Digital entertainment distribution startup Yekra has raised $3 million in new funding to give studios a way to distribute DRM-protected content without it being burdensome, the company announced today.

Los Angeles-based Yekra’s goal is to help distribute movies online with the full blessing of Hollywood. Movies will have copyright protections but still be available to be viewed through the web, smartphones, tablets, and connected TVs.

Yekra’s centerpiece is AffiliateConnect, a “patent-pending, first-to-market audience building technology” that helps producers and studios distribute their content. Yekra lets you set an exclusivity rights period for a movie and then set up distribution to other digital platforms like Netflix and Hulu Plus. On top of that, there’s also a marketing suite inside Yekra that helps you figure out how you should distribute based on the subject of the film and its potential audience.

One strong example Yekra touts for AffiliateConnect is Tattoo Nation (pictured), a documentary starring Danny Trejo and Travis Barker about skin art and the culture surrounding it. This movie will be available for $6.99 as a digital rental, and that can be applied toward a DVD purchase for $19.95. (On a side note, those prices seem awfully high considering a Netflix account costs just $8 a month.)

“We want to bring a new technology to market that sits at the nexus of profitable premium content and on-demand, convenient access for any connected viewer,” Yekra President Lee Waterworth said in a statement. “Today we pioneer the first system that both protects the content it distributes and makes it accessible to anyone — anywhere — with the capability to generate revenue on a cost-effective basis from day one.”

Yekra launched in an early-stage beta in late 2011 so it could test out the showing of the documentary film Thrive: What On Earth Will It Take?, which it charged $5 per view. Thrive has attracted more than 12 million online viewers during since being released.

The new funding was led by Las Vegas angel investor Maurice Gallagher, with participation by Bray Capital, Shay O’Brien, and Michael Rogers.

Screenshots via Tattoo Nation and Yekra

Streaming movie service Redbox Instant by Verizon will fully launch to the public before the end of the first quarter, the venture’s CEO said today at a CES 2013 breakfast.

As we’ve mentioned before, Redbox Instant by Verizon will compete with Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and other streaming players. But unlike those services, Redbox has the advantage of having 42,600 physical kiosks across the U.S. that offer new releases. Redbox Instant subscribers get four DVD rental credits each month and unlimited streaming for $8 per month.

Redbox Instant by Verizon CEO Shawn Strickland spoke to a small group of journalists this morning in Las Vegas to talk about the service’s goals and how it will work when it launches soon.

“We’re doing the invitation-based beta now … but we will launch sometime later this quarter,” Strickland said. “Movies are the core of the Redbox brand, and movies are underserved in this space.”

Redbox Instant by Verizon has 7,500 “streaming and transactional movie titles” today, but you can stream from a library of 4,500 films at any time using a subscription. It’s adding more titles every day, it said, so we expect that more than 4,500 will be available upon the full launch. And, of course, you’ll also be able to take advantage of Redbox kiosks as well for new DVDs.

Strickland said that the service will focus only on movies now, but he did leave open the possibility of TV content some time down the line.

Photo via Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat

Amazon has signed a licensing agreement with A&E Networks that will make TV shows from A&E, Bio, History, and Lifetime channels available to watch on Prime Instant Video, the company announced today.

Amazon claims the Prime Instant Video service now has more than 33,000 movies and TV episodes that you can stream instantly on a variety of devices. That’s a far cry from the amount of content provided by its biggest competitor, Netflix, but at least it’s getting better.

“In a year we have more than doubled the Prime Instant Video selection for our Prime members,” said Brad Beale, the director of digital video content acquisition for Amazon, in a statement. “We remain focused on adding TV episodes and movies to Prime Instant Video that we think our customers will enjoy. A&E Networks has some of the most popular shows on television, and we know our customers will love streaming the A+E content with Prime Instant Video.”

Today’s deal will bring some of the highest rated television shows from A&E’s networks to Prime, including hits like Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and Dance Moms.

Last year, Amazon signed quite a few deals to make Prime’s library of movies and TV shows larger. These include a deal with Epix to get The Hunger Games and The Avengers and a deal with NBC to have shows such as Parks and Recreation, Friday Night Lights, and Battlestar Galactica.

Pawn Stars via History Channel

Netflix will enable subscribers in the United States connect their profiles to Facebook as soon as President Barack Obama signs a popular bill into law, the company confirmed today.

The bill, which will permits Netflix members share their viewing history with friends online, has cleared the U.S. House and Senate and now it just needs Obama’s signature, which should happen in the near future.

“We are pleased that the Senate moved so quickly after the House,” Netflix said in a statement to Talking Points Memo. “We plan to introduce social features for our U.S. members in 2013, after the president signs it.”

Netflix has been noticeably absent from Facebook’s Timeline feature due to a clearly outdated 1988 law that forbids video rental services from sharing a customer’s rental history. The bill was passed in the Blockbuster days and was designed to stop folks from seeing other people’s viewing habits. But with Facebook and other social networks, people often want to share what content they are consuming.

This should be a major win for Netflix, which has been pushing for the legislative changes for more than a year. With more sharing on Facebook, it could encourage more users to sign up or try Netflix.

Nintendo entered the media battlefield today with the introduction of its Nintendo TVii service that will be included for free on its upcoming Wii U game console.

In a somewhat unexpected move, Nintendo showed off the Nintendo TVii service today in an attempt to catch up with its media-savvy console rivals, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Nintendo also wants people to use the Wii U instead of media streamers like the Apple TV, Boxee, and Roku.

Nintendo TVii streams movies, TV, and sports from your cable box and from services like Netflix, Amazon Instant, and Hulu Plus. It also connects with your social networks so you can comment on content you’re watching.

The Wii U launches Nov. 18 with two different models — one is the “basic” white edition for $300, and the other is a “deluxe” black edition for $350. Nintendo TVii is an extra that could help someone decide to buy a Wii U or at least deter someone from choosing an Xbox or PS3 because the Wii U didn’t have media options.

Check out the Nintendo TVii service in the video below.

HBO will soon launch its first-ever streaming-only service with access to its extensive catalog of great TV shows and movies. Unfortunately, for now, the service will only be available in the Nordic countries and nowhere else.

Cord-cutters in the U.S. and around the world have been clamoring for some time for a way to subscribe to streaming-only HBO Go service without having to pay for cable. Regardless, HBO had continually pushed back and said only cable subscribers will get access to HBO content online.

But now it looks like HBO has decided to experiment with the Nordic countries. Variety reports that the new “HBO Nordic AB” service will be available in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland starting in mid-October. It will cost less than 10 euros a month.

Without mentioning it, HBO is setting itself up for a bloody fight with Netflix in international territories. Netflix just announced a few weeks ago that it intended to launch in the same four Nordic countries as HBO’s new service before the end of the year.

What we’re really interested to see is if HBO’s Nordic opportunity is successful, would HBO be willing to bring a streaming-only service to those in North America or other territories? Our guess is that HBO’s model is too profitable in U.S. right now for the company to offer Americans a streaming-only option. But other parts of the world could be looking at an HBO online invasion if the Nordics gain traction.

“Each market is unique, and HBO approaches each one with what we consider to believe the best business model specific to that territory,” an HBO spokesperson told Variety.

Game of Thrones photo: HBO

Sept. 9 - 10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Video sharing service Vimeo has finally integrated with cloud storage service Dropbox after many requests from the vocal Vimeo community, the company announced today.

With the integration, Vimeo users can now add their Dropbox account on the Vimeo upload page or in their account settings. This will allow them to automatically or manually upload videos through a “Vimeo” folder in Dropbox.

“Integration within Dropbox is something our community wanted for a while,” said Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor in a statement. “This is another tool for them to upload and share their videos with friends and family or the rest of the world.”

The Dropbox integration adds to the many moves Vimeo has made this year to solidify itself as the go-to destination for high-quality online videos. So far in 2012, the company brought in a new CEO, redesigned its main site, and launched a wide array of apps to bring more mobile users into the fold.

Check out the video below for more on the Dropbox/Vimeo team-up.

CloudBeat 2012 is assembling the biggest names in the cloud’s evolving story to learn about real cases of revolutionary cloud adoption. Unlike other cloud events, customers — the users of cloud technologies — will be front and center. Their discussions with vendors and other experts will give you rare insights into what really works, who’s buying what, and where the industry is going. Register now and save 25 percent! The early-bird discount ends September 14.

Against all odds, streaming-video giant Netflix is actually making money and signing up new customers. The company beat Wall Street estimates with better-than-expected fourth quarter results, including a well-needed subscriber boost, it announced today.

Netflix had a particularly rocky 2011, with a 60 percent price hike on combined streaming-and-DVD rental plans and a failed plan of splitting Netflix into two companies. The company was punished with a loss of more than half of its stock price. Chief executive Reed Hastings ended up looking pretty bone-headed because the company appeared to wholly ignore its customers’ feedback.

For the fourth quarter, the company earned revenue of $876 million compared to revenue of $596 million in the year-before quarter. Net income fell to $41 million from $47 million in the year-before quarter. Earnings per share were $.73 per share compared to $.87 per share a year ago.

The best news for the company is a boost in subscribers. Netflix ended 2011 with 24.4 million U.S. subscriptions, which is better than last quarter’s 23.79 million subscriptions. Investors had been dismayed at the loss of more than 800,000 subscribers posted in the third quarter, but things now appear to be back on track.

The company had warned it would likely post losses because of costly international expansion into Europe and Latin America. But since it beat Wall Street expectations of $0.54 a share and $857 million in revenue, Netflix appears to be in a surprisingly stronger position.

Netflix’s stock price has risen by more than 10 percent to about $105 per share in after-hours trading, a sign that investors love the news.

Netflix has had a turbulent past few months with a price hike that angered users and a botched plan to move physical DVD rentals to a site called Qwikster. But even with its shortcomings, the service has been trying to rapidly expand its presence outside of North America. This year, the company launched its service in 43 Latin American countries and the Caribbean and it has plans in place to launch in Spain in Jan. 2012.

Along with Spain, Netflix’s introduction in the U.K. and Ireland will be important to helping the company get recognition in Europe so that it can later extend into other European markets. British TV shows like Doctor Who (pictured), Sherlock, Being Human, Merlin and Skins are available for streaming on the American version of Netflix, but we’re sure many U.K. and Ireland-based folks will be happy to have access as well.

Netflix may have felt some urgency to announce its product for the U.K. and Ireland because another streaming TV and movie service called Vdio may be launching there soon. Vdio comes from one of the founders of Skype and Rdio, and while it has collected just $5.6 million in startup funding, it could feasibly start small in the U.K., get more VC funding, and then move to other countries. YouTube also recently announced that its U.K. users could rent movies from its service for £2.49 or £3.49 a piece.

Users in the U.K. and Ireland who want to know the precise day the service goes live can go to www.netflix.com and sign up for a notification.

Will you sign up for Netflix when it comes to your country?

One of the most pressing issues facing streaming services like Netflix and Hulu is access. Netflix figured that out early and pushed out apps for phones, tablets, game consoles and other connected devices. Hulu has been slightly behind with getting Hulu Plus on every imaginable device, but it’s now on many phones, tablets and consoles. The Wii is one of the most popular devices for Netflix streaming, so it’s important that Hulu is close to launching on the console.

Hulu Plus’ launch on the Nintendo 3DS is not as important as the introduction on the Wii, but it’s still smart. The 3DS has seen much better sales ever since Nintendo dropped the price by 40 percent to $170. While there aren’t nearly as many 3DS units as other major consoles, Hulu wants to give users as many ways as possible to use its service, while Nintendo wants to incentivize those on the fence about buying another handheld console when smartphones like the iPhone 4S can play pretty cool games too.

To get access to Hulu Plus’ considerable streaming television catalog, you must pay $7.99 per month. Hulu Plus takes the service way above what you can do with regular Hulu.com by letting you watch content in HD, letting you watch Hulu on connected devices (like the Wii), and giving you many more TV episodes to watch.

Nintendo also used the announcement as an opportunity to tell its 3DS users that a major system update would happen at the end of November that will enable 3D video capture. Users will be able to record up to 10 minutes of 3D video and can also create 3D stop-motion animation videos.

“Nintendo 3DS continues to evolve with great new features and functions designed to reinforce its position as a premiere entertainment device,” said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime in a statement.

One of the founders of Skype and Rdio has decided to make a run at Netflix and Hulu with a mysterious new video service called Vdio, according to a GigaOM report.

Janus Friis, the co-creator of Skype, Kazaa, Joost and Rdio, has kept Vdio a secret for as long as two years and received $5.6 million in funding in Oct. 2010 while the company was listed under the name Project WBS. At present, Vdio.com is simply a splash page featuring high-quality animations from many movie and TV properties, including shows like Breaking Bad (pictured), Mad Men and Justified, as well as movies like Enter the Dragon and A Few Good Men. If you are the in the U.S. like I am, the screen says the service is only available in the U.K. If you are in the U.K., the splash page says “Coming soon to the UK.”

Since the startup has only collected $5.6 million in funding, I find it hard to believe this will act as a serious competitor to Netflix’s streaming service out the gate. But if Vdio’s model uses advertising paired with partner-provided content, it could be dangerous to Hulu. And if given the opportunity to grow and collect more funds under a subscription model, it could be a threat to Netflix, especially because Netflix has done nothing but agitate users this year with price bumps and a botched plan to move physical DVD rentals to another website.

We still don’t know much about Vdio, but I think it’s safe to make a few assumptions. Since the company comes from the people behind the excellent music streaming service Rdio, this new venture will likely be primarily subscription-based and highly social, with integration from Facebook and Twitter. Instead of streaming music, Vdio will probably streaming TV and movies, based on what we see on the Vdio splash pages.

Rdio recently launched a free element to its music subscription service as well, which gives users some free access to the huge Rdio catalog without ever needing to offer a credit card. Vdio might take this approach as well as a way to get users interested in the service.

Joost, a previous Friis venture, also dealt with video. It was a web TV service founded in 2006 that originally centered around peer-to-peer video technology. Now the site is a simple (and bland) YouTube-like hub for content like movie trailers and short TV clips.

Do you think the guys originally behind Skype and Rdio have a chance to make a dent in online videos with Vdio?

Update: The story originally indicated that Vdio was a venture by both of the Skype and Rdio founders. The company was in fact founded by only one of the Skype founders, Janus Friis.

YouTube has been expanding its movie rental offerings over the past year to better compete with the likes of Netflix and Apple’s iTunes. Google has also reportedly put up $100 million for original YouTube content to capitalize on a new generation of cable TV cord cutters looking for content online.

U.K. users will now be able to rent movies such as the The Dark Knight (pictured) as well as new releases like Fast Five and Hanna. British classics like Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life will also be available. Newly released films will run £3.49, while older movies from studio catalogs can be rented for £2.49 in standard definition and £3.49 for high-definition.

“Britain has a long history of cinema, starting from the first moving pictures being developed on celluloid film in the UK,” Matteo Vallone, YouTube Business Product Manager, wrote in a company blog post. “Now British film buffs can be part of the digital revolution too.”

Companies that have partnered with YouTube on movie rentals include Universal, Lionsgate, Entertainment One, Metrodome and Revolver Entertainment.

Have you ever rented a movie on YouTube?

Google wants to advance the reach of YouTube by adding original programming to its already popular mix of user-generated and professionally made videos. Google is reportedly one of the highest bidders for streaming service Hulu, indicating Google’s interest in offering programming. But if that doesn’t work out, Google could use YouTube as a place for that sort of original content and sell advertising against it.

Thus far, the biggest names Google has brought to the table include Tony Hawk and media companies like Warner Bros. and News Corp.-owned ShineReveille, which helped produce Ugly Betty and The Office.

Smaller-but-still-notable companies in talks with YouTube for original content include the production company behind hits like The Price is Right and The X Factor and the company that produced VH1′s Mob Wives.

Google will create new online programming “channels” full of professional content. The company hopes that it will be able to sell enough advertising against the programming to make back the $100 million in cash advances.

It’s possible the new YouTube programming could fit into Google’s future plans for Google+. Google could offer up these channels with Google+ users in mind as a chance for people to simultaneously watch and comment on first-run airings of shows. Offering that sort of future-looking feature set could potentially help Google steer users away from streaming leaders like Netflix and Hulu.

Are you interested in original YouTube programming?

The move for Dish to create a Netflix rival is hardly surprising. Dish acquired Blockbuster in a bankruptcy auction for $320 million back in April and a month later Dish CEO Joe Clayton said he wanted to “take a small piece of the pie from Netflix” when it came to streaming video.

This seems an opportune time to announce a rival, as Netflix — the leader in streaming movies — is hurting when it comes to consumer sentiment. First, the company instituted a 60 percent price hike on combined streaming and physical DVD rental plans at the beginning of September. Second, the company just announced that it will spin off its physical DVD rental service into a new company called Qwikster. Netflix customers were angry with the changes, so Dish already has a group of potential users it can easily court if it offers a cheaper price for comparable content.

Dish is also one of the companies said to be bidding for streaming service Hulu, alongside the likes of Amazon, Yahoo and Google. If the company were to control Hulu on top of its Blockbuster DVD-and-streaming plans and Dish at-home service, it would easily become an entertainment powerhouse in its own right.

Dish Network did not immediately respond to questions we had about the new service.

Netflix began its launch into 43 Latin American and Caribbean countries yesterday, so it’s certainly not wasting any time in getting high-quality streaming content there. Films covered in the agreement include newer titles like There Will Be Blood, Kill Bill and Gone Baby Gone, as well as older hits like Good Will Hunting, Pulp Fiction and The English Patient.

“The robust Netflix platform will provide a proven avenue to reach Latin American audiences and take advantage of strong subscriber growth prospects,” Miramax CEO Mike Lang said in a statement. “We look forward to growing the international audience for the Miramax library through many more partnerships like this around the world.”

While the Miramax deal is relatively small, it shows Netflix is serious about providing content in other countries. Netflix and other media companies like Hulu that are looking to stream content outside the U.S. have quite a challenge ahead of them. Each country and region has its own rules for licensing, and it’s not cheap to make it happen.

Miramax appears to be on a roll with offering digital versions of its content every way that it can. On top of making its movies available through Netflix and Hulu, the company just launched an app that enables users to rent movies on Facebook.

Netflix has been hit by two major blows as of late. First, customers were understandably angry that the company raised the price of one of its most popular plans by a whopping 60 percent. Second, it lost a major rights agreement with Starz, which will leave Netflix streaming customers with fewer movie and TV choices in Feb. 2012.

Both Netflix incidents show the company’s growing pains as it tries to continue disrupting how people consume their movie and TV content. However, if the Miramax deal is any indication, Netflix will continue its push to make as much content available for streaming as possible in order to keep customers interested.

Hulu has been on sale since June with bids fluxuating between $1.5 and $2 billion. Hulu’s owners — Disney, News Corp., Comcast and Providence Equity — indicated they wanted to auction off the company because of disagreements over the direction Hulu’s streaming service should take.

Now that DirecTV has reportedly dropped out of the bidding, that leaves just Amazon, Yahoo and Dish Network bidding on Hulu. Amazon is the current favorite for winning the auction because Hulu CEO Jason Kilar is a former Amazon executive with close ties Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Amazon already offers streaming movies and TV, so Hulu could bolster those offerings and make Amazon an even bigger media presence. Hulu could also be integrated into Amazon’s upcoming 7-inch Android tablet.

Yahoo has a strong interest in picking up Hulu, as well. The company has struggled in the past few years on several fronts, so owning a strong player in the streaming media space could be one way to jumpstart the company’s prospects for a successful future. Yahoo could also use Hulu to help sell lots of advertising while still generating revenue from subscribers.

Dish Network is interested in Hulu as a chance to improve its digital media offerings. The company acquired Blockbuster in early April and has expressed interest in creating a Netflix alternative.

Despite the impending sale, Hulu looks healthy and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. The company announced it had reached one million subscribers for its premium Hulu Plus service in early July.

Mirroring Netflix, Hulu has also expressed interest in moving its service to countries outside of the United States. The company just launched a premium-only version of its service in Japan for $19 a month. The Japanese service claims to offer “hundreds of premium feature films and thousands of episodes of popular TV shows.” Most of the content comes from American studios rather than Japanese entities.

Starz’ decision to walk away shows just how fragile the relationship is between old and new media providers. Starz now sees Netflix as a threat to its business because consumers can opt for an $8-a-month unlimited streaming plan rather than pay for cable, where Starz makes most of its money.

“When the agreement expires on February 28, 2012, Starz will cease to distribute its content on the Netflix streaming platform,” Starz wrote in a statement. “This decision is a result of our strategy to protect the premium nature of our brand by preserving the appropriate pricing and packaging of our exclusive and highly valuable content. With our current studio rights and growing original programming presence, the network is in an excellent position to evaluate new opportunities and expand its overall business.”

Netflix reportedly offered Starz more than $300 million a year to keep the content available, but Starz said it was not enough and demanded that Netflix use tiered pricing, according to the LA Times. Mirroring how top tier cable channels work, Starz wanted all Netflix users to pay a premium on top of the $7.99 package to access Starz content, but Netflix said it was out of the question.

Starz originally signed a 5-year, $30-million-a-year contract in 2008 when Netflix had significantly fewer subscribers. Streaming Starz movies and TV shows on Netflix was a way to get the brand out there and potentially interest users in subscribing to Starz. Now that Netflix has more than 25 million customers and many consumers are “cutting the cord” in favor of online video from Netflix, Hulu and others, Starz does not want to encourage even more people to leave cable programming for good.

Starz currently controls the pay-cable rights to movies from Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, so many films from those studios show up streaming on Netflix under the agreement. Under the Starz Play channel on Netflix, users can instantly watch movies like Tangled, Alice in Wonderland, Let Me In, Blade II, and The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. Those titles and many others will vanish in February 2012.

Netflix CEO told Business Insider that Starz content represents “about 8 percent” of domestic Netflix subscriber viewing. He also said the company will add more content in the fourth quarter and will use money earmarked for Starz to buy content from other providers. Netflix already has agreements with TV and movie studios including MGM, Paramount, Lionsgate and Relativity.

The news comes the same day that Netflix instituted a highly unpopular price hike. Netflix used to charge $9.99 a month for a combo plan of streaming and 1-DVD-at-a-time; it will now charge $15.98 for the same. The company said the price hike is intended to get more users on the streaming-only package so it can move towards limiting its physical DVD rentals. Of course, the problem with moving customers to streaming is that the Watch Instant catalog is minuscule compared to the DVD catalog. With Starz leaving the table, the streaming catalog will be in an even worse position.

As a Netflix user who recently moved from the combo plan to streaming only, I’ll be rooting for Netflix to secure some new licensing deals to make up for the lost Starz content. But if Netflix doesn’t get its act together by February, or if even more providers drop their Netflix streaming titles by that time, I may give up on Netflix entirely. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Back in mid-July, Netflix announced that it would change its pricing structure so customers would be charged $7.99 a month for streaming alone and $7.99 a month for 1-DVD-at-a-time rather than offering a bundled price. That change increased means the combination plan goes from $9.99 to $15.98, a 60 percent increase.

For many people, today is the last day you can change your plan without being charged extra. So go into your Netflix account settings and make the appropriate selections.

Netflix’s expressed intention with upping the price is to convince customers to stop renting physical DVDs and move to only streaming. The biggest problem with this move is that the streaming catalog is much, much smaller than its DVD catalog. The more obscure your tastes, the less likely you are to find what you’re looking for in the streaming catalog.

The company wants to acquire the rights to every movie and TV show it can for streaming, but licensing these properties from movie and TV studios is expensive. The studios also have less incentive to stream their content because they make much more money on sales of physical and digital copies than they do on rentals.

As someone who had the Netflix combo plan, I was especially unhappy about the price hike. I’ve since switched my plan to the $7.99 all-streaming package. While I’m not completely satisfied with the catalog, I do appreciate how easy it is to access, and there are enough movies and shows that I haven’t seen to keep me watching.

Have you changed your Netflix plan? Are you satisfied with the steaming plan?

Hulu may soon be snapped up in an acquisition, but in the meantime the company is continuing to expand its presence. On Thursday, the streaming video service launched a premium service in Japan that offers full-length movies and complete seasons of TV shows.

Japan marks Hulu’s first expansion outside of the United States, and we first heard the company planned to launch there in mid-August. The company and competitor Netflix have both expressed a strong desire to be available outside of North America, but moving into other countries takes capital and time to secure individual rights agreements. Netflix has also announced plans to launch in 43 Latin American and Caribbean markets and in some parts of Europe.

Hulu in Japan closely resembles Hulu Plus in the U.S., but at about $19 a month (¥1,480) the service is relatively more expensive than Hulu Plus’ $7.99 a month. The Japanese offering doesn’t include a free ad-supported option like there is in U.S., although users can try the service for one month for free to test it out.

Subscribers will be able to watch Hulu content from many partners like CBS, NBC, Sony, Disney and others on their computers, connected TVs, smartphones and tablets.

The movie and TV selection appears to be heavy on American content rather than Japan-specific. Some of the full-length films include Pirates of the Caribbean, Armageddon, Men in Black, Troy, and As Good As It Gets.

When Hulu originally announced plans for Japan, the company said it was an attractive market because there is strong broadband penetration and because Japanese consumers are “passionate” about online video content. We’ll see just how passionate these users are after they’ve had it for a few months.

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?

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Companies are turning to Web apps to avoid Apple’s onerous iOS in-app revenue sharing rules.

Yesterday, both Amazon, with its new Kindle Cloud Reader, and Vudu, with its new iPad-optimized streaming video site, demonstrated that they’re not willing to give Apple its 30-percent cut for purchases and subscriptions inside of apps in the App Store.

This is a trend we’ll likely see many more companies following, as the alternative would be to either absorb Apple’s cut of their sales, or increase prices to offset Apple’s fees. The streaming music service Rdio is attempting the latter with its new iPad app, which charges new users coming through the app $15 for its monthly service, instead of the usual $10. I suspect that most companies would do anything to avoid raising prices, but if Rdio’s plan works out, perhaps more will follow in its footsteps.

As of June 30, any iOS apps that offer subscriptions are subject to Apple’s 30-percent tax. But at least now, companies have the choice of including in-app subscriptions or not. Previously, Apple was considering forcing companies like Netflix and Amazon to include in-app subscriptions and to price them the same as external subscriptions. Not surprisingly, that move didn’t win Apple any fans, and the company ultimately relaxed its restrictions.

“Unless Apple modifies its charges, I think you will see an increasing array of ways to skirt Apple’s onerous charges for many companies wanting to play in the iPhone/iPad world, but not willing to cut their margins by 30%,” said Jack Gold, principal analyst at J. Gold Associates. “And it could ultimately give Android, with a more flexible business model, and advantage in the marketplace.”

Amazon says its Kindle Cloud Reader officially supports Chrome and Safari, which means it easily works across Macs, PCs, Chromebooks and the iPad. At the moment, the iPhone isn’t supported (likely because Amazon needs to work on an optimized interface for smaller screens). The Cloud Reader will serve as a companion to the Kindle’s iPad app for now — Amazon isn’t aiming to replace its more fully featured native app entirely (yet).

The site allows you to read your Kindle library from the Web — but its real purpose is to serve as an easy gateway to the Kindle Store for iPad users. Amazon had to remove links to the Kindle store from within its iOS apps as part of Apple’s new rules.

Unlike Amazon, Vudu chose to avoid the native app noise entirely and just offer a tablet-optimized website for its users. The site gives iPad users access to over 20,000 movies from Vudu, although they’re only available in standard-definition quality. You won’t see any Disney features though, as GigaOm points out. The Mickey Mouse company already has its own cloud video site, and it could offer streaming movies via its own iPad app in the future.

The app will be available as a free download from the Nintendo eShop. But Netflix users need to have a streaming membership starting at $7.99 a month and up. The new app will make the Nintendo 3DS — which can play games in stereoscopic 3D — more attractive for a wider number of users.

Nintendo says the service will be easy to use. On an average day, more than 1.5 million Netflix members watch TV shows or movies via the Wii console. Now they can watch movies in two dimensions whie on the run. At some point in the future, Nintendo says movies will be able to take advantage of the 3D glass-free experience on the 3DS. That’s been somewhat slow in coming, but at least Nintendo came through with a movie-streaming deal. Users can watch Netflix on the upper screen of the 3DS.

Reggie Fils-Aime, president of Nintendo of America, said 3DS users can watch movies via Wi-Fi connections, including thousands of free Wi-Fi access points that Nintendo has secured across the country. To download the Netflix app from the Nintendo eShop, Nintendo 3DS users have to first install a system update that became available on June 6.

As an example, he pointed to Netflix, which just announced a streaming video service for $7.99 a month. That might work for now, he said, since most of the movies and TV shows on Netflix are older, so the studios charge less for them. However, if Netflix wants to compete with network and cable TV companies in offering new content, that model starts to break down. Acquiring the first-run rights to a single TV episode can cost millions of dollars, he said.

Olafsson made the comments at Business Insider’s Ignition conference in New York.

“It’s just not going to happen at $7.99,” he said. “We’re fooling ourselves [if we think it is].”

That doesn’t mean Time Warner isn’t open to online distribution. After all, Time Warner cable made the leap to satellite television. But these Web companies need to offer a lot more money before Time Warner is willing to sell its best content.

“We encourage all of that stuff, as long as people pay for the content,” Olafsson said. “That’s why we’re not on Hulu.”

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Updated with comment from BigStar

Looks like Steve Jobs hasn’t been entirely successful in his campaign to keep porn off the iPhone.

There’s a new application called BigStar Movies You Demand that allows users to watch a wide (if rather random) selection of movies on their iPhone and iPad app for the super-low price of $4.99 a month after a 30-day free trial. But here’s the really eye-catching thing about it: It includes pornographic movies.

If you go to the BigStar.tv site, you’ll see that it highlights plenty of non-pornographic content, but once you scroll down to the “most watched” section it’s dominated by titles like Bad Ass Bitches and Anna Nicole Smith Exposed. That seems like it would be a problem for Apple, given chief executive Steve Jobs’ statement that the iPad provides “freedom from porn”. When I asked BigStar about it, a spokesperson responded:

As far as adult content is concerned, they are not available via the app – the $4.99 subscription doesn’t include it — but those films can be accessed and played via the web HTML 5 video player and Safari on both the iPhone and iPad. It’s not ideal — and maybe not worth mentioning — but that’s how one can work around it.

Makes sense, I guess. But then I downloaded the app (I had to confirm that I was 18 to do so), and there was Anna Nicole Smith again, still exposed. I didn’t watch enough to say exactly how explicit the movies were (and I’m sure that will prompt at least one “that’s not porn!” comment), but I watched enough to know that, yes, there is female nudity, and, yes, you will see boobs.

To be clear, I think the anti-porn policy, like many things about the App Store approval process, is silly, and I have no problem with what BigStar is doing. (And since they told me the adult stuff had been removed, I assume it’s a weird oversight.) I just think it’s interesting that some of this stuff is still slipping by Apple. Of course, Apple will eventually catch on and remove the app, unless BigStar figures out a way to get rid of the porn first. In the meantime, you can download it here.

And hey, once the porn is gone, the app still offers streaming movies, plus social recommendation features, for $4.99 a month. The service works on Android, Google TV, webOS devices, the Roku device, and more.

BigStar is self-funded and based in Miami.

Update: As I predicted, some of our commenters have argued that the movies aren’t porn — one of them points out that the two movies I’ve mentioned are rated R. But I think they meet the definition of softcore pornography, and that Apple has booted apps for less explicit content in the past. There’s a reason why the Playboy app doesn’t have any nudity. And there’s a reason why BigStar said the content had been removed from the app.

And BigStar has responded too:

We suppose that “porn” is in the eye of the beholder, but the definition so salaciously used in today’s VentureBeat article “BigStar brings porn to the iPhone, but for how long?” is so loose (any nudity, including flashes of a naked breast) that at least one-third of the current films in suburban multiplexes would have to be labeled porn. The MPAA is pretty clear that it considers porn NC-17. All of the films you mentioned in your article are rated R. Compare this to Netflix, which offers “Teenage Catgirls in Heat” (NR), “Caligula” (NR) and “Last Tango in Paris” (NC-17) or even to Hulu+, which offers the extremely bare-breasted “Red Shoes Diaries” and other late-night fare. While we appreciate the attention in BigStar’s offerings, we believe it’s not fair to call any of our offerings porn – unless you also classify the late-night fare of Netflix, Hulu, HBO/Cinemax and many other vendors as being in the same camp. As such, we are in full compliance with Apple’s terms of service.

In other words, Fandor is a site where subscribers can watch independent and international movies. We’re not just talking about movies that are showing at your local art-house theater. Yes, the site’s library includes relatively well-known films like Fallen Angels (directed by Wong Kar-Wai) and Funny Games (directed by Michael Haneke). However, Aronson said one of his goals is to create a place where people can watch movies that were made, maybe screened at film festivals, then never managed to secure a distribution deal for release in theaters.

Netflix’s library includes plenty of indie and international films, and through the Find Your Voice project it even funded an independent film of its own called The Wheeler Boys (co-written by my friend Max Doty). Aronson said Netflix is focused on securing better deals with the major movie studios and figuring out, “How do I get Transformers 3 tomorrow?” That’s a very different model than going out and signing up independent, undistributed filmmakers.

Fandor also includes strong curation and community features, Aronson said. The movies recommended on the website will be chosen by a professional film programmer, and the site will feature high-quality film writing, Aronson said. At the same time, members can write reviews and recommend their favorites.

For now, the site is offering a free one-month trial, then it will charge $10 a month for a subscription. The money is split between Fandor and either the filmmaker or the distribution company. Aronson said the company’s costs are low enough that it would break even with just 25,000 subscribers.

He added that Fandor is in discussions to expand beyond the website, onto set-top boxes and other devices. (That’s something Netflix has been pretty successful with.)

Fandor is self-funded.