NOTTINGHAM, England (via Skype) - British retailer Marks & Spencer is using video on its site and is finding that visitors who watch video stay on the site twice as long, says Forrester Principal Analyst Martin Gill in this interview with Beet.TV. Gill just published a report ($499) on the opportunities for video on e-commerce sites and beyond in social media [...]

SAY Media, is building its own "vertical networks" of original content, including the fashion and pets categories, through the acquisition of Dogster and by building new content around fashion celebrity Jane Pratt. We spoke with Matt Rosenberg, VP for Solutions, about content creation and monetization of that content via SAY's advertising network. He says that more content acquisitions are planned. Rosenberg also discusses the [...]

DECA, the Los Angeles-based producer of non-scripted, original Web video, has launched a video ad network or women's sites called HerChannel. For an update on the new effort, we spoke with Carl House, VP of Sales for DECA.  We met him at the Digitas NewFront11 conference earlier this month. The company announced the video ad network last month.  

PALO ALTO, CA -- Having the utility to share the identity of those who interact with brands,  Facebook is a unique platform for advertisers says Jennifer Kattula, who manages advertising agency relationships at the company. Today, Ad Age reports that Facebook is the industry leader in display advertising, citing an eMarketer report. Beet.TV traveled to Palo Alto last month to interview Kattula as part [...]

Really sorry for so many of us who have lost dads, brothers, husbands, lovers and friends to prostate cancer.  I lost my dad 13 years ago to the disease.  I really miss him today as does Kathy and the kids. We are publishing this video today from the Prostate Cancer Foundation, a beautiful, 60-second spot which is running as a pre-roll public [...]

Scott Donaton, former editor editor of Ad Age, who leads the two-year-old, IPG branded content unit Ensemble, has his first big, high-profile campaign with a progam for Denny's. The branded series is called "Always Open." We spoke with Donaton last week at the OMMA Video conference where he was on a panel about the opportunities around branded video. In this interview, he explains [...]

LIve concert programming delivers unique value as an "emotional connection" for sponsoring brands says Scott Reich, VP of Programming and Original Content for VEVO. In the interview, Reich refers to impact of the VEVO live series titled "Unstaged" which is sponsored by American Express.  We interviewed Reich as part of a video series created in association with Digitas around the NewFront conference.   

The Arab Spring is not a "Twitter revolution," but  a real revolution in which social tools including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube played a central role in organizing movements, says PJ Crowley, former Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs, in this interview with Beet.TV We spoke with him last week at the Digitas NewFront conference where he addressed social media and [...]

With the widespread implementation of a rich media ad unit called "Project Devil," and a standardized, in-page video template, Aol will soon have "video on every page," says Jeff Levick, President of Global Advertising and Strategy at Aol in this interview with Beet.TV. Project Devil is the big rich media display unit created by Aol and becoming more widely used by [...]

Scott Ferber, the Baltimore-based entrepreneur who created and later sold Advertising.com to Aol, launched TidalTV, an online video ad optimization platform, in 2007.  The company has recently raised an additional $30 million, bringing total funding to $61 million. We spoke with Ferber last week at the Elevate video conference in Manhattan about the company's function as an "ad decisioning" engine for publishers [...]

Los Angeles-based Panache has introduced a technology to allow publishers to insert interactive advertising into live streaming on multiple devices including Apple iOS and Android devices. We spoke last week at the Elevate conference where the company made the product announcement.  

Last night, TED's Chris Anderson awarded a Special Achievement (RED) Webby Award to Ushahidi, the Nairobi-based crowd-sourcing start-up. He presented it to co-founder David Kobia. In November in Monaco, we spoke with co-founder Ory Okolloh, a South African, Harvard-trained lawyer. Okolloh was at the Monaco Media Forum, where Ushahidi received the Monaco Media Prize from Prince Albert. We are republishing our interview today.  

Video can help a brand stand out on Facebook and draw more fans. Beet.TV recently visited Facebook's offices in Palo Alto and asked Jennifer Kattula, head of agency marketing, how brands small and large can best use video on the social site. Here are her tips and best practices in this exclusive interview. -Daisy Whitney Editor's Note:  Daisy's New Media Minute is published [...]

It's been a busy few weeks for Blip.tv, the big New York-based video site for eposodic programming.  It went through a complete site redesign, becoming an entertainment destination site, and bulked up its roster of orginal programming with a new distribution agreement with The Collective. For an update on all the recent developments we spoke with co-founder Dina Kaplan at the [...]

Auditude, the Palo Alto-based provider of IP video advertising services, is deepening its relationship with DailyMotion, the enormous Paris-based video site, and with New York-based Major League Baseball. Last week, the company announced the launch of Connect 2.0, a service which will provide Dailymotion and other customers with video insertion and content rights management across multiple platforms. Last week, the company also [...]

Amr Salama, an Egyptian filmmaker and a central figure in creating the alternative media universe during the revolution in Egypt, is finishing a documentary about the historic events.  Through an appeal on his Twitter account, he received 300 GB of camcorder and camera phone footage, he says in this interview with Beet.TV.   His film is one of a trilogy of documentaries about [...]

Having launched just over two years ago as a hub for colleges' and universities' YouTube channels, YouTube EDU has become a destination for education, providing an index for a broad range of topics and campus activities, says Angela Lin who manages the education program at YouTube. The YouTube site integrates content from 400 colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, Europe, [...]

To be sure, it seemed like an odd choice of music for the 500 marketers, agency execs and Hollywood producers as they settled in their chairs for the start of the Digitas NewFront event during Internet Week. The sound system blared the "The Revolution will not be Televised," a 70's rant against commercialism and the media by the late Gil Scott-Heron.  Welcoming [...]

SAN BRUNO/HANOVER/PALO ALTO -- YouTube, which has recently introduced its live streaming platform, will stream its first live commencement from Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire this Sunday (6.12) at 9:30 a.m. EDT on Dartmouth's YouTube channel. Late night comedian Conan O'Brien is the commencement speaker.  Honorary degrees will be presented to former President George H. W. Bush, the new News [...]

With social media "blowing up" the marketing landscape, "non-working" media, as opposed to traditional media buys, could reach fifty percent  of budgets for some big brands, says Jordan Bitterman, SVP and Social Media Practice Director at Digitas in this interview with Beet.TV We spoke with him yesterday at agency's big conference in lower Manhattan.  Luxury Campers Line Hudson Street Outside Starlight, the event [...]