Andy Plesser

The average speed of broadband connections in the United States has reached 5 Mbps in Q3 of 2010, up 8.6% over the previous quarter, making it the biggest percentage gainer among the world's 12 fastest connected nation's, Akamai reported today.

LAS VEGAS — Verizon FiOS allows subscribers to access a selection of television programs and download them to a variety of digital devices.  The service called, "Flex View," was introduced in November.

Norway's Opera claims 140 million worldwide users, most of whom are on smart phones using Opera Mini.   In an interview at CES, Opera's Jeremy Forrester tells Beet.TV that the popularity of the browser on iPhone has come from its speed which is "four-to-five times faster than the native" (Mobile Safari) browser on Edge and 3-G […]

Bloomberg, which had long offered a small amount of the company’s deep proprietary content online, keeping most content on its professional trading terminal, is now a popular business and finance site, surpassing AOL Money, MSN Money, CNN Money, Forbes, Reuters and CNBC, to be in the third*, most popular behind Yahoo Finance and Dow Jones […]

SecondMarket, a New York-based company which provides an exchange, for some 35,000 qualified investors, to buy and sell shares in private companies, has seen demand double in the fourth quarter of 2010, Erick Schonfeld reports this morning at TechCrunch.

The Discovery Networks connects with 23 million fans on Facebook, says Kelly Day, who heads the network's digital operations, in this interview with Beet.TV

Bloomberg News is the only news organization to provide a free, live version of its linear television programming in the U.S. online. It will soon expand its live streaming via Apps on iOS devices, according to Kevin Krim, Global Head of Web Properties for Bloomberg News, in this interview with Beet.TV.

CBS has been rapidly expanding its online efforts in several major U.S. markets by integrated its local owned and affiliated television and radio stations into 15 regional portals, says Ezra Kucharz, President of Local Digital Media.

Vook, the Emeryville-based digital publisher has raised a series A venture round of $5.25 million, the company announced today.

Vook, the Emeryville-based digital publisher has raised a series A venture round of $5.25 million, the company announced today.

Samsung and IBM have announced plans to jointly developed semiconductors for use in mobile handsets. 

The Financial Times is enjoying a big rise in digital revenue, the publisher announced on Friday.   As much as 10 percent of new digital subscriptions are coming from iPad users alone, says Richard Edgar, Global Head of Video for the paper, in this video interview with Beet.TV

LAS VEGAS — With the broadcast of the new Spartacus series on Starz, the Liberty Media unit is launching a big social media game around the television show, says Mark Debevoise, SVP for Digital.

LAS VEGAS –  Fandango, the Comcast unit which sells tickets online and via mobile for movie theater showings, is finding that as many as 10 percent of ticket sales are purchase via its mobile APP, says Fandango’s Harry Medved in this interview with Beet.TV

LAS VEGAS — The success of 3-D TV in the near-term could be determined by the number of theatrical films released.  Andy Parsons, Chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association tells Beet.TV that the industry will release 70, 3-D Blu-ray discs in 2011.

SundaySky, Tel Aviv/New York-based start-up with 50 employees, using no video camera or production staff, will produce 1.4 million video clips this month for a range of big retail and real estate corporate customers including Overstock.com and the History Channel.

LAS VEGAS –  The iPad App for the New York Times has had 1.5 million downloads since it launched in April, says Ray Pearce, who heads circulation for the newspaper. 

Los Angeles-based Demand Media has cleared the SEC for an IPO and has set its pricing according to  report by Kara Swisher. 

For many in the industry who have wondered about Google's plans to develop a universal codec for the Web, the big news is that Google will support its WebM codec on the Chrome browser, the company announced today.

While the imminent introduction of Verizon's 4G smart phones created a good bit of buzz at CES, the highly anticipated Verizon iPhone will likely run on the company's existing 3G network, at least initially, says Maggie Reardon, lead telecom reporter for CNET News.com in this interview with Beet.TV