DigitalMediaTrends.com

YouTube Goes Local With 9 International Sites

YouTube, like parent Google before it, has made the bold move of unveiling local-language sites in nine different countries withlocally popular content. Up until now, user-generated videos and comments could be posted in any language, although the YouTube interface was only in English. According to co-founder Steve Chen, more than half of YouTube's audience comes from outside the United States. YouTube will retain its brand name in each of the following new country sites: Brazil, Britain, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain. More ...

Joost CEO Hints At Apple TV Partnership

Joost, the Web-based TV and video service, is in the news nearly as often as regulars Google and News Corp.'s MySpace. If it hasn't raised additional funds, the peer-to-peer TV platform has mostlikely added another major media partner or recruited a big-name exec. Today it's the latter: Joost named Mike Volpi, formerly of Cisco Systems, as CEO.  "I wanted to get on the ground floor of something unique," Volpi said. "I come from the infrastructure side, but I hate to pigeonhole myself." Volpi said he came to Joost because he likes the team, the market opportunity and the cost-effective delivery platform. Significantly, he added: "We would love to put Joost on the Apple TV platform. We know we can make it run on any operating system." You can bet the companies are already negotiating a deal-both would benefit from cross marketing. Brought to us by the founders of Skype and KaZaa, Joost has quickly emerged as a leader in the burgeoning but crowded online video field. According to The New York Times, the company now has half-a-million subscribers, and over 100 employees-and it's still in beta. More ...

Digicorp Inserts Ads Into Media Files, And Follows Them Everywhere

Putting a new twist into the hot category of in-stream advertising, Digicorp, Inc. has launched a service that can insert display ads into audio or video files, and follow those ads as they travel around the Internet--even through peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing. More ...

Babelgum: A Joost Competitor From Italy

Joost is not the only peer-to-peer, full-screen, Internet TV platform that is about to launch.  Another European startup called Babelgum is working on the same concept, and is getting ready to open up its beta on May 31. More ... 

45% of Europeans watch TV online

A new study from Motorola has found that an amazing 45% of European broadband users now watch at least some television online. The survey covering the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Spain found that the French lead Europe in terms of online television consumption with 59% of people choosing to watch previews and episodes of their favorite shows via the web with the Germans trailing at 33%. More ...