The reasons Revver failed are obvious. Its one advantage was that YouTube didn't pay creators. Then, well, YouTube started paying creators and sucked up all the low-level talent, and meanwhile sites like Superdeluxe topped Revver's "we'll pay you eventually" model with a "we'll actually give you a budget" model, luring away the pros.

But the reason Revver failed so spectacularly was that it tried so hard to go Hollywood. The LA-based, venture-capital-funded company acted fancy, unlike the lovably dorky people running competing sites like Blip.tv. They chased talent like Lonelygirl15, who later returned to YouTube. They offered vlogger Ze Frank cocaine at his first meeting (Ze doesn't do coke, he just looks like he does). It's like the whole company was imitating something they saw on TV.

And now they're worthless. Well, now they admit they're worthless. Which could seem bad for independent artists, except that Revver never came through anyway (they couldn't even tell Ze what they owed him), and YouTube really isn't that bad, and now there's one less awful company souring people to the idea of new media.

1. Facebook stays independent and private, strikes a meaningful deal that legitimizes its business plan, and buys a startup.
2. Born out of the writers' strike, at least one "Funny or Die" style site gets big buzz and maybe even gets bought, but it fails to produce any videos near the quality of FoD or Super Deluxe.
3. Google releases some limited version of voice search beyond GOOG 411. During the year, the company's stock tops $800.
4. Digg sells to a major media company for at least $200 million, and founder Kevin Rose starts a non-web-based company.
5. YouTube announces it's adding HD video, but the feature doesn't arrive until 2009.
6. Gawker Media, publisher of this site, starts a men's site and a Web show.
7. Yahoo suffers major layoffs, leading the press to dub it the next AOL.
8. Yet AOL is spun off and reframes itself. At the end of 2008, the company's future is still uncertain.
9. Apple releases a second-generation iPhone, and at least one New York Times article tries to draw a "middle class/rich" line between those who upgrade and those who stick with the first generation.
10. A new videoblogger emerges as the go-to example for slick independent daily vlogging, following Amanda Congdon and Ze Frank.
11. Tumblr, the pared down blogging service, enjoys the popularity that 2007 brought Twitter.
12. Twitter remains independent and spins off a new service.
13. The Internet again fails to drive one presidential candidate to success. So does Chuck Norris.
14. Jason Calacanis, still running his online directory Mahalo, starts another project.
15. A new meme started in a geeky part of the web infiltrates the "normal" population even more deeply than LOLcats.
16. Yet another e-book reader comes out and no one cares.
17. Blog search engine Technorati collapses after failing to get enough funding to stay afloat.
18. The Wall Street Journal announces it will soon be free online.
19. Blog platform maker Six Apart, having spun off LiveJournal and rearranged its exec staff, gets bought.
20. Dell screws up the good will it won in 2007 with another customer-service or bad-parts scandal.
21. Net Neutrality takes another hit from a telco-friendly Congressional bill.
22. Second Life plods along.
23. The TechCrunch blog network lands a regular TV appearance, if not a show.
24. The country tires of the last round of famous-for-being-famous celebs, and gossip blogger Perez Hilton's TV show gets cancelled.
25. A minor medical incident renews the "can Apple survive without Steve Jobs" argument.

Listen to the mp3 here

(Photo by: Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

I'm one of the newest "gimme some candy" sites (I have a personal videoblog called Look Shiny). "They'll let just about anyone in," you may say. Actually, yes. The Candy system should be rolling out soon for anyone who wants to sign up their site.

Think of it as a way that creative bloggers can make a little money without ads, shilling, and selling out.**

*Theoretically, anyway. So far I've made five bucks, and I'm pretty sure that was just Erik testing the system.

**Not that they won't still sell out.

Ze Frank had won two Vloggie awards last year. He couldn't make it to the ceremony, but he had a fan act as his envoy. PodTech told him they'd mail his awards.

PodTech wanted Ze Frank to host this year. He wasn't interested, but he did ask what happened to the awards — he'd never gotten them in the mail. Their response: "We ran out."

That's a shame; those awards fetch over $500 on eBay.

Update: Both PodTech boss John Furrier and Ze Frank say the story's false. Erik Gavriluk, who built the site behind Ze's show (and ZeFrank.org), was the story's source; despite Ze and John's reaction, he insists it's all true. File this under, I don't know, dubious?

(Photo by Scott Beale)

Andy Samberg: Before he was Timberlake's partner in "Dick in a Box" or one of the white boys in "Lazy Sunday," the SNL repertory player posted videos and songs at The Lonely Island. I recommend "The Heist" (a better white rap) and "The 'Bu" (a serial).

That Crazy Lady At Violent Acres: No one knows who she is, but she is insane. At the age of 6, she beat up a boy while screaming "I'LL EAT YOUR EYES!" She hasn't gotten calmer.

Skot at "Izzle pfaff!": A new find. From his blog: "I, however, am a fucking ninja for snow driving. I grew up in Idaho, motherfucker! I took driver's ed in eight inches of snow. How do I know it was eight inches of snow? I measured it with my dick. RAR!"

Ze Frank: The funniest videoblogger out there will end his show in March, and then he's off to Hollywood. While the average daily episode is good, the gold is in classic musical numbers like Hindsight is 20/20 and one-offs like "Fingers in Food."

Brad Neely: I first heard about this guy when he made "Washington," a video in which the first president ate opponents' brains and invented cocaine. (He'll kick you apart!) Neely now releases videos on the new Super Deluxe video site, including the better version of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Iggy Pop's roadie: He wrote a wicked concert rider for the band. "Required: 2 heavy duty floor-mounted fans. So I can wear a scarf and pretend to be in a Bon Jovi video."

David Malki: Writer of Wondermark, one of those delightful "classic clip art mashed with ironic modern sensibility" comics. Except funny.

Matthew Baldwin: The writer of Defective Yeti "puts the 'i' in 'teaim.'" Recent posts include the Pam spray solution to kids opening doorknobs, generational humor, and his ungrateful cats. It's not a gut-buster but a reliable chuckle.

Gabriel Delahaye: Known at his home blog, Corporate Casual, as Worker #3116, Delahaye writes passages like:

"When someone uses the word "funky" I feel like my ears are being date raped by a sad, sad man. Like...you go on a date with someone and they are just really lame and the date goes horrible and then later, when they are forcibly penetrating you, you're like "THIS GUY?! I'M BEING DATE RAPED BY THIS GUY?!" And if you're talking about something for which no other adjective seems appropriate, then maybe you should realize that NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR ABOUT THAT THING."

Daniel Radosh: The New Yorker contributor responded to the magazine's reader-contributed caption contest by hosting his own anti-caption contest. Dig his analysis of Thomas Nelson's audio Bible casting decisions. "Samuel L. Jackson, motherfucker. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee. Not to mention, I've had it with these motherfuckin' snakes in this motherfuckin' garden."

Ryan North: Dinosaur Comics is, hands-down, the funniest daily comic online. Every day it's the same dinosaurs, in the same poses, with different dialogs.

Bob Powers: Girls Are Pretty, and Bob Powers has a thing for you to celebrate each day. Today, for example:

"Your Boyfriend Is An Expert Juggler Day!

He can juggle up to five small items at once. It is very impressive to children and simpler adults.

'Leave him,' your therapist says. 'People learn to juggle when they feel the need to maintain various deceptions. More often than not, a man who knows how to juggle has a secret wife and kids hidden someplace.'"

Click To Play

And for more textual coverage, read a review from the point of view of the duck — the costumed Ze Frank fan who represented the vlogger at the show.

"I thought all these egos would be bouncing off of each other," said Marianne from Treasure Island, "but this has been so warm and supportive. It's not about awards, it's more about celebrating new technologies." She was referring to the Vloggies, held Saturday night at the Swedish American Hall, and she was right about the atmosphere.

Going into this videoblog award show, I braced myself for an evening of cinematic navel-gazing, expecting clip after clip of disembodied faces staring into the camera, focused on their own reflection in the lens instead of communicating to an audience. I was pleasantly surprised. To me, the Vloggies clearly illustrated the varied world of internet video and, in a way, brought rationality to a medium easily construed as ridiculous.

On the other hand, Marianne was dressed as a fluffy yellow duck.

Jerry Zucker: "You like these jokes? I got a hundred more that we cut from "Naked Gun 33 1/3." [Laughing Squid]

In a sign of the vlogosphere's influence, actual famous people attended the show. Jerry Zucker, creator of Airplane! and The Naked Gun opened the night with a great speech (recorded here) about the beginning of his moviemaking career, drawing parallels to the world of vlogging. Daniel McVicar from The Bold and the Beautiful (and the McVlog) and Irina Slutsky from the vlog Geek Entertainment Television (who also organized the event for podcast company PodTech) very capably co-hosted the red-carpet affair.

Daniel McVicar shows his "doh" face while Irina Slutsky spies a cute guy in the audience. [Laughing Squid]

The usual group of internet celebrities showed up in support, including Scoble Show namesake Robert Scoble and Diggnation vlogger (and digg.com founder) Kevin Rose. Conspicuously absent from the ceremony were a few familiar Vlogerati, like ex-Rocketboom queen Amanda Cogdon and Favorite Male Vlogger Ze Frank (who sent Marianne the duck in his stead).

Big check, little prize. [Laughing Squid]

Alive in Baghdad was the big winner. This fantastic site - which takes a look at daily life in a war zone through interviews with Iraqi citizens - won a total of 7 Vloggies, including Judges' Favorite Vlog. Along with Josh Wolf, People's Choice winner for Favorite Male Vlogger, Alive in Baghdad demonstrates the capacity for internet videos to go beyond entertainment into true journalistic inquiry. In honor of its win, the Intel Corporation presented vlogger Brian Conley with a scant $2,000. It was enough to fund one Intel Core2Duo laptop, true, but the ridiculous size of the novelty check made the donation look meager in comparison. Given the state of the Iraqi power supply, I hope that Intel can cough up, at the very least, a solar battery charger and satellite internet connection, and throw in a couple flak jackets for the journalists.

Ask a Ninja co-creator Kent Nichols shows off his unstoppable "double-fisted statues" maneuver. [Thomas Hawk]

Slight snafus haunted the night. The audio went out on Ze Frank's taped acceptance speech and the dubbing was delayed all night, making every video look like a 1970s kung-fu movie. Patrons at the open bar talked over Brian Conley's moving speech, and an overabundance of hungry party guests picked over scant appetizers at the afterparty at Café du Nord. On the whole, however, the hosts and presenters kept the show moving and the crowd entertained. One person at the mike even offered to tap dance for the audience when a clip refused to play.

Andrew Baron tries to show the ducky what traffic really means. [Chuckumentary]

One thing that struck me as odd: Andrew Baron, the producer of Rocketboom, accepted the Judge's Favorite News Vlog with a dark-haired beauty by his side - curiously, Rocketboom host Joanne Colan was back in New York working on some "TV stuff." Baron won the Ego Prize of the night for invoking Woody Allen in a condescending speech that managed to accept the honor while assuring the audience that he was really superior to all this nerdy stuff. Later on, he continued his pissing contest with Ze Frank by pretending to vanquish Marianne the duck in a tasteless photo op.

Valleywag party score: This event's ready for its close-up.

The "Vloggies" re-used statuettes from the "Goatses." [Laughing Squid]

Unless noted, photos are by Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. See his photo gallery: The Vloggies: Photo gallery [Laughing Squid]
Also see Thomas Hawk's gallery: Photos from the 2006 Vloggies [Zooomr]

Let's recap, ZeFrank posted on October 24th a hilarious video berating Rocketboom's stated audience numbers. The Baron responded later in the day explaining how those audience numbers are derived, with a 3rd party verifying said numbers and ending with a snide remark about ZeFrank being Web1.0 (gasp!).

Is it over? Thankfully, no. Every blogger knows that online cat fights drive up the numbers for both sites (just ask Digg's Jay Anderson and Netscape's Jason "J.C." Calacanis), so of course ZeFrank came back swinging with some harsh, nasty...uh...chart and article citing Rocketboom's success.

Nerdfight [ZeFrank]
The Baron Responds [Valleywag]
ZeFrank Slaps Rocketboom [Valleywag]

RocketBoom creator Andrew Michael Baron, shown here, responded on his blog Dembot to ZeFrank's swipe at Rocketboom's suspect viewer stats, as reported on Valleywag yesterday. Even Marshall Kirkpatrick from Techcrunch called Andrew to discuss the numbers.

He was pretty skeptical at first but I gave him logins for the various servers and spent an hour on the phone going over everything. He confirmed my numbers.

Well that settles it for me.

After the jump, Andrew wasn't done, oh no, he hit below the belt.

Ze has been doing online video for a very long time, but he uses 1.0 means of distributing his show (e.g. no links out of his site, no off-site distributions or redistribution partners) and he only started to identify with "videoblogging" once videoblogging defined him.

Ba-Zing! Take that you Web1.0 hack!

Just looking at my stats today, I noticed we have over 15,000 phone distributions of each episode alone. That's half Ze's total daily audience on the phone. Lets not get into TiVo which accounts for more than the other half, our daily Japanese version, TVTonic type aggregators, home made aggregators, my goodness, my rant -> .mov files, .wmv, full_.wmv .3gp, .3gpp, .mp4, .mpg _hd.mov just for each episode to accommodate everyone.

And don't forget Rocketboom being used in baubles, beads, gewgaws, bibelots, curios, gimcrack, novelties, objet d'art, trifles, trinkets, whatnots, curious goods, souvenirs, odds-and-ends, bric-a-brac, antiques, semi-precious jewels, and handmade shiny objects crafted in time-honored native style deftly displayed on the fireplace mantle.

Ze Errors [Dembot]
ZeFrank Slaps Rocketboom [Valleywag]
vb #2 [ZeFrank]

photo credit: Mac Steve

[ZeFrank]