Advertising: In the World of Content, Web Follows a Trail Left by TV

As a week of presentations by media companies continues in New York, under the banner of the Digital Content NewFronts, the focus is squarely on efforts to create high-quality, engaging Web series and other programming that can be watched on smartphones and tablets as well as on desktop and laptop computers. Borrowing a page from the broadcast networks and cable channels whose so-called upfronts inspired the week’s events, the media companies are recruiting for their shows stars who will work on both sides of the camera.

AOL, in its presentation on Tuesday, described plans for a number of new projects that featured familiar names like the designer Jonathan Adler, Hank Azaria, the chef Rocco DiSpirito, the Nascar driver Dylan Kwasniewski, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sarah Jessica Parker and Nicole Richie.

Also on Tuesday, Hulu, the online video Web site, described at its event several series, planned and potential, involving the likes of Mario Batali, the Tony-winning British actor James Corden, Carson Daly, Eva Longoria, Seth Meyers and Jay Mohr.

And on Monday evening, Yahoo shared a lineup of programs involving Ed Helms, Cheryl Hines, Zachary Levi, Morgan Spurlock and John Stamos.

In the last year, Yahoo has more than doubled the original video programming on yahoo.com, said Erin McPherson, vice president and head of video at Yahoo, who shared the stage with stars like Mr. Helms and Mr. Levi. The actors, in a comedic Web series, “Tiny Commando,” will play a private eye who is 4 inches tall (Mr. Helms) and his arch-nemesis, also in miniature (Mr. Levi).

Other new Web shows for Yahoo include “We Need Help,” with Ms. Hines and Rachael Harris as high-maintenance Hollywood divas who share a personal assistant, and “Losing Your Virginity With John Stamos,” in which Mr. Stamos will interview other celebrities about their tales of loss of innocence; Mr. Stamos and Mr. Spurlock are to be the executive producers.

Marissa Mayer, the new president and chief executive at Yahoo, told the audience that premium content was one of her three goals for Yahoo’s products supported by advertising, along with innovation and performance.

Ads were also a topic of discussion at the Hulu presentation, as Jean-Paul Colaco, senior vice president for advertising at Hulu, declared, “We celebrate advertising at Hulu,” where, he said, executives are “building the world’s most effective video advertising service.”

On television, “brands are just one DVR skip from losing valuable viewer engagement,” Mr. Colaco said, referring to the practice, common among owners of digital video recorders, of skipping commercials when watching shows they recorded. By contrast, he added, commercials on Hulu enjoy high recall of the brands as well as their messages.

Several of the original series discussed by Mr. Colaco and other Hulu executives, including those with Mr. Batali, Mr. Daly and Mr. Mohr, are “brand-contingent” — that is, they will be made if advertisers sign up to support them. Such shows would integrate products in the plot lines, a practice known as branded entertainment or content marketing.

Mr. Meyers — who also hosted the Hulu presentation in addition to promoting an original animated Web series, “The Awesomes,” that he is creating for Hulu with Michael Shoemaker — even spoofed Hulu’s practice of refining its commercial-targeting through user surveys. “Was that joke relevant to you? Click yes or no,” Mr. Meyers said at one point, elaborating on the Hulu entreaty “Is this ad relevant to you? Click yes or no.”

Mr. Colaco and the other Hulu executives spoke confidently, despite it being an uncertain time for the company as two of its owners, the Walt Disney Company and News Corporation, weigh whether to sell. In March, the founding chief executive of Hulu, Jason Kilar, stepped down; one of his top lieutenants, Andy Forssell, is now the acting chief executive and spoke during the presentation, announcing that Hulu doubled the number of subscribers to its paid service, Hulu Plus, in the last year, to four million, with half of them ages 18 to 34.

In the increasingly crowded online environment, commissioning shows is becoming a way to stand out. Hulu, for instance, became this week one of only two places to watch “All My Children” and “One Life to Live,” the canceled ABC daytime soap operas that were resurrected online by a production company, Prospect Park. (The other outlet is Apple’s iTunes store.)

Stars from each soap appeared during the Hulu presentation, including Erika Slezak of “One Life to Live,” who spoke for the casts of both when she proudly declared the series are “no longer ‘daytime.’ ”

Because they can now be watched “whenever, wherever, however,” Ms. Slezak said, “we are anytime.”

In another sign of the growing prominence of online viewing, Nielsen said on Tuesday that it would begin a pilot of what it called Nielsen digital program ratings, measuring audiences for linear television content watched online. AOL is among the participants in the test, from May through July, along with A&E, ABC, CBS, CW, Discovery Communications, Fox, NBC and Univision.

The Digital Content NewFronts, under the aegis of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, are to run through Friday.

Brian Stelter contributed reporting.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: May 1, 2013

An earlier version of this article misstated, in one instance, the title of a cancelled ABC soap opera. It is “One Life to Live,” not “One Live to Live.”

David Cameron Joins Twitter, and Pith Follows

Give him points for effort. But Mr. Cameron, who had already attracted more than 80,000 followers by Sunday afternoon, clearly had not reckoned with the sharp, anarchic sense of humor that Twitter can unleash, particularly among the annoyed and the restive.

Angry at the government’s economic philosophy, at an austerity budget filled with measures cutting jobs and services, at the reorganization of the National Health Service, at recent suggestions by Jeremy Hunt, the health secretary, that he would like to limit abortion rights, the Twitter-using public unleashed a torrent of witty, mean remarks.

Some teased Mr. Cameron’s privileged background and rich friends. Others attacked his policies. Others were just funny.

Jonathan Marriott wrote, “Times are hard. Do I sack the cleaner, the gardener or just use tax avoidance techniques?”

Johnmc72 asked: “Do you know anyone who has ever eaten soup from a cereal bowl?”

The whole exercise apparently started when Lord Prescott, a Labour politician and former deputy prime minister who is now out of office and spends a lot of time on Twitter, noticed that Mr. Cameron had joined the Twitterati. He responded with a fakely innocent suggestion.

“Now that @david_cameron is on Twitter, why don’t we ask him a few questions?” he posted.

And the #askdave thread was born — possibly an allusion to #askboris, the hashtag the mayor of London, Boris Johnson, uses when he opens the floor on Twitter and takes questions from constituents. Those chats are generally fairly jolly, like Mr. Johnson himself.

By contrast, #askdave did not turn out to be the most flattering of threads.

Many of the questions to Mr. Cameron involved matters of upper-crust etiquette, including things like how to find an “average Joe” kind of Champagne when one is tired of Dom Pérignon; how many cooks to hire in one’s kitchen; and what to do with a trust valued at £30 million, or about $48 million — the amount that Mr. Cameron and his wife stand to inherit, according to one account, from their families.

There were more:

¶ “Our neighbour works in trade, would it be inappropriate to invite them to our next country supper?” Bryan Nott asked.

¶ “How do I know which way up my cummerbund goes?” Stephen Thomas asked.

¶ “I wonder if you could tell me which wine goes best with roast swan?” Amanda asked.

Other posts showed a bitterness toward Mr. Cameron’s policies:

¶ “When you said the Tories would promote growth in UK, you did mean in unemployment, homelessness and the deficit, right?” Tiernan Douieb wrote.

¶ “Please tell us @david_cameron, what exactly is it about women that makes you want to erode their human rights?” Dusty asked.

¶ “Do you wear special contacts that render the poor invisible?” Ben Bartlett said.

Many on Twitter accused Mr. Cameron of breaking various promises. But he has stuck at least to his Twitter promise of not sending “too many tweets.” As of Sunday evening, he had written four, one explaining that he was about to go on television to talk about how his government is “on the side of people who want to get on in life.”

Grandchildren Arrive. A Medusa’s Head of Wires Soon Follows.

I am hardly a computer novice. As a sportswriter for The New York Times, I had the distinction of sending in the paper’s very first article by computer, back in 1974.

But now I get bamboozled and frazzled by my grandchildren when they visit: Invariably, they have messed up my computer, my iPad, my iPhone and my iPod.

Just a few weeks ago, 15-year-old Corey asked to use my cellphone. Perhaps I should have asked where his was (lost, once again, I later found out). After he left, I was surprised that I wasn’t receiving calls on it. Well, yes I was. Somehow he had turned off the volume.

I got that settled — all I had to do was push one tiny button. But then I began getting texts from what I discerned to be teenage girls, looking for that heartthrob Corey — and followed them up with Facebook postings.

Of course, we want the grandchildren to visit. In fact, we want them desperately, since two of them live in London and two of them live in Florida. But within hours of their arrival, the apartment looks like a Medusa’s head of wires. They use so many outlets that I have to move the couch in the den so we can reach the one hidden behind it. Then I wind up with songs on my iPod by people named Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, vying with Frank Sinatra and Eddie Fisher.

Of course, I’m guilty of some egregious computer mischief myself — I sailed into unfamiliar waters when I wanted to learn more about a young woman my son Mike was dating. So I Facebooked her — and then discovered I had inadvertently plastered her name all over the ether. I had misused an item called “status update,” and so whenever anyone looked me up, her name was joined with mine. That brought intense laughter from a grandson and a “You did what?” from my son.

I spent the next hour chasing my name and her name all over the place, trying to untangle them, until I had erased my incriminating search. I was sure I’d be tabbed an online stalker.

But no, I’m just a grandpa happy to be able to press a “send” button without creating a family incident. Since my grandchildren haven’t been here for a few weeks, I’m going to take a chance this works. Here goes.