HCDSS Lisa Donovan, aka LisaNova, has been tapped to join the cast of MADtv, which airs Saturdays (11:00 PM-Midnight ET/PT) on FOX. Donovan will first be seen in the episode airing Saturday, Feb. 17.

Donovan’s has been a top-20 YouTuber for some time as LisaNova, with 22,000+ subscribers.

Here’s a recent example of her YouTube videos:

Giving Up The Nuts

A native of New York, Donovan attended the University of Colorado-Boulder before moving to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. She went on several auditions, including one for MADtv, and performed with a small improv group. Donovan continued to audition and started her own production company, Zappin Productions, where she wrote, produced and edited numerous short films.

Eventually, her creative partner introduced her to YouTube, where their online videos quickly became popular, with several featured on YouTubes main page. After Donovan’s videos achieved their popularity on YouTube, Donovan again was asked to audition for the late-night sketch show, and got the part.

via Mashable

The vloggers at Rocketboom have the scoop on John Edwards’ presidential candidacy:

“We just filmed John Edwards’ first announcement that he is running for president,” writes Andrew Baron at his blog. “We also got an interview with him which I will post early in the morning on Rocketboom, well before the rest of the press will meet him for his formal press announcement.”

Here’s Edwards making his announcement to the world of podcast fans:

The rest of the world will have to wait for mainstream media coverage…..

More coverage at Podtech and Pulver.com.

The Associated Press has published a list of its “most significant” YouTube videos (or video categories) of 2006.
The picks:

• lonelygirl15
• Lazy Sunday
• George Allen “macaca” incident
• YouTube founders announce Google acquisition
• OK Go’s treadmill music video
• Michael Richards’ rant (removed)
• geriatric1927
• Videos used in legal investigations
• Chinese Backstreet Boys
• funtwo guitarist, Barats & Bereta, Aleksey Vayner

via NewTeeVee

BloodSpell is video podcast that is pioneering the use of machinima in moviemaking.

Machinima are films that are made with real-time animation created using Unreal, Halo, The Sims and other popular video games.  The video podcast is made using the game Neverwinter Nights, and is written and directed by Hugh Hancock.

BloodSpell tells a story of “a world where men and women carry magic in their blood, and spilling it can unleash terrible power”. (more…)

Rocketboom’s Andrew Michael Baron announced today that he was backing out of a deal with Microsoft to promote the Zune. He was concerned that the deal would limit Rocketboom’s ability to cover Microsoft critically:

Here’s the text of Baron’s letter:

Sunday November 11, 2006

Hey Paul, we are going to back out of the Zune.net promo that is supposed to launch [deleted date].

I have been losing sleep over it and decided this is just not going to be right for Rocketboom. While I expect this will be a big traffic loss for us, at heart, I really love Apple and will stick by them in this competition. I also remembered from last year that Microsoft was the first company to really make me feel as though I was being taken advantage of personally.

We are not in this to side with a player. In fact, I hope that people who do enjoy the Zune will enjoy watching Rocketboom on their Zune players. This can happen however without the need to cross promote each other.

Also, with regards to the logo agreement, just by having the Zune logo on our page would mean we would not be able to make disparaging comments about Microsoft and that’s just not a reasonable restriction for Rocketboom.

Best of luck,
Drew

via Dembot