The government of the U.K. wants to turn the nation into a technology and innovation hub, Prime Minister David Cameron announced last November. And to get there, the country took a long look at its intellectual property laws, and decided to make some changes. READ MORE
If you’re not convinced your business should have an online video presence, consider this statistic: 83 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video content in May and video ads reached 45 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 34 times during the month, reports comScore. READ MORE
Thanks to the social and mobile media explosions, in just six years of existence, YouTube has become the world’s most popular place for video viewing with about two billion hits per day. Additionally, YouTube is also the most trafficked video mobile site with about 7.1 million unique visitors each month. This infographic, designed by Emily Caufield and researched by Mashable’s Lauren Drell, breaks down YouTube’s timeline and explains how YouTube’s site and advertising strategy has evolved since launching in late-2005. READ MORE
Hulu, the online video service that streams popular TV shows from ABC, NBC, and Fox, is reportedly shopping around for potential bidders, according to Dan Rayburn, an analyst with Frost and Sullivan. Rayburn says Hulu and its owners have been meeting with suitors from Yahoo, Google, and Apple, and are seeking as much as $2 billion. While none of these meetings have been independently confirmed, most of the rumors say Apple will be the company to purchase Hulu. The belief is that acquiring Hulu would bolster Apple’s iTunes Store and help it compete with Netflix’s subscription streaming service with one of its own. “Content is king,” says James McQuivey, an analyst with Forrester Research. “People spend four to five hours a day watching TV. If you get them to your platform, it immediately becomes relevant.” Hulu currently streams TV episodes and movies on many devices, including the Roku, Xbox 360, iPad, and iPhone through its monthly subscription service Hulu Plus. An alliance with Apple might mean pulling Hulu off other devices, but Rayburn asks, “then why spend $2 billion to get it?” Hulu says it will have one million Hulu Plus subscribers by year’s end. Read more from USA Today.
Tech start-up Vokle has added some new features to its video conferencing platform. Vokle is a live video broadcasting platform that lets users live stream and broadcast video to a virtual room. Viewers can post live text and video questions to the broadcaster, giving the service a real “town hall” feel, notes TechCrunch’s Rip Empson. READ MORE
Customers are up in arms! Or at least, media outlets are up in arms over Netflix’s announced split of its streaming service and by-mail disk service into two separate subscriptions starting at $7.99 a month each. For users who currently get one disk at a time plus streaming, that translates to a near-60 percent price hike, from $9.99 to $15.98 per month. READ MORE
For businesses who think online video isn’t important, think again: comScore reports that the US Internet audience engaged in 6.2 billion online video sessions in June up from 5.6 billion in May, the first time video sessions surpassed the 6 billion mark. In addition, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 16.8 hours per viewer. READ MORE
This week, YouTube debuted a new look for its videos, playlists, and user channels called—not-so-obviously—”Cosmic Panda.” The new design features widescreen and HD poster frames and less white area around the video to create a greater cinematic experience. READ MORE
If you follow tech news at all, you know that the new Google+ service includes a group chat featured called “Hangouts,” and that in an apparent response, Facebook just announced it was integrating Skype video calling into its service. Which leads to the obvious question: Which is better? READ MORE
If you’ve trolled through any of the big tech news sites within the last two days you’ve seen plenty of critiques of the new Google+ Project, which is basically a way to create groups (or Circles) of people with whom you can share web content. It also has other nifty features such as Hangouts, which Lifehacker describes as “The best free group video chat we’ve seen.” READ MORE
