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Yesterday, Iran permanently banned Gmail in an attempt to stifle today’s protests surrounding the anniversary of the Iranian revolution. Today, scores of videos depicting the melee have found their way onto YouTube, demonstrating the power that social media has to make voices heard against all odds. YouTube is reporting on its blog today that videos of pro-reformers flooding the streets of Iran and battling anti-riot police forces are being uploaded to the web. Even though YouTube is blocked in Iran, “dissidents are passing videos to friends out of the country and using Internet circumvention technologies to post the footage,” according to the blog post. This…

As expected, YouTube announced the launch tonight of its Super Bowl ad channel at youtube.com/adblitz , which will allow viewers to vote on the commercials immediately after they air on TV. The channel, sponsored by car maker Kia, has already been populated by content from the YouTube community, and YouTube is working directly with advertisers to get the videos posted as soon as they appear on TV. The top rated commercial will be featured on the YouTube homepage on Thursday February 18th. Reviews: YouTube

When you set out to create a 2.3

Although comedy troupe Improv Everywhere has yet to post the official video of yesterday’s No Pants! Subway Ride in New York City, footage of the stunt is already all over the web. Every January since 2002, a group of brave participants in the Big Apple get together to perform one daring (and more than slightly unsanitary) feat: Riding the subway sans pants. This year, Improv Everywhere — which is described on its website as a group of thousands of “undercover agents” who “cause scenes of chaos and joy in public places” — rallied together close to 3,000 folks in their skivvies to parade through the tubes. The end of the road was Union Square, where the pantless…

So, web video is getting bigger. There’s your obvious news item for the day. If you want specifics though, comScore has them : 31 billion web videos were viewed in November by 170 million U.S. internet users. Google sites are still the establishment, accounting for just shy of 40% of views, with YouTube serving 99% of those. Hulu is the rising star, now in second place. Thing is, Hulu only adds up to 3%. Once you’re done counting YouTube views, the market becomes very fragmented. The average video length — four minutes — is still quite low. With Hulu at #2 and TV network sites …

What are the hottest topics on Twitter , YouTube and social media sites this Christmas Eve? While “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Holidays” are trending high, a full 0.83% of Tweets at 5pm ET tonight mentioned the word “Pope”. Pope Benedict was unfortunately knocked down by a woman before the Christmas Eve mass – he was unhurt, and completed the ceremony. Of course, we can rely on user-generated content to capture such remarkable events: in this case a bystander with a cellphone caught the moment on film while the TV cameras were pointed elsewhere. It’s only the latest in a string of events – from the Hudson plane crash early this year, to the passing of Neda in Iran – where people on the ground captured shocking…

Macala Wright Lee is the CEO of FashionablyMarketing.Me a digital marketing and merchandising firm that specializes in fashion, luxury and beauty brands in Southern California. You can follower her on Twitter at @FashMarketing . It’s safe to say that the fashion industry has adopted social media as a marketing platform to reach their customers online and reignite brand passion and customer loyalty. While fashion brands and retailers are still grappling with social media in terms of controlling brand perception and establishing metrics to measure its marketing value, they have used Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and other social communities to develop digital marketing strategies to drive online sales and retail store…

From the same folks at Whirled Interactive who brought us the excellently funny “Pulp Wave Fiction” comes another intelligent use of Google Wave as a video production medium — this time it’s used to encapsulate the year in news and social media. In “Waving Goodbye to 2009 ,” embedded after the break, we see a Google Wave rendition of the year’s most memorable moments. From the Obama inauguration to the Iran elections , from Susan Boyle to Kanye West , the video highlights the best — and worst — moments of 2009. Check it out below and let us know what …

We’ve known for a while that Facebook users are getting a lot older , but now new data released by Nielsen reveals that the number of seniors (65 and older) using the web has increased by 6 million in the last five years. Not only that, but nearly half of online seniors visited Facebook or YouTube last month, making them their 3rd and 4th most visited online destinations. The research confirmed a trend that we’ve seen in recent years: that more seniors are becoming active on the web. In November of 2004, there were 11.3 million active seniors online. In November 2009, that number jumped by 55% to 17.5 million. In addition, they spend …

Hope you weren’t enjoying watching YouTube on the television screen via Popcorn Hour and other set-top boxes, as they have been given notice by the newly 1080p and network TV-friendly website that they are no longer welcome to access its content. The new Hulu-ish Terms of Service (section II, item 10) restricts API clients from the ability to “use the YouTube API in connection with any API Client created for use on television set top boxes, television game consoles, or video screens packaged and marketed as television sets;” according to Popcorn Hour COO Alex Limberis this applies to all with the exception of “a few strategic partner’s Google has singled out” — PlayStation 3, Wii, TiVo, Panasonic, Samsung and other licensed …