Online learning site eduFire announced today that it has raised $1.3 million in Series A funding from Battery Ventures, Western Technology Investments and investor Gokul Rajaram (who helped build Google AdSense).

eduFire is an educational marketplace where students can take classes via live web video. The company has expanded beyond its initial focus on learning languages to offer classes in standardized test preparation and technology training. eduFire CEO Jon Bischke says that while languages are still the most popular topic on the site, classes on how to use Facebook and Twitter are catching on with audiences.

Bischke said the company is also seeing an emergence of almost-real-time classes. For instance, when protesters were marching in Iran earlier this year, classes on the modern history of Iran started popping up on the site.

Launched a little over a year ago, eduFire says it now has roughly 5,000 teachers and that 30,000 students have signed up so far. The company rolled out a “SuperPass” earlier this year, which lets students take unlimited classes for $29 a month. eduFire has five employees and previously raised half a million dollars in angel funding.

It would be appropriate to quote a song like Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were” or even “Memory” from Cats given Pixorial’s target market. The video sharing startup launches to the public today and is hoping to be a place where boomers, families and anyone with a pile of old VHS tapes can digitize and share their past online.

Pixorial works like this. If your video is already digital, you can upload it directly, if it’s stored on an old reel of film, a VHS tape or any number of different physical media, you send it via UPS to the Pixorial offices, where the company digitizes it. Once it’s been uploaded you get a link where you can view or edit the footage online. The resulting edited clip can then be shared online or you can purchase a DVD or hi-res download of it.

All the editing tools are online, and even better, you can invite others to collaborate on a video, so users can mix and match memories to create a whole new experience.

I had a couple of old VHS tapes that I hadn’t looked at in ages (I don’t even remember when I last had a VHS player). Pixorial let me test out the service and it worked as promised. I shipped off my tape, they digitized it and I spent a good part of one afternoon laughing at my much younger self and editing out the most embarrassing bits. Embedded is video from 1990 of me on a college bowl-style show called Quizzard that ran locally on Honolulu’s KHNL 13. No, that’s not me doing the rap — but that is my mullet, and those are my braces.

Though seeing those old Quizzard episodes is worth more than gold to some, Pixorial makes actual money through a few different revenue streams. The company offers a pro account for $25 a year, which has no archive limit, free accounts cap at 10GB and have ads. Pixorial also charges to digitize those old analog videos, and charges if you want a hi-res download (.99 cents), DVD ($10) or Mosaic ($20) of your video.

Pixorial isn’t alone in the personal video sharing space. Motionbox offers much of the same services.

Located in Denver, Colorado, Pixorial was founded in 2007. The company is privately funded and has 11 employees.

The new year doesn’t promise to bring much in the way of good tidings for most startups, much less those with the shaky business models found in digital media. But, at the same time, online video consumption is a strengthening reality that won’t be suppressed by tough economic times. So, if you’re involved in a video venture looking out at the spread for 2009, where do you stand?

First of all, let’s talk about where things ended up last year. The big news items for video startups (and young, internal ventures at big companies) in 2008 were acquisitions, layoffs and shut-downs — and of course fundings. Many of the companies we cover raised funding last year, though the pace of new investments slowed along with the economy. (As for including a category for IPOs…yeah right.) To recap some of the highlights (and lowlights):

Acquisitions: There were no blockbuster acquisitions in 2008 — at this point it seems impossible that anyone will ever match 2006’s Google-YouTube. At $160 million, Yahoo-Maven was probably the biggest deal that’s directly relevant to our space, but that deal has faded, along with the products involved. Other than a couple biggies on this list, you’ll be forgiven if you hardly recognize any of the names.

Vidmeter by Visible Measures, NBCU buys LX.TV, Maven Networks by Yahoo, Revver by LiveUniverse, Weblistic by Spot Runner, Bebo (the social network has significant investment in original video) by AOL, MediaXstream by Secure Media Solutions, Kontiki by MK Capital, FanLib by Disney, CNET (which has many video assets) by CBS Interactive, Navic by Microsoft, Omnisio by Google/YouTube, Radiance Technologies by Comcast Media Center, Visual Connection by KIT Digital, Illumenix by TubeMogul, ClearStory by The FeedRoom, SportVU by STATS, TIOTI by Vizimo

Layoffs: These stories sped up considerably as the year went on. Most, if not all, failed to put an end to tough times for the companies involved.

Digeo, Crackle, MeeVee, Akimbo, SuperDeluxe, Vudu, Seesmic (twice), Heavy, PermissionTV, ManiaTV, Break, Revision3, Smashface, 60Frames, Vuze, Spot Runner (twice), Veoh (twice), BitTorrent (twice), Current Media, Qik, Strands, Brightcove and DivX. (Not to mention public companies like TiVo, Netflix, Akamai, Viacom, NBCU, Adobe and AT&T.)

Shut down: This category was actually smaller than we might have expected, given how tough it is to succeed in this business. Last year, when we asked a panel of online video experts — from video makers to professors to VCs and media execs — what would happen in 2008, one of the most common answers was that me-too video sites would shut down. Here’s what they told us:

• “If you are running an online video company that features non-premium, commodity content and you missed the Internet ‘network effect’ enjoyed by YouTube and a few others, it might be time to cash out.”
• “Sadly, the second-tier video sites this year will sell to larger companies or fade away.”
• “Any of the companies who have raised $15 million or more and are running out of funds now are in serious danger.”

Well, it turns out doomsday wasn’t quite nigh… But it’s a good bet that many of the startups on the layoffs list will be forced to make even deeper cuts in 2009.

Stage6 (DivX’s video portal), Akimbo, Firebrand, AllPeers, Peerflix, Streamcast Networks, Pickle (after being acquired by Scripps), Red Swoosh (after being acquired by Akamai), SanDisk’s Fanfare and TakeTV, Starz Entertainment’s online service Vongo, Skyrider, ClickStar, Moblogic (after CBS acquired Wallstrip), Mobuzz, Jumpcut (after being acquired by Yahoo), Eyespot (though the assets were acquired by PixelFish),

But people are watching more and more online video, from user-generated video to TV episodes to a growing portion of web video originals. Here are the consumption stats:

Unfortunately, global video stats are hard to come by, but here’s one impressive measure of how much video has infiltrated our lives: comScore says U.S. online video watchers watched 273.1 minutes of online video in the month of November 2008, up from 195 minutes in November 2007. And the number was only 151 minutes in January 2007. A 40 percent increase in consumption in a single year is massive, and there’s no reason to think it will go away.

And what about the money? Here’s what we’re looking at for market size:

eMarketer has been looking at video advertising revenue closely. First it said 2008 would net $1.3 billion in U.S. video ad revenue, but then halfway through the year it revised that estimate to $505 million. By the end of the year, that number was bumped up to $587 million. Notwithstanding the whole “track record” thing, here’s this year’s eMarketer forecast: $850 million in U.S. online video ads 2009.

As for paid video, it’s the red-headed step-child of video business models — but it’s also being opened up in new ways by services like Netflix, which includes unlimited online streaming with most of its physical DVD rental plans, and sports services like the exemplary MLB.tv. ABI Research forecasts $2.49 billion in worldwide — N.B. worldwide, not just U.S.! — revenue for paid video over broadband, more than double the $1.16 billion it estimated for 2008.

So what’s next on the agenda? I am generally uncomfortable with predictions, given how self-serving they are (plus I hate to be obvious or wrong). But here are some of the most provocative and specific video-related predictions I’ve seen from people who take an active interest in the space.

• Rise of video use by marketers for SEO — “a short cut to the top of Google” (Kevin Nalty)
• Growing market for cheap video stock footage (Robin Good)
• Influence of video on politics deepens with President Elect Barack Obama’s fireside chats (Alex Castro)
• Closure of most of the startups on this list: Revision3, ON Networks, NextNewNetworks, 23/6, Funny or Die — “Normal people have no idea what any of these things are.” (Rex Sorgatz)
• “The biggest trend in online video is where and on what people will watch” (Hulu CEO Jason Kilar). Is this a smoke signal given the source? Hulu was the break-out story of 2008, but it’s only available on the web right now. Meanwhile, the push to bring web content to the TV, driven by Netflix, is gearing up to be a prominent storyline in 2009.

So, there you have it, a cornucopia of data points and pointers. Of course, when it all comes down to it, silly things like founder dynamics, funders’ indulgence, and luck will likely have as much a part in your success or failure as the market. What’s sad is that we may not see a lot of new startups this year, just at a time when some of the best ideas about online video are being crystallized into shows, products and services that people actually want and enjoy. But if you’re lucky enough to have a little runway left, we hope to see you out there.

Photo by Flickr user dierken.

Hulu. Fancast. Sling.com. Joost. Veoh. These are all video portals trying to be the one-stop online shop for you to enjoy every bit of TV network content. Despite this crowded field of heavy hitters, First on Mars is throwing its hat into the premium content ring today to try and become — you guessed it, the one-stop online shop for all your TV watching needs.

Believing that establishing official relationships with studios and networks would be too laborious and costly (there is some logic to that), First on Mars is a lot like OpenHulu (and Prime Time Rewind, Modern Feed, Mefeedia…noticing a trend?) in that it just embeds video players or web pages from other content sites like Hulu or Comedy Central.

First on Mars founder and CEO Tuhin Roy is aware of the competition, but believes his company’s “Web 2.0″ approach to serving up video content is its competitive advantage. First on Mars has a graphical interface and allows you to discover content by selecting the “mood” you’re in, such as hilarious, bleak, sexy, etc. (Though typically when I watch online video I’m not in a “bleak” mood.)

But what struck me as I perused First on Mars is its almost polar opposite approach to design than that of Hulu. At NewTeeVee Live, Hulu CEO Jason Kilar spoke on how clean the Hulu interface was, and how they agonized over every pixel. Instead of lists, First on Mars’ navigation is driven by a collection of tiles that clutter up your screen and take too long to load as you move through them.

Additionally, some content is viewable through a direct embed, but other shows nest the source’s entire web page within the Flash window. This page-within-a-page presentation for something like The Colbert Report makes the site feel cramped and amateurish.

Since First on Mars uses embeds from other sites, it can’t monetize the video directly. So the company plans to make money selling ads around the content. First on Mars believes that since it doesn’t have to pay to license the content in the first place, it can get higher margins on those ads.

First on Mars was formed back in March of this year and launched a public beta in September. The San Francisco-based company has twelve full-time employees, raised an angel round earlier this year and another undisclosed round of financing in September (right before the economy went to pot).

When RedLasso took down its TV clipping service earlier this year amidst legal action by the TV networks, bloggers who used the service to embed clips of breaking news stories, memorable quotes and gaffes were left without a replacement. Many former users, including Perez Hilton, Jossip, Hot Air and the Huffington Post, have felt the service’s absence in their daily gossip and politics coverage, and at times resorted to ripping and posting TV clips themselves. Now a new service called 1Cast, which we had the scoop on a few months ago, is giving the space an authorized try.

RedLasso not only had an extremely useful (if legally questionable) searchable index of everything that aired on TV, it also had editorial filters to alert its bloggers when hot items came on the tube. “The great thing about RedLasso is that they would alert me of breaking news items of interest to me almost instantly,” Perez Hilton said via email. “Now there’s a much longer delay. Sad.”

Jossip’s David Hauslaib admitted to the same frustration, but noted that the shows and networks have stepped up their efforts at getting clips out on their own sites and on places like Hulu, and also publicizing notable interviews, cameos and the like. He said Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and The Colbert Report now make sure to post up their best clips soon after their shows air, and NBC is nearly constantly emailing bloggers about hot clips (something we can attest to as well).

New entrant 1Cast, which we first got to open up over the summer, has publicly advertised itself as a haven for former users of RedLasso, but now it’s actually opening up its service to private beta (remember, RedLasso was in private beta too, but because its videos were viewable by anybody, it was huge, with some 24 million uniques in April of this year).

Kirkland, Wash.-based 1Cast, by contrast, actually has legit deals with the networks — though not all of the networks just yet. AP, AFP, Reuters, CNBC and CBC are on board, and besides that, “No one has said no to us,” said 1Cast President Anthony Bontrager in a phone interview. Bontrager also said 1Cast has more flexible deals — including things like permission to juxtapose competitors, broadband and mobile distribution rights, and the ability to host broadcasters’ content in its own player — than competitors like Voxant.

But 1Cast isn’t offering a feature-for-feature RedLasso replacement, as some might have hoped. It only has keyword search, rather than full time-stamped speech-to-text indexes, and it won’t be editorially filtering its content besides picking which of its partners’ suggested videos to feature in its breaking stories.

Bontrager said 1Cast’s target users are business professionals, college student news hounds and bloggers. Videos feature pre-rolls and overlays that are sold by both 1Cast and the content providers.

Another drawback is that while 1Cast’s Flash interface is slick, it is not all that usable, at least not in our initial tests. For instance, users cannot embed single videos, but instead must create playlists and then delete all the videos except for the one they want to embed.

1Cast has seven employees and is funded by Eagle River Holdings. It expects to launch publicly early next year. NewTeeVee readers can give 1Cast a try by signing up on this special page.

Woody Benson is a VC with Prism VentureWorks in Boston, which has funded new media startups like Comedy.com and Worldwide Biggies (whose MoCap, LLC web series just got picked up by Spike TV). He spoke at The Conversation conference in Berkeley yesterday. Given the rough week tech companies were having, I thought I’d ask him a few questions to get a VC’s perspective on what new media startups should do right now.

Benson was hardly doom and gloom. In fact he considered now a great time for startups to find cheap real estate and programming talent. He did echo the sentiments of other VCs and likened startup hygiene to flossing — you gotta pay attention to how your spending money every day. Hear what else he had to say in this brief video interview.

See also our guest-post on similar topics by VC Danny Cohen of Gemini Israel.

Eyespot, a San Diego-based online video startup, has shut down operations and is trying to sell its assets. News of the dissolution comes via a Twitter from Eyespot co-founder David Dudas picked up by TechCrunch.

Eyespot had initially offered web-based video editing tools before changing strategy earlier this year to be yet another white-label video vendor. Its white-label customers had at one time included Demand Media’s eHow and ExpertVillage. The company raised $3.7 million in October 2006.

The web video editing tool market has seen a lot of carnage and also payouts along the way. It’s never been all that clear to me exactly why some companies lost and some won. For some reason the little sliver of a sector played out in fast-forward compared other online video startups, many of whom continue to trudge along.

Here’s a quick recap (imagine it being played to a video montage, if you like): Yahoo acquired Jumpcut but seems to have let it die on the vine. Cuts was sold at a loss. Flektor got bought by MySpace but doesn’t seem to have been integrated all that well. Hulu acquired Mojiti but just for its engineering team, not its product.

Most recently, Google acquired Omnisio for YouTube. When asked for comment earlier this week, YouTube wouldn’t say when Omnisio will be incorporated into the site.

YouTube has been without a video-editing tool for months, after taking down the YouTube Remixer powered by Adobe (which it had only launched last June, to negative reviews). So few people used the tool, its disappearance was barely noticed (we didn’t report on it being taken down, and only asked YouTube PR about it after seeing a mention that it was no longer accessible on Loic Le Meur’s blog).

So at least Eyespot is being a bit original by shutting down on its own! We’ll keep you updated on any news about whether its assets sell. Meanwhile, we can watch the rest of the online video sectors go through their lifecycles in slo-mo, by comparison.

What if I were to tell you there was a mobile-video startup you’d never heard of that sees 100 million page views per month from users in 130 countries using 2,000 different devices? Don’t worry, pigs still can’t fly.

But Vuclip, which is officially launching Tuesday after spending a year under the name Blueapple.mobi, has a mobile video search interface accessible through the web and WAP. The Milpitas, Calif.-based company transcodes videos on the fly for playback on each handset, and from my experience, it works extremely quickly and well.

As part of the new release Vuclip is adding personalization features like playlists, sharing and alerts, and releasing an API.

The unpublicized Blueapple site achieved such massive usage, according to CEO Nickhil Jakatdar, in part because major international carriers started noticing how much data transfer it was requiring just based on word-of-mouth users. Rather than blocking the service, as Jakatdar feared, some carriers, whom he would not name on the record, cut deals to offer Blueapple prominently on their portals.

With that track record, Vuclip was able to score $8.1 million in funding from NEA, Index Ventures and strategic investors in January.

My concern about Vuclip is I’m not sure web-wide video search is the way people find the videos they want to watch, especially when they’re on the go with a phone. Jakatdar used the example of showing off a family video from a mobile handset as a likely use case — but I’d think people would tend to store personal videos locally, on email, or at a known URL.

But I agree with Jakatdar that search is a better approach than offering a selected portion of clips from a web video portal, or creating content especially for the phone, as many other mobile video startups do. And he has a whole lotta page views backing him up.

Jakatdar previously sold a design-for-manufacturing startup to Cadence Design Systems. Vuclip/Blueapple, which was founded in 2004, also previously sold off a video chat product it had developed before turning to video search.

With the proliferation of companies in the online video space tripping over themselves to cater to young men, it’s nice to see someone other than Oprah or iVillage targeting female audiences. SheZoom is a new video site that’s angling to be an “upbeat and engaging community that encourages women to laugh, learn, share and connect.”

SheZoom offers original, partnered and user-generated video. Content categories include relationships, food, tech, money and more. It’s even brought on experts in different fields to provide advice on particular topics. And to help you make your selection, SheZoom will even ask what you’re in the mood to do — choices include “laugh,” “cry,” “bitch” and “moan.”

SheZoom just raised $2 million in its first round of funding, which it will use to expand its sales and marketing team. The company also plans to sell its own ad inventory.

I believe there’s a huge opportunity for women-centered online video sites, but a quick glance at SheZoom makes me think this site hasn’t hit on it. SheZoom seems to be following the same path as Purple Moon, a video game company (and former PR client of mine) in the late 90s that made games for girls. It had mountains of research to show how girls played differently from boys and how it was all about forming relationships.

But somewhere along the line, Purple Moon forgot that games were also supposed to be, you know, fun. Purple Moon’s soccer game, for example, was so centered around teammate relationships that initially it didn’t include actual soccer playing. Needless to say, the company went under.

SheZoom feels a lot like that. There are lots of how-to and advice videos, but they’re missing something — a certain spark, a vitality. SheZoom clearly went to great lengths to build a bona fide community for women; it shouldn’t forget that girls also just wanna have fun.