Have you ever thought that there are investors that would spend money to businesses that have a close relationship with God? I have to agree I never did, but GodTube is here to disagree with me.
According to Rafat Ali, GodTube managed to raise $30 million from GLG Partners, a hedge fund. Guess they have a lot of faith in the business model. GodTube the site that started on a $300 script found lots of people in the US that demand religious programs and exploited it and exploded to the top 1000 websites in September 2007.
Not sure how God and the Internet mix but GodTube is doing nicely and dominates their niche market.
That’s definitely one I would keep my eyes on to see where it’s going.
South Africa’s bloggerati converged in Cape Town last night for this year’s SA Blog Awards. Hosted by Jon Cherry, and with trees as trophies, the evening was an incredibly enjoyable one - for bloggers and digital junkies alike. The Zoopy video features the prize giving and a small segment with predictions from local bloggers Rafiq Phillips, Simone Puterman and Jason Bagley.
Last weeks have been pretty rough for Yahoo! with staff layoffs and takeover bids but they still have some energy to announce that their Yahoo Video service will be relaunched.
There are a lot of changes with many of them appealing a video-demanding user. Files limit has been raised to 150MB, a 16:9 viewer was added, users have better profiles and can use embedable playlists. These are great changes but what I think is going to have the biggest impact is the fact that they’re not limited to user submissions, because they are going to use other Yahoo properties for materials and that include shows, news, TV or movies.
Though they “reinvented” Yahoo Video the battle is fierce because rumors say Google is going to offer live streaming by the end of the year, on YouTube.
What do you guys think? Who will win? - by ALEX ION
Can you spot that one thing women talk at least once a day, every day, every year? I’m telling you, it’s shoes. They seem to have a weird obsession on shoes and I guess that’s the business plan why ShoeTube have launched. It’s a video network that should cover only shoes. They get the technology from twistage and the content is created by Powderhouse Productions.
Though shoes are such a good topic, don’t expect ShoeTube to be flawless. I’ll start with the PROs. The content is going to be very professional including several shows (with hosts) , quality interviews with big names in the industry and lots of blogs. But I get to the CONs right away because from what I’ve seen there is no user interactions other then comments and the forums.
What to be done?
Well they should put themselves in the shoes of their users. If I enjoy one video very much I would gladly share it with other members on the site or maybe embed it on my own blog. The site is missing interaction and shareability.
These features are not yet available but I’m sure ShoeTube is attentive and will correct it sooner or later because have had a great idea. They just need to become 100-percent web2.0.
Lifecasting startup Ustream.tv the company that owns companies like Justin.tv, Blogtv.com or Mogulus is having advanced talks with Microsoft to sell for more than $50 million. Now that Yahoo managed to make a fiasco of their beta launch of Yahoo Live the next in row are companies like Ustream.tv, and there aren’t many.
Microsoft is not the only company interested. Ustream is engaged right now in a large initial round of VC financing so I guess Microsoft would like to get it in while it’s cheap. Rumors, say that they want it to promote Silverlight, a competitor for Adobe Flash Player
Ustream is riding the wave pretty well right now and my honest opinion is that whoever buys them is doing a great job.
In a market that is getting tougher and tougher, Ooyala the company that offers a next-gen solution for video monetization managed to raise $8.5 million in a Series B round of funding led by Sierra Ventures and some private investors. Because of that, Mark Fernandes, the managing director from Sierra is stepping on Board.
The innovative technology allows them to match concepts, object and settings from your viewing experience. For example if you see a nice yacht in a movie and you want one, you can initiate the purchase from the sponsor.
The money will be used to make the product better, and I have to agree that it can bring good income. The total amount of funding is up at $10 milion and I wish them luck with their product. So did Amazon, that awarded them the first prize at the Amazon Web Services Start-Up Challenge last month
In a Series B Round led by Masthead Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, video advertising network Tremor Media managed to raise $11 million. Being a “seismic shift in advertising” the company has grown since 2006 by more than 50% and managed to sign deals with partners such as EyeSpot or ExpoTV.
A recent comScore study revealed that Tremor Media reaches more than half of all internet users in the US to a total of 90 million unique visitors in November and is now on the 18th place on the largest advertising network list that include Advertising.com, Yahoo or Google.
With the online video advertising growing steady, Tremor Media is expected to invest the money in operations and advertising efforts to increase their reach.
The Scoble Show went inside Twitter HQ recently to chat to co-founder Biz Stone and his dev team about scaling issues, upcoming features and how the idea initiated. Some very interesting insight and super slick offices. Enjoy
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” to the Twitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, email, or an application such as Twitterrific. Twitter was founded in March 2006 by San Francisco start-up company Obvious Corp. It asks the simple question, “what are you doing now” ?
For those of you who couldn’t pay $4000 to get into Web 2.0 Summit - or couldn’t make the trip - the organizers have started to release videos of the main sessions on blip.tv. Below is the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg’s video session and quite a few other. Mark was in is usual flip flops and t-shirt - I’m surprized he didn’t have a bowl of corn flakes handy.. Look at the thumbnails down the right and select the Facebook interview - “Conversation with Mark Zuckerberg”
Justin.tv has opened its network, which means that anyone can now use its platform for broadcasting live video across the web. With its partnership with On2 Technologies, you can create your own Justin.tv experience. As a user you’ll get a personalized channel page, where you can customize the header, background, add widgets, etc.
As with most webcam communities, you can post a schedule of your upcoming shows and events. What hasn’t caught on with all webcam networks however is the ability to embed live video, which is a feature now offered on Justin.tv. This is something that will gain steam over the next year.
This move has been expected since the initial launching of Justin.tv, and it’s finally arrived. The next steps? Well, we’ve seen a growing trend of premium content being streamed live to other networks like Ustream. I imagine this ongoing merging of premium and amateur content in the online market will continue through to the webcam world.
Have you ever thought that there are investors that would spend money to businesses that have a close relationship with God? I have to agree I never did, but GodTube is here to disagree with me.
Lifecasting startup Ustream.tv the company that owns companies like Justin.tv, Blogtv.com or Mogulus is having advanced talks with Microsoft to sell for more than $50 million. Now that Yahoo managed to make a fiasco of their beta launch of Yahoo Live the next in row are companies like Ustream.tv, and there aren’t many.
The innovative technology allows them to match concepts, object and settings from your viewing experience. For example if you see a nice yacht in a movie and you want one, you can initiate the purchase from the sponsor.
In a Series B Round led by Masthead Venture Partners and Canaan Partners, video advertising network 
