Click.tv .... tag, you're it!

This article points to Click.tv and its nifty interactive Flash player. I tried it out and can say this goes beyond Veohtag and MotionBox... Click.tv engages viewers and invites their participation. WOW. Nice step.

It's a new service with some bugs, but highly recommended to anyone producing web based videos with a purpose. With a bit of help from KeepVid, I was able to download a video I had posted a while back to Google video. I uploaded the resulting .flv file to my own ISP and then used Click.tv to tag it and embed it below. My only gripe is the links I embedded in my comments conflict with my popup blocker. Mike Lanza (CEO of Click.tv), are you listening?

Now THIS is a video podcast: New York Times

At last, and just in time. Magazines and news organizations now recognize that they have unique access to news, which they can now distribute via video. While this post came from YouTube (with over 100,000 views at this time), the iTunes version is a full 640x480 file... suitable for Apple TV? We will soon find out, and at least I know I can get news this way as opposed to TV news. I, for one, much prefer this.

Sun CEO comes clean, via podcast

This is hot. Not that it's a cool video, or a nice embedded player, or even a great interview. It's hot because it's a CEO of a major corporation speaking directly to the world.

Sun CEO Jonathan Swartz blogs! What's more, he gives great interviews to Robert Scoble. Why doesn't the Wall Street Journal do interviews like this? Or the Chronicle, the Times, the Economist? Wait, maybe they should just syndicate Scoble and other "trusted correspondents". Now you see?

If creative journalists can be discovered on their own, without affiliation, they become even more valuable. Robert Scoble is truly a star, illuminating what "bottom up" media is all about.

Joost beta

For several months, the creators or Kazaa and Skype have been at work on "The Venice Project" (watch these video interviews). Now it has been launched as beta, and named Joost. This is what they say:

Joost™ is a new way to watch TV, free of the schedules and restrictions that come with traditional television. Combining the best of TV with the best of the internet, Joost™ gives you more control and freedom than ever before - control over what you watch, and freedom to watch it whenever you like. We're providing a platform for the best television content on the planet - a platform that will bring you the biggest and best shows from the TV studios, as well as the specialist programs created by professionals and enthusiasts. It's all overlaid with a raft of nifty features that help you find the shows you love, watch and chat with friends, and even create your own TV channels.

Netflix downloads... the beauty of subscription revenues

With Netflix's new streaming service, the New York Times suggests a period of growth for the company. For an $18 a month subscription, users can watch 18 hours of video, starting and stopping movies as much as they like. It reminds me of the AOL subscriptions that poured in during the 90s. Most people never used the time they had allotted to them, but payed for the access anyway. Sounds like NetFlix will grow handsomely.

NetFlix now gets nearly a billion dollars a year from over 6 million subscribers. They are partners with the major movie studios, they rent HD DVDs, and now they offer freedom to download with subscriptions. Nice move. Only 1,000 movies will be available at first, but that is quite a selection.

Video search: where are we?

This 5 min video (from Media 3.0 with Shelly Palmer) gives a pretty good overview. Basically, video sharing services have created a need for better tools to help us find what we want. They mention Blinkx and Fast Search but it's clearly pretty much an open question today.

Post macworld post: Apple TV

So now the presses are rolling about iPhone, which looks like a great device (OK... not video tracking, but, hey... note there is Wifi and a slot for SIM cards, which means the phone will work on any GSM or Wifi network, worldwide... my question is: When will Skype be available on the device?... then... I can just buy it and not sign up for Cingular or anyone else... if Cingular has 58 million users and Apple hopes to sell 10 million iPhones in 2007, then they have to have other options, no?... of course, others see this too)

Now, about the Apple TV. There will be a lot of speculation about it as a DVD replacement. But, publishers might be the ones to push it forward. They have now moved online, and video is a big reason why (The journal of record for the New England Journal of Medicine is now the website, and the Wall Street Journal is now an online service with a paper attached). These publishers have no need to produce DVDs, but they could create compelling materials for distribution through devices like Apple TV. Cool!

Stay Tuned.

Sony set top box takes RSS feeds

Sony is making a new box available for use with a few of it's HDTVs. It connects to special AOL, Yahoo, and Grouper video services but also supports "user generated content" access and streamed videos via RSS feeds. I'm sure we will hear a few more announcements that bring internet-sourced content to HDTVs.

Starting points for making money with internet video

This post from Robin Good provides a summary of today's options for monetizing content.

Of significance, along with pointers to Revver, BrightRoll, and BrightCove, is an interesting reference to Ze Frank's "duckies". This simple page allows anyone to "buy and duckie" and add a message to The Show.