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BoingBoing becoming more Rocketboomish

Today we see the first installment of BoingBoingTV, but instead of the single female commentator sitting at a desk in front of a world map, you have the Mark Frauenfelder, the originator of the BoingBoing franchise, along with Xeni Jardin, doing the talking head thing in front of a hot red swirl which make them look like they're emerging from a strawberry sundae.

Any regular reader of the BoingBoing.net will recognize this video as representing the typical content of the blog: a mix of futurism, cultural trends, do-it-yourself tech, and science stories that have broad appeal because of their quirkiness.

Their explain their foray into vlogging with their post, Boing Boing tv: same old BB, but with talkies.

They're also working on the possibility of allowing viewers to post their videos. I guess they're also becoming YouTube-ish.

UPDATE: Looks like Rocketboom is trying a different tack. This show breaks from their usual humorous webcast and does a serious overview of the situation in Burma. Actually, it's pretty good and uses graphics very effectively. It ends with a video plea by Jim Carrey asking people to e-mail the UN Sec'y General.

YouTube: lipsync'ed ad disguised as political advocacy

I've been looking at YouTube a lot lately, checking for mostly how science stories are represented.

Of course, I came across the recent viral "Obama Girl." Turns out it's not all that it seems. Leah Kauffman is doing the singing, and a model, Amber Lee Ettinger, is doing the lipsync'ing.

It seems that there've been over 700,000 views of this video, and it is just starting to be discussed by the MSM. Does anyone click through the links anymore to get the full story?

UPDATE: It seems that this video is not about political advocacy, but more about selling the song and the associated T-shirts. From ABC News:

The song was performed by Leah Kauffman, a 21-year-old undergraduate at Temple University in Philadelphia, who wrote the lyrics with a friend, 32-year-old advertising executive Ben Relles, and the music with her producer, Rick Friedrich.

An actress/model named Amber Lee Ettinger then lip-synched the song for the video, shot by filmmakers found on Craigslist two hours before Relles and Ettinger hit New York City one Friday in May to shoot the video on a DV camera.

"Not including the hours we spent working on it, it probably cost a couple thousand dollars," said Relles, a graduate of the Wharton School of Business, who said he did it for fun, not money, but is also selling "Obamagirl" and "I Got a Crush on Obama" T-shirts.