Vimeo

NY-based video hosting service Vimeo has announced the launch of "Vimeo Toys". Vimeo Toys are discovery applications to check out the latest videos and activity on the Vimeo service.

Vimeo Toys is launching with two apps: Vimeo Land and Pulse. To engage the Vimeo community with Toys, the Vimeo staff is asking users to create applications using Vimeo Toys. They will highlight the best apps on the Vimeo homepage as well. What a smart idea to get new users engaged with the service and loyal users to build on top of the service.

It's always great to see companies promoting discovery without it being a popularity contest to be featured. Check out all of our Vimeo coverage.

As I create more videos and have more discussions with online video talent, the conversation seems to move many times to finding the optimum hosting and distribution structure for video. I want to make sure my viewers never hit a dead end and can easily find other videos to view from the series. Since at least half of my videos are business-oriented, the idea of putting them on YouTube and hoping for the "viral effect" is not attractive. Earlier this year I wrote about the online video market here in NYC and I see it continuing to expand today.

Currently I am using Viddler almost exclusively for my videos. I like Viddler because their player allows for in-stream commenting and their upload function is easy-to-use. I find the uploading function on YouTube to be absolute crap, can't they even offer an upload status bar?!? For the purposes of this discussion, we will only discuss pre-recorded video content and not live services (Mogulus, Ustream) or mobile video streaming (Kyte, Qik, Flixwagon).

I get the idea behind services like TubeMogul which put your content everywhere and I will probably look at doing this as well. But it's critical from my standpoint that you select a video sharing/hosting partner to work with in which you can build your video brand. This means that the player that's used on the video creator's site remain consistent over time. Some video content creators are being paid to use services and I see this trend continuing as the video creation market expands and hosting networks fight to get out of the commodity business.

There are a number of indie video stars on the scene today. I've selected Justine and Gary Vaynerchuk to use as examples with regards to how they use various video hosting networks for their videos and shows. When I check out Justine's Web site, she seems to use YouTube as her first choice and it's clear that this strategy has helped her with growing her brand. Justine has over 18,000 subscribers on YouTube. These subscribers drive massive views to her videos. She uses Viddler as well for some videos and all of her videos are distributed there as well. Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibraryTV uses Viddler for the main player on the site. Gary also has a distribution deal with Revision3 which publishes a shorter wine show on Revision3 and other video hosting providers including YouTube.

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NY-based video sharing service Vimeo has decided to no longer allow video game videos. In an announcement made yesterday on the Vimeo company blog, Blake Whitman noted that new videos will be removed and current videos are subject to deletion after September 1st.

Blake explains that there are two main reasons for the change. First, Vimeo is about creative expression and copying a video game isn't creative expression. Second, the game videos are larger and longer than most other videos which causes their transcoder to push long wait times for other Vimeo members. I've noticed this wait on Viddler as well and from what I understand on Viddler it has to do with non-U.S. show content.

There are nearly 500 replies on the Vimeo blog discussing the change - most are for the change. Apparently YouTube also bans these type of video game videos. The big question in the forums is what specific videos will be deleted and which will remain. Apparently it will have a lot to do with what the staff call "creative merit".

Check out our look at the NY online video scene - it might just be our greatest asset.

StumbleUpon is announcing a variety of new partnerships today with regards to their StumbleVideo product. StumbleVideo allows you to thumb up or down a video and then get presented with another one, and another, and so on. Each time you rate a video, the system becomes more intelligent about the videos you like and dislike. Over time StumbleVideo presents you videos that you are likely to be interested in.

The new video partners are: College Humor, Funny or Die, Vimeo, Dailymotion, veoh.com and vbs.tv.Previously StumbleVideo only offered content from YouTube, Google Video, MySpace Video and Metacafe. These new partnerships should provide a nice life in viewed videos for the new partners and for the content creators behind the videos.

Check out our interview with Garrett Camp, StumbleUpon co-founder and our analysis of Sponsored Stumbles versus Google AdWords.

comScore is out with their latest online video report for March 2008 covering U.S. Internet users. YouTube continues to lead the pack and represents 98% of all videos in the Google Sites category. Tell me again why they keep Google Video around? It's seems Google abandoned it when they acquired YouTube.

Google moved up another 2.6 share points to 38% of all videos watched. The real telling statistic is that YouTube visitors watched an average of 50 videos each over the month. No one else comes close to this in the lead pack as Microsoft Sites comes in second with nearly 10 videos per user. More videos per user mean more ability and options to monetize over the session. In total videos watched, Fox Interactive came in second followed by Yahoo Sites, Viacom Digital and Microsoft Sites.

Another juicy bit in the report is that the average online video viewer watched 235 minutes of video. Wow. And with live video slowly taking off, this number will only continue to increase.

Update Wednesday - David Karp tells Silicon Alley Insider that he has no idea what this Norbum is. David's statement: "I'm not involved with Norbum, I don't know what it is, and I would never make fun of homeless people."

Update - Thursday - Jakob Lodwick notes that this .org site is not his either.

When Jakob Lodwick left was fired from Vimeo earlier this month, I immediately predicted that Lodwick would be working with Tumblr founder David Karp. It seems this might be closer to reality with some investigative journalism just completed by regular CN visitor and author, James Thomas.

This past Saturday, Lodwick posted about some new domains that he registered. The list includes:

• D***S***.COM
• BA******RO****.COM
• n*****.com & .us
• n*****s.com & .us
• n*****ist.com & .org
• n*****ists.com& .org
• n*****ism.com & .org

The previous day Lodwick posted that he had dinner with Karp per his blog post and calls Karp a, "soon famous face."

This is where Thomas went to work. After some Columbo-type maneuvers, we know the full names of some of the domains that Lodwick registered:

• norbum.com
• norbum.us
• norbums.com
• norbumist.com
• norbumist.org
• norbumists.com
• norbumists.org
• norbumism.com
• norbumism.org

Anyone know what a Norbum is? Let's complete the picture before the new year rings!

Photos by: David Karp & Zach Klein

IAC (Nasdaq:IACI) is announcing a partnership today with Brightcove to "giving IAC businesses the opportunity to launch comprehensive high quality Internet video initiatives". The first IAC brands to utilize the new partnership are: Ticketmaster, Citysearch and 23/6.

Now I get why they did this -- it's about distribution. IAC Chairman Barry Diller even notes at this with his comment on the deal, "By making this platform available across IAC we can continue to deepen engagement with our online audiences, expand the reach of our brands, and open powerful new revenue streams through online video advertising across our sites."

But where's IAC-owned Vimeo in all of this? While I know Vimeo is a community-based video sharing site, couldn't Barry have created a white-labeled version of the system and monetized it using the IAC advertising network? While I don't think this means Vimeo is doomed by any means, it sure is interesting that they selected to go outside before thinking about their own properties and how to leverage them for growth.

It appears that Jakob Lodwick has left Vimeo. Valleywag believes he was fired, some say he quit. Who cares why. It's not like his next startup is going to do a background check. Liz says that Jakob remains an investor in the company.

The real question is what happens to Vimeo and Jakob now. Let's take Jakob first. My bet is that he appears on the payroll of Tumblr within ten days. A secondary option is some new startup based on video combined with love lessons with his girlfriend Julia Allison.

Vimeo is another story. In my opinion, Jakob was the "icon" of that site and depending on whether he still participates in the community will determine where the site goes. I compared Viddler and Vimeo recently and believe both sites have great potential in front of them. Both rely on their communities for growth and virality and with Jakob gone, those characteristics take a hit. Will people still lip dub now that he is gone? Sure, but he seemed to lead that charge on the site. Will the community fall apart without him? Not sure, but it might be the right time for another player to make an offer to the Vimeo community.

When I think about joining a startup, Vimeo would be one I would seriously consider as the community is strong and their technology is moving forward past the current leaders.

Earlier this week was the NY Video Meetup. Somewhere around 250 NY'ers attended and viewed a variety of demos and a healthy video discussion. One thing rang true throughout -- online video is HOT here in the city. So many companies, so many ideas and a amazing level of excitement/passion around online video.

Here are just a few of the companies in the online video space in the NYC area. I certainly forgot a bunch, so please leave them in the comments.

• Magnify.net - providing video upload, encoding, storage, delivery, and rev share mainly for video clips (CN Coverage)
• Blip.tv - a leader in episodic content (CN Coverage)
• 5min - moving offices to NYC next month - knowledge sharing (CN Coverage)
• Rocketboom - daily video show about anything with host Joanne Colan (CN Coverage)
• For Your Imagination - creating a variety of online-only video shows
• WallStrip - filming in NYC about stocks with host Lindsay Cambell
• Vimeo - video hoster and community creator (CN Coverage)
• ExpoTV - video reviews (CN Coverage)
• Kaltura - video collaboration (CN Coverage)
• Joost - NYC office is North American HQ - television replacement (CN Coverage)
• SavoryNY - restaurants video reviews (CN Coverage)
• WineLibraryTV - ok, he's in Jersey but we will allow it since he lives in the city - daily wine video show

While other areas of the country and the world are creating online video, NY is where it's at. Innovation, technology, people, community, it's all here. And Madison Avenue and Google are here to monetize it all.