Hulu is apparently a popular dance partner at the moment. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are all in "confidential" discussions about buying the popular video service. YouTube remains the dominant video site online, but it's built around user-generated, amateur videos. Hulu, on the other hand, has agreements with major TV networks that gives it access to current (and professional) programming -- an area that YouTube has been trying to beef up for a few years now. That kind of programming is what attracts ad dollars, as the Times report explains: Hulu' [...]

Related Topics: Google: YouTube & Video | Microsoft: MSN Video | Search Engines: Video Search Engines | Yahoo: Video

While many people are focused on the recent launch of Google TV, there are a range of existing alternatives for people who want more than just TV on their TVs -- or who may what to "cut the (cable) cord" entirely. The chart below offers a short overview and comparison of the major providers and systems available in the US market. It is not intended to be definitive or exhaustive. Each product or system below requires some sort of new hardware, either a set-top box or a entirely new TV. Prices range from a low of $59 for the cheapest Roku box to well over $1,000 for the largest Sony Internet [...]

Related Topics: Features: Analysis | Google: TV | Internet-To-TV | Search Engines: Video Search Engines | Top News | Yahoo: Partnerships | Yahoo: Video

Facebook's tenure as the number two video site in the U.S. was short-lived. According to the latest comScore video rankings, Yahoo returned to second place in September after Facebook held the spot in August. Here's the chart for September: Video viewing overall was down slightly in September in the U.S. [...]

Related Topics: Facebook | Google: YouTube & Video | Stats: comScore | Stats: Popularity | Yahoo: Video

There's no drama or news when talking about the most popular video site on the web; that battle was won long ago by YouTube and doesn't seem likely to change anytime. But after that, the landscape changes a bit. Hulu and VEVO seemed like they might be on the rise, but now it's Facebook that's surpassed Yahoo to become the second-most popular video site online. Here's the latest chart from comScore, covering online video rankings for August, 2010. ComScore says that 178 million U.S. internet users watched online video in August, and averaged 14.3 hours per viewer. [...]

Related Topics: Facebook | Google: YouTube & Video | Stats: comScore | Yahoo: Video

Yahoo announced they have redesigned the home page for Yahoo Image Search and Yahoo Video Search to include trending search results. The new pages are no longer dull looking, they show up to "five pages of topics that are trending in search," in a sleek black background. You can scroll through the pages manually or turn on the autoscroll feature. As part of this announcement, Yahoo keeps pushing the "engagement" metric saying: Already, we’ve seen double-digit percentage increases in engagement for both image and video search since launching these new homepages, with a 60% increase [...]

Related Topics: Yahoo: Images | Yahoo: Video