Kevin Nalty, better known in the online video world as Nalts, published the second edition of his free e-book “How to Get Popular on YouTube Without Any Talent” a few days ago. Nalty, whose videos have attracted more than 120 million views on YouTube, published a first version of the book in 2008, and the new edition pays tribute to both the changing nature of YouTube as well as the lessons he has learned since.

One of the biggest changes since the first edition came out is related to Nalty’s own career. He used to work as a marketer for Merck, but left the pharmaceutical company last summer after his online pranks started to impact his day job. In his book, Nalts reports that he can’t live off of YouTube’s partner program alone, but that his videos have helped him to land sponsorship deals with companies like Microsoft, Starbucks and Mentos.

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People that watch online video — and there are more and more of them every month — didn’t let the holidays get in the way of their viewing over the course of December. According to recent research from comScore, US online video viewing continued to reach record levels that month, with consumers watching more online video than ever before.

More than a billion videos were viewed online every day in December, according to comScore, with a total of 33.2 billion viewed over the course of the month. The number of online video viewers continued to rise, with 178 million tuning into video programming, representing about 86 percent of all Internet users. And the amount of time that they’re watching those videos continues to increase, to an average viewing time of 4.1 minutes, as opposed to 3.2 minutes in the previous year.

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Some of the lessons learned from the commercials during Super Bowl 2010: Beer solves lots of problems, women hold men back from their dreams and this year, pants are optional. But there were also some highlights for the web video world.

Flo TV pushed their mobile TV viewing device to hen-pecked men dragged out who miss football games because they’ve been dragged out to go shopping, but they also got behind will.i.am’s My Generation remix.

Google had a relatively clever ad in the second half pushing their search ability but, um, did anyone need to be told that Google is a good search destination? Was this the manifestation of some crazy Bing paranoia? Read more of this story

For NFL football fans that might have been planning on tuning into Super Bowl XLIV online, we have some bad news: This weekend’s big game between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts won’t be streamed live on the Internet. But for those that just want to pre-game, CBS Sports has got you covered.

Beginning earlier this week, CBS began running its Countdown to Kick-off series, a bunch of online video segments looking at key questions facing both teams before the game kicks off this Sunday. The show has live interviews, news, and analysis with various special guests.

The site also includes polls and live chat functionality, with Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and Yahoo integration. CBSSports.com will also have a recap show after the game, as well as interviews with the winning team.

Super Bowl XLIV will be broadcast from Sun Life Stadium in Miami on CBS beginning at 6:25 p.m. EST Sunday, Feb. 7.

Publicis Groupe’s VivaKi unit announced today that Hulu’s Ad Selector was tops among video ad units tested as part of its “Pool” research project, suggesting that Hulu might be revolutionizing the video ad market by allowing its users to select the ad they want to see. 

What video viewers really want is choice, the research suggests. Hulu’s Ad Selector unit gives its users the option to choose between two comparable ads — meaning that viewers are opting in to watch an ad that is somewhat relevant to their interests. Or at least, it gives them the feeling that they’re choosing an ad that’s relevant to their interests, rather than showing an ad that might be completely unrelated.

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Good news for HTML5 proponents: MPEG LA has announced that it will extend its royalty-free license of the H.264 video streaming format for an additional five years. In doing so, the license holder has agreed not to charge for use of the near-ubiquitous H.264 encoding format through 2016.

The move comes after YouTube and Vimeo rolled out implementations of HTML5 video last month, both of which took advantage of H.264.

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One of the maxims of online video is that everyone hate pre-roll ads, but just how much, exactly? So much that one out of every six users abandons a video stream before a pre-roll advertisement ends and the actual video begins, according to new research from video analytics firm TubeMogul.

The company took a look at how viewers interacted with more than 1.8 million video streams over a 48-hour period, and found that about 16 percent of them clicked away rather than watch a pre-roll ad. The report took a look at 10- and 30-second-long pre-roll ads that ran against short-form content, typically videos that are 3-10 minutes long. The ads shown were served from a wide range of video ad networks, including AdTech, BBE, Google and Tremor Media.

User behavior differed depending on the type of content that was being served up. Users were more patient when waiting for content from large broadcasters, with about 11 percent clicking away during ads. However, users were much more likely to abandon videos served on newspaper and magazine publisher web sites, clicking away nearly 25 percent of the time.

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24 hours following the 52nd annual Grammy Awards, the question was where’s the online content from the Recording Academy’s most online-ever show? And the answer is, 48 hours later: On its way.

While official clips from the show have been sparse since Sunday, approximately 50-75 percent of the live performances from this year’s awards will be up for purchase on iTunes as of tonight, according to chief marketing officer Evan Greene. This will include some of the night’s most discussed numbers, including Beyonce, Green Day performing with the cast of American Idiot, and Lady Gaga dueting with Sir Elton John.

Most will be available as video and audio packages, and in the case of Mary J. Blige and Andrea Bocelli’s duet of Bridge Over Troubled Water, 100 percent of the proceeds will be donated to Haiti relief.

The reason it has taken so long to get this content online is that the negotiation over rights to the 16 performances from Sunday’s show is being handled with each rights holder individually. “With anything related to audio or visual performance, making sure rights holders are comfortable with how their intellectual property is used is the most important thing to us,” Greene said via phone. Read more of this story

Move Networks made some personnel reductions yesterday associated with a shift from its legacy streaming business to providing a platform for delivering IPTV services. According to a source, the company reduced headcount by about 10-15 percent, leaving the company with 107 employees total.

The personnel cuts come as Move de-emphasizes its streaming media business, a decision that has resulted in some of its larger media customers looking for other vendors to deliver their web videos. Fox has already transitioned off the Move player, adopting Adobe’s Flash for the video technology and Brightcove for video management and distribution. Disney web properties, including ABC and ESPN, will reportedly follow suit, soon transitioning to Flash for their online video. With fewer media customers to serve, employees that were focused on those accounts are being let go.

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