Andy Plesser

LOS ANGELES — Filmaka, the Los Angeles-based studio/incubator/network for aspiring filmmakers around the world, announced a partnership today with WhatOnEarthIsGoingOn? Ltd. to solicit content for its socially relevant online channel. Finalists get a cash award along with visibility on the Filmaka.com site. In Los Angeles last week at the AlwaysOn conference, I interviewed Filmaka president […]

Here at MediaPost online video conference in Manhattan, I caught up with Matt Cutler of Visible Measures, the Boston-based company that analyzes the way the video is consumed.  It has raised $19 million in venture capital. Today, the company announced a new ad effectiveness analysis product to monitor the impact of viral video campaigns, including […]

YuMe, one of the mosts prominent of the emerging new online video ad networks, has inked a deal with Microsoft.  Beginning this summer, MSN will employ the YuMe system to insert advertising around unsold inventory.  According to a spokesperson for YuMe, "YuMe now represents more than 500 million streams each month and reaches more than […]

SplashCast widgets are propagated in social networks for a number of entertainment and media companies.  Michael Berkley, CEO of the Portland-based company told me about how widgets are spread.  He says that an install base of 10,000 users is critical. His company has a deal with SonyBMG for 20 widget channels.  The two companies share […]

StumbleUpon, the video referral site where registered users recommend videos to others, has grown to 5 million registered users who "stumble." or recommend, some 350 million Web pages per month, Garrett Camp, co-founder, told Beet.TV in this interview.    The San Francisco-based was purchased by eBay last year, but operates independently.  The company recently expanded […]

Guy Maddin, the celebrated Canadian film director received a glowing review by A. O. Scott in today’s New York Times for the opening of his "My Winnepeg."  The reviewer writes today: "My Winnipeg” — is as real as any work of art can be." Beet.TV sat down with the filmmaker last week in New York […]

Today, as part of big site redesign, MySpace is unveiling a new video player.  We haven’t seen it yet, but here is what the company is saying about it: "The new player includes scrubber, time-stamp, volume memory, new menu system, greater sharing functionality and more…..The player offers a more flexible advertising platform with multiple Ad […]

HOLLYWOOD — I met up with Taz "TI$A" Arnold on Tuesday night at the AlwaysOn party.  Taz was a panelist with fellow urban music innovators moderated by Quincy "QD3" Jones III. (An interview with Jones is being cut.) It is extremely instructive to learn how artists are embracing digital media with great success.  Last week, […]

LOS ANGELES — Yesterday at the AlwaysOn conference, the Seattle-based, enterprise video search company Pluggd, relaunched with a new name,  Delve, and as a new business.  The company is taking its deep search and tagging system and into a full-blown video publishing company.  They are entering a somewhat mature and heavily funded sector where  it […]

BURBANK — Warner Brothers Television will broadly syndicate original programming on a number of popular video sharing destination and device platforms, the company announced today. Beginning in September, videos on branded channels will be syndicated onto DailyMotion, Veoh, Joost and onto Sling and Tivo. Here’s a statement from Warner Brothers: "The channels will launch in […]

LOS ANGELES – Flixwagon, the Boston/Tel Aviv-based developer of live mobile video streaming technology, is streaming live video on an Apple iPhone, on a demonstration basis.  The application works on an unlocked iPhone for the moment, which means it is not practical for most users.  The company hopes this demonstration will lead to integration into […]

BEVERLY HILLS — Video consumption on MySpace far outpaces Facebook, and all the other social media sites in video streams served and unique users, according to Nielsen Online’s April numbers, Beet.TV has learned.    Video streams on MySpace were 290 million vs. a mere 8 million on Facebook.  Unique users of videos on MySpace were […]

StumbleUpon, the recommendation platform for video consumption, organizes primarily videos from major video sharing sites.  Having videos discovered, or "stumbled," is a powerful way in which videos are propagated. Last week I spoke with StumbleUpon co-founder Garrett Camp. He has set his sites on pulling major media sites into his network.  For big publishers from […]

LOS ANGELES — Jesse Draper, one of the stars of the hit Nickelodeon show Naked Brothers Band, is about to star in weekly series about innovation in Silicon Valley in a show titled Valley Girl.  The show will debut next month.  Google CEO Tim Schmidt and Craig Newmark are among several Valley executives and VC’s […]

Gigya is powering widgets for over a thousand online publishers, including video producers. As publishers seek to get content distributed, widgets are essential. Gigya’s widgets get 128 million unique users per month.  It’s an enormous base. More than just distributing widgets, the company is offering analytics so publishers and advertisers know how media is being […]

With hand held cameras, video reporting is a natural extension of print reporting and holds great advantage for newspaper publishers, says pioneering news producer Tammy Haddad. In the world of innovative television news producing, Tammy is at the top. She has produced “Larry King Live,” “Hardball with Chris Matthews” and others. These days, she’s reporting […]

NewTeeVee, the 18-month-old video site dedicated to covering the business of online video, has expanded its franchise with a site that reviews and recommends online video content. The new site is called NewTeeStation.  A guide to what’s new and worth watching is very much needed.  And it’s a field that is just now taking shape.  […]

LOS ANGELES — It was a little depressing listening to Quarterlife producer Marshall Herskowitz give the keynote address at iHollywood today over at the Roosevelt Hotel.  He is clearly still bitter about NBC’s decision to remove his show from its line-up.  He said that the days of user generate video success, with a hit on […]

At Advertising 2.0 in Manhattan earlier this week, I caught up with David Rosenberg, who heads the Emerging Media group at JWT, the big global advertising agency.  David talks about the new aesthetics of online video advertising, a major departure from the traditional 30 second spot.  David says that the pre-roll and post roll will […]

Nielsen Online is very close to launching a platform to monitor the number of downloaded media served through iTunes and other systems.  While Nielsen and others track the views of streaming video, third party monitoring of downloaded video does not exist, as far as we understand. In this interview with Beet.TV, Jon Gibs, VP for […]