Andy Plesser

NEW YORK – While readers of the print version of The New York Times spend an average of 40 minutes a day, visitors to the Web site (a vastly bigger number) spend just 30 hours minutes per month.

NEW YORK — Owen Thomas, who is finishing up as editor Valleywag, is heading to NBC to head up editorial operations for NBC Local in the Bay Area, one of several regional hubs created by NBC, it was announced today. (Press release below.)

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — It must not be not easy for the Google crew to be called "parasites or tech tapeworms in the intestines of the internet" by Robert Thompson, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal. 

NEW YORK, NY — Akamai has returned to the Cannes Film Festival this year, powering the video distribution of film trailers and event coverage, but this time in HD quality. 

Adobe, the software company which dominates the software ecosystem for online video with Flash, is seeking to unify the industry around a common framework for video players so publishers and advertisers can work together more efficiently.

SAN JOSE — Teleconferencing, which had been limited to a small number high end corporate users, is becoming widely adopted by users of Skype Video and of other web services as well as more sophisticated corporate products from Cisco and others. 

EveryZing, a Boston-based video search company, has raised a $8.25million venture round from GE and has completed an extensive agreement to provide universal search solutions to  several NBC Universal online properties.

Animoto is building a subscription business with its tools for rich media greeting cards and other products.  Like JibJab, the company is not advertiser supported, but based on a subscription model. 

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — Vevo is the big music site being created in a partnership between Google's YouTube and the Universal Music Group.  It will be a "deep, immersive" music site with e-commerce and revenue share around advertising.

YouTube, which last month introduced premium television and film programming in a section called "Shows," is ready to expand the distribution of the programming into several of its existing international operations.

TechCrunch just put up a stationary web camera in its Palo Alto HQ to stream live video. Heather Harde, CEO of the scrappy tech blog, has figured there's both an audience and sponsorship dollars around the live stream.  Beet.TV has signed up as the first sponsor.

Smart, enterprising journalists working outside the legacy of a conventional newsrooms, often in their homes, may the future of journalism — and Kara Swisher and Sharon Waxman, two former Washington Post reporters, might have figured it out.

Daisy Whitney, one of the most astute chroniclers of the online video scene, and an online video celebrity herself, has joined Beet.TV as a regular contributor. Her title is Senior Producer.

Just about a week ago, YouTube introduced a new functionality which surfaces up local news video which corresponds to the location of the user's IP address.  

For both Brightcove, the Boston-based video services company and Delve Networks, a competing start-up player in Seattle, the fastest growth in their business is coming from non-media customers such as businesses and universities who want to use video for marketing and other purposes.  

Owen Thomas, who has been the editor of tech/gossip blog Valleywag for the past two years, will be Managing Editor of NBC Bay Area , one of a new series of regional online sites created by NBC Universal.  The site is in beta.

The small number of U.S. newspaper with online video operations, are seeing 27 percent of their online revenue coming from video ad sales, according to a research report released today by Borrell and published in Editor & Publisher by Jennifer Saba.

NEW YORK — Congrats to the crew at New York magazine for winning last night for best magazine web site with over 1 million unique visitors.  The National Magazine Award was presented at the industry's annual gala held here last night.

LAS VEGAS — With newspaper and other media sites going multimedia, the AP is finding fast-rising demand for its online video news products, Bill Burke who heads up global online video for the AP tells Beet.TV

LAS VEGAS — 3D viewing, currently a growth area for Hollywood's theatrical business, will come to a significant number of homes in two to three years with the adoption of a new cable box from Motorola and new encoding processes, we have been told.