Among the new web-celebrity personas you will be able to see the famous iJUSTINE. Justine “iJustine” Ezarik made global headlines last summer when she received a 100-page phone bill as a result of using her iPhone to send more than 30,000 text messages. Ezarik’s video of the event was seen by millions online and on television, leading to a change in the way iPhone customers are billed. An additional talent in the new season is Christine Gambito (aka HappySlip). HappySlip is one of the Web’s biggest and brightest stars. She currently ranks as Youtube’s #5 Most Subscribed to Artist of All-Time. In peak months, Christine’s website HappySlip.com has attracted 306,600 unique visits with 758,908 page views.

Huh.. we didn’t know there was such a thing as web video ‘seasons’..?!?

Go Daddy’s CEO and founder recently unveiled his latest venture, not your average corporate communication, or a typical canned PR message. Nope, www.BobParsons.tv is an in-your-face, tell-it-like-it-is video blog used to speak directly to customers, employees and even the media. It’s blunt, it’s unvarnished, even irreverent – and it’s out there for anyone to see.

Few business leaders provide transparent messages or understand the importance of embracing new technology. Some critics have questioned the wisdom of letting an executive speak off the cuff and PR professionals might scoff at publishing an unfiltered message – but Parsons sees true value in putting his views ‘on the record.’

ummm.. Yikes!

Ustreamtv tapped into more $ according to ‘always-on’ Caroline McCarthy:

There are seemingly more “livestreaming” services out there than people actually using them, but that hasn’t stopped Ustream.tv from raising $11.1 million in Series A funding. The cash comes from venture firm DCM, as well as existing investors Labrador Ventures and The Band of Angels. To be fair, Ustream has pulled away from the pack a bit: it’s the streaming service of choice for some high-profile live Web events like the Digg Town Hall.

With the new cash, Ustream will focus on product development and “meet(ing) growing market demand for an interactive-broadcasting platform.” In other words, it’s to better compete as the space grows tighter.

Adding fuel to burn the fire from their last round in December.

Wildscreen.TV lets video creators cash in, not sell out and offers 100% Ad Revenue to their users if they place their own ads on their custom channel. The new source for watching and sharing videos in HD-Quality – about music, theatre, dance, art and creative shortfilm. It is, as its slogan states, “fresh films by demanding directors for hungry consumers”. It provides a forum for those in search of quality, as contrast to the “everything goes” attitude of other sites. With Wildscreen.tv, the makers are aware of the major problem of the independent creative scene – the continual lack of financial resources.

Consequently, they offer their users the opportunity to support their own channel with advertising of their choice. 100% of the proceeds go directly to the operator of the channel. Quality applies not only to content, but also to the technical. The video resolution of wildscreen.tv is double that of other video portals (640 x 480 pixels) and the videos are streamed without interruption. There is also no limit on film length and data size.

Whoa.. whicked logo dudes..

By using a methodology that analyzes in fine detail 17 key Web site variables, the VideoBloom VIEW Index tracks, for example: placement of video within the Web site, the Web video formats used, the uses of online videos, and if there is an Internet video center. VideoBloom VIEW then offers analysis of these trends along groupings of companies.

VideoBloom breaks down its results into three main percentages that indicate organizations’ use of video on their main Web sites. For example, in February 2008, the VIEW main index for the 30 Dow Jones companies was 13-93-7, which indicates that 13% of the companies had video on their home page, 93% had video on their site, and 7% didn’t use video at all. As more and more companies discover the effectiveness of Web video, this information will become an invaluable resource and window into online video’s evolution.

In cubicles across the country, lunchtime has become the new prime time, as workers click aside their spreadsheets to watch videos on YouTube, news highlights on CNN.com or other Web offerings. The trend — part of a broader phenomenon known as video snacking — is turning into a growth business for news and media companies, which are feeding the lunch crowd more fresh content.

From an apartment in Greenwich Village, Rob Millis and Will Coghlan are hosts and producers of a three-minute daily Webcast, Political Lunch, done around 10 a.m., followed by an hour and a half of editing, in time for uploading just before noon. The program, which was introduced in September and appears on several Web sites, is viewed 10,000 to 20,000 times a week, with a peak in traffic from 1 to 3 p.m.

Via: NYT

PalBee.com announced today that is has begun a beta test of its Mashup API. The Mashup API allows beta participants to embed a PalBee video conference anywhere on their own web site. This is made possible by a widget that allows real time video conferencing to anyone who visits the web page. The Flash-based technology does not require setup or configuration; simply copy and paste the code and everything else falls into place.

RedHerring reports that Ustream.TV said Tuesday it has completed a $2 million angel round and that U.S. General Wesley Clark joined its board. Ustream and its competitors will need to attract large and consistent audiences before advertising dollars roll in. But they will be in competition with one another and mainstream broadcasters, who have content and are looking for ways to earn revenue from the Internet. Two major U.S. professional sports leagues, Major League Baseball and the National Football League, now broadcast games live on their web sites. Ustream hopes such interactive features as live polling and applause meters will draw users. Viewers can make requests and pose real-time questions with broadcasters. And much like YouTube, the site is a stage for people who otherwise don’t have a way to share their content with a global audience.

First it was Wired and now from RedHerring.. gotta hand it to their PR folks

Chicagolive.com debuts today and features video content about Chicago, by Chicago and for Chicago giving local users a chance to share their video creations in a uniquely Chicago setting, including videos from professionals and amateurs alike. Produced by Chicago Tribune Interactive, the site provides a chance to tell stories about the Windy City in a different way.

In addition to user-submitted footage, chicagolive.com aggregates video content from professional sources like Chicago Tribune, CLTV, WGN-TV and others as well as city-centric videos collected from sites across the Internet.

Based on the experience from Boston no doubt.

Vice magazine has built a small media empire out of a raw, ironic sensibility, risqué photographs and a willingness to deal in taboo subjects. On VBS.tv, the video Web site the company runs, viewers can find short videos about independent music, extreme sports and, of course, some nudity. What’s even more surprising is the company that finances most of these projects: Viacom. Late last year, the Viacom-owned MTV Networks Music and Logo Group made a deal to start VBS, with financing from MTV and content from Vice, which also sells ads.

Via: NYT

Hunter and Josh did this journey with very little money and because of this they struggled. But this didn’t stop them from them reaching their dream, they kept at it and figured things out on a shoe string budget. They turned their weaknesses into strengths by leveraging the media, which allowed them to get press in outlets such Wired, LA Times, Washington Post, The Pheonix, CNet, Boston Globe, and the Denver Post. Instead of complaining and making excuses these two individuals accomplished their dream while becoming somewhat famous.

Via QuickSprout

As the convergence of the four screens continues ­- PC, TV, mobile phone, and Personal Mobile Platform – Internet video has shifted programming into the hands of Web users instead of television viewers, blurring the division between a Website and a TV channel as broadband connections enable viewers to surf the Internet to find whatever programs they want.

iTVCon looks in detail at how, with all the data and entertainment being pumped down the same pipe or transmitted over the same wireless networks, the worlds of TV and the Internet are colliding and old-fashioned broadcasters need to discover new revenue channels fast.

Now that broadband is available to more than 100 million households worldwide, every corporate Website – not to mention every media company – must now provide video content on the Internet to remain competitive, as well as live and interactive video Webinars and on-demand Webcasts.

A startup officially debuting at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston next week claims it has software that can significantly improve the quality of Web video across a range of devices from cellphones to servers and digital TVs. Ipera Technology Inc. aims to license its algorithms which run on ARM and x86 processors.

The startup conducted the first demos of the software a few weeks ago and is now ready to ship the code. Ipera charges a flat licensing fee, non-recurring engineering fees if users need customization of the code and a royalty based on the type and volume sales of the product using it.

The code has been optimized for an ARM 926EJS for use enhancing video playback in devices such as cellphones and digital cameras. It can provide enhancements to quarter VGA resolution video on handsets running on a 150 MHz or slower processor. It can also run on an ARM7-class CPU for lower-end feature phones.

More info via EE Times

Not to be outdone by Silverlight, Adobe has announced a beta version of its Flash player with the ability to play high-definition video. The new player adds support for H.264 – as used in the Blu-ray and HD DVD standards – plus High Efficiency AAC audio.

The company’s Premiere Pro and After Effects software for content creators already supports H.264 encoding, and support for the standard will also be added to Adobe’s AIR platform for rich Internet applications. Get the beta Flash Player here. The final release is expected during the next few months.

Fred Wilson posted Here that Howard Lindzon got on a plane, went to NYC, hired a couple of awesome video producers named Adam and Jeff and a wonderful host named Lindsay. He set out to make a funny short video about Wall Street five days a week for less than $1000 per show. Adam and Jeff figured out how to do that and they’ve been online every work day since October 16th of last year. 10-months later = $5 Million deal..!!
Congrats are certainly in order..

This is the guide for what you need to do before you go on your trip, how to capture and document it, and then, how to share it via the net.

Meanwhile, there’s a few thousand more examples to watch on the tube

Ok.. we’re outta here.. cya sometime in August..

After 11 years, Slate has decided to become a parent. So, light up a cigar and say hello to Slate V.

That’s “V” as in video, not the Roman numeral for “5.” The new video magazine will deliver original features, compelling documentary segments, and buzz-worthy video clips culled from the far reaches of the Web.

On the site you’ll find familiar Slate franchises such as “Explainer,” “Dear Prudence,” “Damned Spot,” and “Ad Report Card”—now in living color!—alongside newly created segments about politics, culture, business, technology, and [oh soooo much] more.

The new RealPlayer, due at the end of June, will seek to regain popularity as the best and most useful media player on the Internet. It’s great news for Real, and great news for consumers. Real have said they believe their software is operating within the law, but video providers may not agree.
[No kidding.. ya think? -- eds]

RealNetworks are billing it as “the first media player to make it one-click simple to download online videos from thousands of Web sites”, allowing you to save most types of video that haven’t been marked as copyright or non-downloadable to your computer, and then burn them to CD as a with the free Real Player and by sharing the video links with friends as is more commonly done.

It’s too early to know if action will be taken, but chances are that the legal implications are under discussion by multiple parties in multiple companies as we speak, and if it’s planned, we’ll all know soon enough.

via: IT Wire

The Pixelodeon event will feature keynote addresses from speakers bridging the divide between traditional media and new media, and those dealing with issues such as copyright and file sharing. Two dozen curators, including notable new media content creators Amanda Congdon of ABC News, Veronica Belmont of C|Net, and Bre Pettis of Make Magazine, selected videos from the Internet to illustrate themes for one-hour theater screenings starting at 12PM until 6PM each day.

“The current media landscape is changing so fast that these up-and-coming creators have a chance to help define its new foundations,” said Ryanne Hodson, co-founder of Pixelodeon, as she announced speakers, curators, and a line-up of over 300 videos for Pixelodeon’s first annual Web video screening festival to be held at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles, California on June 9-10.

L.A. We Love It..

via: Social Computing Magazine

A new lightweight camcorder designed for easy video uploads is coming from RCA, the Small Wonder weighs about 5 ounces and operates without tapes, discs, cumbersome batteries or complicated instructions.

The camcorder has a built-in Memory Manager video sharing application that lets users save, compress, edit, e-mail and upload video files, or select any paused frame and save it as a .JPG or .BMP image.

To promote the new camcorder, RCA is sponsoring a Wonder Woofs contest for dog owners. Bark for your dinner!

via: Killer App.

Microsoft has outlined its vision for the web at its Mix 07 event in Las Vegas. In his keynote speech, the corporation’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie summarised his vision for the future of the Microsoft-powered internet. He gave further details on Microsoft Silverlight, the corporation’s answer to the well-established Flash tech for web video delivery.

Ozzie said it will “change the game” for web video before introducing Silverlight Streaming. This free service will store and stream video clips into Web pages.. astounding!

via: Tech UK

The WebVideo Summit will feature 80 speakers with “breaking news, new companies, hot products, video screenings and special events, the conference will force video professionals to re-think the way they approach Web video projects, as well as re-invent themselves to adapt in this rapidly-changing medium. Addressing opportunities and challenges by featuring insights and real-world success stories from 15 award-winning video creators, attendees will gain an insider’s access to strategies and techniques that they will be able to apply to their craft immediately. The end result will be that all attendees go home ready to address today’s challenges with new ideas. The event is shaping up to be the premier event focused on the creation and delivery of video on the Net.”

We wonder what Jeremy thinks about their choice of words..

“To clarify.. we acquired Marratech’s software, not the company.”

According to this article on Mercury News: “As a company, we thrive on casual interactions and spontaneous collaboration,” Douglas Merrill, Google’s vice president of engineering, wrote in the blog post. “So we’re excited about acquiring Marratech’s video conferencing software, which will enable from-the-desktop participation for Googlers in videoconference meetings wherever there’s an Internet connection.” Marratech is owned by Swedish mutual funds, employees, and founders. Google said Marratech’s research and development team will remain in Sweden.

Smart money bets they’ll bolt this into YouTube

Ooooh.. this could lead to all kinds of interesting trouble:

Darejunkies.com is a social networking video community, where you can express your inner-most desires, fears, and boundaries by shooting and posting videos of yourself, and your friends. Pick a challenge from the Challenge List. Challenge yourself or somebody else. Shoot it. Post it. Then over the next month, members will vote on it. The 10 most popular challenge videos will split a $10,000 cash prize each 30-Days!

Via: Online Video Contests.

“Dabble’s index of over 10 million videos (now growing at 2.5 million NEW videos a month) means users only have to visit one destination to search for video and other rich media. Dabble doesn’t directly host any media; the search engine keeps track of the bookmarks, or links, to wherever the media is stored on the web along with all the rest of the essential details about the media. Dabble users add to this details and notes, correct mistakes and share what’s valuable to them about the media.”

We posted about the companies custom playlists back in July 2006.

California’s prison system has been condemned in a 400 page report that to this day has been basically concealed from the public. The Full Disclosure Network presents this ten minute video presentation featuring Joe Gunn, Executive Director of Corrections Independent Review Panel told FDN host Leslie Dutton the prison system was in “chaos, a disaster and total disarray”. This is the second in a series of FDN video news covering the ongoing crisis in California’s jail and prison system.

Surfed over to the Pulver site to see if there was any video up from the VON show and noticed this little ‘gem’ above claimed 1st prize – and a cool 25k – for their Network 2 Contest.. who knew?!? In all fairness it was better than the only clip we could easily find there so far from the spring 2007 event.. Yikes.

Update: Heh.. Jim’s got a nice VON 2007 wrap-up video posted Here.

Full details via: TechCrunch

Great resource for all you down south blues fans. We came across this one-on-one video interview with Pockey Lafarge and knew you’d be swinging..!!

If you’ve spent hours trying to find a simple and free FLV file converter, then you’ve probably pulled out most of your hair already. The Internet is littered with products that claim to convert FLV files for free, but invariably come with nasty surprises attached, or insist you pay up for something that you probably feel you shouldn’t. Well there is a solution and Alex Klive over at WorldTV.com is gonna show you how to do it.. step-by-step.

Don’t forget to check-out his groovy Internet TV Charts while you’re there!

Ben Waggoner is program manger for video encoding at Microsoft and has posted a detailed article to help you get the best out the companies latest encoder tools.

Windows Media Video has been a leading web video format for many years, but good hands-on information for how to get the best results out of it hasn’t always been easy to come by. Also, Windows Media has an enormous breadth of ways it’s used, scaling from mobile phones to the PC to CE devices like the Xbox 360. This article strives to codify the best practices to get the optimum Windows Media encode, whatever the source and delivery environment.

Note, this presentation last year includes .PDF and Audio stream as well.

VitalStream has been selected by Saatchi & Saatchi to power Flash video streaming for a new online community designed to facilitate interaction among Toyota hybrid drivers and promote the benefits of Toyota’s Hybrid Synergy Drive technology. VitalStream’s Streaming Service for Flash enables Web surfers to submit videos in most formats, including Windows Media, Quicktime, MPEG, DV and 3GP converts the video clips to Flash 8 and streams them on Toyota’s site.

Cuts.com opened up private testing access for its new video editing and remixing service which allows users to pull online video from sites like YouTube and Myspace and edit mash-ups to create your own directors cut. Their browser-based software interface can add captions and preset sound effects and enable looped sections of video and the edited versions can then be edited again and again by other users. WebTVWire got an invite to try out their beta trial and posted more details Here.

LiveDigital has unveiled their concept of personal Internet broadcasting with the release of its user generated channel and video programming platform, allowing any user to design, program, and brand their own Internet channel importing high-quality content. Each month, LiveDigital will have a Sweeps period, and split advertising revenues among the top 25 channels. The user-driven advertising and revenue sharing contest, which is set to launch on Feb. 1st, will give channel producers the chance to compete for $25,000 in cash.

It’s easy to get caught up in all the latest and greatest technology. New camcorders with better image quality, faster computers, more advanced software, and the list goes on and on. With the seemingly unending advancement of video technology, you might start to feel pressure to keep up with all of these new toys. Chuck Peters reflects on what makes a pro a pro and challenges producers to shift the focus of their minds to think less like technicians and more like artists and to invest in their talent, not just their equipment. Need inspiration.. watch The Recital.

The Wisest Investment You Can Make is In Yourself.

Via: DVguru.

For nearly 50 years, Jonas Mekas has lugged his camera around New York, creating short films about himself and his friends. While most of those friends — Andy Warhol, Stan Brakhage, Allen Ginsberg — have departed for that rent-controlled loft in the sky, Mekas continues to create and innovate.

On Jan. 1, a week after his 85th birthday, Mekas launches a yearlong film-a-day series. He’ll post a new poetic short at his his website each afternoon until the end of 2007. The videos are intended to be viewed on portable video players, and each download is free on the first day of release. That Mekas is still on the cutting edge of filmmaking should surprise no one. He’s been called, alternately, the godfather and midwife of the American indie scene.

Mekas launched New York’s first theater dedicated to independent movies, started an influential film theory magazine and became the city’s most famous film diarist, logging tens of thousands of hours of footage of New York’s explosively creative ’60s and ’70s underground. “Shoot all scriptwriters,” he wrote in his popular, long-running Village Voice column, “and we may yet have a rebirth of American cinema.”

Via: Wired.

The landmark announcement on October 9 that Google would aquire Youtube for $1.6bn in stock has rocked the internet video world. Predictably there has been alot of discussion about the deal – ALOT – but how does one decide if they paid too much..?!? When the rumors started swirling around, thanks to a post on TechCrunch, we came across this cool little app., according to it’s calculation indeed Google seems to have paid about 6x more than it should have. Then again everyone thought Microsoft paid way too much for Hotmail back in the day.. but now the companies book value shows it to be worth several times more.

Time will tell but this much is clear now; internet video has finally hit main-stream and we are def. in the early stages of bubble 2.0 so best cash-out while you still can. Wonder how long it will take to incorporate other product into the GooTube platform..

Sorry for the post lag – we needed some offline rehab time to ‘breathe’

The first edition of Technorati’s Daily Vlog rolled-out today with highlights of the hot sites, videos, photos, and games showing you what the world LIVE web is abuzz about at any given moment in time.

Amazing idea.. somebody should tell RocketBoom to think about doing something like this..?!?

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone is guerilla news reporting with a mission to cover every armed conflict in the world within one year, and in doing so to provide a clear idea of the combatants, victims, causes, and costs of each of these struggles – and their global impact. Using the latest technology, including high-definition digital cameras and satellite modems, Kevin delivers content including text, photography, video, audio, and interactive chat – all available on one website. Check it out!

TechCrunch got a sneak peek at a video sharing site called Viddler:

The company has focused on making the video publishing experience compelling and enabling discussion, tagging and sharing tied to particular moments in time. It’s a good looking system with smart features and a viable business model.

Company lead Robert Sandie lives today in Bethlehem, PA but has a background managing Adobe flash servers for enterprise clients. The distributed team is made up of designers Andrew Smith and Chris Tingom in Arizona and developers Lukasz Hankus and Kasper Cecek in Poland. The vision for the product is deeply inspired by Flickr and it shows. The business model, for one thing, will be driven not by pageviews and advertising but by subscription for premium features. The premium features will be announced later, but they look good.

Considering the crew they’ve assembled.. this one could be interesting!

One might be tempted to dismiss Stickam at first glance as just a video-enabled Myspace clone for emo teens with webcams; but looking past that you’ll find a fairly robust and platform-independent Flash-based webcam broadcast and videoconferencing app. There’s a profile page with an embedabble Flash viewer, a full screen personal conference popup with privacy options, group video chat rooms, and hosted galleries for photo, video and audio content. If you can catch the Pissed-Off Caveman online.. it’s a webcam pointed at a decked-out Robot Chimpanzee Head.

Via: MetaFilter

As websites created by amateurs remake the entertainment landscape, unknown directors, writers and producers are being catapulted into positions of enormous influence. Each week, about a half-million people download a comedic video podcast featuring a former paralegal. A video by a 30-year-old comedian from Cleveland has now been watched by almost 30 million people, roughly the audience for an average “American Idol” episode. The most popular contributor to the photo site Flickr.com just got a contract to shoot a Toyota ad campaign.

While online stardom can sometimes be fleeting, and some measures of audience size are subject to debate, a look at the rising stars in this world shows how the path to entertainment success is being redefined. Traditional media companies and marketers are already in pursuit of some of these new faces.

Via: WSJ

Current.tv is hosting a contest themed Seeds of Tolerance. In partnership with the Third Millennium Foundation, Current TV is offering the chance for you to make a difference and earn $100,000. Between now and August 15, submit a video on the theme of tolerance?any form of tolerance. Whatever story you want to tell, and however you want to tell it..

The grand prize creator will receive $100,000 cash, and $15,000 to a relevant charity of their choice. Two runners-up will receive $10,000, and be aired on Current TV, in 28 million homes across the country.

WeatherBug has launched its own video sharing community that allows any citizen meteorologist to upload their own reports and/or severe weather videos. This is a natural extension of what the company has been doing for years with photos. All videos can be rated and you don’t need to use the desktop product to participate or watch vids. There are additional features, including professionally produced content, on the broader video site.

Via: Micro Persuasion

We saw this yesterday but didn’t get a chance to take a test-drive;

Dabble uses the many different social gestures people make to express how they feel about media, to find better matches in our search results. If people play with media in playlists, sharing their collections with others, and tell us how it?s useful to them, we can take that information and show better lists of media.

Steve Garfield posted his review, check-out the Vlog Soup 16 playlist.

The makers of Blinkx have created a new site – SelfcastTV.com – to allow quick sharing and downloading of mobile videos online. It boasts a simple registration process, 3-step upload system, and UK-specific operation. Upload happens straight from a mobile by MMS’ing a standard number. SelfcastTV users can also create their own channel to select and view their favourite videos and can even use the MovieMode feature to combine their selected footage into one continuous video.

Via: TechDigest

The RocketBoom saga is spreading – predictably – across the web like wildfire. While we don’t pretend to have any insider scoop on what’s going on.. it would seem that speculation is the the point. Lets face it folks, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck then it’s prolly gonna quack! Remember, this is the same cheeky crew that carved new turf by putting their ad op. on ebay for the highest bidder.. slick move.

Lets boldy suggest now that this little exercise in gaming the wagging tongues, you’d think that some would know better, will end up with the founders kiss and make-up program live from the west coast sponsored by any big brand white knight in shining Gucchi sunglasses.

All the chattering classes are driving brand recognition and no doubt new traffic to see what all the fuss is about. However, the Sr. industry watchers like Terry Heaton and Mike Davidson for example have posted more grounded opinions on this one. So begins the dog days of summer.

Meanwhile here’s Amanda Replacement via the OfficePirates..