After the recent acquisition of YouTube by Google, start-ups specializing in Internet video content are finding new niches. One who is trying to get off the ground is the Manhattan-based company Blip.tv.
This company has manage to differentiate itself from video-sharing sites. Blip.tv is designed for online TV shows that are filmed, uploaded, and watched regularly. For example, the Rocketboom former host Amanda Congdon has her own show.
Ad support business model
This start-up has a business model based on ad support, but has yet to launch its service in full. Blip members who participate in an opt-in advertising program will receive a share of the revenue. Also, Blip develops software: they struck a deal with CNN to empower its I-Report citizen journalism site.
Some experts say that it is impossible to tell which of these Web 2.0 startups (these days popping up like mushrooms) will be survivors. According to them, Blip.tv has some potential.
YouTube forced by Comedy Central to remove their popular clips
Ooops! More interesting video clips disappearing off from YouTube. Click on many of the links to Comedy Central clips (the Daily Show, the Colbert Report...) on YouTube and you will get the message: "This video has been removed due to terms of use violation".
Comedy Central, a Viacom unit, haven't had an issue with YouTube before the Google acquisition. YouTube has been thriving with Comedy Central content, probably the most widespread TV brand on the site.
Cisco promises a unique in-person video communication experience
Cisco Systems has launched a new technology for virtual communications called TelePresence, a high quality, two-way video and audio that can change deeply remote collaborations (Watch their promo clip).
Cisco TelePresence, featured "as if you are there" technology is focusing in global corporations, governments and organizations that need to stay in touch with employees, partners and customers. By July 2007 Cisco will have deployed this technology in 110 of its own worldwide offices.
IP phone, hi-def video and 65-inch plasma TV
"Cisco TelePresence Meeting, uses extremely high-definition video and audio technologies, including 65-inch life-size plasma TV screens, sophisticated spatial audio, and advanced cameras that provide eye-to-eye contact. And participants can easily perceive the subtlest facial and body expressions of their counterparts," a press release says.
"We have given a taste of this system to top executives from over 200 major corporations, as well as President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and the Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger. They have all said the same thing: this will profoundly change the way people communicate."
An exclusive one minute news video for the web twice a day on FoxNews
Fox News Channel is experimenting with a twice-daily one minute web video segment called Fox News Flash. The idea is to produce a short, less than a minute, web-only news updated.
The videos are accessible on FoxNews.com and MySpace.com, a property of News Corporation. "This has been a Fox News digital media exclusive," the video says at the end.
The video sites are an investment, not an expense
Please consider for one second what Steve Safran, a web industry expert writes this week about the multimedia sites and the traditional TV. Many TV stations are spending a ton of money to go hi-def, and nobody is asking them about the return. They only follow the FCC mandatory rule to go digital by 2009.
But the marketplace is demanding stations get serious online right now, and they are plenty of doubts. The web has a big potential and it is a way to understand better audiences. There is money in that.
"Stop putting the web into the expense column, and start coming up with a five-year business plan that makes it a profit center," says Safran. "You have to stop thinking of the web as an expense. It’s your future."
