Fill Your Grill With Kanye, Whedon and YouTube

Chris Albrecht, Thursday, July 3, 2008 at 2:00 PM PT Comments (0)

You just had to squeeze a little more work in on this Fourth of July holiday, didn’t you? Well, we’re glad you stopped by. But before your fire up the BBQ, take a minute to catch up on what you might have missed over at NewTeeVee.

A federal judge ordered YouTube to hand over its user data to Viacom. If it stands (the Electronic Frontier Foundation says the judge’s order violates federal law), that means Viacom will know all about your secret obsession with making Avril Lavigne’s “Girlfriend” the most-watched video of all time.

Two big-name Hollywood types (and fanboy faves), Seth MacFarlane and Joss Whedon, are experimenting with new content models online. MacFarlane (”Family Guy”) will create “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” an animated series with a multimillion-dollar budget that will be distributed by Google AdSense to targeted sites. Whedon, on the other hand, will release his musical web series “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” in three parts for free, online, for a limited time, then yank them off the web and make the whole show available for purchase.

Speaking of innovative distribution, after being disappointed with the token theatrical release of his indie film “The Nines,” director John August said that “leaking” the film on P2P networks would have built better buzz for the film than playing Sundance. Take that, Robert Redford!

And finally, what better way to wash down those hot dogs than with a little vodka. Kanye West is the latest pitchman for Absolut and created a kooky (though unoriginal) infauxmercial to hawk the beverage.

Now be done with work. Go outside and enjoy the holiday!

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