bitbucket.kylewelsh.com

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Sony's booth has to be pretty big to hold all the imaging goodies, so here's a whirlwind tour of it. You know Sony's making a play for the big boys in the DSLR arena, so the alpha-series had a good amount of serious-looking real estate. The fleet of Sony point-and-shoots were also on display; with all the colors, shapes and sizes the display looked like a candy counter. Tech development also got some floor space, and the live demo of face detection used by Sony's Handycams was particularly fun.

 

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While the strike by Hollywood writers is dragging on long enough to threaten the hallowed Oscars, video-viewing on the web is expanding as fast as ever. As a result, writers, directors and actors are considering splitting from the studios for good, creating their own videos that they can distribute across the web.

But what are the options, really, if you want to make a career as a screenwriter in the 21st century? Studios and broadcasters are balking at giving writers a share of online revenues, and if the length of this strike is any indication, writers are going to be hard-pressed to get a good deal even if the studio execs change their minds. Meanwhile, market-leading online video site YouTube shares only a token sum with even the most successful video creators on its site. To a creative type exploring options, this all looks pretty grim.

Yet there’s a whole range of new efforts to produce quality video content, from new studios founded by top directors and backed by hedge funds, to scrappy online video startups run by handfuls of web developers. Most of these sites hope to make money for content creators through advertising of some form, whether the usual banner and text-link ads, or various types of ads embedded before, within or after videos.

Notes: See Comscore table beneath the list for US and world traffic data. With an exception or two, we look at companies through an online video creator’s lens. We’re not counting video ad networks that don’t have their own video site or don’t otherwise produce or compensate content creation. We’re also not counting livecasting sites, which are more for people who blog their lives, as well as for covering live news events (if you want to see what your options are in livestreaming, check out our review, here).

If there’s a site you like, that you don’t see here, tell us about it in the comment. Thanks!

The sites:

Blip.tv:
Blip.tv is relatively small, at one and a quarter million unique visitors worldwide in December, but it has grown more than 125 percent in the past six months, according to Comscore. It offers revenue arrangements and help with distribution that are especially favorable to content creators. Revenue is shared 50/50, and the company also assists creators with PR, ad sales and syndication of their videos on other sites. Another plus is the option of embedding your own advertisements on your Blip.tv page. They warn that these DIY ads should not be sponsored advertisements, but rather CPM or CPC ads through AdSense or the like. Read more about it on their TOS page.

Blowtorch (our coverage):
A new, unlaunched $50 million effort that will show its own feature films and clips at hundreds of movie theaters across the country, starting later this year. It wants to be a movie studio of sorts, and a distribution network (DVDs), and an online community. The company tells us it is still working out deals for how it will reward aspiring writers, directors and actors. Blowtorch is producing its own feature-length movies, and has already bought the rights to “You Are Here,” a feature film that will be released in spring, 2008. It says it plans to buy the rights to more films that it finds to be a good fit with its target demographic of 18-24 year old college students.

Break.com:
These guys offer a pretty straight-forward way of making money, but it won’t necessarily be easy to do so. They will pay you up to $2,000 if your original video hits the homepage of the site - the keywords there being “up to” and “if”. Still, Break.com has been around for a while (since 1998) and claims 18,000,000 unique views a month, with 4.4 million unique visitors in, according to Comscore. Also, movie studio Lionsgate holds a 40 percent stake in the company. Also, Break has tried to lure striking writers across the picket line, offering $5,000 to the highest-rated video from a striker (more on that here). It had 4.3 unique visitors worldwide in December, according to Comscore.

Broadband Enterprises (our coverage):
This company isn’t a video site, instead it does everything else. It helps syndicate a creator’s content to web publishers, it inserts ads into the videos, and also finances its own videos, that it then syndicates and monetizes through ad sponsorships. It caters to a groundswell of writers, actors and directors interested in making careers online. It works out case-by-case revenue-sharing deals with content creators. We’re including it because the company makes case-by-case deals with creators to syndicate their content.

Channel101.com:
“The unavoidable future of entertainment,” is one of the older breeding grounds for video content creators, but expect no coddling. Viewers vote on which shows should return, and which should leave the site. Creators of selected shows produce a new episode for the next round. Don’t even think about profit-sharing. According to the site: “For the creatives that participate, Channel 101 is where the rubber meets the road. The deadlines are unreasonable, the time limit is impossible, the pay is non existent and the judgment is blunt.” Traffic is minimal but the concept remains unique.

Crackle (our coverage):
This company has gone from being a startup that featured user-created videos to a Sony-owned incubator for Hollywood talent. When it made the switch last year, it began signing deals with content creators, paying them to produce quality shows, and negotiated distribution rights. The company says its traffic is growing, with advertisers lining up because they are newly confident in the quality and taste of the content. Since the switch in July, US traffic has doubled, by Comscore’s measure, and it had more than 5.1 million unique visitors in December. That trend may have stayed strong through December because people who stopped watching TV due to the writers’ strike have spent more time on Crackle (our coverage).

DailyMotion (our coverage):
The Paris-based company is big in the francophone world, and made a push into the US starting last year. It promises a revenue-sharing solution for top content producers, but details are still scant at the moment. Separately, it raised $34 million earlier this year. It grew to 32 million unique viewers worldwide in December, according to Comscore.

DECA.tv (our coverage):
Perhaps best known as the studio behind Boing Boing TV, DECA.tv scouts out video ideas, finances and produces shows, then helps distribute them. There’s no public information on how the company pays or shares revenue with creators, although this New York Times article says Boing Boing retains control and ownership.

Funny or Die (our coverage):
This comedy-clip site has an uniquely-titled voting system and the branding of comedian Will Ferrell, but it’s not clear how revenue-sharing works for other content creators. It had 2.5 million unique visitors in December, according to Comscore, worldwide.

Metacafe (our coverage):
It offer a very straight-forward content producer payout plan via its Producer Rewards program — 1,000 views equals $5 and payments start after 20,000 view ($100). The sites top earner has banked over $89,000, but the rest of the top 10 are significantly lower (most in the $10K - $20K range). It had 27.5 million unique visitors in December worldwide, with a 12 percent growth rate in the last six months, according to Comscore

National Banana (our coverage):
The site doesn’t say anything about paying anyone, but there’s a curious message on the front page that reads: “New Site Coming 2008: Until then, please enjoy our viruses and spyware.”

Next New Networks (our coverage):
The New York company is creating videos focused on niche audiences of users, that it hopes to distribute across blogs, social networks, and other sites. It shares revenue on a case-by-case basis.

ON Networks (our coverage):
This startup wants to work with people who have “a proven track record in professional high definition production” and who have an “episodic story you want to tell,” as an application form on its site says. But there’s no more information available.

Revision3 (our coverage):
Original programming: Prominent shows (mostly aimed at tech geeks) include Diggnation (featuring one of Revision3’s founders, Kevin Rose) and The GigaOm Show.

Revver (our coverage):
Revver allows your content to be embedded with both CPM (impression-based) and CPC (click-based) advertisements and will split all advertising revenueS 50/50 with you. They have a break-down of all revenue-related questions here.

Veoh (our coverage):
Veoh allows video makers the option of attaching a pay-to-own or pay-to-rent system to their content. This could be a place to turn if you are not interested in an advertising-based model to make money.

Vimeo:
While Vimeo recently started offering content producers the option of uploading their videos in HD, they do not yet have a revenue-sharing model available.

YouTube (our coverage):
The largest, most obvious video content option, YouTube serves up millions of views everyday across its wide spectrum of videos. The chances of making any meaningful money off of your videos on YouTube are unfortunately pretty grim at the moment. Unless you are accepted into their revenue sharing program as a “Partner” - which currently only the most popular video content producers are - you’re not going to see a dime from Google. Right now YouTube only has 100 or so of these partners, though they welcome anyone to apply here. In the words of celebrity blogger/vlogger Perez Hilton, who said he made a meagre $5,000 as a partner: “[N]ot to overestimate my own worth, but I probably have sent more traffic to YouTube than anyone else on the Internet.” Hilton has since quit using YouTube.

Data:

Conclusion:

These are some of the better-known options and there are even more out there. Some may be better equipped to propel already-popular actors/writers/directors (like Funny or Die), but many are open enough that simply a good or at least creative idea can lead to great exposure and potentially some substantial revenue. Many of these video sites syndicate creator’s content with each other’s sites, because they all want to grow the overall exposure that online video gets to people (more on that here).

Online video is still a very young industry and as it matures — even making its way into the living room on a large scale via technologies such as IPTV — the potential can be even greater. Video creators and the web have long flirted with one another in a rather rigid sense, online video should take that relationship to the next level.

MG Siegler blogs on technology and new media at ParisLemon.com.

[Julie Ruvolo and Eric Eldon contributed to this article.]

[photo: flickr/John Edwards 2008]

Technology

Technology

Filed under: Digital Cameras

Over a year after Leica rolled out its action plan to address those buggy M8s fresh off the factory floor, the digicam company is announcing yet another upgrade path, but this time it's not on the house. Apparently, M8 owners that fall deeply in love with their shooter can get their name on a "waiting list," and once their number is called, they get the privilege of shipping their device to Germany where a number of tweaks can be made. Reportedly, each M8 is suitable for upgrading, and aside from getting sent back with a fresh two-year warranty, it can also be fitted with a scratch-resistant LCD monitor cover (um, riveting?) and a new "electronically-controlled metal-blade slotted shutter that offers less noise and vibration." Unfortunately, these changes will supposedly set one back €1,200 ($1,775), but alas, Leica suggests that said payment will make the M8 a "lifetime investment." Right, just like that $9,000 desktop you procured in 1996.

 

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Chatty Zuckerberg Tells All About Facebook Finances  —  Want to know about how privately held Facebook is doing from a financial point of view?  —  Well, just ask Mark Zuckerberg!  —  This afternoon, at an all-hands meeting held in a Palo Alto, Ca. theater near the social networking site's headquarters …

Source:   BoomTown
Author:   Kara Swisher
Link:   http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080131/chatty-zuckerberg…

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Technology

Motorola to Explore Structural and Strategic Realignment of its Businesses to Enhance Shareholder Value  —  Company will evaluate alternatives to accelerate the ability of its Mobile Device Business to recapture growth and profitability in an expanding global market

Source:   Motorola
Link:   http://www.motorola.com/mediacenter/news/detail.jsp…

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Technology

While the Associated Press has talked a lot about adapting to a new internet-centric world, there's still very little evidence that it's doing anything different. It's still trying to act like a gatekeeper rather than an enabler. However, it appears that Reuters is actually experimenting with something interesting. It has a new project, called OpenCalais, designed to help any information provider extract useful metadata from written content. In other words, it's an automated system that you can run an article or a blog post through, and it will return useful data in a structured manner. For example, if you wrote an article about Google's earning report, it would note that the article was about Google, that it had to do with an earnings report, and maybe connect some important other points. The idea, then, is that the more useful semantic data that's there, the more useful things that can be done on top of it. For those who believe that better use of semantic data is the key opportunity for newspapers to jump to the internet age, this could represent a very big deal. Of course, there's a very big "if" in that statement. The service actually needs to work well and be useful. It also needs to attract users. There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here, as the really useful apps built on top of that data won't come unless the data itself is available. Having Reuters behind the project suggests a strong initial base of content, but it remains to be seen how much adoption can actually be driven through this system. Some of it may depend on how much in the way of resources Reuters has put behind this project to jumpstart it (and whether that commitment continues after Reuter's acquisition by Thomson Financial closes). Either way, it's an experiment worth following, and one a lot more interesting than simply demanding that people pay more money.

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Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

What better way to celebrate the 1-year anniversary of the Mooninites' invasion of Boston than to drop $80 on Evil Mad Scientist Labs' new Peggy? It's easy to fall in love with this 12 x 15-inch hackable pin grid for pluggable LEDs, which also features a programmable microcontroller capable of animating its 625 positions. Just be cautious when using it to spread your propaganda outdoors, some big city populaces apparently don't like being toyed with by way of LED signage.

 

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iandoh writes "A team of scientists at Stanford University has tracked the movement of carbon nanotubes through the digestive systems of mice. They've determined that the nanotubes do not exhibit any toxicity in the mice, and are safely expelled after delivering their payload. As a result, the study paves the way toward future applications of nanotubes in the treatment of illnesses. Previous research by the same team demonstrated that nanotubes can be used to fight cancer. The nanotubes do this in two ways. One method involves shining laser light on the nanotubes, which generates heat to destroy cancer cells. Another method involves attaching medicine to the nanotubes, which are able to accurately 'find' cancerous cells without impacting healthy cells."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Technology

Glam, the controversial woman’s content and ad network run by Samir Arora (pictured left), is raising between $50-100 million in cash, and is expected to finalize the amount soon, we’ve confirmed with sources.

Along with that will be up to $100 million in debt, but the debt will be raised over the next year.

The news is in fact not new. We first reported Glam’s move to do so back in August, when the company emerged reporting a blitz of growth and boasting it was the fastest growing site on the Web. But we’re getting more details confirmed, as follows.

The company had originally sought to raise a mix of cash and debt, for a total $200 (see its prospectus, page 4), and that’s apparently still part of the plan. (Some reports earlier today didn’t account for the fact that Glam is also raising debt, and wrongly suggested Glam had lowered its sites).

Glam has created consternation in the industry. Glam is selling ads for scores of fashion and beauty sites, and sells ads for some of its own content sites too. Older competitors such as NBC/iVillage have looked on as Glam’s network has shot past their own, in terms of page views — though Glam doesn’t own most its sites outright but merely sells the ads on them. Glam has picked off top sales executives and created considerable animosity in the process — in fact, we’re hearing another big hire is about to be announced. Glam’s chief executive Samir Arora (pictured above in January’s Portfolio magazine) is quite the slick salesman, habitually wearing pink, and with a penchant for French fashion shoes. His detractors paint him as an upstart whose network is more smoke and mirrors than the juggernaut he paints it out to be. See the recent Portfolio article here, and our pieces here and here for more on Glam’s model and the controversy around it.

Some reports suggest that Glam has sought to raise money at a near $1 billion valuation, but our sources have never confirmed that figure. We’re hearing Glam consistently got feedback during fundraising that it could raise money at a value of between $350 and $500 million, not more. Even that is high, considering Glam is mere four years old and was valued at $150 million a year ago. (Though IGN, a men’s/gaming site comparable to Glam in size, was purchased by Fox for $650 million in 2005).

Glam’s existing investors, including DAG Ventures, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Accel Partners, and WaldenVC are all participating in the round, we’re told. DFJ’s Tim Draper is adding to the hype, going around saying Glam is the fastest growing company “on the face of the earth,” faster than his previous companies Skype and Hotmail.

We’re also hearing Glam has an annual revenue (run rate) of $40 million, and is aiming for $80 million or more this year. Valuations are tied to revenue, and media companies are typically valued at three or more times revenue, but rarely as much as ten. Glam lately has been trying to push itself toward a social network, which could give it a higher value than an traditional ad network because of the community that builds around it (though the jury appears to be out right now on how vibrant Glam can build a network, when much of the community lives around the individual blogs it represents).

The value question will also be dictated by whether Glam can claim “ownership” of the 44 million unique visitors it says it has globally. Traffic measurement company Comscore has decided to designate these visitors to Glam’s camp, even though Glam doesn’t own the sites of its network outright. Glam argues Comscore is correct to designate those uniques to Glam, because Glam retains an exclusive ad relationship with most of its network blogs (though it is true that it doesn’t have exclusive relationships with some of them).

See the table below, which shows the value of various companies in the network area, and the value per visitor, called the “visitor multiple.”Assume Glam raises money at $400-500M level, with monthly global unique visitors (to its network) of 44 million, that would give it a “visitor multiple” of 10 to 12, much lower than the median of 25, or 22 if you factor out the outlier, Facebook. But still, I think this is what Glam would like to argue and the question is whether investors will accept that (i.e., that Glam is a true network, and so should be compared against these other sites).

Finally, we’ve heard that Glam received an offer to be acquired a few weeks ago, in the range of $350 to $500 million by a large media company, but that it decided to go it alone instead.

One reason for the excitement around Glam is its sector’s growth. Women’s sites, along with politics, was the fastest growing audience categories in 2007, according to Comscore. And here Glam has doing better than the norm. Glam grew at 213 percent, while iVillage grew at 27 percent –again, that is, if you include both Glam’s and iVillage’s directly owned sites as well as their ad partner network sites.

Technology

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

See, this is how you bust out a hologram -- unlike the mind-numbingly boring virtual Prince Charles we heard about the other day, Sony's invaded Tokyo Bay with a water-and-laser sea monster. The apparition is part of the promotion for a movie called "Water Horse: Legend of the Deep," but even with a title like that, we'll definitely check it out on import DVD when it arrives Stateside just to provide more incentive for stunts like this. Check out a video after the break.

Continue reading Sony unleashes a holographic monster on Tokyo Bay

 

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Terry Semel is stepping down as Yahoo's non-executive chairman, six months after handing over his CEO title to Jerry Yang.

Technology

When the e-mail story pitch arrived to say that Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on "The Brady Bunch" was launching an online community to connect with fans, I first thought, "These people really need to get lives." Then, I continued reading to learn that Williams would be available for interviews on a limited basis -- suddenly, it was as if I were 15 years old again, hoping to catch the attention of the cutest boy in school: "Pick me! Oh, please, please pick me!"

Technology

When the e-mail story pitch arrived to say that Barry Williams, who played Greg Brady on "The Brady Bunch" was launching an online community to connect with fans, I first thought, "These people really need to get lives." Then, I continued reading to learn that Williams would be available for interviews on a limited basis -- suddenly, it was as if I were 15 years old again, hoping to catch the attention of the cutest boy in school: "Pick me! Oh, please, please pick me!"

Technology

newVideoPlayer("panasonicfreerunners_gizmodo.flv", 463, 387,""); We know most of you guys would prefer hot booth babes filling up our megapixels, but Panasonic's above all of that sexyist mess....

Technology