News and Information

The online coverage of the Olympic Games on MSN is spectacular.  The Olympics often provide  a showcase innovation, as Business Week’s cover story explains.  For this Olympics, in the digital media realm, a milestone innovation will surely be the entrance of Microsoft’s Silverlight. Earlier today at the Beet.TV studio, we spoke with Eric Schmidt, director […]

LIVESTRONG.com, Demand Media’s newest venture and a trademark of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, wants to differentiate itself from other health information sites with its variety of high-quality content and the community surrounding that content, Director of Community Lex Friedman says. Demand Media CEO Richard Rosenblatt, the former CEO of MySpace, knows a thing or two […]

Here at Beet.TV we eat beets whenever we can.  We’ve always loved to grill, boil and juice them.  Now, it seems that our little root vegetable is getting some press for their taste and super nutritional value.

Where is in the world is objective journalism in the Internet age and is it necessary?  Bambi Francisco, founder of Vator.tv, explores this topic in her post today with several leading journalists and media executives who are interviewed on the video above. "The whole notion of objectivity should be thrown out," said Phil Bronstein, editor […]

It was striking to hear William Randolph Hearst III, grandson of the great media baron, say of traditional media at our Stanford roundtable last week: "I don’t think they should have a monopoly on how I surf for news." He went on to say that citizen journalism is "well underway," but that traditional media still […]

YouTube has introduced rich metadata into select videos, which will significantly impact how online video is discovered and consumed. Announced in June, we have found the technology is very useful.  Last week, we got an update on this from Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube.

While millions of individuals are uploading videos to YouTube, the integration of citizen journalism into mainstream media has not yet happened on a large scale, says Phil Bronstein, former Editor and current Editor at Large of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Phil was a panelist at the Beet.TV online video roundtable last week at Stanford. We […]

Mogulus, the New York-based start-up which provides individuals and enterprises a platform to stream live quality Flash video, has raised $10 million in the form of a minority stake from Gannett.  The company had previously raised $2.7 in early seed funding.

  PALO ALTO — It’s back to the future for the business of Web video: Advertiser-sponsored programming from the early days of television, when Texaco, Geritol and Lucky Strike paid to develop or sponsor new programming, is the most viable business model now for episodic content created for the Web, says Jigar Thakarar, Director, Web […]

PALO ALTO — Wide distribution, or “deeplinking” to ABC online video programming is essential, says Albert Cheng, head of digital operations for Disney/ABC Television.  I interviewed him on Tuesday evening at Stanford after he opening night panel  of the AlwaysOn conference.

Television networks actually want their viewers to go online, according to Mary Kathleen Flynn, Senior Editor at Tech Confidential. Flynn, a veteran technology reporter who has covered the industry for CNN and MSNBC, describes describes how networks are using the Internet to deepen audience engagement.

While online news consumption is largely a destination activity akin to picking up a newspaper, Charles Tillinghast, president and publisher of msnbc.com, says that a highly distributed model is essential.

PALO ALTO — “There are no TV journalists anymore,” says Charles Tillinghast, president and publisher of msnbc.com in this interview with Beet.TV msnbc.com is a joint venture of NBC Universal and Microsoft. Nope, he didn’t mean that there’s any downsizing over at NBC News, he means that video news gathering is no longer television-centric but […]

It was great to meet up in with Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of All Things D, the Dow Jones-owned website/conference business she heads up with Walt Mossberg.  We chatted in Manhattan’s Madison Park a few days ago.

I read today’s New York Times Magazine cover story by, and about, David Carr, media columnist for the New York Times.  In addition to writing his media columns, he is the video blogger of The Carpetbagger, an annual series of blog posts and video segments leading up to the Oscars.

Kyte has substantially transformed from being a video camera phone sharing site, to a full-blown online video delivery tool for big brands.  It is much more akin these days to the Platform or BrightCove, than Flixwagon or Qik. Uploads from mobile phones are a small part of the content on the Kyte platform.  It’s really […]

MSNBC correspondent Courtney Hazlett, who has been reporting on the celebrity gossip scene in a series called “Scoop,” has just gotten her own branded destination with customized video player.  The site is up and looks pretty good.  This would be the second microsite over at msnsbc.com — the first was launched for Keith Olbermann.

Wow, exciting news for our good friend Rafat Ali who has reportedly agreed to sell paidContent to Britain’s Guardian Media Group for $30 million. The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss just published the news of the acquisition and here is her "thought piece."  However, terms have not been disclosed and the company declined to provide them to […]

Click To Play Ken Auletta is certainly the most insightful, informed and connected media journalist working today. For all of us interested in understanding what is happening with the media, his articles in the New Yorker are a must read. I wanted to ask Ken how traditional media is making the transition to the “new.” […]

Click To Play I was invited to bring our camera up to the newsroom of the New York Times Digital to meet veteran Times man Len Apcar, editor in chief of the NYTimes.com. The Times is creating a lot of interesting video these days — including some which might be considered "off brand" — but […]