We’ve been testing out Apple TV’s new YouTube support, and, overall, it’s an exciting improvement to the Apple TV platform.

YouTube videos load impressively quickly, even on a relatively slow network, and there’s a lot to be said for watching videos on a big screen from a comfy chair.

Applying the update is quick and simple. After a reboot, the Apple TV is ready to go and a new YouTube option appears on the device’s menu.

Pros:

• Many videos look surprisingly good.
• Navigation is very easy.
• It’s a lot more fun to view the videos on a big TV than on your computer.
• They’ve made thousands of videos available.

Cons:

• No widescreen, HD tastiness. Many of the videos look really bad blown up, and it makes you wish there was more good free high-def content available on demand.
• Searching is a pain. You have to scroll around a virtual keyboard with the Apple Remote. Putting in your password to log into YouTube is even worse. Apple needs to come up with a kick ass keyboard/remote for this.
• The content that’s currently available is a tiny subset of YouTube’s content.
• Now it’s easier and more fun than ever to surf around for stupid videos. There went two hours of my life.

YouTube support adds a lot of value to the Apple TV platform. Apple’s Internet TV solution is still a work in progress, and the experience is really limited by the resolution of most videos currently available. Nevertheless, Apple TV is starting to look like the best platform for viewing Internet videos.

You can get a preview of YouTube on Apple TV below with the video below. Another first take is available at Engadget.

Apple today announced that YouTube is now live on Apple TV. Users can download the free software update using Apple TV’s built-in software update feature, and then navigate through YouTube’s familiar video browsing categories or search for specific videos. YouTube members can also log-in to their YouTube accounts on Apple TV to view and save their favorite videos.

iPhone users will be able to enjoy YouTube’s content on their iPhones when they begin shipping on June 29. A new Apple-designed application on iPhone will wirelessly stream YouTube’s content to iPhone over Wi-Fi or EDGE networks and play it on iPhone’s 3.5 inch display.

“iPhone delivers the best YouTube mobile experience by far,” said Steve Jobs, Apple‚Äôs CEO. “Now users can enjoy YouTube wherever they are‚Äîon their iPhone, on their Mac or on a widescreen TV in their living room with Apple TV.”

In case you didn’t see the trend after the Online Publishers’ Association said Internet video consumption is exploding, comScore said that the Internet video viewing is exploding, or the fact that big media is figuring out that Internet tv is profitable, Magid Media Futures (MMF) is reporting a huge growth in the popularity for Americans of viewing videos over the Internet.

According to MMF’s research, daily usage of online video rose by 56 percent over the last year. In 2006, 9 percent of 12- to 64-year-old Americans who used the Internet reported using online video daily. Today, this number has risen to 14 percent.

Weekly usage of online video has also risen over the last year. Now, a majority of online Americans 12 to 64 are using online video once a week or more. In 2006, this number was 44 percent; now it is 52 percent.

Other highlights:

• Among young adult males 18 to 24, 35 percent report using online video at least once a day, and 80 percent report watching online video at least once a week. In all age-groups, males are more regular viewers of online video.
• Among females 18 to 24, weekly use of online video is 53 percent (versus the 80% for males). The population that has the lowest rate of weekly online video usage is older women. Among the group of females 55 to 64 years old, 39 percent report using online video weekly.
• News stories are reported by consumers as the most frequently viewed video they watch regularly on the Internet. Over a third of online Americans 12 to 64 watch online video news stories regularly.
• Video content described as jokes/bloopers, weather, and movie previews are tied for second most regularly viewed video content.
• Closely following these is user-generated content.

“Clearly the use of online video demonstrates that the Internet has become a mass platform for distributing video content to a wide cross section of Americans,” said Magid’s Mike Vorhaus.

Mszunefan, aka the King of Zunes, has gone for a second Zune tattoo.

His first Zune tattoo featured the logo for Microsoft’s portable media player.¬† We still haven’t seen any iPod tattoos, yet……
via engadget

The modest success of Prom Queen, a teen drama serialized on MySpace, is demonstrating the economics of low-budget Internet video. The show, which mixes standard teen mystery fare with a dash of lonelygirl15, is the first production of Vuguru, former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s new studio.

“Prom Queen” was designed to test the business model as much as the content. The budget for the show was between $100,000 and $150,000 — high for an Internet production but minuscule compared with the budgets Eisner handled at Disney. And financially, it worked. Although Eisner declined to say exactly how much the show earned, he did note that “on our first venture we did not lose money. This is not what we expected. We committed to it with no anticipation of any revenue.”

Based on the success of Prom Queen, Eisner has several additional shows in the works.

80 percent of the U.K. online population (age 15 or older who have accessed the Internet from either a home or a work computer), watched an Internet video in April 2007, compared to 76 percent in the U.S., 79 percent in France, and 70 percent in Germany, according to figures released today by comScore.

The study also reported that the average U.K. streaming video viewer initiated 80 streams in April 2007, compared to 64 streams per streamer in France and 62 streams per streamer in Germany. By comparison the average streamer in the U.S. initiated 65 streams per streamer in April 2007.

Nintendo is rumored to be working with Apple to bring a selection of its games to the iPhone:

These exclusive games will be released on the iTunes Store at a $29.00 price point a few months after the iPhone launches. No word on whether Nintendo will be distributing iPod versions of these games. A major hangup in development has been the lack of buttons on the iPhone that was remedied by a touchscreen D-pad.  One might wonder how Nintendo fans may see view playing on a phone without a traditional D-pad.

Internet video viewing has jumped more than 80% since last year, according to new information from the Online Publishers’ Association.

In March of 2006, 5% of online video viewers watched once a day and 24% watched at least once a month. Weekly viewership grown significantly, with 44% watching weekly and 8% watching daily.

The study also looked at the most popular video content and, while humorous videos may appear to be omnipresent, it found that the leading video content category is news/current events (14% watch daily). Weather ranks second (11% watch daily), followed by jokes/funny clips (9% watch daily).

Other highlights:

• 80% of all video viewers have watched a video ad online, and 52% have taken some sort of action, whether it’s checking out a website (31%), searching for more info (22%), going into a store (15%), or making apurchase (16%).
• Advertising in good content improves people’s perception of your brand. The study found that if a consumer has a positive attitude toward an advertised brand, and likes the video content that the ad appeared within, brand consideration jumps 61%. If the consumer’s initial attitude toward the brand is neutral or even negative, brand consideration still rises 21% if they like the adjacent video content.

YouTube announced today that is was introducing nine International versions of the popular video-sharing site. The sites will feature local-language navigation and feature content popular content in that region.

The new sites include:

• Brazil (http://www.youtube.com.br);
• Britain (http://youtube.co.uk);
• France (http://youtube.fr);
• Ireland (http://youtube.ie);
• Italy (http://it.youtube.com);
• Japan (http://youtube.jp);
• The Netherlands (http://youtube.nl);
• Poland (http://youtube.pl); and
• Spain (http://youtube.es).

Over time, YouTube plans to go beyond localizing the language to offering local “feels” for each site, along with country-specific video ranking and comments.

Voices.com, an online marketplace for voiceover services, is covering the basics of podcasting this week at their Vox Daily blog.

For their “Podcasting Week 2007”, they plan to cover listening to podcasts as well as the business side of podcast production.

Details are available at the Vox Daily blog.