Veoh is my second-favorite video site after YouTube. A lot of the good stuff we see from the company is driven by founder Dmitry Shapiro’s vision to superaggregate online video and CEO Steve Mitgang’s ability to fend off copyright trolls from offline video. Wired features an interview with Shapiro, where he presents his vision for their latest product VeohTV.

VeohTV gives users access to practically all video on the Internet, from YouTube, Yahoo, wherever. Joost or Babelgum are closed-wall gardens, showing video that the company has cut deals to air. Plus, VeohTV feels like television. It’s a much more intuitive and relaxed experience.

YouTube is the world’s biggest online video repository and distributor. This guy wants to make something more meta: the world’s easiest online video browser and aggregator.

Post from: EveryJoe

Dmitry Shapiro on VeohTV

MySpaceTV, meanwhile, is down 6%. Even though they paid for first dibs on some “premium” content this year, most notably with Weird Al Yankovic for Trapped in the Drive-Thru and lonleygirl15 for the first season finale, they focus too much on exclusivity and not enough on superdistribution. That, and MySpace just isn’t cool anymore.

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Yahoo Video and Veoh Up, MySpaceTV Down

Veoh CEO Steve Mitgang saw this coming. He even tried to get a court order preventing it. Universal Music Group faces a confident and prepared opponent as it sues Veoh. Mitgang is unfazed:

UMG’s action is not surprising and reflects their limited understanding of Veoh and of the online video space as a whole. Veoh is recognized by many media companies as a DMCA-compliant company and is committed to respecting the rights of content owners. In fact, we’re currently working cooperatively with major media companies and the MPAA to develop standards for copyright protection. It’s unfortunate that UMG prefers to continue their pattern of litigation rather than contribute to the important discussions going on within our industry.

Veoh will go all the way to your local hard drive’s Veoh TV folder to comply with the DMCA. They go through almost intrusive lengths to obey the law. Hope they get a judge with enough brain cells to see that zealous compliance.

I’m suddenly reminded of YouTube’s reaction to Viacom. Hope more video sites confidently stand up to Hollywood bullies who think they can operate above the law.

Post from: EveryJoe

Veoh Unfazed by Universal Suit

Here they go again — and this time, they’re going lower. After supporting a third-party suit against YouTube over LA riot footage, NBC and Viacom want to support a porn site’s suit against Veoh.

Last week Viacom and NBC petitioned to file a document known as an Amicus Brief in a little known case between Veoh and an online porn site called IO Group. Amicus briefs are a way for people or entities not involved in a given case to let the court know what they think – they are usually filed by those who have some interest in the outcome of a case because it affects their business in some way. Courts often welcome them because they amount to free research and can be used to help them come to a decision.

Does this mean Veoh can soon add Viacom and NBC to the growing list of companies they are fighting in court? Probably not. Veoh is fighting to keep the brief out of the court’s hands, but is also making it clear that they don’t want to end up with new litigation with Viacom and NBC. In fact, the two companies continue to negotiate on a distribution deal.

So NBC and Viacom would go to bed with a porn site. I’d better not watch them again; I might catch something.

Despite his tough stance against Universal Music, Veoh CEO Steve Mitgang is still being diplomatic with NBC and Viacom in hopes of cutting deals. Wonder how long he can stay diplomatic with those litigious meddlers.

Post from: EveryJoe

NBC and Viacom Support Porn Site Suing Veoh

Last month, I voiced my concerns about ex-Yahoo exec Steve Mitgang taking over as CEO of Veoh, seeing as Veoh’s so innovative and Yahoo’s so bleh. Mr. Mitgang’s done something to ease those concerns a bit: proactively defending Veoh’s status as a DMCA safe harbor. He’s asking a court to prevent Universal from suing them.

Apparently, Universal’s been threatening Veoh for months, making allegations of infringement instead of actually filing the takedown notices required by law. As a Veoh user myself, I can tell you Veoh abides by DMCA takedown notices, all the way down to deleting local files downloaded through their Veoh TV client. Their takedown process is thorough almost to the point of invasion.

I have to admit, I didn’t expect such a bold move from a Yahoo alumnus. Old media attitudes prevalent at Yahoo would make me think they’d bend over backwards to satisfy old media copyright trolls. Nevertheless, it’s about time someone took the offensive in forcing arrogant big media conglomerates to abide by the very same law they use to bully people.

Post from: EveryJoe

Veoh Asks for Court Protection from Universal Suit

I like Veoh founding CEO Dmitry Shapiro. His independence from mass media mindsets, his focus on user experience over content control, made Veoh what it is today: my second-favorite video site after YouTube, poised to make organic online video as easy to watch as fabricated TV shows.

That’s why I’m terribly wary of Veoh taking on ex-Yahoo exec Steve Mitgang as CEO, with Shapiro becoming Chief Innovation Officer. Mitgang was the Yahoo SVP behind Project Panama, Yahoo’s new ad contextualization system which just refuses to take off. Just the fact that he’s from Yahoo, the company that’s only now shaking off its massive old media baggage after years of getting its ass kicked by Google, is troubling in itself.

Since I’m still seeing innovation in Veoh’s products, I’ll give Mitgang the benefit of the doubt for now. If I see Veoh start to become like Joost (”your old man’s TV” as Shapiro calls it), if I see Steve Mitgang becoming a little Terry Semel, then Veoh will get less play from me. We should watch this guy carefully to make sure he doesn’t turn Veoh into an idiot box.

Post from: EveryJoe

Could an Ex-Yahoo Exec Kill Veoh?

A while back, I noted that Veoh TV Beta’s Yahoo-powered video search left much to be desired. Veoh addresses this concern in their latest upgrade, adding tabs for both Google/YouTube video search and Veoh search.

Note that Yahoo video search misses a lot of YouTube videos, as illustrated above with the Alodia Caramel Dance. Combined with streaming video downloads, expanded search options will make Veoh TV much more useful as a Web video browser. I’m going to become even more of a mouse potato now.

Post from: EveryJoe

Veoh TV Beta Adds Google Search

Yesterday, I said Veoh TV would be the first application to successfully combine the infinite choice of online video with the intuitive ease of TV. I’m watching Ask a Ninja on Veoh TV Beta right now, and I’m happy to report that I like what I see so far.

Video browsing is dead simple — it actually has to prompt you to use the keyboard for search. The personalized widget tabs powered by yourminis will satisfy any information overload junkie, with widgets autoconfigured to match what you’re watching. My Veoh TV Flickr widget, for instance, often looks up anime photos.

Veoh TV is an online video Swiss Army Knife: aside from being a video browser, it’s also a video podcatcher, torrent client, local FLV player, and streaming video downloader (all DRM-free!). Streaming video sites shouldn’t worry about losing onsite ad revenue; Veoh links back to video pages, even when playing local copies.

Veoh TV’s video search, powered by Yahoo, leaves a lot to be desired — it’s slower than its browser counterpart, and I couldn’t search for videos on YouTube — but that’s mostly a problem with Yahoo Video Search itself. Veoh TV has the potential to show every video on the Web; they’ll just have to find a better search partner (Scoble would probably recommend ClipBlast).

Fullscreen streaming video playback is smooth — but until Veoh TV has an audio graphic equalizer, Winamp will still remain my player of choice for long local videos. Of course, if I’m too lazy to open Winamp, I’m flipping through videos in Veoh TV. Yes, you can actually channel-surf across the video Web using Veoh TV’s recommendation engine.

Veoh TV Beta comes in a full standalone installer, but it cleanly upgrades your existing Veoh client while preserving your local Veoh library. Go get your instant beta invitation here (Windows only), and see for yourself another nail in TV’s coffin. Warning: Veoh TV could turn you into a channel-surfing mouse potato.

Post from: EveryJoe

Veoh TV: First Look

Next to YouTube, Veoh is my second favorite video site. They offer the industry’s best video superdistribution by uploading your video to other video sites and distributing DRM-free high-quality versions peer-to-peer, while still giving you good ol’ Flash embeds. Now, they’re poised to offer the industry’s best superaggregation through Veoh TV, the next version of their desktop client. Instead of just letting you watch high-quality videos from Veoh, Veoh TV will allow you to play and record video from anywhere on the Web — from huge aggregators like YouTube to niche podcasts like Ask a Ninja. It’ll even let you search for those videos right from the client, via Yahoo Video Search. Think of it as TiVo for all Web video, a video browser if you will.

Longtime readers may have noticed that I give absolutely no attention to Joost, the video startup that’s been tripping all over itself to push the same old TV stuff over P2P. Veoh CEO Dmitry Shapiro tells you why: “Joost is your old man’s TV.” Instead of sucking up to Hollywood, video aggregators seeking to replicate the simplicity of TV should instead tap the millions of hours of content that’s already on the Web. Instead of seeking to be the most licensed, they should seek to be the most meta. That’s what Veoh will do, and that’s why they will succeed. Copyright trolls will try to enforce streaming-only stupidity, but they’ll eventually have to rethink their business models. If Veoh TV isn’t the killer app that makes the power of online video as simple as TV, a clone of it will be.

Post from: EveryJoe

Veoh TV: TiVo for Web Video

Veoh’s DRM-free DVD-quality P2P download versions of their embeddable streaming videos make it my second favorite video destination after YouTube. That’s why I’m glad to hear from Kevin Nalts that, like YouTube, Veoh will soon be sharing revenue.

In the coming months, Veoh will be launching advertising and revenue sharing with Pro Publishers. We are building our own advertising technology to suit the needs of our publishers and audience, but in the meantime, we have decided to investigate external possibilities.

Over the next week, we will run a trial with a company called Brightroll, to see if their technology suits the advertising needs of our platform, our publishers, and potential advertisers. During the trial, you may see post-roll advertising on your videos.

Ads in the streams are simple enough, but I wonder if they’ll do a BitTorrent and put ads in the P2P downloads.

Post from: EveryJoe

Veoh to Share Revenue