Video Display Ads Deliver Interaction Rates of 36% by Daisy Whitney

Pre-rolls are the dominant form of online video advertising, but display ads still rule the Web in general. So it's natural for technologists to look for ways to build video into all those omnipresent banner ads. One of the latest efforts comes from social video platform VideoGenie, which has rolled out a new ad unit that marries user-generated video and display ads. ...Read the whole story

  • Could BSkyB's Now TV Disrupt the Pay-TV Business Model? by Ross Fadner

    BSkyB, News Corp's UK-based pay TV operator, is set to challenge the likes of Netflix and LoveFilm with a new streaming TV service that launches in the UK Tuesday on PC, Mac and some Android devices. Analysts warn that the new service, called Now TV, could disrupt the established pay-TV business model of bundling channels together to sell at a hefty monthly subscription fee if it is successful. ...Read the whole story

  • MSNBC.com Is No More, Becomes NBCNews.com Following Buyout From Microsoft by Joe Mandese

    After 16 years of collaboration between Microsoft and NBC News, MSNBC.com is no more. Comcast, the parent of NBC Universal, has acquired Microsoft's 50% stake in the news site -- reportedly for $300 million -- and rebranded it NBCNews.com. ...Read the whole story

The Chasm Between Vcs And Content Companies Is About To Get Larger by Ashkan Karbasfrooshan

History has a way of repeating itself -- except, of course, when it doesn't. Back in 2000, I saw firsthand how venture-backed TheMan crashed, burning through $17 million in capital, while my company AskMen survived and thrived on only $500,000 in funding. Today, AskMen is a unit in FOX's empire; TheMan is a footnote in dot-com history. ...More

  • With Web-Based Series, Who Has The Last Laugh? by Wayne Friedman

    Jerry Seinfeld wants to give us a coffee break from our usual TV menu by starting a Web-based series,"Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee," on Sony Pictures Television's original video site Crackle. That will help boost Crackle in its competition with bigger video sites like Hulu, YouTube and Netflix. Crackle has done this before with a few other celebrities. Some might say they are vanity projects. ...More