Andy Plesser

Google Finance, in beta for the last year, has been quickly evolving with with introduction of realtime quotes from the NYSE late last month and international launches of Google Finance in Canada the U.K. and China.

(11/11/2008 update: We had to take this video down because the copyright expired. Our apologies.) Always good to get Walt Mossberg’s take on new gear.  Tonight the Wall Street Journal published his print and video review of the new Apple 3G iPhone.  We’ve embedded the video here.

Today we launched on Bebo, the fast-growing social network purchased this year by AOL.  We are not sure how quickly we can build a community there, but for a video producer, we believe it can be a powerful tool.

I am delighted that beginning today, Beet.TV is being sponsored by the Smart Show, an episodic Web series about business travel created for Holiday Inn Express by Digitas.  I’ve posted the the season’s first episode above. Fred Zaun over at ClickZ has many of the details in his post this morning.  Tameka Kee at Mediapost […]

It’s been nearly two years since I interviewed Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes on the  Stanford University campus.  In this interview, he explains the beginnings of Facebook at Harvard and the reasons for its success. 

The interoperability of consumer electronic devices is essential for the entertainment industry, but it is not yet a reality, says Steve Abraham, who is co-head of IBM’s global media and entertainment practice.

Traffic to Compete, the Web metrics company, is not being reported by Nielsen Online due to a dip in traffic to 370,000 unique visitors in May.  While Compete is being tracked by Nielsen, traffic for May put it below a threshold for accurate reporting, a Nielsen Online spokesperson told us.   

HOLLYWOOD — 50 Cent, who is touring with his G-Unit crew to promote his new album,  has been getting good notices, including this story from Thursday’s (7/3) The New York Times. Fueling his popularity is a successful fan site which prominently displays fan-uploaded videos onto a Kyte player.  Watching a video on my desktop, iTunes […]

Google Labs will soon become “more transparent in its interaction with end users,” R.J. Pittman, who heads Google’s consumer search operations, told Beet.TV earlier this week in this video interview.  He also said the company is making a major commitment to expand and accelerate the rate of innovation of the Labs.

Getting covered on TechCrunch, the hugely influential blog about technology, media and innovation, which is among the most desired and toughest media outlooks to crack, has just gotten much easier with its new video upload page for company pitches. OK, sure, it’s not like an interview with Michael Arrington, but the the video pitches are […]

Natali Del Conti,  CNET Senior Editor and host of "Loaded," is finding some good exposure from the acquisition of CNET by CBS which closed this week. Natali has been doing several appearances on the CBS Early Show over the past few weeks.  Now CNET is returning the favor by publishing a video of Harry Smith […]

HIRO, the Tel Aviv-based company that is enabling video publishers to manage and distribute downloadable advertising, and Pando, the company that is powering P2P distribution of files for major broadcasters, including NBC, have announced a joint partnership. We don’t know when customer deals will be announced, but this tie-up makes a lot of sense to […]

LOS ANGELES — Instead of the $10 million spent for network pilots, creative web producers are beginning to fill the critical role of program development, according Vince Manze, president at  NBC Universal Creative Services.  Although Quarterlife didn’t work out for NBC as had been hoped, it wasn’t a big financial loss.  There will more pioneering […]

LOS ANGELES — I caught up with in Hollywood producer Sandy Climan earlier this month at OnHollywood to talk about 3D.  He heads up a Burbank-based start-up called 3ality Digital which is creating 3D viewing for film and television.  (Not for computer screens, yet.) He produced the U2 "3D" concert film which debut at Sundance […]

LOS ANGELES — BitGravity, the new Burlingame-based content delivery network, has a focus on the quality live video streaming market.  The company has signed some impressive companies including Revision3 which uses the solution to stream diggnation and other programming. I interviewed company president Perry Wu at the AlwaysOn conference earlier this month. For more information […]

As time-shifting viewing habits of cable TV by consumers increases, there is a big challenge for the cable operators and advertisers to effectively insert relevant advertising. BlackArrow, a San Mateo-based company, apparently has a solution.  The company has  been heavily funded by some key strategic investors including Cisco, Comcast, Intel and top  VC’s  Mayfield and  […]

Seesmic, the new company headed by French blogger Loic Le Meur,  provides a technology for threaded video comments on various blog platforms, is up and running on MovableType blogs.  Plans are underway to integrate Seesmic into TypePad blogs, also a SixApart platform.  I’ve reposted my interview from May 7 with Seesmic evangelist Cathy Brooks.  Cathy […]

LOS ANGELES — Quincy “QD3” Jones III, has evolved his music production business QD3 to focus on online video.  He told Beet.TV he plans to bring the company’s collection of 3000 hours of video documentary footage of urban performers to the Web later this year.  He sees a business opportunity in mash-ups, where his firm […]

msnbc.com and NBC News have expanded its relationship with MySpace with a new initiative to find "citizen" journalists from MySpace to cover the presidential conventions. MSNBC on-air talent, along with MySpace executives will select the journalists.  The judges are Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist from MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program, along with Tom Anderson, […]

While the vast majority of online video advertising is inserted into streaming Flash videos viewed in a Web browser, this inevitably will change as more video will consumed via download. Although paid downloads have become a big business, thanks largely to Apple’s iTunes, advertiser-supported downloaded videos are only now beginning to emerge.  Big hurdles exist: […]