YouTube is getting rid of a promotional platform that was meant to offer easy access to third-party video editing apps – and that step irks at least one of YouTube’s partners. Read more »
What motivates 70 people to spend two days in a conference room, coding their hearts out? For the participants in this weekend’s Google hackathon, the answer was a lot bigger than just winning a new TV. Read more »
Germany’s music rights group GEMA asked YouTube to block videos containing some of its music – and is now upset about the way YouTube is handling those restrictions. Read more at paidContent »
A new Google FAQ gives some detail about how the search giant deals with law enforcement and government requests for information on Google users. Read more »
Twitter has been expanding the idea of what a tweet consists of for some time now, and has just added the ability to include short video clips. But is the service at risk of losing the simplicity that once made it unique? Read more »
YouTube got a lot of play during this week’s Google earnings call, in part because the site is starting to move the needle for Google. Read more »
Watch out, AirPlay: Netflix and YouTube are working on an open second screen protocol, and they’ve already secured support from key CE makers and content platforms. Read more »
Jamie Oliver’s new Food Tube channel is live on YouTube – and it’s going to feature some familiar faces for people who scour the video site for unique food videos. Read more at paidContent »
YouTube is about to take a stake in Vevo, according to multiple reports. That would be a smart move, because it would help YouTube to hold on to more than half a billion views a month. Read more at paidContent »
While the future of Current’s programming is up in the air following its acquisition by Al Jazeera, one guy’s not freaked out — on Twitter and YouTube, “Young Turks” host Cenk Uygur is reminding his fans that he and the “TYT” team will be just fine. Read more »
Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is leaving the company along with CTO Rich Tom. The two will stay on in the next months to manage the transition. Read more »
Too many connected devices downloading, streaming or uploading in the home can choke a home network, and there’s not much average consumers can do about it. But Qualcomm hopes that its new StreamBooost technology will help make the router –and home networks — smarter and better. Read more »
After users complained about bad online video experiences, France’s telecom regulator launched an investigation trying to figure out if a local ISP was blocking YouTube or if it was just underinvesting in its network. A decision is expected soon, and could have worldwide repercussions. Read more »
Two of the funniest women in comedy today. A channel that brought together cop show parodies and sci-fi drama. A series that created a community. And a brand that pushed the boundaries of serialized content. For those who like web video, 2012 was a great year. Read more »
By creating a bevy of new iOS apps, what Google has been up to is becoming more obvious. It’s made it its mission to not just compete with Apple with the Android platform and Nexus mobile devices, but battle Apple on its own platform. Read more »
Many of the biggest stories in the connected consumer space occurred mostly offstage in 2012, from Apple’s new media services to policymakers in Washington. Overall, the past 12 months have laid important groundwork for significant advances in the connected consumer space. The year 2013 should be eventful. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
YouTube tweaked its homepage as well as its video watch page Thursday, making its channel guide a persistent element across almost the entire site. Similar changes will come to channel pages in the near future, and are designed to further emphasize YouTube’s channels. Read more »
Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome might have ended up like many television pilots — abandoned and never again seen. SyFy opted to instead premiere the series through Machinima Prime on YouTube. It’s a great treat for Battlestar fans – and a potential precedent for future projects. Read more »
About that Nexus 4 with no LTE. Turns out it has LTE, but only on a single band. Android owners got a Skype update this week and can expect to see more AirPlay-like features in the future from Google for media and apps. Read more »
In the past, information flow during a military campaign was mostly controlled by the armies involved, but now that everyone has the ability to publish and distribute data including photos and videos, it changes the nature of attacks like the latest Israeli campaign against Hamas. Read more »
Israel is waging war on Hamas, but it is also waging an information war using Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and other tools. How firmly do these networks support the principle of free speech, and how do they decide what content to permit and what to remove? Read more »
YouTube launched on the Wii Thursday, and the app is powered by Google’s open WebM video codec. This makes the Wii app the biggest WebM deployment in the world, and gives Google a chance to show off what WebM is capable of. Read more »
How does it change the way we perceive a war when the armies involved become media entities — publishing their own live news reports, uploading photos and videos and even live-tweeting their attacks as they happen? The Israeli army has started doing just that. Read more »
Google TV just got a little more Apple-like: Android users can now use AirPlay-like functionality to send videos from their mobile phones and tablets to their Google TV devices. Google has said that it wants to bring that functionality to other platforms as well. Read more »
AOL has been a basket case for years as it tried to figure out if was a tech or a content company. But today it announced earnings and a strategy that suggest it may finally have found a way forward. Read more at paidContent »
Crowd labor is outsourced information work that can be provisioned automatically. It’s ideally, inexpensive, on demand, and elastic. Platforms providing such services are on the rise in 2012, promising customers lower labor costs in the short term and higher-quality output in the long term. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The Lizzie Bennet Diaries might be one of the most important web content stories of 2012: The YouTube adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice has not only secured its financial future thanks to DECA, but has built an intense fanbase for future literary adaptations. Read more »
A new research paper from Google highlights the importance of big data in creating consumer-friendly services such as voice search on smartphones. More data helps train smarter models, which can then better predict what someone say next — letting you keep your eyes on the road. Read more »
Brand advertising’s focus on cross-platform media measurement has grown dramatically in the past five years. Within the next 36 months cross-platform digital video advertising will standardize, driven by the shift in media dollars to online viewing and the adoption of the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The purpose of the on-screen guide has shifted. By connecting the guide to content-recommendation engines and advertising platforms, service providers and connected-TV device manufacturers are using the EPG as an access point for understanding consumers and reaching out to them to own the living room. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The web’s most popular Jane Austin adaptation gets a big deal. The value of mainstream celebrities might not measure up to web celebrities. Some people actually miss Myspace. And other things learned from the New York Television Festival. Read more »
The internet has never wanted for dance videos, but DS2DIO seeks to create a central hub for dance-related content of all genres on YouTube, guided by a guy who knows a little bit about making the art of dance cinematic. Read more »
The third quarter saw many parts of the traditional media business in flux. Other developments included the rollout of new device-based content ecosystems, red flags and red ink for traditional consumer electronics makers, and a resurgence of consumer purchases of movies. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
YouTube just added some additional recourse for users that feel like they’ve been wrongly targeted for the alleged upload of unlicensed content: The site added an appels process to its Content ID program that defaults to the DMCA if the dispute isn’t resolved. Read more »
The Commission on Presidential Debates is partnering with three online media companies to stream debates and educate voters. The platforms will also give the companies a way to showcase their other content. Read more »
YouTube wants to give mobile phone users a chance to find music video content by artist, discography and genre, with the goal of bringing music content to hundreds of millions of its users. These plans could be an answer to Vevo’s mobile music initiatives. Read more »
Last week, we published The Mobile 15, our list of the most-innovative companies in the world of mobile. It explored how these companies, large and small, are changing — or are set to change — the mobile landscape in big ways. Some of you emailed to […] Read more »
While publishers and developers have evolved to take advantage of new digital platforms, advertisers are lagging behind. Too often, they are simply repurposing TV material rather than tailoring their creative material to the online video environment. Read more at paidContent »
More people watched video on the Internet through YouTube than any other site by a wide margin during August, as Google continues to enjoy the benefits of having the most engaged online viewers. Still wondering if Google is a media company? Read more »
Book publisher Simon & Schuster is ramping up video distribution, creating content channels and signing with partners like Roku, Blinkx and Taboola. For now, the videos are intended to promote books and authors, not to drive advertising revenue. Read more at paidContent »
