Congratulations to Andrew Baron and the team at Rocketboom for the new technology series created sponsored and developed in cooperation with Intel.  Andrew blogged about it today. It's not exactly clear how the collaboration works, but watching the first episode it's not a pitch for Intel, just the Intel logo on the blog entry. The segment is fun and well done.Last [...]

In what could be an important development for producers of premium content, YouTube is planning ways to charge for some videos, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt's comments during this afternoon's earnings call. Greg Sandoval over at CNET News.com published this quote in his post:"We do expect over time to see micropayments and other forms of subscription models," but the first [...]

We read Caroline McCarthy's report on CNET News.com that Ning has reached 1 million networks.  Last fall at MIT, we interviewed CEO Gina Bianchini about the social media network and its opportunity for growth.Handling the interview for us was our friend Jason Pontin, editor and publisher of Technology Review.Here's more coverage of the story by Jason Kincaid at TechCrunch.-- Andy [...]

Banner ads on YouTube for the SarahPAC, the political action committee formed to advance the 2012 presidential candidacy of Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin, are getting some unexpected exposure on YouTube.  References to the governor are pulling up the display ads next to some message-subverting clips.   The Young Turks (TYT) YouTube channel has a clip that featuring photos of an, err, actress playing the [...]

I caught up last month in San Francisco with Tim Napoleon, Akamai's chief digital strategist who spoke about the importance of creating industry standards around the many video players in the market. Akamai is working on an open source video player initiative with the IAB, Adobe and Microsoft and others to to develop standards.  Tim says this is essential for advertising [...]

WASHINGTON, DC -- Vivian Schiller, former head of the NYTimes.com and now President and CEO of National Pubic Radio, told me in this interview that she is "bearish" on the opportunity for non-television media companies to undertake original news video production. In this video (beginning at 4:00) she says that the costs for non-television companies to ramp up to produce [...]

Pontiflex, a New York based company which provides advertisers with the tools to pay for just the CPL, or cost per lead, has secured a second venture round of funding of $6.25 million. David Kaplan over at paidContent has the details.Earlier this year in New York at the AlwaysOn summit, we spoke with founder and CEO Zephrin Lasker who explained the [...]

MENLO PARK, CA -- Sun Microsystems, which has long been a leader in corporate blogging by executives and employees, is now empowering its 30,000 employees to upload employee-generated video to Sun's big video site Channel Sun as part of its communications with customers, developers and others. Earlier this week, we caught up with Linda Crowe, Group Manager, Media Strategy & Production.  [...]

The Rubicon Project, the fast growing ad optimization firm, has raised $13 million for possible acquisitions, according to a report out by Ryan Lawler over at Contentinople. Earlier this year, we interviewed CEO and founder Frank Addante at the AlwaysOn Media conference in Manhattan.  -- Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

StumbleUpon has separated from eBay, which acquired the company two years ago to become a startup.  Co-founder Garrett Camp will be CEO of the newly independent enterprise. Kara Swisher has the story at All Things Digital. The company has organized millions of visitors who refer video and other content favorites to each other.  Beet videos are Stumbled quite a lot, and we hope [...]

ScanScout, the Boston-based online video advertising network, has raised a third venture round of $5.1 million, according to a report in Mass High Tech, citing financial filings. I spoke with co-founder Waikit Lau, ScanScout's co-founder and CEO last April about the company.Thanks to NewTeeVee for the tip to this story.-- Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

Hulu is on fire. The video site, co-owned by Fox and NBC Universal, had nearly 350 million video streams in March, up 50 million streams from February, according to just released numbers from Nielsen Online.  As was the case in February, Hulu is second only to YouTube. YouTube has increased its monthly streams to about 5.5 billion, up 500 millions (additional) [...]

Showtime will debut the full-length version of Edie Falco's new series Nurse Jackie, online in June before its first showing on the premium cable service. I interviewed Robert Hayes, who heads up digital operations at Showtime.  He explains the strategy of online debuts and how this worked for Showtime's most recent new series, the United States of Tara. The network has been debuting [...]

TechCrunch scored a big coup in grabbing star blogger MG Siegler from Venture Beat.  Siegler's boss Venture Beat boss Matt Marshall gave him a classy send-off. MG, who is known to many from his personal blog ParisLemon, a prolific and accomplished tech writer.  With the recent hire of Sarah Lacy and now MG, Michael Arrington is building a formidable stable.Last July at Stanford, I [...]

NEW YORK -- While pay-per-view for fights have long been a staple of cable operators and satellite networks, it is very new for online publishers. In what we understand to be a first for a premium entertainment network, Showtime will stream Strike Force, All Access, a mixed martial arts bout tomorrow, Saturday, April 11 at 10 p.m. ET. Fans will be [...]

SAN FRANCISCO -- Intel is committing nearly 20 percent of its annual R&D budget, to "growth segments" including bringing Internet content to televisions and other consumer devices. Other growth segments include mobile Internet devices and WiMax In comments at the Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable in San Francisco last month, Wilfred Martis, Director of Platform Strategy, said that a considerable amount [...]

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- For Vivian Schiller, CEO and president at NPR and the former head of NYTimes.com, the ongoing debate about free vs. subscription for the newspaper industry is clear for her: Free is the way to go.  Not only is there more revenue to be made through advertising, putting up a subscription wall will drive consumer to drive traffic [...]

Whether Google helps or hurts the newspaper industry is subject to much discussion today following Google CEO Eric Schmidt's speech to a newspaper industry gathering this week in San Diego. Google News "must work effectively" with newspaper publishers, Google News Project Manager Josh Cohen told Beet.TV in this interview from last year.  He discussed the scope of the indexing of newspaper [...]

Brightcove, the Boston-based video publishing services company which provides video services to many U.S. newspapers, has published an analysis of consumption on 187 of its customer newspaper sites.  The company finds that video streams on its customers' sites reached nearly 43 million in Q4 of last year, nearly triple the number of views the previous year. In some heartening news [...]

Fictional docs have long been the staple of television, now the real ones are getting some attention. Tonight PBS will air the the latest installment on "Doctors' Diaries," an ongoing documentary of Harvard Medical School graduates, that chronicles the lives of seven physicians over 22 years.  Tara Parker-Pope at The New York Times blogs about the series today. CBS is distributing a [...]