YouTube Annotations
June 4, 2008
Googlesystem report that YouTube added a new feature for video creators: annotations. “Video Annotations are a new way for you to add interactive commentary to your videos. Use them to add background information about the video, create stories with multiple possibilities (viewers click to choose the next scene) or link to related YouTube videos, channels, or search results from within a video.”
You can add annotations by going to the list of uploaded videos and clicking on “Edit annotations” or by visiting one of your videos while you are logged in. There are three types of annotations that can be added while playing the video: speech bubbles, notes and spotlights, as you can see in the screenshot above. Read more
Veoh getting $30 million investment from Intel and Adobe
June 3, 2008
Image via Wikipedia
NewTeeVee is reporting that someone new has stepped up to pay Veoh’s bandwidth bills as it figures out its business. The Internet video portal and software maker is announcing today it has raised $30 million from Intel Capital, Adobe Systems Inc., and Gordon Crawford, senior vice president of Capital Research Global Investors.
Veoh now has $69.5 million in total investment from these three plus previous investors Shelter Capital, Spark Capital, Goldman Sachs, Michael Eisner’s Tornante Company, Time Warner Investments and Jonathan Dolgen. The Los Angeles-based company reports 28 million viewers per month, spending an average of more than 100 minutes per month.
Joost new Web Interface comming this summer?
May 22, 2008
Silicon Alley Insider is reporting that Joost is nearing a beta testing stage of it’s new Web Based interface with embedded video playback.
If rumors are true it is expected that users will need to install a small footprint client on their Mac/PC (possibly a browser plugin) to carry those special Joost peer-to-peer packets… so forget about a nice and easy Flash based Joost player. No word yet on Linux support… but if previous conversations with Joost are an indication I would not hold my breath here.
I have not gotten any confirmation that this rumor is true or not but it does make sens given what was said over the last few months.
Hal Schechner, the original founder of now Joost own OnTheToob has been busy working over at Joost for the past few months. Hal has been so busy that his site has fallen into obsolecense given the lack of updates. One might expect to see features similar to OTT and way beyound to make up this future Joost web site.
I am looking forward to get an early invite to this new Beta Web site (hint, hint Joost) and report on it here!
Matsushita’s Panasonic, Google to launch Internet TVs
January 8, 2008
TOKYO (Reuters) - Web giant Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) is developing televisions that display Internet content such as photos and videos together with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co Ltd’s (6752.T: Quote, Profile, Research) Panasonic unit.
The TVs, to be launched this spring, will allow users to directly browse and access videos from YouTube, a video-sharing Web site owned by Google, and view Picasa Web Albums, a free online photo-sharing service from Google, Panasonic said in a statement on Monday.
“Panasonic’s cooperation with YouTube and Google’s Picasa Web Albums exemplifies our commitment to leading the natural evolution of the Internet and extending it to the High Definition television,” Panasonic Consumer Electronics Company’s Vice President Merwan Mereby said in the statement.
The news sent the shares of Matsushita higher right after the market open, but they shed 1.8 percent to 2,150 yen by 0108 GMT to underperform a 0.7 percent fall in the benchmark Nikkei average .N225.
Late last year, Matsushita, the world’s top plasma TV maker, said it would take control of a liquid crystal display joint venture and may build a new factory, marking a major shift in its strategy for the flat panel TV market.
Matsushita has until now invested aggressively in plasma displays in the belief that it was the most cost-effective technology for flat TVs bigger than 37-inches, while procuring LCD panels to make TVs for the smaller sets.
Joost working on a browser based version of it’s client?
October 19, 2007
Source TechCrunch:
Joost CEO Mike Volpi just suggested on stage at Web 2.0 that Joost is working on a browser-based version of its peer-to-peer Internet TV service. “At some point, when we can deliver the quality that Joost is known for, we will deliver an in-browser experience,” he told the audience here. I got up and asked him if he faces any legacy issues, since Joost is based on a peer-to-peer client that must currently be downloaded. His answer was that it is possible to separate the file-sharing from the viewing experience and that in fact Joost is working on just such a browser-based solution. It’s not clear whether people would still need to download a separate piece of software to do the P2P file-streaming or whether that could just be a browser plug-in. But with in-browser Flash video about to get a whole lot better over the next few months, Joost will have to respond with it’s own browser-based expereince.
Wired Compiler blog also echo this in the following post:
Right now, Joost runs on the Windows and Mac desktop as a stand-alone client. A member of the audience asked if a browser-based Joost experience was a possibility down the road.
Volpi says they’re is working on it, and that Joost will run in the browser “not too far in the distant future.”
YouTube content ID tool going beta
October 15, 2007
A few months ago, Google announced the initial development of a highly complicated technology platform — content identification tools for YouTube. Today, they are pleased to launch, in beta form, YouTube Video Identification.
Video Identification is the next step in a long list of content policies and tools that Google have provided copyright owners so that they can more easily identify their content and manage how it is made available on YouTube.
Video Identification joins the following policies and tools:
- strict repeat-infringer policy, which has been in place since our launch, terminates accounts of repeat infringers based on DMCA notices.
- a unique “hash” of every video removed for copyright infringement is taken and block re-upload of that exact video file prospectively.
- require a 10-minute limit on the length of content uploaded to the site.
- provide content owners with an electronic notification and takedown tool, to help them more easily identify their material and notify us to take it down with the click of a mouse.
- publish copyright tips for users in plain English and clear, prominent messaging at the time of user upload.
Like many of these other policies and tools, Video Identification goes above and beyond our legal responsibilities. It will help copyright holders identify their works on YouTube, and choose what they want done with their videos: whether to block, promote, or even—if a copyright holder chooses to license their content to appear on the site—monetize their videos. In implementing this technology, we are committed to supporting new forms of original creativity, protecting fair use, and providing a seamless user experience—all while we help rights owners easily manage their content. Stay tuned … and for more information, check out YouTube Video Identification page.
Source Googleblog
Google AdSense Video Units
October 9, 2007
Google released a new type of ad / content channel: “video units.” Basically you get the chance to embed certain YouTube videos into your website via some snippet, either by picking from an available channel (or feeding Google your preferred categories and keywords), or by allowing Google to automatically target the content to your site. Then, above the video there will be a graphic AdSense banner ad, and in the video itself, different text banners will be displayed during playback. Right now, Google says video units are only available for the US. Check your Google AdSense -> AdSense Setup tab to see if they’re included for you. If you decide to include video units on your site and visitors click on the ads in them, 3 parties make money: 1) you as webmaster who provides the channel space, 2) the video creator, 3) Google.
Ads are best when they’re not annoying, yet the video is wrapped in two big ad areas fighting for attention, both using transitionals to show different ad segments; this is a far step from the minimalist ad approaches of Google’s past, and much less obtrusive than the old, more tasteful YouTube ads we saw (which were only showing one ad into the 15th second of the video).
Via blogoscoped
Microsoft going after YouTube, Apple and Joost
September 27, 2007
If Internet-based video is the wave of the future, many of us are already drenched with options including such as YouTube, Joost and Apple’s iTunes. But today, Microsoft is making a play to have its own video download service added to the mix.
During his keynote speech at the DigitalLife show here in New York, Microsoft executive Joe Belfiore will pitch Microsoft’s new, free streaming video service, called Internet TV.
Going into beta on Sept. 28, Microsoft’s Internet TV service will enable users to stream content from MSN Video. It will also offer more than 100 hours of additional, ad-supported content, including television shows like “Arrested Development,” full-length music concerts, movie trailers, news from MSNBC and sports from FOX Sports.
YuMe, a broadband video advertising network, is handling the ad delivery for Microsoft.
Microsoft Internet TV is designed for both the TV and PC screen, the company said in a statement. The service’s video is optimized for broadband, and will be compatible with Microsoft and third-party “media extenders” devices for Windows Media Center.
These devices — a new crop of which Belfiore will highlight during the show — wirelessly connect a TV with a PC, delivering TV, PVR, movies, pictures, music and online services to any television set in a home. The products support connections to PCs running Windows Media Center in Windows Vista and generally, Windows XP Media Center Edition.
Media extenders to date include the Xbox 360 console as well as third-party products by a number of networking and storage companies. At the show, Microsoft is expected to showcase new media extenders from Cisco’s Linksys unit, D-Link, and Hewlett-Packard, which all unveiled their products today.
Belfiore said in a statement that the devices are “designed to deliver the ultimate entertainment experience to every TV set in your home.”
Microsoft has long been supportive of efforts to extend Internet-based multimedia throughout the home. The company’s chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates last publicly touted extender devices in January at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
It’s also a hot category for other major players in the PC space. Apple Inc. announced its own $299 PC-to-TV device, Apple TV, only a few months before.
Apple’s offering is designed to let consumers play their movie and TV downloads on the living room TV, and is compatible with the company’s iTunes download service. In May, Apple partnered with Google’s YouTube video streaming service to provide additional, specially formatted content for the device.
When Apple launched Apple TV last year, Phil Leigh, analyst with Inside Digital Media, said at the time that such products answered a consumer desire to not just download Internet video, but to watch in on their televisions.
Today, however, Leigh described the Microsoft effort as, “an incremental step in the right direction, I don’t see it as much more than that.”
Yet a number of Microsoft partners are still banking that consumers’ desire remains for watching streaming video on their TVs.
Linksys today announced two Media Center Extender products — one with a DVD player, and one without — for estimated street prices of $349.99 and $299.99, respectively.
From D-Link comes the DSM-750 MediaLounge HD Media Center Extender, which supports HD video resolutions of up to 1080i and Windows Media Video (WMV), DivX, and XVid formats. It includes a USB 2.0 port for access to music, photos and videos on removable Flash drives or external hard drives. It’s estimated price is also $349.99.
The HP MediaSmart LCD HDTV — a television with built-in Media Center Extender capability and 802.11n wireless — will be available in Best Buy stores for an as-of-yet undetermined price.
Source: InternetNews
Google adding Video News to it’s offering
August 22, 2007
One of our goals at Google News is to offer as many different perspectives on the news as possible. That means bringing content from multiple sources together in a way we hope you find to be organized and relevant. Now we’re adding video to the mix: we’re showing related news videos along with our news articles to give you a broader spectrum of info available. You’ll see the prefix “Video” next to story titles, and clicking on these video links will open a video player directly on the page so you can watch the video right there.
Today, viewing news videos or other content types on the web can be a frustrating experience. You often get videos that don’t play, sites that require different video player downloads, or have misleading descriptions of the content. That’s why we’re working with YouTube so you can easily view online videos without any downloads required and regardless of what browser you’re using.
For our initial launch, we have included several top news sources such as CBS, Reuters, and a number of local Hearst TV stations. Over the next few months, we’ll continue to add new sources as fast as we can. Right now we’re just offering this addition in the U.S., the UK, and Ireland; we hope to make it available in other languages and editions soon.
We’re excited to add this to your Google News experience, so give it a try and let us know what you think.
[Source: GoogleNewsBLog]
Google Ends Paid Google Videos
August 10, 2007
On January 7 2006 Google announced a video store service on top of Google Video. You were able to purchase videos such as NBA games, Charlie Rose interviews, or shows like CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (in the US at least).
In an effort to improve all Google services, Google will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. To fully account for the video purchases made before July 18, 2007, Google is providing current users with a Google Checkout bonus for $2.00.
[Via GB]
