Andy Plesser

In what might be the biggest breakthrough for Panache, a Los Angeles-based video ad insertion company,  MTV has agreed to deploy its program across its sites.  I interviewed Panache CEO Steve Robinson at Streaming Media East this past May in New York.  I've republished the interview here.

WASHINGTON, D.C.  On Sunday night at American University, YouTube recognized the five finalists and winner in the Project Report competition, a new journalism award for short video documentaries. Co-sponsored by the Pulitzer Center, the assignment was for "non-professional" video journalists to report on underreported communities.

We were pleased to read this past weekend in The Wall Street Journal that our friends at Iron Horse Vineyards were cited by Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher as one of the two best U.S. sparkling wine makers. The story is a guide to buying domestic “Champagne” or sparkling wine to celebrate Tuesday’s Inauguration of […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. –  YouTube has just launched a site for all members of the U.S. Congress.  The New York Times reported on the development today.   I am at the Google offices in Washington where I just interviewed Steve Grove who heads politics and news for YouTube.  We spoke about a number of subjects including the […]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A five-minute film titled "Abilities" about a California community for disabled adults by San Francisco filmmaker Arturo Perez, Jr, has been selected as the winner of Project Report, an award from YouTube and the Pulitzer Center for best video journalism from non-professional journalists.  The winner was announced earlier this evening in Washington, […]

Accurate monitoring of online video consumption across multiple platforms is not an easy task. But for publishers and advertisers hoping to make a business of this, complete metrics is essential.  Nielsen Online is developing new system to track online video consumption on multiple sites by identifying the distinct "audio signature file" which is specific to […]

Surely one of the big stories at CES has been the introduction of the Palm Pre, a new smartphone.  Earlier today, CNET announced that the device has won the "best of show" for CES 2009. We've embedded a CNET video rave review and a demonstration of the new hand-held by Kent German, mobile phone editor. […]

YouTube has been encouraging aspiring video journalists to post videos to Project Report, a YouTube channel which is part of the expanding role of media and journalism on the mega video sharing site.  The channel is also a revenue generated for YouTube with marquis sponsorships from Sony VAIO and Intel. With the assistance of the […]

During the Inauguration of Barack Obama on Tuesday, Jan. 20, CNN.com Live users will be able to update their own Facebook status directly from the CNN.com Live player; and also see status updates from their friends and other Facebook users on CNN.com Live. On Facebook, the status updates for those using CNN.com Live will be […]

LAS VEGAS, NV — Blu-ray, the new generation of entertainment DVDs, has an interactive component called BD Live. The functionality allows consumers whose television sets are connected to the Web to interact and integrate additional material into their viewing experience. This integrated platform was talked about at the last CES and there have been a […]

We read with interest this weekend’s big interview in TechRadar with Google Sr. VP Marissa on the future of Google.  Good story about her role at Google and how she sees the future of  the company. In September, we interviewed Marissa at the TechCrunch 50 event in San Francisco.  I’ve republished the interview in which […]

Gabe Rivera, the founder and creator of the powerful technology news aggregation site Techmeme, has published a list of the 50 "biggest" stories of 2008.  Michael Arrington, whose site TechCrunch has long lead the Techmeme list of the most popular site on the aggregation site has five of the 50 biggest stories.  The only other […]

Hollywood is still “dawdling” over DRM, film rights and downloadable media, according to a Business Week story by Steven Wildstrom.  In June, I interviewed Sony Pictures CTO Mitch Singer about plans to make motion pictures more easily shared between devices.  We chatted on the Sony lot in Culver City.  I have republished the interview today. […]

In June, YouTube announced a category of content creators called Reporters.  The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, which has made a decision to place many of its news clips on YouTube, has found a growing audience.  Since it began in March, it has over 12,000 clips up as of today.The AP is finding […]

The networked home might become a bit more networked with the introduction today of HP's updated version of the MediaSmart server for the home.  HP announced the launch of the product today, which is capable of managing data from both PCs and Macs. It connects to an HDTV television set.  Gizmodo has an extended story […]

Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, writes in The New York Times that the custom-label social network platform has been deployed on 600,000 networks. She is the guest author of the article.  In September, we caught up with Gina on the campus of MIT where she was keynote speaker at the EmTech08 conference.  Handling the interview […]

As video game publishers introduce more games for the iPhone, the device will become an increasingly used video game platform, says Libe Goad, editor-in-chief of AOL's PlaySavvy.com, a popular guide/information portal about video games.  While rudimentary games for the iPhone are popular, such as TapTap, more sophisticated games are coming to the iPhone soon, including […]

The transformation of news consumption is dramatic, as reported recently by the Pew Research Center.  Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com has published an analysis of the study and shares his thoughts on the opportunities for independent content creators in this period of change.  In addition to his post at CNET, Dan was recently named […]

Mediabistro, the New York-based publisher of 13 media-related publications including TVNewser and Agency Spy, as well as job boards and training programs, will launch a new publication to cover the digital media business.  The publication, called WebNewser, is live but will have its official launch in early January. Heading up the new effort is Mediabistro […]

Just about a year ago, Beet.TV broke the news that msnbc.com would be the first television network- affiliated online publisher to allow its videos to be embedded.  That strategy has been adopted by virtually all the U.S. news sites as well as Reuters.  Charlie Tillinghast, president at msnbc.com, told me that instead of sending viewers […]