• Hulu made some serious ground last month, overtaking not only Viacom but Microsoft as well in the top US video sites category.  Looks as if they can even use Yahoo as a goal for March.
• comScore VideoMetrix is reporting a 42% unique and 33% stream increase in February, up from 24.5 million uniques and 250.5 million streams in January.
• Sure, if we look at these stats here, yes, it’s an impressive feat what Hulu’s done, but I say, lets wait another month before we get too excited.  I would attribute a huge percentage of those gains exclusively to the Super Bowl commerical (Alec Baldwin) and following TV broadcast ads (Eliza Dushku) throughout the month.  The question is, will they retain these numbers in March?
• Even further, it’s completely unfair to compare a site like Hulu, to the video content side of sites like of Yahoo, Google (Youtube), Myspace, and Microsoft considering the fact that all but Hulu are majority focused on user-generated content.  Hulu being focused on media-generated scews the stats in a way that sets it apart from the rest.  **I wouldn’t be surprised one bit if Hulu was #2 in the average-time-spent-viewing-videos category.**
• What I’d really like to see is a new differentiation in comScore and Nielson’s ratings to set apart user generated from media-generated video sites.   [image via: TC]

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• Barry Diller’s InterActive Corp. (IAC), which struck a TV deal about the life of the crew working at their popular video destination, CollegeHumor in July, is close to airing. 
• The show looks to be like a younger version of the ‘office’ mixed with some of the usual craziness that comes out of the CollegeHumor production team.  
• They released another teaser today of the co-stars Jake and Amir, who have been in previous CollegeHumor webisodes. 
• The show, which was rumored to begin in the fall, is now planning on launching with MTV Q1 of 2009. Keep an eye out, this show looks like a step up from the usual MTV trash. Seems like it should have been an NBC or HBO type of series. Maybe next time fellas. 

Microsoft takes the main-stage to battle Adobe and a slew of startup companies trying to be the leader in Web video and collaborative animation/web design tools. The WSJ outlines the major online destinations that have gone with each service this year. For example, Netflix, CBS, The Olynpics (via NBC.com) have all gone with Microsoft’s Silverlight player this year stealing further business from Adobe.

• Facebook video has flown somewhat under the radar since its launch last year.  Even though it’s a small part of the site, it still pulls in some 100,000 new videos everyday, with a total of over 45 million.
• Facebook just announced some upgrades to their video service that’s sure to up those numbers in the upcoming year.
• The first addition is the ability to embed videos on other websites.  The great thing is Facebook allows you to control your privacy settings, no matter where they’re being shared.  Users can choose to share videos with their friends or selected friends (must be logged in to view) or an everyone setting.
• Another piece of mediocre good news is they’ll be supporting higher resolution video with capabilities as high as 720p.

TC, MSH

• Anvato is a new startup that can identify videos across the web using an automated visual detection engine. Anvato’s technology can recognize content regardless of meta data or destination.
• The company has raised $2 million in a partial Series A funding round led by Oxantium Ventures and is currently seeking more investment.
• This is a great tool for publishers looking to identify their copyrighted content across the web. Once found, a content owner can decide to have the content taken down or begin an ad campaign to monetize on the videos. We have seen similar technology engines come out for finding licensed photos around the web, and recently YouTube has begun offering content owners a way to take down or monetize their videos that are beinng used illegally.
• The problems I see with the company is that it’s not difficult to figure out what destinations are potentially hosting your content illegally. Places like SurfTheChannel aggregate together the sites to go watch free TV shows and if the show isn’t being hosted by one of those sites, it is probably just being downloaded on a Torrent (in which case, you don’t really have much ground to stand on).

Dramatis Personae:
Yahoo – Long time interweb giant and parent of Yahoo Live
Interweb Chorus – bloggers, diggers, twitheads, comment whores

ACT I – February 2008

“Check it out interweb people. Yahoo Live! is just like ustream.tv, justin.tv, and all those other awesome live video streaming sites” – Yahoo
“meh” – Interweb Chorus

ACT II – Between Then And Now

“Don’t forget to check out Yahoo Live. It’s gonna be our best kid ever” - Yahoo
“meh” - Interweb Chorus

ACT III – December 3rd, 2008

“Has it been nine months already?” - Interweb Chorus
“Yup” – Yahoo
“You must be so proud of your baby” – Interweb Chorus
“Actually gonna kill it today. Adoption wasn’t really an option and we’re pretty tired as it is. So yah…” – Yahoo
“Welp…see ya later” – Interweb Chorus

• Blockbuster is planning to utilize Microsoft’s Live Mesh to deliver movies to PCs and mobile phones, with the ability to start watching a movie on one device and then pick up where you left off on another.
• Live Mesh is Microsoft’s software/service that allows for synchronization across desktops and mobile devices.
• No word on release date.

RRW

• Sling Media, the company behind the popular Slingbox TV-streaming hardware devices, has finally launched its widely anticipated streaming video portal much like Hulu on Sling.com
• Sling offers content from most of the major networks and studios including Warner, Sony, and MGM.
• Arrested Development in on board, but unfortunately The Daily Show and Colbert Report aren’t available such as on Hulu.
• Sling’s leg up in the space is due to it’s DVR hardware device that let’s you stream any content saved to the box on any computer or your TV. This isn’t much of a plus for those with HDMI cable’s and right now streaming is only available for Window’s users that have downloaded the plug-in.
• More importantly, Hulu has Sling by the balls, because most of the content on Sling is being licensed from Hulu (better yet, NBC/Universal). This will certainly hold them back from being a head-to-head competitor as most are trying to hype it to be.
• It’s going to be pretty tough to knock Hulu off it’s high horse right now, especially for players like FanCast (what happened there Comcast?)

TC

• YouTube has officially announced its switch to a widescreen aspect ratio video player.
• New player is 960 pixels wide. 4:3 aspect ratio videos are displayed in letterbox.
• Widescreen could be enabled previously on YouTube videos by using a manual URL, but now the widescreen player is the default.
• Recently, YouTube announced they will stream select full length MGM films. No doubt they will take advantage of the widescreen view.
• Hulu, are you scared? (probably not)

TechCrunch

• Today Digg founder, Kevin Rose, issued a formal apology today for his ‘inappropriate’ comments on violence towards women during the last episode of Diggnation.
• Here is the comment Rose made; “there is only one time you can strike [a woman -] if she kicks you in the balls, you have the ability and the right, to punch her in the teat – it’s just like that – it’s kinda like tit for tat [Albrecht talks then Kevin again] It hurts them, it does too – or take a scissors to the teat” (Kevin makes cutting action with hand)
• This comment goes with the usual theme of Rose’s show; useless information, terrible jokes and a few swigs of Michelob Light.

RWW

• I just received an anonymous tip from someone claiming to work for Hulu.
• They said that Hulu is in talks with HBO and Showtime to roll out a Hulu Premium edition with subscription in 09′.
• Now that is what I am talking about. I watch very little television offline these days, and the only time I do sit down in front of the TV is usually to watch Entourage or Dexter. Getting these shows online would take me off the TV completely.
• Please let this be true. More to come…

• In a strange, dark turn for live video streaming, a 19 year old committed suicide live on Justin.tv last night.
• He apparently was an avid forum member at bodybuilding.com.
• The video and a lot of the posts have been removed, but of course, you can still find most of it around the net.
• Michael Siebel, Justin.tv CEO: “As for the broadcaster incident last night, we don’t comment on individual videos, however, our policy prohibits inappropriate content on Justin.tv. We rely on the community to flag videos that they feel are objectionable. Once a video is flagged, it is reviewed and quickly removed from the system if it violates our Terms of Use.“
• This has happened once before — a year ago a British man hung himself on the live video site Paltalk.
• In September, Mashable falsely reported a story about a man streaming his wife’s live child birth on UStream.tv. The birth process was never actually put on camera, but how long until this story does happen?
• For better or worse, we’ll see a lot more weird stuff to come as streaming live video becomes more ubiquitous.

NewTeeVee

• Boing Boing TV, the video arm of always amazing Boing Boing, celebrated its one year anniversary at the beginning of October.
• Today they have announced a new programming schedule:
  • Monday – Boing Boing General Update w/Xeni
  • Tuesday – Boing Boing Gadgets
  • Wednesday – BoingBoing Offworld (all things gaming)
  • Thursday – Original Programming (mini-documentaries, interviews, etc.)
  • Friday – Unicorn Chaser
• BBTV had a big boost from its integration into Virgin America’s RED programming last year, what kind of distribution deals will we see in the upcoming year?

• Last week in a raid of a Shenzen, China warehouse, Chinese officials discovered the first ever seen fake copies of high definition Blu-Ray movies.
• The pirates are ripping high-def movies (cracking Blu-ray’s AACS and BD+ encryption in the process) and re-encoding them using AVCHD, which offers a 720p picture.
• Because of the reduction in resolution, file sizes are smaller and can be burned to regular DVDs, but quality is still extremelly high.
• More importantly, the fake Blu-Ray disks can be played in a Blu-Ray player and according to this guy, these disks have been floating around since July. A little slow on the reporting WSJ.
• The going price for a fake Blu-Ray disc is around $1.25 compared to a standard DVD price of $0.80
• The Motion Picture Association International is not thrilled.

Ars-Technica

• Screen Digest analyst Arash Amel believes Hulu is on par to book $10-12 million in net revenue for 2008, unlike YouTube which will remain unprofitable.
• Screen Digest predicts Hulu will match YouTube’s gross revenue in 2009 with both companies recording $180 million.
• Quality over quantity: Armel says Hulu is able to sell out 80% or more of its ad inventory compared to Google only selling 3-4%.
• Advertisers are clearly flocking to the professional content offered by Hulu while avoiding YouTube which has come to be seen by many as a potential copyright nightmare.

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