Lots of new details on Silverlight coming out of the Microsoft Mix conference in Vegas including a major initiative by CBS that will integrate Silverlight into affiliate websites.

From the CBS Press Release:

"Central to our 'Always On' strategy has been the desire to create an
interactive environment where our audiences can participate in the local
broadcast process," said Jonathan Leess, President and General Manager of
CBS Television Stations Digital Media Group. "This project, using Microsoft
Silverlight technology, allows us to empower the massive long tail of
untapped local media content which is waiting to converge with the
broadband and broadcast mediums."

At the same time, Silverlight developers got a first look at Silverlight. Ryan Stewart covers the developer offerings in greater detail in his ZDNet blog but here are the basics:

• Microsoft released the beta version of Silverlight 1.0 their cross-platform plugin with a go-live license that allows it to be used commercially.
• Microsoft released Silverlight 1.1 alpha for code developers and designers.
• Microsoft will provide 4GB of free hosting for Silverlight developers under the heavily trademarked title Microsoft® Silverlight™ Streaming by Windows Live™
• The service will offer up to 1 million free minutes of outbound video streaming at up to 700k (video filesize is limited to 22MB).
• Unlimited streaming will be offered with advertising.
• There are some cool Silverlight SDK Samples here.

We’re playing with these right now so more to come on this.

UPDATE - Today’s keynotes are now available online at the MIX website. Interesting to see how MLB.com and CBS plan to use Silverlight.

MediaPost has made videos from the various sessions of their Outfront conference available online.

Watch Jeremy Allaire’s keynote address, where he introduced some new variations on an advertising revenue model, and some passionate debate between Brightcove’s Adam Gerber and Broadband Enterprises‘ Matt Wasserlauf during the Broadband TV session. Rounding out the panel was Starcom’s Jeff Marshal, Jeff Meyer from Scripps Networks, and Yahoo’s Rebecca Paoletti.

With 143,000 views in 4 days - YouTube has made Mike Gravel relevant - if not entirely credible. While most news outlets focused on the strength of John Edwards following the debate, a clip of Gavel’s feisty remarks was making the rounds on Youtube. In a Washington Post editorial, Joel Achenbach compared the lively Gravel to Howard Beale saying “At one point I feared he might bite someone.”

The video of Gavel clips edited together by Youtube user and blogger delphinius, has become the most viewed of the debate videos posted thus far.

While MSNBC’s official stance on internet usage of the debate has been to prohibit it flat out, there doesn’t appear to have been any DMCA activity relating to the many clips online including those posted (technically illegally) by the campaign of Joe Biden.

Several mainstream news organizations have started covering what Advertising Age in an article today calls “the YouTube presidential election.” Jeff Jarvis‘ new site PrezVid.com, has been the single best source of information on this topic - albeit heavily editorialized.

MSNBC meanwhile is pointing everyone to their video site where users can watch the debate legally, in its entirety. Unfortunately for those seeking to do this, there is no direct link to debate footage from the MSNBC homepage. The debate is posted in MSNBC’s video portal powered by the MSN Video (beta) player and there are no options to link to it - let alone embed a clip.

For some of the best online election coverage check out the candidate channels at YouTube’s YouChoose ‘08. UGC By the candidates themselves.

Revver and Intent MediaWorks have entered into a content sharing agreement in which Revver and Intent will syndicate user generated content to each other.

The agreement allows Revver to legally syndicate content over peer-to-peer networks and monetize these additional viewers while expanding the offering of Revver with Intent’s content.

CEO Steven Starr discusses the deal in a video posted at Beet.tv. Revver Community Manager Alex Black sums it up nicely in Revver’s Blog “It’s just like Steven said - more eyeballs and revenue!”

Above - Les Ottolenghi, Co-Founder of Intent speaks at MIDEM

Intent, which recently announced 10M in new financing offers a multi-channel online distribution system for content creators that includes tracking and DRM over any channel on the internet.

As some of you may have noticed, we removed the videos comparing the quality of the Brightcove player to the quality of the YouTube player.

Unfortunately for us, we had used a clip from Sunday night’s baseball game between the Red Sox and Yankees. And, no, we didn’t have permission to use it. We received an email from Brightcove asking that we remove the clip, and of course we complied immediately.

What is most notable, however, was the actual language in the letter. Unlike the intimidating and ominous tactics reportedly used by the RIAA, Brightcove was remarkably kind in their tone, appreciative of our respect for their quality, and unthreatening in their request. So much so, in fact, that I asked them if we could reprint their notice to us. Their reply was again appreciative that we had asked. Thanks to the good folks at Brightcove for their handling of the situation. And with that, here it is:

Hello,

We certainly appreciate your thoughts and positive comments regarding the quality of Brightcove players and videos, as you described in your recent post on Online Video Watch. We agree that Brightcove delivers the best quality for uploading, encoding and delivering video on the Web ;).

Brightcove also offers content owners full management and discretion of how they want to distribute the videos they own. We respect the rights and intellectual property of content owners. Our Terms of Service clearly documents the rights of these owners, as well as the acceptable use policy of anyone uploading content into our service.

That said, the content currently uploaded and displayed in your video players may require additional authorization for distribution. All publishers must own the necessary rights to the content or acquire appropriate distribution and display rights from the authorized copyright owner. Please refer to the Brightcove Terms and Conditions and Brightcove Acceptable Use Policy, that you agreed to upon registration:
http://corp.brightcove.com/publishertermsandconditions.cfm

If you have acquired additional rights to upload this ESPN clip into your account and player, please provide us with a copy of any appropriate rights and permissions that you received from the copyright holder for these videos.

We hope to hear back from you within the next few days, so that we may resolve this issue timely and in the best interests of both you and the content holder.

Again, we greatly appreciate your enthusiasm and interest in Brightcove, as well as your positive feedback regarding the quality in our players. We hope you understand and appreciate our questions regarding distribution permissions.

Thank you in advance for your time and consideration, and please let us know if you have any additional questions.

Go Sox!

Regards,

XXXXXXXXXX
Brightcove.com

cc: Brightcove Legal Department

Go Sox, indeed.

The 2008 election will be the first in the web 2.0 era. Tomorrow night MSNBC will broadcast the first debate of the election cycle at 7pm as the Democrats take the stage in South Carolina. The event will be streamed live on MSNBC.com.

On May 3rd MSNBC.com and politico.com will stream the Republican debate live from the Reagan Library in California. The debate will feature a “speed round” of user submitted questions that can be submitted here. Questions will be narrowed down via an online vote.

Also today, Creative Commons CEO Lawrence Lessig called on both political parties to “require of any network broadcasting Presidential debates (at least) that they license the debates freely after they are initially broadcast…so long as there is attribution back to any purported copyright holder.”

In the letter co-signed by some of the most respected names in new media and politics on both sides of the aisle Lessig writes:

In 2008, we need to ensure that the promise of online video is not inhibited. In thee past, television stations that broadcast presidential debates have retained exclusive rights to debate footage after the event was over. By and large, such contract terms were not noticed by voters, activists, or news junkies - there was no widespread forum for regular people to share video content even if they wanted to.

But in the age of online video sharing, corporations retaining exclusive rights to debate footage is an obvious barrier to democratic participation. No concerned voter should ever be labeled a lawbreaker for wanting to share video of a presidential debate with others.

While media organizations have good reasons for protecting their content this is one area in which openness is good for everyone. Politics changed drastically in the television age, many would argue for the worse.

New technology has the potential to change them again for the better - making candidates accessible in a truly meaningful way for the first time in decades.

Peer-to-peer has finally reached a critical mass to the point where large players can no longer ignore it as a valuable distribution method.

Over the past year, those on the forefront of online video have been buying up P2P companies. Most of these acquisitions have been low-key, with little explanation of how they would be integrated into existing infrastructure.The sensitivity of the content industry to the lack of control and ease of transfer of copyrighted material continues to threaten media organizations that had previously controlled distribution.

Many of these networks now exist as a back-door solution for data-transfer that eliminates the need for traditional CDNs. Most rights holders previously took a position of brute opposition to the mere existence of P2P file transfers due to its subversion of traditional media control. But their efficiency and widespread use among end-users cannot be questioned.

Here are some of the major acquisitions and initiatives that have occurred in the past year

• Kontiki (Verisign - March ‘06)
• Grouper (Sony Pictures - August ‘06)
• Amicina, Antepo (Adobe - January ‘07)
• Wurld Media (Roo - February ‘07)
• Red Swoosh (Akamai - April ‘07)
• LiveStation (Microsoft-Skinkers Partnership)

There is a good deal of speculation that we will see more widespread use of a P2P-CDN Hybrid Architecture of content delivery in the future. These developments will play a big role in the future of online distribution and should be watched closely.

There is something counterintuitive about a marketing firm operating most of the large college newspapers in the U.S. The news that mtvU-owned Y2M had tapped Roo to serve video on the CollegePublisher Network of sites will provide MTV with a new network of 5-million strong unique viewers per month - most in that key 18-24 demo - across which it can distribute its video content.

Economies of scale make networks like this more profitable and may provide a better user experience - Go to any of the network’s sites such as Boston University’s Daily Free Press and you will find a clean and well-designed page. You will also most likely find a Doubleclick-served mtvU ad.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for the creativity and experience involved in designing an original site for students by students and operating a news organization independently.

Networks like this offer a clear advantage for media conglomerates, but is it a good deal for Universities?

The latest attempt to become the next “LonelyGirl15″ has been busted by the bloggers at NewTeeVee.

According to NewTeeVee’s Craig Rubens, GreenTeaGirlie was outed for using “an auto-refresh program to boost GreenTeaGirlie into the most viewed section.”

Trickery aside, GreenTeaGirlie is on to an interesting new twist in social / viral networking. Her official site is for a game to be played based on clues from the videos hosted on the popular video sharing site.

Here’s a head to head comparison of Brightcove’s encoding and delivery vs. YouTube. Noticeable difference.

Ed. Note: removed at the request of copyright holder. New comparison material coming shortly.