MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA  -- First, the question everyone wants to know when reporting on the video platform company Ooyala. What the heck does Ooyala mean? It means "cradle" in the Indian language Telegu, and the company picked it because it believes in "cradling innovation," Ooyala co-founder Bismarck Lepe told Beet.TV during an interview at the company's Mountain View, Calif. offices [...]

Earlier this month, eBay launched Inside Source, a style/fashion/shopping guide published by the auction giant.  Here's the launch story in The New York Times. Last week we caught up with the publication's editor Meredith Barnett at the eBay store, a temporary promotional facility on 57th Street.  She tells us about the new site, its use of video and its integration with [...]

SAN JOSE, CA -- Adding another notch to its cable customer belt, online video technology firm thePlatform inked a deal to power broadband video for Rogers Cable.  The company's VP of marketing Marty Roberts told us thePlatform now delivers online video for five of the seven largest cable operators including Comcast, Time Warner, Cox, and Cablevision. thePlatform is owned by [...]

SAN JOSE, CA - Adobe's latest version of Flash has been installed in some 98 percent of the world's computers, according to Kevin Towes who is product manager for Flash Media Server.* We caught up with Kevin at an opening night party for the Streaming Media West hosted by Brightcove. Kevin explains the functionality of Flash Player 10 and the [...]

Taboola is not a Middle Eastern grain dish, but an Israeli start-up that provides a solution to surface recommended videos for visitors to CNN.com, HowCast, 5min, Demand Media, the NBA, and now on The New York. The company has placed cookies on some 50 million unique users and has built profiles around individual viewing interests.  With this large database, the company [...]

Some media companies are spending in excess of 100% of their digital revenue on site development, management, and hosting, says Cisco's Scott Brown. Cisco aims to capitalize on this inefficiency and save publishers as much as 60% of technology costs with a hosted solution called Eos.  Launched earlier this year, the company's biggest customer is Warner Music, which launched a series of [...]

Introduced originally as videogame console, the Xbox from Microsoft is fast becoming a powerful video viewing device with the introduction of Zune, the new video streaming platform. The device connects to the Internet and streams high quality video.  It has a number of offerings including Netflix, Last.fm, integration with social networks, and new video product called Zune.A number of the enhanced [...]

NEW YORK, NY-- eBay has the pulse of the fashion market because, "It's probably the only place that a person could come to and really see the breadth and depth of style at their fingertips," says Constance White, Style Director for eBay. Yesterday, Andy met up with White, a former fashion writer for the New York Times,  who explained that [...]

RealPlayer SP, A small desktop application from RealNetworks, which allows users to save and share Flash videos, has been downloaded 100 million times, the company said today. Earlier this year, we spoke with RealNetwork's Jeff Chasen about the new application.   We have republished the interview today.Andy Plesser, Executive Producer  

TEDx live webcast from Amsterdam. Not sure if TED has streamed the conferences live since we haven't seen them live, so this is interesting to see. This is also one of the few events we have seen streamed live in Microsoft Silverlight. You may need to download the Microsoft plug-in, which which should come up automatically.  About half of computers worldwide now have [...]

Adobe sees a big growth opportunity in the emerging eReader market, says Bill Rusitzky, who heads media alliances for the software company. The company is heavily promoting the ePub format which will be used in the Nook and the Sony eReader. It is not used in the Kindle and will not likely be used in the anticipated Apple Tablet. MediaMemo's Peter [...]

SAN JOSE, CA --  Streaming Media West, the annual industry gathering of broadband executives, drew a bigger crowd this year then last and the focus has changed from delivery and distribution to devices and content, says Dan Rayburn, head of the show. We caught up with Dan on Wednesday afternoon for a rundown on the show and industry trends.  We were on [...]

Though it only has  two years of online video availability under its belt, the NFL is in the game for new media opportunities. That's what the league's Laura Goldberg told Beet.TV at the NewTeeVee Live event in San Francisco last week. She's the general manager of NFL.com and she said the league is particularly keen on mobile opportunities for its games. "We [...]

Facebook integration around video got its first high profile exposure with CNN and the Inauguration of President Obama, but the first was last year's collaboration with Joost. A spokesperson for Facebook has told Beet.TV: "Joost users who have connected their Facebook accounts continue to rank as most active group on the site. These users watch more videos, are more likely to participate [...]

The effective transcription of video clips, coupled with contextual tagging, is essential to the discovery of video, says Tom Wilde, CEO of  the Boston-based RAMP, formerly known as EveryZing. The company announced its name change today at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose along with the launch of "content optimization" platform for media publishers. The service is currently implemented with [...]

"Bet on TV Everywhere." Those are the parting words of CBS' outgoing digital chief Quincy Smith. We caught up with him at the NewTeeVee live event last week and he talked about Hulu, TV Everywhere, and his mission to convince advertisers that online video is a reach and frequency play too. Smith is leaving CBS in January to start his own advisory [...]

Brands making videos for YouTube don't need to spend a lot of money because there's no correlation between production values and views, the online video strategist Kevin Nalty told me in this week's New Media Minute. I interviewed him after his iMedia Summit talk on "Seven Strategies for YouTube Success" and he shared some of his tips. Brands shouldn't go for the big viral hit, but [...]

Business Week has picked TIME.com managing editor Josh Tyrangiel as its new Editor-in-Chief, Tom Lowry reported this morning. Earlier this year, I interviewed Josh about online journalism.  He said that on the Web, long form journalism on the Web is "not working."  I have republished this video today.More on today's news by Rafat Ali at paidContent. Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

YouTube has introduced a solution for media sites to moderate and post video uploads from visitors. The Huffington Post, NPR, Politico, and the San Francisco Chronicle are the first media companies to use the system called YouTube Direct. The system allows registered YouTube users to upload videos directly to a media site.  These videos are also seen on the member's personal [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Comcast, the nation's biggest cable system, will launch an online offering of its television service to 14 million Comcast "double play" subscribers next month. Comcast's Interactive Media President Amy Banse told Beet.TV's Daisy Whitney in this video interview. While the December introduction had been widely anticipated and was announced last week, the scale of the offering has not [...]