This Jimmy Kimmel mocking of Facebook’s requirement that everyone move next week to the social networking site’s Timeline profile is simply hilarious and unmissable.

The “friend your momma” requirement in the video is my favorite:

Enjoy:

BoomTown loves the spoof videos that late-night television talk show host Jimmy Kimmel does–Hello, Humpilates!–and this one featuring actor Christoph Waltz is another great one.

Waltz always plays scary dudes–usually, some version of a Nazi, if not one, in fact–in movies, and so making him a homicidal judge on the talent show “American Idol” is perfection.

Enjoy:

This mock fitness video by late-night television talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is so funny that it made BoomTown do several spit-takes watching it.

It is for a product called “Hottie Body Humpilates,” and includes a bevy of glam Hollywood actresses–including Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel, Eva Longoria, Sofia Vergara, Jessica Alba and also a perfect turn from Lindsay Lohan–doing bad things to an exercise ball.

Enough said.

Enjoy:

The idea behind the day is to encourage people to take stock of their ballooning Facebook friend lists and to cull the marginal folks. Kimmel has been pushing the idea on his ABC show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” this month, including even a theme song from country singers Brad Paisley and Darius Rucker. The idea seems to have some resonance with people, with “unfriend” turning into a trending topic on Twitter earlier on Wednesday.

In an interview Wednesday with the WSJ’s Video Network’s Simon Constable (see below), Kimmel said, “it just seemed to me that people are wasting a lot of time on Facebook talking to people or catching up with people they don’t want to catch up with.”

He said he actually has just 10 to 12 real friends. Most people on Facebook are “annoying,” he said. “No one needs to know what television show you’re watching or what you just ate, or if you’re feeling hungy, or tired or anything. … Share a little bit less, I think is the message here. For those who have Facebook, whittle it down to the people you really talk to.”

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Background: Last week, Google stopped allowing Facebook to help its users find their friends by importing their Gmail contacts list. Google said the move was about data portability and liberation, calling Facebook a “data dead end” because it wasn’t giving its users’ email addresses to Google.

Facebook yesterday found a workaround to re-enable Google contacts importing, and Facebook engineering lead Mike Vernal commented on TechCrunch at length under his own name, charging Google with hypocrisy for disallowing contact importing for Orkut last year and “limiting user choice.”

What’s funny, though, as sources have pointed out to us, is that Facebook actually does allow email importing, specifically to Yahoo Mail and Microsoft’s Hotmail (we checked AOL mail too, but couldn’t find it there).

This is no secret; Yahoo launched its Facebook email contact importer in March of this year. In a blog post at the time, senior product manager Rick Pal said,

Importing from Facebook is super simple…After you click login, we will authorize your account and begin importing, which may take a minute or two depending on your Internet speed and how many Facebook friends you have.

Update: Microsoft confirmed through a spokesperson that its Windows Live users can import both Facebook and Gmail contacts, and said some nice stuff about its commitment to customer choice.

Access to user emails isn’t something Facebook gives just anyone. In fact, only a few partners can hook into them while the rest have to rely on users’ Facebook-formatted information available through Facebook Connect. That includes Google. The difference, according to a source, is that Yahoo and Microsoft asked nicely.

Please see my disclosure related to Facebook here.

Yesterday–presumably so as not to be left out of the dueling press gatherings that Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) and Facebook have all had in recent weeks to show off fancy new stuff–Twitter lobbed out an an invite for an event this afternoon:

We’d like to invite you to come to Twitter HQ for an event tomorrow afternoon (Sept 14)…Please be there by 3:45pm. RSVP below.

See you there.

So, what, oh, what are those little elves at the microblogging service going to show off?

It could be a lot of things, from a new advertising shiny object to the results of recent promoted tweet efforts to updated mobile products.

Or perhaps it is introducing some more video capability into its tweets.

And maybe Twitter bought some pretty little start-up or is annoying a whole new fascist country.

So, because BoomTown always reads to the last page of mysteries to get to the ending first, here is my best spoiler guess of what Twitter could announce: An updated search offering.

Well, at least, I hope the company will finally fill in what has become what I consider to be one of the very biggest holes in its service.

Right now, Twitter’s real-time search engine uses technology from Summize, which it bought in 2008.

And, simply put, it remains pretty lousy–with an index that only holds tweets from a few days and has no massive archive.

In fact, results have been better from others, such as Google and the Microsoft (MSFT) Bing search service, both of which did deals to license Twitter’s flood of tweets about a year ago.

And Google recently upped the ante with its dedicated real-time search offering, made up, in large part, of Twitter’s index archive and including a coolio timeline.

It is long past time for Twitter to keep up here, in terms of simple innovation, given these tweets are its own content.

What would be interesting to see is if Twitter needed the help of a search giant such as Google or Microsoft to help power such a service–sources said its execs had been putting feelers out many months ago on the subject of such aid.

Then again, it could all be home built, too.

In any case, let’s hope Twitter gives its tweets the respect they deserve.

Or else introduces its own mobile device called the Tweetphone that vibrates every time you are mentioned on Twitter.

Until then, here is the video of the very funny “Tweet Tweet” rap song from Jimmy Kimmel and Drake that debuted in late June:

The conceit: Kimmel’s ABC show lost power on Monday, so he used a MacBook to shoot the show, which aired last night.

Put-on/gimmick? Assume so (What powered the MacBook? And the lights? Etc). But the press, including the New York Times, is reporting it as fact, so judge for yourself. And either way, it’s fairly entertaining. Some samples:

Here are some other options, via Jimmy Kimmel’s post-finale special. A little disappointing that there’s no Bobby Ewing dream season reference here, but whatever. And if the YouTube link here goes dead, let me know and I’ll try to find you another one.

A public service announcement for those of you eager to start paying for Hulu: Be patient. You’re going to have to keep waiting.

Last month, the Los Angeles Times said Hulu was set to roll out a subscription service “as soon as May 24.” That’s next Monday. But people familiar with the company say there’s no way a Hulu Plus will be up and running by then.

When will the long-discussed premium service be ready? I don’t know. I’m still not entirely convinced that the joint venture–owned by News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, Disney’s (DIS) ABC and GE’s (GE) NBC–has completely settled on terms of the plan, though I think they’ve agreed on the broad strokes: $10 a month for access to a deeper catalog of broadcast shows and to the service on devices like Apple’s (AAPL) iPad. (Regular Hulu, which is on a pace to generate $200 million in advertising this year, remains free).

And even if Hulu and all of its partners are seeing eye-to-eye–not a given–getting the rights from various programming partners to sell their shows could be a slog.

The upside: Your patience will be rewarded, Hulu subscribers of the future. One person familiar with the company’s plans tells me the new service will be “revolutionary.” Popular claim these days. Let’s see if it holds up.

Speaking of patience–a great Jimmy Kimmel bit about last week’s infuriating epsiode of “Lost”:

Anyway, here is the Craigslist ad that Conan O’Brien took out last night to put his “barely used talk show” up for sale. The ad keeps popping on and off of Craigslist, but here’s a screengrab (click to enlarge).

Meanwhile, here are the two best late-night video clips I’ve seen so far–again, neither of which I saw on TV:

Jimmy Kimmel making Jay Leno and his audience very uncomfortable (this gets good around the 2:40 mark, if you define “good” as “something that makes everybody a little bit queasy,” which I’m fine with).

And CBS’s (CBS) Craig Ferguson putting all of this in proper perspective:

Although BoomTown completely enjoyed having dinner with entertainment agency overlord Ari Emanuel last week–hey, it was a Hollywood party at the Consumer Electronics Show, so name-dropping is required–I have little interest in the money and scheduling machinations that broke out last week over NBC Universal’s late-night television talk shows.

But I do love the roundelay of online videos this Tinseltown mess has created.

It all has to do with Jay Leno stinking up the joint in his newish 10 pm time slot, which has caused NBC affiliates to revolt, which–in turn–has sent broadcast network execs into a decided chicken-with-its-head-cut-off panic.

Thus, their big and cloddish idea to reschedule Leno back to late night, while trying to hipcheck Conan O’Brien from his 11:35 pm perch, all without incurring a big contract penalty fee. Jimmy Fallon, who comes on after O’Brien, is also part of the shovefest, as is after-Fallon host Carson Daly.

And, of course, all of them got to comment on all of this on–yes–the late-night comedy routines that open their shows.

Here are Leno and O’Brien riffing on the silly crisis–as well as ABC’s late-night host Jimmy Kimmel weighing in with Daly’s help–at the GE (GE) unit that was just bought by Comcast (CMCSA).

And below is an interview I did with NBC Universal President and CEO Jeff Zucker at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference last May talking about a range of topics, including what a brilliant idea it was going to be to move Leno to an earlier, five-night-a-week slot.

Not so much, Jeff!

But enjoy the ensuing videos:

LENO

O’BRIEN

KIMMEL/DALY

ZUCKER

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100111/viral-video-late-night-debacle-make-for-good-jokes-at-least/feed/ 3 http://allthingsd.com/20091222/jimmy-kimmel-norah-jones-and-youtubes-12-days-of-christmas/ http://allthingsd.com/20091222/jimmy-kimmel-norah-jones-and-youtubes-12-days-of-christmas/#comments Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:53:55 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=14346 How do you get a video to go viral on YouTube? One tried-and-true method: Rely on other videos that have gone viral on YouTube.

Also, it wouldn’t hurt if you got it on national TV. And if you got YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley to give you a shout-out on Twitter.

Still, this Jimmy Kimmel clip of a duet with Norah Jones has been on Google’s (GOOG) video site for five days now, and it has racked up a mere 57,468 views. Go figure. I like it, anyway:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091222/jimmy-kimmel-norah-jones-and-youtubes-12-days-of-christmas/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090521/jimmy-kimmels-shocking-upront-rant-exposed-spoiler-not-so-shocking/ http://allthingsd.com/20090521/jimmy-kimmels-shocking-upront-rant-exposed-spoiler-not-so-shocking/#comments Thu, 21 May 2009 18:47:28 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=7605 Did you hear about Jimmy Kimmel’s shocking rant at ABC’s “upfront” sales presentation this week? The New York Times said the comedian’s routine, presented to an auditorium full of potential ad buyers, generated a “mixture of uneasy laughs and the occasional gasp.” That’s because he said things along the lines of this:

Every year we lie to you and every year you come back for more. You don’t need an upfront. You need therapy. We completely lie to you, and then you pass those lies onto your clients.

Predictably, this generated lots of gasping in cyberspace, but it shouldn’t have. The networks always bring comedians onstage during upfronts to poke fun at themselves and their competitors.

That’s because they need to. The upfronts, where the TV broadcasters show off next year’s shows to advertisers, are a week-long hard-sell. Without some “hey, we’re in on the joke” levity, these things would collapse of their own weight.

And as far as “the occasional gasp”? I was at the 2004 upfront where GE’s (GE) NBC rolled out its animated show based on Siegfried & Roy–a year after Roy had been attacked by one of his own tigers–and attempted to assure advertisers that this was OK by rolling an interview with the mangled entertainer. Now that generated some gasping.

Anyway, no need to trust either me or Deadline Hollywood’s Nikki Finke, who patiently walks through all of this as well. Here, via the miracle of Google’s (GOOG) YouTube, is Kimmel’s routine in its entirety. Enjoy it now, in case the Disney-owned (DIS) network sends a take-down notice. Warning: Contains a couple curse words that people in the advertising business have heard before.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090521/jimmy-kimmels-shocking-upront-rant-exposed-spoiler-not-so-shocking/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20080227/dueling-online-videos-a-hit-about-well-just-watch-them/ http://allthingsd.com/20080227/dueling-online-videos-a-hit-about-well-just-watch-them/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2008 08:02:49 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080227/dueling-online-videos-a-hit-about-well-just-watch-them/ We got such a great reaction from our Obama Girl/Obamapology online videos that we posted yesterday, BoomTown has decided to reinstate our practice of showcasing excellent online videos that we started posting during the writers’ strike.

Our premise has been simple: That online video in both short and long form is the future and its development is important to pay attention to.

So here’s two slightly vulgar but still compelling examples of comedy–a particularly promising arena online–both of which first appeared on ABC’s late-night talk show “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

The first by comedian Sarah Silverman, which aired on Jan. 31, is a satire about her supposed carnal relations with actor Matt Damon. It has been viewed online over eight million times–grabbing a much larger audience than it did offline.

The second, a video rejoinder by Kimmel (who is Silverman’s boyfriend too), is now up to two million views since it was released Sunday night after the Oscars. His love interest? Why, Damon crony Ben Affleck, of course.

Kimmel’s is the better of the two and jam-packed with celebrities (Harrison Ford, Brad Pitt!).

Both, which are posted below, have quite a bit of profanity with lots of pixelation and bleeping, although that has not stopped ABC, which is owned by Disney (DIS), from putting the video front and center on its home page.

But be forewarned, although these are exactly the kind of videos that go viral online–funny, quick and hip–some might find them offensive.

Sarah Silverman/Matt Damon

Jimmy Kimmel/Ben Affleck

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