Media conglomerate Vivendi has formed a new unit called Vivendi Mobile Entertainment that the company hopes will compete with YouTube and MySpace. The site will distribute multimedia for PCs, televisions and mobile phones. The site is expected to first launch in France, eventually expanding to neighboring countries in Europe. The venture will be Vivendi’s second […]

A new plugin for Apple TV called “A Series of Tubes”, now in advanced hacking stage, promises to bring YouTube to Apple’s media set-top box. The YouTube plugin isn’t available yet, but its author “XDog” has published a video that shows how it will work: The plugin delivers a number of playlists, including spotlighted YouTube […]

Media delivery network Akamai Technologies today announced the availability of Akamai Live Streaming in the Adobe Flash FLV format for delivering live, real-time audio and video formatted for playback using the Adobe Flash Player. Akamai‚Äôs distributed architecture is designed to handle live online events and scale to support thousands of simultaneous viewers. Through a series […]

MySpace today announced the launch of a new section within MySpace Video featuring premium content from top corporate news and lifestyle brands. MySpace Video will launch ‚Äúbranded channels‚Äù for National Geographic, The New York Times, Reuters, The Daily Reel, Expert Village, Flow, FOX‚Äôs IGN Entertainment, Octane TV, Kush TV, Ripe TV, Studio411, VBS.tv, and Young […]

adap.tv, an digital video advertising platform, today announced its public launch and a strategic partnership with Metacafe, one of the world’s largest video Web sites. The company’s technology is designed to not only analyze video content and determine the most relevant ad, but also to adapt in real time to viewer behavior, thereby increasing the […]

The future of Internet television belongs to free video podcasts and ad-supported video downloads, according to a new report by Forrester Research. Forrester estimates that paid video downloads will peak in 2007, generating $279 million in revenue, up from $98 million last year. Beyond 2007, advertising models will drive the online video market. Despite the […]

Rocketboom’s Andrew Michael Baron has an interesting post at his personal site about the huge interest in creating Internet video platforms. Baron name checks Open Media Network, Current.tv, Akimbo, AT&T Homezone, Brightcove, Innertube and others, asking “Why are these always going wrong or why are they not going better?” There are some good reasons why, […]

Internet television service Joost today announced that five parties have collectively invested approximately $45 million in the company. This funding will enable Joost to accelerate development,of its ad-supported Internet video offerings. The investments highlight growing interest in Internet video business opportunities, along with an interest by content creators to see an alternative to YouTube. CBS […]

Natalie Portman, star of the Star Wars prequels and V is for Vendetta, is rumored to be shopping around for funding for a new reality Internet video project: Natalie Portman’s effort appears more in the line of Justin.tv, the Yale graduate who had been filming every minute of his life, or Lonely Girl 15, the […]

NBC Universal has announced that it plans to limit the length of pre-roll advertising (ads displayed before you get any content) in Internet videos to 15 seconds or less. Longer-form content, such as full-length episodes of TV series will continue to accept 30-second or longer spots. “It’s essential for clients to deliver their messages in […]