If you’re a cord cutter, there’s no chance FreedomPop’s new “freemium” home broadband is a fit for you. But by selling a minimal connectivity package, the MVNO is targeting the casual user and those who can’t afford broadband. Read more »
The streaming video industry continues to undergo radical transformation. Kun Gao, of Crunchyroll, points to four things to look for in the coming year. Read more »
As it takes a hammering at home, Netflix is pinning its hopes on getting traction in Europe. But Adam Valkin, the founding CEO of rival video service Lovefilm, says that the US company could have owned the market if it hadn’t pulled out of a European launch in 2004. Read more »
Bad news for Netflix’s international aspirations, as Amazon-owned rival Lovefilm announced a U.K. rights deal to show 20th Century Fox movies on its streaming service. But with antitrust authorities hovering over the movies-on-demand market, things are still up for grabs. Read more at paidContent »
Verizon’s new video app Viewdini has escaped onto Android smartphones – at least the LTE ones. The video portal allows 4G smartphone customers to browse, search and view videos from multiple content services. What the app doesn’t allow you to do is skirt Verizon’s mobile data caps. Read more »
Carriers like Verizon and AT&T are trying to convince Netflix to pay for the bandwidth its subscribers consume on their networks. Rather than fork over the money, Netflix is giving its iPhone customers the option of turning off cellular access to Netflix completely. Read more »
The adoption of tablets, social media and new interfaces and the changing nature of the TV itself mean the digital living room will continue on its path of rapid change, thanks to new ways of creating, viewing, bundling, distributing and selling content. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Verizon Wireless revealed a new incarnation of its old V Cast streaming mobile video service on Tuesday. Called Viewdini, the Android app aggregates content from premium video services like Hulu and Netflix and could represent Verizon’s first attempts to charge content providers to carry their traffic. Read more »
Sony has big plans for a competitive home video service to compete with programming offers from the cable and satellite companies – or maybe I should say ‘had’. Those plans are on hold until regulators decide if Comcast can keep prioritize its content over everyone else’s. Read more »
Does the world need 2 Gbps Wi-Fi connections? Rusnano, Bright Capital and several other venture capital firms think it does. They have invested $79 million in Quantenna Communications to build the chips that will make such multi-gigabit wireless local area networks possible. Read more »
Wal-Mart is looking to use its leverage in Hollywood to accelerate the movie industry’s move to cloud-based storage and digital commerce. In the process, it could steal a march on other providers of cloud-based media lockers like Apple, Google and Amazon, whose platforms to date are ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Live video streaming pioneer Ustream is going through some pretty major changes, the company said Friday. First, it has landed $6 million in new funding from two existing investors — and second, its co-founder, John Ham, is leaving his job as the company’s CEO. Read more »
After enduring a torrid few months, Netflix is hoping to get that it can generate some positive momentum by announcing plans to launch in the U.K. and Ireland early next year — its first product launch outside the Americas. But it will face stiff competition. Read more »
We got a chance to talk with Ustream president and co-founder Brad Hunstable in the company’s San Francisco office last week to discuss the company’s evolution and opportunities for future growth, as well as how it sees growing competition from some big-name players. Read more »
Creators of the original PogoPlug, Cloud Engines, launched a new $80 mobile hardware product on Thursday that streams home media to smartphones and tablets. PogoPlug Mobile enables a “personal cloud” with media access and, in the case of Android devices, can remotely backup photos and movies. Read more »
For Solo creator Jonathan Nail, producing his own web series was an opportunity to create a showcase for his acting. But after two years of hard work and thousands of dollars, he found that the rewards of independent production are not universal. Read more »
Hulu is turning Japanese with the launch of a subscription service in the country. The company today announced that it will launch the service before the end of the year, but declined to provide further details. Hulu actively looked for partners in Japan earlier this year. Read more »
Viacom reported that affiliate revenues grew 20 percent domestically and 16 percent worldwide. That was due in part to digital deals that the company has struck recently, including new deals with Netflix and Hulu that make its shows available for streaming. Read more »
DirecTV has admitted to taking a look at Hulu’s financials to see if it’s worth buying. While the satellite provider could accelerate its rollout of TV Everywhere services with such a buy, DirectTV’s CEO said a Hulu acquisition isn’t necessary to achieve its long-term vision. Read more »
Roku just came out with a new generation of streaming media players, complete with support for Angry Birds and other casual games as well as advanced Netflix streaming. Want to see it in action? Then check out this week’s episode of Cord Cutters. Read more »
A Hulu Support staffer might have just pre-announced plans for Hulu to introduce a new subscription plan that would cost more than the current Hulu Plus plan. The tweets come as Hulu faces its broadcast partners putting up a pay wall against non-cable subscribers. Read more »
Netlix recently posted a job opening for a UI designer specialized on kids websites and online games. Does the video giant plan to launch a separate website dedicated to its large library of kids content, or will the entire Netflix UI become a bit more kid-friendly? Read more »
Members of the U.K. parliament will be grilling Rupert Murdoch and his son James Murdoch about the phone hacking scandal today, and they will surely also have some tough questions for Murdoch’s former News International executive Rebekah Brooks. The full-length testimony will be streamed online. Read more »
Netflix has no plans to slow down its international expansion. In addition to its expansion to 43 countries in Latin America later this year, Variety reports the company could also launch services in Spain and the U.K. in early 2012. Read more »
Shaw, a Canadian ISP said this week that its movies and on demand service would be exempt from its data caps. Such a move places Shaw’s upcoming Movie Club service at an advantage to a competitive movie streaming service such as Netflix. Read more »
Nina Paley is upset. Her movie Sita Sings The Blues is blocked for German users on YouTube, making it the latest casualty in an ongoing conflict between the video site and German music rights group Gema. Rights holders deny that they’re to blame for the incident. Read more »
Criterion Capital Partners is announcing Wednesday that it has bought SeeSaw.com, a site that aspired to become U.K.’s Hulu but was close to being shut down just six weeks ago. SeeSaw’s past is troubled, but Criterion is nonetheless willing to make a bet on its future. Read more »
UPDATED: Last week, Facebook and Skype launched a new video calling application, hosted at facebook.com/videocalling. But Samuday Web Technologies says it was at that domain first. Samuday now says its video chat app was unceremoniously kicked off of Facebook to make way for the new Skype feature. Read more »
H.264 remains the dominant force in online video, as the video codec now accounts for more than two-thirds of online video, according to a blog post by MeFeedia. Meanwhile, Google’s WebM format has yet to gain any significant traction after being released a year ago. Read more »
Want to enjoy all the fun of the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival but not suffer through any of the downsides? Then you’re in luck: All major acts of the festival can be watched though a live stream from the comfort of your living room. Read more »
Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix won’t take the ISPs attacks against his business any longer. He released a report showing that heavy bandwidth users incur a cost of 1 penny or less per gigabyte over a last-mile network — far less than ISPs are charging. Read more »
Android smartphones and tablets can now stream music, videos and photos to AppleTV over Wi-Fi using the doubleTwist AirSync application. A quick test of the software shows that its simple to configure and can pipe digital media output to AppleTV with the tap of a button. Read more »
Akamai could begin leveraging P2P technology to stream live or on-demand videos. While it has been experimenting off and on with P2P ever since its acquisition of Red Swoosh in 2007, the introduction of video streaming through its NetSession client-side technology might be close to release. Read more »
Last year, Apple introduced a sleeper agent that, while better than its predecessor, still wasn’t fully active. That agent was the Apple TV, and it wasn’t until the recent release of iOS 4.3 and the expanded availability of AirPlay that its true potential became apparent. Read more »
Apple could be ready to upend the living room market in a truly revolutionary way. Analyst Peter Misek thinks Apple is just about ready to launch a new cloud-based video streaming service that could go well beyond what Apple TV already offers. Read more »
Apple is considering offering AirPlay video streaming to third-party device manufacturers via licensing, Bloomberg reports. It’s an idea that could provide a lot more presence for Apple in the living room, but also potentially cost the Apple TV its tentative foothold there. Read more »
The live-stream video market is entering an upturn in the typical hockey stick growth chart. Tens of millions of desktop viewers use browser-based players to find live-streaming content on an ever-increasing number of web sites and mobile devices. Raw viewership will grow fastest in the consumer segment, where sites like Justin.tv and Qik are focused. Those like Kyte, Livestream, Ustream and BitGravity, meanwhile, primarily offer platforms to commercial content providers seeking a mass audience. And as the market grows, both in terms of viewers and of the number and type of content providers, it will support both those with a diverse, one-stop-shop approach and those who specialize in particular content and audiences. Additional companies mentioned in this report include YouTube/Google, Sony, HTC, Vivu, Facebook and Apple. To see a full list of companies and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
With DVD sales plummeting and Blu-ray and digital sell-thru unable to make up the gap, Hollywood continues to struggle with the digital revolution. Among the countless strategies under consideration to reverse this trend is making titles available for rent on or near the day they premiere ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple has gone all-in for streaming as the primary means of getting content onto its devices. That has distinct strategic advantages for Apple, but it’s not without risks, especially for ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
If there’s one thing you can count on about Apple’s App Store review policy, it’s that the process will be consistently inconsistent. Today, an app launches that was originally rejected for known and acknowledged use of private APIs, despite the fact that developers haven’t modified the […] Read more »
