your only warning. Should you not comply with our demands, our legal department will take action, possibly including decapitations of hostages or the poisoning of pets. Domo.

Is this a Good thing or a Bad thing?

[boyfaceddog]

The geek in me says its good that an online service has a nationally reported awards show. The cultural critic says its bad that awards are so ubiquitous that even an online service has an awards show.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[teamhasnoi]

Terra Naomi probably could have turned her internet fame into a career on her own. Instead she decided to sign with a major label, and let them ruin her. We've seen it before, a mass of overexposure that kills an artist, no support after a lackluster album (produced and written by others), and terms that make prisoners smile...

It may have taken longer and been more difficult, but most likely would have lent a longevity and authenticity to her that she's not going to find with a label.

I find it odd that someone who had those kind of pageviews wouldn't realize that they might be better off with no label. I'd be happy with one tenth of the traffic she's getting; then again, I'm not a girl on the internet. For some reason, that's still novel, and still rakes in traffic, interest, and a potential audience.

It remains to be seen how Island Records is going to treat her - will they help her build a lifelong career, or will they treat her like a William Hung flash-in-the-pan? The results will be telling. I'm curious to see how an organization that has proven itself to be internet-unsavvy will handle Naomi, who was an internet only phenom.

Re:Meet the new boss, same as the old boss

[THESuperShawn]

They already have her on a "radio blitz" media tour. She was at the XM studio's yesterday with her father and "handlers" from YouTube and Island. Several interviewers tried to turn the questioning away from Naomi (after she performed about a minute and a half of her song) to the YouTube/Viacomm lawsuit only to get the same old scripted answers over and over (i.e. "Actually, we are too busy working with our community to pay attention to such matters...The community continues to grow every day", etc, etc".

An in my humble opinion, her father is fashioning himself after the "great" Joe Simpson, answering the majority of her questions for her and steering interviews to topics he wanted/approved of.

Sadly, most interviewers gave less than enthusiastic reviews of her performance. Most dubbed her "vanilla", the "same old thing", "boring", etc. I think that losing the uniqueness of the "YouTube only" format is already costing her.

Next year's top award . . .

[holomorph]

Ask a Gay Ninja.

The New York Times...

[lowid (24) _________]

The NY Times has an interesting opinion article that is rather highly critical of the YouTube awards. Makes for a good read. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/arts/27tube.html

p.

Smosh

[Mr_Silver]

Was I the only one that didn't laugh once through Smosh Short 2: Stranded?

If anyone ever tells me that broadcast television is dead and YouTube is the future, then I'll point them to that.

Re:Smosh

[alphamugwump]

Smosh never really was all that good anyway. Just because someone makes a viral video doesn't mean that the video is any good or the makers are any good. It just means that people liked something about the video. And IMHO, smosh is just exploiting their previous fame with the pokemon theme video. It's much harder to make videos that is consistently interesting.

And yes, there is consistently interesting stuff on youtube. LG15 isn't all that bad, despite the backlash. And Ian Crossland is always good, if only to laugh at.

But the real appeal of youtube isn't in watching videos, it's in making videos. Did you ever want to have your own TV show, and be watched by thousands? Youtube appeals to the vanity in people.

Re:Kiwis, I'll be the first to admit it

[nursegirl]

The guy who made Kiwi made one called "Pony" in his undergrad:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNu8u_Kpa00

It's not as good technically, but even then he had a talent for affecting the emotions.