Online video had a profound impact on online shopping decisions on last months' Black Friday and Cyber Monday, says analyst Ashley Swartz in her commentary on Beet.TV She says that video views of retail items are driving as much as 40 percent of site visitors to ecommerce sites. Today, comScore reported record online holiday sales this year    

Simulmedia, the New York based company that provides ad agencies the tools to make television buying decisions based on viewer profiles, much like Internet advertising, is testing a system to allow agencies to use that platform for online video viewers too. The new product called TV Plus is in beta.   Providing an overview of the company and the new product is [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — TRA, the technology innovator that specializes in quantifying and maximizing advertising ROI, which was acquired by TiVo earlier this year, is preparing to go all media.  At the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco, Vice Chariman, founder and CRO Bill Harvey spoke with us about this development. He explains that, "Cable is now at a [...]

Buoyed by its acquisition of syndicator 5Min two years ago, and more recently Goviral, AOL Video has grown its video revenues to $100 million. AOL has focused on an online video syndication strategy - and that has helped the company boost video revenues, according to the company's third quarter earnings report. "We expect the same momentum in 2013," Ran Harnevo, SVP [...]

While several TV networks offer companion Web series to their TV shows. Bravo, a unit of NBC Universal, is using an orginal Web series to grow a prime-time program. The network recently launched the second season of Emmy-nominated Web show "Last Chance Kitchen" that has helped to drive audience to the show, says Lisa Hsia, EVP Bravo Digital Media, in an [...]

ESPN rolled out an expansion of its TV Everywhere product with the launch of WatchESPN within the Xbox Live app that brings live ESPN programming to the gaming console, says Raphael Poplock, VP Games and Partnerships at ESPN. He shares details with Beet.TV on the features and services enabled by the new rollout, as well as how it fits into the [...]

MONACO - Social video platform Unruly Media is launching new tools in the new few weeks to better track and measure the emotional responses to viral videos. The goal is to help agencies and marketers attach a framework and metrics to social video so it's not just a once-a-year proposition, says Scott Button, founder and CEO of the company, in [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — Today 41 percent of tablet owners are using their devices in front of the television on a daily basis.  At the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco, Colin Dixon, Senior Partner at The Diffusion Group, spoke with us about how the rise of the second screen is leading to a fragmented viewing experience. "The tablet [...]

SAN FRANCISCO —  Beauty TV is an over-the-top television network dedicated to broadcasting beauty content 24/7.  Beet.TV spoke with the network’s CEO, Rob Angelino, at the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco to find out about Beauty TV’s strategy, as well as Angelino’s take on Smart TV. Angelino explains that the Smart TV platform is still in it’s [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — U.S. television viewers have begun watching more connected TV over the past few years, with products like Roku and Vizio’s smart TVs on the rise. However, the U.S. is still behind Europe when it comes to the adoption of the connected TV lifestyle.  At the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco, Shirlene Chandrapal, European and [...]

MONACO - There wil be a huge, tranformation change in the television, with mass advertisting migration to digital video in about five years, but one of most important trends to watch right now is the emergence of "mangetic" content - or company-sponosored, informational video says Geoff Ramsey, Chairman  and co-founderof eMarketer, in this interview with Beet.TV We spoke with him about [...]

MONACO - Online audience development company AlphaBird is expanding through acquistions, and broadening into more original Web development, says Chase Norlin, CEO of AlphaBird, during an interview with Beet.TV at the Monaco Media Forum.  AlphaBird has grown to 100 employees and also acquired a digital marketing company in Australia last month called Ventures in Digital Media. The acquisition will help AlphaBird expand into [...]

MONACO - To help publishers make sense of the plethora of Web video, technology firm Magnify.net has shifted its business to focus on curation of online videos via its video discovery and content management platform, says Steve Rosenbaum, CEO of Magnify.net, during an interview with Beet.TV at the Monaco Media Forum.  That transition began six months ago, he explains. With its technology, Magnify.net can sift [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — As more consumers adopt a digital lifestyle, complete with second-screen apps, tablets and connected TVs, brands are becoming interested in learning about connected TV advertising—who the viewers are and how they are engaging with this advertising. Parks Associates is at the forefront of this research and, at the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco, senior [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — As more and more consumers are adopting the multi-screen lifestyle and watching television content on connected TV platforms and devices, advertising needs are changing.  At the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco Farhad Massoudi, Founder and CEO of adRise, spoke with us about this change and how his company plays into it. adRise, Massoudi explains, [...]

SAN FRANCISCO — Collider Media is working to make online video advertising inventory more valuable by including third-party data.  At the Smart TV and Multi-screen Advertising Summit in San Francisco, SVP of Strategic Partnerships, Pete Hagerty, spoke with us about Collider’s work and why addressable ad inventory is so effective. Hagerty explains, "we take publisher data, match it with third-party data [...]

MONACO - The Weather Company, formerly know at the Weather Channel, is expanding its digital video programming  beyond strictly weather reporting, explains David Kenny, CEO in this video interview with Beet.TV He said that the recent hire of Huffington Post executive news editor Neil Katz as Editor-in-Chief will be driving the expansion of editorial video. In this interview, he talks about the [...]

MONACO - Akamai, one of the world's leading providers of cloud infrastructure and CDN services, is expanding its media services with a range of deep analytics tools, explains Bill Wheaton, SVP and GM of Media, in this interview with Beet.TV He also speaks about other video services including cloud based transcoding.  These offerings are marketed as the Sola Media Services. We interviewed [...]

MONACO -- Digitas, the big digital advertising agency, launched the Digital NewFronts in 2008 as its own show to bring brands and content creators together in a marketplace for digital media.  Last year it morphed into a month-long extravaganza with 15 partners including AOL, Google/YouTube, Hulu, Microsoft and Yahoo. For the updcoming show, the agency is planning a tightly focused show, [...]

MONACO - AOL's Goviral, the London-based, global company for the distribution of brand videos, will launch in the United States in January, says Rene Rechtman, CEO and founder, in this interview with Beet.TV Goviral, acquired by AOL last year for $97 million, says it works with 40 top global brands and some 40,000 publishers in 80 markets. Goviral works with brands in [...]