Beet TV

PALO ALTO–Two years ago, former Virgina Sen. George Allen lost his bid for reelection after a YouTube video of him calling a Democratic volunteer “macaca” became an instant hit. Today, political “gotchya videos” are surfacing on YouTube every few days, and candidates have never had to be more careful about what they say.

Blip.tv, the scrappy New York start-up known as a video publishing platform for episodic Web video, is a partner to global digital ad agency Digitas in the creation of Holiday Inn Express’ web series The Smart Show.  To get an overview on Blip.tv and the collaboration with Digtas, I spoke with Blip’s Director of Advertising […]

The Third Act, the newly formed branded content arm of mega advertising agency Digitas, launched the second season of The Smart Show for Holiday Inn Express last week. To learn about branded online video content and how The Smart Show is shaping up in its second season, I visited  Digitas VP/Creative Director Ben Jones at […]

There’s been a lot of speculation in the blogosphere lately about whether Kyte, Qik,or Flixwagon will finish first in the cell phone video streaming trifecta. But according to Kyte CEO Daniel Graf, Kyte’s broader focus means it’s not really in the race with Qik and Flixwagon. 

When I first blogged about film distribution site Jaman, I noted that the company had carved out a niche for itself in a crowded market by focusing on independent and international films. Jaman’s deal with Paramount means the site will host mainstream content–and that it will now have to compete heavyweights like Apple, Wal-Mart, Netflix, […]

Google announced today that it has made its free Webmaster Tools available to qualifying hosting companies worldwide. International webmasters now have the means to make their sites–and web videos–more "Googlable." Google Webmaster tools can generate video site maps that make a site’s videos and metadata searchable in the Google Index. R.J. Pittman described how video […]

Veoh founder Dmitry Shapiro told Andy at OnHollywood last month about plans to monetize the site with behaviorally targeted ad videos. Today, the program is entering beta, Stephen Shankland at CNET reports.

What do a high-school documentary, an Elvis Costello record, and a photo shoot of phone sex operators have in common? They were all recently recommended on Very Short List, a free, daily e-mail that recommends under-hyped media gems to its 110,000 subscribers. Very Short List helped boost YouTube views of a Zurich Chamber Orchestra commercial […]

Consumers want access to digital content anytime, anywhere, but it’s going to take a unified commitment from Hollywood and the consumer electronics industry to make that happen. To move this ambitious agenda along, David Wertheimer, director of the University of Southern California’s Entertainment and Technology Center, established the Anytime, Anywhere Content Lab to bring innovators […]

No longer a cheap solution or a recycling bin for television advertising, Web video advertising is now a big budget affair, declares Michael Jacobs, the creative director of the New York office of MRM Worldwide, the big digital unit of Interpublic. 

Vuze, the P2P client software used to watch online videos, formerly known as Azureus, received a mostly positive review by Seth Rosenblatt on CNET Download.com today. We’ve also published Seth’s video review and demo of Vuse (above). In June, Vuze introduced the new user interface.  It has improved its search functionality and added social networking, […]

Mochila, an online marketplace for syndicated news and feature content, has increased distribution of its media by 35 times since late last year, according to a spokesperson for the company. Mochila currently offers rights-managed content from 360 top content brands to its 3,800 members and is adding half a million new content assets each month. […]

VideoEgg Ad Network introduces five new features today, including zip-code specific messaging that provides hyperlinks from an embeddable player to stores in a viewer’s  area. Using consumers’ IP data to localize ads isn’t new, but generating it from a video player, with link to an interactive map, is pretty cool.

Boxee users can watch YouTube videos, listen to Last FM music, and sort through pictures from Picasa and Flickr–all on their television sets. The process requires only a free software download to a PC or Mac, a cable, and a comptuer or universal remote. Boxee, which launched in private alpha testing a couple of weeks […]

Google Trends for Websites, launched late last month, reports website traffic, related websites and search terms. In short, the kind of services also offered by Compete and Alexa. Trends for Websites isn’t a serious business tool yet, since the data Google currently provides are estimates based on search volume and search traffic, not accurate numbers. […]

An online video campaign is attracting 70 percent of new army prospects, Beet.TV has learned. MRM, a digital ad agency owned by Interpublic Group, produced videos for the online Army Strong campaign that highlight and demystify the Army experience. Last week we spoke with MRM New York’s Creative Director Michael Jacobs, who heads digital campaigns […]

LOS ANGELES–The online movie distribution company Jaman has made a niche for itself in the online film distribution market, focusing on indie and international films rather than big Hollywood hits. The site offers 3,500 films–the kind that do well at film festivals, like The World’s Fastest Indian and Redacted. Films can usually be rented for […]

As it seeks to monetize the exploding universe of uploaded images to the Web, which Google says is nearing one trillion, it is developing image processing to more effectively search and organize images.    Presently,  photos are  indexed primarily by text and other metadata. In May, Google announced plans to begin matching images from its […]

LOS ANGELES–JibJab Media, widely known for its political parody This Land, created the first viral Web video way back in 2000.  Having established a recognized online brand, the company has evolved into a subscription business with customized e-cards and other forms form branded mash-ups. Evidently people are willing to pay for the service. JibJab’s Sendables […]

LOS ANGELES–The multimedia "playable" search engine Seeqpod has attracted 5.5 million unique monthly users over the past year, according to internal numbers provided to Beet.TV. Through affiliates and an API, that number will likely double this year, a company spokesperson told us. The search engine technology was developed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs.  It […]