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This is interesting. [Via Wired] online humor site homestarrunner.com has rebuffed offers by Comedy Central and Adult Swim to bring the short-form cartoon series to a TV audience.

Creators Mike and Matt Chapman say they make enough money on merchandise from the website store that they can support themselves and don’t need TV money. Matt is quoted in the article as saying “The whole TV thing seemed creepy. They wanted to plug it into their model…We love the control and the immediacy that writing and creating cartoons on the website brings us.”

Above: One of…

The crew of Rush HD’s U Everest is preparing to make their Mount Everest summit bid within the next 24 hours after finishing up their stay at Camp 4. This is one of those cool convergence areas where online is the perfect complement to high quality production.

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The documentary being produced by Altitude Films is shot on HD and will no doubt look incredible, but is still months away from completion. So while the climb is in progress the channel is already promoting it with constant updates from Everest…

Despite the raging popularity of artists on MySpace and YouTube, neither community has launched any artists to large scale mainstream awareness, sans Lily Allen.

YouTube may have found its first success story if former N’sync-er Justin Timberlake has any say in the matter. The former Mr. Cameron Diaz has signed Essmee Denters to his Tennman Records, according to People magazine.

“Esmee is the real deal and I cannot wait for the world to hear her,” he says, “but all of her fans on YouTube should not worry … we will keep you in the…

In a great marketing and publicity move filmmakers Arin Crumley and Susan Buice have partnered with film review and social networking site Spout.com to cross-promote their indie feature Four Eyed Monsters. The film is now available in its entirety (71 minutes) on YouTube.

Above: Four Eyed Monsters is available (and embeddable) in its entirety.

What this really represents is a terrific digital media marketing campaign. For every user who signs up for Spout on their Four Eyed Monsters landing page, $1 goes to Arin and Susan - they introduce the film by reminding…

Comedy Central has done a great job with making their Motherlode content embeddable and widely available online.

So just for fun - here is some of the content I enjoyed on my DVR this week, now online (note that that this content will expire after 2 weeks.)

Above: Jon Stewart on the Olympic Logo

Seth Godin has more commentary on that jaggy picture.

Below: Lewis Black on Google Streetview

UPDATE - What got me thinking about Comedy Central in the first place was Comedy Central’s “Balls Policy” blog post, via Huffington Post. Pretty great.

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The Online Publisher’s Association released their newest survey today, with, at first glance, some very interesting findings.

The “big picture” overview shows that :30 second spots outperformed :15 second spots on “ad likability” and consideration,” pre-roll ads with companion banners had the greatest lift on brand awareness, and that branded media sites generated higher response rates than user-generated sites and video portals.

In an interivew with ClickZ, OPA President Pam Horan said:

“We went into the study thinking that [15s] would do a better job. The people who had actually viewed the [30s],…

There are some who believe that all PR is good PR. “As long as they spell your name right,” is how the adage goes. I am not one of those people, and I’m betting the folks at Joost aren’t anymore, either.

While enjoying the relative anonymity of pre-launch and closed beta, Joost quietly worked out the kinks from their system, and constructive criticism was more helpful than hurtful. The small group of beta testers understood the limits of small-scale P2P applications and some of the quality issues that come with lacking…

Coco Robicheaux is a New Orleans jazz legend and on my last night in New Orleans I had the opportunity to see him perform at the Apple Barrel.

Above: Coco Robicheaux on Katrina

If you can’t get down to Nola to see him live, you can watch a music video for Walking With the Spirit on his website and his albums are available for sale on iTunes and Amazon.

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The New Orleans Jazz Fest this year partnered with AT&T Blue Room to stream the annual event live. Select performances are now available on-demand.

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Above: Allen Toussaint’s Jazz Fest Performance…