I don’t care that this is just a sponsored video for Samsung cameras and totally fake, it’s still pretty damn rad.

This reminds me of some other classic sponsored fake videos…

Guy Catches Laptop With His Butt

Ray Ban Sunglasses Catch

Yesterday the band OK Go won the internet… AGAIN! It was nearly impossible to be on Twitter, Facebook or any type of tech/media blog without hearing about their new Rube Goldberg inspired video for This Too Shall Pass.

What’s really amazing (other than the fact that they were able to pull of the video in a single rolling shot) is that they were able to kill it on YouTube for the second time. These guys understand what it takes to make an impact online. Back in 2006 they made a huge splash on the web thanks to their YouTube smash Here It Goes Again, which won them a YouTube Most Creative Video award and then a Grammy the next year for Best Short Form Music Video.

This video is a must watch:

What’s really interesting is that the band has recently been able to measure their success against their use of sharing videos and their exposure on YouTube. When their record label recently disabled embedding of their music videos, they noticed dips in ticket and merch sales.

Check out the band’s recent interview about how they made the video and the sharing issues with their label after the jump.

UPDATED WITH WORKING VIDEO!

Here’s a parody infomercial brought to you by Milk. Those dairy farmers know funny.

There’s so much behind the scenes trickery going on in the “I’m on a horse” Old Spice commerical it’s amazing they were able to pull it all off in one take!

This commentary from the creative writers is worth the watch…

1. Friday, Vancouver – lighting the 2010 Olympic flame
2. Saturday, Dallas – winning the NBA skills contest for the second time
3. Sunday, Dallas – starting point guard for the NBA All-Star game, in-front of the 108,000 fans (largest in NBA history)
4. Today, the internet – he’s the one-man show in a pretty decent parody commercial, showing some real comedic acting chops on YouTube.

You’re making Canadians look good Steve. Keep it up!

Here’s the latest web spot for the Nexus One. It says at the beginning that it’s sponsored by Google, so I’m assuming they commissioned it. If you look through the users profile, you can see that he’s pretty awesome when it comes to this style of animation. And he’s a crew of one doing everything, and he’s Canadian too. Cool.

This video has been blowing up on the web since it was posted yesterday morning, and for good reason. It’s got a few key elements that make it perfect for the web:

• Gadgets - nerds love new technology, and I’m a sucker for watching unboxing videos. And this takes it into a new direction.
• Ninjas - adding ninjas to anything will make it popular. It’s just a fact.
• Shortness - the perfect length for something like this is around 90 seconds. Anything beyond that and I’m usually clicking on something else.
• *high production values – this one gets bonus points for looking cool and sounding great.

I likes it.

On the latest Christmas episode of the 4 Guys 1 UP podcast (iTunes link), @JWHDavidson and @DavidEllis had an interesting discussion on video game downloadable content (DLC) during their 2010 predictions segment. This got me thinking of how the iPhone 3GS and it’s adoption by mainstream culture will help push microtranactions, like video game DLC, into almost every type of media we consume.

One of the subtle features of iPhone OS 3.0 software update was the ability for developers to include in-app transactions. Now when you’re playing a game, or using a new application, a “friendly” pop-up message could tell you that that next level/weapon upgrade/app feature can be yours for just a mere $1-2. Just click to charge your credit and continue.

This payment strategy is currently used on a few iPhone games but it’s no where near ubiquitous…yet. Give this time.

The iPhone app ecosystem has evolved into a demo culture. Without a FREE demo (maybe $0.99), the barrier of entry for many people is too great to even try your product. The “try before you buy” mentality is one of my favourite aspects of the iPhone app store. And if the app/game is good enough, like most people, I will pay to continue.

One of the smartest thing the iTunes store did was have 1-click credit card payments. It’s so easy to click yes that the toonies practically jump out of my virtual wallet.

Facebook games are eating people's souls... and their free time.

Currently, DLC/microtransactions are used by plenty of game developers allowing users to:

• Unlock new character clothes; this is lame
• Download new multiplayer maps/vehicles/weapons/missions
• Reveal epilogue story content; Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider both did this last year
• Rock Band and Guitar Hero $1.99/song downloads, and
• Facebook’s Farmville and Mafia Wars items (I’m not linking to these games because you already know what they are. I’m sure you have 3 sad cow requests sitting in your FB inbox right now)

That last bullet point is the big one, that’s why it in bold. There are literally hundreds of millions of people playing Flash games on Facebook everyday. That’s waaaay more than the amount of PS3s, Xbox 360s and Wiis sitting in living rooms today. And Zynga, the largest developer of social games on Facebook, is raking it in.

In fact, Farmville is bigger than Twitter. It’s more than twice the population of Canada.

I guess people really care about their fake farm pets. It’s becoming so popular that many gaming insiders are predicting that Facebook games could kill console gaming.

Now this all comes back to my prediction that we’ll be seeing a lot more microtransactions in the near future. As people get more use to the idea of paying for Farmville and Mafia Wars upgrades, they’ll slowly start understanding that concept for everything else

This means in the not too distant future we could be seeing:

• On-demand video rentals, now with upgrades: pay $5 for the movie, and an extra $2 for all of the extra DVD content (e.g. behind-the-scenes, director commentarty, blooper reels, etc.)
• TV a-la carte instead of monthly cable subscription: Apple is supposedly working on this, but chances are it won’t come to Canada for a long time, and it still won’t work well for me unless they simulcast live sports
• Supersized movies: Avatar really paved the way for the 3D movie upgrade. Pay $3 more for more awesomeness for your eyeballs? ABSOLUTELY!
• Bitesize gaming: eventually the entire game will be DLC level by level. Instead of paying $60 for a full game, download the game demo for free and only pay a prorated cost for each level you play. This will open the doors for people to actually try games outside their usual bubble because it will be cheaper to try. AND you can at least feel like you’re saving money when you stop playing crappy games.
• Subscription based gaming: Rock Band is the perfect example of the next-generation platform “game”.  Instead of buying a physical disc every year, you can simply download new tracks as they’ll released. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more annual games moving to this model… I’m looking at your roster updates EA Sports and 2K Sports games. Oh yeah, and a little game called WoW is doing okay using this model too.
• Everything will work on your phone: as more stuff moves inside the browser, it’ll also move into your pocket.

Get your credit card ready.

1. I like Dramatic Chipmunk
2. I like TVs
3. ??? post funny YouTube video about both
4. Profit!

I give LG Group credit for taking something that’s popular online and piggybacking on it for their advantage. Dramatic Chipmunk made a big splash back in 2007 and it’s still relevant. Well, relevant to me anyways.

The best thing about adding this to their campaign YouTube channel is that it’s completely different than their traditional TV media buy. They get it. They seem to understand that what works on TV (think old and boring) doesn’t necessarily work online (think funny, bizarre and longer format).

Take a look at the TV spot currently on air:

Just looking at the views for each shows what works:

• Dramatic Chipmunk Breaks Out = 145,594 views
• Live Borderless TV Commercial = 8,731 views

*video view stats taken from the “official” LG channels

The only thing missing from the meme-spot… they forgot to add an annotation link when they post the URL at the end. I want to just click the video to go to the website. I’m too lazy to remember the URL and click through!