Round pegs. Square holes. You know the story. Someone over at The New Yorker decided it would be uber-cute to add life to their cartoons, rendering these one-panel one-liners as quick animated clips. Yeah, I hear crickets chirping too.

I love animation and video, multimedia in all its multivariate forms, but this is overkill. New Yorker cartoons work because they are so easy to digest—a quick, witty fistful of mental popcorn, and the printed page or static computer screen is more than adequate. Gumming up instantaneous entertainment makes them almost tedious. And if your Flash player isn’t up to snuff, or the feed is getting crushed, the payoff is a mile away.

I do understand their animation temptation. The executable simplicity of enlivening and streaming these magazine mainstays must have made this idea an easy sell. But here, the media gets in the way of the message.

This is literally a case where the idea only works on paper.

Where’s Jim Lehrer when you need him? Well, maybe you don’t need him when the public now has a way to easily get their inquiries to candidates. Last night’s alliance between CNN and YouTube gave people the unprecedented ability to put their questions directly to the field of Democratic presidential contenders; Republicans are on deck for September 17.

Some were understandably unpolished, but it was a refreshing departure from having a monotone moderator reciting a carefully parsed quiz like a Gregorian cantor.

CNN took care (unbiased, we hope) to thin the field from hundreds of contributions to the broadcast-worthy few.

How did they miss this guy?

I can’t decide if I should be saving my lawn-mowing money to buy a big-screen TV or a small-screen mobile device. Which takes priority: vegging out at home in front of oversized sports, or accessing videos anytime, anywhere?

While the big-screen is supposed to be every man’s ideal, there are increasingly compelling arguments for, as Steve Martin said in the 70s, “getting small.”

The e-newsletter Mobilized landed in my in-box today, profiling some very cool things that are happening with mobile video.

Story one: new handsets have better-than-ever image quality. Good to know. If I hold out a bit I’ll be better off, eh?

Story three: Discovery is producing a product just for mobile devices. Interesting. There’s actually content I couldn’t get in my living room no matter how big the screen is.

Story five: “Laughter is the best Medicine on www.lime.com“. The lead:

What makes mobile movies successful? Personally, I think that, in short bursts, comedy works a hell of a lot better than drama. With drama, you have to BUILD tension. That takes time. And horror on a small screen fares even worse. How scared can you be of a psycho with a knife the size of a clipped fingernail? A PINKY fingernail!

Makes sense, but I wouldn’t limit that logic to mobile or movies. I’d like to see more companies dare to add a little humor to their web presence. Web marketers are all about the immediate impact of landing pages, and what happens during the first few seconds a visitor is staring at a particular website — capitalizing on the short burst of their attention span, if you will. Marketing pros are always wondering, “What content or imagery can I use to quickly hook that visitor?”

If humor offers a fast hook, why not try that? Certainly the big hits on YouTube are humorous, right? If your company can generate something humorous (and sure, useful to your marketing efforts) you might hook many a visitor, and even end up a viral marketing sensation.

But are you funny?

We’ve already covered the fact that US candidates increasingly rely on a strong web presence to propel their campaign efforts.

Not so in Japan, were online campaign efforts are outright illegal. This BBC News article has the lowdown. Money quote:

Surprisingly, in a country with some of the fastest broadband speeds and a wide internet penetration, it is now illegal for candidates to create new websites or update existing web pages between now and election day, 29 July.

The cultural comparisons between Japan and the US become even more distinct when you compare their perception of social networking sites and user-driven content providers like YouTube.

As one student explains:

“YouTube is more casual; you watch music videos or funny videos on it, but if the government or any politicians are on the web it doesn’t feel right.”

So, let me get this straight. You can obsess about a keychain pet that requires constant attention, but you can’t skewer a candidate with a homemade video? Lost in Translation indeed.

I recently googled a journalist friend, Gary Arlen, and found a piece he wrote from June of 2006 covering the Digital Media Conference. One of the speakers referred to the “Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) generation”. Here how Gary encapsulated the concept:

While the policy sessions generated passionate arguments, the conference’s content and business panels underscored the revitalization of the interactive business itself. Chris Maxcy, VP-business development of YouTube, acknowledged that his site is now serving up to 70 million streams per day, with typical sessions averaging one to two minutes long – and thus catering to the ADD generation.

The term “ADD generation,” as you probably figured out, describes an apparently younger demographic that only pays attention to media in short spurts (generally less than two minutes). The phrase was once all over the web, but strangely the most recent reference I found about the “ADD generation” was almost a year ago. Where is the ADD generation today?
Maybe we replaced it with another term, but I didn’t get the memo. More likely, it’s faded because it was never really applicable. The consumption of media under two minutes is the norm, constituting the mobile and online media experiences we all have with increasing frequency, but they are nothing new.

Short form media enthusiasts have been around since 60s political news coverage; the political sound byte engineered for broadcast tv and radio news was perfected for a public that could only absorb information in increments of 60 seconds or less. As soon as the news started cutting 5 minute statements into 15 second sound bytes, politicians wised up and began placing natural pauses before and after their desired sound byte. Broadcast news evolved for the public–and then those interviewed evolved.

As communications technologies progressed that same “sound byte” evolution applied to quotes online and then eventually audio files and video. The last person to the party was entertainment media. Could you imagine a broadcast or cable network or even program that just ran snippets of funny or engaging video? Did you say no? If so, you have forgotten a staple of TV during the 70s and 80s. How about network blooper shows or America’s funniest videos.

It goes to a matter of interest — not distribution technology. I don’t watch a 30 second video on YouTube because it is the only place I can see it (although it is the only place I can see it whenever and wherever I want). I watch that video because whatever it’s content I don’t want to watch it for five minutes or 30 minutes or an hour. If the video was about my interests, maybe I would watch it for an hour, but I could watch that hour on broadcast/cable TV, online or TivoCast (my new favorite service).

The ADD generation is gone because it never was. As a culture, we’ve been evolving toward shorter content bursts since electronic media emerged. Sure, we’ll dig in for longer experiences if they really suit our interests. Otherwise, if you want anyone to pay attention – regardless of age demographic – keep it simple, straightforward, and short.

El jefe is a beta tester for Brightcove, a company that helps producers publish, syndicate, and maybe even earn revenue from their video content. I’m guessing that’s how he came across MomMetv.com, whose owner is a Brightcove customer. MomMetv is, as you might guess, a site with video geared for mommies or, well, MomMes I guess. And apparently MomMes are well dressed white women in the suburbs of Denver, all of whom have gaudy TV lighting splashing the wall behind them. OK, so that was just a poke, here’s an actual thought about the site.

I think Missy DePew, the MomMe behind the site (and a TV producer, which is no surprise when you see the lighting), may have stumbled on a great plan for launching a social networking site, which is what MomMetv now is–she started it as an online TV channel to get the conversations started. Whether or not it was a plan, I think the result has two great outcomes:

1. By creating several videos herself, with her friends, she predetermined the tone and the type of content she wants on the social networking site. As a visitor I (ahem, well not me, but maybe my wife, right?) can see how it all works, how I should use the site, and even how to behave in that network, in a sense.
2. There’s already content to react to, and reply to; and not just a couple videos. As she explained during her visit to daytime news (clip available from the press page) she gathered about 50 friends and rolled with four cameras in one day to generate what seems to me must be a hundred or so videos.

So as it stands now the site is sort of a two-parter. Visitors land on MomMetv’s homepage where they can watch any number of videos, but then they can create a profile for themselves and start blogging or vlogging and doing all the social networking stuff networkers love to do.

So what? (At M&M we like to ask that question on behalf of our clients’ audiences, but we phrase it a little more nicely: “what’s in it for me?”).

This site? What’s in it for me? Nothing actually. But that’s where demographics come in. I would not be surprised if this site is bombarded with visitors. As a father of two, one thing I know for sure is that many moms L-O-V-E to talk about anything having to do with kids and mommy-hood. And that could mean significant traffic and advertising revenue, which I imagine is the ultimate goal.

My only advice would be to back off the lighting effects.

MIT Media Laboratory has developed the I/O Brush, an amazing animation tool that allows you to “capture” objects and then paint with them. This demo video shows it better than anyone could explain:

As explained on the MIT website:

“When the brush touches a surface, the lights around the camera briefly turn on to provide supplemental light for the camera. During that time, the system grabs the frames from the camera and stores them in the program.”

This is an amazingly creative tool, however for some people it could be an IP nightmare. Some of the examples shown in the video were books and toys being captured and turned into art. I have to wonder what the copyright owners think of that.

Andy Warhol succeeded artistically in reproducing IP with minimal alterations. How would the art- and IP-world respond if someone simply captured a protected object and attempted to sell it as their own creative expression via video art? Alas, those questions are for another day, but that day is probably approaching fast.

Here’s a question I’ve been pondering for quite some time: If everyone is acting like the Lumière brothers, where is the Sergei Eisenstein of broadband video?

Let me explain what I mean:

Four days before the end of 1895, the Lumière brothers held what would come to be known as the first commercial screening of a movie—actually, a series of ten short films approximately 46 seconds each in duration, and more akin to a primitive style of reality television, since the language of film had yet to be invented.

The Lumières, considered to be among the first filmmakers, made film history as such. Much more accurately, however, they were really inventors and early technological pioneers; according to Wikipedia, the brothers were responsible for patenting a number of significant film processes, including the creation of sprocket holes for the advancement of a film strip within the camera and projector.

It’s also clear that the Lumières, pioneering as they were, failed to understand that the technology they had helped invent wasn’t just a mere extension of photography, but a brand new art form. Their contributions were incredibly important, but they thought of the moving picture as more of a novelty and ultimately declared that “the cinema is an invention without any future.”

The Lumières were correct in assuming that the novelty of seeing people projected onto a giant screen clambering in and out of trains (as is the case with one of their most famous shorts, Arrival of a Train at a Station) would soon wear off. But it took a mind like Eisentein’s to understand that the invention—the technology itself—had the potential to become a powerful art form and so much more than just a novel technique for recording human activity.

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Any time a new technology comes out (think tape recorders, VCRs, even YouTube), fear and the exaggeration of lost profits are always the first reactions. Most recording, film, and television industry players jump right on the cease-and-desist bandwagon, practicing their favorite hobby: tossing around lawsuits. I’m not saying they shouldn’t protect intellectual and creative property, but history proves that they always underestimate the promotional value of these new technologies.

Take Acceptable TV, a sketch comedy program I came across on VH1 a couple of weeks ago. Not only is VH1 broadcasting the program on their cable network, they’re also airing it online at VH1.com and on the Acceptable.tv website. VH1 is embracing the Web and all the benefits it offers as an additional avenue for promoting their products. They’re also taking full advantage of the Web’s interactivity by inviting viewers to vote for their favorite sketches. The top two come back the following week as new episodes and the rest of the program is filled out with new content. To top it off, users can submit their own sketches for viewers to vote on, and the winner gets aired on the next show.

Acceptable.tv—with its blend of YouTube and traditional broadcast, plus a dash of reality show voting and the chance to be on TV—is just one way that online video programming is evolving.

Internet video networks are popping up all over the place. There’s KITE.TV, a site that allows users to create their own TV shows, instantly broadcast them to “channels,” and publish the content to websites, blogs, social networks, and mobile phones. Then there’s GoFish.com, which combines user-generated content with branded programming. And check out Sara’s post from April 9th about Magnify.net, which also lets users create and populate their own channels.

It’s already crowded out there, and some of these networks (if not all) may not be around in six months. But there’s no denying that more and more people are making the Web their primary stop for information, communication, and entertainment. Fighting—instead of facing—this evolution is going to put a lot of people in the entertainment industry behind the curve, losing valuable market share as they ignore what their audiences obviously want.