That might be changing sooner than you think.

Today Netflix chief product officer Neil Hunt told The Verge that Netflix expects to be streaming video at the massive 3,840-by-2,160 pixel 4K resolution in the fairly near future: this year or next. If you thought Netflix was a data hog before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

Now we know why Netflix recently unveiled its speed list of the 17 fastest Internet service providers in America.

“We have work to do with the compression and decode capability,” Hunt admitted, but he noted that Netflix’ own House of Cards was shot in 4K.

Assuming a massive amount of compression would need to take place in order to be able to stream 4K video reliably and quickly, the question becomes: What kind of hardware will be necessary to run full-res Netflix in the near future? Smart TVs, and appliances like Xboxes, Wiis, and Apple TVs might need very significant upgrades to have the kind of onboard power to run real-time decompression for that much video. Not to mention much more on-board storage, even if just for buffering.

One other thing Hunt wants to see from video producers? A higher frame rate.

Hunt says we’ve now pretty much maxed out the resolution of our eyes but that 60 frames/second would make for a much better video experience than the current 24 or 30.

photo credit: pkingDesign via photopin cc

After relaunching as a social video network more than a year ago, Telly (formerly the Twitter video sharing service TwitVid) is now focusing even more on video discovery with the launch of My Telly.

The new product algorithmically generates videos that interest you on Telly’s website and mobile apps, based on what your friends have liked, posted, watched, and discussed. Additionally, the company announced that it has reached 7 million unique users, doubling its user base over the past seven months.

“We started Telly to fix video discovery across the web,” said Telly chief executive Mo Al Adham in an interview with VentureBeat. But the company learned it also needed to do more than just show you the videos your friends are posting on social networks. “We had to add more signal to the feed … we asked ourselves how do we pain a more complete picture of what your social graph is doing,” he added.

The answer for Telly was algorithms — instead of just fishing the videos your friends posted online, My Telly also looks at what your social network is engaged with, and it also keeps track of your viewing habits to figure out what you like. It also takes into account the device you’re using, so longer videos will be prioritized on the desktop, while your smartphone will get shorter clips.

The focus on algorithms is likely a smart move for Telly, as algorithms are increasingly becoming important for all media discovery services.  Consumers are increasingly expecting web services to know what they like, and to present meaningful content without much legwork.

Telly still allows you to upload your own videos, but that’s clearly not as big a feature as it was in the TwitVid days. At the same time, video uploads let Telly straddle a line the normally separates social video apps. ShowYou, for example, is entirely focused on video discovery, while Vine is finding success with its simple video sharing.

“We’ve rallied the entire team around having one unified mission … a mission to communicate to the end users and give them a great content experience on Telly,” Al Adham says. Engagement is surprisingly high on the service, with most users spending around 17 minutes on the site, and typically watching four videos, with every visit.

Looking ahead, Al Adham tells me the company is also looking closely at smart TV platforms, starting with open platforms like Google TV. Like most video services, he wants Telly to be available on every screen a user is watching.

San Francisco-based Telly raised around $6.5 million as TwitVid from Azure Capital, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, and Siemer Ventures.

AOL has released new information today about the most popular video content in 2012 from its AOL On Network, which has some surprising findings you wouldn’t expect (and a bunch that you probably would).

For instance, AOL’s news-based video content gained nearly 1.5 billion views, which is almost three times as many views as its entertainment content and more than all its other categories combined (Entertainment, Style, Food, and Health). I suppose that makes sense with the large push that AOL is making to transform the Huffington Post into a live-streaming video network.

The most watched events include (unsurprisingly) the Olympics, the 2012 presidential election, two award shows, and Hurricane Sandy. The AOL team even provided viewing stats for which celebrities gained the most eyeballs for the year (none of which deserve a spotlight).

AOL is currently one of the top 10 video destinations in the world, and brings in 53 million unique visitors per month, according to the October 2012 comScore Media Metrix report. That said, its “snapshot” of the most popular/discussed/shared/etc. videos of the year should be a fairly accurate representation of what people are actually watching online.

Below is an infographic of the top AOL On Network for the year.

A new study commissioned by AOL claims that short-form video advertising (ads that play during webisodes, cat videos, short interviews, etc.) is more effective than long-form advertising (ads that play throughout TV shows, movies, etc. or videos longer than 10 minutes).

The findings contradict the traditional logic that the standard 30-second TV commercial is the most effective in swaying an audience. So, long-form video ads may bring in the most money, don’t they don’t necessarily mean the audience is responding — at least when it comes to online video.

“Consumption habits are evolving rapidly, and we’re seeing consumers display many of the same ad avoidance tendencies online than they do with TV,” said AOL On SVP Ran Harnevo in a statement.

In the last several months, AOL has made it clear that video advertising will be a big part of its growth going forward. The company first announced plans to launch an online TV network for the Huffington Post, and later launched the AOL On network to showcase video content from all its web publications and partners.

AOL said the the study was administered to more than 800 respondents who watch online video on a weekly basis, and results are based on a combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Below are some of the highlights from the study:

• Ads in short-form videos are more effective than ads in long-form content. More specifically, short-form video produced a 25 percent higher brand recall and a 42 percent higher purchase intent for the featured product or service.
• Viewers are adopting traditional avoidance behaviors during ads within long-form videos. Respondents found the ads to be too frequent and interruptive; as a result, they chose to avoid them altogether (by walking away, going to other sites, multitasking with their phone). This is the same “annoyance” behavior that is demonstrated when viewing television without the use of a DVR.
• Consumers want more targeted and humorous ads in both formats. In fact, 67 percent of respondents would be willing to be answer a question to make their ads more personalized and enjoyable.
• Consumers understand the exchange of free content for advertising, but they want to make sure their time tradeoff of watching ads also benefits them. They found coupons, contests and links as the most positive forms of engagement.

YouTube announced this morning that its app is now available on the Nintendo Wii U. This is obviously a big deal for Nintendo, which is trying to own the living room entertainment experience, as the app is not just available for free download — it’s featured right on the Wii U’s main menu.

Users can use the soft keyboard on the Wii U’s GamePad, which also doubles as a remote control for your standard TV content, to search for videos:

Videos will play on your big-screen TV in full high-definition at up to 1080P resolution, and while the video plays on your TV, the video details, description, and author data display on the GamePad. Naturally, since you’re signed in to your Google account, you’ll also have access to your channels, favorites, and history.

Whether this will help Nintendo in its attempt to make the Wii U the center of the living room entertainment experience is hard to say, but it is at least a statement that the company is here to play. With standard TV, online video, video conferencing, gaming, and more, the statement is getting bigger and bigger.

But the competition is fierce and has been there for a while.

Good luck!

photo credit: wiiu-spiele.com via photopin cc

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Conway’s latest viral video fields ideas for how to use the latest tech innovation to improve the local transportation system, parking, public safety, the police department, public Wi-Fi, and more.

Conway describes the video as a “gift to San Francisco,” and it’s already making its rounds on the Internet, which isn’t surprising, given that the stars of the new video boast a combined 4.2 million Twitter followers.

In addition to Dorsey, creator of Twitter and founder of Square,  Conway convinced Biz Stone, cofounder of Twitter, Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky and Jawbone’s CEO Hosain Rahman to star in the video.

“We wanted to produce a video to bring the tech community together and raise awareness about Proposition E,” Conway told me. Proposition E is a payroll tax that many believe disincentivizes job creation in San Francisco.

According to Conway, the goal is to “save tech companies millions of dollars, encourage hiring, and help local small businesses.” He told me that in 2013, there will be an initiative in the city to educate and prepare local San Franciscans to take entry-level jobs at tech companies.

The video is a promotional effort for the San Francisco Citizens Initiative for Technology and Innovation, “Sf.citi,” a nonprofit that functions like a tech-centric chamber of commerce.

Conway commissioned the video from the same San Francisco-based production agency, Portal A Interactive, that produced the “Too legit to quit” video, where Conway publicly endorsed Ed Lee (a long-time friend to the tech community) for mayor, a post Lee currently holds.

Check out the video here:

Marketers frustrated by the costs of making web video may find solace in Tubifi.

While video is becoming an increasingly important part of online promotion, creating it isn’t cheap — neither in money nor in time.

Tubifi CEO Martin Heller said one of the most effective ways to fix this is by making the process of finding and purchasing stock video a lot easier.

That’s the central pull of Tubifi, which pulls footage from vendors like T3Media and Pond5.

Doing this, Heller said, allows Tubifi users to create projects that aren’t large enough for agencies but need more work than the average low-budget project. “That’s the sweet spot,” Heller said. “We’re hitting the high end of independence and the low end of agencies.”

But stock footage is only part of the service. With a vital social feature, Tubifi also plans to connect video makers to the marketers that need them. The other big feature of the service is online editing, which allows users to take the stock video they buy and edit it from their web browsers.

But Heller stresses that Tubifi isn’t going to replace your copy of Final Cut Pro.

“We’re not trying to compete with professional editing programs — we can’t. We are trying to provide something those programs don’t by mixing in footage with the workflow,” Heller said.

Heller said Tubifi’s target demographic isn’t the average home video creator, either. ”We don’t care about people trying to mix video from an iPhone. We’re targeting the professionals,” he said.

To illustrate the point, Heller cited this video made for the Peruvian Children’s Fund. Ordinarily, Heller said, a video of such quality would run for up to $600,000 to create, but by using Tubifi and its collection of stock footage, its creators were able to launch it for less than $10,000.

“That’s a very compelling story for customers and investors,” Heller said. “We’re going to streamline creators’ workflows and help them cut costs.”

DEMO image via Stephen Brashear

Tubifi is one of 75 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Fall 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Comscore findings show that users in seven major European geographies watched, on average, 20 hours of online video per user for the three months from July to September 2011. US users spent an average of five hours on line video in September 2011. If we stretch that September figure across three months, we get about 15 hours per user – and even if Comscore’s margin for error is large, US users still spend less — or, if you want to be conservative with the numbers, perhaps equal — time watching online video than their EU counterparts. Why is this the case?

Content rights play a major role in this trend. Rights in general are costly, and more so in the US than overseas. My hypothesis is that smaller European markets are essentially the testing grounds for big Hollywood studios.

The US cost structure for video content is expensive. Netflix, for example, has been forced to spend more to acquire and keep content. When its deal with Starz expired, Netflix offered the studio more than 10 times the amount on their old contract, only to be told the price tag was not high enough; Netflix has also recently set aside a large portion of its budget for content acquisition.

And yet European companies are successful in buying rights to major Hollywood studio content. For these studios, the US market is the largest, and the primary focus. My guess is that major studios have fewer licensing constraints (read: cable companies) than they do in the US. They are therefore more willing to aggressively license their content and test online video services in smaller, foreign markets. Essentially, making mistakes in these markets is less costly than making one with a service in the US.

In the smaller international markets, broadcasters have a lot of self-produced content. They have a captive audience of people that like their shows. They’ve licensed extensive content from a ton of different US studios and are getting the type of access to deals that you don’t see a lot of the US-based Netflixes and Hulus being able to acquire, as far as breadth and depth of content go.

When examining content licensing issues, I think it’s important to look at how many people are potentially affected. The US pay-TV penetration rate is higher than it is in Germany, France, Italy, UK, and Spain. As with rights licensing, I think this means cable companies – companies locked in heated content rights battles – in the US have more to lose from subscribers who are cutting the cord than pay-TV operators in Europe do. US cable giants are some of the biggest obstacles to more prevalent  video consumption through third-party services like Netflix and Hulu.

My guess is that, across the entire rights pipeline, rights holders are more likely to use smaller markets to test out these third-party services. Maybe once distributors find a solution that works overseas, we will start to see licensing to these services and online video penetration rates in the US pick up.

But the differences between the US and EU markets don’t stop with rights.

In the US, cable companies have amassed quite a bit of the market power and are turning into ISPs (think Comcast). They distribute content, and content holders (broadcasters) don’t connect with end users (consumers). With this control, they can work to ensure competitors aren’t able to license the same content.

Regional broadcasters in Europe are more powerful than they are in the US. In Europe, a broadcaster produces content but also connects directly to the end user. In France, for example, ISPs are turning into cable companies. That European broadcasters with local content don’t need to license from third-party companies is, I think, a major factor in explaining why European online video consumption is surging ahead of the US.

In the same vein, broadcasters have different opinions of third-party video services in the US than they do in Europe. European broadcasters, such as the BBC, have been quick to try to emulate the success of companies like Hulu and Netflix – launching their own video players and online content hubs – to make online video content accessible. In the US, the broadcasters behind Hulu (Fox, ABC/Disney, NBCUniversal/Comcast) recently decided to implement an authentication wall for their online service, effectively making the barrier to online video consumption more difficult to breach.

How consumers watch broadcast content affects the penetration rates as well. Catch-up TV (recorded TV watched within the first 72 hours after the original broadcast) is extremely popular in Europe. Catch-up popularity helps boost the penetration of Hulu- and Netflix-like services and helps distributors capture additional ad revenue by augmenting their views. Most advertisers count views within this 72-hour window toward the original ad. There are many more services in Europe than in the US that offer catch-up programming.

TV viewing habits are not the only contributors to online video trends. Smartphone adoption rates have also played a role in vaulting European countries ahead of the US in online video consumption.

According to Comscore, the smartphone share, as a percentage of total mobile phone audience, is higher in Italy, Spain, and the UK than it is in the US. Additionally, smartphones surpassed feature phones in the US later than they did in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, and Italy. Mobile devices are being used more frequently to view video content, and the higher proportion of smartphone users overseas is probably another reason why European countries are leading the online video charge.

At the moment, cable companies fighting for exclusive content rights are obfuscating the path to higher online video penetration rates in the US. Until cable giants are willing to relinquish some of the control, or content producers are willing to bypass cable companies as content providers, the US will continue to lag behind European countries in online video consumption and third-party video service adoption rates.

Alexander Garcia-Tobar is president and CEO of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based SyncTV. He has served in CEO/executive positions for over 15 years at several successful technology companies in addition to founding two companies and working as a sales director at Forrester Research and an associate at The Boston Consulting Group, a strategic management consulting firm.

[Top image credit:  Xavier Marchant/Shutterstock, Homepage: Bored Fat Guy image via txking/Shutterstock]

What does their awesomeness consist of? Creating original video content for teens and tweens. It is like regular TV, but on the Internet. Which makes it awesomer.

The YouTube channel broadcasts comedy, fashion, sports, music, and reality programming. It’s geared toward “breakers,” otherwise known as adolescents looking to break out of the mainstream media bubble.

“Our core fan base are teens and tweens who are not only consuming pop culture but influencing future trends,” said producer/director Brian Robbins.

Currently, the listings include a sketch comedy series that mocks pop culture, a daily talk show for teen girls (think The Viewbut with more pink), a documentary style series featuring popular musicians, and a sports highlight show. Interactivity is highly encouraged and engaged viewers may find themselves on the channel.

In the pipeline is the network’s first scripted drama series. Chances are this drama will be jam-packed with tear-jerking goodness, considering the producer and director heading this whole endeavor is Brian Robbins, the creator of Smallville and One Tree Hill.

Since launching less than two months ago, over 75,000 subscribers have viewed 10 million videos. That is a lot of time spent not doing homework.

Hedging an investment on teen media consumption is usually a safe bet. But according to a study called “Why the Internet Won’t Kill TV” by Sanford C. Bernstein & Co, teens only watch there minutes of video a day on a computer or cellphone, as compared to four hours in front of actual televisions. Apparently, the old fashioned boob tube is still the preferred method of viewing entertainment of today’s youngsters.

The investors obviously believe this endeavor will see returns. This round of funding was led by MK Capital, a firm with a strong portfolio of digital media companies. Greycroft Venture Partners and New World Ventures, as well as a slew of media and technology executives also participated.

Will teens change their behavior and begin viewing more video content (and advertising) online? Only time will tell. Until then, AwesomenessTV will use the money to expand the network’s offering and hope to grab the attention of teenagers everywhere, which as all parents know, is no easy feat.

AwesomenessTV is based in Los Angeles. It faces competition from other YouTube channels like Teen.com and mainstream media programming as well as streaming sites likes Hulu and Netflix.

We’re hearing that Metacafe, the not-quite-as-successful-as-YouTube video site, has been bought by The Collective, a full-service entertainment management company in Hollywood.

All Things D is reporting the deal is “essentially completed.” Terms of the deal, including the fate of Metacafe itself as a destination, have not yet been disclosed.

The Collective already has experience in online video; it represents and manages the “talent” behind YouTube hits such as the Annoying Orange, iJustine, Shane Dawson, Freddie Wong, and Lucas Cruikshank, a.k.a. Freddie Figgelhorn.

But the agency has also got its hands deep in mainstream media, from rock god Slash, Chris Cornell, Enrique Iglesias, Eddie Izzard, Andy Dick, and a whole slew of other stars, including songwriters and screenwriters whose names you wouldn’t know but whose work is well-known around the globe.

Metacafe has been pretty quiet for the past few years. The company launched a Facebook Timeline app earlier this year; however, if it saw any great success from that endeavor, we certainly didn’t hear about it. While apps like Viddy, Vevo, and Dailymotion reported huge growth from Timeline apps, no one has said peep about Metacafe’s progress on the platform.

Back in Metacafe’s heyday, the site was rumored to be in acquisition talks back in 2006 from a healthy $200 million. However, the site has fallen far since then and currently claims just a few million unique monthly viewers.

You can see Metacafe’s downward spiral in this Alexa chart (note the brief blip in early 2012; that would be the Timeline app’s launch):

Top image courtesy of Alex Kosev, Shutterstock

While everyone is trying to predict which video sharing app will be the true “Instagram for video,” the massive surge in popularity for video apps could also become a problem for the online video mainstay YouTube.

As consumers move towards mobile video apps like Viddy and Socialcam for viewing and sharing content, their time spent on YouTube seems to be decreasing, according to the latest report from the mobile analytics firm Flurry.

The company found that between December 2011 and March 2012, mobile video app usage jumped 52 percent from 152 minutes a month to 231 minutes (see chart below). Meanwhile, video usage from Google’s sites (mostly consisting of YouTube), actually fell 10 percent.

“While it cannot be concluded that mobile video apps are cannibalizing YouTube, the shift in time spent between these two platforms appears to be a signal of disruption,” writes Flurry marketing VP Peter Farago. “Think of it this way: With every mobile video you share of friends, family, vacations, parties and weddings, you are likely loading another bullet in the chamber for Web 3.0.”

Now that smartphones can shoot video in crystal clear 1080p HD, and 4G networks make it relatively painless to share and view large video files, it makes sense for online video watching habits to change. It’s still too early to tell how much of an impact apps like Viddy and SocialCam are having, but it definitely seems like we’re at a significant breaking point.

Flurry, not surprisingly, found that photo and video apps were among the fastest growing between October and March, jumping 89 percent in time spent per active user. Music apps were second-place with a 72 percent increase, and productivity apps saw a 66 percent jump. Time spent in photo and video apps has grown steadily over the past nine months, going from just 87 minutes a month last July to 231 minutes in March 2012.

Google could certainly turn around and come up with a compelling way to reposition YouTube to better compete against the likes of Viddy. But the company has its fingers in many pots at this point, and it’s going to be tough for the search giant to compete with nimble startups. Viddy, for example, is growing like crazy thanks to plenty of buzz and celebrity support, and it’s reportedly valued around $300 million.

Online video platform company Brightcove reported $19.9 million in revenue in its first quarter as a public company, the company announced today.

“We are pleased to announce strong financial results, highlighted by 53% revenue growth year-over-year, in our first quarter as a public company,” said Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire, in a statement. “Brightcove continues to expand its market share leadership position, and we believe the company is well positioned at the center of multiple powerful growth trends — video, mobile, cloud and social. … With the proceeds from our IPO, we have greater resources to execute our growth strategy and expand our market leadership position.”

Digging down into the numbers, the quarter looked quite good for Brightcove. Outside of its strong revenue growth in Q1, it earned a gross profit of $13.6 million, compared to $8.7 million in the year-ago quarter. Operating loss decreased from a year ago as well, with the company reporting a loss of $3.2 million for Q1 2012, compared to a loss of $4.4 million in Q1 2011.

Brightcove went public in early February and is listed on the Nasdaq exchange. The company makes it possible for large and small content providers to publish video content to the web completely using HTML5 rather than Adobe Flash. On top of standard video, the company also has live, on-demand, and mobile-specific offerings.

Brightcove has 4,254 customers, as of March 31, 2012, which is up 49 percent year-over-year.

Popular video-sharing site Vimeo is entering a new era. Already this year, a new CEO has taken the reins, the company has drastically redesigned its main site, and it has launched a wide array of mobile apps to bring more mobile users into the fold.

It’s only appropriate then that the site’s upcoming Vimeo Festival + Awards event, taking place June 7-9 in New York, has been given the theme “The End of the Beginning.” This distinctive event will help Vimeo celebrate its roots and embrace the digital future at the same time. It’s also about defining Vimeo as the home for original web video content and as one of the biggest supporters of grassroots filmmaking on the web.

“We want to celebrate original video in a way that no one else is,” Vimeo Festival Director Jeremy Boxer told VentureBeat. “There has been an evolution in the art of filmmaking and the barriers to entry are lower than ever to make an incredible film.”

This is the second Vimeo Festival + Awards, but the stakes are higher this time around. On one hand, the festival shows how much the company cares about maintaining its image as a YouTube-like entity that cares about and connects with its users. It has relayed this image since it launched as a side project in 2006, and if the company can continue to own this niche, it will keep hold of its identity as the “coolest” video site.

But the event is also embracing the future of media, which is quickly moving online, with professional and original content streaming side by side. The barriers to entry are incredibly low now, so anyone with strong willpower can make their movie and get instant distribution via the web.

“With fundraising through sites like Kickstarter and distribution through sites like Vimeo, it’s never been easier to put out a movie that doesn’t compromise your artistic style,” Boxer said.

Boxer agreed with me that writer and director Lena Dunham of the indie movie Tiny Furniture and the new HBO TV series Girls is a great example of a young filmmaker who shot to stardom without many resources. Technology has made it possible to shoot an entire feature on a DSLR or a smartphone, and you can upload your work straight to the web for the world to see. Boxer said the Festival has embraced these attitudes.

Boxer noted that video submissions for the first Festival + Awards totaled 6,500 videos. This time, the event attracted 14,500 submissions, with the overall quality jumping as well. That not only indicates stronger interest about the event, but it also shows how general interest in Vimeo has grown.

Also bigger than last time is the roster of judges. Big names include comedian Aziz Ansari, actor James Franco, Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright, Radiohead member Colin Greenwood, and many others. Some winners from the first Festival will also judge this year.

Check out a few of the selections for the Vimeo Festival + Awards below (and vote here for your favorites):

Fleet Foxes – The Shrine / An Argument (Music Video)

For Skateboarding and the City (Action Sports)

The Hive (Narrative)

Robots of Brixton (Animation)

Screw those stupid cat videos; Slashdot TV has arrived, and it might actually make you smarter.

While most video aggregators these days lean heavily in favor of the cute, the bizarre, and the clickbait-y, Slashdot TV lives up to the site’s “news for nerds” tagline. On the front page of the new property, we see fascinating car tech, Linux running on a TV, and our good buddy Bre Petis demonstrating his newest Maker Bot 3D printer. Can you imagine a Beowulf cluster of those?

Of course, like any good aggregator, Slashdot TV will feature tabs for popular and recent clips, but it also has the lovingly curated Editor’s Picks section. The site divides vids into handy categories, such as Linux, science, and security, and it includes content from SourceForce and Think Geek, which share a parent company with Slashdot.

In a post about the new hotness, the editors write, “You may have noticed that we’ve posted quite a few original videos on Slashdot in the past few months. Rather than being the work of a few rogue editors with newly-acquired Christmas cameras, this was part of the groundwork for a new site we’re launching today. SlashdotTV.”

Videos are embeddable (except on WordPress, unfortunately) and shareable via the usual social sites. A commenting system should be coming soon, as well. And yes, the site does include some preroll advertising. They gotta pay the bills too, y’all.

Slashdot was founded in 1997 by Rob “CmdrTaco” Malda, currently of the Washington Post. The site is owned by GeekNet, and its current editors are Jeff “Soulskill” Boehm, Clinton “unknown lamer” Ebadi, Timothy Lord, and Rob “Samzenpus” Rozeboom.

Image based on photo by Alterov, Shutterstock

Because a shaky hand or bad lighting shouldn’t get between you and a viral masterpiece, YouTube is swooping in to the rescue with a new video editing option that will auto correct-away your beginner mistakes.

Beginning Wednesday, the Google-owned video property will automatically detect when a video uploaded to the site is shaky or dark and then prompt you to make a one-click video update that will wipe out the issues in question.

The problem-detection tool, which reminds us of the instant image-correcting options in today’s hottest photo apps, could go a long way in eradicating poor quality videos from the YouTube experience, thus making it an essential upgrade as the service propagates from web and mobile to television screens.

You can also expect the magical tool to eventually auto-fix video issues beyond shakiness and darkness, YouTube software engineer John Gregg said in a statement on the feature.

The new video editing option will be introduced to YouTube members on a rolling basis during the next few days.

The deal, worth around $1 billion, has already caused the two stocks to skyrocket. Tudou‘s stock was up around 155 percent, and Youku was up 28 percent.

Youku, the No. 1 video service in China, and Todou, the No. 2 company, have been battling each other for online-video traffic in China, and recently their weapon of choice has been copyright lawsuits. The companies have been going back and forth, accusing each other of posting the competitor’s content and violating copyright laws. Lawyer fees are just one of the major ways the companies will save money by no longer being in competition. They will be able to combine bandwidth costs.

Online video is a booming market in China, with $234 million in revenue in Q4, PaidContent reports. Youku accounts for 25.3 percent of the space’s revenue and Toudu 14.5 percent.

“When the strategic combination is complete, Tudou will retain its distinct brand identity and platform in Youku Tudou Inc., strengthening and complementing Youku’s video business,” said Youku founder and CEO Victor Koo.

The merger will be a 100 percent stock-for-stock transaction and is expected to be completed by the end of Q3 2012.

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Online meeting service MeetingBurner has launched out of beta with free meetings for up to 15 people, paid meeting options for up to 1,000 people, and mobile support, the company announced this morning.

MeetingBurner faces steep competition in the online meeting space, including competitors like Cisco’s WebEx, Adobe’s Connect, Citrix’s GoToMeeting, and AnyMeeting. So it has done what is natural for an underdog — undercut the competition with strong pricing and features. The company debuted in beta this past August and gave its service away for free to help it “build good will and word of mouth,” President John Rydell told VentureBeat at the time.

But with its full launch, the company is taking a big step toward being a profitable business with paid online meetings. The company’s goal is to offer the most features at the lowest price, and at a glance, it is winning that race. Its three pricing tiers are as follows:

• MeetingBurner Free – Free. Up to 15 participants in online meetings, integrated phone conference line, email support, and no advertising.
• MeetingBurner Pro – $39.95 a month. Everything in Free model + up to 50 participants, full telephone support, meeting recording, enhanced security encryption, and more.
• MeetingBurner Premier – $99.95 a month. Everything in Pro model + up to 1000 participants, telephone support, autopilot meetings, PayPal integration, meeting analytics, and more.

By comparison, WebEx, Connect, and GoToMeeting do not offer a free a version of their software for small businesses. AnyMeeting offers ad-supported presentations for free, but it also added paid ad-free options recently. On the fully paid side, WebEx costs $49 per month for a max meeting size of 25 participants and GoToWebinar (GoToMeeting’s larger version) costs $99 a month for a 100 participants. When you move over to the 1,000 participant level, the contrast becomes especially noticeable — WebEx doesn’t have an established price for meetings of this size and makes you call for a quote, while GoToWebinar costs a staggering $499 per month for 1,000 participants. MeetingBurner provided the following chart that sums up the 1,000-person level well:

“About 75 percent of our small business clients come from GoToMeeting and WebEx,” MeetingBurner CMO Chris Van Dusen told VentureBeat. “Our pricing structure beats the crud out of the big boys.”

Some of the best features MeetingBurner offers include not having to download any software, fast start up speeds, Skype call-ins, and an analytics tool to get real-time feedback on how well the meeting is going. The company also has a brand-new iOS app for iPhone and iPad that allows participants to attend meetings on the go. The company’s interface is also optimized so that most Android device owners can attend via the browser.

Ladera Ranch, Calif.-based MeetingBurner is a division of larger company Networx Online and has ten employees on its team.

Business group in online meeting: Yuri Arcurs/Shutterstock

Online video startup Brightcove has set the price range for its initial public offering at $10 to $12 a share and could raise up to $60 million, according to its latest S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Brightcove makes it possible for large and small content providers to publish video content to the web completely using HTML5 rather than Adobe Flash. On top of standard video, the company also has live, on-demand, and mobile-specific offerings. As of December 31, 2011, the company had 3,872 customers in more than 50 countries, including AOL, Oracle, Showtime, The New York Times, Macy’s, Honda, and Bank of America.

We last heard from Brightcove on the financial front this past August, when it filed an S-1 to raise up to $50 million in its IPO. But with this latest filing, that amount has gone up a modest $10 million. The company will offer 5 million of its shares, so at the high end of the $10 to $12 per share offering, it could raise as much as $60 million. The underwriting of the offering is led by Morgan Stanley and Stifel Nicolaus Weisel, and they have the option to sell another 750,000 shares if investor demand is high enough. The pricing of shares would equal a valuation between $263.8 million to $316.5 million.

Brightcove made news back in May 2011 by stepping into the mobile-app creation business with its App Cloud product. App Cloud’s focus is to make it easier for developers to create mobile apps by simplifying the process.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Brightcove was launched in 2004. It has raised more than $100 million from backers including Hearst Interactive Media, GE Commercial Finance, Accel Partners, Allen & Company, Brookside Capital, and AllianceBernstein.

Person watching video image: Brightcove introductory video

Although Yahoo is in turmoil after the ouster of CEO Carol Bartz, the company is still continuing to release digital products and trying to innovate. The company on Tuesday launched a new video site called Yahoo Screen that it will use to launch eight new original web shows and polish its overall video offerings.

Original online video is heating up, as web companies realize the advertising possibilities of homemade, branded content. Yahoo’s news follows AOL’s announcement yesterday that it would also expand its video products by launching more than 15 new original web series. Google is also expected to throw its hat into original video creation ring, after a report yesterday that it has set aside $100 million for YouTube programming. Yahoo, Google and AOL likely see original video series as a major opportunity to reach a new generation of web consumers who have embraced Netflix and Hulu and cut the cord on cable TV.

The new Yahoo Screen will replace Yahoo Video as the site’s primary video destination. Yahoo says the eight new original programs will be aimed primarily at women and feature actresses like Judy Greer and Niecy Nash, as well as documentarian Morgan Spurlock.

On top of that, the Yahoo Screen site will show licensed content from established content providers such as Fox News and Discovery. It also will license clips directly from Hulu, which is slightly peculiar since Yahoo was supposedly one of the top bidders for Hulu. Perhaps after Bartz’ exit, the company is no longer interested in picking up Hulu, and decided it would be easier to simply mimick Hulu’s strategies with its own site. Yahoo Screen even looks a lot like Hulu.

Yahoo’s push into video could also benefit the company’s just-announced partnership with ABC News. ABC News programming and content will find its way onto Yahoo Screen and help provide a variety of content that could keep users coming back.

Have you watched anything Yahoo Screen? Do you think it will help Yahoo?

YouTube appears to be adding a lot of new free tools in the hopes that it will improve the general quality of clips on the service. Just a week after adding the ability to do basic video editing inside YouTube itself, the service is pushing for more through partnerships with Vlix, for adding effects and text, and Magisto for automating the video editing process altogether.

A YouTube-Magisto partnership makes good sense, as Magisto’s free service automates the video editing process for newbies. Users submit video clips and Magisto does the work of cutting a short video in an interesting fashion. Magisto scans the clips for noteworthy action and packages it with tricks like transitions and split-screens. Then users give the video a title and pick a soundtrack, and the video is ready to go. The option to use Magisto appears on YouTube’s “Create” page as well as during the video uploading process.

YouTube also upped the ante for what users can do with the service by letting verified users upload videos longer than 15 minutes and letting users convert 2D videos to 3D. To become a “verified user” you have to give your phone number to YouTube. To use the 3D beta feature, you have to do so at the end of the uploading process by selecting “Edit Info”, then “3D Video” on the clip you’ve uploaded.

What do you think about YouTube’s new features? Have you tried Magisto’s editing yet?

Popular video sharing site Vimeo launched a new service today called Music Store that makes it simple to find and license music for online videos.

One of the biggest problems with creating videos for the web is obtaining a licensee to use copyrighted content. Many fan-made music videos on YouTube and Vimeo, for example, infringe on the copyright of the musicians and publishers by using music without permission.

Vimeo’s music store takes a major step toward solving this problem by letting users obtain a Creative Commons license or buy licenses for non-commercial and commercial use. At start, Vimeo is offering more than 45,000 tracks from many genres. Users can search the library of available tracks by genre or browse more than 100 categories like mood or tempo.

Unfortunately, the first tracks available for licensing aren’t from the most well-known artists. The largest amount of music comes Audiosocket, which controls a catalog of 33,000 songs from upcoming artists, and from FMA, which offers more than 11,000 tracks with a free Creative Commons license.

The pricing is as follows:

• Creative Commons licenses (free)
• Personal, non-commercial, web-use licenses for the casual user ($1.99 per track)
• Commercial, web-use licenses for professional users ($98 per track)

While the prospect of licensing lesser-known music for your videos isn’t the most exciting, this is a start toward finding a middle ground between musicians trying to protect their intellectual property and video creators. Now we just need to hope Vimeo can also come up with arrangements to license big-name artists too, so you can use your favorite Lady Gaga track on that crazy art video you’ve been working on.

Check out Vimeo’s quirky promo video of the new music store below:

Brightcove makes it possible for large and small content providers to publish video content to the web using HTML 5 rather than Adobe Flash. On top of standard video, the company also has live, on-demand and mobile-specific offerings.

The company’s customers include AOL, Oracle, Showtime, The New York Times, Philips Electronics, Macy’s, Honda and Bank of America.

Brightcove is steadily generating higher revenues each year. In 2008 it earned $24.5 million, and in 2010 it earned $43.7 million in revenues. Plus, the company earned $28.4 million in revenues in the first six months of 2011.

However, Brightcove is not yet a profitable company, and it doesn’t expect to be profitable until 2012. It most recently incurred a $9.7 million loss for the first six months of 2011.

Brightcove made news back in May by stepping into the mobile app creation business with its App Cloud product. App Cloud’s focus is to make it easier for developers to create mobile apps by streamlining the process using an online interface.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Brightcove has nearly 300 employees and was launched in 2004. It has raised more than $100 million from backers including Hearst Interactive Media, GE Commercial Finance, Accel Partners, Allen & Company, Brookside Capital and AllianceBernstein.

With 20 titles available so far, the Miramax eXperience app is one of the largest movie streaming apps yet to hit the massively popular social site. It joins other studios like Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal that also allow users to rent and watch movies via Facebook.

Miramax CEO Mike Lang said he sees the Facebook app as just the beginning of a wide-ranging content strategy where users will be able to watch movies on any web platform.

“No question, there will be more content and more markets,” Lang said in a blog post. “Our plan is to use this as an enabling platform, including eventually as a digital locker cloud service.”

Users can watch movies on Facebook from a PC, iPad, or Google TV browser. Rentals through the application cost 30 Facebook credits, or $3. Facebook gets to keep one third of the rental costs, so Miramax earns $2 for every rental. That amount is higher than what a company makes from streaming rentals through a service like Netflix or Hulu, which usually gives pennies for each stream.

Aside from short movie clips, the app will also soon include a game called Casting Call where you can can cast your Facebook friends as characters in Miramax films.

What do you think of Facebook movie rentals? Do you think many users will use it?

Video e-commerce startup Joyus announced Monday that it has raised $7.9 million in a bid to make video a more powerful tool in online commerce. Along with the funding announcement, the company’s site opens today for an invite-only public beta with a focus on high-end women’s products.

Headed by former Google executive Sukhinder Singh Cassidy, the company seeks to work with well-known brands to create premium videos. These videos will be embeddable anywhere around the web and will include a buy button and analytics functions.

“We’re building a video platform that is entirely based around buying a product rather than entertaining a viewer,” Singh Cassidy told VentureBeat. “This is a way to make conversion to sales higher, and brands are interested in that.”

Accel Partners and Harrison Metal are the lead investors for this funding round, with smaller investments coming from Wal-Mart executives Venky Harinarayan and Anand Rajaraman and CurrentTV’s Joel Hyatt. Singh Cassidy left Google to work for Accel in 2009, so its no suprise the company was first on her list when she was looking for significant funding.

Another major component of Joyus videos are analytics. Joyus says it offers its brand partners better ways to find out how their customers are responding and engaging with videos. One early measurement the company highlights is an optimal video length between 2:30 and 3:30 minutes to get a customer to engage.

So far, Joyus has only worked with smaller Internet commerce sites, including Azalea Boutique, Prtty Peaushun and ModCloth.

“The Joyus platform allows us to reach a broader audience of passionate, fashion savvy women with our new, in-season inventory,” said Catherine Chow of Azalea Boutique, in a statement. “We see video on Joyus being an exciting new component of our online marketing strategy.”

No major brands have been announced yet for Joyus, but Singh Cassidy said the company will reveal bigger partners in the fall.

Singh Cassidy said she sees no direct competitor in the online space right now. She suggests TV home shopping is the closest thing that exists to Joyus. “Channels like HSN and AVC are the most direct comparisons, but they are on a closed platform,” she said.

I asked Singh Cassidy whether YouTube videos, which already feature ways to link products to video, covered the space Joyus intends to reach. She said other companies featured elements similar to Joyus’, but no single company offered as comprehensive a tool set for video-based commerce.

“Joyus mixes commerce, social, and analytics into a video platform like no other company,” Singh Cassidy said.

We’ll have to wait for the fall to see if Joyus can rustle up big-name clients and see how the product evolves.

Do you think Joyus can change or improve video-based online commerce?

More online American adults are using video-sharing sites than ever before, according to a new study from Pew Research Center.

In May 2011, 71 percent of online adults reported watching videos from a site like YouTube or Vimeo. On top of that, 28 percent of adults polled said they visited such a site on a typical day.

“Video is a much more integral part of the Internet experience than ever before,” Lee Rainie, director of Pew’s Internet & American Life Project, told VentureBeat. “It’s much easier to share video across all kinds of platforms too.”

Rainie said he thinks the rise of social media and powerful mobile technology have greatly increased the likelihood of being exposed to online video. “Not only are users being exposed to video on their social networks, but it’s also a lot of people sending video links via e-mail with a short message,” Rainie said.

The most surprising statistic in the report to Rainie was that rural internet consumers are now just as likely to use video-sharing sites as those from suburban and urban areas.

“Just a few years ago, it appeared rural users weren’t as open to online experiences but now they have caught up,” Rainie said.

One factor in this might be that there so many channels that the barriers to entry to uploading video have vanished. This has created a more diverse representation across all video channels. “Now that businesses, schools, non-profits and individuals can all post easily to these sites, that makes the offering more compelling,” Rainie said.

Another interesting statistic that came from the report is that African-American and Hispanic consumers are more likely to use video-sharing sites than white users.

The trend of increasing online video use isn’t likely to slow soon, and more users will seek out video as it becomes further integrated into the social fabric of the web. Add in the number of mobile devices – including smartphones and tablets – that support instant online video streaming and you’ve got yourself a recipe for ubiquitous video use.

Do you think our country is addicted to online video? Or are we simply embracing the format as a convenient way to get information and entertainment?

Winners of the competition will obtain one of 20 “channels” the video site plans to feature in a new design coming this winter. If this competition were a reality show, it would be like the The Bachelor picking 20 women to marry and giving each of them fame and millions of dollars in advertising, in lieu of a ring.

The story broke on All Things D, which cites unnamed “people familiar with the process.”

“The idea is that YouTube will end up with cable TV-like ‘verticals’ — food, sports, entertainment, etc. — that will offer up consistent servings of audience- and advertising-friendly content,” All Things D wrote.

VentureBeat contacted YouTube about the contest, to which a YouTube spokesperson replied, “We don’t comment on rumor, or speculation.”

One thing YouTube has commented on is its need to attract more advertisers with content that keeps viewers on their website longer. According to the company’s blog, YouTube visitors are “spending just 15 minutes a day on YouTube, and spending five hours a day watching TV.”

In an effort to get visitors to stay on the website longer and convince advertisers YouTube reaches desirable consumers,  the company could soon launch “channels,” much like television. That might be where this competition comes in.

This week we showed you YouTube’s gorgeous new redesign of its website called Cosmic Panda. We predicted many people wouldn’t switch back the the old YouTube after testing it out. Have you?

The company’s product helps advertisers deliver ads to target demographics across online video, mobile video, and television. TidalTV offers what it calls “zero waste advertising”, where it optimizes the distribution of in-stream ads so companies can reach the market they’re looking for. The company says that if its platform doesn’t allow your ad to reach the audience you want, you get your money back.

eMarketer estimates that by 2015, 76% of internet users will be watching online video each month, and online video advertising spending will increase from $1.97 billion to $5.71 billion.

The round of funding was led by New Enterprise Associates (NEA), with participation from existing investors Comcast Interactive Capital and Valhalla Partners. The funding will be used to accelerate growth, expand into new markets and to deploy new products.

TidalTV, which is headquartered in Baltimore, has raised $61M to date.

Google’s YouTube division confirmed today that it is buying Green Parrot Pictures, an Ireland-based video technology company.

The site, which gets over  35 hours of video uploaded every minutes, says it hopes to use the technology by the Irish firm to improve the quality of the many blurry, jerky, and unsteady amateur videos uploaded to the site daily — as those shared recently, for example, by political protestors in Libya.

When a video is uploaded to the site, it is processed by YouTube and converted to the various sizes and formats offered by the site. The integration of this technology, which would act as an additional filter for restoring and improving quality, could be instrumental to the millions of YouTube users who watch and share videos on the site.

Green Parrot Pictures was founded by Anil Kokaram, an Associate Professor at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Its technology, which improves video quality by offering tools to stabilize an image and remove flickers, noises, and blotches, has been used in movies such as Lord of the Rings, X-Men, and Spider-Man.

A couple weeks ago, the site also announced that it is buying Next New Networks, a video production and distribution company to help content partners an emerging talent. The price of both acquisitions have not been disclosed. MotionDSP‘s vReveal software can also sharpen and stabilize blurry videos.

Screenreach, a service that lets smartphone users interact with digital signs or other large video displays, launched with an additional 800 locations at the DEMO Spring 2011 conference today.

Screenreach’s mobile application, called Screach, lets mobile-device users interact with video content playing on a large monitor that’s tied into Screenreach’s application. Screach users can cast votes and interact with whatever’s on the display, which can range from polls to quizzes and much more. For example, a user could watch a soccer game and pick his favorite player, and then share his choice, as well as a coupon or other reward, with his friends on Facebook.

Screach automatically collects that information and uses it to profile its users, and packages that information for advertisers. The idea is to help out-of-home advertisers who place ads on digital signage in public venues better target their ads for the demographics present. In its ad-targeting aspect, it bears some similarity to 140Fire, another startup that launched at the Launch Conference last week that also helps advertisers better target their ads.

The company is launching its service with 13 museums in the United Kingdom and a fan voting service with the Newcastle United Football Club. It’s also launching its Faces application — which lets users take a picture of themselves and display it on a screen in-store — at 800 coffee shops in the United States. (Those 800 locations come via a deal with RMG Networks, an out-of-home advertising network.)

Screenreach has raised $1.2 million from angel investors and Hotspur capital partners. The company, based in Newcastle upon Tyne in the U.K., has eight employees in the United Kingdom and Romania. It was founded least year.

Update: This story has been corrected to reflect the fact that Screenreach is launching its Faces application in coffee shops in the United States, not the United Kingdom, as well as clarifying the nature of Screenreach’s service.

Rob Glaser already has one important video company under his belt, having founded RealNetworks in 1994 and served as its chief executive until last year. Now he’s launching another video startup, SocialEyes — and as the name suggests, it comes with a social twist.

The basic pitch is simple. SocialEyes is a site where you can find and chat with people over video, either for social or professional purposes. It taps into users’ Facebook connections and is also available as a Facebook app. Think of it as taking the Skype experience and expanding it into a fully-fledged social network, or of taking Chatroulette and adding real identity.

One of the most likely use cases, and one that Glaser and chief executive Rob Williams demonstrated for me last week, is to create a private group to collaborate remotely with your coworkers. On a single webpage, Williams opened up video windows for four of his team members.

Each video window in SocialEyes represents a one-on-one conversation, so it’s not exactly the same as being in a web meeting with your entire company. Williams could talk to all of his team members at once, or he could use the muting and instant messaging options to contact each of them when they needed to talk. So you can keep windows open with your coworkers throughout your day, then actually engage in video conversations as necessary. (I’ve heard people do something similar in Skype, but I don’t think Skype supports holding as many conversations at once.)

Williams acknowledged that video chatting probably gets a little overwhelming once you’ve got more than about eight windows open, though SocialEyes can technically support more than that

Glaser and Williams (who founded the company together — Glaser is the chairman) argued SocialEyes can also be used for more socially too. Users can see which of their Facebook friends are available on the site. And there are public and private groups built around different topics, so you can find and start chatting with someone who has similar interests.

Users are supposed to record a short video introduction describing who they are. The first time you contact someone, you watch their intro and they watch yours, so you’ll have some sense of who you’re talking to before you starting the real-time conversation.

SocialEyes has raised $5.1 million in funding from Ignition partners and angel investors including LiveOps CEO Maynard Webb.