Online Video

In the Wild West that is online video, Hulu.com has proven to be a trailblazing answer to how professional content can thrive on the Web.

It's this year's pick for Web site of the year.

"This is period of great experimentation in regard to media, in regard to online video," said Hulu chief executive officer Jason Kilar in a recent interview. "You've seen a lot, you're probably going to see even more in terms of various business models, various interface designs. I personally love to operate in moments of time like that."

In the age of YouTube, online video has opened a world of possibilities for artists like James and Tyler McFadden. Over the last two years, the duo has produced a collection of quirky, short, animated films with their Web-based production studio, GoPotato TV. But all the technology in the world hasn't changed one thing for the McFadden brothers. "Making money is not an easy thing to do with online video," says Tyler McFadden, 27, who heads up business development for the company.

A South Florida teen committed suicide last week as a Webcam audience watched in real time. The Pembroke Pines teen died of a lethal drug overdose 12 hours after he shared his intent to kill himself on a blog, according to investigators.

A toxic combination of opiates and benzodiazepine, a drug used to treat insomnia and depression, killed Abraham Briggs. The 19-year-old man died Wednesday, the Broward County medical examiner's office confirmed. Briggs had a prescription for the antidepressant, but authorities are unsure how he obtained the others.

The world's largest consumer products company and the online search leader are working together to learn more about each other and about targeting customers.

Procter & Gamble Co. said Wednesday it has done job swaps with Google Inc., and Google employees have been at P&G's Cincinnati headquarters helping with training.

P&G spokeswoman Allison Yang said the company wants to reach more consumers who are increasingly online.

"This is all about learning," she said. "It's about putting consumers in connection with our products in the right spots."

Cisco on Tuesday announced a new router that pushes the envelope of networking technology in the "zettabyte era."

The Cisco Aggregation Services Router 9000 Series, or ASR 9000, is designed to deliver a massive-scale, nonstop video experience and a reduced carbon footprint. With its latest router, Cisco is promising to increase the speed, longevity, services, richness and efficiency of the network edge. The product seeks to answer the demand spurred by the massive spike in video and data traffic across wired, cable and mobile networks.

It's all over but the inauguration. Barack Obama has swept to victory, and Sarah Palin can go back to moose hunting in Alaska. It was an election that broke all kinds of barriers, and few of us will soon forget it. Here's one barrier smashed you may not have noticed: Online video finally went mainstream, thanks to Tina Fey, Saturday Night Live, and, of course, Sarah Palin.

Netflix on Monday made announcements that favored both Microsoft and Apple and opened up a new audience for its streaming video service.

First, Netflix has started deploying Microsoft Silverlight to enhance the instant-watching component of its service. Second, that move opens the door for subscribers to begin watching movies and TV episodes instantly on Intel-based Apple Macintosh computers.

Republican or Democrat, most everyone can agree that the online coverage of politics has changed significantly since four years ago. With the political convention season upon us, the impact of social media is hard to overlook.  From online video to Facebook, take a look at some of the new media tools and resources being utilized during this year’s conventions…

Window shopping isn’t easy on video sharing sites like Youtube.  If you’ve ever attempted to browse around without a specific keyword then you know what I mean.  The search and sort features generally aren’t that great, and what boils to the surface tends to be irrelevant no matter how you structure the search terms.  It’s easy to be discouraged, especially if you’re looking for examples of a video co