Online Video Mega List UPDATE1

Below are recent additions to my Online Video MegaList. This list is intended as an overview of video websites that are significant to digital content creators and digital content consumers. Learn where to upload your clips, where to find online video entertainment, where to find progressive multimedia, how to monetize your content and more. See the full list which is organized into categories such as Infrastructure, Upload Sites, Entertainment, Tools, and more.

• PLYmedia: Development, design, manufacturing and deployment of an interactive, multi-dimensional web video platform.
• jetvision: Jetvision provides immediate access to all your content in a single web video player that’s customized to match your existing website.
• VideoClix.tv: VideoClix’s original clickable video authoring software segmented, tracked, tagged and categorized objects within videos.
• VUVOX: VUVOX is an easy to use production and instant sharing service that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music into rich personal expressions.
• LANDLINE TV: A comedy video site that is "comically relevant...for about a week or so."
• Syndicaster: Syndicaster is adding several online distribution options for local TV stations, including the ability to publish video clips to YouTube, AOL (via Brightcove), Yahoo and other sites. Syndicaster is an online editing and video-clip management service that allows TV stations to broadcast any news clip and repurpose it for the Web by publishing it to their own Websites or through its sister service ClipSyndicate (both Syndicaster and ClipSyndicate are divisions of Critical Media).
• VidPay: A white label platform for sponsored video campaigns, helping video advertisers reach their intended audience.
• ActiveVideo: ActiveVideo Networks brings the full Web-media experience to TV, using well-established Internet and On-demand infrastructure. With 24 issued patents, ActiveVideo provides a mature, stable platform with infinite programming possibilities.
• Intruders tv : The leading provider of valuable insights through their unique approach to capturing Innovators on video.
• Kyte: Kyte is an end-to-end, online and mobile platform for the production, distribution and monetization of video content.
• ffwd: This video recommendation engine has just released its API to developers.
• Sling Media: Cool digital settop boxes that stream cable from your house to your computer. They will soon release an iPhone app that gives instant access to Cable TV and Tivo while roaming.
• Another settop box is Roku who will soon have a new product to Stream Netflix and Amazon video on demand.
• The Fancast Store: Online video store with a respectable selection of modern films.
• STRIKE.TV: Born out of the writers strike, designed to challenge members of the Writers Guild to create original programs for the Internet. The ad revenue profits go to the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund.
• Dailymotion: Video upload, sharing and categories.
• Heavy: Early-comer online video company focused on creating entertainment experiences for various demographics.
• Mixpo: An online video advertising technology company based in Seattle.
• mywaves: The largest free mobile video destination for consumers, attracting over 5 million unique visitors monthly to its free mobile video service.
• VideoSurf: A site for users to search, discover and watch online videos.
• Ooyala: Manage, monetize, syndicate and analyze your online video. Founded by two seasoned Google veterans.

See the full Online Video Mega List.

Digital Paper, eBooks and Multimedia Storytelling

Although I still subscribe to two newspapers and I love to read magazines and books, I am nonetheless excited about all the new eBook readers and digital paper technologies becoming available. With so many newspapers in trouble, many writers and readers are going digital.

The Kindle has really sparked a firestorm of recent interest, but there are a ton of other fascinating projects going on. Soon I hope to be digesting blogs, watching video, and reading articles and novels on a paper-thin, flexible color screen with tiny hi-def speakers. Bring it on!

Check out the links below for info on eBook technology, digital paper and what all this is doing to storytelling.

Watch Richard Archuleta, CEO of Plastic Logic demonstrate the world's first electronic reader aimed specifically for business users:
(Also see some other video from Plastic Logic.)

Both Plastic Logic and Kindle were recently mentioned on NPR's Marketplace (April 13, 2009): "New e-readers get a big push. E-readers allow users to read books digitally, but sales of the hand-held devices have grown slowly. That may be changing as Amazon and Sony, along with some well-funded start-ups, push a new generation of e-readers. Mitchell Hartman reports." (Listen to the MP3)

Kindle is Cool, But Color Ebook May Save Civilization
Is the digital savior of the sagging magazine industry finally in sight?

Flexible Displays Closer to Reality, Thanks to U.S. ArmyImagine a screen so thin, light and flexible that it can be rolled up and carried in your pocket, while consuming almost zero power. Phillips electronics is also working on a similar epaper technology.

The folks at TechCrunch are working on a great potential product that will be "a very thin and light touch screen computer, sans physical keyboard, that has no hard drive and boots directly to a browser to surf the web." Ladies and gentlemen, The CrunchPad.

Check out the review of the eSlick eBook reader that was announced before the Kindle2.

Samsung ready to roll out Papyrus touchscreen ebook reader Will the touchscreen make this a Kindle killer?

Readers and writers are also starting to develop technologies and communities to adapt and support this new way of publishing (or is it broadcasting?).

Wattpad is called "The World's Most Popular eBook Sharing Community." Self-publishing is also flourishing in this new world at places like WEbook. A company called Vook.tv is in private beta, but promises to be a site to promote and distribute a multimedia hybrid of books and videos.

Is This the Future of the Digital Book? Read about Vook and many other companies in this great NYT article.

The New Storytelling: Multimedia Children's Publishing Kids' publishing houses lead the way in developing multimedia platforms.

Fujitsu shows off colour e-book display. It's new, it's Japanese and it is almost ready for prime time.

Interactive Online Movies and User Narative Control

Bandwidth and video technology enable online video producers to mix and match video clips in real time. This means that viewers can click on video to alter the action or storyline. Users steer the narrative by making choices along the way. User navigated content. Some recent examples show just how seamless and full-screen these experiences can be.

Survive the Outbreak is an interactive horror film which allows viewers to make their own life or death decisions with zombies.




NOLAF.org is a wild Tostitos brand entertainment story labyrinth created by Element79 and Mekanism. It is successfully compelling and is able to weave the brand into a Monty Pythonesque tale of crusaders who are fighting against fun. I hope Tostitos is feeling that taking a marketing chance with their budget has proved worthwhile. I can consume this kind of advertising.

The Orange Underground is an interactive video site combined with user-generated videos. A Cheetos ad campaign.

And some groups are pushing the video interaction even further. For example, GPS Film is a location-based mobile cinema. "Using a GPS-enabled PDA or mobile phone, artwork selects clips based on location. As the viewer travels, the movie is revealed. The result is a new type of film experience that is tied to the movement of the viewer. Similar to a game, GPS Film tells stories by exploring an environment… but by taking it off the computer and back into the real world."

Gary Vaynerchuk Content Creation Pep Talk

Gary Vaynerchuk created a big buzz with his recent keynote talk at the Web 2.0 Expo. Pacing the stage, he implores the audience to stop doing things they hate. He created Wine Library TV and has become an internet celebrity and successful businessman. He discusses how we are living in an age when the old media controls are crumbling and the new content creators have numerous chances to monetize their own personal monkey business. Create!

How-To Videos Online

A huge sub-genre of online video is the "How-to" video. On the one hand, I welcome this development because many of the videos are useful, fun and informative. On the other hand, any hack with a video camera and a self-inflated view of what they can teach the world is now empowered to digitally lecture the globe. Let the learning and teaching begin!

5min
A place to find short video solutions for practical questions and a place for people to share their knowledge.

HowCast
User generated content that is produced by the HowCast professional video team as well as freelance associates.

Wonder How To
A community-fueled, search engine and directory for free how-to video, with an index of more than 100,000 videos.

Instructables
Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others.

Sutree
SuTree is a knowledge community and an aggregator of instructional &
educational videos.

VideoJug
Life explained, on film. A comprehensive library of free factual video content. Professionally-produced, high definition.

ExpertVillage
Professionally produced and researched videos, to answer everyday questions with. More than 120,000 videos.

eHow
A platform for you to share your knowledge with others. Clear instruction and high-quality video.

3D Animation Gets Gooder and Gooder

A host of new 3D animators are cranking up the quality bar. Check out these examples of cutting edge technical and creative wizardry.

Emily: She's not real
Image Metrics (the production company that created the animations for Grand Theft Auto) made a splash this week with Emily, created using their new 3D modeling technology. It captures the movements and expressions of real actors and re-creates it all in the computer in a creepy way.

Oktapodi
A student film about amorous octopi from Gobelins, the French school of visual design that has produced tons of amazing animators.

Also, don't miss the "making of" video.

Big Buck Bunny
Big Buck Bunny is an open source movie made with open source software from The Blender Foundation. They created this movie under a software development type model, all to promote the use of their tools.

Check out the "making of" video.

My Morning Jacket Music Video
For their song, Touch Me I'm Going To Scream Pt. 2, My Morning Jacket had the creative team at Mixtape Club create an amazing 3D animation.

Online Video Mega List

Web video has achieved mass-market popularity. This compilation of links serves as a taste of what's available. Move over, YouTube. You've got company. I will continue to add to (or subtract from) this list as time goes on. Leave comments if I've missed any good ones.

Upload Sites

• 12 Seconds TV: Upload and share short video, like Twitter for video.
• Blip TV: Upload your own or watch other people's videos. Solid set of monetization tools. Great player.
• Cruxy: Post your video, track your buzz and make some dough.
• Current TV: A global television network that gives you the opportunity to create and influence what airs on TV.
• Dailymotion: Video upload, sharing and categories.
• FlixWagon: Broadcast live video from your mobile device.
• HelloWorld: Online studio tools for posting video, live video and video email.
• LiveVideo: Original and exclusive content, weekly video contests, customizable video streaming community.
• Magnify.net: Community video platform. Hosting of pages and videos.
• MetaCafe: Video entertainment powered by you.
• Mogulus: Live broadcast platform on the internet. Mobile features and interactive chat.
• MotionBox: Family-friendly video sharing and storage.
• MySpaceTV: Mega portal/community.
• Qik: Stream live video from your phone.
• Phanfare: Family-friendly private video sharing and collaboration.
• Revver: upload your video and get advertising revenue.
• Stickam: Web video conferencing, live streaming and lifecasting.
• Treemo: An online media sharing community with a mobile component and a "green" slant.
• TubeMogul: Independent video producers use this tool to distribute to multiple platforms, monetize their assets and track their stats.
• Ustream: "Live interactive video for everyone."
• Veoh: From home videos to premier internet television content. From Michael Eisner. Also has a media player.
• Viddler Web application to upload, enhance, and share digital video.
• Vimeo: Slick upload and share site with robust software and player.
• VUVOX: VUVOX is an easy to use production and instant sharing service that allows you to mix, create and blend your personal media – video, photos and music into rich personal expressions.
• Vuze: Upload or watch high-def videos.
• ZigiMe: Social network where users can upload video.

Infrastructure, Software & Hardware

• Adobe Media Player: Finding, cataloging and watching your videos.
• adotube: Publisher-centric online video advertising platform that enables you to generate revenue by showing brand-name ads in your video content.
• Amazon UnBox: The ecommerce giant begins to experiment with online delivery of entertainment content.
• BitTorrent: Trade huge files with your peers.
• BrightCove: Large-scale internet TV platform.
• CinemaNow: Movies. Buy, Rent, Burn. Online.
• CastTV: Video search, attempting to index every video on the web.
• ClipSyndicate: Search licensed, professional content, embed a channel widget in your site and earn revenue.
• DigitalSmiths: Video search technology. Publishers can register and generate ad revenue.
• Dotsub: Any film, any language. Wiki-type citizen translation tool for video.
• Dragonfly: Your customized video network. Trackable. Monetizable.
• Ekko.tv: Instantly start a video chat with two of your friends.
• Feed Room: Enterprise video solution. Provider of technology to corporations and media sites.
• jetvision: Jetvision provides immediate access to all your content in a single web video player that’s customized to match your existing website.
• Kaltura: Open source video management tools for individuals and organizations.
• Kyte: Kyte is an end-to-end, online and mobile platform for the production, distribution and monetization of video content.
• Mixpo: An online video advertising technology company based in Seattle.
• Maven Networks: Online video advertising solution.
• MoveNetworks: TV 2.0. Web streaming technology and services.
• Ooyala: Manage, monetize, syndicate and analyze your online video. Founded by two seasoned Google veterans.
• Origin Digital: Video application service provider, syndication, reporting, multi-platform.
• Overlay.TV: Enrich, monetize, and share online video with animations, comments, products and hyperlinks.
• PermissionTV: A digital video distribution platform with tools to monetize and track your video assets.
• PLYmedia: Development, design, manufacturing and deployment of an interactive, multi-dimensional web video platform.
• Red Lasso: Search national and local TV broadcasts, make clips, share the clips.
• Another settop box is Roku who will soon have a new product to Stream Netflix and Amazon video on demand.
• ScanScout: In-stream video ad network for publishers and organizations.
• See Too: Privately watch videos with a buddy on the internet.
• Sling Media: Cool digital settop boxes that stream cable from your house to your computer. They will soon release an iPhone app that gives instant access to Cable TV and Tivo while roaming.
• Snackfeed: Snackfeed is a tool that lets you track your favorite videos and watch what your friends are watching.
• SwarmCast: Multi-stream platform provider for HD and live distribution
• Syndicaster: Syndicaster is adding several online distribution options for local TV stations, including the ability to publish video clips to YouTube, AOL (via Brightcove), Yahoo and other sites. Syndicaster is an online editing and video-clip management service that allows TV stations to broadcast any news clip and repurpose it for the Web by publishing it to their own Websites or through its sister service ClipSyndicate (both Syndicaster and ClipSyndicate are divisions of Critical Media).
• Tremor Media: Monetize your video (for companies and individual publishers).
• TVTonic: Watch, subscribe and manage video content. Designed to be used with a remote on Windows Media Center.
• UV Layer: Search and discover video. Create thumbnail walls as visual storage.
• Veodia: Platform-as-a-service video broadcasting tools.
• Veotag: A service that allows you to display clickable text on your audio or video files.
• VideoClix.tv: VideoClix’s original clickable video authoring software segmented, tracked, tagged and categorized objects within videos.
• VidPay: A white label platform for sponsored video campaigns, helping video advertisers reach their intended audience.
• Visible Measures: Deep and relevant measurement of internet video audience behavior.
• Yuxt: Social video bookmarking, list creator, playlist tools.

Content & Entertainment Portals

• Acceptable: Watch. Vote. Create. Their judges decide which submitted clips are acceptable to be voted on.
• ActiveVideo: ActiveVideo Networks brings the full Web-media experience to TV, using well-established Internet and On-demand infrastructure. With 24 issued patents, ActiveVideo provides a mature, stable platform with infinite programming possibilities.
• AllOfTV: An archive of streaming TV content on the web. A site with this range of free content is surely going to be shut down soon.
• AtomFilms: A source for independently produced, online entertainment for ten years.
• BabelGum: "TV experience, Internet Substance." High-resolution and full-screen.
• Beet TV: Business news about the media revolution.
• Blinkx TV: 26 million hours of searchable video and major partnerships with dozens of media companies.
• Crackle: A Sony Pictures Entertainment Company formerly known as Grouper. A multi-platform video entertainment network and studio.
• DubiousTV: Seattle-based producers of online shows.
• The Fancast Store: Online video store with a respectable selection of modern films.
• ffwd: This video recommendation engine has just released its API to developers.
• Heavy: Early-comer online video company focused on creating entertainment experiences for various demographics.
• Hulu NBC Universal and News Corporation joint video venture. Many popular TV shows and movies available full-length and full-screen.
• HungryFlix: Feed your portable device. Purchase with micropayments.
• Intruders tv : The leading provider of valuable insights through their unique approach to capturing Innovators on video.
• Joost: All the things you love about TV, fused with all the fun and interactive power of the internet. From the guys that brought you Skype and Kazaa. Full screen. Downloaded client.
• JumpTV: Free live TV from all over the world on your PC.
• LANDLINE TV: A comedy video site that is "comically relevant...for about a week or so."
• Live Universe: One of the largest online entertainment networks from MySpace founder Brad Greenspan. Video, Social Networking & Music.
• MeeVee: Traditional TV listings and online video from hundreds of sources. Personalized guides to surface new programming choices based on individual interests.
• mywaves: The largest free mobile video destination for consumers, attracting over 5 million unique visitors monthly to its free mobile video service.
• Neovids.tv: Production company that creates, acquires, and distributes online video content.
• On Networks: Producing tons of original content. Original programming for original people.
• MojoHD: High-def online site owned by Comcast, Cox Communications and Time Warner among others.
• Podaddies: Advertising solutions for video publishers.
• Revision3: Discover, watch, subscribe, discuss. Original shows.
• Rocket Boom: Daily internet culture news video program.
• STRIKE.TV: Born out of the writers strike, designed to challenge members of the Writers Guild to create original programs for the Internet. The ad revenue profits go to the Writers Guild Foundation Industry Support Fund.
• Tilzy.tv: What to watch on the web. Guides and reviews.
• VideoSurf: A site for users to search, discover and watch online videos.
• ViralVideos: Displaying the web's most shared viral videos.
• WellcomeMat: Local personalities and professionals use video to highlight real estate, cities, neighborhoods, parks, schools, events and local businesses.
• WorldTV: Create your own channel by assembling videos from the web or watch other people's channels.
• Zattoo: Live TV on your PC from all over the world.

Progressive

• DIY Video Summit: DIY video in the age of digital media.
• FreeSpeech.org: Campanion website of the progressive TV channel. Politics, culture and social issues.
• FORA.tv: "The World is Thinking." Political, social and cultural issues via web video.
• TED: Technology, Entertainment, Design. 18-minute speeches from progressive luminaries.

Other

• For Your Imagination: A content production company, creative video studio and marketing team.
• WallStrip: Videos about how cultural trends effect the stock market.

Updated April 26th, 2009.

Online Video Advertising Growth

It seems that every time another research firm predicts the size of the online video advertising market, another firm turns around and makes a higher prediction. The realities of the market and the ever-increasing adoption of online video is proving that the predictions are too low. The only thing we can be sure of is that advertising for online video will be huge! This is great news for all of us content creators...if there is money in the market, funding for shows will continue to increase.

Lehman predicts $2.4B in U.S. Video Ads by 2010. See the TechCrunch post.

Parks Associates predict $6.6B in Online Video Ads by 2012. See the NewTeeVee post.

Forrester predicts $7.1B in Online Video Ads by 2012.

Fifty Percent of US Population will Watch Online Video in 2008

Not everyone agrees. "Expectations for online video ad revenue growing faster than the evidence"

Opportunities for Content Creators

Andrew Baron, creator of Rocketboom, recently talked to Beet.tv about the numerous opportunities that exist for digital content creators. Now, more than ever, individuals and small shops can make a living creating original programming for the web and mobile devices. He talks in detail about how to approach entrepreneurial efforts in the fields of digital film making, story development, online video and web show production.

The Rocketboom folks just announced a seven-figure distribution deal with Sony this week, so this is a content team that knows what they are talking about.

NYT Article Takes Pulse of Web Video Scene

A great recent article in the New York Times titled "Night Life Reprogrammed" explores the nightlife and social scene that has sprouted up around the next-generation web industry that is newly emerging. Special emphasis is placed on web video companies and their interactions with the industry and the world at large. The article mentions a bunch of great internet video content and entertainment sites such as the following:

• Wine Library TV
• Video blogs like Downtown Diary and Pop17
• Digital media production company Dinosaur Diorama
• Online video entertainment pioneer Blip.tv
• Hip Hop video blog Ill Doctrine
• NY Video 2.0

For more companies like this, check out my 4-part series about digital media content sites "They Promised Us Convergence".

Metacafe Partners with Web Video Content Creators

AdAge is reporting that the web video entertainment company Metacafe has partnered with a dozen content-creation companies including 60 Frames, Aniboom, CelebTV, Collegiate Images, Comedy.com, Comedy Time, Diagonal View, GamePro Media, Howcast, SXM, Wannahaves, and Young Hollywood.

"It's important for content creators that they not only have their work distributed as broadly as possible but also that they team with publishers who can help ensure their videos reach the right viewers at the right time," Scott Bushman, vice president of content for Metacafe.

Digital Media Content Business News

When I started this blog over a year ago, it was to cover stories in the still-emerging digital content industry. This world of online entertainment and digital delivery is now mainstream, and continues to grow. Popular old-school media companies have begun to embrace the new delivery channels and content-creation techniques. Take the recent examples below as proof.

• PaidContent.org parent company, ContentNext, has been acquired by Guardian News & Media.


• HBO has decided to offer digital versions of its content on iTunes.
  
  
• Media industry grand-daddy CBS Buys digital pioneer C|NET for $1.8 billion.


• Disney Online Creates New Team Focused on Online Virtual Worlds, Communities and Games


• Online-Video Firm Revver Is Acquired by LiveUniverse.


• The new Vivendi multimedia service, called Zaoza, will deliver content across multiple devices and encourage users to share


• Hollywood continues to go digital. Lions Gate Entertainment has decided to strike a deal with Google to share advertising revenue from YouTube clips of it's films.

Digital Media Entertainment Studios

As a producer and consumer of digital media, I find it encouraging to see such a healthy crop of newfangled filmmakers. These are companies dedicated to creating content pieces for digital distribution. Like studios set up to create TV or movies, the internet studios are generating new works and releasing them to a mass audience.

For example, the makers of LonelyGirl 15 have transformed themselves into "EQAL (pronounced “Equal”), the social entertainment company dedicated to redefining the way we interact with content and with each other."

"Worldwide Biggies is a Digital Entertainment Studio that’s redefining entertainment by creating hit properties for young adults and the digital family."

"Next New Networks is a new kind of media company, creating micro-television networks over the internet for targeted communities, bringing together elements of tv programming and internet philosophy to allow viewers to contribute, share and distribute content."

Generate is "new content for a new generation. With the entertainment industry undergoing a seismic shift in reaction to the rapidly changing consumption habits of the youth and family audience, we recognize there now exists a unique opportunity to create a forward-thinking company that understands both this audience and their increasing demand for content across multiple platforms."

60 Frames is "a company specifically focused on financing and syndicating web content, in an environment where artists maintain creative freedom, significant profit participation, ownership and control over their properties. 60Frames provides financial, legal, creative, physical, marketing and distribution resources to professional artists who wish to create original, high quality programming for the internet and other digital media platforms."

Vuguru is Michael Eisner's company that is producing high-quality digital entertainment properties. Learn more about this in my recent post from Eisner's recent keynote speech.

Endemol is a thriving production entity that creates powerful content for all media platforms. They've done Big Brother and Deal or No Deal and are focused on both traditional and emerging technologies.

Stage 9 Digital Media is an ABC TV offshoot focused on creating digital programming for internet audiences. They are syndicating rapidly to YouTube, Hulu, Zvue and even on the Xbox among others.

"Electric Farm Entertainment is a digital studio for the development of intellectual properties across multiple platforms." They are the studio creating Gemini Division, the online sci-fi series available at the NBC website.

"Medialink helps professional communicators and the media engage their intended audiences with compelling video and audio distributed via the Web, television and radio. We produce award-winning video and audio content that is promoted and distributed to broadcast and broadband media outlets"

My Interview with Michael Jahn

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing a true industry veteran, Michael Jahn. He's a printing industry consultant, color specialist, PDF evangelist and glob-trotting presenter. He's also a surfer, goof-ball and trickster.

We talked about what's changed for content creators, designers and publishers in the last 20 years. He's been involved with PDF since it was just "P" (for postscript). He describes why now is one of the most exciting times ever for digital publishing.

We spoke in Orlando just before his CRE8 presentation entitled, "What Color is Your Cheese Doodle?"

To learn more about the CRE8 Conference on Creativity & Technology, see my posts from the show.

To enter the mind of Mr. Jahn, view his blog.

This video is presented using the Veoh service. Learn more about Michael Eisner and his connection to this company.

Microsoft Silverlight Presentation by Brian Goldfarb part 1

(Install Silverlight to view this video.)

The video above is part one of a keynote speech given by Brian Goldfarb of Microsoft at the 2008 CRE8 Conference. I attended the conference in Orlando and you can review my earlier posts from the show.

A cultural change is afoot at Microsoft, where the oft-neglected designer is finally getting a long-craved-for hug from the Borg. This time it really seems like they are serious about respecting user experience and good human-computer interface design best practices. For instance, Microsoft is part of the OpenAjax Alliance and they have even launched a full-on designer community.

Check out his presentation to learn about Microsoft's new approach to the entire "ecosystem of developers" which involves "collaboration between teams of partners". Microsoft is not only trying to provide tools to do tasks, but they are also addressing the need for workflow solutions. How do teams work closely together, freely exchanging ideas, files and deliverables? With the new products, a designer can open up a project that has been coded by a developer and vice versa.

Goldfarb leads teams dedicated to building upon Microsoft's Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), their unified application framework. Among other things, it allows developers to apply basic windows functionality (like spell check) into multimedia applications.

He spoke broadly about general changes in Microsoft culture and practice. He mentioned that their server is now standards-based, and the "browser is getting better, I promise".

He shared a variety of example Silverlight sites from their Gallery, including Break.com, HSN,and the mind-bending "Deep Zoom" technology on the Hard Rock Cafe site.

At the time of this presentation, Microsoft was seeing over one million downloads a day of the Silverlight plug-in.

The new products support HD video, adaptive streaming solutions, XAML, and DRM-ready features. Read my post about a recent all-day Silverlight training event I attended at Microsoft to learn more about all this stuff.

Goldfarb stressed that they are building demand. Now they need creative people to develop the supply. To that end, they are offering 10 gigs of free hosting! The video above takes advantage of this. They are encouraging the developer network by providing a free place to get started.

Silverlight is driving plugin adoption by offering content developers a free hosting and streaming service: "Microsoft® Silverlight™ Streaming by Windows Live™ is a companion service for Silverlight that makes it easier for developers and designers to deliver and scale rich media as part of their Silverlight applications. The service offers web designers and developers a free and convenient solution for hosting and streaming cross-platform, cross-browser media experiences and rich interactive applications that run on Windows™ and Mac."

Aggregators Pointing to Aggregators: Is Real Content Dead?

The last few years have seen a tremendous rise in aggregators, sites that link to top news and entertainment stories located on other sites. Numerous cries can be heard that true journalism and thoughtful commentary are dead because sites are linking to anything they can find, from blogs to wikis to amateur movies. Does this signal the end of content creation as we know it? Will we end up in a world where links only lead to more links, endlessly in circles, till the end of time?

In the video above Guy Kawasaki talks about his recent aggregation venture, AllTop, with Drue Kataoka of Valley Zen. He is experiencing great success automatically gathering and posting news based on topics such as celebrities, science and politics.

Of course, one of the grand-daddies of this approach is Thomas Marban and his outrageously popular PopURLs site. One page. A bazillion links.

The examples of this phenomenon are extremely numerous: Google News, Topix, Newser, TechMeme, Digg, BuzzFeed, or any of the hundreds of other aggregators.

AdAge has a great recent article about these subjects called It's Web 3.0, and Someone Else's Content Is King (Without Original Reporting, How Long Can the Aggregation Party Last?) They cover the doom and gloom side of the story well, but also point to the encouraging opportunities for aggregator sites and content creators. They also pull some great tidbits from The Pew Center's annual report on American journalism, The State of the News Media 2008. Both definitely worth the read.

I actually think all this is great news for modern digital content creators. As traditional publishing moves toward the digital platform, the market fragments. This separates the creators from the designers from the marketers from the distributors. Content developers are now on their own and this makes the content more valuable. When the giant content factories begin to focus on promotion and delivery, the individual writers and creators can shine. And they can charge top dollar for their product, whose value increases.