About Those 99-Cent TV Episodes Being Sold On Amazon; Amazon still has to pay the contracted rates for electronic sell-through TV shows, so it’s taking a loss on all 99-cent videos sold. (paidContent)

Sezmi, Amazon Team Up to Sell TV 2.0; Sezmi is partnering with Amazon to make its television service immediately available to viewers in 36 markets across the U.S. (The Wrap)

IAC’s Vimeo Doubles Growth with Non-Commercial Fare; the video sharing unit of IAC has more than four million registered users and 30 million monthly unique visitors, nearly doubling those numbers over the past six months. (Beet.TV)

Skyfire Submits Flash Video Enabled Browser to App Store; the startup will try to break through Apple’s Flash blockade with the submission of its mobile browser that transcodes Flash into HTML5 in real time. (ReadWriteWeb)

Ranking the Digital Living Room Barbarians; the clear winner in Apple TV is Netflix, which has navigated the digital entertainment landscape better than anyone. (ZDNet)

Exclusive Deals Make 3-D TV Audience Even Smaller; avid sports fans can watch 3-D broadcasts of live sporting events, such as the U.S. Open, but exclusive distribution deals limit who gets to see what. (CNET)

5min Media Partners With IGN Entertainment; IGN Entertainment has joined the 5min Video Games Channel to semantically match short-form videos such as game reviews, instructions and news from top gaming brands across the 5min network of more than 800 sites. (press release)

Disney and Time Warner Cable have settled their retransmission negotiations, finalizing a deal that will keep ABC, ESPN and Disney networks on Time Warner Cable and Bright House Network cable systems. But the big news from an online video perspective is that Disney is creating its first authenticated, TV Everywhere-type broadband video service for its ESPN networks as part of the deal.

As part of the deal, Disney will establish an authenticated service enabling Time Warner Cable subscribers to view linear and on-demand content from ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU networks online on their PCs and, at some point in the future, through mobile devices like the Apple iPad. According to earlier reports, online video was one of the key sticking points in the negotiations of the deal, which we now know includes the introduction of a TV Everywhere-type service for the ESPN networks.

It’s important to note that the new ESPN TV everywhere service is separate from Disney’s ESPN3 offering, which is not authenticated and doesn’t have a network equivalent. The ESPN3 broadband service has long been available to subscribers of some pay TV providers, like Comcast, AT&T and Verizon, that had affiliate deals with Disney. This deal will mark the first time that Time Warner Cable subscribers will also be able to access ESPN3.

While the establishment of the new ESPN service is clearly important, the more pressing issue was keeping Disney, ABC and ESPN programming on Time Warner cable systems. As part of the deal, Time Warner Cable will continue to carry ABC Family, the Disney Channel, Disney XD, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes, and SOAPnet, as well as ABC affiliate stations in New York, L.A., Raleigh-Durham-Fayetteville and Toledo. The agreement also adds Disney Junior, a new basic cable channel for preschool-aged children that will begin in 2012.

The deal also includes wide-ranging additions to Time Warner Cable’s video-on-demand services, including ABC On Demand, a VOD service that disables fast forwarding and ad skipping, local sports programming on demand in major metropolitan markets, a subscription VOD service for Disney Family Movies and a new pay-per-view VOD service for select Disney and ABC content. The deal also includes the launch of ESPN 3D on Time Warner Cable and Bright House Network cable systems.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: How Online Video Is Shaping the Next Round of Retrans Fights (subscription required)

There’s been an interesting debate going on in the web series community over the last day or so, sparked off by a strongly-worded TwitVid of former UTA agent and consultant Barrett Garese, about whether or not the web series as we currently understand it is doomed to be “derivative television.”

There has been some great discussion on the topic, including Gold creator David Nett’s Facebook response and Garese’s expanded thoughts, that are worth reading. No matter what side you agree with, if you’re looking for a recent example that defines the concept of “derivative television,” here you go: Alloy Entertainment’s First Day, a Kmart-sponsored web series that premiered this Tuesday.

Alloy, the production company behind youth-skewing TV series like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, has brought TV-level production values to this tale of an awkward adolescent girl (Tracey Fairaway) forced to repeat the first day of school over and over again. (Groundhog Day? What’s that? Kids born the year Groundhog Day came out, after all, are now 17 years old.)

While to watch First Day on the official site is to be barraged by Kmart-branded ads and graphics, the actual show is relatively free of branding. And though I’m not totally sure that First Day has its finger on the pulse of today’s modern teen (Um, do high school students still have journals? And re-enact the bus scene from Forrest Gump in the cafeteria?) it looks good, has a fast pace and an engaging lead actress in Fairaway.

But there’s absolutely nothing about it that makes it feel like content destined for the Internet, beyond the fact that if I like Cassie’s BONGO plaid shirt in episode 2, there’s a link to buy it right beside the video player.

The major concession to the show’s destiny is the casting of Molly McAleer, Internet famous as the video-blogging Molls. McAleer, in a phone interview, said that while she doesn’t watch a lot of television herself, the people who follow her online adventures are also big fans of Gossip Girl and other Alloy programming, which got her interested in joining the First Day cast as Cassie’s cruel science teacher. “[Teen dramas have] that wholesome irony we all love, like watching Saved by the Bell,” she said about why her fanbase is drawn to the genre. “It’s a little bit more cheesy than real life, but there’s something comforting and fun about it, it’s totally a guilty pleasure.”

Alloy’s launching two other web series this fall, one of which is an adaptation of a young adult novel series (Alloy’s bread and butter), the other of which, a drama/reality hybrid, sounds slightly more interesting. Both promise to please teen audiences (and older folk who enjoy indulging in teen fare). But it feels like more of the same — and lacking in innovation.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Fact or Fiction: Where Is Branded Online Video Going?

Since posting Kevin Tofel’s demo of Flash video on his Nexus One handset, we’ve received a ton of comments: some pro-Flash, some anti-Flash, some anti-Apple, some even anti-Kevin. One of the more interesting aspects of the debate is that many readers posted response videos, showing their own experiences with Flash on Android mobile handsets.

Michael Panzer, a reader from Germany, for instance, posted a video of his experience with Flash video on his Galaxy S. Unlike Kevin’s experience, movie trailers from Metacafe — including the HD trailer of Alpha and Omega — loaded just fine, despite a few stutters along the way, as did the trailer for the latest Resident Evil film, also in HD. However, Panzer didn’t record his attempt to watch videos on ABC.com or Fox.com, which were the sites that gave Kevin the most trouble.

Reader Dennis Forbes also posted a video response of his own. Using his own Android phone, he watched Kevin’s video on NewTeeVee (which is only slightly meta), debunking some of the claims of what mobile processors are capable of when compared to other processors, before moving on to watch some video on the device.

Forbes admits that he tried to duplicate Kevin’s experience with videos on ABC.com, Fox.com and Metacafe, but lays the blame on Kevin for “trying to play video streams that were too complex and has too high of a bit rate that the device just can’t handle.” He compares the mobile experience to one his son had on a Pentium 4 1.7 GHz PC that had been handed down: “I recall having similar problems; it was the same sort of deal… It simply couldn’t keep up.” Instead, he showed off how he’s “come to rely on [his Android handset] for some relatively low-grade needs,” including short videos from Zero Punctuation.

The strongest counterpoint comes from developer Paul Yanez, who recorded a video and posted a response on his blog entitled, “Video: Flash on Android Is Shockingly Great!!!” Yanez said he was surprised by our piece because he recently bought a Droid 2 and had had no problems with it playing Flash.

Yanez demonstrated the same episode of Bones that Kevin had trouble watching due to “seconds per frame” instead of “frames per second” being displayed during playback. In Yanez’s video “there’s no stutter, there’s no choppiness, the audio is synced up” when playing the 43-minute Bones episode, which leads him to conclude that “there’s nothing wrong with the Flash player” on the Droid 2. In his experience, the Flash player is stable, very powerful, and “there’s no difference between the Flash player in this mobile phone than on a desktop.”

What you need is optimal code, according to Yanez, who placed the Bones video on a blank HTML page before playback. As a result, he blames the Fox website for the issues that Kevin experienced during his demo, not the Flash video player itself. All Fox has to do to improve the experience for end users, according to Yanez, is make the video an image and launch the video player in a new window.

Image courtesy of Flickr user Lynn Wallenstein.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: HTML5’s a Game-Changer for Web Apps (subscription required)

So is Apple TV still only a hobby for Jobs and company? Because if it isn’t, then I’m missing something from yesterday’s presentation when the new iteration of Apple’s set-top device was unveiled. The new Apple TV is smaller, cheaper and sexier, I’ll grant it that, but what else does it really have going for it?

Let’s start with rental only. That’s right, you can only rent content from the Apple TV, not purchase it. It makes sense given the device’s lack of onboard storage, but does it make sense for a buying public that’s only just now moving past the point of physical media ownership? All of a sudden, not only do you not have a disc you own when you pay for content, you also don’t even have a file. Instead you get a window of opportunity.

Call me old-fashioned, but I like archiving my material and I like to have it available whenever I want to review it, or just revisit a favorite scene to make sure I remember it correctly. True, as Steve Jobs said in the presentation, I’ll be able to rent it multiple times for cheaper than I’d be able to buy it, but then I can’t lend it to friends and family, pass it on to my kids or view it again 50 years down the road when its gone out of print.

Putting aside the tyranny of streaming-only, at least you can access your media on your computer, where it is comfortably stored, right? Well, only if you’ve adhered to Apple’s way of doing media, and haven’t strayed to any of the other terrific and much more popular video formats out there. Apple TV remains closed, and as a result, any machine running Boxee hooked up to my TV remains a better option, even considering the price differential for the original purchase.

Speaking of price, let’s look at that $99 tag Jobs dangled in our salivating faces. It’s almost an impulse buy at that point, and I know a few people who indulged that impulse. But you know what else is a good price? $10 for a fancy razor with replaceable heads. Those heads will cost you $40 for a four-pack, sure, but that’s later. Apple isn’t going to make most (if any) of its money on the Apple TV itself (though without much onboard storage, it’s cheap enough to build), but on the gobs of media you’re almost forced to purchase from them as a result.

The inclusion of Netflix is one of the few genuinely impressive things about the new Apple TV. It means that people who already have a subscription don’t need to go in for Apple’s pricier rental options, and the implementation looks pretty impressive as compared to its counterparts on other platforms.

But even if you exclusively use the Netflix option, which means being behind in terms of release dates on TV and movies, you’ll end up paying much more for the hardware than you probably would if you opted for a media PC (or Mac mini, even) purchase and just depended on free streaming from network websites. Occasionally you’d still run up against content you have to pay for, but you can own it, and you options for sourcing that could equate to a much better per purchase price.

In general, I’m willing to deal with Apple’s closed systems and devices because of the trade-offs I get in terms of quality. But third-party apps and desktop software make it possible for me to still use Apple hardware with my own content, regardless of format and point of origin. That’s not likely going to be the case with the Apple TV, and until it is, it won’t find a place in my living room, regardless of cost and cosmetics.

Pack it up, Gregory Brothers. Stop printing, Zazzle t-shirts. The Double Rainbow meme is dead, and it was assisted suicide, thanks to Microsoft.

Over a month after Paul “Bear” Vasquez’s reaction to a double rainbow reaching “all the way across the sky” in Yosemite National Park went viral, Vasquez is now starring in a commercial for Microsoft’s Windows Live Photo Gallery. The double rainbow is there too, likely with the help of some VFX.

You can’t necessarily blame Vasquez for cashing in on his completely accidental fame, and you have to give points to Microsoft for swooping in just as the meme was about to go stale, but this ad just feels forced. Because you know what? The power of the Double Rainbow video was how completely genuine Vasquez’s reaction was. When you watched it, you wished that you’d one day have an experience “so intense.”

But you know what’s never left me with that profound sense of wonder? A single, solitary Microsoft product.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): The Dos and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

AOL and Google announced an updated and expanded agreement, which will ensure that Google remains the default search engine for AOL users for five more years. The deal will also be instrumental in adding a new source of video content to YouTube, as AOL has agreed to distribute its videos through its online video site.

AOL users watch a good amount of video, and the company was regularly featured as one of the top ten video properties in comScore’s (s SCOR) Video Metrix;  that is, it was until the measurement firm changed its methodology for counting unique viewers and viewing sessions. However, much of that content comes from distribution partners that syndicate content to AOL’s videos site.

Details of the YouTube portion of the deal are limited, so we’ve reached out to AOL for clarification. It’s not clear, for instance, if AOL will distribute its partner videos through YouTube as well, or if the deal includes only AOL original content. If it’s the latter, it will be interesting to see how much video that entails: how many AOL videos it has in its library, and how many it produces on a daily or weekly basis, as opposed to how many come from distribution agreements. If syndicated content is included, it’s not clear how distribution partners will be compensated as part of the deal, especially as many of them have deals with YouTube of their own.

We also don’t know if AOL plans to break its YouTube distribution into branded channels for different sites or video verticals, or if all videos will exist solely on a single AOL video channel. It would make more sense for AOL to focus on verticals, as it would be able to break out videos about travel, sports, entertainment and other subjects and target advertising accordingly.

Finally, the search deal includes a revenue-sharing component, which will include Google ad formats being added to AOL sites. I wonder if the revenue-share agreement also extends to the YouTube portion of the deal, and if so, which party will be selling the ads that run up against AOL videos on YouTube. If it’s AOL doing the selling, the YouTube deal could certainly bring more eyeballs to its original content, but will it come at the expense of CPMs because the videos are appearing on a site known for its UGC videos? That will be an important point, especially as AOL’s advertising revenues have been in freefall lately.

While there are certainly a lot of questions left unanswered, the YouTube deal could bring some significant volume to AOL’s video properties. We’ll update this post once we hear back from AOL and know more.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: New Business Models For Pay TV Services (subscription required)

It’s Wednesday, the rent’s due and there’s already been plenty of Apple-related news today. I can’t think of a better time to kick back and relax with some rad dance videos.

Dance It Up, created by the Dawson Brothers, is ostensibly a viral promotion for the latest Groove Armada single History, off the Black Light album. But in reality, it is a celebration of how awesome street dance is. Sort of.

This video is great, no lie, but here are the three reasons I am featuring it:

1) It has been online for a week and only has about 33,000 views. I believe this to be criminally unfair.

2) The YouTube description is pitch perfect:

Groove Armada’s people asked us to make a thirty second viral advert for their new album. But we got carried away and ended up making a street dance film instead. We f*cking love street dance.

 We hope you like it, but above all… we hope Groove Armada’s accounts department will still pay us.

3) If I write about it here, it might get me to stop IMing it to everyone I know.

Oh, perhaps you’re in the market for some more traditional dance moves? Spreading around today is Dancing at the Movies, which includes dance sequences from a wide array of movies, featuring everyone from Fred Astaire to John Travolta to Patrick Swayze to those kids from Step Up 2.

Forgive its strange Jamie Lee Curtis fixation, and enjoy!

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): The State of Social TV

Will Smaller Apple TV Spell Big Trouble for VOD?; Apple TV is out of hobby mode and putting cable and telco VOD, as well as over-the-top video boxes, on notice. (Light Reading Cable)

Sony’s Multiplatform Content Play Is a Qriocity; CEO Howard Stringer said the cloud-based Sony Online Services (SOLS) platform will be christened Qriocity and offer unlimited music and on-demand movies to compatible, connected devices. (paidContent:UK)

Amazon Must Offer DVDs-by-Mail To Fully Compete With Netflix; for Amazon to effectively compete with Netflix it would need to secure comparable streaming rights, which is costly, as well as offer a full selection of DVDs by mail. (VideoNuze)

Redbox Needs To Move At Sonic Speed To Catch Netflix; Redbox could theoretically compete with Netflix by adding a streaming option to its $1-a-day DVD rental service, but it lags behind Netflix in its movie library and device penetration. (Forbes)

The New MySpace Movies, Presented By… The Facebook Movie; Sony Pictures’ The Social Network is sponsoring a whole section of the other social network — Myspace. (TechCrunch)

Kyte Rolls Out Universal Embed Code and HTML5 Support for Apple iOS Devices; Kyte’s universal embed code makes it possible to publish to Flash-capable PCs and iOS devices using a single embed code. (Kyte blog)

BBC iPlayer Beta: Less is More; the big design challenge for the next version of iPlayer was to create simplicity in light of more features and functionality without overwhelming the audience. (BBC Internet blog)

Lessons Learned From TV Everywhere a Year After Deployment; thePlatform’s Marty Roberts discusses the challenges it has faced rolling out TV Everywhere services. (FierceOnlineVideo)

Apple unveiled its updated TV set-top box today, with new streaming functionality and 99-cent TV rentals from ABC and Fox. The offering represents Apple’s second attempt at capturing some of the online video market. Unlike the previous offering, this incarnation of the Apple TV comes at a lower price point — $99 compared to $229 –which should make it more attractive to consumers.

Even so, before running out and buying one, users should consider Apple’s competition: in this case, Roku’s existing broadband set-top offerings and the upcoming Boxee Box. While Apple was busy recreating its digital set-top, these startups were busy bringing their own offerings to market, and despite all the hype of the new Apple TV, they stack up pretty favorably.

Apple TV Roku Boxee Box Price $99 $59-$99 >$200 Top Video Quality/Format 720p H.264 & MPEG-4 video 720p H.264 & MPEG-4; HD-XR upgrading to 1080p 1080p H.264 video, Flash 10.1 capability Local Storage none none none Wireless/Wired Connectivity 802.11N & Ethernet Roku SD & HD: 802.11A/B; HD-XR: 802.11N wireless 802.11N wireless & Ethernet Outputs HDMI, optical audio Roku SD: composite only; HD & HD-XR composite & HDMI composite & HDMI Other Inputs 1 micro-USB port Roku HD-XR: 1 USB Port 2 USB Ports, 1 SD Card Slot Third-party Content First-run movie rentals and TV show rentals from ABC and Fox; Netflix, YouTube, and Flickr access More than 50 Roku channels, including Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand and Major League Baseball More than 400 apps from third-party content providers

Despite its startup status, Roku still gets high marks for a product line that’s on par with — if not better — than what Apple announced today. Roku’s high-end HD-XR, priced at $99, has HDMI and 802.11N wireless connectivity, which is in-line with Apple TV is offering. It also has Netflix Watch Instantly and a video rental service in Amazon Video on Demand that rivals Apple’s iTunes store. Roku has also promised a 1080p upgrade to its HD-XR product for personal streaming, going one better than the 720p streaming Apple TV is capable of.

The wildcard here is the Boxee Box, due to be released in November. While pricing hasn’t been announced, it’s a good bet that it will be priced close to $200, which would put it at double the cost of the other two products. However, Boxee potentially has a much larger base of content to offer consumers. Since the apps that run on its software pull in video content from existing online video sites, it isn’t as reliant on striking deals with content providers. The flip-side to that is that some content providers — like Hulu — have acted to block Boxee from displaying their videos through its media center software in the past and may do so again when the startup’s set-top box is available.

No doubt Apple will still attract a new group of users that hadn’t previously bought an Apple TV. But this time around, it could face some stiff competition in the increasingly crowded connected TV market.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable

During today’s press event, Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that 450 million TV episodes, along with 11.7 billion songs, 100 million movies and 35 million books, have been downloaded from the iTunes store, making it the number one digital media store in the world. How will its newly announced 99-cent rental program change the marketplace? It depends what’s on offer.

When we compared Hulu Plus to Netflix Instant during its launch, we found while the back catalog was comparable, Hulu Plus had Netflix easily beat when it came to new episodes of current shows. Apple’s rental program, though, draws from a larger pool of content, which could be a game changer.

Note the use of the word “could” here. Jobs announced that so far, only ABC and Fox have signed up for the 99-cent rental program. While we don’t yet know what specific shows will or won’t be available for 99 cents, based purely on studio, the below chart indicates that about a third of the content Hulu Plus is offering this fall won’t be available for rental on iTunes.

AVAILABLE ON HULU PLUS ITUNES RENTAL? 24 Yes 30 Rock No American Dad! Yes Bones Yes Brothers & Sisters Yes Castle Yes Cougar Town Yes Dancing With The Stars Yes Desperate Housewives Yes Family Guy Yes Find My Family Yes Friday Night Lights No Glee Yes Grey’s Anatomy Yes House Yes Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution Yes Late Night with Jimmy Fallon No Law & Order: Special Victims Unit No Lie To Me Yes Minute to Win It No Modern Family Yes Parenthood No Parks and Recreation No Private Practice Yes Saturday Night Live No Shark Tank Yes Supernanny Yes The Biggest Loser No The Cleveland Show Yes The Good Guys Yes The Office No The Tonight Show with Jay Leno No

NBC is clearly the missing link here, and if it decides to participate in the future, that would put Hulu Plus and iTunes on par with each other. Of course, you can’t necessarily compare a subscription service to a per-item rental service; for the $10 a month I pay for Hulu Plus (which, without shelling out $99 for an Apple TV, I can watch on my television thanks to the PS3), I have unlimited access to the service’s catalog of content.

That definitely works in Hulu Plus’s favor. When the new fall season starts, for example, I’ll be watching the theoretically rentable Castle, Glee, House and Modern Family on a weekly basis. If I were renting them a la carte from iTunes, in a month when each show premiered three new episodes I’d spend $11.88 to keep caught up, and if I wanted to review them after 48 hours, I’d have to plop down another 99 cents each. Compared to Hulu Plus, that’s not a great way to spend my money (even with the commercial-free video Apple provides).

The deal breaker here is that the iTunes catalog extends well beyond ABC and Fox, thanks to its relationships with pretty much every major TV network and studio. If cable or premium channels like AMC, HBO or Showtime — which do currently sell episodes via iTunes — join the rental program, it could be a very different marketplace indeed.

Frankly, Mad Men is half the reason I still have a cable subscription, which currently costs me $100/month. If I could rent the weekly misadventures of Don Draper for 99 cents each, that’d leave me about $96 a month in savings, which I’d find much easier to use towards a la carte rentals and purchases for series and movies not available through subscription services like Netflix and Hulu Plus.

In short: The iTunes rental program might not make me rethink my Hulu Plus subscription, but if more content providers get on board, it could make me rethink cable.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable

At this morning’s Apple press event, streamed live, CEO Steve Jobs announced a new Apple TV that’s a quarter of the size of the original box, with all-HD content (when available), cloud storage, and Netflix and YouTube access. The new Apple TV also allows content to be streamed from your computer or iPad to the television. The $229 price is dropping to $99, with pre-orders available today.

Oh, and as we reported, the price for renting TV shows in HD is dropping from $2.99 to $0.99 HD TV shows is shifting from $2.99 to buy to $0.99 to rent for the ABC and Fox shows that will be available at the outset. Other broadcasters have yet to commit to the service, but Jobs said that “other studios will see the light soon, and get on board with us.”

HD movie rentals are set at $4.99 for first-run films, which Jobs says will become “cheaper as time goes on.” The new store also includes Rotten Tomatoes ratings and cast/crew listings “for the first time.”

Jobs called the Netflix interface on Apple TV “the best implementation of Netflix yet,” though he was probably saying that because the interface is a direct ripoff of Apple’s Front Row interface.

Jobs also announced a complete overhaul of the iPod line, including FaceTime for the iPod touch. The iPod nano now has a square face and is smaller, and today’s demo emphasized the device’s music player and other features, including a clock face. The iPod nano camera has been removed, and the square screen implies that there’s a de-emphasis on video.

That just means more cameras for the iPod touch! The new version of the device will have front- and back-facing cameras, allowing people to communicate using FaceTime. On-device editing and direct upload to YouTube will also be possible.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Apple’s Path to the Living Room

We're here at the Yerba Buena Center for the Apple Music event, and for all of you without Apple hardware who can't see the live stream, we're going to live blog the thrill, chills and anticipated product releases. So check back for the news.

Apple has queued up Akamai to power today's highly anticipated live stream of of product announcements by CEO Steve Jobs in San Francisco. Contrary to reports the company would use its new data center, the stream will be outsourced to Apple's long-time CDN partner.

Justin.tv is going back to its roots, with a new mobile video app that will allow new and existing users to stream live video from wherever they happen to be. The new Justin.tv Android app enables users to easily create and share high-quality live video streams with their friends and social networks.

Justin.tv’s first official foray into mobile video as a platform provider hearkens back to its early beginnings, when Justin Kan began the enterprise to broadcast a live stream of his own life. Back then, the eponymous founder carried around a 22-pound mobile video kit to stream his life live to the Internet, but now Justin.tv users need only a mobile phone with a Wi-Fi or 3G connection to broadcast what they’re doing.

As a result, says Justin.tv CEO Michael Seibel in an interview, the new mobile app changes the use case for the live-streaming platform. While the company’s users previously were more or less chained to their desks (or wherever their PCs were) when they wanted to broadcast live, they now can shoot video from anywhere.

Justin.tv’s first mobile app is being released nearly 10 months after the first live-streaming apps from competitors Ustream and Qik began appearing in the iPhone app store. Seibel says the reason for the delay was due to his company’s plans to wait for the Android and iPhone platforms to be ready for the type of high-quality streaming that Justin.tv wanted to provide.

When asked why it took so long to get the app out to users, Seibel said, “If this platform isn’t ready yet, we could build the best app in the world, but it wouldn’t be a good consumer experience.”

That includes providing hardware encoding, which Seibel says is one of the key advantages the Justin.tv app has over competing apps, which were built on earlier builds of the iOS and Android operating systems. Other advantages include the ability to create an account, sign into and share with social networks like Facebook and Twitter without having to leave the app, and chat with viewers from directly within the application user interface.

One other key difference between Justin.tv and other platforms is its commitment to consumer applications. While Ustream, Livestream and Qik offer consumer apps, they have also have targeted enterprise and media customers with their streaming platforms. Justin.tv is focused on providing live-streaming tools to consumers and pushing user-generated content.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: Report: The Consumer Video Chat Market, 2010-2015 (subscription required)

Been wondering what permutation of his name and “late night show” Conan O’Brien would use for the title of his upcoming TBS series? Apparently, a bunch of people have, and in a video posted yesterday O’Brien reveals the new show’s name with a Sharpie and some white paper.

This in itself wouldn’t be too notable, except that while the Team Coco YouTube channel has been around since June 2008 (such a simpler time), this is only the second video created specifically for the channel, and the first to feature O’Brien on camera.

The other five videos are currently promos for the TBS show and the Tonight Show writers’ Emmy B-Roll, which was shown at the Creative Arts awards and adds some more salt to the Leno/Late Night dispute.

While Team Coco is actively blogging and social-media-ing away, O’Brien himself remains relatively aloof on the Interwebs, seemingly limiting his activity to updating his Twitter account exactly once a day and continuing to follow only one other person. (Jimmy Fallon‘s got him beat before he even gets out of bed.)

Is this video the first sign that Conan on TBS will bring with it a more web-engaged O’Brien? With the launch of the show, undoubtedly, will come answers.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): The State of Social TV

Apple isn’t the only consumer electronics company allegedly planning to unveil a streaming service today; according to a report in the Financial Times, Sony will also announce its own streaming and video subscription service that will be available across a wide range of devices.

The service will initially draw on the customer base Sony has built up through users logged into its PlayStation Network on PS3 and PSP gaming devices, but the PlayStation Network will be just the starting point for the new service. According to the FT, streaming video and audio could also become available on Sony “Walkman music players, Vaio computers, Bravia TVs, Blu-ray players and Sony Ericsson mobile phones” in the future.

The Sony service is expected to launch next year, as connectivity across Sony devices proliferates. The FT reports that Sony president Howard Stringer “said last year that 90 percent of Sony products would be able to connect to each other and the Internet by 2011.”

This isn’t Sony’s first foray into offering up a digital storefront for media on its devices; it previously launched a service called Sony Connect that sold DRM-protected music files that were only accessible on Sony products. The service proved unsuccessful and was shuttered in 2007, leaving Apple to take over the digital music scene with iTunes.

This time around, Sony will face significant competition from Apple again, as the latter is expected to announce streaming capabilities at an event held this morning in San Francisco, Calif. More on that event later.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: 3 Things Apple iTV Must Do to Succeed (subscription required)

Because we do not know what this service might look like, here is a picture of the Amazon river.

TV and film streaming on a subscription basis has been Netflix’s turf for a while now (sorry, Blockbuster). But Amazon may be looking to change that, according to sources speaking anonymously to the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reports that Amazon has been proposing a web-based subscription service for TV shows and movies to a bunch of media companies, including NBC, Time Warner and Viacom. The service would be viewable on the web as well as through devices like the Xbox, Roku and Internet-ready TVs.

At least one version of the proposal suggested that the offering might be bundled with the Amazon Prime service. That subscriber base would consist of people who give Amazon $79 a year for free two-day delivery on physical media — i.e., not exactly the audience you’d imagine as early adopters of a streaming video service — but it would help them launch with a bang.

This would be on top of Amazon’s current VOD service, which we thought might have been planning a redesign due to some recent job postings for designers. But a new streaming service would also potentially explain this.

One ironic twist in this potential faceoff between Amazon and Netflix is that Netflix relies on Amazon’s cloud services to power its website and recommendations engine. Anyone want to place their bets now?

Photo courtesy of Flickr user markg6.

Related GigaOm Pro Content (subscription required): Three Reasons Over-The-Top TV Apps Will Beat Big-Cable

Updated: For the first time in a long time, an Apple press event will be live streamed to the public, the company announced today. Starting at 10 a.m. PT tomorrow, Apple.com will host a stream of the highly anticipated announcements of (if rumors and expectations hold true) updated iPods, iTunes rentals, and an overhaul of the Apple TV.

Update: As commenters have pointed out, this is not Apple’s first-ever live stream, just the first in a long time (and in the modern video era). Some of us vaguely recall a crappy 2004-era Quicktime video stream. If you can remember what happened, please leave a comment.

In some ways, this is the end of an era. Due to intense interest in what was being announced to a closed-door audience, Apple press events played a huge part in the birth of the art of live blogging. Sites like Engadget honed awe-inspiring team efforts to live blog every word out of Steve Jobs’ mouth and punch it up with snarky fanboy commentary, pictures and analysis, with fresh updates coming every few seconds.

To a lesser — but still significant — degree, Apple keynotes also helped streaming services like Qik get off the ground. Their early viewing records for livestreams were set by illicit video capture from the events. I know many people scramble around on sites like Justin.tv hoping to find a stream running during the event.

Since Apple doesn’t typically post video from its product launches until later in the day, demand for breaking news is incredibly high. Often, live event coverage influences the stock market. I’ve heard that even Apple employees drop what they’re doing during keynotes and tune into the live-blogs from their desks.

There’s clearly been latent demand for video from Apple’s events for some time, so I have to wonder why it came now. One potential factor might have been the trouble Jobs had getting a reliable network connection to do a live demo of the iPhone 4 at its launch in June, which he attributed at the time to bloggers using MiFi and similar devices to run their own Wi-Fi networks.

To be sure, many desk workers will still prefer text coverage to video. But the true fanboys and girls will want to see Steve for themselves in real time.

One interesting twist is that video coverage will only be available on Apple devices. This is a bit absurd, but I suppose it fits with the company’s passion for controlling the user experience. It’s possible the livestream is being used as the “gimmick” for the Apple TV relaunch, hence the OS X/iOS requirements. Besides, most watchers will be on a Mac or iOS device anyways.

Here are the viewing details:

Apple® will broadcast its September 1 event online using Apple’s industry-leading HTTP Live Streaming, which is based on open standards. Viewing requires either a Mac® running Safari® on Mac OS® X version 10.6 Snow Leopard®, an iPhone® or iPod touch® running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad™. The live broadcast will begin at 10:00 a.m. PDT on September 1, 2010 at www.apple.com.

Meanwhile, we video industry watchers will have to hope that after the event Apple tells us how many people tuned in. It’s sure to be a lot.

Related content from GigaOM Pro (sub req’d):

Apple’s Path to the Living Room

Photo courtesy Tom Coates.

Apple Said To Have Netflix Streaming on New TV Product; Apple’s new set-top box will reportedly include movies from Netflix. (Bloomberg) Related: Rupert Murdoch May Be Key to Apple’s 99-Cent TV Rental Plan (LA Times); also Why Apple’s iTunes Rentals Aren’t Game-Changers (MediaMemo)

Samsung Working To Sell More TVs With Web Apps This Year; the Korean electronics giant plans to spend $70 million marketing its Samsung TV apps for internet-connected TVs and other devices. (VentureBeat)

Google TV: Up to $300 Price Premium?; the components necessary to run Google TV could add as much as $300 to the retail price of a TV. (Multichannel News)

Best Buy Selects Widevine for DRM and Adaptive Streaming; Widevine’s video optimization and DRM technologies will allow content owners to deliver videos directly to Insignia-branded CE devices. (press release)

Icahn Ups Lionsgate Bid; Carl Icahn increased his hostile takeover bid for Lionsgate Entertainment by 15 percent on Tuesday, to $7.50 per share, an offer the studio owner said its board of directors would review. (Multichannel News)

EPIX Live Debuts with Lewis Black and Kevin Smith; the cable network and broadband video provider announced EPIX Live, a new online forum that allows fans to interact with their favorite artists via thirty-minute Q&A sessions. (press release)

Disney-Time Warner Cable Deal Is Close, But Not Done; there is still no deal between Time Warner Cable and Disney for carriage of the programmer’s cable networks, including ESPN and Disney Channel, and retransmission consent for ABC stations. (Multichannel News)