Yahoo 

Celebrity Presence: John Stamos, Ed Helms, Morgan Spurlock, Cheryl Hines, Rachael Harris, The Lumineers (who performed live).

New Shows Presented: A mix of comedy and lifestyle programming, including Helms’s Tiny Commando, a show about the intersection of food and film, and a Spurlock-produced series where celebrities tell Stamos about the first time they had sex.

Biggest News Announced: For wrestling fans, it was probably the announcement that Yahoo and the WWE will be “tag-teaming” video distribution. But Yahoo also announced plans to partner with Condé Nast and CNBC for shows.

Money Quote: From Sam Gutelle at Tubefilter’s coverage, based off a comment by Yahoo COO Henrique de Castro:

De Castro asked advertisers to sink 5% of their TV budget of just one brand into Yahoo. Clearly, he understands that while the online video space is growing in popularity, it is still an area meant to complement TV, not overtake it. Yahoo’s new shows should do just that by providing solid, accessible entertainment.

My Take: None of the announced partnerships are as high-profile as Yahoo getting the exclusive rights to Saturday Night Live clips. That said, of all the new shows announced this week, I might be the most intrigued by Losing Your Virginity with John Stamos: It sounds like a lot of fun.

AOL 

Celebrity Presence: Sarah Jessica Parker, Nicole Richie, Baratunde Thurston, iJustine.

New Shows Presented: A wide range of largely lifestyle-oriented programming, including the Gwyneth Paltrow-starring Second Chances, Hank Azaria’s Fatherhood, Webby co-founder Tiffany Shlain’s The Future Starts Here, and a show about ballet executive-produced by Parker.

Biggest News Announced: To track who’s actually watching all that programming, AOL will be collaborating with Nielsen on a system that will “express audience measurement in the language of TV, enabling comparisons between the audience of AOL’s high-quality original programming and curated premium partner content to TV viewership” (according to the press release).

Money Quote: From Video Ink’s coverage of the Nielsen deal, an interview with Nielsen SVP of Strategic Partnerships John Burbank:

Ultimately, it’s not up to the Comscores and Nielsens of the world. “It’s really the market that has to decide, and we’re doing our best to make the measurement as robust and as fair for everybody so the buyer and the seller have to agree to transact on the data,” Burbank added.

My Take: Some of AOL’s original programming sounds potentially interesting, but relying on celebrities and brands to drive web content is far from a fresh business model, and oftentimes doesn’t have much staying power. However, if the audience for that content finally gets properly measured, it could help advertisers better understand the potential impact of online video.

Hulu

Celebrity Presence: SNL‘s Seth Meyers (who hosted the event), Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, professional wrestlers Sergeant Slaughter and Rey Mysterio.

New Shows Presented: Two new exclusives include Quick Draw, a comedy western, and high school drama East Los Angeles. Plenty of other series are on their way, and Hulu made note of One Life to Live and All My Children, which have performed well in their new digital iteration.

Biggest News Announced: Hulu had some exciting numbers to report, most importantly that Hulu Plus has topped four million subscribers, and according to comScore, it’s number one in engagement among top ad-supported sites.

Money Quote: From Variety’s coverage, a snippet from Meyers:

“‘You might be wondering why someone who works for a traditional network like NBC is at the Hulu upfront,’ he said. ‘Simply put, I’m hedging my bets. I don’t want to be working for the steam-engine company and wondering if cars are going to work.’”

My Take: It would have been interesting to see bigger-name content presented by Hulu this week, but with subscribers on the rise and the site bringing in more original series, things seem to be going well for the site.

Blip

Celebrity Presence: Rob Huebel (who hosted the event), Grace Helbig, Rooster Teeth’s Burnie Burns.

New Shows Presented: The Huebel-starring comedy Mainly Murder, unscripted competition series Jewelry Star, The Great S. Cape!, created by Dark Knight producer Michael Uslan. (Full details presented on Blip’s site.)

Biggest News Announced: Not only has Blip already announced a partnership with My Damn Channel to distribute original content, but on Wednesday they announced a production deal with hugely popular (and outspoken) YouTuber Ray William Johnson.

Money Quote: From AdWeek’s coverage of the event:

“‘Blip is the future of TV,’ said CEO Kelly Day. ‘We have the largest library of Web originals anywhere. And we are not a platform.’”

My Take: Blip is currently in the midst of a massive sea change — so it was inevitable that this week’s news is a bit underwhelming in comparison to earlier shakeups. However, it’ll be exciting to see how the talent Blip’s brought in meshes together.

Crackle 

Celebrity Presence: Jerry Seinfeld, David Arquette, Missi Pyle.

New Shows Presented: Plenty of them, including Extraction, a feature-length thriller starring Danny Glover and Vinnie Jones, Cleaners, an assassin action series with a cast including Arquette and Gina Gershon, and Strand Street, directed and produced by Milo Ventimiglia.

Biggest News Announced: As previously announced, there will be a second season of Jerry Seinfeld’s extremely successful Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee, but more importantly the landmark 2010 web series The Bannen Way will return in 2013 for six new half-hour episodes.

Money Quote: From the Hollywood Reporter’s coverage:

“Crackle is for the new living room,” Eric Berger, executive vice president of digital networks at Sony Pictures Television and GM of Crackle. “It’s programmed, it’s everywhere and its easily accessible. We’re not a content aggregator but a programmer much like a cable network.”

My Take: Anecdotal evidence suggests that Comedians In Cars has been huge for Crackle, introducing a whole new audience to the service, and the emphasis on thriller and drama programming is a positive step forward for those looking to see web original content mature.

But there’s this line from the press release: “The long-awaited sequel to the cult favorite David Spade comedy Joe Dirt will break new ground as the first made for digital movie that is a sequel to a hit motion picture.” We might be looking at two steps forward, one step back.

The reasons always vary, from the creators getting higher-profile work to the creators simply not having any more money. Which is why it’s been exciting to see, over the last two months, a number of web series that announced plans for second seasons in 2013, ranging from independent productions to studio-sponsored shows.

Burning Love

Produced by Paramount and Ben Stiller’s Red Hour Digital for Yahoo, Burning Love was already a lot of fun — the dead-on Bachelor parody had an incredible cast, including Rob Marino, Michael Ian Black, Adam Scott, Malin Ackerman, Kristin Bell, and Ken Jeong.

It’s the sort of fun lark you’d expect to peter out after Season 1, especially because everyone involved has plenty of other stuff going on — so, when Marino revealed that a Season 2 and 3 were in the works, it was a delightful surprise.

Season 2, in classic Bachelor tradition, will feature an unsuccessful lady from the first season as a bachelorette being courted by suitors like Michael Cera, Nick Kroll, Paul Scheer, Kumail Nanjiani and Jerry O’Connell.

Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee

Possibly the most chill web series of 2012, Jerry Seinfeld’s interests in cars, coffee and other comedians collided in this Crackle series. According to The New York Times, the 10-episode first season, which featured comedy greats including Larry David, Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks, brought more than 10 million unique visitors to Crackle, and will be followed up by 24 new episodes.

While those first 10 episodes were ad-free, the big change for season two will be trying to solve that whole “making money with it” dilemma. “This next go-round we’re going to have to figure out some sort of revenue stream, so it makes more sense,” Seinfeld told the Times. With Seinfeld’s pedigree and the first season’s success, they should have some luck with it.

Squaresville

Matt Enlow’s teen dramedy, starring Mary-Kate Wiles and Kylie Sparks, initially funded its first season with Kickstarter and later partnered with Big Frame for production support. The series has an active social media presence, including Twitter and Tumblr, but one question they’d been very quiet on was where plans for a second season stood.

Until last month, that is, when Enlow and Wiles took to YouTube to announce that a second season had in fact been shot and would be coming out early 2013.

Viewcounts for Squaresville‘s first season ranged in the solid five figures, but more importantly the show took home three trophies from the IAWTV Awards earlier this month: Best Writing, Best Ensemble Cast, and Best Comedy Series. Season 2, therefore, should attract some attention.

Video Game High School

Season 1 of Brandon Laatsch and Freddie Wong’s video game comedy series not only helped launch the Rocket Jump platform, but racked up 31.5 million views in its first month online.

For the second season, the VGHS team has turned once again to Kickstarter, using their first season campaign as a model and asking for $636,010, the exact cost of the first season (which Wong recently revealed in infographic form).

The second season format, according to Kickstarter, will be six “TV-length” episodes with a total runtime of 160-180 minutes. Most intriguingly, they’re offering “stretch” goals should they exceed their funding, including — at the $1,000,000 level — a limited theatrical distribution.

It’s not so much that 2013 is the year of the second season, but more the year of more web series becoming sustainable. And each success story is a positive sign for the web video space.

Plans to launch an Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iPhone version are still in the works, according to the LAT, which first reported on the app. At the moment, Netflix’s subscription app appears to be the dominant video streaming service on Apple, though Hulu Plus and many other options are available as well.

Android users have dozens of streaming video providers to choose from as well. For one, there’s Blockbuster (NYSE: BBI), but only a small number of smartphones feature it. Slingbox is only available to consumers who have the device on their TVs at home. As for YouTube, it also has movie rentals, but the selection of titles remain fairly slim.

Those limited services present Crackle with an opportunity. Sony’s video site hasn’t captured users’ attention in quite the same way Hulu has, despite the big head start it had. It began life as Grouper in 2004 and was rechristened as Crackle a year after Sony paid $65 million for it in 2006.

Sony has continued to back the video streaming the site and has been looking for ways to expand its presence, such as through its Playstation Network, hoping that the combination online video and gaming will give Crackle a necessary lift it’s been waiting for.

— Crackle.com pulls plug on uploads: It’s been almost two years since *Sony* rebranded online video hub Grouper as Crackle, and now the transition from UGC site to premium content destination seems to be complete. Case in point — Sony (NYSE: SNE) sent an email to Crackle users informing them that as of June 1, it will no longer support video uploads or peer-to-peer video sharing. Users that have already uploaded or bookmarked clips will still be able to see them, though the company said it might even kill that functionality eventually.

Sony says Crackle has doubled its traffic in recent months — no numbers provided. Crackle will have an exclusive window for original short-form online programming from Sony Pictures.

Updated: THR reports that the co-founders new “roles are changing and that’s still being worked out.” The spokesman also said that the company has “let some people go,” which as rumored before, are about 8 people out of a total of 60, as NTV reports here. The company insists everything is fine. Sure.