theGrio, the NBC News unit which targets African Americans, has built a growing audience and revenue model with original video, says co-founder Barion Grant in this interview with Beet TV. Grant spoke at a recent online video news forum at the Columbia Journalism School hosted by duPont-Columbia Awards and the Online News Association He says social media has enabled the site to have a "top down bottom [...]

Shelby.tv, the web/APP video platform, gathers and streams video from different social networks to create a customized one-stop-shop for online video, says Chris Kurdziel, Director for Business Development in this interview with Beet TV Users receive instant access to online videos friends share on social networks, along with its context and the virtual conversations it generates. YouTube, Blip.tv, Vimeo and Dailymotion are [...]

The Financial Times has created its own App based on HTML5 and it is better than the earlier "native" App created for the Apple iOS, says Rob Grimshaw, Managing Director of the FT.com in this interview with Beet.TV With 2 million downloads of the new App, acquisition of new subscribers has been easier outside the Apple App store than within it, [...]

DBG, the New York/LA-based Web video production and syndication company, has launched a highly produced home design show called "Spaces" on YouTube.  The series is one of the new YouTube-supported partner channels. Yesterday, we spoke with DBG's Bradley Werner, VP for Production and Series Development, about the new series and the opportunities around the new YouTube initiative.  He calls Spaces a "hipper HGTV." Here's a [...]

The Internet ad industry needs standards for digital video in general before it develops standards specifically for connected TVs, Randall Rothenberg, President and CEO of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, tells Beet.TV in this interview. But ultimately, the goal with digital video standards is for them to be device agnostic, he says in this video interview. He explains that IAB's VAST and VPAID standards [...]

Online video ad network Brightroll is expanding quickly into the mobile market, evidenced by its recent deal with Google AdMob and by the number of mobile video ads it's serving up, says Dan Mosher, General Manager of the BrightRoll Exchange, in this interview with Beet TV. We caught up with Mosher to discuss Brightroll's work in mobile. The Google AdMob deal [...]

The amount of video ads on connected TVs is five times greater so far this year than for all of 2011, according to Videology, an online video technology service, which hosted a media day at the IAB Ad Lab this week. Videology's General Manager Mark McKee says in an interview with Beet.TV at the event that his company has run 200 [...]

Mobile blogging is growing quickly with over four million active users of the mobile WordPress platform, says WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg in this inteview with Beet.TV We spoke with him after his presentation at the paidContent conference in Manhattan yesterday. He also speaks about progress with Jetpack, video blogging and the growth at San Francisco-based Automattic which has over 100 employees. Andy Plesser

Global Post, an online news site producing some 150 international daily news stories a day, across video and print platforms, is meeting a growing demand for foreign news says Solana Pyne, a senior Global Post Video Producer, in this interview with Beet TV. Founded in January 2009, the Boston-based firm has maintained its revenue through advertising.  The site publishes stories from more than [...]

The New York Times used Google+ 'Hangouts On Air,' streaming live video on its home page, YouTube channel and Google+ page for the first time. In this video interview with Beet TV, Alexis Mainland, New York Times Social Media Editor describes the on air feature as a "lightweight production tool with inherent social elements." Op-Ed columnist Nicholas Kristof moderated the discussion on human rights, foreign affairs [...]

Original video programming service WatchMojo.com racked up 40 million video views last month and reached about 15 million to 20 million unique viewers, said Ashkan Karbasfrooshan, CEO WatchMojo, in an interview with Beet.TV. We caught up with Karbasfrooshan for an update on the company's deal-making and expansion. WatchMojo is now producing about 100 videos each month in entertainment, lifestyle, business, travel, [...]

Jim Breyer, the uber venture capital partner with Accel Partners, will be one of the three keynote speakers at the three-day Brightcove PLAY customer conference in Boston on June 25-27.   Also keynoting will be Brightcove CEO and founder Jeremy Allaire, and veteran tech journalist Erick Schonfeld, the company announced today. Breyer played a central role in Accel's 2005 investment in Facebook [...]

The music video and entertainment platform VEVO, will produce a host of new original shows maintaining a greater focus on the fans and their perspective of their favorite artists.  Titles of upcoming programs include 'Cover Stories:' a comedic take on the "not-so-true" stories behind album covers, 'Hear Me Out:' a dating-game like series that matches participants solely based on their musical preferences [...]

Tel Aviv -- Vodio, a video discovery iPad application developed by Israel-based start-up Vodio Labs, is solving the longstanding problem of personalized video recommendations. In this interview with Beet TV, Vodio Labs CEO and Co-Founder Jonathan Messika discusses problems faced by video personalization apps in the past, as well as how Vodio is working to make video recommendations more relevant. Messika explains [...]

Emeryville, California-based TubeMogul, launched in 2008 as video syndication and analytics tool for video producers (which we used), pivoted about two years ago to transform itself into a top video advertising delivery platform. In April, the company delivered  830 million videos, comScore reported last week.  This places it as the third biggest independent online video advertising company. Last week at the OMMA [...]

Group M, media unit of WPP, has selected Buddy Media's new social ad product 'BuyBuddy' to manage client advertising campaigns on platforms such as Facebook, the company announced today. Today, most brands strive to maintain an active online presence, via fan pages or groups on Facebook. Buddy Media hopes that the new software will help companies have a better performance within the market [...]

TEL AVIV -- Interlude, the Israel and New York-based startup created by Israeli rock musician Yoni Bloch, has produced an interactive video platform that turns viewers into co-directors by offering choices throughout the video that shape the way it plays out. Viewers click within the video player to make choices and create their own experience in real time. The company’s clients include Microsoft, [...]

Howcast, the four-year-old 'how-to' video producer and distributor, has redesigned its site. organized around topics, with related video served up on its pages. We spoke with Jason Liebman, cofounder and CEO about the new interface and growth of the site which he says has 15,000 video which have been watched one billion times. Andy Plesser  

Online video is more measured than most other mediums, but it's not necessarily more transparent, says Kelly McEttrick, Director of Platform Strategy for at VideoHub, during an interview with Beet.TV. We caught up with her at the OMMA Video conference this week in New York for a discussion on transparency in video media buying. "Data transparency is needed for the right type [...]

More than one-third of U.S. homes have at least one TV connected to the Internet, and as that figure rises advertising innovations experts are grappling with how to move brands into the new medium, says Rex Harris, Innovations Supervisor at SMGx, a unit of Starcom MediaVest, in an interview with Beet.TV. We caught up with him at the AppNation conference in [...]