Traditional media brands are cranking out video content in the hopes of persuading marketers to shift ad budgets from TV to online offerings. But can companies like Conde Nast and the Wall Street journal deliver the necessary quality and audience size? Read more »
Programmatic buying for online video ads — which lets brands buy select audiences in real time — is growing rapidly. The spread of this buying technique may coincide with a drop in prices but the two phenomena are not necessarily connected. Read more »
Vimeo will allow creators with Pro memberships to charge for their video content starting Tuesday. Creators keep 90 percent of revenues, after transaction fees. Read more »
Bro videos — crotch shots, beer chugging, cool cars and so on — have long been a staple of the internet. Today, bro vids are also big business thanks to “man research” and big brands pouring money into making them. Read more »
Fanhattan, which is like a TV Guide for iPad, has launched out a beta web version with new discovery and recommendation features. On the web, it offers more content recommendations from more providers — 29 on the web, compared to 16 on iOS. Read more »
Online video ads are growing at a rapid rate but almost all of them are appearing on the desktop. Here’s some stats that also include a look at video ads on mobile and connected TV. Read more »
Looking for the turnaround story of 2013? Stop looking at Yahoo — it’s AOL that’s the real deal. The company has quietly put in place a powerful strategy based on media, technology and advertising. And investors like what they see. Read more »
With Netflix on a roll, its big European rival — Amazon-owned Lovefilm — seems more and more desperate to staunch the flow of subscribers quitting the service and moving elsewhere. Read more »
My Damn Channel is looking for a few hundred original comedy series to launch in 2013. The company has hired Eric Mortensen, formerly at Blip, as its director of programming and acquisitions, a new role. Read more »
U.K. digital satellite TV service Sky has launched Sky Go Extra, which lets customers download shows like Girls and Game of Thrones and movies to mobile devices for offline viewing. Read more »
What does next year have in store for the digital content business? Our media team offers some predictions, from cord cutting and apps to self publishing and paywalls. Read more at GigaOM »
Netflix currently has closed captions for 82 percent of all the videos it is streaming. By October 2014, this number will go up to 100 percent, according to a consent decree the company entered to settle a lawsuit with disability rights advocates. Read more »
Vimeo which recently broke into the top ten web video web destinations list, is giving video makers new ways of monetization. It is offering two new tools and has plans for others at it helps its indie creators grow. Read more »
Book publisher Simon & Schuster is ramping up video distribution, creating content channels and signing with partners like Roku, Blinkx and Taboola. For now, the videos are intended to promote books and authors, not to drive advertising revenue. Read more »
MLB.tv is one of success stories of the online video streaming business. Thanks to rabid baseball fans across the globe, the service has signed up millions of subscribers, racking up mega-millions of dollars in revenues. And today, the service celebrates its 10th birthday. Read more »
The Huffington Post is holding virtual political conventions during the DNC and RNC in order to promote its new video streaming network and call attention to issues like drugs and poverty. Read more »
Amazon takes another step on Apple’s digital media turf: Amazon Instant Video is now available for iPad, bringing another media option for movie purchases, rentals and television shows to Apple’s tablet. For now, Amazon is keeping this away from Android tablets, save its own Kindle Fire. Read more »
There’s an unprecedented amount of digital video coverage for this year’s Olympic Games and yet analysts suggest that the TV will easily trump viewing on other screens again. The numbers look low because of our time- and place-shifting mentality: Share your viewing plans in our poll. Read more »
Remember when Friendster was the hot social network, publishers doubted that ebooks would ever sell, and Netflix thought DVDs in red envelopes was the future? We do — that was that state of digital media when paidContent launched in 2002. Read more »
In just a short time with the Nexus 7 tablet, it’s clear that the device will appeal to the traditional Android crowd. But make no mistake: The Nexus is aimed squarely at low-cost consumption slates, such as the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet. Read more »
Mark Malkoff recently watched 252 Netflix movies in one single month to figure out how far he could take the company’s unlimited streaming plan. That instantly gained him notoriety as Netflix’s most obsessive user – and an invitation to the company’s campus in Los Gatos, Californa. Read more »
News Corp.’s Jon Miller explained to our Staci D. Kramer in a Q&A at paidContent 2012 that broadcasters actually need business-to-consumer outlets like Hulu in order to survive. That plus News Corp. in China, The Daily and more. Read more »
The killer asset in the video age is widely believed to be a large library full of content that can be sold, licensed and re-distributed onto emerging platforms. But media executives Rob Burnett and Lisa Gersh had different opinions at paidContent 2012. Read more »
While video lovers have gotten more social services that highlight interesting clips, it’s still hard to construct a more comprehensive look at video news. Newslook is trying to fill that gap with an iPad app that allows users to construct channels of their favorite news subjects. Read more at GigaOM »
Samsung announced on Wednesday that it has acquired mSpot, a cloud-based content company formed in 2004. Until now, mSpot offered music storage with streaming playback and also movie rentals for various mobile platforms. The purchase is likely to bolster Samsung’s Media Hub for content and storage. Read more »
Video portal DailyMotion is hoping to challenge YouTube woo more original content creators to its platform — by offering them the chance to raise funds directly through the site, in a new partnership with micropayments service Flattr. Read more »
Brightcove used to have significant staff in China, and was looking to expand in the country as late as March 2010 – but left China head over heels later that year. What’s left is Brightcove’s staff, now working for a local competitor, and the question: What happened? Read more »
Hulu Plus, Hulu’s paid subscription service, has hit 2 million users and is helping put the company’s revenue on a faster pace than last year, said Hulu’s CEO Jason Kilar, speaking at the Ad Age Digital conference in New York. Read more at GigaOM »
Google announced Monday that it has reached a deal to bring about 600 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film titles, including such classics as Rocky, The Terminator, Hoosiers, Robocop and Rain Man, to the film-rental catalogs of YouTube and Google Play. Read more »
The internet is supposed to be cannibalizing traditional TV viewership, not offering marketing support for its premieres. But the Big Four broadcaster networks seem to be settling into a buzz-building strategy of sampling new shows online before putting them on their air. Read more »
