The  Adobe text layout framework environment TLF, which powers the new, elegant The New York Times Reader, is  being released for free as part of a big "open source" move from Adobe. At the same time, the company has announced it will make free a new framework for video players.  Adobe has linked up with Akamai and other major players in [...]

HOLLYWOOD--With a pedigree in non-fiction and reality shows, Bravo is looking to mimic it's on-air advertising strategy on the Web by incorporating sponsors into shows.... the network's new media chief Lisa Hsia told Beet.TV at the NATPE LA TV Fest in earlier this month. "There have always been regular commercials and brand integration [on-air]," said Hsia, senior VP of Bravo Digital Media. [...]

We read with interest a point by point "myth busting" blog post on YouTube's blog today penned by corporate spokespersons Chris Dale and Aaron Zamost. The two wrote about five false or misleading "myths" about YouTube.    The post is getting quite a bit of attention today.We spoke with Chris last May at Google headquarters about developments in monetization at [...]

Longtime news anchor Walter Cronkite has died at the age of 92 after a long illness.    We grabbed a historic piece of news footage on YouTube, Cronkite's live coverage of the assassination of  President John F. Kennedy. I've pasted below the  news-breaking report by Katie Couric which broke into CBS just before 8:00 p.m. this evening.Here's is the obit by [...]

Although video has been on Wikipedia in a limited way for the past two years, it is poised to take-off with the recent introduction of Firefox 3.5 along with other imminent developments, we have learned. Over the next few months there will be the introduction of server-side transcoding technology, a new Wikipedia video player, and a set of collaborative editing tools [...]

As part of the 40 year commemoration of the Apollo 11 mission, the first moon landing, NASA has restored the historic videos of the flight.   The videos were released today. The videos are published as Quicktime files and take a painfully long time to download. Maybe there's rush to view them today? But they are worth the wait.The Associated Press has [...]

Digging deep into the online video strategy of the Barack Obama presidential campaign, video producer and strategist Max Harper, 27, explains that success cannot be measured in view count, but by targeted impact. He addresses views vs. impact at around 6:00 into the clip.Believe in E-Mail ListsMax explains how properly parsed e-mail lists can be essential in reaching key constituents and [...]

Hollywood, Calif. -- Jordan Hoffner, who directs content partnership deals at YouTube, was the keynote speaker at the NAPTE LATV festival last week. After his speech, Beet.TVs Daisy Whitney caught up with him to speak about metadata, paid search, and how channel partners can monetize their content.We have extensive coverage of the conference coming up over the next week or so--stay [...]

Brightcove, the big video services company has been making major inroads in Japan with several broadcasters, marketing partners and with investors. Today the company announced in Tokyo the availability of its complete product line there. Earlier this year, we interviewed Brightcove's marketing chief Jeff Whatcott on the company's efforts in Japan.  We have republished the interview today.Here is the press release. Andy [...]

Max Harper, a 27-year old community organizer and filmmaker was a key member of the presidential campaign of Barack Obama who created numerous campaign videos. I caught up with him for this chat after his panel at the Personal Democracy Forum where he spoke about the video strategy of the Obama campaign.  In the first of two interviews, Max explains the [...]

Howcast, the New York-based start-up that produces short instructional "how-to" videos, has moved away from an advertising based business to a video producer and syndicator business for a range of corporate and government clients. The transformation and growing success of Howcast is reported in The New York Times. I've republished an interview we did with co-founders Daniel Blackman and Jason Liebman. [...]

Adobe seeks to unify the many flavors of video players with one universal framework, which it calls Strobe.  The program, which has picked up a number of partners, is close to being launched, according to Adobe's Jen Taylor in this interview.Strobe was announced by Adobe in April. We spoke at the Open Video Conference last month.  She told Beet.TV [...]

A cheap camera, dogged determination, and a smart video blog strategy has created a national dialogue about election form in the United States. At the Personal Democracy Forum in New York last week, I interviewed Jacob Soboff, who created the Why Tuesday advocacy campaign.  The organization set out to change the national voting day from Tuesday in an effort to build [...]

TubeMogul's David Burch says that an analysis of video discovery has found that blog are the biggest referrer of video views. According to the  study by TubeMogul, 45% of video views come from specific searches for a video.  Of the the 55% remaining, 81% are found through blogs. If you didn't know you wanted to see it, you probably found it through [...]

One of the most anticipated developments in Web video will be the implementation of open source video into Wikipedia. The recent launch of Firefox 3.5 will support the Ogg format, which will be needed to view Wikipedia videos. Although Explorer does not support Ogg, Wikipedia video watchers using the Microsoft program will be able to watch videos in a Java video player, [...]

As the book business struggles to adjust to the digital age, some publishers are testing multimedia books and Web sites for popular authors. St. Martin's just released the multimedia book "Personal Effects: Dark Art" by JC Hutchins and a multimedia site for Alyson Noel's hit young adult series "The Immortals." Penguin and Simon & Schuster are also testing new media efforts. [...]

While the open video movement seeks an environment free of licensing fees for software, Adobe is supportive of the movement. We caught with Adobe's Jen Taylor in New York last month at the Open Video Conference where she was a speaker. She said that much of Adobe tools on the Web are free.  Furthermore, she says that the big software [...]

Now that Firefox 3.5 has been released, we will be seeing new sorts of programs for video including Ogg Theora, the open-source, non-Flash program for video. DailyMotion, the big Paris-based video sharing site, has created a pilot to encode a several thousand clips into the format as part of an experiment.  Users need the new Firefox 3.5 to view the [...]

Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times calls Next New Networks’s shows “midtail miscellany.”  This "midtail" is delivering more than 25 million views per month for the online studio and deals with more than a dozen Fortune 500 advertisers, including Verizon Wireless, Cotton, Starburst, Unilever and Universal Pictures, Next New told Beet.TV. During a chat with Beet.TV at the OMMA Video conference [...]

Interactive agencies and publishers still haven’t cracked the code on standards for the Web video business, but vested parties like EyeWonder are continuing to push efforts toward this supposed promised land for the emerging ad medium. The rich media advertising technology firm talked to Beet.TV at the OMMA Video conference in June in New York about how to achieve the necessary scale [...]