Forget multitouch: By far the most disruptive — and overlooked — feature of the Flash Player 10.1 beta that Adobe launched this week is the ability to transmit video via P2P multicast. In fact, Adobe built some enhanced P2P capabilities into both the new Flash Player and Air 2 beta that could be used to replicate BitTorrent functionality within Flash, build large-scale P2P groupware solutions that work right within the browser and stream video to millions of viewers without having to pay a fortune for bandwidth.

Adobe has been hinting at big plans for P2P ever since it bought a small P2P startup called amicima in early 2007. It made some of amicima’s technology available to developers about a year ago, but restricted it to small-scale use cases like P2P video conferencing or multiplayer games based on a few Flash players directly connected to each other via P2P. With Flash Player 10.1, Adobe appears ready to open the floodgates. CDNs and P2P video solutions providers would be well-advised to take notice.

Adobe’s P2P technology is based on its proprietary Real-Time Media Flow Protocol (RTMFP), which was previously restricted to one-to-one connections. That means your Flash Player 10 could directly exchange data with another client, but not relay the data. Transmitting video to 10 other clients meant opening 10 connections to other Flash Players, a method that doesn’t scale very well.

All of that changed with 10.1, which supports true P2P multicast, making it possible to retransmit a video stream from a single source to a large number of viewers. And not just a few hundred viewers, or even thousands. “When we think of large, we think of millions,” amicima co-founder and Adobe P2P Project Lead Matthew Kaufmann said when he introduced the technology to developers at last month’s Adobe MAX event. In fact, he said, it should be capable of handing viewing audiences larger than that of the U.S. presidential inauguration, which has to date been the largest live-streaming event ever.

Kaufmann’s MAX presentation, which is available as an archived video online, is fairly technical, but it contains a few very interesting tidbits. Adobe put a lot of work into making Flash P2P both scalable and reliable, which is why it combined a number of cutting-edge video delivery mechanisms. Publishers can, for example, distribute a video stream via IPv6 multicast and back it up with P2P multicast, or they can source a stream from a server and then opt to distribute it via P2P. Kaufmann also claimed that the latency of Adobe’s P2P implementation is a lot lower than many of the existing P2P video solutions out there.

The whole experience should be pretty painless for the end user. “A permission dialog box will pop up for people using Flash Player 10.1 in the browser for P2Pmulticast,” I was told by Adobe’s Flash Media Server product manager, Kevin Towes.

But wait — Adobe’s got a few more P2P tricks up its sleeves. Developers will also be able to use Flash player 10.1 to build various other P2P applications right within the browser as well as within Air. One possible scenario mentioned includes object replication, more commonly known as file-sharing. “It’s a lot like BitTorrent”, explained Kaufmann, adding that one could use this to “write a crazy file-sharing application” or to “replicate how Groove worked in Actionscript.” Adding to that, Air 2 now supports writing your own file servers and similar stuff through a dedicated API.

We’ll probably still have to wait a few months before we can get a true grasp on what all of this is going to mean for online video delivery, but there’s obviously a potential for huge disruptions. For starters, P2P video companies might have a hard time convincing publishers to opt for their solution, if only for the fact that end users won’t have to install any additional plug-ins to access Flash P2P video streams. At the same time, P2P adoption could skyrocket, as live-streaming sites and others start to leverage Flash Player 10.1 to cut down on bandwidth costs.

So what’s in it for Adobe? Well, RTMFP is true P2P, but you still need a so-called rendezvous server to connect users to the P2P swarm before they can access the video. Adobe already offers this functionality though a hosted service called Stratus, which is capable of serving hundreds of thousands of simultaneous users. In the future, you’ll just use your own Flash Media Server as a rendezvous server. In other words: Adobe’s use of P2P may cut out a whole bunch of middlemen, but it still places the company itself squarely in the center of the online video world.

We’d like to thank this week’s NewTeeVee sponsors:

• thePlatform: What’s Your TV Everywhere Strategy?
• Server Beach: Save 30% by switching to dedicated hosting by Server Beach

Twistage has re-imagined workflow for video platforms. Gone is the monolithic, player-centric video experience. The Twistage solution is both modular and flexible, giving you the freedom to define and build upon your own workflow.

As the world’s most customizable video platform, Twistage brings unmatched flexibility to video workflow. Already the platform of choice for many leading video publishers, Twistage liberates media companies and enterprise clients from the constraints of the video 1.0 ecosystem.

The Twistage difference? Our open architecture. We offer robust solutions for content ingestion, content management, video delivery, monetization, syndication and reporting through a simple point-and-click console. There’s no need to replace your player. You can keep your custom built and third-party solutions. Keep your transcoding, reporting, digital asset management, content access control, and other components that you’ve already invested in and trust. The Twistage platform is the glue for a cohesive workflow, adapting to your demands and the demands of a constantly evolving marketplace — not the other way around.

Twistage. Video Workflow Solved.

thePlatform is updating its white-label video management solution with new features designed to make TV Everywhere-type services easier for service providers and publishers to deploy. And the company says it is seeing results, with a bevy of new programmers and a big cable firm announced as customers today.

thePlatform already provides the technology behind On Demand Online, the TV Everywhere project that parent company Comcast plans to introduce to subscribers next month. But with a suite of new features, the online video platform provider hopes to address authentication and authorization issues that challenge other service providers and media companies when rolling out these services.

Since each ISP introducing TV Everywhere services has chosen to implement a different authentication scheme, media companies need to support multiple login types on their own web properties. To deal with this, thePlatform released a new authentication adapter that enables publishers to verify customer identities across a number of different ISPs. thePlatform has also rolled out tools to map each online video to an individual service provider’s channels, which can then be used to match content available to a given user based on his or her subscription package.

In addition, the company is adding the ability for service providers to “upsell” video services online, with new adaptable content discovery and monetization tools. With these tools, its customers can offer a way for subscribers to purchase programming as an add-on to their existing subscription services, or in a pay-per-view fashion.

The company says it has gained customer traction, with more than 20 new programmers signing up for its services over the past few months.  But the majority of these new customers — including E!, G4, Style, Travel Channel Media, Big Ten Network, and a number of regional sports networks from Comcast Sports — are actually owned by thePlatform’s parent company. The exceptions announced today are Travel Channel Media, Big Ten Network, and a group of regional sports networks from Fox Sports.

In addition to adding new cable programmers, thePlatform also added Canada’s leading cable operator Rogers as a customer, and will provide the backend technology for its TV Everywhere initiatives. With the addition of Rogers, thePlatform serves the vast majority of the cable market in North America, also providing services to Cablevision, Cox, Comcast, and Time Warner Cable.

Despite the large number of white-label video management systems on the market, thePlatform is one of just two major players (the other being ExtendMedia) that have focused on building out the authentication technology necessary to make TV Everywhere-type services work. The introduction of these new features, and the backing of multiple cable operators, puts thePlatform in a decent position to pick up more business from major media companies wishing to deploy these services.

Correction: Travel Channel Media and the Big Ten Network are not owned by Comcast.

Twistage has re-imagined workflow for video platforms. Gone is the monolithic, player-centric video experience. The Twistage solution is both modular and flexible, giving you the freedom to define and build upon your own workflow.

As the world’s most customizable video platform, Twistage brings unmatched flexibility to video workflow. Already the platform of choice for many leading video publishers, Twistage liberates media companies and enterprise clients from the constraints of the video 1.0 ecosystem.

The Twistage difference? Our open architecture. We offer robust solutions for content ingestion, content management, video delivery, monetization, syndication and reporting through a simple point-and-click console. There’s no need to replace your player. You can keep your custom built and third-party solutions. Keep your transcoding, reporting, digital asset management, content access control, and other components that you’ve already invested in and trust. The Twistage platform is the glue for a cohesive workflow, adapting to your demands and the demands of a constantly evolving marketplace — not the other way around.

Twistage. Video Workflow Solved.

A number of CDN, online video platform and other media infrastructure companies are converging on San Jose, Calif., this week for Streaming Media West, which kicks off tomorrow. Here are some highlights of the announcements made by vendors ahead of the show:

Ooyala Partners With YuMe on Overlays

By partnering with ad monetization firm YuMe Networks, Ooyala will be able to better monetize live video streams with overlay ads as it will enable customers of Ooyala’s white-label video management platform to specify ad insertion points into their live streams. Ooyala has its own set of ad-serving platform and monetization tools for on-demand streams, but the partnership shows its homegrown solution may be lacking when it comes to delivering overlay ads into live streams. While the companies just announced general availability of these services, they say there are already dozens of customers using the combined  Ooyala/YuMe solution for live and on-demand video management as well as ad insertion.

Wowza Partners With Tandberg

The companies said today that Wowza’s streaming media server will be integrated into the Tandberg Content Server, making it the company’s exclusive technology provider for streaming Flash in live and on-demand telepresence and video conference calls, as well as multimedia presentations. While the announcement specifies Tandberg’s use of Wowza for Flash streaming, the Media Server will also enable Tandberg to serve video to other formats, such as Silverlight, or to mobile devices such as the iPhone. Wowza was the media server software used by Livestream, for instance, during its live streaming of the space shuttle Atlantis launch today, as well as NewTeeVee Live last week, both of which were streamed to the iPhone.

Cotendo Updates Its Dynamic Site Acceleration

Cotendo announced an update to its Dynamic Site Acceleration product, which is designed to improve the delivery of static and dynamic content for a wide range of online retailers, ad networks and professional news sites. Unlike most other CDNs, Cotendo’s product is less about delivering large media files than it is about ensuring the quick delivery of dynamic content. Even so, by accelerating the delivery of these files, the company can help publishers boost engagement times and improve the overall user experience.

NewTeeVee at SMW

And check out NewTeeVee co-editor Chris Albrecht tomorrow as he grills representatives from Motorola, Move Networks, HBO Broadband and Boxee about the threat that broadband video poses to traditional cable providers. The panel he’s moderating, entitled “Bridging TV and Broadband and Cutting the Cable,” starts at 4 p.m. PST on Tuesday, Nov. 17.

Comcast-NBC Deal Would Face Heavy Regulatory Scrutiny; regulators might impose restrictions against the companies that would wipe out some of the benefits of the deal. (Wall Street Journal)

Apple Files Patent for Unskippable Ads; the technology is able to freeze a device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has watched a commercial. (NY Times)

Warner Music Taps FreeWheel to Monetize Music Videos Online; the partnership allows WMG to manage its ads across a number of online video sites, including YouTube. (MediaPost)

BBC Launches iPlayer Channel On the Wii; the new BBC iPlayer will become a dedicated channel on the gaming console, beginning November 18. (press release)

Microsoft Launching Zune Outside the US; the video service will be available in 18 of the largest western markets, including the UK, France, Germany, and Australia. (Financial Times)

Cartoon Network Introduces Mix-and-Match DVDs; for $20, customers can pick from hundreds of episodes of Robot Chicken, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and other shows to create their own 110-minute personal DVD. (Video Business)

Hulu, the online video joint venture of NBC, Fox and Disney that’s funded by Providence Equity Partners, seems to be having familial issues. No, it’s not YouTube or TV Everywhere giving the second-most popular online video service in the U.S. headaches. Instead, internal bickering is causing problems, MediaWeek reports. This is not the first time Hulu’s parents have undermined the service. But it comes as a surprise — traditional media companies have a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Network officials are complaining about Hulu’s sales staff selling against the network’s own sales teams, according to MediaWeek:

“It’s confusing and conflicting, and very muddled,” said Lisa Herdman, vp, director of national programming for RPA, who handles Honda’s online media. Most stop short of accusing Hulu of outright deception but report that its sellers are often not forthcoming about what they can and cannot sell…On the flip side, buyers say that broadcast networks are inconsistent when it comes to selling Hulu avails. “There are a lot of growing pains with the whole scenario,” said Jeff Ratner, digital director, North America, Mindshare Interaction/Maxus. “Hulu has created a legitimate marketplace for online video. Now you are seeing the downside.”

Hulu has succeeded beyond everyone’s expectations, including those of the networks, which three years ago panicked over the rise of YouTube (and Google.) Despite being a big critic of the joint venture — such ventures almost never work out — I eventually changed my mind and ate crow: Hulu is brilliant. In September, 583 million videos were watched on Hulu, making it the second-largest video destination behind YouTube.

The simplicity of its interface and ease of use have made it the darling of American TV fans. If YouTube became an obvious destination to watch video shorts online, Hulu set a standard for the quality of professionally produced video streams. Even Quincy Smith, outgoing CEO of CBS Interactive, who has in the past questioned Hulu’s business model, admits the “service is freakin’ bad-ass and [Hulu CEO] Jason [Kilar] is an extremely great product guy, GM and a guy who can sell.”

Agreed! Kilar has done a good job of delivering a killer product, despite the competing egos and agendas at various networks. But I wonder if Kilar can really keep this whole thing going. Smith, his bombastic views on Hulu aside, is not wrong in his skepticism of the joint venture. During his on-stage conversation with me at our third NewTeeVee Live conference last week, Smith said, “Hulu got extremely successful extremely early, and that might ultimately hurt them.”

“Before you go putting [your content online] in full episodes, you gotta take it to the audience and make sure they know that it’s on this screen,” he said, referring to the need to encourage viewers to watch broadcast television.

Hulu’s owners are pushing the service around “by imposing delayed windows on certain content and allowing just a limited number of episodes available at any given time” — or charging subscription fees. These are Band-Aids. (Related content from GigaOM Pro: “Hulu and the end of Free TV”)

The networks are fighting a losing battle. Why? Because Hulu is only a signpost of things to come. Like YouTube, Hulu is showing the media buyers that there is a smarter, targeted and metric-based approach to buying media on behalf of customers. This is a long-term cyclical shift, and the TV networks will continue to bleed, Hulu or not.

TV advertising has (and continues to be) successful for mass marketing efforts, but even the idea of mass market is going through a big shift. The TV audiences will continue to get divided and subdivided into various niches. Furthermore, the rise of “TV Everywhere,” a way for you to watch cable company-provided video content on the web, is going to eat into the mass market. If the mass market continues to shrivel, then networks will be fighting to get a piece of the shrinking pie. It is no surprise then that the media companies are bickering with their own spawn.

(Related Research: The Ultimate Guide to TV Everywhere, subscription required. Sign up for GigaOM Pro for $79 a year subscription which gives you access for unlimited research.)

Softkinetic announced today that it has created a joint venture with 3-D camera maker Optrima. The new entity that will offer OEMs an all-in-one hardware and software gesture-control product.

Based in Brussels, Optrima was spun out of the Brussels VUB university and has invented something called Current Assisted Photonic Demodulation (CAPD) 3-D sensing technology. That’s the hardware that can be embedded into something like a television and will “look” out into the room and create a map. When viewers in front of supported TVs move, the camera will understand those movements and Softkinetic software will be able to translate those movements into commands. Softkinetic CEO Michel Tombroff told us in a phone interview that Optima’s technology works by measuring the time it takes for light to bounce back to the sensor, and that the company has patented a technology that requires less illumination and less power.

The joint venture builds on an investment that Softkinetic made in Optrima earlier this year. Tombroff would not specify how much his company invested but said that the total amount of money invested in both Softkinetic and Optrima was over $6 million.

The new company will be called Softkinetic-Optrima and will focus its efforts on developing and manufacturing the hardware. Though this JV will be able to offer this hardware/software combo to OEMs (no specific vendors have been announced yet), Softkinetic still plans on offering its software product to other 3-D sensor makers, like Canesta.

Gesture control is a topic we’ve been covering all year, and we even had Canesta CEO Jim Spare present at the “Next Big Thing” session at our recent NewTeeVee Live conference.

We’d like to thank this week’s NewTeeVee sponsors:

• thePlatform: What’s Your TV Everywhere Strategy?
• Server Beach: Save 30% by switching to dedicated hosting by Server Beach

The #NTVL Twitter hashtag got a lot of love yesterday, but some of our attendees and live-streamers went to a little more length in their reports from NewTeeVee Live ‘09. Here’s a list of coverage; if we missed anything, please add it in the comments.

Streaming Media: NewTeeVee Live 2009: Looking Back, Looking Forward

KRON4: Local TV news coverage and raw interviews

ComputerWorld: YouTube Goes High Definition with 1080p Videos

Reuters MediaFile: Comcast’s TV Everywhere might actually work everywhere

Washington Post Tech: Comcast’s online video bet clearer, benefits for users unclear

Video Business: Xbox Live moves to Zune Video Nov. 17

PCMag.com: Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm to Hit Xbox Live

DSL Reports: Comcast TV Everywhere WILL Work Outside the Home

CNET WebWare: YouTube to get high-def 1080p player

VentureBeat: Three reasons TV is about to get a facelift, Boxee box to be unveiled December 7

Gizmodo: Comcast TV Everywhere Goes Online Next Month for Free

Engadget: Comcast TV Everywhere launch details: December, free for existing subs, really goes anywhere

Associated Press: YouTube to support 1080p high-definition videos

Vator News: Ryan Higa, YouTube star just a normal dude , YouTube announces 1080p video on the way, Clicker, the TV Guide of the Internet

TV News Stream: NewTeeVee Live: Quincy Smith (CBS), Amy Banse (Comcast), but no Jason Kilar (Hulu)

DailyFinance: Comcast to Boxee: Bring it on, we’re ready for the competition, Google pumps up YouTube with better HD and recommendation tools

Tech Radar: Full HD1080p streaming coming to YouTube

Hacking Netflix: Reed Hastings at NewTeeVee Live Conference Video

Broadcasting & Cable: Comcast OnDemand Online Still Set For December Launch

Good Morning Silicon Valley: A new resolution from YouTube

Sci-Tech Today: Comcast Will Offer TV Everywhere on Multiple Devices

As evening began at the NewTeeVee conference in San Francisco today, some big money movers weighed in on the video industry. Allen Delattre, managing director of Electronics and High Technology at Accenture, moderated a panel discussion featuring a number of heavy-hitters from the venture capital community. They included:

• Bill Gurley, general partner, Benchmark Capital
• Chris Hollenbeck, managing director,Granite Ventures
• David Horowitz, managing director, Comcast Interactive Capital
• Dan Beldy, managing director, Steamboat Ventures

The last event of the day was one of the most interesting, and the VCs were mostly positive about the prospects for online video.

“Five years ago very few people were watching video online,” said Horowitz, in response to a question about why the venture capital community should care about the video space. “Now you’ve got YouTube and billions of streams per month.  I think 10 years from now we’ll find other places to watch video.”

Also sounding a positive note, Beldy said that “even in a recession, broadband isn’t what people cut,” and noted that they’ll continue to consume online video despite financial challenges.

“When Hulu and Boxee got together, they woke up all the giants,” noted Benchmark Capital’s Gurley. “Since that day, everyone has been paying attention and people with billions of dollars are starting to march around.” Online video giant Hulu’s content was the most popular format on the open-source media center platform Boxee, when Hulu suddenly asked to have its content removed from Boxee. Since then, Boxee users have employed workarounds to continue to watch it. Gurley also alluded to Hulu possibly being forced toward a subscription-based model for its content, although his comment was vague.

There was a lot of talk about mobile applications focused on video. “One interesting thing about mobility is that I think it creates new viewing hours,” said Hollenbeck from Granite Ventures, which is backing makers of iPhone apps, among others. “That mobile device is with you all the time.”

Gurley also noted that technologies associated with computing are moving rapidly into digital entertainment devices. “Ethernet and some form of OS and a menu stack are being put in every TV, every DVD player, and every game machine,” he said. “Those of us who are old enough remember when that same thing happened on the phone stack. It’s going to be fun to watch. “

PBS isn’t just about Antique Roadshow anymore, PBS Interactive SVP Jason Seiken told the audience at our NewTeeVee Live conference today. But he’s the first to admit that PBS isn’t really the hippest brand around. The average age of PBS television viewers is “pushing 60,” he estimated. Consider that countless Elmo-addicted toddlers actually bring that age way down, and you start to understand that PBS has a bit of an age issue.

That’s a problem that the network wants to solve with an online video platform it launched this spring, and Seiken was happy to report that these efforts are starting to pay off. Forty-eight percent of PBS Video visitors are under 35, he said, and the youngsters seem to dig PBS programming as well. Viewers tune into a stream for 26 minutes on average, which is far longer than many commercial platforms. PBS is clocking 12 million uniques a month for its video site, and video views are growing 80 percent month to month.

One of the more interesting aspects of the site is that it’s also a content repository for PBS’ 357 local member stations. These stations can take shows like Frontline or NOVA and combine them on their own sites with small-town news and other local programming. PBS wants to make this relationship a two-way street next year with the launch of the site’s next version, which will automatically syndicate locally produced content and present it to a national audience.

So what’s the secret of the site’s success? Failure, actually. Seiken said that performance reviews at PBS Interactive now track the times an employee failed at their job, with the goal being not to punish, but to reward failed experiments. “Our engineers actually really love this,” said Seiken.

Roku in the next few weeks will roll out a new marketplace for video channels, enabling users to pick and choose the content that appears on the home screen of their broadband-connected set-top boxes. At NewTeeVee Live, Roku vice president of marketing Chuck Seiber showed off a preview of the new Roku user interface, which included an icon for the device’s new Channel Store and icons for video channels from new content partners Revision 3 and Blip.tv. Seiber said that the company is also adding channels for unnamed photo-sharing and video-sharing services.

The marketplace is one part of Roku’s plan to create an open platform on which any content provider could create their own video channels with a software development kit that the company freely released earlier this year. “We’re trying to turn our product into an open platform, and giving our users all the choice they could want,” Seiber said.

The introduction of multiple new channels brings up questions as to how Roku will change the user interface (UI). “It’s a tough balancing act,” Seiber said. “We started out as a Netflix player, so we had that simplicity and you don’t need a manual to navigate this. We will try to keep this as subtle and as clean as possible, but there’s no doubt our UI will have to evolve.”

Despite the fact that Roku faces increasing competition from consumer electronics device manufacturers that are building over-the-top services natively into HDTVs, Blu-ray players and other broadband-connected devices, Seiber said the company continues to do well.

At the same time, he said that the introduction of higher-priced connected products actually help to educate consumers about the availability of Netflix streaming and Amazon On-Demand services available on the device. He noted that on the same day that the availability of Netflix streaming was announced on the PlayStation 3, Roku had one of its best sales days ever, as consumers researched and chose its relatively low-cost solution. “In the short term, what we have is a really inexpensive product. It’s a very simple value proposition that someone can wrap their heads around. It’s a cheap and low-risk purchase,” Seiber said.

Despite tackling a diverse set of web video projects, the 10 companies chosen for our “NewTeeVee’s Next Big Thing” list all have one thing in common: They are rapidly gaining traction in emerging and increasingly important aspects of the business. And so we’ve put our trust in them to see into the future.

Here’s what our second five presenters had to say about what to expect from the video market.

Matt Cutler, VP Marketing and Analytics, Visible Measures

Summary: The ads from the Super Bowl spread across 6,000 online video clips and led to a similar number of viewers as the broadcast garnered. Online, about 30 percent of the brand views of an ad online came from social activities such as referrals and mashups. However, the top 10 campaigns captured 45 percent of all online views. So we tell our brand advertising clients that they need to figure into the top 10.

The Next Big Thing: The leaders already in social advertising will press their advantage in 2010, and the followers who are still in experimentation mode will realize how far behind they are.

Brent Friedman, president, Electric Farm Entertainment

Summary: We’re looking for the fully immersive experience. We do high-budget, new cross-platform projects or “make cool shit.” The goal has been to create a convergence between video games and television. For our first project, After World, we produced 130 episodes. But it was really hard to monetize, at least in the U.S. The idea of a destination site just didn’t catch on. Our foreign distributor, Sony, offered it overseas in modular bites, web sites with bells and whistles, and mobile content. Back here in the U.S., we used the same model that we used for After World, but didn’t build an integrated destination web site. Sending the viewers on a “digital schlep” was counterintuitive to create immersion. Now we’re returning to the After World model to spend the money on a destination site. But going forward it’ll likely be branded, probably by a network, and it will be monetized. Through the traditional networks we’re getting bigger marketing budget and leveraging the strengths of the media fence. The site will not be a walled garden-type site, and will be much more dynamic 3-D environments. This will create a level of entertainment that is attractive to the whole ecosystem and will transcend the 3- to 5-minute spot online.

The Next Big Thing:

Angela Wilson Gyetvan, VP Sales and Marketing, 3ality Digital

Summary: There are a bunch of TV makers launching 3-D televisions next year as well as some device makers that will make products that will play 3-D. The next opportunity for 3-D will be intelligent advertisements and products that know when you are there. That’s five years out. And now we take a 3-D TV break.

The Next Big Thing: (See video, preferably with 3-D glasses.)

Bismarck Lepe, co-founder and president of Product Strategy, Ooyala

Summary: Ooyala is a comprehensive online video platform with analytics, transcoding and ads — who, what and how people are sharing video on the web.

The Next Big Thing: As we look at 2010 we think that web sites won’t be focused on the licensing relationships with the content partner, but the relationship with the individual user. We will also be able to authenticate and identify each end user to understand what they watch and have access to. Mobile will play a big role in that process.

Jeremy Reed, SVP Content and Editorial, Demand Media

Summary: The next big thing is “little” — short video that people are interested in that have a none ROI. We’ve been profitable since day one. We have a network of media sites, and we have Demand Studios, which is a content creation freelance community. When we built the company we wanted to create high-quality content, but do it at scale, and with voice that serves our community. Brands want useful, actionable content, but there’s a major disconnect between advertisers’ needs and costs to serve that. We’re all struggling with video monetization, and we look at it with a cost we can afford. Marketing today is stuff like search and YouTube — what are those people looking for and how to we create what they want. We’re dealing with very diverse spaces like humor, health and DIY space. We focused our attention on the headline, design and title. We built an algorithm that determines audience and ability to place high on search. After we developed this tool we created this freelance community. What we found is that we attracted filmmakers, which had associated with big brands, had won awards, and had spread out across the U.S.

The Next Big Thing: Next big thing is trying to understand there is an imbalance between supply, need and cost. You need to understand the ROI before you greenlight content. Is it quality and relevant to a community? And increasing the competitiveness — in a search world is a social world.

CNN and Facebook’s live coverage of the Obama inauguration was hailed by many, including our own Liz Gannes, as the future of social TV. CNN Worldwide VP of Digital Marketing and Development Andy Mitchell joined Randi Zuckerberg from Facebook’s marketing arm onstage at NewTeeVee Live in San Francisco today to share a little bit of the backstory of this cooperation.

The two tried to add social context to live news events during the months leading up to the election with an idea called “debating the debates.” Facebook had just launched its Facebook Connect platform, and both companies tried to have users watch the debates and exchange arguments online, signaling their allegiance for either candidate with a badge on their Facebook profile. Except that it didn’t work. Facebook Connect wasn’t ready to scale.

Then, the day after the election, Zuckerberg was approached by two engineers who told her about their election night experience. They had watched Obama win state after state via a live-stream in one window on their computer screens, and monitored their Facebook status updates in another window right next to it. The folks at Facebook immediately fell in love with the idea and sent a screenshot over to CNN. “We thought: Why isn’t everybody doing is? Let’s make it happen,” recalled Mitchell.

And make it happen they did. CNN clocked some 1.3 million live-streams and 20 million Facebook status updates during their inauguration coverage. These numbers were even more impressive because every TV network basically broadcasted the very same feed that day, as Zuckerberg reminded the audience. Behind the curtain, two war rooms at both companies continuously monitored the experience, connected via conference link. Mitchell didn’t share any details about the infrastructure used to serve all those streams, but he admitted that the challenges were scary. “We bought up all the bandwidth that was available,” he said.

So why doesn’t CNN complement all of its live coverage with Facebook Connect streams? Mitchell said that the network was still trying to figure out how to utilize this type of interaction for events that have smaller audiences, and he hinted at further integration in the future, albeit without providing any details. Zuckerberg added that the most impressive part of the cooperation has been how it immediately changed the expectation of what social TV has to look like. Before the inauguration, social meant sharing links or babbling in live chat rooms. Now, everyone from Justin.tv to the NBA integrates a Facebook Connect Live Stream.