Google Trends: The Video Show by Steve Smith

As if to underscore the video-fication of all content, Google launched an informational video series last week called Google Beat. The weekly show lasts only a minute and a half. As a brand extension, it is nicely done, especially for the usually ham-handed Google. The lovely hostess Anne Espiritu stands before an oddly decorated backdrop of assorted furniture on a Google-white stage. Googling and the trends it reveals is the topic at hand. Each show will highlight and explain some of the top search trends for the week. ...Read the whole story

  • YouTube Releases Ridley Scott's 'Life In A Day' Project Raw Footage by Laurie Sullivan

    Google's YouTube/Ridley Scott project, Life in a Day, has launched a video gallery making available to view raw footage from some of the 80,000 video submissions across 197 countries and 45 languages. The project, which YouTube calls a "historic global film experiment," becomes searchable by geography, time of day, mood and more. ...Read the whole story

  • food Lindt Ads Serve Up Tennis Star Federer by Karlene Lukovitz

    The 30-second spot, initially airing in a two-week national flight corresponding with the U.S. Open (Aug. 29 - Sept. 12) -- which Federer has won five times in the past six years -- shows two female airport security agents taste-testing the athlete's stash of Lindor Truffles and confiscating them for further "investigation" (as well as checking out Federer's well-toned posterior and considering a strip search). ...Read the whole story

  • YouTube, MLB Deal Streams Video On Demand To Japanese Fans by Laurie Sullivan

    YouTube and MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM), the interactive media and Internet arm of Major League Baseball, announced a partnership Monday to offer baseball fans in Japan a way to follow the game. ...Read the whole story

The Evolution of Video Chat by Jason Katz

When people think of online video, many think YouTube. But before YouTube was even a twinkle in the eyes of its developers, online video was already in full force, just in the form of video chat. Ever since the early days of video chat, there were ideas in place to enhance the technology, taking text + image to text + image + voice, and so on and so forth. So, why might you ask, isn't video chat a bigger phenomenon than it currently is? ...More

  • What's Your Video App Strategy? by Mike Henry

    I recently moderated a panel focused on the intersection of apps and video (it was the video part of an app conference). It gave me the chance to meet some new people and more deeply consider what's unique about building an app to support content distribution and monetization when the content in question is video. For the panel, we focused primarily on the value of an app strategy to publishers in terms of how they produce, promote, distribute and monetize video content. Here are the key takeaways: ...More