Video search engine Truveo has released an updated version of its iPhone application, Beet.TV has learned. The application, first launched in July, allows users to access videos in Apple-friendly formats from major sites
including CNN, NBC, HBO, The Discovery Channel, and YouTube. In November, I interviewed CEO Peter Kocks about the then-forthcoming updates, and he demonstrates the new query completion and sorting functions.
In the segment, Kocks also explains how Apple is driving the standardization of video formats. Although Flash dominates the web, non-PC and mobile video is shifting toward the H.264 and progressive downloading formats favored by Apple, he says.
"Because the iPhone has become so popular as a medium, as a place for
viewing videos, many content producers are making sure that their
content is available either through podcasts or either directly onto
the iPhone," he says in the interview. "And that has in my opinion
slowly started to shift the video industry a little bit toward that
standard."
The standardization of video formats that Apple is driving could be a key step toward more
advertising revenue for publishers. Gina de Mendonca, a partner at
neo@Ogilvy, told me in an interview after the Beet Online Video Roundtable at 30 Rock that the lack of standardized video formats was one of the
primary obstacles to advertising spending online.
—Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer
