--ABC Licensing Deal with CafePress Will Enable Fans to Design Merchandise Based on its Shows
--blinkx Trumpets Ranking by Nielsen as a "Top Online Video Site"
--Freeview Australia to Feature Ads that Appear When Viewers Fast-Forward
--Reports: YouTube to Offer Live Streaming Coverage of Indian Premier League Cricket
Because the [itvt] editorial team is busy working on The TV of Tomorrow Show (March 3rd-4th in San Francisco) and on our new EBIF Intensive event (March 5th in San Francisco), we are covering a number of stories in this issue in summary form:
--Broadband Video Round-Up: Qik, Brightcove, Xfinity, SeeSaw, Seven
 Live Internet broadcast service provider, Ustream (note: the company recently announced the availability of a Ustream Live Broadcaster iPhone app in the iTunes App Store--see the article published on itvt.com, December 10th), contacted [itvt] Monday to let us know that it will be powering live, interactive feeds of today's (Tuesday) Golden Globes nominations and tomorrow's (Wednesday) premiere of the new James Cameron movie, "Avatar."
In an interview with Steve Donohue of Cable Digital News, David Kline, president and COO of MSO Cablevision's Rainbow Advertising Sales unit, has stressed the importance of tcommerce to the MSO, confirming that it plans to roll out tcommerce capabilities next year. "We're going to pursue it vigorously," Kline said. "Being able to buy things off the TV is as much a consumer product as it is an advertising product. You're going to see a lot more of it." Kline did not, however, elaborate on how Cablevision plans to fulfill orders generated by its planned tcommerce service.
 Kyte, a San Francisco-based company that offers a social-enabled broadband and mobile video platform for live and on-demand content (note: it bills its platform as "combin[ing] the real-time, interactive and community building capabilities of the social Web with professional-grade analytics and content management features, enabling businesses and organizations to engage online and mobile audiences and build community around their brand"), and independent digital agency, Level Studios, on Tuesday announced the formation of a strategic partnership that they say will enable companies and brands to maximize their online, s
Broadband video publishing solutions provider, Brightcove, announced late Monday that it has formed a strategic alliance with TubeMogul, a company which provides a distribution and analytics service for broadband video. According to the companies, their partnership will see them collaborating on technology that will "increase the overall value of online video content by providing in-depth insight into viewer engagement and behavior." As part of the partnership, Brightcove has licensed TubeMogul's InPlay technology to power the analytics in its recently launched Brightcove 4 platform.
--Pilot Test Part of Longer-Term Microsoft-Nielsen Collaboration to Measure Xbox Advertising
 In a posting on a corporate blog last week, Microsoft's general manager of marketing and advertising strategy, Mark Kroese, announced that the company is teaming with the Nielsen Company on a pilot test to measure the effectiveness of in-game advertising. The test is launching with the second season of "1 vs. 100 Live," the avatar-driven interactive TV version of the Endemol-developed "1 vs. 100" game show format, that Microsoft offers on its Xbox Live service. (Note: Like a regular linear-TV game show, "1 vs.
--Deal Gives Sprint Presence On-Air, on Mobile and on Broadband Video Spin-Off
NBC Universal-owned cable channel, Bravo, said Tuesday that it has signed up Sprint as the first ever multiplatform ("360") sponsor for its reality franchise, "The Real Housewives," in a deal that will provide the carrier with an on-air, online and mobile presence for the fifth season of "The Real Housewives of Orange County."
Motorola's Home and Networks Mobility business announced Wednesday that it recently achieved a significant VOD milestone with the shipment of over a million on-demand video streams worldwide. The company, which says that it now has over 180 on-demand deployments across the globe, claims that the achievement is due to its having "the broadest, most flexible line-up of solid-state on-demand servers in the industry" (note: Motorola acquired the solid-state technology that powers its VOD servers via its purchase of Broadbus back in 2006).
--Unilever, Gillette, Century 21, Benjamin Moore Participate in Service's Launch
New York-area MSO, Cablevision, said Tuesday that its new interactive TV advertising service, Optimum Select (see the article published on itvt.com, September 16th), is proving popular with advertisers--attracting such brands as Unilever, Gillette, Century 21 (the retailer, not the real estate company) and Benjamin Moore, which are using it to provide samples, coupons and gift cards to viewers who interact with their ads.
--Company Launched Overlay.TV for Retail in June
 In a posting on its corporate blog, Monday, Overlay.TV, an Ottawa, Canada-based start-up that offers a platform which, among other things, allows users to add a layer of custom-designed, clickable content over broadband videos (note: for a detailed overview of Overlay.TV's platform, see the article published on itvt.com, October 2nd, 2008), announced that it has decided to focus its efforts on Overlay.TV for Retail, the interactive video commerce platform that it launched in June (
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 UK incumbent telco, BT, has launched an on-demand shopping channel, called Vision Shopping and fronted by celebrity presenter, Gaby Roslin, on BT Vision, its Microsoft Mediaroom-powered, interactive TV-enabled hybrid IPTV service (note: the service is enabled via a hybrid set-top box that allows viewers to access linear channels from the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial platform, Freeview, alongside IP-delivered on-demand and interactive content).
Interactivation, the recently re-named company (formerly known as Mag Rack) that operates the Mag Rack free-VOD niche-magazine service, announced Tuesday the release of a product called Dialog Engine, which it bills as an interactive video tool for marketers and advertisers that transforms traditional one-way brand messaging into an interactive and immersive video experience. "The Web is an interactive medium, Web video usage is rising, yet consumers have never been able to interact with video," Interactivation president, Matthew Davidge, said in a prepared statement.
--LG Electronics to Offer Vudu OTT Service on Blu-ray Disc Player
--Broadcom in Hybrid STB Partnership with SoftAtHome
--Ericsson to Demo One-Way VOD System at IBC
--Nielsen Explains Plans for Measuring "TV Everywhere"
--Burke: Comcast's On Demand Online to Launch Nationally in 30-60 Days
--TVBLOB Selects Keisense for Interactive TV Text Input
--MobiTV, NBC Sports Team on iPhone App for Notre Dame Football
The [itvt] editorial team is currently traveling in the UK, and, because of time restraints, we are covering a number of this issue's news stories in round-up/summary form. We anticipate some additional interruption of our regular news publishing schedule in the coming days, so we apologize in advance for any inconvenience to our readers. Here is the round-up:
Interactive TV and advanced advertising technology provider, OpenTV, announced Tuesday that it will open up its TV measurement platform by publishing, later this year, the format of key data points that its software is able to measure on the set-top box. The company says that this open access will allow the developer community, data analysis partners and other service providers to integrate with its measurement solution more easily, and will foster the creation of next-generation set-top box services with enhanced personalization features, such as addressable and interactive advertising and content addressability.
VOD technology provider, Concurrent, on Wednesday launched a cross-services data storage and correlation solution, called Central Data Warehouse (CDW), which it says is designed to offer a 360-degree view of linear, VOD and interactive media consumption across TV, mobile and PC screens. The company bills the CDW as the industry's first centralized data warehouse solution to allow broadband operators to consolidate the collection, storage and correlation of census-level media data from linear broadcast, VOD and online video viewing, facilitating a "secure and seamless exchange of consumption data among media industry stakeholders."
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[i]Database
 Our [itvt] free industry database called The [i]Database contains many listings of operators, broadcasters, software developers, design firms, manufacturers, Web sites, consultancies and many more organizations and people working in the interactive multiplatform TV industry. Upload your company or yourself!
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