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Roundup of CES Coverage by CNET, VentureBeat, and MoreYesterday

With the 2009 CES International conference kicking off tomorrow, everyone in the tech world is in--or watching--Las Vegas. The conference may be smaller than last year, but the media is just as eager to see what gadget goodies the tech companies have in store. In this video, CNET News.com Executive Editor Tom Merritt reviews the NVIDIA GeForce 3D Vision gaming peripheral, which lets you play video games in 3D. Pretty awesome. 

Other stories worth noting:

  • Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat has a story aout Toshiba's TVs with cell microprocessors, which are the next step up from high-definition.
  • Tim Gideon at PC Magazine writes about the announcement of SanDisk's Sansa slotMusic player, which plays microSD cards preloaded with 1,000 songs
  • PC World has pics and reviews of the gadget line-up that were already on display today, like the trendy TriSpecs sunglasses with Bluetooth capacity.
  • CNNMoney overviews the new visual, social, and personal consumer experiences from Cisco.

We'll be posting more news tomorrow, so stay posted!

--Kelsey Blodget, As

Move Networks Doubles Streamed Traffic in 2008 to Reach 55 Million UniquesYesterday

Online TV delivery service Move Networks more than doubled the number of viewers watching its streamed content in 2008 to 55 million a year, up from 25 million in 2007, the company announced yesterday. Although those numbers are modest compared with big video sites, like Hulu, which streams to around 23 million viewers a month, this is impressive growth for the Utah start-up.

Andy interviewed Move Networks CEO John Edwards at the AlwaysOn conference this summer about the company's adaptive streaming technology, which delivers high-definition video that doesn't buffer. The quality of the service has earned move big-name clients like ABC Television and Fox. I republished the interview here.

Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch has a story about the site's growth as well: He writes that the 100 million hours of HD content Move streamed in 2008 will be dwarfed across the major web video services this year as YouTube and others add HD sections.

--Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer

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"Day With the Hiltons" Series Has a "Secret": Product PlacementYesterday

Famous angel investor Ron Conway called product placement "the next multibillion dollar industry" at TechCrunch50 earlier this summer. But there needs to be a standardization of the buying process before that happens, according to Paul Kontonis, CEO of the web video studio For Your Imagination.

"It's definitely a very powerful model for it; [but] it's hard to buy. It's hard to quantify the value of a product placement," he says in the segment. "I think there will be big dollars when they do happen, and they will represent a real great growth in the dollars in this industry," he says.

So product placement probably won't be replacing pre-roll in regular content anytime soon, but considering 70 percent of FYI's ad revenue comes from branded entertainment--which usually includes product placement--there's no need for it to. And some branded content is, well, very entertaining, blurring the lines between what is branded and what isn't.

FYI produced a branded mini-series called "Day with the Hiltons" earlier this year for the launch of Kathy Hilton's new fragrance, My Secret. The series got distributed over the TV Guide network, received five million views in the first six weeks, and spurred a considerable jump in sales of My Secret at Macy's. Branded entertainment done right seems like a win-win--a profitable model for the publishers, and fun and un-obnoxious entertainment for the viewers.

--Kelsey Blodget,

CES News: Akamai, Others Have "BD Live" Production and Distribution SolutionJanuary 6

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LAS VEGAS, NV -- Blu-ray, the new generation of entertainment DVDs, has an interactive component called BD Live. The functionality allows consumers whose television sets are connected to the Web to interact and integrate additional material into their viewing experience. This integrated platform was talked about at the last CES and there have been a number of announcements and reviews in recent months. Not sure if this a big breakthrough, but is it one of the important stories coming out of the show.

Although Blu-ray is still in the early stages of adoption, some big players are lining up around BD Live. Later today at CES, a consortium lead by Akamai, Ascent Media and Sofatronic will announce a new integrated workflow and distribution system for BD Live.  Here's the press release.

Here's the take on this by Dan Rayburn. 

-- Andy Plesser, Executive Producer

Disclaimer: Akamai is a sponsor of Beet.TV

For Your Imagination Dreams up Two New Networks for 2009January 5

Leading online media studio For Your Imagination introduced two new networks in 2009: personal finance network GEQ and fashion network Glampede, CEO Paul Kontonis told me at the Mogulus studio in SoHo last month. Video social entertainment platform Joost will begin distributing the new shows, as well as shows from existing FYI networks The Green House, DadLabs and Axis of Comedy.

In the segment, Kontonis says that although sponsorships for the videos grew significantly in 2008, branded entertainment still accounts for the vast majority of revenue.

"Until the media side really gets its act together and understands how to buy sponsorships in online video, you're going to see a lot more on the branded side because that's starting from the creative groups that are much more willing to jump into the space, play with those experimental dollars," he says.

FYI appeals to advertisers because of its dual offering of entertainment and informational content as well as specific audience demographics, according to Kontonis. He also describes FYI's four-tier distribution strategy.

-- Kelsey Blodget, Associate Producer