MTVN Entertainment Group announces the launch of Atom.com, a digital comedy network that distributes original programming across the Internet, handheld devices, gaming platforms, mobile phones, television and other gadgets still to be invented. Atom.com offers a cornucopia of professionally produced comedy and provides indie and UGC creators with a clear path to "go pro" themselves -- earning infamy, money and a direct path to exposure and future development opportunities on the Web, television and beyond.

With the launch, Atom.com becomes COMEDY CENTRAL's exclusive partner and anchor brand for original digital comedy content, developing new properties for multiplatform distribution, building an online community of creators and viewers, and producing a half-hour TV series, "Atom TV," that debuted on COMEDY CENTRAL this week.

PermissionTV furthers its commitment to growing the online video industry by announcing the general availability of its Platform Development Kit and Solutions Hub to facilitate the creation and management of engaging and customizable video experiences.

Already more than 100 developers from more than two dozen innovative companies such as AKQA, Avenue A | Razorfish, Bob Vila, ExtendMedia and WhittmanHart, are leveraging PermissionTV's new resources to enable the rapid delivery of a complete spectrum of online video experiences, from simple players to innovative, highly interactive video applications. Across the full range of online video experiences, PermissionTV's platform responds to viewers' needs and preferences in real-time to engage viewers in ways that are not possible with static Web video.

Adobe announces that since its release on April 9, 2008, the new Adobe Media Player now features 15,000 pieces of content with more than 400 shows provided from major broadcasters and content publishers. MTV Networks is one of the leading television broadcasters that have added new content to the catalog in Adobe Media Player. In addition to clips from MTV’s The Hills and MTV Cribs, viewers can now use Adobe Media Player to discover, organize, and subscribe to an added selection of MTVN’s popular shows, including clips from COMEDY CENTRAL’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. Additionally, CBS has expanded its range of programming and added clips and full episodes of shows Million Dollar Password, Greatest American Dog and Flashpoint.

ABC, ESPN and Veoh announce that full episodes from ABC and short-form online video content from ESPN.com are now accessible through Veoh. Delivered via ABC.com's Emmy and Webby Award-winning broadband player, full episodes of popular ABC programs including "Lost," "Desperate Housewives," "Grey's Anatomy," "Jimmy Kimmel Live" and "Ugly Betty" are available for free to viewers at www.veoh.com. Veoh will also offer select short-form programming from ABC via an embedded short-form player, which will launch on the site later this year. In addition, Veoh now features highlights from major sporting events through a multi-sport embedded ESPN video player, as well as original ESPN programming, including "SportsCenter Right Now" -- a twice-daily capsule of top sports stories, highlights and breaking news -- and clips from ESPN programs such as "Mike and Mike in the Morning," "Pardon the Interruption" and "Around the Horn." Beginning today, viewers can easily access the Veoh ABC and ESPN channels through the channel tabs located on Veoh's homepage or through Veoh's video search.

YouTube introduces its Personalized Homepage. The customizable homepage features new interactive modules that can be moved around, removed and replaced, in order to create a more personal and comprehensive video discovery experience.

Alongside homepage regulars like Featured and Most Popular videos, the new homepage will include personalized recommendations (an algorithmically selected set of videos based on past views and favorites), the latest videos from subscriptions and an easier way to see what friends are uploading, favoriting and rating.

Brightcove announces the beta of its next-generation online video platform, Brightcove 3. The beta program provides access to a completely new version of the Brightcove service, which is already used in its current form by major media companies, businesses and organizations worldwide to reach more than 135 million unique Internet users every month.

Scheduled for release this fall and immediately available to selected Brightcove customers, Brightcove 3 is built around the company's vision for increasing video consumption and engagement by introducing a completely new model for incorporating video players and information about videos into the context of Web pages. Brightcove 3 also brings TV to the Web by enabling the delivery of long-form, broadcast-quality content through any website without the need for proprietary software plug-ins. These powerful Brightcove 3 capabilities are unified in a new suite of visual tools for site producers that greatly accelerate the production of video websites.

Truveo launches a major update to its website that improves the performance and makes the site more useful to consumers. The new site is available at truveo.com; localized versions of the new Truveo experience are available in 16 other countries.

“Consumer interest in online video has exploded, and video is now one of the key drivers of audience and traffic growth on the Web, which increases the importance of a quality video search product,” said Kevin Conroy, Executive Vice President of AOL. “Truveo offers consumers in the U.S. and abroad the most advanced video search tool to find what they’re looking for, and as a result it’s seen dramatic global growth. The enhancements to Truveo.com only improve what is already the best video search experience.”

Delve Networks launches its Internet TV and online video publishing platform. In addition to hosting video content, Delve's platform gives content publishers all the necessary tools to upload, manage and track the performance of their online video. With its semantic video web technology and HeatMap interface, Delve becomes the first video platform to enable users to navigate within a hosted video file to find the exact content they want.

Delve processes video through its proprietary semantic layer, which creates a visual map of each video, allowing users to find the exact content they want within a program. The platform supports the H.264 video codec delivering exceptional video quality at low bandwidth rates.

blinkx announces a partnership with Next New Networks. Next New Networks boasts a diverse collection of content on over a dozen networks such as Indy Mogul, the network for aspiring filmmakers, and Barely Political, home of the wildly popular Obama Girl. Leveraging its unique AdHoc platform, blinkx will place contextually relevant advertising against the footage, and will share resulting advertising revenue with Next New Networks.

As the pioneer in video search technology, blinkx has built a reputation as the smartest way to search new forms of online content such as video. With more than 350 partners and 26 million hours of indexed video and audio content, including favorite TV moments, news clips, short documentaries, music videos, video blogs and more, blinkx uses advanced speech-recognition technology to deliver results that are more accurate and reliable than standard metadata-based keyword searches.

Sony Pictures Entertainment online video network Crackle announced the release of nine original series that encompass a variety of genres from comedy to music to gaming and lifestyle. The announcement marks Crackle's continued commitment to providing the most innovative original programming for today's discerning online audiences.

There's something for everyone in Crackle's new slate of short-form programming.

For the gaming and pop culture community, Hollywood glitz meets gamer geekdom in The Jace Hall Show, hosted by film, television and videogame producer Jason "Jace" Hall.

In the comedy genre, new shows include the original comedy series Purple Onion Season Two, featuring stand-up from today's funniest acts, and six original short form scripted series as part of C-Spot.

Nielsen Online announces that per person, kids consumed more streams than those over 18, and spent more time watching online video from home in April (see Table 1). Kids 2-11 viewed an average of 51 streams and 118 minutes of online video per person during the month, while teens 12-17 viewed an average of 74 streams and 132 minutes of online video. Those over 18 viewed an average of 44 streams and 99 minutes of online video.

Table 1: Monthly Online Video Consumption among Kids, Teens and Adults
(U.S., Home Only, April 2008)
        Unique Viewers   Unique Viewer   Streams per     Min per
Age     (000)            Comp %          Viewer          Viewer
2-11             7,966             8.4          51.0       117.9
12-17           11,632            12.3          74.2       132.4
18+             75,122            79.3          44.3        99.4

Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus

Velocix announces that Instituto Cervantes is using its digital delivery services to provide High Definition online video to its audiences around the globe. Instituto Cervantes is the largest organization in the world responsible for promoting the study and teaching of Spanish language and culture.

With Velocix, Instituto Cervantes is able to expand the reach of its global network of more than sixty branches. Additionally, the Institute recently launched an online TV service - delivered by Velocix that provides a new focal point for its Internet offering.

TV Guide Online announces record growth in May, fueled by new products, expanded editorial coverage, and a flexible syndication platform. The division’s flagship site, TVGuide.com, in the past year has become one of the fastest-growing, most innovative entertainment destinations online, with more than 12.1 million monthly unique visitors in May (a 58 percent annual increase), including 640,000 monthly unique users of its Online Video Guide (a 205 percent annual increase). The site’s category-leading engagement metrics (over 9 minutes per person, 4.6 sessions per person and 14 web pages per person) continue to expand the relationships with the site’s core advertisers and attract new sponsorships in a broader set of categories.

Heavy Corporation intends to spin off its fast-growing video advertising platform, Husky Media, as its own venture. Husky Media is a premium video ad platform that provides publishers the opportunity to monetize video in all player formats using Husky's premium "Video-Skin" and "Video-Guide" platforms. Husky's unique technology increases video inventory for publishers and blogs while allowing them to use any video-player they want. Husky's Video Guide technology provides publishers and bloggers with a large library of cleared professional content for their audiences to view, and provides content owners with scalable legitimate distribution which they can sell to premium advertisers.

Radian6 announces a content feed partnership with blinkx, the world’s largest and most advanced video search engine. PR and marketing professionals using the Radian6 social media monitoring platform will now have enhanced access to the industry’s most comprehensive set of the Internet’s top video sharing sites, such as YouTube, Revver, Veoh, Grouper, MetaCafe, Live Video, BrightCove and many more.

Radian6’s social media monitoring platform tracks what is being said online about brands, organizations and issues in real-time as discovered. The solution monitors all forms of social media, including blog sites, video-sharing sites, opinion review forums, photo-sharing sites and new and emerging channels such as micro-blogging.