YouTube unveiled this week YouTube.com/XL, a revamped version of YouTube.com/TV that is intended to be viewed on a television set or on a large PC screen.

This YouTube.com/XL (YouTube extra large) works on any Web browser that can be connected to a TV, whether it is a game console, a PC or another device.

It can be controlled not only with a keyboard, but also with some remote controls (including Android phones).

Rather than a donwloadable app for viewing, like Hulu desktpop -see below-, YouTube is choosing to go all browser, no plug-in required (It is an AJAX-powered IU).

Not all the YouTube content is available here. Many content providers have been reluctant to allow television viewing of full-lenght episodes they post online.

Hulu Desktop

This development comes just a week after YouTube’s top online rival, Hulu, unveiled a desktop app that can be controlled through a remote. This free, downloable app, works either in Windows or Mac. It allows to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons.


Google Launches An Alpha Version of Chrome Browser For Mac And Linux

Google has developed a version of Chrome browser for Mac OS X and Linux.

“Please don’t download it unless you are a developer or take great pleasure in incomplete, unpredictable, and potentially crashing software” “How incomplete? So incomplete that, among other things , you won't yet be able to view YouTube videos, change your privacy settings, set your default search provider, or even print,” Google warns.

Some developers say that this is the fastest browser even seen.

However, there are just too many missing features that people expect in a browser.


Apple’s App Store Developers Nightmare

After the Apple App Store has passed the 30,000-titles milestone, developers are complaining that with Apple’s way of working it’s very difficult for an app to rise above the noise.

Experts say that Apple’s criteria for featuring apps is based not on how well they’re selling but because they show off the best features of iPhones and iPod Touches, so they can sell more devices.

For a developer wanted to gaining entrance in the playing field, he need to pay a nominal $99-a year for the iPhone Developer Program. A completed app must secure Apple’s approval before it is put on sale in the App Store. It’s often a slow process. Apple takes a 30 percent cut of App Store sales.


Multi-fingered Touch Technology Coming Up

PC manufacturers and software makers (HP, Dell, Microsoft and Intel, among them) are seeing a future in 10-fingered touch screens, far beyond the two fingers technology.

Computers with the special screens will cost consumers about $100 more than standard machines.

Now only two milion of about 300 million PCs sold last year were touch Computers. Among them is the $1,150 TouchSmart HP computer. Tablelike Computers with plastic pend remain a niche, too.

In addition, HP has been selling touch technology to large businesses. Customers can turn both desktops and laptops into kiosks, for, say, ordering merchandise at a sporting evento r flipping through a menu while waiting in a restaurant.

The new version of Windows 7 will use touch technology allowing people to interact with several fingers.


BBC World News App For Live-streaming on iPhones over 3G and Wi/Fi

BBC World News has launched this week the BBC World News app, allowing users of the iPhone and iPod Touch in sixteen European countries to watch the channel live on their devices over Wi-Fi and 3G networks.

This app is available for €7.99 at the Apple App Store.

Jim Egan, Director of Strategy and Business Development at BBC Global News, says: “This is an exciting new way for BBC World News viewers living in Europe to watch the channel anywhere. With live TV streaming alongside the BBC’s mobile news site the app is a complete on-demand news service. Having a news channel available live on the iPhone at this level of broadcast quality is a world first. We aim to extend this service to iPhone owners in other regions soon."


Nokia's New App Store Includes Video

Now some video apps are available through Nokia’s new app store, called Ovi Store.
It includes an app allowing users to download movies from Amazon. Users can also record video with their phones and upload it to YouTube. An app called MinimobiTV allows, as a subscription service, watch TV episodes and shows.

Like the iPhone App store, the Ovi Store features movie-related and other games, movie trailers, podcast and location-based services applications.

Ovi Store apps run on about 60 different Nokia S40 and S60 phone models.

Wait a second! Web videos... without Adobe Flash plug-in?

Firefox 3.5, which is now a very stable beta, is faster than earlier versions, and most importantly, it embraces open-source video standards and treats videos like web pages (you can’t do any of that with Flash). If this takes off, Flash video could become history.

Built into the Firefox 3.5 browser is a video player based on the open-source video formats Ogg Vorbis and Theora. The video player supports HTML5, which means that links and other interactive elements can easily be placed inside videos. Ogg Vorbis format makes video programmable.

Videos today are still for the most part siloed off from the rest of the Web in their Flash players as a separate experience. Same expert proclaim that “it is time to break down those walls.”

Already, DailyMotion offers videos in the Ogg Theora format. Its platform is located at openvideo.dailymotion.com.

These new encoding formats, supported by the Mozilla foundation, are Ogg, Theora + Vorbis. They’re not yet as good as other common codecs such as H264, ON2 VP6, but there are free to use, and the quality is improving.

The demo page can be found here (but the effects only work if you are looking at it in Firefox 3.5)

“Being able to treat the content inside videos like Web pages opens up a whole new world of possibilities for Web video, ” experts say.


The New iPhone 3GS Will Enable Video Capture and Upload To YouTube

June 19 will be on the sale the new iPhone 3GS (starting at $199). This device will finally enable video capture (something that had only been available by “jailbreaking”), using for that its 3-megapixel autofocus camera. Video-specific tools include touch editing, timeline view, and sharing directly from the phone to email, MMS on supporting carriers, YouTube and MobileMe.

Old 3G iPhones won’t get a software upgrade to enable video. Application developers will also have access to video capture.

Apple also announced in the same San Francisco developers conference an innovative HTTP adaptive bitrate streaming for both the desktop and iPhone. Streaming video will pick the right bitrate and go through firewalls because it’s over HTTP.

People now will be able to rent and purchase movies, TV shows and audiobooks from the iPhone.


Qik’s Live-Streaming Software Will Be Pre-Loaded on Nokia N97 Phone

Qik’s live, mobile video-streaming software will be pre-loaded onto all of Nokia’s Symbian S60 handsets, starting with the N97. See a sample here.

This live-streams will be shareable to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

This Qik’s live-streaming software had already been featured on Nokia’s Ovi App Store.

Big mobile players are jumping avidly in the capturing and sharing video business.

Apple has unveiled its new video-enabled 3G iPhone, and Google Android has added this feature too.


A Logical Extension of the Web into the Cable VOD

Cable VOD (Video-on-demand) is becoming more Web like, adding Internet-like capabilities, such as search tools, playlists, and new storage systems to centrally keep the videos and then distributing them via fiber interconnections to edge devices.

Advanced server side search technology is being developed to navigate through ten of thousand of titles. The industry also wants to add a kind of “recommendation engines”, to boost sales in Amazon and Netfilx, among other vendors.

Playlists may be linked between smart phones and the set-top devices in the home. The goal is to provide a personalized experience for individual users, developing two-way network.


Cisco Says the Web of the Future Is All About Video

By 2013, 90 percent of web traffic will be video, from services like Hulu.com to video-on-demand via the local cable provider, predicts Cisco.

Cisco notes that video is slowly moving from being deliverd via broadcast and cable TV to being delivered as an IPTV service. People are also carrying around more video-capable devices, such as mobile phones that can also capture video –and once that video is captured, people are inclined to share it via the web.

Sorenson 360 Allows Web Video on the iPhone

Sorenson is now able to publish web video on the iPhone’s Web browser without any separate app. This technology, called Sorenson 360, uses H.264 codec.

“Sorenson 360 detects how your audience is trying to view your video and delivers an optimized playback experience for whatever device they have. One embed code is all you need,” this firm states.

There is a free 30-days trial. See the video here.

See how a kids video start-up Totlol.com is staying afloat. Economic pressures forced initially close down. Audiences implored to keep it up, and site now features obtrusive ads and registration before they can go any further.

Creators explain: “Totlol is a video website designed specifically for children. It is community moderated. It is constantly growing. It is powered by YouTube. The videos were submitted, screened and rated by parents. The selection is huge and if you like, you can participate too.”

Totlol creators developed an application in which users can create profiles, manage their favorites, and do specific searches. They use YouTube as a video platform. Independent developers can do it so –courtesy of Google/YouTube.

Hundred of parents have submitted more than 15,000 clips. Totlol has received tons of press, was an official honoree in the 2009 Webby Awards, was named in the Top 100 Undiscovered Web Sites in 2008 by PC Magazine, and even has an iPhone application.


YouTube Now Allows 2 GB Uploads

YouTube has doubled the size of standard uploads for regular accounts holders (non partners videos) to 2 GB from 1 GB, but length is still limited to 10 minutes. The move was in order to accommodate user’s HD uploads.

YouTube is also making it easier to share and embed HD videos. There is a “play in HD” option when you’re configuring an embed code to copy and paste elsewhere. Also, any video plays in HD adding ton any URL this code: &hd=1. In the past it was possible only appending &fmt=22.


Video Site Seeismic Turns into Social Aggregation Tools

Seesmic.com, that raised significant funding -$12 million- and made multiple round of layout, has redesigned its size deemphasizing its video conversation service in favor of supporting its social aggregation tool, Seesmic Desktop, and associated products.

Seismic CEO Loic Le Meur posted a video on his site saying that the video community was not growing. He asserted that competitors like 12seconds are not seeing growth either.

At times Seeismic experimented with producing original shows and hosting chat sessions with famous people.

Experts think that quick-upload video from phones and webcams is definitely growing on larger sites like YouTube and Facebook.


‘The Simpsons’ Worth More on Hulu.com than on Traditional TV

This is cool: For the first time, ads presented during shows like The Simpsons and CSI are getting higher ad rates online than they are on TV. Bloomberg reports that The Simpsons got a $60 CPM on Hulu, while a typical prime-time ad on television carries a $20 - $40 CPM.

It means that having a loyal audience is paying off for premium video content portals like Hulu and TV.com in the form of higher CPMs than what the networks are getting.

“The reason people are paying such a high premium for these ads on the Internet is they do have a captive audience,” experts said. “You know you have eyes on the screen.”

However, Web viewing and ad sales while increasing are still too small to replace traditional revenue sources. As the economy improves, it is expected that demand for premium programming on the Internet will increase as well.


Mobile Video Growing Exponentially on YouTube

The new iPhone 3GS –sold out in many stores- is already affecting web video in a big way. YouTube said the new iPhone was responsible for more than half of its mobile uploads in the last week. Since its release, video uploads are up 400 percent per day (no total number of mobile uploads are disclosed).

Facebook has released a feature called “Live-Stream Box”, which allows anyone to add a Facebook chat on its own site or its Facebook page. We saw this feature on CNN during Obama’s inauguration, among other sites.

When the box is enabled, users will be prompted to log into their Facebook accounts from a page where they want to watch a live video broadcast. They will then be able to toggle between an “everyone watching” tab, which shows all global status updates submitted by people watching through the app, as well as “friends” tab which just shows all their friends updates in real time.

This feature uses Facebook Connect.

“You can run the Live Stream Box next to live streaming videos of concerts, speeches, sporting events, webcasts, TV shows, presentations, or webinars,” Facebook says.

To get this widget it is needed a Facebook API key, upload a small file to your site, and embed a few lines of code into your Web page. Here you are the full instructions. And here it is a general explanation.


Real Goes Beyond RealPlayer 11 and Makes Video Portable for Cellphones

Important move by Real Networks launching RealPlayer SP, which re-encodes downloaded video and makes it portable. Two years ago they launched RealPlayer 11 (over 300 million downloads since then) and now adds a feature inviting the user to move and share the video. It converts the video for a BlackBerry, Nokia, iPhone, iPod or Xbox.

Many content owners have said that this feature is not legal, but Real says its software it doesn’t work on sites that put DRM around their videos, such as Hulu.

The beta is available here. A Mac version will be available at the end of the year.

(A good idea is using http://reeplay.it to bookmark/share/save video)


Brightcove Is Now Profitable, Says Its CEO

Brightcove CEO Says Company is Profitable, Cash-Flow Positive; Jeremy Allaire credits the revenue growth, in part, to traction in the enterprise and government verticals.

Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire said company now is profitable, cash-flow positive. “While this is a big deal for Brightcove, it’s an even bigger deal for the industry and is validation that companies in this market can in fact create scalable, profitable businesses,” expert Dan Rayburn writes.

Brightcove now has over 700 premium customers. Rayburn estimates that the company will do about $80 M this year, after seeing 50 % revenue growth.

Jeremy Allaire credits the revenue growth, in part, to traction in the enterprise and government verticals.


Animating a Set of Photos As Never Seen

Slideshow creation platform Animoto.com has raised additional $4.4 million funding that will be used to accelerate product development, add video, explore distribution possibilities with photo-sharing sites, and make new hires.

New York-based Animoto, which has 18 employees, is cash-flow positive. It has 750,000 registered users, of which 10 percent have paid for a premium product, which include consumer and professional subscriptions, as well as DVD purchases.

The company’s speciality is animating a set of photos to practically dance to the music through its analysis of song structure. It’s cooler than an average slideshow.

Animoto won best services and applications web site this year. Here is the Webby Award slideshow.