youtube

-- Google expands video ad test. Not to be confused with ads placed in user-generated videos on Google Video and YouTube, these video ads from Google will be embedded videos on the page that users must click on to begin. Google is now partnering with content providers such as The Wall Street Journal and Epicurious.com to bring Adsense video ads. (CNET News.com)

-- AT&T to ramp up IPTV rollouts. While Joost and Babelgum have made some noise among the blogs, the prospect of watching IPTV programming on an actual TV is coming closer to being a … Read more

Plenty of blogs have recently been buzzing about Joost, the new online video site devised by the creators of Skype and Kazaa, which was formerly known as the "Venice Project." I've been beta testing it too, but rather than posting a basic walkthrough, I'd like to know specifically what kinds of questions you have about it. So, post your Joost inquiries in the comments of this thread, and I'll answer each one in an upcoming thread about my experience with the beta.

You can be as general as you want ("Is it really going … Read more

My first run-in with Spymac was a completely accidental encounter a few years ago. I was pleasantly surprised to discover a site that had its own visual style and appeal. It pulled in some design cues from Apple but kept its own sense of personality. This week Spymac has relaunched itself as Leapfrog, a portal for user-generated media.

The old Spymac featured a variety of user services, including e-mail, blogs, and user forums. It was a community-driven site. The new Spymac Leapfrog is all about media. Think YouTube with Google's pastel color palete. Users can browse popular videos, pictures, … Read more

The AT&T acquisition of BellSouth and Cingular is final, and even though we haven't seen signs of it on Cingular's front page yet, AT&T will slowly roll out an ad campaign to phase out the Cingular brand. It won't be an overnight change, but much like the AT&T Wireless change to Cingular a few years back, subscribers will definitely see a change on their wireless bills within the next few months.

All this changing of hands from AT&T to the various Baby Bells to BellSouth and SBC and all … Read more

-- Skype founders name new video start-up Joost. The once-named "Venice Project" now has a real name. The service, which has been in private beta since this summer, aims to bring free, high-quality Internet programming through a Web-based interface. (News.com)

-- Putting a squeeze on Net video. Internet media technology company On2 has some exciting new codecs that could mean streaming high-definition video on services such as YouTube and Google Video in the near future. (News.com)

-- DMCA complaint with YouTube dropped. A controversial DMCA complaint about a video on YouTube has been dropped after the … Read more

YouTube and CBS have announced a partnership in the form of a contest for a chance to be featured during a Super Bowl commercial. YouTubers need simply create a 15-second video of anything they want and join the 15-second user group. The top five videos are picked by judges and put up on CBS.com, where people can vote on which one deserves the spot.

Dove is doing something similar for the Academy Awards, but the winners for that contest will get their own party out of it. There's no prize or revenue-sharing for this YouTube contest, so you'… Read more

Meet the latest contender to plunge into the deep end of the YouTube-killer pool. Say it five times fast: Next New Networks. The bloggers are all talking about this recently-announced Web video endeavor today, and most of them are pretty cynical--especially since Next New Networks is not the brainchild of some ambitious entrepreneurs, but rather a bevy of big-media veterans, led by former Nickelodeon president and MTV Networks vice chairman Herb Scannell. After all, when the broadcast TV networks announced a plan to team up, Captain Planet-style, on a YouTube rival, bloggers were skeptical. (They're more optimistic about … Read more

At the San Francisco New Tech Meetup Wednesday, Podaddies CEO Nate Pagel presented his new company, which puts ads into user-generated videos so that people can make a few bucks from their wacky cats' antics.

The service inserts a call to its ad engine at the end of a video, and displays a streaming QuickTime ad from its library. No matter where the file goes, the ad call goes with it. But not the ad itself; this way, the company gets to serve the ad on demand and can track ad plays and bill the advertiser for them (and cut … Read more

It might be Christmas Eve, but the blogs are still abuzz--mostly with speculation about the big changes in the tech scene that we may or may not be seeing 2007. Over the past couple of days, momentum has been building on a number of stories that are starting to paint what might be one of the first concrete trends we see for '07. Will the coming year be the year of the "killer," the year when big and not-so-big companies join forces to try and topple the products that seem to have a stranglehold on certain niches of … Read more