Although pre-roll advertising, the 15-30 second ads seen before a video begins, is the dominate media form, the promise of online video advertising is much greater. The opportunity is much more than simply re-purposing television ads , as a kind of "Television 2.0."  It is  incumbent on the industry to be more creative.These were some of the comments in by panelists [...]

"TV Everywhere," the emerging strategy of cable giants Comcast and Time Warner to allow web users to log onto cable offerings online, has broad implications for the content industry. During the Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable, co-moderator Rafat Ali posed the question about the prospects of  "TV Everywhere."  Answering the question was Bob Mason, CTO and co-founder of Brightcove.He explains how the [...]

Transpera, the largest mobile video delivery and ad network in North America, has lined up many of the industry's leading publishers including msnbc.com, CBS.com, Showtime, Disney, and MTV. In this interview, Transpera CEO Frank Barbieri explains video advertising is working well for publishers.   He says that inventory is nearly sold out for Q4 and publishers are enjoying substantially higher advertising rates [...]

When it comes to online video, advertisers want to know what the rules of engagement are. In fact, much of the agency-advertiser conversations surrounding online video center on this all-important notion of engagement, but the term itself means different things to different people. John McCarus, VP and group director for brand content at The Third Act, the branded entertainment arm [...]

By most accounts, the Internet was born back on October 29, 1969 by two computer scientists, Vint Cerf  and Robert Kahn.  Cerf is now Google's Chief Internet Evangelist. In April 2008, I interviewed Cerf in New York at the Personal Democracy Forum.  We have republished the video today.  Very interesting perspective on bandwidth, access, and online video consumption.  For more on [...]

While many video publishers seek the widest possible distribution of their videos through an embeddable player and Media RSS, some, like HealthiNation and Virgin Media, are using a syndicated player which is placed on specific sites. Controlling the "off domain" strategy is important for many publishers:  Some are cautioned about where their videos will appear, often reflecting the concern of advertisers. [...]

Many big advertisers aren't convinced they can achieve the reach and frequency they want with online video, said Rob Norman, CEO GroupM Interaction Worldwide, in an interview with Beet.TV in New York last week. "We are still spending one percent or less of our total national TV investment into online video," he told Beet.TV. "My conclusion is when our clients think [...]

Gary Vaynerchuk, the Internet video/social media phenomenon, is having his book "Crush It" published as a "vook," a digital version with video and text.  The multimedia product has been created by Vook and Emeryville, California-based company and HarperStudio, a unit of NewsCorp. Here is the company's press release. These vooks are available at the Vook website and on the Apples iTunes store. More [...]

We were encouraged to read today's Wall Street Journal report about the projected uptick in technology advertising for 2010.  Journal reporters Ben Worthen and Jessica Vascellaro cite an IDC study which puts tech marketing dollars up over 3.5 percent for next year, versus the dismal 8.3 percent drop this year. In the current quarter, big  budgets are being spent  [...]

Roku, the the alternative set-top box provider in the video market and is now expanding its line of players today from one to three, the company announced this morning. The new versions include a higher-end model with Wi-Fi and a lower-end model with just standard-definition streaming, with today's existing box sitting in the middle from a capability point of view. The Roku box allows viewers to [...]

Search has now emerged as a leading driver of visits to online video ads and branded Web entertainment, media agency executive Robert Davis of OgilvyInteractive told Beet.TV during an interview at last week's Beet.TV online video round table in New York. "We are seeing a tremendous search value from video now. You can use video content almost as you use [...]

Richards Rosenblatt, the former CEO of MySpace who launched his network of Web properties titled under Demand Media, has a big hit with eHow, a video site providing "how-to" instructional videos. According to this story and video by USA Today's Jefferson Graham, eHow has some 52 million monthly users, putting it ahead of CNN.com and Twitter in traffic. The site only creates [...]

Having established iReport three years ago, CNN is the most established mainstream media organization publishing user generated content.  With the launch today of the newly revamped CNN.com, the role of community content has been prominently elevated.  It is now a regular section of the site.  Although the news generated from this is labeled as "contributed," it will be more part of [...]

Microsoft's Silverlight software is powering the new videoplayer used by NBCSports.com for Sunday Sunday Night Football.  It is registering extraordinarily high "engagement" with users, Microsoft's Brian Goldfarb told me on Tuesday. He said that engagement, meaning time watching and interacting, is 10 times normally, with 50 minute sessions per viewer.  We would assume that engagement with one of the few [...]

CNN.com has nearly 6 million followers on Twitter, KC Estenson, Sr. VP and General Manager of CNN.com. told Beet.TV in this video interview.     On Twittercounter, CNN.com's Breaking News Twitter alone comes in at number 4 out of the top 100 with 2.8 million followers, compared with the The New York Times which has 2 million and is on the list [...]

The Wall Street Journal's twice-daily, 8-minute show the News Hub, expanded this week with a live report on Monday's Apple earnings.  It was the first live Web video program around earnings. On Tuesday, the paper did a Webcast on Yahoo. With the paper's television agreement with CNBC winding down, the Journal is putting more resources around its live programming. I visited the [...]

CNN.com has taken notice of the Huffington Post and the Daily Beast as "opinion destinations" and wants to be a "horse in that race," CNN.com General Manager KC Estenson told me last night, after the industry introduction of the revamped CNN.com site.  (transcript below) At an after-event party at the Hudson, we sat down for this chat.  He said that [...]

Msnbc.com,  was the first major video provider to provide an embeddable player, allowing users to play videos on their sites.  Finding widespread adoption of the player "off domain," the company is further nurturing the process by allowing its player to be resized so it can fit on Facebook, Charles Tillinghast, president and publisher of msnbc.com told Beet.TVNew Ad Thumbnail "Gallery"For its [...]

In answer to regular consumer complaints about the clunkiness of its user experience, Web-to-TV service Boxee plans to introduce a new user interface in late November, Boxee told Beet.TV in this  recent interview. That upgrade will give users the ability to search for content for the first time and will offer a smoother experience for navigation. The Internet startup, which landed [...]

Pete Cashmore, the founder of Mashable, the influential blog about social media and technology, will be among new personalities and contributors to the new CNN.com which launches on Monday. Also, TED Talks, the successful series of thought-leader videos from the TED conferences, will be surfaced up to the site. I interviewed Pete last year and republished the video today.  Congrats to Peter [...]