Here is the stark reality of online video: nobody is making much money and the enthusiastic projections for online video advertising going from $500 million in 2008 to more than $5 billion in five years will undoubtedly be pared back in the coming weeks as analysts revisit their numbers. (Those numbers are from August—eMarketer).

The writing is already on the wall. YouTube is resorting to selling off video search results to the sexiest bidder and just today announced that it is extending overlay ads in YouTube Partner videos to embedded videos on other sites (previously these would only show up on YouTube itself). It is pulling out all the stops to try to get those revenues flowing. Meanwhile, smaller video startups such as Veoh and Revsion3 have already cut back on staff and shows in order to survive.

There is plenty of video inventory, just not a lot that advertisers want. And even the videos produced and distributed online by the TV networks are bringing in only a fraction of the advertising dollars that they do on regular TV. NBC CEO Jeff Zucker’s fear that the Web will turn “analog dollars” into “digital pennies is coming true. According to Dean Denhart, the CEO of BlackArrow (a company that provides an ad-management system for on-demand video across both cable and the Web), mainstream video fetches an average of about 50-cents per thousand viewers per hour watched on broadcast and cable TV, compared to 5 cents per thousand viewers per hour watched for the same video on the Web.

Conference co-organizer John Battelle welcomes Yang to the stage at 4:50 pm.

Yang says its been an “amazing year” in response to Battelle’s first question on how he’s doing personally. Battelle then asks what happened to Yahoo this year, going back to Microsoft’s offer to acquire the company in February 2008.

Yang says flat out that he’s open to a sale to Microsoft, that they were ready to negotiate a deal and that they weren’t that far apart. He says Microsoft continues to be clear that Microsoft is no longer interested in the deal. Yang also says that he and his board of directors felt that at all times they did the right thing. Both sides are to blame, he says, for the deal not happening.

Battelle says that a lot of people claim Yang is to blame for the deal falling apart. Yang counters, saying he is indifferent about keeping Yahoo independent and just wants what’s best for the company. He also reiterates that they went back to Microsoft after the offer was revoked to get them interested again.
Source:TechCrunch

Hitwise has released a ranking of some of the top news sites, measured by traffic on Election Day. CNN.com came out on top, seeing a 146 percent spike over the day before. But MSNBC.com, Fox News, and the Drudge report all saw nice bumps as well. ABCNews.com had a record day, with a 113 percent jump in traffic over the day before. And CNN’s Political Ticker blog by itself saw a 122 percent jump. (Twitter traffic rose 43 percent and traffic to Twitter Election 2008 rose 1,100 percent).

Some sites, amazingly saw declines from the day before, such as Time.com (-21%), Current TV(-53%), and Slate (-33%).

Here is a list of the top election news sites (you can see all the stats in the table below):Source:TechCrunch

Online video site Veoh is laying off 20 people, or 18% of its staff of 110. The move comes a month after a Paidcontent reported layoffs in Veoh’s Russian office in St. Petersburg, which CEO Steve Mitgang says was a strategic decision rather than a financial one, as Veoh wanted to move its development staff to San Diego (where it has hired a replacement team).

This round is more of a financial move, given the new economic reality. The company insists that it is still strong on a financial front, and expects to be profitable next year, although CEO Mitgang admits profitability could be pushed out a quarter. Despite the somber news, he is confident Veoh will emerge as one of the few surviving video sites in what will no doubt be a coming shakeout.

This has been a brutal month or so for tech layoffs. According to our Layoff Tracker, there have been 19,683 job eliminations at tech companies announced since mid-September, and we’re not even counting the 24,600 people at Hewlett-Packard who are being eliminated as a result of its merger with EDS.

But only five big companies make up more than 90 percent of the layoffs: Xerox (3,000), Dell (8,900), Yahoo (1,500), eBay (1,500), and German chipmaker Qimonda (3,000). The other 33 companies are mostly startups, and collectively account for 1,683 layoffs. Although three more companies (Sony Ericsson, Nvidia, and TicketMaster) account for an additional 1,110 job losses.

After stripping those out, you get closer to a pure number of layoffs at tech startups: 573

Columbus Day gets no respect. Be honest, how many of you are actually celebrating it? That’s what I thought.

Even Google doesn’t care (or maybe Columbus Day just isn’t PC enough). The logo on Google’s homepage today is celebrating Paddington Bear’s 50th birthday instead of a drawing of the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria.Source:TechCrunch

Without much fanfare, Joost has finally turned on the browser version of its Web video service, as we noted it would last month. The new site is all based on Flash, and lets you watch old Bruce Lee flicks, Sci-Fi movies like The Fifth Element, and clips from Barely Political and Comedy Central.

The Flash site comes almost exactly a year after I wrote a post pointing out that Joost’s peer-to-peer software approach would not work and that it would have to switch over to Flash-based video, just like every other Web video service. People don’t want to have to launch a new piece of software to watch video on their computers. They want to watch it in their browsers (so they can quickly surf to another page when they realize how much the video they are watching sucks—or, if it doesn’t suck, quickly switch tabs when the boss walks by their desk).

It took Joost a year, but it has finally realized that the Web is where it’s at. Now all it has to do is compete with Hulu, YouTube, Veoh, DailyMotion, and the hundred other video sites out there.

Specifically, the court said that online video sites are protected under the safe harbor provisions of the DMCA if they:

Compete is out with their latest online video market share report. As anyone with a pulse could guess, YouTube/Google is still dominating the market. YouTube is up 14% from a year ago while half of the top players are down from a year ago. This report from Compete is really about where people are watching online video. What I’d love to see is for Compete to compare the video hosting players in terms of where content producers are placing their media.

What I am seeing with YouTube is that more consumer brands are leveraging the YouTube platform. If YouTube wants to generate real revenue, this is where it is. Sure there’s money in pre-roll ads, but partnering with large consumer brands will provide YouTube with a more level revenue stream. We will have to see over time how loyal YouTube users feel about brands invading their cat video sanctuary.

Check out the Compete posting for more detailed analysis about Jokeroo.

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Online video host Veoh has launched a new behavioral advertising program in beta today. Mark Walsh from OnlineMediaDaily explains that Veoh’s program, "lets marketers match video and display ads with specific audiences based on their viewing habits."

Veoh will offer targeting in a variety of categories including: digital youth; family-focused; information seekers; pop culturalists; socially conscious; sci-fi and anime fans; and upwardly mobile. Behavioral advertising has been the talk of the Internet and in the U.S. Senate. The question is around how much information is too much before it moves into privacy concerns.

Veoh reports 300 million video plays a month from both professional and user-generated content. Though like most video networks these days, the emphasis is moving to the professional side where it’s easier to monetize.  

Last month Veoh raised $30 million (total raised $70 million), signed a deal with ABC and was added to StumbleVideo.

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