video

Apparently, Google doesn't have a sense of humor when it comes to puns related to its YouTube video site.

The company is preparing to challenge the use of the name "JewTube" for a Jewish-related video site on trademark grounds, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which was reported on by WebProNews.

A lawyer for NetParty, listed as the owner of JewTube, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. A Google spokesman said he was checking into the matter.

Meanwhile, Google rival Yahoo apparently wasn't so bothered by Jewhoo, a … Read more

Somebody combined the Village People's hit song, "YMCA," with footage of a dancing Adolf Hitler and posted the clip to YouTube. Now the company that owns the rights to the band's music is preparing to sue YouTube.

John Giacobbi, president of Web Sheriff, which hunts down pirated material on the Web and tries to get it removed, said his company has sent 500 "take-down" notices to YouTube. Each time the video is pulled, someone else uploads another copy. Giacobbi believes that YouTube has the ability to screen for copyright content in the same way … Read more

Up until this afternoon I had never heard of the expression "hypervideo," although I was quite familiar with the concept having used it in video services like Viddler, and enhanced podcasts in Windows Media Player. The idea is simple--take hyperlinks and textual information, and add it to various times or positions on a video. The result is that your viewers can have added contextual information about whatever they're watching, at the moment it happens.

The hard part is the execution, and making things user-friendly. A service called Asterpix has taken a stab at it with a hypervideo … Read more

Revver, a video-sharing site trudging along in YouTube's shadow, announced Wednesday that the company paid $1 million to videographers over the past year.

Los Angeles-based Revver, among the first Web sites to share advertising revenue with video creators, paid the money to 25,000 people, the company said in a press release.

Because Revver splits ad money with creators, 50-50, Nick Gonzalez at TechCrunch figured that the company makes around $2 million to $2.5 million from advertisers.

He also suggested that the figure could be lower if Revver pays more to high-end video makers.

Each month, I get a fun little e-mail from Nielsen/NetRatings, the online division of the big-name metrics firm, with some tracking numbers for unique visitors at social media sites--namely, social networks, blogs, and video-sharing sites. They're pretty anecdotal as far as traffic metrics go, but it's still fun to see who's losing and who's gaining--you know, like sports. And each month, I eagerly open the e-mail (no, really) to see if there are any juicy surprises in store. This month's version, which includes numbers for August (percentage growth from August 2006 to August 2007, … Read more

SplashCast is launching a handful of updates to its player this morning. The biggest is inline chat, which was essentially the next step after last month's inclusion of inline text, voice, and video commenting. Although this new feature isn't rolling out to everyone right away--the company is beginning with the branded artist channels launched a few months back. To jump into a chat, there's a simple "join chat" button on the bottom-left-hand side of the player. Clicking it takes you right in to an IRC-style simple chat.

Also new is a feature called FanCast which is kind of like Kyte.TV in that you can give your users an e-mail address to send photos and videos, and they'll go up in an ad-hoc playlist made available to all. If you're the channel owner, you can also moderate that content, keeping some amount of editorial control over what your viewers are adding to the conversation.

SplashCast is also adding integration to Twitter. The service gets its very own icon, which, when clicked, lets you log in to your Twitter account and post a brief note along with a link to the show as a status update. If you're already using another service like TwitThis (review), this might not be so important, but unlike sharing the whole player, you can drill down and share any piece of media therein.

I've embedded an example player after the break. To view it, click the read more button below.

… Read more

We reported back in July that MySpace in the midst of a deal with the creators of the movie Blood Diamond to create a new Web-based program called Quarterlife. At the time, it wasn't confirmed, representatives from the parties involved declined to comment, and quarterlife.com was password-protected.

Now, it's official: a release from MySpace has confirmed that Quarterlife will debut on its MySpaceTV platform on November 11. A project of Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, who created the TV shows My So-Called Life and Thirtysomething in addition to Blood Diamond, the new Web show will follow the … Read more

Chalk this up to overkill. The New England Patriots, victors in three of the past six Super Bowls, are accused of using technology to gain an unfair advantage last Sunday.

The NFL's front office has determined that the Patriots swiped defensive signals during Sunday's 38-14 drubbing of the New York Jets, according to a report published Tuesday on ESPN.com. League officials confiscated a video camera and tape from one of the Patriots' assistant coaches after he allegedly was caught taping Jets' coaches sending hand signals, ESPN reported.

A spokesman for the league could not be reached for … Read more

Philipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped has information about a leaked video with details about Google Reader and the company's social efforts.

Lenssen was tipped off by a reader using the alias "Fanboy," who provided some notes from the video, which was presented by a Ben Darnell. Lenssen says he has confirmed that Darnell works at Google. The video is now offline.

The highlights from the video notes include: Google will create a standard for feed publishers to inform aggregators about changes and integrate more social features; "Mocha-Mocha" appears to be the code name for Google'… Read more