Online TV delivery service Move Networks more than doubled the number of viewers watching its streamed content in 2008 to 55 million a year, up from 25 million in 2007, the company announced yesterday. Although those numbers are modest compared with big video sites, like Hulu, which streams to around 23 million viewers a month, this is impressive growth for [...]

Famous angel investor Ron Conway called product placement "the next multibillion dollar industry" at TechCrunch50 earlier this summer. But there needs to be a standardization of the buying process before that happens, according to Paul Kontonis, CEO of the web video studio For Your Imagination. "It's definitely a very powerful model for it; [but] it's hard to buy. It's hard [...]

LAS VEGAS, NV -- Blu-ray, the new generation of entertainment DVDs, has an interactive component called BD Live. The functionality allows consumers whose television sets are connected to the Web to interact and integrate additional material into their viewing experience. This integrated platform was talked about at the last CES and there have been a number of announcements and reviews in [...]

Leading online media studio For Your Imagination introduced two new networks in 2009: personal finance network GEQ and fashion network Glampede, CEO Paul Kontonis told me at the Mogulus studio in SoHo last month. Video social entertainment platform Joost will begin distributing the new shows, as well as shows from existing FYI networks The Green House, DadLabs and Axis of [...]

How-to video site 5min has made its VideoSeed distribution platform, launched last month, a free service for site publishers, Beet.TV has learned. We are the first to break this news. The move is win-win: site publishers can add related video content to their sites for free, and 5min expands the number of monthly uniques its videos can reach. So far, [...]

We read with interest this weekend's big interview in TechRadar with Google Sr. VP Marissa on the future of Google.  Good story about her role at Google and how she sees the future of  the company. In September, we interviewed Marissa at the TechCrunch 50 event in San Francisco.  I've republished the interview in which she talks about the future of [...]

Gabe Rivera, the founder and creator of the powerful technology news aggregation site Techmeme, has published a list of the 50 "biggest" stories of 2008.  Michael Arrington, whose site TechCrunch has long lead the Techmeme list of the most popular site on the aggregation site has five of the 50 biggest stories.  The only other blogger with more than one [...]

Hollywood is still "dawdling" over DRM, film rights and downloadable media, according to a Business Week story by Steven Wildstrom.  In June, I interviewed Sony Pictures CTO Mitch Singer about plans to make motion pictures more easily shared between devices.  We chatted on the Sony lot in Culver City.  I have republished the interview today. Could Hollywood make a breakthrough in [...]

In June, YouTube announced a category of content creators called Reporters.  The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization, which has made a decision to place many of its news clips on YouTube, has found a growing audience.  Since it began in March, it has over 12,000 clips up as of today.The AP is finding considerable traction. It is the [...]

In an interview with earlier this month, Vizu CEO Dan Beltramo confirmed what we've been hearing for a while now: Pre-roll is the most effective method of brand advertising online. Period. And he has the numbers to back it up; in a food item campaign Vizu analyzed, pre-roll had six times the brand lift of display advertising. Vizu's Ad Catalyst [...]

Peter Kafka, who debuted his daily blog MediaMemo on AllThingsD in October, writes today that the ad recession will last at least another year -- making it the longest ad recession since The Depression. Which is, well, depressing. At our marathon filming day at the Mogoulus studio in Soho earlier this month, Peter described the state of digital media to Andy. [...]

The networked home might become a bit more networked with the introduction today of HP's updated version of the MediaSmart server for the home.  HP announced the launch of the product today, which is capable of managing data from both PCs and Macs. It connects to an HDTV television set.  Gizmodo has an extended story up with photos.In May in [...]

Gina Bianchini, CEO of Ning, writes in The New York Times that the custom-label social network platform has been deployed on 600,000 networks. She is the guest author of the article.  In September, we caught up with Gina on the campus of MIT where she was keynote speaker at the EmTech08 conference.  Handling the interview for me was Jason Pontin, [...]

As video game publishers introduce more games for the iPhone, the device will become an increasingly used video game platform, says Libe Goad, editor-in-chief of AOL's PlaySavvy.com, a popular guide/information portal about video games.  While rudimentary games for the iPhone are popular, such as TapTap, more sophisticated games are coming to the iPhone soon, including the "Need for Speed" franchise.Might [...]

The transformation of news consumption is dramatic, as reported recently by the Pew Research Center.  Dan Farber, editor-in-chief of CNET News.com has published an analysis of the study and shares his thoughts on the opportunities for independent content creators in this period of change.  In addition to his post at CNET, Dan was recently named editor-in-chief of CBSNews.comIn March, I [...]

Mediabistro, the New York-based publisher of 13 media-related publications including TVNewser and Agency Spy, as well as job boards and training programs, will launch a new publication to cover the digital media business.  The publication, called WebNewser, is live but will have its official launch in early January.Heading up the new effort is Mediabistro Executive Producer Chris Ariens.  Here's how [...]

Just about a year ago, Beet.TV broke the news that msnbc.com would be the first television network- affiliated online publisher to allow its videos to be embedded.  That strategy has been adopted by virtually all the U.S. news sites as well as Reuters.  Charlie Tillinghast, president at msnbc.com, told me that instead of sending viewers to YouTube, embeddable video makes [...]

Most media companies will do deals with YouTube in 2009, ending what has been a confrontational relationship for many, expects Michael Learmonth, staff reporter at Advertising Age and veteran reporter of digital media, having worked for the Industry Standard, Reuters and Variety.  Michael recently blogged for the Silicon Alley Insider.  Michael thinks that the ownership of exclusive, unique content is [...]

We expect that Kaltura's open source video solution will find increased adoption in 2009.  We have learned that Big Think, a video site of thought leaders, will implement Kaltura's open source video player, allowing users to edit and mix videos. This will happen in January. Today, Kaltura announced the release of its first version for Drupal, the open source content management [...]

Adobe's Flash platform continues to expand its domination of the world of online video distribution.  Industry researchers say that Flash is on 99 percent of Internet connected desktops in "mature markets."  Since September, some major video publishers moved to Flash including MLB.com, MySpace Music, DirecTV and Sunday Night Football/NBC Sports. At the Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable at MSNBC in October, Flash [...]