When online video watchers pause, rewind, and play, Internet video measurement firm Visible Measures knows. The company has developed software that can be integrated with video players to measure not just video views, but audience engagement. Once there are standard metrics for online video ads, publishers could "see bigger ad buys coming online," Visible Measures CEO Brian Shin says. Most online ad dollars [...]

The open-source TV platform Kaltura will bring to video what Wiki brought to text. Later this year, users will be able to post videos into Wikipedia entries and modify them with Kaltura's award-winning collaborative editing tools, CEO Ron Yekutiel says. Kaltura's partnership with the Wikimedia foundation will bring interactive video to Wikipedia's 207 million unique visitors, but any site can [...]

Where is in the world is objective journalism in the Internet age and is it necessary?  Bambi Francisco, founder of Vator.tv, explores this topic in her post today with several leading journalists and media executives who are interviewed on the video above."The whole notion of objectivity should be thrown out," said Phil Bronstein, editor at large for the San Francisco [...]

Brightcove, the Boston-based video publishing services company, has established a separately funded Japanese unit and has landed a splashy assignment as the the video solution for gorin.jp, the exclusive provider of online coverage of the Summer Olympics.  gorin.jp is backed by the major Japanese broadcasters. Here's the company's press release issued this evening. For an update on developments at Brightcove, we [...]

PALO ALTO -- The cost of Flash servers, Adobe's proprietary software which publishers use to stream the majority of video around the globe, has dropped in cost by some 90 percent as Adobe moves to maximize its marketshare, says Jim Guerard, who heads up the Flash business at Adobe Systems.  The initiative, announce late last year, is becoming pervasive with [...]

Wow, great to read that our fellow video bloggers are gaining some attention as trend setters.  The  New York Times Style section's front-page story, by Alan Salkin, features a feature about a big bash organized by IgniteNYC.    Blip.tv's Dina Kaplan is on the scene at the party and is quoted about the video geek crowd. Alas, Beet.TV was not at [...]

It was striking to hear William Randolph Hearst III, grandson of the great media baron, say of traditional media at our Stanford roundtable last week: "I don't think they should have a monopoly on how I surf for news." He went on to say that citizen journalism is "well underway," but that traditional media still has an important role to play.  [...]

Using Google Toolbar to search is commonplace. But fewer people are taking advantage of its sync feature to access their customized toolbar and bookmarks on any computer, Avni Shah, Product Manager for Google Toolbar, says. Shah demonstrates a number of the lesser-known Toolbar features for us. Although features like sync and form AutoFill were announced in December, they're still only [...]

MG Siegler over at VentureBeat has the story this morning about Skyfire, a new browser for mobile devices.  VentureBeat is giving away 100 invitations to try the new browser in private beta trials, MG writes in his post. MG, dubbed "machine gun" by his editor Matt Marshall for his prolific writing, is one of the best tech bloggers -- he is known [...]

Chinese video sharing sites like Tudou and Youku are proliferating and growing quickly. Recent data has shown that China now has 253 million Internet users--more than any other country. So, how are these sites kept from publishing what the government might see as inappropriate? They have internal censors, says veteran China watcher Rebecca Fannin, author of Silicon Dragon and blogger for [...]

Verizon Wireless wants machine-to-machine devices to run on the company's open wireless network, according to VP of Open Development Anthony Lewis. Automated homes, where "appliances can talk to each other" on the wireless network and let repairmen know when they need fixing, are "around the corner," he says. In March, Verizon launched its open development initiative to let devices made by other companies [...]

Believe it: There will be a subscription model for online video.  paidContent's Joe Weisenthal reports today that TheStreet.com will soon experiment with a subscription model for online video.  Surely more publishers will follow as advertising opportunities are limited and some will pay a subscription price to watch video content.  How to get users to sign up?  The engaging power of [...]

Whether or not the McCain campaign's "Is He Ready to Lead" video will help or hurt his campaign is hard to say, but it is surely a hit.  Uploaded yesterday, the video has garnered about 1.1 million views as of 10 p.m. Eastern time on 7/31. Earlier today I asked Joan Walsh, media pundit and editor-in-chief of Salon.com about the ad.  [...]

YouTube has introduced rich metadata into select videos, which will significantly impact how online video is discovered and consumed. Announced in June, we have found the technology is very useful.  Last week, we got an update on this from Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube. YouTube applies a technology in which automated spiders "listen" and transcribe the words in the [...]

When it comes to online video innovation, "big media is the tail of the dog," says Rich Moran, a partner with Venrock, the venture investing fund of the Rockefeller family. Rich has had a long career as a media consultant as a partner at Accenture where he advised a number of clients including News Corp. He warns that big media has to respond [...]

PALO ALTO -- Online videos have a short shelf life, getting a quarter of their views within four days of being published, Brett Wilson, CEO of video distribution site TubeMogul, says. Content creators who publish a lot of video will have a better shot at success. He suggests that content creators promote their videos hard for the first few days as [...]

It's not Adobe's Flash, Apple's QuickTime or Microsoft's Silverlight. It's a technology called adaptive streaming, developed by a small Utah start-up called Move Networks, and it's revolutionizing the way that online video is being delivered and watched by millions. ABC Television implemented the technology as its primary video distribution platform.  Last month ABC reported a huge spike in online traffic, [...]

While millions of individuals are uploading videos to YouTube, the integration of citizen journalism into mainstream media has not yet happened on a large scale, says Phil Bronstein, former Editor and current Editor at Large of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Phil was a panelist at the Beet.TV online video roundtable last week at Stanford. We agree.  While CNN's iReport, Current.com [...]

At the two-month-old start-up IBeatYou, "celebrities and average consumers alike" can "roll up their sleeves, get dirty, and have fun competing," cofounder Cash Warren says. Users challenge each other to contests, from "Best 60 second rant" to "Best 'While You Were Sleeping' Photo," and vote for the winner based on the video, photo and text submissions. Cofounders and competitive childhood [...]

Google wants to index all the world's information, and that includes finding PowerPoint presentations and PDF files, weather, flight information and currency conversions. Kelsey and I visited the Googleplex in Mountainview, California last Tuesday for a number of meetings and demonstrations.  In our first segment, we speak with Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead. She gives some useful tips about using the [...]