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The online video sharing site YouTube is a great product with a rich community. To say it has a stranglehold on the online video space would be putting it lightly. Yet, as with most things in the tech world, all anyone seems to ever want to talk about YouTube is its monetization. Today, Google, which bought YouTube for $1.65 billion back in 2006, is doing some talking of its own.

In what has to be considered a pretty stunning revelation, Google says that 90 percent of its content partners being notified about copyrighted content are still choosing to monetize their videos on YouTube. Let’s be clear: This is much of the same content that providers were previously asking be taken off of YouTube for copyright violations.

The content partners and Google are making this monetization happen by way of a technology called Video ID (now apparently called Content ID). This technology, which is still in beta testing, allows YouTube to identify what it believes is copyrighted material and let the owner know. At that point the content owner can choose to block, promote or monetize the video.

A year ago you may have thought all of the content owners would try to block the video, but now we’re seeing a different story. One of the partners mentioned in a New York Times piece on the topic a few weeks ago is the movie studio Lionsgate — the same Lionsgate that recently announced a partnership with YouTube for promoting its film clips on the site. The times they are a-changin’.

Who are some of the other partners choosing to monetize? CBS, Universal Music and Electronic Arts. Big time players.

The money being made off of these Video ID deals is still minimal, according to the NYT. But that should grow with time. The fact that these guys are now open to monetizing with YouTube, rather than outside of it potentially represents a huge paradigm shift, as Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb laid out earlier today.

Google and YouTube have been stepping up efforts in recent weeks to talk about monetization. YouTube has been testing monetization of its built-for-mobile pages, while Google chief executive Eric Schmidt was on Jim Cramer’s Mad Money show on CNBC a few weeks ago talking about the topic (among other things).

Learn more about Content ID in the video below.

[photo: flickr/berbercarpet]

There aren’t many big changes in comScore’s July list of the United States’ 50 most popular online properties. Google’s websites continue to occupy the top spot, with more than 141 million unique visitors in July, followed by Yahoo with 140 million, then Microsoft and AOL. But some companies are moving up fast, including CBS and Facebook.

We received an early copy of the list, and you can see the top 20 at the end of the article — ad-driven properties are in darker text, and the number of visitors is given in the thousands. (As we’ve noted before, you shouldn’t assume these third-party numbers are completely reliable, but rather use them as one of many data sources.) Here are some of the more interesting trends:

• CBS leaped from 37th to 10th on the list, with its visitors more than doubling, from 20.9 to 48.2 million. It’s no secret what happened here: It acquired CNET, which had almost 32.8 million visitors of its own on the June chart.
• Facebook continues to see healthy growth, going from 35.7 million uniques in April to 39.1 million in July. ComScore also released numbers showing that Facebook and and other social networks are still growing globally.
• Traffic for Fox Interactive, which owns MySpace, has been bouncing around for the last few months, but its April and July numbers are pretty similar — 87.5 million and 88.3 million, respectively.
• The New York Times’ properties, including About.com, received around 4 million fewer unique visitors than they did two months earlier.
• Between April and July, vertical ad and media network Glam Media grew by nearly 9 million unique visitors.

With more content making its way from the small screen to your computer screen, it was only a matter of time before television executives realized the number of viewers watching a show on the Internet is probably important too.

At the OMMA Global conference in Hollywood yesterday, CBS Interactive’s vice president and chief marketing officer, Patrick Keane, suggested that perhaps shows should combine television and Internet ratings, reports Online Media Daily.

The case Keane cited was CBS’s show “Jericho,” which was once — and still is — near cancellation. The show’s 4.2 rating (meaning 4.2 percent of homes with televisions in the U.S. were tuned in — more here) is hardly stellar. However, when factoring in the audience watching it online, the rating jumps almost a full point to 5.1. This difference can literally make or break a show.

Another example is NBC’s hit show “The Office.” That show was not always a hit and was, in fact, teetering on cancellation when NBC saw an explosion in popularity via Apple’s iTunes store. That audience has since helped the show translate into a blockbuster on the network as well.

A combination rating would seem to make sense on the surface, but monetization remains somewhat of an issue for online programming — and a show’s life or death naturally boils down to money. iTunes offers direct revenues to networks, but NBC backed away because it felt it was getting a raw deal (somewhat ironic given the above-mentioned salvation of “The Office” via iTunes).

For streaming video, newer services such as Hulu (our coverage) offer a nice online experience with advertisements that are not too intrusive, but the jury is still out on whether it will succeed or not.

Going the other way, a show that originated online, “Quarterlife,” was not able to translate its online success into viewership on a network. The show was yanked after just one airing on NBC last month (our coverage).

[photo: flickr/*USB*]

Big media is getting into widget advertising, in order to reach people on sites across the web. One example: Media conglomerate CBS is launching a local widget ad network today, with the goal of drawing more traffic to its own web sites — and making money from partner sites in the process. Another example: DoubleClick, the advertising giant (that Google has just gotten final approval to purchase), has announced its own widget ad network today.

Widgets are small snippets of code that web publishers can embed on their sites, that feature live, interactive information from other sites. But many have wondered how widgets — and more complex versions, such as Facebook applications — can make money. The answer is emerging now, as companies like CBS and DoubleClick start running more ads within widgets — and make money for themselves, for their widget-technology startup partners, and for publishers.

CBS is offering a local widget ad network where a third-party site located in the same geographic area as a CBS television station can run a widget that features news clips from the station as well as CBS’s own ads. Local blogs and other social media sites are new competitors to local television. This is a way for CBS to make money and gain traffic through these sites at the same time, turning them into partners, not just competitors, with CBS at the center. CBS has been one of the big media companies to aggressively experiment with widgets and social media, such as its widget that shows sports scores, here.

Sites that run the ad widgets will get a share of the revenue from CBS — and must be approved first. CBS, in turn, will make money from the ads on its partner sites. Since the widgets are designed to drive local users back to CBS, its local station web sites themselves will also presumably see an uptick in online traffic and online advertising.

CBS itself isn’t creating the widgets — it has partnered with a company called Syndigo Networks to administer the technology (more information here).

San Francisco-based SFBayStyle is one local site running the widget already (see screenshot, above). Other cities with CBS local stations offering the ad network include: Boston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Denver, and Chicago. Other stations that will soon offer the ad network include New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Miami, Sacramento, Pittsburgh, and Baltimore.

Meanwhile, Doubleclick will offer a more general form of widget advertising. It has partnered with widget distribution technology company Gigya (our coverage), with DoubleClick offering widget creation services within its existing interface for ad creation and management. Gigya already offers an ad-widget service to site publishers (more here), where you can grab a widget featuring an ad and put it on your site. The DoubleClick deal makes it easier for DoubleClick’s large base of advertisers to try their hand at widget ads and increases the inventory of ads that Gigya users can run on their sites.

Numerous startups have already been experimenting with running ads within widgets on web sites, including Clearspring (our coverage) and Widgetbox (our coverage), and so have numerous Facebook application ad networks such as RockYou, Slide, Social Media, Lookery and others. But it hasn’t been clear how these companies could find large amounts of advertising revenue — the answer may be brand advertising, because the large advertisers that companies like CBS and DoubleClick serve are hungry for better ways to reach users. John Battelle of Federated Media (which VentureBeat uses for some of its advertising) has more thoughts on the evolution of brand advertising here.

Note: Applications on Facebook and other social networks are essentially more complex versions of widgets, because they’re able to incorporate data and features of social networks using the social networks’ developer platforms. Google and other large advertisers have also been experimenting with ads that run within Facebook applications (our coverage), but neither CBS nor DoubleClick are getting into that game — at least they haven’t yet.

Here’s the latest:

1) Another Googler goes to Facebook, to head its developer platform
2) Facebook traffic apparently took a dip last month — [Update: Or didn't. See Om's update, and a big looping conversation about Facebook on Techmeme]
3) Madonna latest in string of musicians to ditch record labels
4) Mozilla preparing mobile web browser, may improve mobile web user experience?
5) Mixx.com launches to let publishers give users relevant content
6) CBS acquires gossip site Dotspotter for $10 million
7) What happens when a wiki gets old?
8) Will Crescendo Ventures be saved?
9) “Virtual TV” network raises $8M
10) Industrious Kid to part ways with Steamboat Ventures
11) SendMe, a San Francisco mobile entertainment services company, acquires Mbuzzy

Another Googler goes to Facebook, to head its developer platform – Benjamin Ling, a high-ranking Google employee who has most recently led its e-commerce effort, including online payment service Checkout, is leaving for Facebook, reports Netly News. Facebook has been successfully recruiting out of Google for months, notably stealing former YouTube chief financial officer Gideon Yu (our most recent coverage) earlier this summer.

Facebook traffic apparently took a dip last month — [Update: Are we the only ones tired of talking about Facebook?] Comscore will soon release a report showing that the number of unique visitors to Facebook decreased 9.3 percent to 30.6 million in September from 33.75 million in August, according to GigaOm’s early look at the data (see table); Pageviews were also down 3.8 percent.

Some wonder if it is Comscore that is having problems collecting accurate data although Facebook itself has been citing Comscore for much of its publicly available traffic statistics.

Madonna latest in string of musicians to ditch record labels – The ever-popular and controversial artist is about to leave Warner Brothers Records for a deal worth around $120 million with concert promoter Live Nation, reports the Wall Street Journal. The money is in live performances and merchandise, not the music itself, as TechDirt has been pointing out for years. Other major artists, such as Radiohead, have also announced distribution deals that cut out the labels.

Mozilla preparing mobile web browser, may improve mobile web user experience? – Mozilla, the nonprofit foundation that leads development on open source web browser Firefox, has announced detailed, long-term plans to develop an open source web browser designed for use on phones and other mobile devices. The move dovetails with many other efforts to develop open source mobile software, such as Google’s rumored Linux-based mobile software, as gadget blog Crave points out.

Mixx.com launches to let publishers give users relevant content — The service is yet another recommendation engine, offering up content, including news stories, video and photos, depending on a user’s interests and locations. Mixx has signed deals with USA Today, Reuters.com, The Weather Channel, Kaboose and uclick Comics. It is owned by Recommended Reading, of McLean, Virginia. It has raised $1.5 million round of funding, in a round led by Intersouth Partners.

CBS acquires gossip site Dotspotter for $10 million — Valleywag got the scoop here.

What happens when a wiki gets old? — The grandaddy of them all may be revealing the answer. A study by a Wikipedia user of the site’s stats, which have been unexamined for a year, shows that edits and new account creation have both fallen from their peaks, by 20 and 30 percent respectively. The unanswered question is whether the drop in traffic is a result of the wiki fad wearing off, or simply because the online encyclopedia has reached a critical mass of information, leaving fewer opportunities to add more.

Will Crescendo Ventures be saved? — The Silicon Valley firm has been on the ropes for some time, and we wrote last year that it may not be able to raise another fund if it didn’t produce any results soon. (Scroll way down to see our original story about the firm; apologies for the buggy page). Yesterday, one of its companies, Compellent, finally went public, and it saw a 77 percent increase in its trading price in the first hours of trading — the second best performance this year. The company is unprofitable, a network storage company among a lot of competitors that have also filed to go public, or already having gone public — all losing money. The company is based in Eden Prairie, Minn., and its technology serves small and mid-sized customers. We’ll see if it’s enough to allow Crescendo to raise another fund from its skeptical investors. Crescendo owns 21 percent of Compellent, now worth in the hundreds of millions of dollars. But regulations force the firm to wait six months before it can cash in on the investment. Partner David Spreng did not respond to a request for comment.

“Virtual TV” network raises $8M — The secretive Israeli company RayV has raised $8 million in a second round of financing from Accel Partners, according to Globes. One founder, Oleg Levy, was previously an executive at Kagoor, which was acquired by Juniper Networks. It says it wants to offer a new way for “consumers to find, review, and talk about local businesses. A cross between a web-based social community and an online business directory, RAYV is where people go to express their opinions on any type of local business and get recommendations from a trusted source – their peers.” Accel Partners declined comment.

Industrious Kid to part ways with Steamboat Ventures — Industrious Kid, the Oakland, Calif. company that raised $6.5 million last year to build its site, imbee.com, as a social network for kids, is going to try to buy out one of its investors, Disney-affiliated Steamboat Ventures. Apparently, the two sides have differences in strategic direction, and so Steamboat wants to get its $2.5 million back. The companies didn’t comment on the specific reasons.

SendMe, a San Francisco mobile entertainment services company, acquires Mbuzzy — The terms were undisclosed. Mbuzzy is a four-year-old mobile start-up based in San Mateo, Calif., that lets friends share content with each other over the phone, and claims 500,000 users. SendMe previously acquired Vector Mobile, publisher of solow.com.

Updated

CBS has bought music recommendation website Last.fm for $280 million, the extremely popular London-based company that lets users search for and listen to music based on their past preferences and recommendations of other users.

Last.fm says it has around 20 million active users each month, four million of which are in the US. The purchase comes at a time when services such as Last.fm are growing extremely quickly. Other private competitors showing growth are Pandora and iLike. The deal is significant because it gives Last.fm greater distribution, by integrating with other CBS channels.

The CBS deal is a win for London’s Index Ventures, which has been on a roll with investments in companies such as Skype and Tellme. Index invested a mere $5 million into Last.fm exactly a year ago. The deal nudges Index’s Danny Rimer, who is on Last.fm’s board, closer to the top of the VC pack, in terms of track-record — and most certainly seals his place at the top of those under 40.

CBS has been on a rampage lately, striking deals and partnerships with more than a dozen Web 2.0 companies to seek distribution through new Web channels in order to access younger viewers, including buying video site Wallstrip last week.

Viacom was earlier rumored to be in talks with Last.fm. (update: Investor Neil Rimer tells us this rumor was a load of crock.)

Last.fm focuses on user preferences, sorting music based on user feedback, whereas Pandora recommends music based on song characteristics that are similar to ones you have previously chosen. iLike is more similar to Last.fm, and is showing tremendous growth on Facebook’s platform, heading toward 1 million new users within the first week of integrating with that service — though works only with iTunes recommendations. Last.fm also submits recommendations from music from other players, including on your desktop. There are more than 500 monthly track submissions on Last.fm.

Under the accord, Last.fm co-founders Martin Stiksel, Felix Miller and Richard Jones will remain in east London.

Last.fm, just four years old, has struck deals with with EMI and Warner Music.

Pandora, meanwhile, has raised more than $20 million from Crosslink Capital, Labrador Venture Partners, Selby Venture Partners and WaldenVC. iLike has raised $13.5 million from IAC’s Ticketmaster five months ago, giving Ticketmaster 25 percent of the company — a deal that may make Ticketmaster look pretty smart based on Last.fm’s $280 million valuation.

The deal will only add to the frenzy we’re seeing in M&A right now. In addition to iLike and Pandora, Santa Clara, Calif.’s Mercora, another music discovery site, is also in play.

Update: We just talked with Index’s Neil Rimer (Danny’s brother), who said Last.fm will be in an even better position to serve music, because of CBS’ range of partnerships.

Wallstrip, the financial video site that was really all about just one person, attractive anchor Lindsay Campbell, has been sold to CBS, for a rumored $5 million.

Union Square Ventures investor Fred Wilson made a small investment in the company, as part of a $600,000 angel round. Not bad for less than a year’s work.