A group of more than 20 online video creators, artists, actors, and consumer advocates have asked lawmakers to consider choosing a new FCC chairman who can deal with the usage caps that telcos and cable operators have placed on their broadband users.  

For many of the more than 1 million creators who have signed up for YouTube's ad-revenue sharing program since its launch, the payout has been disappointing. The surge in new content makes it harder for any one content channel on the site to get noticed. Even worse for creators: Rates that advertisers pay to be on popular videos have fallen, according to TubeMogul.

A sketch artist draws a woman's face based on her own description, then draws it again based on how a neutral observer sees the woman. Comparing the two, this video shows that women often have a far more dreadful image of their appearance than is really true. In less than a week, the shorter (three-minute) version has 13 million views.

XPO is a free online community that rewards participants who try new products and share their opinions of those products on video. Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/22/5361009/website-encourages-consumers-to.html#storylink=cpy   Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/22/5361009/website-encourages-consumers-to.html#storylink=cpy

In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via social media complicated the official investigation of the Boston bombings, according to law enforcement officials. Those officials said that the decision last Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant in part to limit the damage being done to people who were wrongly being targeted as suspects in the news media and on the Internet.

We assume that because you ‘can’ buy online, whatever you run online ‘should’ lead to direct sales. TV never had this problem because you could never get into the TV to buy the product. Billboards, radio ads, cover-wraps, inserts, advertorials all never had this problem for the same reason.  

Next week, Comedy Central will hold a comedy festival via Twitter. Comedians will Tweet comedy clips. The partnership between Comedy Central, a cable cannel owned by Viacom and Twitter represents the evolving relationship between television and social media. 

Google TV owners who visited NBC.com with the connected device have recently discovered a new splash screen, promising that “full episodes of this and other shows are now available for free” on Google TV. (But it appears that's not quite true, yet.)

Producer Prospect Park licensed the rights to ABC's cancelled "One Life to Live" soap opera and were to begin showing a new version online starting April 29. In a suit, they say ABC has been thwarting those plans. The latest:  "In the ultimate act of bad faith, ABC killed off two "OLTV" characters on loan to "General Hospital" by having their car forced off a cliff," the complaint states. Now, THAT'S a soap opera.

The DVD rental company that got famous in supermarkets says it's planning its own foray into streaming original programming, too, via its newish Redbox Instant.  And they want Kevin James, not Kevin Spacey.