Coincidence? I think not. HBO’s web development division, HBOlab, is bringing a host of internet (semi)stars together for The Hooking Up Show.

Seemingly a LonleyGirl meets 90210, with a cast of online video personalities including Jessica Lee Rose, aka ‘lonelygirl15′ as well as Will Video For Food’s Kevin Nalts and Michael Buckley of the “What the Buck Show.”

What does this mean for original online content and its homegrown stars? This blogger isn’t so sure. HBO has said the first season will not be ad supported, so that’s sure to make it easier to aggregate the audiences that enjoy webisodic content but hate ads, but underminds the online video ad supported model that has so far dominated professionally produced web content.

What has me more concerned, however, is when you look a little deeper. HBO certainly has the chops for developing content, and has resources much deeper than most of the other independent web content producers. But is this ensemble cast really telling us that no one individual web-celeb can support a business model? This is the king of cross-pollination of content, and seems like what happens when competing high school cliques decide to have parties on the same weekend. “Well, if you bring your party to my party, then we’ll have a really good party.”

Kudos to HBOlab and everyone involved. We’ll be sure to keep a close eye out on this one.

Ben adds: I just have to point out the irony that a little more than a year ago we were discussing who would be the HBO of online video. I argued then that existing online video producers need to offer higher quality content. HBO seems to be offering an outlet for these guys to make this possible. It took them a year to come around, but maybe the HBO of online video will be HBO.

The NFL and NBC Sports will offer a live streaming companion broadcast of tonight’s Redskins Giants game beginning at 7PM.

The broadcast will include the ability to switch between 4 live camera feeds with picture-in-picture capability, in-game highlights, realtime commentary and the ability to interact by asking questions during the broadcast.

Click Above to view the Live Broadcast Beginning at 7PM

The NFL is in the process of bringing all team websites in house, and transforming their digital media operation in the model of MLB.com. Look for a lot more online video (and regulation of NFL content) this season.

A press release from WebTrends highlights the massive traffic Chinese state broadcaster CCTV experienced during their coverage of the olympic games. While we hear the CCTV online video coverage was delivered at lower quality than NBC due to the current state and capacity of Chinese networks, CCTV.com managed to average more than 6 million unique viewers per day during the games versus 4.3 million per day for NBC.

This is not an apples to apples comparison, China has more than 4x the population of the U.S., so more viewers is to be expected. But 100 million total viewers is nothing to sneeze at and a testament to how far China’s networks have come. CCTV.com streamed more than 3,800 hours of live coverage, 1,600 more than NBCOlympics.com. To a large extent the Chinese public is skipping cable and going directly to broadband for their media experience.

The Democrats have teamed up with Move Networks to offer an HD Silverlight experience at this year’s National Convention which unlike NBC’s 2008 Olympics player, showcases the power of Silverlight as a platform.

Above: DNCC Video Experience Homepage Player

While the excitement of the DNC may not rival the Olympics, the player offers an awesome full screen 16:9 experience, two camera angles and a separate spanish broadcast, (though that one taps into Comcast’s lower quality 4:3 feed) leaving NBC’s player in the dust. If you’re just looking to watch the convention, look no further.

Above: DNCC Move Networks Player - Full Screen in 16:9 HD

If you’re looking for commentary and independent coverage, all the major online video live broadcast companies are partnered with most of the new media sources that have sprung up over the past four years and are now offering their own live feeds. The democratization of media is pretty cool, PaidContent and NewTeeVee have pretty good lists, though there are almost more independent live streams than we can count.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) has been using online video and social media platforms to directly reach local members and BSO enthusiasts, as well as the growing global audience interested in staying connected to BSO content and activities.

Building off the success of Boston Pops TV, the BSO and PermissionTV are expanding their work together. TanglewoodWebTV.org is helping to extend the summer by featuring Tanglewood summer concert series on the Web for the next several months. New content being offered includes award-winning performances renowned composer Elliott Carter and, behind-the-scenes footage, conductor lessons and other web only content.

Oh, and Go Red Sox!

I needed a new subject line to switch gears, rather than segue into the good news with a bad title.

Today, some of the leaders in the video advertising industry stood up for themselves in a very rare - and unplanned - synchronized release of data in support of the pre-roll format. Tremor Media (my employer) announced that they were observing 80% pre-roll completion rates. Some of those “other guys” - Break and Panache - announced some very high completion rate data for their pre-roll campaigns as well.

Now of course I’m biased, and think that our data is more accurate since it was based off a much larger sample size, and also don’t believe CTR is the appropriate measure of success for any pre-roll campaign, even with a call to action. Users want to see content, not click away to “not” watch the content they opted in to watch. But I digress.

Lets also not forget that Jupiter’s Nate Elliott also issued a report, highlighted in today’s AdAge, that shows an increased acceptance of pre-roll. Nate noted that the abandonment rate is much more similar to channel surfing on TV than an issue with the advertising, per se.

Overall, its been a competitive few weeks in the online video advertising world, and Q4 is only going to get hotter.

I wouldn’t freeze it and stage a press conference. But that’s just me, and I haven’t found Bigfoot. Matt Whitman and Rick Dyer say they have, and Friday’s planned press conference at the Palo Alto Cabana Hotel promises to be the best hoax since Steorn.

Above: Thawed Bigfoot via Searchingforbigfoot.com

News sources from around the world will cover the unveiling of the not-so creatively named RickMat along with DNA evidence that the two say proves it is a new species. This should be good.

We’ll update when we find a live streaming link.

72 hours ago Noneck was live streaming on Qik as 28 American and Canadian protesters in China demonstrated against China’s occupation of Tibet. Then they were all deported. Credit cards swiped by Chinese officials, they were booked on a return flight to Newark.

The video of above of obnoxious North American students protesting something occurring thousands of miles away from their literal and cultural home is somewhat entertaining, but it’s mostly irritating. The Chinese officials appear to have shown considerable restraint, at least considering their history of jailing real protesters who actually deserve respect for standing up for something while having something to lose.

The apparent arrogance of these “protestors” notwithstanding this is not be the first time live streaming will be used to capture an event which the Mainstream Media either has no access to or ignores. Independent producers broadcasting live online will continue to play a larger role in media as a whole.

We said so. Seems like most people agree. Check the comments from Chris Albrecht’s piece this morning.

I tried to watch a few live streams and was only able to after telling the player that I had a different cable provider. The content was of fair quality, a bit stuttery, and overall, very difficult to navigate. I just wanted to watch some women’s team archery, damnit!

Andy Plesser, over at Beet.TV, seems impressed with the stats that Neilsen put out, though. To each their own, but I’m still disappointed so far. I’m with Chris. The navigation is a little clunky, and I’d really like to have set up Miro to download the events I wanted while I was at work or sleeping and watch at my leisure. When I went to the “Longform Rewind” page, and selected the RSS feed, I was greeting with a “Sorry, the requested page is unavailable” message. Bummer.

But to Andy’s point, there’s myriad videos to choose from, and probably satisfies most people’s needs. Damn us nitpicky bloggers.

When I clicked to “watch now” link to, well, watch now, I was greeted with this lovely message.

The Olympic online video version of “This game is blacked out in your area.”