At the MIX07 conference in Las Vegas, Nevada, Microsoft and CBS Corporation announced that they will be forming a partnership. The partnership involves CBS’ videos powered by Microsoft’s Silverlight software. Microsoft Silverlight will allow videos to be streamed across multiple browsers and competes directly with Adobe Flash.

Not only will CBS use Silverlight, but the television broadcast company will also use Microsoft Expression Media Encoder. The Encoder software will allow users to upload their own content whether it is video, audio, text, or images.

“This is not about creating a portal to compete with YouTube or MySpace,” stated Jonathan Leess, the President and a General Manager of CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group. “It is a user-generated content tool, and we’re going to use the Silverlight platform to build an actual application. The key to this product is it’s a seamless experience for users to create, upload and edit content into a portal that is connected by the Internet [to our Websites].”*

User-uploaded content will be available on CBS station websites by October 2007 and the Silverlight plug-in should be available by this summer. The user-uploaded content will be moderated by CBS staff members.

*[Information Source: Broadcast Newsroom]

Update: Silverlight 1.0 Beta is available for download at:
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/downloads.aspx

SplastCast is a Portland, Oregon based company that utilizes Adobe Flash technology for streaming media.  While YouTube only utilizes video files, SplashCast enables videos, music, photos, text, and RSS feeds.  In addition to the aforementioned types of media, SplashCast today introduced a new feature called MyPodcastNetwork.

MyPodcastNetwork allows users to embed video and audio podcasts to their SplashCast players.  MyPodcastNetwork hosts a plethora of video channels to embed on blogs and websites in its catalog.  The video channel that caught my eye at the top of the catalog website is The Onion News Network which was given $1 million in funding about 1 month ago.

To embed videos from the catalog, users are asked to create an account and then click on “Podcasts and RSS [Source: SplashCast blog].”  A sample SplashCast player is below:

Right Media is a private, New York-based advertising company that offers products known as PMX (Publisher Media Exchange), NMX (Network Media Exchange), and AMX (Advertiser Media Exchange). The product-line that Right Media offers was so appealing that Yahoo! wanted ownership. This is why Yahoo! spent $45 million to buy 20% stake in the company back in October 2006.

Google announced on April 13, 2007 that the company would be acquiring DoubleClick Inc. for $3.1 billion. This announcement rippled concerns amongst various other media companies, Microsoft Corp., and Yahoo! Inc. regarding monopolistic practices. Yahoo! counter-acted this concern by fully acquiring Right Media for $680 million on top of its previous $45 million investment.

“By now you’ve heard that Yahoo! has agreed to acquire Right Media (read Terry Semel’s post here). This is fantastic news for both companies, Exchange members and the industry in general,” stated Michael Walrath, CEO of Right Media [Source: Right Media blog]. “There’s still a lot of friction in this industry that prevents buyers and sellers from working together to everyone’s mutual benefit. I believe that the Right Media Exchange has done a lot to eliminate that friction, and this deal is a great catalyst to an even more efficient interactive ad market.”

“The acquisition, to us, is a key step toward executing our long-term vision to build the leading advertising and publisher ecosystem both on and off the Yahoo network,” stated CEO of Yahoo! Inc., Terry Semel in an interview [Source: NYTimes].

The deal will be closing within 3 months and will be paid for in cash and stock. This should alleviate concerns about the CEO of Yahoo! not making the right moves in competing with Google. Google turned down a $3 billion offer and social network, Facebook.com turned down a $1 billion offer from Yahoo!

Yesterday evening was the SF Beta conference and one of the attendees was Eugene Mizin.  Eugene Mizin is the founder of Notefish.com and is also a Senior Product Manager at CNET. 

What is Notefish?  It makes research conducted on the Internet a bit easier to preserve.  The Notefish logo is a cartoon fish made out of stick notes which I thought was clever and very Web 2.0ish.  Creating an account is free and the plugin is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

After users install the plugin and create an account, they are then asked to create a page.  I am calling my page, Testing:

After the new page is created, then it is suggested that you add tags associated with the page so it is easier to search for later.  You can store notes in any page.  These notes can be typed on your own or you could highlight anything on any website and then click on the icon next to your address bar.  The content will then be saved to the page of your choice on Notefish:
1.) Highlight

2.) Click the icon [the pop-up may have you log-in]

3.) And presto!  Its been saved:

This website is clearly a lot more useful for educational purposes but it can still be used for other multiple purposes such as information-sharing for companies.  It seems a bit easier than creating wikis.

[Website tipped by Mo Kakwan, Pulse 2.0 Silicon Valley correspondent]

There is an old military hospital that rests on a hill in Seattle, WA.  It may look dull on the outside, but what is on the inside are some of the most brilliant software developers from all over the world.  It is the headquarters of Amazon.com.  A software engineer at Amazon gave me a tour of the place and one of the most elegant views I’ve seen from the headquarters is the Seattle skyline:

If I remember correctly, this view is from a side window outside of the Amazon conference room that Bill Gates sometimes uses for press meetings.

There is also a UPS office on the bottom floor of the Amazon headquarters that exemplifies Amazon’s need for a strong supply chain converging with technology.  This brings me to an article that I read today in The New York Times that I found very interesting.  Amazon.com distribution centers will now support items sent by independent sellers.  Now if you buy items on eBay or Google Checkout, your package may show up on Amazon’s renown smiley-faced boxes.

“Think of as it Amazon 2.0. Though the company’s primary business appears to be booming — it announced a 32 percent increase in revenue this week, which sent its stock soaring 40 percent in the last two days — revenues will inevitably flatten as the company matures. If it wants to keep treating investors to torrid growth, the company needs to develop other ways to make money” wrote Brad Stone, an author of The New York Times.

Last September, Yahoo! arranged an event called Open Hack Day at Yahoo!’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif.  The turnout was great.  Attendees used Yahoo! technologies and APIs to come up with their own applications.  Music was provided by pop artist, Beck.  TechCrunch founder, Michael Arrington judged the applications created by the attendees.

Although I was not able to attend the event myself, my friend Mo Kakwan won the award of Best Schtick for using a picture of Patrick Stewart on his Flickr.  The full story on that is available at:
http://pulse2.com/2006/10/03/funny-guy-mo-on-yahoo-hack-day-06/
Mo also made a video of his experience at Hack Day below:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=416jMJIcJn4[/youtube]

The Hack Day event in London will take place at Alexandra Palace on June 16th and 17th.  Five hundred developers will be invited and there will also be a musical guest.  The event is sponsored by Yahoo! Developers Network and BBC Backstage. 

Sign-up forms are available at:
http://hack.eventwax.com/hack-day/register

There is some additional information on Matt McAlister’s blog post:
http://developer.yahoo.net/blog/archives/2007/04/hack_day_london.html

Michael Jordan, Carmelo Anthony, Dwayne Wadge, and Vince Carter all have something in common besides being in the NBA.  All of them were involved with Five-Star Basketball at one point.  Five-Star is an institution that educates students and adults about basketball since 1966.  In a move that benefits both parties, Takkle.com (high school sports social network) and Five-Star basketball have partnered with each other.

“We are delighted to partner with Five-Star, one of the pre-eminent brands in high school basketball. High school athletes today not only compete on their high school teams, but also spend a lot of time honing their skills at off-season camps,” stated David Birnbaum, the chief exec and co-founder of TAKKLE. “Our partnership with Five-Star highlights the value of TAKKLE’s robust social networking platform to the leading sports brands and companies in the high school market.”

Takkle will create channels for those who are involved with Five-Star and Five-Star will promote its agency on the social network.  “Via TAKKLE, basketball players attending a Five-Star camp or tournament will be able to check out other athletes planning to attend a camp or tournament, and they’ll also be able to easily stay in touch after the camp” states a press release I received in an e-mail from Jeff Rutherford, Takkle’s media agent.

“Five-Star reaches approximately 200,000 athletes every year through our camps, tournaments, and instructional products,” stated Leigh Klein, the President at Five-Star. “Through our partnership with TAKKLE, Five-Star now has a great online platform to communicate and share content with the athletes attending our camps and tournaments. In addition, we can market Five-Star’s events to TAKKLE’s large and growing community of high school athletes – our target customer.”

Previous coverage of Takkle is available at:
http://pulse2.com/category/takkle-inc/

I just received an e-mail a few minutes ago with the announcement that AllThingsD.com is live and online.  AllThingsD is a news content website spun-off of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).  The e-mail came from Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher who wrote:

That’s right, it’s finally live. Thanks for waiting. We appreciate your patience. But we couldn’t have launched until we were absolutely ready. Walt never would have been the same if he’d had to pan his own Web site. You know what a bad Mossberg review can do to the ego. Thankfully, we didn’t get one. And today AllThingsD.com, the Web extension of our D: All Things Digital executive conference, is live online and awaiting your visit. There’s a lot to see, so here are a few good places to start.

Some of the places mentioned include BoomTown, Walt Mossberg, Digital Daily, Voices, and video posts from Kara.

Both Mossberg and Swisher are both involved with the Wall Street Journal.  Mossberg is a creator and author of the Personal Tech column at the WSJ and Swisher is the author of BoomTown in the Marketplace section.

Previous coverage of AllThingsD on Pulse 2.0 is available at:
http://pulse2.com/category/all-things-digital/

Below is a screen shot of some of the content that is currently on the website:

Microsoft is revamping the user interface for its video service websites: Next.Video.MSN.com and MSN Soapbox.  They both have similar looks, but the difference is that Soapbox focuses more on the social aspect of videos.  Videos on Soapbox can be commented on, added to favorites, and can be embedded on any website whereas MSN Videos don’t have those features.  Soapbox also allows users to upload videos, but MSN Video does not.

MSN Video Beta is an aggregation website that collects some of the popular clips from around the web. For example, Will Smith Singing in Hindi was pulled from IFILM, What We Call The News was pulled from JibJab, Penguin Safari was pulled from National Geographic.

Both MSN Video Beta and Soapbox has a clean look and is very organized. You can browse all the clips without even having to move to another page. This means you can browse and watch videos at the same time which is a feature that YouTube, Google Video, Revver, and DailyMotion lacks. However, one thing I see as a problem is that every video doesn’t seem to have its own unique URL displayed in the browser address bar. I like seeing the unique URLs because it makes it easy to send YouTube/Google Video/etc. clips to friends on messenger programs.

From what I read on LiveSide, Soapbox is more scalable, has improved fullscreen, and has playlist functionality.  To find out more information, read the MSN Soapbox blog.

Google Earth is constantly evolving and being enhanced since its inception.  RK Stewart, a Fellow and the President of the American Institute of Architects, announced yesterday that Google Earth will be launching layers of architecture’s most popular structures.

Below is a video of Stewart discussing more about the project: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpNaMbMr1CM[/youtube]

There are about 150 3-D structures added as of right now.  The partnership between AIA and Google symbolizes a celebration of the AIA’s 150th anniversary.

I’ll be spending most of the day today programming a new look & feel for Pulse 2.0 today.  The new changes should be up by tomorrow at the latest.  I won’t have as many posts as usual today.  Sorry for the inconvenience, but I think you will appreciate the new look that is coming.

Alex Welch, the CEO and Co-Founder of Photobucket announced that their videos will now be reappearing on MySpace once again. Earlier this month, I wrote about the videos being taken down because Photobucket was supposedly violating MySpace’s terms of service. People were concerned whether Photobucket would have as many hits without MySpace’s backing.

Photobucket has 40 million users and close to 2.8 billion images uploaded so far. MySpace receives over 90 million visitors every month.

“Following discussions with MySpace, we’re pleased to announce that all Photobucket videos and remixes are enabled once more on MySpace with immediate effect. Both our companies are committed to putting our users first,” wrote Welch on the Photobucket blog. “Moving forward, we’ve established open lines of communication and procedures with MySpace to prevent a sudden block of Photobucket content in future. We want our users to be able to share their content and understand it must be within the framework of MySpace’s Terms of Service for it to appear on the site.”

This is great news for Photobucket and MySpace. MySpace users enjoy having Photobucket widgets.

The Politico launched in January 2007 and had a mission to be the ultimate source of presidential campaign coverage. The Politico’s parent company is Capitol News, LLC and is managed by President and CEO, Frederick J. Ryan Jr. The company was started by two journalists who left The Washington Post and since then they have signed a partnership with USA Today. USA Today will publish articles on their website published by The Politico in their Political News section:

As of right now, The Politico is staffed by authors who have previously worked for Time Magazine, The Associated Press, and The Wall Street Journal. The Politico will provide 15 articles per week for USA Today.

Quotes about the partnership from those involved:
“I think it’s a plus for the paper. This is a time when a lot of publications are cutting back on their reporting resources, so the idea that we would be adding resources, even indirectly, is a wonderful thing.”
-Kathy Kiely, author of Congress for USA Today

“We need to deepen our coverage online, where there is an expectation of 24-hour timeliness.”
-Kinsey Wilson, Co-Executive Editor of USA Today in response to the new initiative not being a cost-cutting effort, but more of a circulation effort.

[Information Source: NY Times]

“At TripIt, we think technology should make your travel experience simpler, not more complex,” states the single paragraph on the homepage of TripIt.com.  TripIt is based in San Francisco and was founded by Gregg Brockway, a Hotwire.com co-founder and Exec VP for Corporate Development.

The company announced a couple days ago that it has raised $1 million in Series A funding from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures.  The announcement was originally found on PE Week.

[Information Source: VentureBeat]

I had not heard about iklipz.com until I read the L.A. Times.  This website seems like it could be competition to Will Ferrel’s Funny or Die video website.

Arthur Cohen is the co-founder of iklipz.  Cohen is a former head of marketing at Paramount and oversaw promotions for Ghost, Forrest Gump, and Titanic. 

Cohen wanted to ensure that the quality of videos on his website were higher quality than the blurry videos on YouTube.   “I’m very connected in Hollywood,” Cohen said in response to what makes Cohen think his site could potentially be as big as MySpace.

Below is a screen shot of the site:

The website contains a list of the Most Popular, Highest Rated, Newest, and Our Picks videos.  The most popular videos as of right now are Shrek the Third TV spots. 

Some of the other videos that are featured on iklipz includes a series called Lipz Service hosted by Los Angeles-based 24 year old, Juliette:

Cohen hopes to see iklipz become a marketplace for indie films.  “The movie isn’t just about the theatrical release or the DVD anymore,” stated Mora Stephens, a director of an indie film called Conventioneers.  Stephens used iklipz to promote the movie. “Every filmmaker just wants people to see their movie and know about it, and all these resources help.”

iklipz videos also provide the ability for users to embed them into their own websites as well.  Below is a trailer for Blades of Glory embedded from iklipz (notice the quality difference?):