Korean TV Dramas Get Their Own U.S. Hulu-like Site

Next month a site called DramaFever will become the first to offer U.S. watchers a large library of Korean TV drama content in a legal and accessible format. Korean dramas are hugely popular in their home country and the rest of Asia. NewTeeVee reports.

... DramaFever at launch it will have 60 to 70 titles with 20 to 30 episodes each. All content will come with English subtitles and will be geoblocked so it can only be seen in the U.S. and Canada.

Read full article.

New YouTube feature lets you share with Facebook, Twitter...

YouTube has just enabled a new feature that allows users to directly share their recently uploaded videos to Facebook, Twitter, and Google Reader. This means you’ll be able to syndicate your newly uploaded content directly into your friends’ feeds. You can link your accounts on YouTube’s ‘Upload’ page. The new functionality is limited to new video uploads for now.

[via TechCrunch]

Estimate: 20% of Web Videos Are Spam

According to VideoSurf CTO Eitan Sharon, there are 500 million videos on the web today, (VideoSurf has only indexed 25 million of them so far though it recently stepped up efforts by doubling the size of its server farm).

With so many more videos yet to be analyzed, it could be that much more or much less than 20 percent of all videos are spam. But it’s pretty daunting to think of so many irrelevant spammy videos out there, especially considering the costs involved with hosting and delivering them.

[via GigaOM]

French Court Defangs Plan to Crack Down on Internet Piracy

The highest constitutional body in France on Wednesday defanged the government’s plan to cut off the Internet connections of digital pirates, saying the authorities had no right to do so without obtaining court approval. [via The New York Times]

The decision, by the Constitutional Council, which reviews legislation approved by Parliament before it goes into effect, is a major setback for the music and movie industries, which had praised the French law as a model solution to the problem of illegal file-sharing.

... The council said the proposal was contrary to French constitutional principles, like the presumption of innocence and freedom of speech. The latter right “implies today, considering the development of the Internet, and its importance for the participation in democratic life and the expression of ideas and opinions, the online public’s freedom to access these communication services,” the council said.

Pirates 'ignore' warning letters

Sending letters to persistent pirates will not stop them copying, suggests research, reports the BBC.

Only 33% of those receiving a letter from their ISP would stop pirating content, found a survey carried out by legal firm Wiggin.

However, it found 80% would stop if the letter were followed by action such as cutting net connections.

The finding comes a week before the release of a UK government report aimed at tackling web piracy.

I'm a Blogger Get me Out of Here!

Something I missed. I'm a Blogger Get me Out of Here is NBC's online competition based on I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!. It started May 22 and ends tomorrow, June 11th.

Bloggers are pitted against each other in a contest to see who can survive to the final round, and win a trip to live blog behind the scenes at the "I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here" set in Costa Rica. [Xomba]

The winner will be posted after June 30, 2009 on their Website.

Soon, there will be so much video on the Web we'll be talking about "zettabytes"

Fueled by the insatiable demand for Web-based video, global Internet traffic will get nearly four times larger over the next four years. Scientific American reports.

By the end of 2013, the equivalent of 10 billion DVDs worth of information will cross the Net monthly, according to a report issued today by Cisco Systems.

If this prediction holds true, it would take more than half a million years to watch all the online video that crosses the Internet in just a single month by 2013, the company reports.

Cisco forecasts that video files will be part of 90 percent of all consumer Internet traffic in 2013.

Cisco needed a relatively new term to quantify that traffic: A zettabyte is measure of computer storage or memory equal to one trillion gigabytes. One gigabyte can hold about 341 digital pictures or about 256 MP3 audio files.)

Related:

-- The Exaflood - Technology experts are calling it the exaflood, a massive wave of new video and other bandwith intensive traffic headed for the web.

Military Intelligence Used to Shutdown BitTorrent Site

According to Zataz (in French) and Torrentfreak via The Inquirer, the French military moved to close down a large Bit Torrent tracker in what is the first recorded use of a nation's armed forces under the control of the entertainment industry.

French police arrested 10 members of the site's staff and seized more than 20 servers after the military assisted in locating them.

This week police and anti-piracy groups moved to close down a very large BitTorrent tracker. With 250,000 users, Snowtigers was possibly the largest French tracker. According to reports, police arrested 10 members of staff and seized more than 20 servers, after the military assisted in locating the operators.

A representative of the French anti-piracy organisation ALPA confirmed that it had "worked very closely with the military" to locate the semi-private site.

Read full article.

Twitter Real-time results for watching tv online

Interesting, tweets of people watching TV online this Sunday:

@1960Turbo I am watching Roland Garos live online TV at http://wwitv.com/tv_channels/b5391.htm

@stephkmullins watching tv online and painting my nails...

@elan_spa_ashley watching lifechurch.tv online with my hubby Scott http://live.lifechurch.tv/

More tweets

President Obama's speech at Buchenwald

President Obama delivered a powerful speech today when he visited Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. [via The Huffington Post]

YouTube To Premiere Movie Simultaneous To Theater Release

YouTube will premiere Luc Besson’s latest movie, Home, the first simultaneous Internet and theater debut, as the video-sharing site looks to Hollywood to goose its ad sales and reach profitability, reports Bloomberg.

Watch the trailer.

YouTube now has the equivalent of 90,000 full-length films uploaded in one week, or 15 hours of content added every minute.

Reality TV candidates entitled to salaries

In a ruling by the highest court of appeals in France - that will surely act as legal precedence - the reality TV candidates of "L'île de la Tentation" have been granted a working contract and a salary.

TFI network, producer of the show is appalled by the ruling. "I can not comprehend how participating in a TV show can be considered a professional activity when all candidates are required to do is flirt with each other and have a good time", said Edouard Boccon-Gibod, director of F1 Production, following the ruling.

[via Le Point and Nouvel Obs]

Obama's Cairo Speech

President Obama talks about tensions between the U.S. and the Muslim world.

[via The Huffington Post]

Out to lunch with Obama

The president was joined by NBC anchor Brian Williams and a crew that was filming a behind-the-scenes "Inside The White House" special.

[via The Huffington Post]

A tour of the White House's East Wing with Michelle Obama

As part of his NBC special "Inside The Obama White House," Brian Williams got a tour of the White House's East Wing from first lady Michelle Obama.

[via The Huffington Post]

YouTube making jump to TV screens

Google's video service is rolling out a new browser feature, called YouTube XL, designed to present YouTube videos on big screens, company managers said Tuesday, reports News.com.

During a demonstration before a handful of media, YouTube showed how XL is designed for people who have hooked up their TVs to their laptops or video game consoles, such as Xbox 360 or Sony PlayStation 3.

How does it differ from YouTube's typical Web page?

It's a much more stripped down player. There are no scroll bars or viewer comments. There's little more than a search field and video thumbnails to help direct users. YouTube XL will work with any Web-connected device and on any browser.

The new feature is another sign that the battle in online video now is being waged in the living room.

Read full article.

Showtime Samples TV Content on Kindle

Showtime is offering a free Kindle download of the pilot script of the upcoming TV show Nurse Jackie. AdAge quotes: "The idea of using Kindle, a text-based electronic reader, to promote a TV show may seem odd, but it falls directly in line with Showtime's typical modus operandi when it comes to hyping a new series, said Stuart Zakim, VP-corporate public relations at Showtime."

[via ADverblog]

YouTube looking at standalone 'SafeTube' site for families

According to The Guardian, YouTube is exploring the introduction of a family-friendly 'SafeTube' version of the site as part of its programme of improving safety and content standards, it said today.

Launching a new safety center that gives advice on bullying, links to support organizations, dealing with abusive commenters and inappropriate content.

The new safety center appears in the site links at the bottom of every YouTube page, and has yet to be integrated more fully throughout the site. But one option could be 'SafeTube', a fully opt-in family version of the site that would automatically exclude age-restricted videos and delete or disguise expletives.

Jay Leno’s Final Tonight Show YouTube!

This Monday evening is the final Tonight Show with Jay Leno. A reported montage of Leno’s greatest moments is expected to be the highlight of the night.

Watch a preview of tonight show: Jay Leno’s Legacy Video Clip.

[via LA Late News]

Iran: YouTube, Broadway music and the Election

Global Voices has posted several YouTube videos showing how campaigners in the Iranian elections have used the video sharing website in different ways to promote their favorite candidate - or discredit their opponents.

The above video - in a surprising American touch - compares former Prime Minister, Mir Hussein Mousavi to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the tune of the old Broadway song, ‘Anything You Can Do'. The text at the end of the film concludes that Mousavi is more rational than Ahmadinejad whose policies have damaged Iran's economy.