hulu

For a long time, I've said that YouTube could become the Web's supreme ruler of short-form and long-form video should it ever offer feature films and TV shows.

The Web's top video-sharing site now appears to be preparing to make such a move. YouTube has begun experimenting with delivering longer videos than the typical 10-minute clips allowed on the site, Fortune magazine reported Wednesday. On YouTube now are several full-length documentaries and TV shows. (See one of those videos, Howard Buttelman, Daredevil Stuntman, embedded below.)

The question is whether Google is making the move too late.

Long-form … Read more

Mark Cuban sounds almost giddy in a blog about Google CEO Eric Schmidt's acknowledgment that the company hasn't figured out how to make YouTube profitable.

Cuban, the founder of Broadcast.com and owner of high-def cable channel HDNet all but said "I told you so."

"It is coming up on two years (since I posted) my declaration that only a moron would buy YouTube," Cuban wrote, "and that Google was crazy for actually going through with it...YouTube has become the poster child for the old saying "we are losing money on … Read more

I work for frog design, and frequently at conferences and parties, people ask me about the name: What does it mean? Where does it come from? While some suspect it symbolizes the agility of that animal species, the truth is that our German founder, Hartmut Esslinger, coined it as an acronym for "federal republic of germany" -- the lower case spelling of "frog" referencing the egalitarian tradition of Marxist semantics, back then in the 60s when frog was born.

Sam Birger, the founder of Nomenon, a renowned naming firm, whom I met in NY last week, … Read more

As part of a comeback attempt by the WB Network, Warner Bros. Television Group has cut deals to distribute TV shows to TiVo, Veoh Networks, and other Web video sites.

The WB is the network made famous by such teen fare as Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls. The network shut down in 2006, when Warner Bros. partnered with CBS to launch the CW Television Network.

Warner Bros. said in April that it would relaunch the network as an online-only play. The company said in a statement on Thursday that in September, Dailymotion, Joost, Sling Media, TiVo, and Veoh … Read more

In the great cycle of technology, today is the day-after-Jobs-keynote when we are bummed about the morsels that were dished out the day before. Witness: iPhone activation, lockdown, and data plan woes. Also, ISPs take one big step down the slippery slope, the SUV takes a nosedive, and Stewart and Colbert hit Hulu. Rejoice!

Apple may soon be free from AT&T http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-9964695-17.html

iPhone 3G: AT&T memo to retail managers shows iPhone 3G policy http://gizmodo.com/5014909/att-memo-to-retail-managers-shows-iphone-3g-policy http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/06/09/3g_iphone_to_be_in_store_activated_free_upgrade_for_recent_buyers.html … Read more

This post was updated at 11:01 AM PT on Tuesday to clarify wording: television content from Viacom is almost exclusively handled by MTV Networks.

In an unexpected move, video site Hulu will be getting some political loudmouths just in time for the 2008 presidential election: Comedy Central's late-night personalities Jon Stewart of The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert of The Colbert Report.

We had to check and make sure the press release wasn't a joke, but there are indeed full episodes from both programs available. It comes as somewhat of a surprise, considering Comedy … Read more

Heavy, an online video play that caters to the Maxim crowd, has laid off 25 employees or about 22 percent of the company's workforce, a spokesman said Thursday.

Heavy said earlier in the week that it planned to spin off its online video ad network division. Rafat Ali at PaidContent.org, who broke the story about Heavy's layoffs, wrote that CEO Simon Assaad told him the layoffs were "a result of this spinoff, where the company realized some of the projects they were working on were not needed."

I read that as Heavy not being able … Read more

Veoh, an online video site, sure can attract VIP investors.

The company announced that it has received another round of funding, this time for $30 million, from such new backers as Intel and Adobe Systems. Previous investors include Goldman Sachs and former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.

Veoh, once widely referred to as a video-sharing company, has taken to calling itself an Internet TV service. The term video sharing is considered an unattractive label for a company--unless you're YouTube, that is. It implies that you're trying to take on the powerhouse, and almost everyone has given up on doing … Read more

The Roku Netflix Player debuted last week to largely positive accolades. And why not? The $100 Netflix box delivers on-demand video to your TV for a flat monthly fee that's as low as $9 a month--the same price that would rent you just two to three movies on Apple TV or Vudu. But if the Roku box (and subsequent Netflix-compatible players) has an Achilles heel, it's the dearth of content: only about 10 percent of Netflix's 100,000-plus DVD library is available for streaming, thanks to Hollywood's byzantine licensing systems. The Roku box could stand to have another content source--and I think Hulu would be a perfect candidate. … Read more