As Hollywood shrinks its films and television shows for the small screens of cellphones, its assumptions about mobile viewing are being upended by surprisingly patient consumers. (via NYTimes.com)

YouTube has quietly begun offering a variety of movies and TV episodes available for rental at youtube.com/store. After experimenting with $5 rentals of Sundance Film Festival movies this January, the site is now offering 48 hour rentals mostly between 99 cents and $3.99. Rental fees are paid through Google Check-out. (via ReadWriteWeb)

Sure enough, it did. In mere days, the woman known on Twitter as LovelyButton has found her own ranks of followers swollen to 18,587 and counting -- up from a previous total of three (including a few that seem suspiciously Coco-flavored). (via Salon)

As media and entertainment companies continue to mull new ways to charge consumers for online news and entertainment, 85% continue to prefer that content remain free.

According to new research from Nielsen, which asked more than 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, there are, however, some opportunities.

While media firms continue to debate business models and experiment with various approaches to charging for digital content, Nielsen found that 52% of respondents favor micropayments. That said, only 43% say an easy payment method would make them more likely to pay for online content. (via The Hollywood Reporter)

Movies, music, and games top a new list from Nielsen of the content types that consumers are most willing to pay for online. The data, which comes from a survey of 27,000 consumers across 52 countries, also indicates that content created online – like blogs, podcasts, and video – are least likely to attract consumer’s dollars. (via Mashable)

Hulu's top 40 is teeming with shows that were too quirky (Arrested Development), epic (Kings), and out-there (Firefly) to succeed on network television. Here's an in-depth look at seven exemplars. (via Fast Company)

Hulu, at the behest of its co-parent News Corp, is going to start charging for content in 2010 (via Gizmodo)

These seminal products provided technology that enabled sharing pictures, music, and ideas--in other words, social media. Like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and other relatively recent Web 2.0 applications, these pre-digital products also enabled real-time (or near real-time) distribution and sharing of individual experiences.

(via nextMEDIA-Source)

Interesting article in the New York Times about the success of manga content on mobile platforms. The article focuses on the allure of mange to women who rely on the private nature of mobile usage to view the mature themes often found in manga content:

“It’s a bit hard commenting publicly on this, but the most popular comics on the mobile are adult-oriented ones for women,” including love stories with sexually explicit content, Mr. Nakabayashi said. Translation: Women who do not want to be seen reading these titles in public places like the train helped create the market for manga on the cellphone, which accords them privacy in ways that magazines and books do not"

“Cellphone is a very private medium, much more so than a comic magazine,” said Yutaka Tashiro, director of rights group at Shueisha, another leading Japanese manga publisher. The romance- and sex-filled manga — known as shojo manga — are read by women in their 20s, Mr. Tashiro said.

Mobile Marketing with Msgme

The Msgme Platform redefines the mobile marketing industry by providing the most comprehensive set of tools for text (SMS) and voice (IVR) marketing. Msgme combines simple publishing with a full CRM suite to manage subscribers and analyze campaign results in real-time. Whether new to mobile marketing or an industry veteran, the Msgme Platform offers the most advanced enterprise platform in the market.

The new initiative stems from MySpace’s partnership with Auditude, a content detection and management company that can identify copyrighted content and serve relevant advertising, even on user-submitted video. Now Auditude is applying the technology to music videos, which in the past have largely relied on banner ads and static text links to music stores for monetization.

There's no more sure-fire way to kill something's intrinsic comedic value than to try to examine what makes it funny. The minute you start thinking, you stop laughing.

Bring your own music.

A great tool for embedding and sharing playlists. No need to bring your own music like muxtape.

Mobile Internet has arrived: the ESPN mobile site for basketball gets more views that the web version. (Richard Ting, R/GA)

Audience interaction architecture from Bunchball. very nice.

Ubisoft has announced that it is extending itself further into the casual space with a new internally developed My Coach DS and Wii self-improvement franchise in addition to its existing Petz line-up. The new division, headed by Ghost Recon and Rayman pro

HBO Mulls Broadband Site by Mark Walsh, Friday, Nov 24, 2006 6:00 AM ET HBO, THE TIME WARNER CABLE network, is exploring creation of a broadband Internet channel for its television service subscribers, a spokesman confirmed.

forecasting the success of movie based games via units sole against box office release

Lost ad revenue to DVR

Blog-gregation of Web 2.0 blogs

tv goes free..via the web

Entertainment unions and mobisodes

content downloads extend oblivion experience

The Wikipedia entry for everything "snakes on a plane"