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Roku Opens Channel Store, Disappoints with No Hulu

Paul Lilly — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 07:18:43 -0600

Living up to a promise made several weeks ago, the Roku Channel Store is now open. Unfortunately, rumors that the open platform for delivering content to Roku boxes would include support for Hulu turned to out to be false, at least so far. According to an article in Playboy magazine, "Hulu support is coming," but the video site wasn't among the first ten channels released, which includes Pandora, Facebook Photos, Revision3, Mediafly, TWiT, blip.tv, Flickr, FrameChannel, Motionbox, and MobileTribe.

"The Roku Channel Store turns the Roku player into the world's first open platform designed specifically for the TV," Anthony Wood, founder and CEO of Roku, said in a statement. "Now content producers and distributors -- from single person shops to billion dollar corporations -- can deliver their content directly to consumers without having to go exclusively through cable operators, satellite networks, or TV affiliates."

Roku said a free SDK is available upon request, which would allow developers to add to the Store's selection. As for the Channel Store itself, it's also free and is being distributed through automatic upgrades within the next couple of weeks. No Roku owners will be left out in the cold, as the Channel Store works on all Roku devices, the company said.

Image Credit: Roku via Gizmodo

YouTube Makes it Easier to Search Inane User Comments

Bart Salisbury — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:23:20 -0500

For some unknown reason YouTube has decided to make possible real-time searches of comments. Seriously? Comments are the thing you avoid on YouTube, expressing either gross immaturity or venting some real, and ofttimes inappropriately placed, anger. If there is a good thing about YouTube comments is we’re subjected only to a few of them--and they are easily ignored.

So why do this? Marshall Kirkpatrick, of ReadWriteWeb, suggests that companies might find it useful--to track the things that people are saying about them or their products.

After reading some of searched comments I’m not so sure companies would want to know what people are saying. Not the people posting on YouTube anyway. Give it a try. Type in any innocuous term. Count down how many entries until you read something obscene or vulgar (or worse). In my few searches I didn’t get past the top five.

Image Credit: YouTube

YouTube Negotiating to Stream Rental Movies

Paul Lilly — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:00:21 -0500

It's too early to tell if a deal is in the making, but YouTube is at least talking to several major movie studios about the possibility of streaming feature films as rentals, CNet reports.

Studios said to be discussing licensing agreements with YouTube include Sony, Lions Gate Entertainment, and Warner Brothers. But at least one studio exec who claims to be familiar with the talks said no deals are imminent and that having these discussions isn't out of the ordinary.

"Why wouldn't the studios talk to YouTube," the exec said.

Why wouldn't they, indeed. With over 100 million viewers, streaming rentals has the potential to be a win-win proposition for both the Google-owned site and the movie studios. It would also be cause for concern for other streaming services, like Hulu.com and Crackle.com.

Over 1 Billion Videos Viewed on Facebook

Paul Lilly — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 10:00:05 -0500

Facebook has a long ways to go before its video service comes anywhere close to serving up the same number of videos as YouTube (1.2 billion per day), but the social networking site did reach a milestone that's nothing to scoff at - over one billion video views last month, CNet reports. All tallied, Facebook now claims four times more video views than members.

Pretty impressive, considering Facebook Video launched just over two years ago in June 2007. Even more impressive is that the service took just two days to implement. A promotional video describes how a pair of engineers, Soleio Cuervo and Chris Putnam, came up with the idea to add video to Facebook and the 40 hours spent coding the service.

"One product that I worked on was video, and I remember thinking to myself, 'Having just a video camera built into our laptops, wouldn't it be great if you could just record a video and send it to someone,' your mother for Mother's day or to your girlfriend just to wish her a good night, not blasting a video across the entire Internet," Cuervo reflects.

Later on, the ability to upload higher quality videos and embed Facebook videos on other websites would both prove instrumental in boosting video views.

Netflix and Amazon May Become a Joint Venture

Paul Lilly — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:59:36 -0500

If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em, and most would agree that Netflix has grown too large (and too strategic) to beat. So who wants to buy them? If you believe the latest rumor, Amazon wants to buy the online DVD rental service, news of which has sent Netflix stock soaring to the highest it's been in 11 weeks.

"There's heavy call buying and the stock is up on renewed takeover talk, with Amazon being mentioned specifically," said Fred Ruffy, the senior options strategist at WhatsTrading.com. "It's pretty typical of speculative buying."

While Netflix and Amazon both compete in the Internet video business, not everyone is convinced a takeover makes much sense. Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Morgan Securities, points out that Amazon has distribution centers all across the U.S., meaning the company would have to collect sales tax in those states. Should that happen, subscribers would likely end up footing the bill.

As expected, both Amazon and Netflix said they don't comment on rumors or speculation.

Hulu's Free Ride May Soon be Over

Paul Lilly — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 10:31:16 -0500

Brace yourselves for this one. Hulu -- the free video streaming service that has others, like YouTube, trying to emulate it -- may not be totally free in the not too distant future. Or at least that's how Jonathan Miller, News Corp.'s new chief digital officer, envisions things.

According to AOL's Daily Finance website, Miller said he sees Hulu making at least some of its content available only to paid subscribers. At the same time, he was also quick to clarify that he won't attend his first Hulu board meeting until next week, meaning his speculation doesn't necessarily reflect that of Hulu's.

"In my opinion the answer could be yes," Miller said. "I don't see why over time that shouldn't happen. I don't think it's on the agenda for Monday [but] it seems to me that over time that could be a logical thing."

Keep in mind that News Corp. co-owns Hulu and it's Miller's job to find ways of getting revenue from from News Corp.'s properties.

In other words, enjoy Hulu while you can - in the long run, it may all have been just an extended free trial.

4chan, Ebaumsworld Launch Porn Attack Against YouTube

Paul Lilly — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:00:00 -0500

Jonas Brothers fans and those looking for marblecake recipes on YouTube may get more than they bargained for today. That's because 4chan and eBaum's World have teamed up for "Operation Porn Day," which involves uploading explicit video clips to YouTube using innocuous tags.

Many of the clips have already been removed, but according to Arstechnica, it was able to find others that haven't yet been caught (still reading?). In addition to the false tags, a lot of the clips contain 20 to 30 seconds of seemingly legitimately content, such as a newscast, before getting down and dirty.

"It may take some time for video search results and thumbnail images to disappear from the site," Google spokesperson Scott Rubin said. "Typically, this should not take more than a couple of days, but the videos themselves are no longer viewable."

In other words, you may want to keep your kids and nephews occupied with something other than YouTube for the time being.

Hulu Upgraded with Social Networking Features

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:46:55 -0500

Hulu is celebrating its first anniversary. And what an amazing inaugural year it was for Hulu: its market share rose steadily through the year making it one of the most riveting video sites on the internet. The video-on-demand site has stepped into its second year armed with new social networking features.

Now website users can share their favorite shows with each other using the new "Hulu Friends" feature. Users can import contacts from major social networks and email services. The site ensures that friends are kept up to speed with each other’s viewing activities. This move is expected to make Hulu more enticing for advertisers.

Image Credit: Wired