Tired of kowtowing to start-up Internet video companies, News Corp. and NBC said that they were starting their own YouTube clone and media player. But apparently News Corp./NBC said their videos will appear on sites like AOL, MySpace, Yahoo, and maybe even YouTube.

The new partnership is keen to point out that they are protecting copyrights, unlike say, YouTube. So apparently, the site won’t host movies or TV shows, or at least it will have News Corp and NBC content. Whoopie!

But do we really need another online video destination? It’s notable only because this is being created by a TV network and a movie studio. If this will have just user-generated content or just NBC or Fox content will it really get viewers to come? Viacom may be next to try their hand at a YouTube clone since they’ve now sued YouTube for $1 billion.

Doesn’t this remind you of the pre-boom dot com days? Those idyllic days when big Hollywood producers and directors decided to get into Internet video. Now YouTube is enticing Holllywood back to the Internet. For example:

Steven Spielberg is working with Survivor-creator Mark Burnett on a website called Onthelot.com, which lets aspiring filmmakers submit videos for a chance to win a $1 million development deal. The best shows make it to a TV show on Fox, where viewers will vote and choose a winner.

Burnett is also teaming up with MTV to create a site where users create parodies of movies. The best videos will be shown during the MTV Video awards next year.

Michael Eisner is getting into Internet content as well with a production company that is producing short online serials (about 90 seconds long). Eisner hopes to generate ad revenue from in-stream ads appearing before and after the shows, as well as product placement.

And finally, TV writer Steven Bochco is teaming up with MetaCafe to launch a series of confessional short videos. The project, called “Cafe Confidential” will include videos that are unscripted and feature just ordinary people not actors. Video producers that attract the largest audience can get some payment, although there was no word on how much. From the Time article:

Bochco says he views the Web as a medium best suited for snippets of entertainment that can be consumed between tasks, something he calls a “mental shower.” “I think people go to the Internet, particularly younger people, assuming they’re not going for information, for a distraction between tasks,” Bochco said.

Remember a few years ago when Hollywood big wigs like Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg, David Geffen, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, and Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen backed Pop.com? The site which eventually closed before it even launched. A victim of a bloated (over $50 million) budget and the beginning of the dot-com crash.

I wonder, will Hollywood really understand Internet video?

I just got my hands on this unique piece of video that shows how an alien space ship crashed in Nevada and gave us technology we now call Tivo. Check it out and see what you think. Are we not alone?

TIVO IS ALIENS!!!

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Last week advertising company DoubleClick announced results about online advertising that found that video is a “highly effective format for online advertising.” That’s something that TV advertisers already knew, but it’s a nice confirmation that video works online as well.

Video advertising has been growing in recent years, with many sites showing muted videos, for example, that un-mute when you roll over the video. One such video I saw yesterday was from IBM(!), which showed some IT people batting at a PC like it was a pinata. It was amusing to look at, so I decided to un-mute it to see what was going on. (See the video, called “Hard Boot Pinata” on YouTube.)

Major findings:

More Interaction. Doubleclick says that audiences interact with video ads more than plain image ads, such as mouseovers, expansions, interactions with the video control buttons, clicks and other events.

Viewers See 2/3rds of Videos. On average, people play online video ads about 2/3rd of the way through the entire video. That equates to 19.1 seconds for a 30-second ad and 10.3 seconds for a 15-second ad. I found this rather surprising. Why are users not watching the entire ad? Are they bored? Annoyed at them? Have no attention span for even 15 second video ads? I think more research is needed here to find out the reasons behind this.

Higher Clickthrough Rates. Finally, Doubleclick found that click rates are “far higher” than those of image format ads. Online video ads had click-through rates between 0.4 percent to 0.74 percent depending on the online video format. By comparison, plain image ads like GIF or JPG get about 0.1 and 0.2 percent, says DoubleClick. That sounds like a no-brainer since videos are more engaging than animated ads.

DoubleClick says that it conducted its research of over 300 online video ad campaigns that were placed by more than 130 advertisers over a four-month period in 2006.

[Via iMediaConnection]

AT&T announced that its IPTV service called U-verse will be available on PCs and cell phones. Only certain channels, like A&E Broadband, Fox News, The Weather Channel, and Bloomberg TV will be available.

This is an interesting move by AT&T. It differentiates its TV service from cable and satellite providers and from Verizon, an IPTV competitor here in the U.S.

Here’s how it will work. U-verse subscribers pay an extra $10 per month and will be able to watch about 30 channels on their PCs. Later, the service–called U-verse OnTheGo–will be available on AT&T wireless devices.

AT&T is providing this service through a partner, MobiTV. There’s no word on what type of content protection the shows will have or if it will be stored on user’s hard drives. I doubt TV studios would want that. MobiTV currently streams shows to cell phones, so I think that’s how the U-verse content will be delivered.

One analyst called the new service “weak” especially compared with other services like NetFlix, Amazon’s Unbox and others. I think the $10 price tag is a big high. This seems more like a value-added service, if it’s going to PCs.

But it’s an interesting integration of PCs and TVs, except this time the TV is coming to the PC, rather than the other way around. Will people really want to get their U-verse channels on a PC?

AT&T’s U-verse service, launched in 2006, is presently available in 15 U.S. markets.

Tivo announced yesterday that it was offering a new service that allows users to share pictures and home videos with Tivo customers.

This is a great way of sharing video or creating your own TV show, in effect. Tivo said that users can set up their own channel on TV and allow people to subscribe to their Season Pass to catch all media that is being shared. Essentially, this is like a personal YouTube (allowing you to host and share media) that you watch on your TV.

Tivo says this eliminates the need for digital frames, which allow people to send digital pictures to frames, like say at your parent’s house. So rather than mailing pictures or home movies via DVD, via snail mail, you can send it via Tivo. It also eliminates the need to use YouTube, or other hosting sites since now videos can be sent directly to TV screens rather than computer screens.

Customers must go to One True Media to create and edit the video or picture album, create a personal Tivo channel then invite Tivo subscribers to watch their media. Media appear as just another channel, just like shows recorded on TV.

“One True Media has given people an exciting and fun way to make mpressive video montages; now we’re offering an ultra simple way for their friends and family to watch them on a big screen — just like they would watch ‘24′ or ‘American Idol,’” said Mark Moore, CEO, One True Media. “We’re thrilled that this relationship allows our users to benefit even more from this compelling new way to share life’s greatest moments.”

One True Media is providing a free trial allowing users to send up to five creations at no cost through April 30, 2007. Otherwise, a subscription to One True Media runs from $3.99/month to $39.99/year.

Overall, I think this is a great service. I wish the photo sharing aspect was more like Flickr or other online photo sites, since Flickr is the coolest one around. I’d hate to start using another service, like One True Media for hosting my pics, when I already use others.

What’s interesting is that the press release calls the videos home movies. But what’s to stop people from uploading recorded TV shows instead and send them to friends that may have missed the latest American Idol show, for example? Or movies that you download through BitTorrent. Of course people can also use it to send private adult movies also, which they’d rather not post on YouTube privately. The unintended uses of this service is when it really gets interesting.

I like the pricing, in that you don’t pay per media clip but rather as a subscription. I haven’t seen it in action yet, but I plan to start using this immediately. Anyone want to start sharing video with me, just contact me at jose@alvear.com.

[Via Press Release]

Technorati Tags: One True Media, Tivo, DVR, YouTube, digital video recorder, photo sharing