FunnyorDie.com, the comedy video site responsible for such viral hits as “The Landlord” and “Good Cop, Baby Cop,” just added another superstar to its already sparkling creative team – Judd Apatow. Apatow, director of Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin, joins co-founders Will Ferrell and Adam McKay as a Principal Partner. Funnyordie has struggled maintaining traffic since its explosion onto the scene with Ferrell’s Landlord, so the Apatow announcement is surely a welcome one.
See more at Business Wire.
TV Guide announced yesterday the nominees for its Online Video Awards, snubbing many pioneering web video producers in favor of Hollywood talent. While the nominations include such megahits as Lonelygirl15 on the independent side, content from networks like Comedy Central and NBC dominates many of the categories. For the full list of nominations, visit TVGuide.com.
See more at NewTeeVee.com.
Many people already video chat through downloadable clients such as Skype or iChat, but a new web startup is hoping to make such programs a thing of the past. As more and more applications find their way online, so too has video chat with TokBox. The company, backed by YouTube funder Sequoia Capital, offers live video chat through your web browser on the TokBox site or in their embeddable widget. Although tests of the service, according to the New York Times, have shown video to be grainy and audio to be noisy, TokBox promises these won’t be issues by the time they officially launch.
See more at the New York Times.
Web research firm Hitwise has released its traffic analysis for the top visited US network TV websites from this fall's premiere week (week ending Sept. 29), awarding the top spot to NBC’s Deal or No Deal with over 15 percent of US visits. ABC’s Dancing with the Stars came in second at 11 percent, and NBC’s Heroes was third at 10 percent. According to Hitwise, six of the top ten visited sites were for scripted shows. Interestingly, Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee notes that Deal or No Deal secured first place despite only offering shorter clips of its shows online, indicating that streaming entire episodes may not be what audiences desire.
See more at NewTeeVee.com.
In an effort to promote its Instant On movie streaming service, Netflix will screen a number of classic films to the general public on its website this Friday and Saturday. The screenings, collectively called “Down in Front with Dana Carvey,” will feature films and Carvey’s comedic banter from Friday 12:01 am PST through midnight on Saturday. Films will include Warner Brothers' Gorillas in the Mist, North by Northwest, Singin' in the Rain, Soylent Green, The Exorcist, and Rio Bravo; Sony Pictures' Five Easy Pieces and The Way We Were; NBC Universal's Harvey; Paramount Pictures' Jackass; and 20th Century Fox's True Lies. The screening, while open to the public, is only available to Windows users.
See more at Video Business.
Everyone’s favorite P2P network, BitTorrent, launched a new service yesterday that it hopes will take it into the B2B market. Dubbed the Delivery Network Accelerator (DNA), the service lets commercial content publishers use BitTorrent’s P2P network to improve video streaming and download speeds. DNA’s first client is video sharing site Brightcove, which will use the service to power its new high-quality Internet TV project, Brightcove Show.
See more at NewTeeVee.com.
Video search and advertising startup Blinkx is launching a new ad network that allows publishers to earn revenue off of contextual ads they serve up on videos embedded on their sites. After signing up, publishers “wrap” their video players in Blinkx’s ad code and can then receive 50% of the ad revenue via PayPal. The ads are generally unobtrusive, appearing as dropdown text links at the top of the video or in a box above the player.
See more at TechCrunch.com.
While Internet TV services like Joost and Zattoo are keeping their content treasure troves under lock and key, competitors Babelgum and Azureus are planning to open up to some producers this week. Azureus’ Vuze platform will allow content producers to upload and get paid for their videos through advertising or paid downloads, even letting producers safeguard their content through digital rights management or target it to specific geographic regions. Babelgum, on the other hand, will make producers prove they are “a company and or individual in the business of producing or distributing content” before they allow then to upload. The service will pay $5 per 1,000 views initially, with plans for a 50-50 revenue split further down the line.
See more at NewTeeVee.com.
Following a slew of rumors, French web entrepreneur Loic Le Meur will be announcing his newest venture today – Seesmic. The site, currently in closed beta, has been described by TechCrunch head Michael Arrington as “a video based Twitter.” The service will allow users to interact freely around video content, whether it’s uploaded by them, streamed via webcam or grabbed from a video sharing site. The idea is to grab content from a variety of sources and have interaction across platforms, with Seesmic at the center of it all.
See more at TechCrunch.com.
Think globally, act locally. That’s the thinking behind web video studio Vuguru’s decision to reproduce its hit online series Prom Queen in France and Japan. Vuguru, headed by Michael Eisner, will produce both the original Prom Queen series and its spin-off Prom Queen: Summer Heat, working with Rights Entertainment in Japan and Cyber Groupe in France. It will be interesting to see if the international versions succeed, or get lost in translation.
See more at NewTeeVee.com.
