Grainy video footage of paramedics working on the unresponsive body of Anna Nicole Smith turned up on the Internet and on German television today, just a day after the sudden death of the former Playboy model in Florida.

The death video, shot by the Los Angeles-based Splash News and Picture Agency, continues the trend of Internet video rearchitecting the limits on what is newsworthy and what is private.

In the video, paramedics can be seen pumping Anna Nicole Smith’s chest as she is lifted on to an ambulance. One paramedic is seen operating an oxygen pump. She was pronounced dead in the hospital but the cause is yet to be determined.

At the end of last year, video clips of Saddam Hussein’s execution appeared on YouTube and other Internet video sharing sites, shocking some and striking others as a natural evolution of media.

Splash news editor Paul Tetley said he expected the footage to eventually fetch about $1 million.

“The first rights deal was for $500,000. It is a piece of footage that will continue to play and play because it was a moment of history,” he said.

Tetley defended selling the controversial footage of Smith’s death. “It captures the vain battle to save her life. People want to know what happened,” he said. “It was good journalism. We knew where she was staying, we sent in a team of photographers and cameras and we were in the right place at the right time,” he said.

Amanda Congdon, co-founder and former host of Rocketboom, is developing a comedy program for HBO.

“HBO is exactly the place where I want to be,” Congdon said. “I’m most interested in playing in that new dimension with two parallel levels of programming, online and on TV.”

According to Congdon, she’s aiming for a multiplatform property that will include original online video content. She intends to write and star in the series.

via Hollywood Reporter

MTV is looking for webcam stars to be on TRL:

Have you ever dreamt about being on TRL but can’t get to New York for the show?
Attention all TRL fans! Do you think you have what it takes to be a part of the hypest audience around? Now is your chance! TRL is looking for fun, outgoing fans to talk to some of the biggest names in music like Diddy, Nelly Furtado, The Killers, Ludacris, Jesse McCartney and many more… from the comfort of your computer. If you have a webcam, and want a chance to be a part of the TRL action email us at TRLWebcam@mtv.com, ASAP with the following info:
o Name: o Age: o Phone Number: o Attach a recent picture

Nine lucky fans will get a chance to be on the show via webcam. Must be outgoing, must have a webcam, and a computer with at least 1 GHz processor.

MTV doesn’t mentions this - but we expect it would help if you are a babe or a hunk.

via MTV

Dallas Mavericks owner and former Broadcast.com owner Mark Cuban, thinks that YouTube is doomed.
According to Cuban:

Youtube’s rapid ascension to the top of the traffic ranks can be attributed to two and only two reasons:

1. Free Hosting from any 3rd Party site
Hey, why pay for bandwidth for a video if you dont have to ? A blog, a myspace page, an email, any website. Just throw in some html in Youtube.com foots the bill for bandwidth. Sure you are limited by size of file, but so what. Just chop it up into parts 1 through N. Its fast, easy and free.

Come to our website and use our video hosting services, we can party like its 1999 all over again !

2. Copyrighted music and video.
I dont have a count, but i bet Daniel Powters’ Bad Day is attached to some video snippet of every sporting event ever played , with links sent to fans of every losing team. PIrates season, You had a Bad Day. Spurs vs Mavs. Mavs vs Suns, Mavs vs Heat, Yankees vs Red Sox, etc, etc, etc. Bad Day, Bad Day , Bad Day. If Daniel had a nickel for every time his song was used in a YouTube sports video, he would be a much richer man.

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Former Rocketboom anchor Amanda Congdon has announced plans to vlog her way across America at a new site, Amanda Across America.

From her Wiki:

As you may know, we will be traveling across the country over the next few weeks. On our way we will visit all kinds of people and places — we may even run into you. So we’ve created this wiki to interact with you.We are asking you, THE FORCE, to suggest points of interest across the USA. We are few and you are a geographically scattered multitude. What is there to see near you? Where would you go if you could? What should we not miss?

We encourage you to link to photos, video, and outside resources. We’d love to meet you, get to know you.

Together we will create a super-awesome interactive guide to America.

You are THE FORCE. And THE FORCE is with us.

Hope to see you soon & thank you in advance for your expert advice.

Mario & Amanda

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