America has spent more time working or looking for jobs in recent years and it’s put the hurt on some recreational activities. That’s been quite a blow, apparently, to Quiksilver, the brand that’s long been synonymous with surfing, skateboarding and snowboarding.

Andy Mooney, who took over as CEO in January after running the show at Disney Consumer products and spending two decades at Nike, got to share the bad news with the world Thursday as the company reported not-so-great quarterly earnings. Overall revenues for the first quarter, which ended January 31, were down 3 percent to $431 million from $450 million the previous year. American net revenues dropped 9 percent in the quarter to $186 million, down from $205 million. The only major plus for the quarter was that e-commerce sales had gone up 39 percent to $33 million. Continue reading...

Following on the viral success of Gymkhana Four, DC Shoes co-founder and professional rally driver Ken Block is back with "Gymkhana Five: Ultimate Urban Playground." Filmed over four days on the streets of San Francisco, it's the most jaw-dropping Gymkhana production yet. The Monster World Rally legend treats SF as his personal playground, with special appearances by rider Travis Pastrana (a DC brand ambassador) and Jake Phelps (of Thrasher magazine). The drifting scenes alone are a thing of beauty — no wonder it generated 4.5 million views within 24 hours of being uploaded on YouTube on Monday. Watch it below.Continue reading...

Gymkhana is a type of motorport, and an extreme one at that. Like all races, there is a start, a finish, and it's timed. The driving extremes can involve wild stunts such as 180 degree spins, 360 degree spins, all through parking boxes, figure 8scones, tires, and barrels. More notably, in each video, Monster World Rally driver Ken Block donuts around people on Segways, forklifts and robotic sharks.

The latest —  DC Shoes: Ken Block's Gymkhana Four: The Hollywood Megamercial — was released Aug. 16 on YouTube. It already has attracted more than 8 million views, 1,558,593 Facebook shares, and 13,181 tweets, and may be the most insane Gymkhana event to date.

The DC x Ken Block Gymkhana project is a seven-part viral internet sensation, notching more than 70 million web views overall and receiving numerous awards. The Gymkhana TWO video was named one of Ad Age’s “Top 10 Viral Ads of All Time”, and #4 on its list of top viral videos of 2009.Continue reading...

During 2010, over 700 billion YouTube videos were watched and more than 13 million hours of video uploaded. Frankly, it’s amazing any work got done at all.

The search trends on the site, the world's second biggest search engine after parent Google, provide an accurate barometer on the serious (and perhaps less serious) news events of the year — and people's propensity for lower case searches. The top search terms on YouTube this year: Haiti, luge, eclipse trailer, ipad, eminem not afraid, shakira waka waka, double rainbow, bed intruder, halo reach, whip my hair and firework.

In other words, it was a good year for brands. Read: Old Spice (Man), the Winter Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, Apple, Katy Perry, Microsoft Xbox and vampires.Continue reading...