The Weather Channel launches "Blue Box," a state-of-the-art video player on weather.com. The flash-based player, designed to showcase the vast library of video content on weather.com and provide additional opportunities for advertisers to target consumers, is powered by technology from Brightcove and DoubleClick.

The player features made-for-broadband content as well as programming from The Weather Channel network, including new shows such as Epic Conditions. Visitors to weather.com can now easily search and tab-through video content as well as share favorite videos with friends. Enhancements for advertisers include the ability to place brand-messages in three different areas on the IAB compliant player.

Dailymotion announces the availability of an iPhone-compatible version of the popular site, available at http://iphone.dailymotion.com The new portal features a simplified graphic user interface as well as Quicktime-compatible encoding, both facilitating the viewing of Dailymotion's high-quality online video entertainment directly through the device's Safari web browser.

Veoh and Collegiate Images have teamed up to create a dedicated NCAA Football channel on Veoh.com. Through this deal, Veoh will gain access to football game highlights each week to spotlight on the channel. The NCAA Football channel will kick-off in early September, in time for the 2007 season.

As part of the channel, Veoh is building a proprietary customization engine that will enable users to personalize their NCAA Football experience. More details of these unique and interactive elements will be unveiled closer to the launch.

My Damn Channel launches an entertainment studio and new media platform created to empower artists to co-produce, distribute and monetize original, episodic video content. Comedians, musicians and filmmakers will develop short-form series and retain total artistic control of their own web channels. Original content is available free to viewers on http://www.mydamnchannel.com/ and as branded programming syndicated to major web portals and digital devices.

Mefeedia released their second quarterly "State of the Vlogosphere" and found that more and more content creators are launching their own video websites and using video sharing sites such as YouTube as promotional tools for their own sites.

Where are the video blogs?
According to the data collected by Mefeedia, 61% of episodic online video is on independent websites, 14% on Blip.tv, and 9% on YouTube. Get the full online video statistics here. One key trend: YouTube's percentage dipped from 11.1% to 9%. Fewer vloggers on YouTube? No, just that an increased amount of vloggers on YouTube appear to also be setting up their own video blogs via blogging platforms, thus causing an overall decrease in the YouTube percentages. To support this, independent websites' market share was u, increasing from 56.9% to 61%. More and more producers are going independent and trying to attract audiences from a variety of different video sharing sites.

Media Zone and the Rugby World Cup launch RWC Plus, the official and exclusive broadband video On Demand service for Rugby World Cup 2007. RWC Plus is produced in association with MediaZone Rugby and will be streamed through the official tournament website at www.rugbyworldcup.com/video.

RWC Plus provides rugby fans worldwide with delayed coverage of all 48 matches from the Rugby World Cup 2007, as well as LIVE audio feeds, match previews, halftime and fulltime highlights and interviews for USD 49.99.

Dailymotion and RDF announce an agreement to bring original content to Dailymotion’s audience of 30 million. Under the terms of the deal, RDF USA will provide Dailymotion with eight original programs/concepts. These concepts will be conceived with an eye towards brand integration. Senior Creative Director Danny Passman, along with a team of Dailymotion executives with years of television development experience at Time Warner and MTV Networks, will bring these web series to life. Together, Dailymotion and RDF USA will share in the revenue from online distribution as well as from any television derivatives.

Metacafe now makes it easy for video producers and fans to create, update and promote their own entertainment channels on Metacafe.com. The more than 25 million people who visit the site each month can subscribe to channels that suit their tastes and interests, knowing they’ll receive daily e-mail notification if one or more of their selected channels have been updated. This addition underscores Metacafe’s commitment to delivering an exceptional online entertainment experience.

MyOutdoorTV.com announces the official launch of its website, complete with a state-of-the-art, searchable video player and programming by many of the top names in outdoor television. The official launch caps a year of development in beta version and venture capital investment funding of the website created by three cable television veterans from the former The Nashville Network.

Currently streaming over 70 outdoor television titles, MyOutdoorTV.com features programming hosted by such outdoor legends as Hank Parker, Mark Sosin, Jimmy Houston, Larry Csonka, Roland Martin, Babe Winkelman, and many others. In addition, it includes over a dozen radio shows and links to more than 150 outdoor blogs. It allows on-demand viewing worldwide of more than 1400 half-hour national and regional shows by anyone with a high-speed internet connection.

The Daily Reel launches "ReeledIn," the first ever business social network for online video content creators. Since the company launched in October 2006, the site has focused on finding the most talented online video creators and highlighting their work via its online video services. Along the way, The Daily Reel has become a central clearinghouse for the mainstream entertainment and advertising industries as they attempt to develop web-based movie and video making talent.

"ReeledIn" focuses on the core community of "doers," the people who are actually creating free online videos and user generated content. "ReeledIn" provides a social networking opportunity for these enthusiasts to meet each other online, collaborate, learn tricks of the trade and maybe even get hired by an advertising or American home entertainment company.

Terra.com is launching a 2.0 version of its online video and TV platform. During its initial 18 months, Terra TV became a favorite source for Hispanic users seeking online video content. As a result of the popularity in online World Cup 2006 coverage, the content and site visits have grown steadily each month. Today, Terra TV announces the launch of its new platform, with new technology and a wider variety of online video content.

Terra TV has become a major player when it comes to online entertainment channels for Hispanics. It currently has a catalog of more than 10,000 videos on demand including News, Sports, Music, Movies, Autos and Fashion. Additionally, a strategic partnership with Azteca America provides Terra TV with 140 videos per week from Azteca’s programming. Another important online video source for Terra TV evolved through a partnership with Jump TV that provides live access to unlimited international programming 24/7. And to top it off, Terra TV News, which broadcasts from the Terra studios, offers two live daily newscasts focusing on U.S. and Latin American current events and breaking news.

TurnHere and Pheedo announced a strategic partnership focused on the “mass distribution” of authentic, highly engaging online video content via real-time, RSS feed-powered technology. Already a leading expert in producing and distributing online video for some of today’s most innovative companies, TurnHere is joining forces with Pheedo to enable “super-distribution” of video content through Pheedo’s groundbreaking feed-powered platform and distribution network. Pheedo’s platform allows for the dynamic display of video content, provided through RSS video feeds, and distributes that content across a network of highly targeted Web properties. The relationship further broadens TurnHere’s commitment to delivering a complete suite of online video solutions, ranging from production through distribution. As a result, TurnHere provides ahead-of-the-curve marketers with quantifiable mass distribution channels in the form of packaged services and high-powered, progressive advertising.

Lycos launches its new online video service JubiiTV. The bespoke white label video platform is seamlessly integrated into the existing Jubii sites creating an additional consumer service for Lycos’ 44 million internet surfers. Users can now use the platform to exchange, share and view videos all in their native language.

The French and English video platforms are accessible through the Lycos.fr and Lycos.co.uk homepages and will soon be replicated in German, Spanish, Italian and Dutch.

An estimated 81 million people, or 63% of the 129 million people who access the Internet over broadband in the U.S., watch broadband video at home or at work, according to new research conducted by The Nielsen Company for The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM). This number increased from 70 million in September 2006 to 81 million in March 2007, a jump of 16% in just six months.

The analysis also showed that traditional home television ratings are minimally, if at all, affected by broadband video viewing over the Internet, because broadband viewing was found largely to be incremental new viewing rather than a substitute for traditional television viewing.

comScore released its Video Metrix report for May 2007, revealing that nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of 158 minutes of online video per user during the month. Google Sites topped the monthly rankings with both the most unique video streamers and most videos streamed.

Google Tops U.S. Online Video Rankings

May saw Americans view more than 8.3 billion video streams online, and Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. streaming video property with 1.8 billion videos streamed (21.5 percent share of streams), 1.7 billion of which occurred at YouTube.com. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 680 million streams (8.1 percent), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 387 million (4.6 percent) and Viacom Digital with 237 million (2.8 percent).