Bill Gates spoke at Stanford today, gathering a crowd because a) he’s Bill Gates, and b) he’s about to retire. Microsoft had just announced it would be giving students developer and designer software for free. Gates said that besides his philanthropic commitments, he’ll continue to … Read More »
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Liz Gannes
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Peanut Labs, a company that couldn’t find a business as an also-ran social network, took a different route and now conducts market research on social networks using virtual goods to reward survey takers. The San Francisco-based startup said today it has raised $3.2 … Read More »
We’re noting news of three more digital media companies raising funding today. Interestingly, considering current economic fears, none of these are advertising plays. Not to say other business models are recession-proof! Invodo is yet another white-label video provider, but focused specifically on retailers and manufacturers. The … Read More »
doubleTwist, the startup founded by hacker Jon “DVD Jon” Lech Johansen to combat restrictive DRM (and which we were first to write about in detail back in October 2006), launches Tuesday. The company has raised a Series A round of an unnamed amount from … Read More »
This weekend I stumbled upon the freshly live Comedy.com site. While Chris has told us many times that there are just too many comedic web video portals on the Internet, this one’s pedigree and approach is at least worth noting. Founded by … Read More »
This eulogy is going to be pretty short because, like many people, I didn’t really care about the high-definition DVD format wars. But according to Reuters and (somewhat less conclusively) Kyodo news (via Bloomberg), HD DVD developer Toshiba will give up its hundreds-of-million-dollar HD … Read More »
Wal-Mart, the top U.S. DVD seller, is dropping the HD DVD format in favor of selling only Blu-ray, following Netflix and Best Buy this week, with the string of switches kicked off by Warner Home Video in January. The DVD format wars had been … Read More »
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Now this is one place I’d prefer not to see video advertising: Google search results pages. But the New York Times Bits blog tells us the company started testing such ads this week. Google already sells video ads for other sites, including syndicated YouTube … Read More »
Troubled video site Revver was bought by Brad Greenspan’s LiveUniverse last night for a price “many multiples more” than the $500,000 to $1.5 million reported recently, according to a source close to the deal. Update: We now know that the price was *just* under … Read More »
Want to try out some fun products before they launch? You’ve come to the right place. Video recommendation service ffwd, which we wrote about when it was called Vadver, just released a version of its product for the Wii last night (like … Read More »
Clickable video advertisement startup Overlay.tv beta-launches today, bringing a slight twist to an online video sector that’s getting nearly as crowded as how-to videos and girl-reading-news shows. Ottawa-based Overlay.tv (“cheesy infomercial” embedded above) makes a tool that helps users call attention to … Read More »
Mobile live video is going to be very exciting. Even in our on-demand world, breaking news, sports and real-time interactions are best experienced without delay. We’ve reported on offerings from companies like Qik and Flixwagon that send up video from fancy cell phones. This … Read More »
The Writers Guild of America, having come to a resolution with the studios about digital revenue, has voted to end its 100-day strike. From the statement, as printed on United Hollywood: Writing can resume immediately. If you were employed when the strike began, you should … Read More »
Om and I just got back from a long meeting with MTV Networks about their digital strategy. I did a video and he’s going to follow-up on the mother ship with a longer post, but there were a couple quotes about video hosts I thought … Read More »
Ad revenue from streaming video, the very category writers just struck for three months over, will be worth $6.6 billion in 2012, according to new research by Parks Associates. The firm estimates the same category was worth $1.4 billion in 2007. The reason these numbers … Read More »
As we had reported was in the works two weeks ago, Yahoo has bought Maven Networks for $160 million. Yahoo explained the deal as a play for the fast-growing video advertising market. Maven has technology for creating interactive and clickable ads, … Read More »
Sarah Lacy co-hosts web video show Yahoo Tech Ticker, which launched today. She also writes a column for BusinessWeek and has a book coming out about Web 2.0 moguls. We were interested to hear Lacy’s perspective on moving from print to video, so we … Read More »
Updated: TechCrunch is reporting that HotorNot, the little meme that’s lasted two web bubbles, has been sold to “investors connected with Avid Life Media.” HotorNot has been a cash cow for the last seven years for founders James Hong and Jim Young. The site, … Read More »
I’d tune in to see Hayden Black walk the Emmys red carpet dressed up in Abigail’s X-rated Teen Diary character — wouldn’t you? Well, we might just have our chance this year. The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences is announcing Monday it will consider … Read More »
Yahoo’s new web video show, Tech Ticker, starts on Monday. The program, which will focus on tech stocks, is to release four to eight videos each day. Earlier reports had said the show would be live, but it will be entirely on demand, according to … Read More »
Possibly nearing a conclusion of the ongoing writers’ strike, the Writers Guild of America has released the terms (PDF) of a proposed agreement for the review of its members. A particularly contentious topic, according to United Hollywood, is the proposed window before residuals kick … Read More »
DanceJam, the pre-launch online video startup best known for being founded by MC Hammer, has raised $3.5 million from Softbank Capital and Rustic Canyon, as first reported by TechCrunch. Along with angel funding, that brings the company’s total to $4.5 million. DanceJam, which aims … Read More »
JupiterResearch, which predicts online video advertising in the U.S. will reach $768 million in 2008 (that part is apparently from an older report, but I hadn’t seen it reported anywhere yet), said this week that there is latent demand among early adopters for full-length, … Read More »
Yahoo released an experimental live video product today in the vein of Ustream.tv, Justin.tv, Operator11, blogTV and many others. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Yahoo Live (which was first reported by Valleywag). “How is Y! Live different from other online video … Read More »
Get to know the new CEO of Mozilla, John Lilly, on this week’s GigaOM Show, where I subbed in for Om again. Joyce Kim and I had a nice chat with Lilly — he shares details on the recent executive changeover, the impending release of … Read More »
ScanScout CEO Doug McFarland has stepped down from the company, effective Dec. 31, 2007. He remains on its board of directors. Founder Waikit Lau has stepped in as interim CEO while ScanScout looks for a replacement. McFarland, who had joined the company Jan. 1, 2007 … Read More »
CINELAN launched today to create, distribute and monetize three-minute documentaries on the web, television and mobile devices, and in digital cinemas. The New York-based company comes to the table with a strong roster of non-fiction filmmakers: Academy Award- and/or Sundance Prize-winning filmmakers Steve James (Hoop … Read More »
Some 500 million online greeting cards are sent each year, according to the Greeting Card Association (yes, I really did look that up). What with the increased accessibility and options for online video, it makes sense that cards would start to incorporate it. But…the video … Read More »
TurnHere, a company that commissions and distributes online video advertisements on behalf of customers like Simon & Schuster and Citysearch, has rounded up $7.5 million from Venrock and Hearst Interactive Media. Combined with angel funding it raised in November of 2006, the company … Read More »
Revver is looking to sell itself for between $300,000 and $500,000, plus the assumption of some $1 million in debt, CNET reported today, citing unnamed sources. CNET also repeats Contentinople’s report that LiveUniverse was looking to buy the company, saying that the deal fell … Read More »
Howcast, yet another how-to video site, and one that we’ve been tracking through its stealth mode, launches today. The company, founded by Google and YouTube alums, has raised an $8 million Series A round led by Tudor Investment Corporation, and said it plans to … Read More »
thePlatform, a Seattle-based video publishing and distribution service owned by Comcast, is doing a big partner announcement tonight. Many of these are old deals, but thePlatform is right to call attention to the impressive library of partners it can offer to its customers. This includes … Read More »
Despite what we might have expected from the network, ABC still has the entire Lost library — seasons one through three, and now adding season four — available for HD streaming on ABC.com. After we noticed the stash of episodes at the beginning of … Read More »
After spending 10 days looking mostly at the inside of my eyelids, I’m hoping to get back to to work this week. But first, here’s a few items from while I was out sick: Roo, the troubled online video service provider, is moving on from its Wurld … Read More »
Yahoo is close to acquiring enterprise video startup Maven Networks for between $160 million and $170 million, according to sources familiar with the deal. TechCrunch was first to print word of the acquisition. Maven provides video hosting and distribution services for Gannett, Hearst, Fox … Read More »
Silicon Alley Insider has notes from a speech by David Eun, Google VP of content partnerships, at the SIIA Information Industry Summit in New York. My comments in parentheses. - Most traffic to YouTube comes from outside the U.S.; there are now 19 localized versions … Read More »
Putting a video on YouTube almost guarantees you an audience, right? In many cases that’s true. Fifty percent of videos get at least 100 views in the first month they’re on the site, according to a survey by ViralManager (via Data Mining).
Online video is just television on the cheap, right? We’ll do our own hair, makeup, and craft services, thank you very much! OK, maybe a little too cynical, but now just imagine online video (a.k.a. TV on the cheap) on the cheap. Silicon Alley Insider
Parsing through Current Media‘s filing for a $100 million public offering, I kept stumbling over the financials section. The youth-oriented news company had a net loss of $9.8 million in 2007, based on revenue of $63.8 million. It lost $7.6 million in 2006 and … Read More »
Parsing through Current Media‘s filing for a $100 million public offering, I kept stumbling over the financials section. The youth-oriented news company had a net loss of $9.8 million in 2007, based on revenue of $63.8 million. It lost $7.6 million in 2006 and … Read More »
Visible Measures, which is mounting its first real PR push at the DEMO conference today, has a lot to announce: Its product, for one, which has been on the market for a while, albeit somewhat under the radar, plus some $13.5 million in Series … Read More »
Break.com, the video site for men, has decided one part of its strategy is more promising than the other. Over the past two months, the company launched a men’s gossip blog, a mixed martial arts blog, and Chickipedia, “the wiki of hot women.” That’s … Read More »
TubeMogul, the leading vendor of tracking tools for web video shows, is hoping it can convince its customers to pay for its products. The Emeryville, Calif.-based startup already has top web video production shops like Vuguru, Next New Networks, and CBS Interactive hooked on its … Read More »
Hulu CTO Eric Feng stopped by NewTeeVee HQ this week (while on a tour of various Silicon Valley tech publications) and shared a progress check as well as some forward-looking thoughts on the product he’s been building since last summer, when News Corp … Read More »
Ooyala, a platform for video delivery and advertising, has raised $8.5 million in second-round funding led by Sierra Ventures, the company announced on its blog this week. That brings Ooyala’s total funding to $10 million, according to founder Bismarck Lepe. Ooyala had taken first … Read More »
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