Andy Plesser

Current TV has growing online video audience, but numbers are still modest.  The cable/satellite network launched a separate online presence in October. According to the latest Nielsen Online data, the site had 513,000 unique visitors in April and 166,000 video streams viewed. The video streams were up from 99,000 in March.  The low traffic may […]

At Streaming Media East last week, Adobe gave some valuable booth real estate to Panache, an Encino-based software company that is providing a solution to publishers to integrate in-stream video advertising into the new Adobe Media Player. The company’s software works with both Flash and Silverlight video players. Unlike companies which provide in-stream services and […]

I caught up with Lisa Guillaume, VP at Level3 last week at Streaming Media East.  She told me the company has vastly expanded its offering in the CDN space since it entered the industry last year.  She she told me in its first year, the company has increased capacity of its products by a factor […]

One of the most exciting areas of online video is live streaming.  It is on the rise with free platforms including uStream, Justin.tv and Mogulus.  It will become more pervasive once Yahoo!  comes online with its live service. The question is how is this content monetized  The insertion of advertising into live programming has not […]

Mefeedia is one of the first to index and organize video podcasts.  Today, the Burbank-based company is building a business by aggregated videos onto various special interest video channels which it is seeking to monetize with advertising. Mefeedia doesn’t host videos, it uses an algorithm to organize the feeds and pulls the various players to […]

I caught up with Jim Louderback earlier this week at Streaming Media East.  Always good good  to find out what’s up with Revision3, the fast-growing network of technology-focused episodic online video programs. Revision3 makes most of its revenue now from sponsors whose messages are often "baked" into the segments.  I asked Jim how that advertising […]

Qik is a service which allow users of high-end Nokia phones to shoot and upload distinct segments to a company server.  These segment are saved on a user’s channel and can be automatically sent to YouTube, Facebook, Seesmic and various blogging platforms. The service is being used by leading edge video bloggers incluing Robert Scoble […]

I caught up with veteran Microsoft engineer Charles Finkelstein earlier this week at Streaming Media East.  Charles shares a few updates on Silverlight, the new rich media web plug-in,  and how the new version will be implemented for the Summer Olympics.  Charles runs the Expression team, the encoding system for Silverlight. Way back, 10 years […]

Ben Relles is the founder and producer of Barely Political, a spoof on politics which has hit it big with the Obama Girl  sensation. This clip has had nearly 9 million views on YouTube.  Looks like Obama’s progress towards the Presidential nomination puts Ben on a winning ticket. Earlier this year, Relles’s company was acquired […]

It’s another bubble that will burst. The number of companies and entering the content delivery network space is not sustainable, says Dan Rayburn, director of Streaming Media and an authority on the content delivery network business. According to Dan’s reckoning, some $282 million in venture funding has been raised over the past 12 months for […]

Hayden Black is one of a growing group of director/writers/producers in Hollywood who are finding success in original, serialized programming for the Web.  I caught up with Hayden earlier this month. He talks about "Goodnight Burbank" and his latest hit, "Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diary." Abigail, the 13 year-old lead character suffers from a (fictional) genetic […]

I’m not sure if the entire content delivery industry, gathered in an exhibition hall at the New York Hilton for Streaming Media East this week, has taken notice of a wildfire in the bloggesphere suggesting that the new Adobe’s video player, version 10, will destroy the CDN business. An initial post by Hank "WhyEverythingSucks" Williams, […]

Video search is key to discovery and consumption of video.  Also essential is the organization of metadata.  Pluggd, a Seattle-based start up, does both.  The company provides its enterprise solution to CNET Networks and others. Pluggd CEO Alex Castro says that an organized system for Web video, which he calls (coined?) the Semantic Video Web […]

Veveo, a Boston area start-up has "largely succeeded" in bringing effective video search and feed management to mobile devices, says Business Week’s Stephen Wildstrom in a recent review. The company’s product is called vTap.  It is a downloadable application for mobile devices. Once installed, users can search under various terms.  Feeds under specific search terms […]

We’ll be streaming live interviews from Streaming Media East from Manhattan’s Hilton Hotel from noon to 2 p.m. EDT tomorrow, Tuesday, May 20th. Lots of great interviews with the folks who are driving the online video revolution. You will find the stream right here, going up a few minutes before noon in the East. You […]

Bobby Tulsiani, who covers the online video space for JupiterResearch, says that the networks and film studios can build television brands through an online offering of content.  He explains the importance of finding a balance. We spoke at Digital Hollywood earlier this month. — Andy Plesser

Break.com, the fast growing video site for men 18-34, serves one  10 million videos a day, says Nick Wilson, CTO.  The company, started as BigBoys.com about 10 years ago, the site has recently expanded its reach by organizing a network of guy-oriented sites. According to a recent comScore report, the site has locked into a […]

We expect more details to emerge on Monday about Conde Nast’s $25 million acquisition of technology blog Ars Technica.  News first broke late on Friday afternoon. David Carr at the New York Times dedicates his column tomorrow to the evolution of digital media at Conde Nast. He interviewed Ars Technica co-founder Ken Fisher on why […]

So, we’ve been talking with some clever independent Hollywood Web producers about making money out of Web video by creating entertaining, sponsored content.  Tim Street, producer/director/writer, has developed a hit with his show French Maid TV which gets millions of streams on YouTube and other sites. Having developed the franchise, he is using the "maids" […]

From small online videos content producers such as EQAL and NextNewNetworks, to giant ones like Yahoo!, the marketing messages of sponsors are being "baked" into original productions.  These messages range from product placements to branded characters to stories about a particular product or service. As online video advertising is in its nascent stage, sponsored content […]