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Lightning Seminar, IP Weather Gadgets... Soon...
AccuWeather.com - 4 hours ago
First, I just finished a 5-part video blog on the latest weather-related IP (Internet Protocol) gadgets. Take a look at the video screenshot below, ...

Feeling a little bored during this long weekend? Fireworks, barbecue and HD TV shopping trips haven’t left you satisfied? Then how about a few juicy statistics about file sharing, video streaming and one click hosters? Sounds exciting? Well, you’re definitely a geek, but a lucky one too: The German traffic management company Ipoque just made it’s Internet Study 2007, which previously cost around 300 USD, available as a free download.

The study looks at popular P2P protocols and the files that are exchanged through them in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It also provides a detailed look at which streaming media formats are popular, which VOIP applications get the most traffic, which instant messaging services are most utilized and which e-books are the most pirated.

The data is based on ISP- and University-based traffic analysis, meaning that Ipoque actually had devices at 18 commercial and non-commercial access providers to take a good look at the bits flowing through their tubes. Ipoque didn’t do any measurements in the US, but it’s still worth a look to get a sense of trends in P2P and online media usage in the rest of the world. Want to get a peak? Okay, here are five little-known facts you can impress your geek friends at this weekend’s barbecue party with:

People in the Middle East don’t use Youtube. Or at least they didn’t in 2007, if we can believe Ipoque’s numbers. Only 0.07 percent of the local IP traffic was caused by streaming media applications, compared to around eight percent in Germany. P2P file sharing is also lower in the Middle East than in other regions, but with about 49 percent of all Internet traffic still fairly strong.

Germans love their language. Germany is one of the few countries where almost every single US movie and TV show gets dubbed, which leads to all kinds of odd cultural misunderstandings. Can you imagine watching Die Hard and not realizing that the bad guys are German because the good guys speak German as well? Anyway, I always assumed that the kraut P2P crowd was eager to download the original versions they don’t get to see at their local theater, but apparently I was wrong: Two of the three most torrented movies in Germany in 2007 were synchronized.

Everybody loves the Pirate Bay. There are few things that bring people from all around the world together, and the Pirate Bay’s BitTorrent tracker server seems to be one of them. It’s by far the most popular in all regions monitored by Ipoque.

No one uses Joost. Not a big surprise there I guess, but the numbers are still brutally honest. Joost’s P2P video service is most popular in Australia, where it’s able to cause 0.02 percent of all IP traffic. And yes, that’s a high number, at least compared to the other regions observed by Ipoque.

We all want to do the Lotus. This one os for all your book lovers (no pun intended) out there: Stephanie Plum might top the book store charts, but the most pirated e-book via BitTorrent is the Kama Sutra. The interest in acrobatic love-making seems to be almost universal, with the exception of Southern Europe, where people seem to prefer workout instructions. Go figure. Or I guess go and work out - and you won’t have any trouble with getting the Lotus on either.

Appropriately enough, YouTube chose Independence Day to release a response to the court order it received yesterday to hand over user information to Viacom as part the media giant’s ongoing $1 billion lawsuit against the video sharing service. Here’s an excerpt from the YouTube blog:

As you may have seen in the news, YouTube received a court order to produce viewing data from our database, including usernames and IP addresses. In order to protect our community’s privacy, we strongly opposed this motion when Viacom and others filed it.

The court felt differently and ordered us to produce the data. Viacom said that they need general viewing information to determine the proportion of views on YouTube of copyright infringing content vs. non-infringing content.

Of course, we have to follow legal process. But since IP addresses and usernames aren’t necessary to determine general viewing practices, our lawyers have asked their lawyers to let us remove that information before we hand over the data they’re seeking.

Well, I’m sure if they ask nicely…

There are lots of things I can’t imagine doing without — air, food, Internet. But high on that list are definitely Jim Henson’s Muppets. And this Independence Day, Sam the Eagle’s web-exclusive salute to America is the only video you need to watch this weekend.

This two-minute tribute encompasses all that is pure and good and true about the United States. Also, hot dogs. Why the Swedish Chef is participating in this otherwise all-American endeavor is a mystery best left to the ages — as is the question of why Sam the Eagle has taken this opportunity to reach out to his online audience. (His YouTube page is magnificent, by the way.) Because those issues aren’t important. What’s important is that America is here to save the world from weirdos — with, hopefully, with the exception of Gonzo.

Looking for more details on Strike.TV, the network of 40-plus online video series from the Hollywood pros? We’re not sure exactly what’s happening tomorrow, the supposed launch date, but we dug up some more goodies to give you a hint of what’s to come.

Here’s a “minidoc” (couldn’t find the embed code) with more detail on the shows and lots of enthusiasm about the freedom of working online.

And here’s a teaser:

www.strike.tv Teaser from StrikeTV on Vimeo.

And here’s a list of some of the shows, which are said to be launching later this month.

Global Warming Writers - Rob Kutner (The Daily Show), Sheryl Zohn (Penn and Teller’s Bullshit) Director - Mike Shapiro Producer - Jim Juvonen Cast - Kristen Wiig (SNL), Aasif Mandvi (The Daily Show)

House Poor Show creator is Lester Lewis from The Office.

Unknown Sender Writer/Director - Steven E. de Souza (Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life, Beverly Hills Cop 2, Commando) Cast - Timothy Dalton (The Living Daylights, License To Kill), Joanne Whalley

Five Or Die Writer/Director - Tom Holland (Child’s Play series of films) Cast - Kevin Daniels, Brandon Fobbs, James Snyder, Madeline Zima (Californication)

Life In General Writer - Karen Harris (General Hospital) Cast - JoBeth Williams, Arianne Zucker, Brinn Thayer, Robert Desidario

The Challenge Writer - Lloyd Garver Cast - Bob Newhart

Daryl From OnCar Writer - Ron Corcillo (Malcolm In The Middle) Cast - Bob Clendenin (10 Items Or Less)

John’s Hand Writer - Catherine Butterfield (Ghost Whisperer) Cast - Garrett Dillahunt (No Country For Old Men, Deadwood), Kali Rocha (Grey’s Anatomy, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Meet The Parents), Marin Hinkle (Once and Again)

Confessional Writer - Ken Lazebnik (Prairie Home Companion, Touched By An Angel, Star Trek: Enterprise)

Side Effects Writer/Director - Chuck Rose Cast - Arye Gross (Ellen, Minority Report, The Riches, Grey Gardens), Amanda Tepe

Urban Cowgirl Writer/Director - Jeanne Rosenberg (The Black Stallion, White Fang)

Smartest Man In The World (game show) Writer/Star - Rick Rosner (Jimmy Kimmel Live)

The summer games are just a little over a month away, but you can start catching Olympic fever online now, thanks to the new video player on NBCOlympics.com. With more than 2,200 hours of live footage being streamed from the event, the new player offers a host of features that will literally let you catch all the action (though some of it will be delayed).

To try it out, visit NBCOlympics.com and click on video. It’ll bring up the standard player, but you need to switch over to the Enhanced Player to get the new goodies.

The best feature is one that won’t be activated until the games start: the Control Room, which lets you watch four video streams at once, and flip between them.

Another way to watch multiple videos is through the picture-in-picture feature. If you’re watching track but want to keep an eye on the weightlifting, you can have the heavy lifters running in a small window in the corner of the screen and flip between the two, or swap weightlifting out for a different event.

Because of the breadth of coverage, you can finally watch the “long tail” of Olympic events, not just what’s on the networks. Fan of tae kwon do? Click on the Olympic Sports button in the control panel to bring up a listing of all the events. Then choose tae kwon do and a list of all the available video will appear.

Also, as you’re watching, expert commentary with bits of trivia will pop up as an overlay during the event. For instance, if Michael Phelps is swimming, it might say he’s won X number of gold medals, this is his strongest event, etc.

The one real bummer is that the webcast isn’t in HD. I guess that’s a lot to ask given the limited bandwidth most people have and how huge the games are going to be — but still, it’s a disappointment.

This will be a big test for Microsoft’s Silverlight. Schematic, the design company that built the player, used Silverlight 2 beta 2 (selected for its DRM capabilities) for its creation, but we’ll have to wait until the games are up and running to get a full sense of how it’s performing.

Today, on the Station, we found out how they sell light bulbs in Thailand, and whether or not the US dollar contains secret Masonic messages.

And we also reviewed the new Instablogs podcast Global Report, which uses its resources as a citizen journalism depot to gather an eclectic variety of news stories. Check it out and report back from your own corner of the globe at the Station!

After toiling on the web for years, online sitcom Break A Leg has finally landed a sponsorship deal…for its season finale.

Holiday Inn Express will sponsor the show, which according to series creator Yuri Baranovsky will be broken up into seven or eight parts that are spread out over the next four months. Holiday Inn Express will get a three-second slate that will appear at the top of each segment. The deal came about through Break A Leg’s relationship with For Your Imagination and Blip.tv.

Via an IM conversation, Baranovsky wouldn’t give any details on how much money the show is getting, revealing only that, “I can’t quit my day job and it’s less than a billion dollars.” With a quick wit like that, it’s no wonder Break A Leg picked up a sponsor.

Video search engines haven’t found their place in the world quite yet, but after what happened with web search it’d be stupid to count them out. Now AT&T, after securing the exclusive license to use technology from the stealthy startup Divvio for the consumer market, is launching one of its own.

AT&T is calling its video search site VideoCrawler, and expects to open it up to the public in a week or so. For now, if you’d like to try out the site for yourself, AT&T provided a user name and password that NewTeeVee readers are free to use. Username: mediorite; password: beta0529.

Today we spoke with the executive director of business development at AT&T, Jim Stapleton, whose division is also developing the 3D web browser Pogo. He gave us an extensive demo of the site, focusing on the interface, which is what AT&T built.

First, the positives: I like the interface. AT&T built the equivalent of an AJAX start page for video, with modules for a search box, a player, search results list, playlists, etc., that can be moved around and minimized. That way users can organize the product to best fit whatever they want to do with it. The player itself is nice because it’s consistent, launching any type of embeddable media from within. I’m a little unclear on what’s included in the index, so as you guys play around with Videocrawler, please be sure to report back with what you turn up. For instance, I couldn’t find premium ABC content (the kind that launches in the Move player), but I could find Lost podcasts direct from the ABC site, which as far as I can tell aren’t usually embeddable off-site.

So far it isn’t evident to me that VideoCrawler’s results are markedly better than other video search engines. According to Divvio’s site, the company’s differentiating technology includes: the meta media player, continuous verification of broken links, ability to search for specific rich-media attributes, and easy addition of new sites to Divvio’s index. We don’t see any mention of speech recognition or other alternative search methods, but we’ll follow up with Divvio (whose CEO, Hossein Eslambolchi, used to be CTO and CIO of AT&T) to find out more about their approach.

Stapleton says VideoCrawler accesses more than 300 million pieces of content from 3,300 different sites, but in addition to video that also includes other rich media like slide shows, Internet radio and ringtones. For context, competitor Truveo says it has more than 100 million videos in its index.

VideoCrawler is making what I feel are some mistakes: It ranks videos by how many views they’ve had on its own site, not the larger web — a big blow to relevancy. When I brought this up to Stapleton, he responded by saying that, “We’re assuming that the user community of VideoCrawler will be representative of the broader Internet.” And instead of giving users direct URLs to share, it gives users a link to a VideoCrawler page with the video embedded. I worry that this speaks to a focus on building a destination rather than a tool for users. Stapleton’s defense: “This is a banner advertising-driven revenue model.”

I don’t see that VideoCrawler is different enough from the competition to really stand out. Apparently even Divvio felt the same way, because if it saw such a big opportunity for consumer video search why wouldn’t it have addressed that market itself? But I do like that we’re starting to come closer to a universal online video player. One way or another, let me know what you think.

ABC.com Viewers Mostly Women; it must be the McDreamy effect — a whopping 85 percent of the network site’s overall audience is female. (Silicon Alley Insider)

Comcast Invests in Cartiza Networks; amount of seed investment in the developer of WiMax equipment for mobile broadband data, video and voice services not disclosed. (Multichannel News)

IPTV Companies Alice, Kassena Bought; France’s Iliad, owners of Europe’s biggest IPTV provider, Free, to buy rival Alice from Italia Telecom for $1.6 billion. Elsewhere, Espial is buying Kassena for just $6.1 million (all stock), a huge loss since Kassena had raised $70 million in funding. (Iliad: Variety); Kassena: VentureBeat)

Amazing Ball Girl Catch is a Fake; vid was an unused ad for Gatorade that got posted, received 3.5 million views (our question: who thought this was real?). (LA Times)

Mystery Over MovieBeam Asset Sale; anonymous letter filed with the bankruptcy court says Movie Gallery’s sale of the set-top service’s physical assets to a British Virgin Islands company was way undervalued. (Video Business)

Hearst-Argyle Hires New Digital Exec; Roger Keating was formerly with Time Warner Cable. (Broadcasting & Cable)

If you wanted to keep your obsession with hyperactive YouTube phenomeon “Fred” a secret, you’re in for some bad news. A federal judge yesterday ordered that records of every video watched on YouTube be handed over to Viacom as part of its ongoing $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit against Google.

According to the ruling:

The motion to compel production of all data from the Logging database concerning each time a YouTube video has been viewed on the YouTube website or through embedding on a third-party website is granted.

In case you were wondering::

Defendants’ “Logging” database contains, for each instance a video is watched, the unique “login ID” of the user who watched it, the time when the user started to watch the video, the internet protocol address other devices connected to the internet use to identify the user’s computer (“IP address”), and the identifier for the video.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is up in arms over the ruling and has a breakdown of how this decision may actually violate federal law.

The court dismissed Google’s argument that handing over the data would violate its user’s privacy concerns, saying “But defendants cite no authority barring them from disclosing such information in civil discovery proceedings, and their privacy concerns are speculative.”

Over at TechCrunch, Michael Arrington writes that there’s only one use for all this data Viacom is to receive: to sue individual users (or at least threaten to) who have watched copyrighted material on YouTube.

The ruling was made over Google’s objections, and hopefully Google will take all necessary action to challenge the order (or potentially face class action lawsuits).

But it wasn’t a total loss for Google yesterday. The judge ruled that the company did not have to hand over YouTube’s source code. The company can rest easy that no one else will build a YouTube clone.

We’ve been following the unveiling of Strike.TV, the consortium of more than 40 online shows coming from Hollywood guild members that was inspired by the writers’ strike. Tonight Variety has some more details on the site, which is set to launch Friday, but only with a “sizzle reel,” followed by actual content in about a month.

The line-up is definitely intriguing, but the whole effort makes me wish I’d parked myself by a picket line during the strike preaching the gospel of the Internet. Apparently all it took to get the gang on board was a day-long seminar about “how relatively cheap and easy it is to produce high-def Internet vids, now that high-def cameras and sophisticated editing software is widely available and affordable.” Well duh! We could write that seminar in our sleep.

The other thing I find interesting is how low-budget the project (which will donate its first three months’ revenue) is. Since participants are paying the bills for what they create, apparently the site launch cost “less than $10,000.”

Without further ado, here’s some of the initial lineup, courtesy of Variety:

- “Global Warming,” starring “Saturday Night Live’s” Kirsten Wiig and “Daily Show’s” Aasif Mandvi;
- “Unknown Sender,” penned by Steven de Souza and starring Timothy Dalton and Joanne Whalley;
- “House Poor,” created by “Office” writer-producer Lester Lewis;
- “The Challenge,” starring Bob Newhart and penned by sitcom vet Lloyd Garver;
- “Five or Die,” written and directed by horror movie vet Tom Holland;
- “John’s Hand,” starring Garret Dillahunt and Kali Rocha.

More than 40 shows in total! Man, there are just too many Internet series to keep track of these days. Look for us to filter through the bunch and showcase some of the best ones at NewTeeVee Station.

The Atlantic Monthly recently asked the question “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” I can’t answer that (I couldn’t finish reading the article), but I’d like to ask a parallel question: Is YouTube killing video originality?

The promise of web video was that cheap cameras, easy editing software and free online distribution would open up new vistas of creativity. The Hollywood gatekeepers would be tossed out and the masses would finally get to express themselves.

So what happened? Because it seems like we’re just seeing the same things, over and over.

Gabe and Max’s Internet Thing is a fantastic spoof of cheesy infomercials. But it was followed by Master the Internet, which is not. Now we have Kanye West doing another version of a hammy infauxmercial for hawking vodka.

Noah takes a picture of himself everyday, so Olde English spoofed the idea with a guy taking a picture of himself every day as his life deteriorates. Matthew Harding dances around the world, and now there’s a video of a guy dancing around Los Angeles… as his life deteriorates.

The Shining becomes a comedy, Back to the Future becomes Brokeback to the Future, and Batman fights not only himself, but also Hellboy.

Dora the Explorer gets yelled at over the phone by Alec Baldwin; a fast-food worker gets hit on by Demetri.

Need I go on?

Some of these are parodies; some are just recycling the same ideas. Some are actually quite funny; others are just…bad.

So why drag YouTube into all this? Well, because of its size, mostly.

There have always been spoofs and “borrowing” from existing sources. That isn’t changing with the web, it’s just becoming faster and easier, which is spawning more of it.

Parodying or revisiting a popular gag works because the audience already has a certain level of familiarity with it. People have seen infomercials, they know Back to the Future, or they were forwarded the picture-a-day. It’s much easier to attract eyeballs when people recognize the source material. It’s a lot harder when they have to learn something new, and who has patience online?

To be fair, thanks to YouTube, more people are creating and watching video than ever before — and that’s good. The issue becomes when people start creating for the playcounts. What’s the fastest way to rack up a million plays on YouTube, land an agent and get on Oprah? It’s not by making something new.

Paul Proulx’s montages are on the surface simply mashups of film clips, but the way in which he’s constructed these odes to late 20th-century film show an attention to detail beyond the amateur. At what point does expressing your love of movies become its own act of creativity? Read what Steve Bryant thinks, and chime in with your thoughts!

Elsewhere online, there are bears getting their freak on in the woods, and self-playing robot bands. Another exciting day of oddities brought to you by the Station!

Angry Puppy video blog 31: Joss Whedon edition
AfterElton.com - Jul 2, 2008
In this week's unintentionally Joss Whedoncentric edition, Marc and Lee review the latest installment of the comic book series Buffy Season 8 as well as the ...

Angry Puppy video blog 31: Joss Whedon edition
AfterElton.com - Jul 2, 2008
In this week's unintentionally Joss Whedoncentric edition, Marc and Lee review the latest installment of the comic book series Buffy Season 8 as well as the ...

Angry Puppy video blog 31: Joss Whedon edition
AfterElton.com - Jul 2, 2008
In this week's unintentionally Joss Whedoncentric edition, Marc and Lee review the latest installment of the comic book series Buffy Season 8 as well as the ...

Angry Puppy video blog 31: Joss Whedon edition
AfterElton.com - 4 hours ago
In this week's unintentionally Joss Whedoncentric edition, Marc and Lee review the latest installment of the comic book series Buffy Season 8 as well as the ...

Roku, the maker of the $99 Netflix streaming set-top box, has told Forbes that it will be updating its software later this year to let the device stream video from other “big name” providers.

While Roku didn’t name names, YouTube obviously springs to mind. The video-sharing site has done deals to get its content on devices like the Apple TV, HP MediaSmart Connect, and Sony and Panasonic TVs.

The bigger question is what does Roku’s news mean for Verismo, the other $99 set-top box (which also streams YouTube content). Roku’s already been flying off the store shelves (though with no hard numbers, we don’t know how many units that actually is), so does even Verismo stand a chance?

For that matter, what will this mean for the ZvBox. Sure the Zv turns your TV into a remote computer desktop and lets you watch any web video. But if all you want to do is watch video why shell out $499 for a Zv when you can get the Roku for $400 less?

The set-top space is changing by the day, with new players coming in and existing players mixing things up. If Roku is any indication, We’ll be updating our Set-Top Box scorecard a lot this year (and driving my wife crazy with all the new boxes under the TV).

Have you no loyalty, Will Ferrell? While Funny or Die toils along, branching into video games to show that it’s stronger than just your wit alone, you’re off gallivanting on iBeatYou, online video home of new mom Jessica Alba and that traitor Baron Davis (see our initial review of the site).

Ferrell showed up on iBeatYou last week with costar John C. Reilly on the set of their movie Step Brothers. They announced a staring contest, which they are currently winning, though it only has five entrants.

So what’s going on? Is there a celebrity video site roll-up in the in the works?