This is the strategy that all of the big Web portals are suddenly employing. And they’re making a particularly big deal about it right now, because they’re all putting on fancy showcases for advertisers, modeled on the “upfront” presentations the TV guys put on every year.

YouTube’s was last night, at New York’s Beacon Theatre, and it was by far the most extravagant shindig of the bunch. (This included the post-event dinners, where YouTubers schmoozed advertisers at many of the city’s nicest restaurants: Ma Peche, Del Posto, A Voce, etc.)

If you didn’t go last night (you really did need a ticket), here’s the finale, via an unofficial shakycam grab. If you can’t pick this up from the clip, I can attest that the crowd really did get a huge kick out of this. Perhaps the YouTube folks will put up a fancier version later on:

And here’s a list of famous, semi-famous, or kinda-maybe-famous people that joined Jay-Z onstage:

Neon Trees
Pharrell Williams
Miri Ben-Ari
Chris Hardwick
Jon Avnet and Rodrigo Garcia
Julia Stiles
Sarah Jones
Jennifer Beals
Caitlin Gerard
Virginia Madsen
Brian Robbins
Flo Rida

(Image courtesy of Life and Times)

We learned that video games are good for you, that TV has ruined politics in the U.S. and that social media should fix it, and that Jimmy Fallon has different activities in mind when he thinks of “activity wristbands.” We learned how to be disruptive. We heard Google’s designers explain how they convinced their company to take on that infamous redesign.

We identified one of the worst marketing gimmicks in all of Austin (aside from this controversial one), and heard about all the crazy tasks SXSW-ers hired people to do for them. We learned that an impromptu Jay-Z concert will light up Twitter like it’s Arab Spring in Austin. We hosted not one but two parties at SXSW, announcing at the first event the new All Things Reviewed section of our Web site.

Since words can only say so much, we’ve put together a slideshow for you, below, and our full list of stories is below that:

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But with the rain keeping thousands of us indoors in the same spots, it doesn’t seem to be enough.

SXSW’s press office told me it won’t release attendance numbers until later in the festival, because new people will keep buying tickets during the event. With the registration line twisting for hours throughout the Austin Convention Center, it seems almost abusive for the organizers to let more people in.

Last year’s SXSW Interactive had 19,000 badged participants, up 40 percent from the year before. Based on my own anecdotal experience with flights, hotels and lines so far, there are way, way, way more people here.

There are currently more than 3,700 people currently checked in on Foursquare to the main Austin Convention Center location, and conference sessions haven’t even started yet.

SXSW is a hugely lucrative event for its organizers and for the Austin economy, with the interactive, film and music festival bringing in an estimated $167.8 million in revenue to the region in 2011.

This year, even in the rain, the city is more crammed than ever with branded tents and domes for corporate parties and showcases for cellphones, soft drinks and cars.

But the official program isn’t the end of it. This morning, I had breakfast with the folks at Zaarly, who have 14 staffers on the ground in Austin, and only one conference badge among them — for their biz-dev guy.

Zaarly is co-hosting a party tonight with Twilio and Startup Weekend, in a venue that holds 300 people. They have received more than 12,000 RSVPs.

Zaarly, which is a peer-to-peer marketplace for goods and services, is actually optimistic about long lines being a marketing opportunity. CEO Bo Fishback said he has contracted workers who will stand in lines throughout Austin this week with “Z” signs above their heads, and who will charge people who want to take their spot in line between $10 and $50.

Especially if it’s still raining here on Monday, I imagine people will pay far more than 50 bucks for spots in line to get into the free Jay-Z show at SXSW put on by American Express.

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But instead of moving movies and TV shows to the world’s biggest Web site, they’re trying something different: Google is handing out more than $100 million to dozens of partners to create new “channels.”

The idea is to make “professional” content that advertisers will pay a premium to be near, instead of the grab bag of videos that dominate the site and that often sell at very low prices.

This isn’t news, of course: YouTube reps have been holding meetings and auditions for most of the year, led by former Netflix executive Robert Kyncl. And we’ve known about the deal terms, and many of the partners, for some time.

But now the site is finally talking about them publicly and promising that it will start unveiling some of the new programming next month. Some of the channels — each of which will have a couple hours of original programming per week — will feature people you’ve heard of, like Madonna, Jay-Z,  Ashton Kutcher and “Modern Family” star Sofia Vergara.

But the channels aren’t all premised around the idea of celebrities and Hollywood per se — just the idea that someone with some idea of how to make good stuff will start making stuff specifically for the site.

For instance, BedRocket Properties, the video start-up backed by the Huffington Post’s Ken Lerer and run by cable TV veteran Brian Bedol, will do four channels, including a soccer-themed channel in conjunction with Major League Soccer, and an action sports channel produced along with Wasserman Media Group.

Another example: IGN, the videogame Web site being spun off by News Corp., will produce a game-themed channel along with the Shine Group, the TV production house recently purchased by News Corp. (News Corp. also owns this Web site).

It’s worth noting that some of the channels will be run by people who are well-versed in creating Web video — and video for YouTube in particular. Machinima, for instance, which also specializes in game-themed stuff, is already one of YouTube’s most prolific partners, and essentially runs a network within YouTube’s network.

Maker Studios, which is producing three channels, is another outfit that already specializes in YouTube. And Demand Media went public this year, in part because it had figured out the art of cranking out Web videos very, very, quickly, at very, very low prices.

YouTube may not be releasing all of the channels and partners today, perhaps because it doesn’t actually have all of its deals signed yet. And at least one partner told me that some of the mechanics of the deals, like control of ad sales, had yet to be worked out.

That’s hard to imagine, given the amount of time that YouTube has been at this. But it’s also hard to imagine why you’d announce a big consumer-focused deal at the end of a Friday. So, who knows.

We do know the general outlines of the deals, though: Google will advance most of the creators up to $5 million, and in return will get commitments to produce a couple hours of programming a week for the channel. Once the programmers have earned back their advance from YouTube, they’ll split ad revenue with the site. The programming will be exclusive to YouTube for at least the first year of the three-year deals.

What we don’t know is how this stuff will actually work: $5 million won’t go very far if the partners use traditional TV and film budgets, so many of the partners are going to have to supplement that money with investments of their own — and they’re going to have to work on a tighter budget. And just because there’s a bit of Hollywood shine associated with this stuff doesn’t mean that people will actually watch — or, most crucially, that advertisers will pay up.

Google may also try other methods to get high-end video stuff. The company made a stab at Hulu when that video site was on the block. And it has indicated that it’s interested in licensing some content in international markets, where it thinks it can get more bang for its buck.

If you wanted to get into it, you could have an interesting debate in which someone argues that caring about music isn’t always analogous to paying for recorded music. But whatever. For now, let’s stipulate that the “don’t take stuff that isn’t yours” sentiment is a good one.

That said: Not to be too be churlish, but if the Beatles and the people who control their music don’t want you to steal, shouldn’t they make their music widely available online?

As you may recall, last fall the band’s music finally became available in legal digital form, via an iTunes exclusive. And now, 10 months later, Apple’s store remains the only place you can buy Abbey Road, Let I Be, Revolver, etc. You can’t buy them via Amazon, and you can’t hear them via subscription services like Spotify, MOG, etc.

Online music exclusives aren’t unusual, but they’re usually very short. I’ve never heard of an act locking itself to one digital outlet for this long. And if you don’t want people to steal stuff, it would make sense to make it as easy to buy as possible, no?

If the Apple exclusive lasts a year, then it should expire in mid-November. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it lasts through the end of 2011 and possibly beyond, so that Steve Jobs and company can wring the benefits of another Christmas sales cycle: Remember that lots of iTunes content gets purchased right after the holidays, when people have new gadgets to play with/fill up.

Meanwhile, the Music Matters clips have some great animation, at the very least. You can see a collection of them at this YouTube channel. Here’s a sampling featuring the Jam, Stevie Wonder and Jay-Z (couple NSFW swears on that last one).

“I can’t control what people think this was. I can only tell you my intentions. This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith or people of activism or to look down our noses at the heartland or passionate argument or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear. They are and we do. But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus and not be enemies.

But unfortunately one of our main tools in delineating the two broke. The country’s 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic.

If we amplify everything we hear nothing. There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats but those are titles that must be earned. You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Partiers or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people but to the racists themselves who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate–just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more. The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything we actually get sicker–and perhaps eczema.

And yet, with that being said, I feel good–strangely, calmly good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us through a fun house mirror, and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin and one eyeball.

So, why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle to a pumpkin assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course, our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable. Why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution or racists and homophobes who see no one’s humanity but their own? We hear every damn day about how fragile our country is–on the brink of catastrophe–torn by polarizing hate and how it’s a shame that we can’t work together to get things done, but the truth is we do. We work together to get things done every damn day!

The only place we don’t is here or on cable TV. But Americans don’t live here or on cable TV. Where we live our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done, not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done. Most Americans don’t live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do–often something they do not want to do–but they do it–impossible things every day that are only made possible through the little reasonable compromises we all make.

Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are. [points to the Jumbotron screen which shows traffic merging into a tunnel]. These cars–that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swinging, I don’t even know if you can see it–the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah. There’s another car–an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear–often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay–you go and then I’ll go.

And sure, at some point there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder and cuts in at the last minute, but that individual is rare and he is scorned and not hired as an analyst.

Because we know instinctively as a people that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light we have to work together. And the truth is, there will always be darkness. And sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t the promised land. Sometimes it’s just New Jersey. But we do it anyway, together.

If you want to know why I’m here and want I want from you, I can only assure you this: you have already given it to me. Your presence was what I wanted.

Sanity will always be and has always been in the eye of the beholder. To see you here today and the kind of people that you are has restored mine. Thank you.”

*Note that this isn’t coming from the most obvious sources: Viacom’s own Daily Show site, which carried a live stream of the event but doesn’t have any record of it anymore, or C-SPAN, which is running a loop of the rally, but doesn’t have a handy way to excerpt the three-hour event. Too bad Hulu can’t help here….

[Image credit: Cliff1066]

From 1998 through 2008, Harcourt was the driving force at KCRW, the super-influential public radio station broadcasting from Santa Monica, Calif.: Even if you’ve never heard of him or the station, you’ve heard music and bands he helped make famous via airplay.

I don’t know if his Wikipedia entry is technically accurate (crowdsourcing!), but the list of musicians he’s credited with breaking in the U.S. should give a sense of his vibe, regardless: Coldplay, Norah Jones, Pete Yorn, Franz Ferdinand, etc. Awesome headline of a 2005 New York Times Magazine profile: “The Star Maker of the Semipopular.”

But outside of his work picking music for TV shows and movies, Harcourt hasn’t had a forum for the past two years.

Now he does: Blog network Buzzmedia is putting him in charge of “Live Buzz,” a new site that focuses on music videos.

There are plenty of those, so what’s different? Harcourt says it’s the emphasis on live tapings recorded specifically for the site. But there are plenty of those, too (check out “From the Basement,” which does a really good job).

So what Buzzmedia is really banking on here is that Harcourt’s brand will be enough to attract surfers and keep them coming back. That’s why the site’s homepage announces that it is “Curated by Nic Harcourt” right at the top.

Certainly worth a visit. Here are a couple examples of what you’ll find there. I’m particularly fond of the acoustic Jay-Z: