Facebook's introduction of Ajax and an e-mail importer functionality were among key factors in Facebook's ascent over MySpace as the preeminent social network, according to this big feature published in the Financial Times,  entitled "The Rise and Fall of MySpace." Earlier this year, I interviewed Vanity Fair media columnist Michael Wolff about News Corp's acquisition of MySpace, which he calls a [...]

Reuters, a longtime powerhouse in providing content to the online world, is making a push as a destination site with its redesign, which went live last night. Editor-in-chief David Schlesinger made the announcement.  David Kaplan at paidContent has the story.  In May at the Wall Street Journal's All Things D conference, I caught up with Alisa Bowen who heads consumer [...]

LiveRail is helping publishers manage an increasing variety of sources of video advertising. Last month, we spoke the company's Chief Operating Officer Michael Molesky about the company's work with publishers and networks. The company released a new version of its platform in November, he said. The San Francisco-based video ad technology firm has developed a unified set of tools for publishers [...]

Tom Brokaw, in one of his first comments on the just announced Comcast/NBC merger, says the prospective merger would be "a good thing." His comment comes in at 2 minutes into this interview with Liz Glover of washingtontimes.com.  She spoke with the NBC News special correspondent earlier today.Andy Plesser, Senior ProducerVideo Transcript [starting at 1:40 min into video] Liz Glover:  Last [...]

In a deal just announced, Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, will buy a controlling stake in NBC.  The deal will take a year to close and will surely be subject to strenuous regulatory review, notably from the FTC. As the power of the broadcast networks has fallen and cable has risen, so has the emerging opportunities online and the big [...]

SAN JOSE, CA -- After earning praise in Forrester's recent report on online video platforms, the New York-based video services firm Twistage is gearing up to double its staff, increase its marketing, and turn a profit by the end of 2010. We spoke with the company's CEO David Wadler about the new expansion plans, including growing the current staff of 13 [...]

Vizu, a San Francisco-based start-up that has developed a means to measure the value of online video advertising, has raised an addition round of $6.8 million in venture funding. Here at Beet.TV, we believe that the true value of online video advertising is not properly measured by either video views or clickthroughs.  Yes, advertising rates are higher than display ads, but [...]

Now that the PBS Kids site PBSKids.org is generating more than 9 million unique video visitors each month, the public broadcaster is going to start pursuing online ad deals. In addition, PBS is using its popular kids site to test new technologies for ad and game insertion, the broadcaster's SVP of interactive Jason Seiken told Beet.TV during a recent interview [...]

Fox Television Studios' new digital shop 15 Gigs is looking to ink deals with creative shops and Web producers as part of its mission to incubate Web talent for television. In this New Media Minute, I explore the digital studio's approach, including how the company's strategy varies from other network-owned in-house studios. Fox 15 Gigs has also inked a deal with [...]

Watch live streaming video from beet_tv at livestream.com If you missed our live roundtable from Washington yesterday, you can watch when you want right here: Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable   Below is the live blogged by Daisy Whitney.  AP 5:24: Bye Beet.TV viewers! We're signing off on live blogging, but you can keep watching! 5:23: Some of the most successful shows on TV [...]

MSNBC.com today introduced a new embeddable player in a move to increase consumption of news video to other locations, notably on Facebook.  The new player comes in three different sizes, making it usable on a variety of Web pages and social networks. The features allow consumers to share clips from NBC News and MSNBC Cable shows on Facebook, Twitter, and Newsvine.  Consumers [...]

WASHINGTON, DC -- Olivia Ma, news manager at YouTube, will be one of the media luminaries to speak at today's Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable here in Washington, D.C.  See the list below: Check out the Webcast from 4-6pm ET, right here on Beet.TV or on our Livestream channel. Olivia will be speaking about a number of topics, including the new YouTube [...]

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA -- Ooyala, the online video services company started by ex-Googlers, is developing realtime analytics for video producers to closely monitor the success of their content. We spoke with company CTO Sean Knapp for this overview on the value and utility of analytics.  Sean came from Google where he was a key developer of iGoogle. Andy Plesser, Executive Producer [...]

On Tuesday (12/1) in Washington, Beet.TV will gather an extraordinary group to talk about online video and its role in the evolving news environment. The line-up for Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable includes political strategist Joe Trippi and Obama Campaign video producer Max Harper along with editors and executives from CBS News, NBC News, YouTube, the Washington Post, the Economist, The Guardian, [...]

SAN JOSE -- NBC Sports is demonstrating the highly interactive functionality of its online experience with Sunday Football.  Much of this functionality will be part of NBC's Winter Olympics online presentation. At Streaming Media West, we caught Bob Cowherd and Michael Moser of Vertigo, the San Francisco-based Interactive consultancy which has created the online experience for NBC Sports using the Silverlight [...]

SAN FRANCISCO, CA --  With smart phone sales outpacing PC sales, mobile devices represent "the future of media" and video producers will soon begin to produce videos for the small screen first, in a "total reversal" of platform-specific programming, says Kevin Lynch, Chief Technology Officer of Adobe Systems.We caught up with him earlier this month at the NewTeeVee Live conference [...]

Fashion icon Norma Kamali, the New York-based designer, is making a big retail push online with a custom page on eBay.  eBay is holding a competition for consumers to upload photos of themselves with a Kamali tunic in order to win a $500 prize.  She is using YouTube to promote her clothing in WalMart. Last week, I caught up with [...]

Flash for the iPhone would be helpful to developers and programmers, but it's not essential in getting the rich interactivity of Flash on the iPhone, says Jeremy Allaire, one of the principal developers of Flash. Allaire, who was CTO of Macromedia, the company that developed Flash and was sold to Adobe, is the founder and CEO of video platform services company [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- At the NewTeeVee conference this month, we caught up with Sam Blackman, CEO of Elemental Technologies. The company has launched a new server appliance for transcoding live HD video at very fast rates, "faster than real time," the company says. New York Times reporter Ashlee Vance wrote last week that Elemental Technologies, which uses Nvidia chips for [...]

Comcast-owned video destination Fancast.com lured 11.3 million unique visitors in October, nearly double its 6.5 million count in September, according to comScore. I spoke with Comcast senior VP Karen Gilford about Fancast at the newTeeVee Live event in San Francisco earlier this month. She attributes the jump to marketing. Fancast ran a fall TV campaign during network shows like CBS's [...]