Andy Plesser

Click To Play BitTorrent has a new P2P service to distribute video, including Flash video, as a compliment to existing CDN services — or as a free standing distribution service.  It is currently testing the new service called DNA and is looking for video publishers to join the beta testing phase, Ashwin Navin, President and […]

Yesterday at the "D" conference, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser unveiled a new video player that allows users to "rip" online videos in various formats.  At the demonstration, Glaser showed how easy it is to rip a Dow Jones video from a Brightcove player.  Jeremy Allaire, one of the key developers of Flash video and now […]

There’s been quite a hubub over the just-announced video player from RealNetworks that allows users to download the major online video file formats. We asked Microsoft what they thought of the plan and they were quite positive.  He’s what a Microsoft spokesperson told Beet.TV “Real Networks is a valued partner of Microsoft, and we’re pleased […]

Click To Play Just a few minutes ago at the "D" conference in Carlsbad, California, RealNetworks CEO Rob Glaser made a bombshell announcement about a new product from RealNetworks. The company will soon provide a free downloadable video player that allows users to save and organize video files in all major formats including Flash, QuickTime, […]

Click To Play New tools for creating search tools and analytics have just been released by Truveo, the AOL unit. AOL bought the innovative online search technology firm last year. AOL is putting a great deal of focus and resources around search and is making Truveo a big player not just on the AOL properties, […]

Click To Play Here’s the problem: All video sharing sites are silos. For publishers wanting to publish video on multiple sites with proper metadata, the task is monumental.  I understand that Ford Models, which publishes on at least 6 platforms including a hugely successful YouTube channel, employs a team of 10 to just keep all […]

Click To Play A "stage streaming server" solution from Microsoft is nearly here. Publishers will only pay for the amount of content that is actually downloaded This will be made possible by the upcoming deployment of the new Microsoft server which is code-named "Longhorn." The costs of streaming high quality video through the Internet is […]

YouTube has just begun to test a user interface with new with thumbnail previews of related clips.  It also creates a destinct url for spot in a video.  So, you don’t need to watch a whole video to see the clip of dog singing to get the good part, you can just create a location […]

Great article today by Scott Kirsner in the San Jose Mercury News about how the availabilty of metrics to bloggers and can lead to obsessive behavior over traffic and Technorati rankings. Well, this isn’t shocking, of course. There are important tools to track our audiences which were only available to major publishers and broadcasters just […]

Click To Play AOL’s UnCut, the consumer generated service that has been in beta for a about a year, but little talked about, will launch next month, Fred McIntyre, chief online video executive at AOL told Beet.TV. The new service will be implemented on many of AOL’s platforms including AIM, AOL and it’s growing social […]

Click To Play Here’s my interview with Chris Hughes, one of the three co-founders of Facebook — and the only one to graduate Harvard. An Ivy League degree and a great business at 23. Not too shabby.  I interviewed him last summer on the Stanford campus.  This video was on my post on July 26.  […]

Click To Play Last week at the Streaming Media East conference, I caught up with Steve Safran, managing editor of the essential television industry blog Lost Remote. Steve gives his take on the value of YouTube and why it’s such a success. He also discusses the challenges of big media to succeed in this new […]

Click To Play At the Streaming Media East conference last week, I sat down with Forrester’s television industry analyst James McQuivey. James made some big waves last week when he issued a bleak report (for purchase) about the future of paid video downloads. He think the advertiser-supported is the future. In our chat we spoke […]

If you haven’t read the big page one story on today’s Wall Street Journal (subscription) about the poisoning of former Russian security agent Alexander Litvinenko in London, it’s fascinating and troubling.  The piece by Moscow-based Journal reporter Alan Cullison is sourced to a 1998 videotape done by Litvinenko and fellow security officers who said they […]

gle We’ve uploaded all 260 or so video clips from Beet.TV to our "Partner" channel on YouTube and it’s really starting to grow.  Folks are subscribing to the channel, commenting and generally spreading the word.  Today, the purple channel ranked 69, which I think it is pretty cool.  And yes, I have been designated a […]

Click To Play The business of delivering video files quickly and efficiently to users is made possible by Content Delivery Network (CDN) companies. The big players are Akamai and Limelight. But there are many emerging players, plus big, established companies moving into the space including VeriSign and Level 3. Level 3 is a big Internet […]

Click To Play One of the most spectacular online video players can be found at ABC.com. It was introduced just last month and and has attracted quite a bit of attention. The player shows remarkable, full-screen high quality.  And, it loads quickly. It’s not Flash, it’s not Windows Media and it’s not distributed on P2P.  […]

Click To Play When I was in LA earlier this month for the AlwaysOn conference, I had the opportunity to sit down with Steve Abraham who heads IBM’s consulting services in the entertainment and media industries.  Steve provides a very informative take on the NBC Universal/News Corp alliance for syndicating and advertising online video content. […]

Click To Play NBC Universal and News Corp announced plans to create a giant distribution and advertising platform for video programming. At that time, AOL announced it would be associated with the new entity by providing its massive platform to present the videos and related advertising. Earlier this week, I spoke with Fred McIntrye who […]

Click To Play One of the coolest online video environments I have seen is the new home for Major League Baseball. It is being created on Microsoft’s new Silverlight platform. I got a sneak preview when I caught up with Microsoft’s Sean Alexander this week at the Streaming Media East conference in New York. Sean […]