Andy Plesser

SAN MATEO, Calif — For advertisers and publishers seeking efficiency and brand safety with online video, "control" over content, page placement, ad unit and user experience are essential, says Vijay Rao, Senior Director, Strategic Planning at Adap.tv.

Roku, the Saratoga, California-based manufacturer of the popular Roku box which enables consumers to connect televisions to the Internet, has raised $8 million in funding, according a financial filing reported by Venture Beat.

Earlier this month, the Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG) announced that it has introduced a syndication platform for small and large publishers to monetize their videos across multiple, related sites.

Views of videos on Bloomberg.com doubled on Monday (8.8) as turmoil roiled the global markets, a spokesperson has told Beet.TV via email.  Overall traffic to the site on that day was up 62 percent over the average.

"I really like to see a lot of small media companies like Andy's just take the diversity that is really encouraging and move it into the next era of journalism," Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of All Things Digital, tells Alison Kitchens of the American Journalism Review in a feature story on Beet.TV.

Affine Systems, a small San Francisco-based, venture-backed start-up built around machine learning, has created a technology to "rip apart video frame by frame," enabling advertisers to associate ads with desired content.

TVGuide.com, a comprehensive guide to broadcast, cable, web and downloadable video, claims 23 million monthly unique users. 

Digital Broadcasting Group (DBG), the big video ad network and production/syndication firm, is expanding its syndication platform for premium publishers, the company announced today.

AOL is bringing its original video programming to connected TV's with AOL HD.  The new dedicated app will surface a range of lifestyle, entertainment and technology programming to several connected devices including Boxee, Roku and Yahoo Connected TV.

YuMe, the big online video advertising platform company, has named founder Jayant Kadambi CEO, replacing Michael Mathieu who had been CEO for about three years.

While advertisers and ad networks are driving online video ad rates "to the floor," the lower prices are making the media more efficient, providing a return on investment of 3 to 5X for digital video versus 2X  for television, says SVP Jordan Bitterman, who heads the media and social practice for Digitas, a Publicis unit.

CNN iReport, the five-year-old platform for citizen journalists to upload and share photos and videos, will become something of a "social network for news" with its imminent redesign, says Lila King, Participation Director of CNN Digital, in this interview with Beet.TV.

Vimeo, the big video sharing site, known mostly for its global popularity as the video player of choice for the creative community, is launching today a commercial service for small businesses.

On Tuesday (August 2), hundreds of citizen reporters around the world will attend Meetups organized by CNN to mark the fifth year anniversary of its iReport.

SAN FRANCISCO — Adobe Premiere, the professional video editing software program, is experiencing annual growth of 45 percent among Mac users, says Al Mooney, Product Manager at Adobe in this interview with Beet.TV.

The BBC's iPlayer is going global today, at least in 11 countries as an iPhone app, according to a report in today's Guardian newspaper. 

While many brands would like a viral video hit, getting one isn’t easy — and it is not free, says Seraj Bharwani who heads analystics for Visible Measures and Molly Sugerman, Director of Digital Innnovation at Horizon Media, the industry’s biggest independent media buying agency.

The calculation around the value of video advertising is based principally on  Gross Rating Point or GRP, meaning the total size of an audience. 

Ogilvy & Mather, the giant advertising agency unit of WPP, has formed a dedicated online video practice area headed by Robert John Davis. 

SAN FRANCISCO — With its update to the latest version of Final Cut, Apple has upset many users and has created an opportunity for Adobe's Premiere, according to Al Mooney, Product Manager for Premiere, in this interview with Beet.TV.