News Bytes: July 28

YouTube To Partners: Oops, We Owe You Money
via Silicon Alley Insider

YouTube (GOOG) is admitting it miscalculated May advertising revenue and underpaid content "partners" by up to 5%, according to an email obtained by Daisy Whitney at TVWeek. YouTube pays content partners 55% of ad revenue, which generally comes out to about $8.25 for 1,000 views for the standard $15 CPM overlay ads it sells to advertisers.

According to the email, the company says it had previously calculated an impression for any video watched more than 30 seconds. But, after unspecified "enhancements" were made it "analyzed the reports and noticed that, related to the new change, some minor corrections needed to be made to the revenue numbers."

YouTube says "any change to revenue should be zero or, in some cases, positive up to around 5%."

YouTube didn't specify what "enhancements" it made to its accounting methods, but the fact that revenue is going up for some producers indicates it may have been undercounting impressions. YouTube recently stopped counting views generated when a video plays automatically, but that change wouldn't have increased the number of impressions per video. We're looking into it and will let you know if we learn more.

Hulu Gets All Widgety and Facebook-y
via NewTeeVee
One of the reasons Hulu caught on so quickly was the ability for users to embed full-length TV episodes and movies on their blogs and personal pages. Hulu says that its content has been distributed on 27,000 sites and over 500,000 individual embed players. Now the company is taking that distribution one step further and rolling out new widgets that expand those embedding options.

The widgets are available in four flavors. The Player Widget (shown here) is basically a mini-me Hulu, recreating the same site experience in a smaller package. The Show and Movie Widget updates with specific content you are interested in. The Picks Widget delivers updated lists of content like “recently added movies.” And the Summer Widget lists the latest content in Hulu’s Days of Summer promotion (though Hulu isn’t sure what it will do with it after the summer).

During his recent visit to NewTeeVee HQ (video after the jump), CTO Eric Feng also talked a little about Hulu’s upcoming implementation of Facebook Connect on the video site, which will launch in August. Facebook users will be able share their activity with friends and track each other’s activities on the site.

Here, Feng updated us on some Hulu user stats, the lack of HD content, and the Hulu experience beyond PCs.

Sprint Refreshes Mobile Web Portal
via mocoNews.net

Sprint (NYSE: S) has launched a new mobile home page that's now available on at least 40 of the carrier's mobile phones. Sprint Web, which rests on technology from ChangingWorlds, makes use of customers' previous usage to draw up an adaptive home screen that will be unique for each customer. The revamped portal also provides access to Google (NSDQ: GOOG) search, which is now the default mobile search provider for the carrier. The upgrade will appear automatically for any customer that accesses the web on one of the compatible phones. (Release.)

Facing Lawsuit, Redlasso Suspends Web Video Clip Service
via Digital Media Wire - connecting people & knowledge

King of Prussia, Pa. - Days after being served a copyright infringement lawsuit by broadcasters NBC (NYSE: GE) and Fox News (NYSE: NWS), Web video clipping service Redlasso announced on Friday that it will suspend access to its clipping service. "We believe we have always acted within the law and have been respectful of the networks rights. Unfortunately, they have forced our hand and are denying the blogging community access to the Redlasso platform that beneficially tracks the usage of newsworthy clips across the Web," said Ken Hayward, CEO of Redlasso. read more

Hulu Unveils New Widget Gallery
via Cynopsis

Hulu is attacking that sizeable segment of the market that's never heard of the service by unveiling a new Widget Gallery to help spread the word and remind loyal users to check back often for new shows. A selection of embeddable players allow users to queue and track featured, recently added or most popular videos from a number of environments including Facebook, Netvibes and Piczo. Hulu.com also began streaming its first soap opera - Guiding Light - on July 25 and will debut two other TeleNext Media shows As The World Turns today and Another World on July 29. An initial 18 episodes of each show will be made available with 3 additional episodes to be added each week.

Microsoft Works with Peter Safran
via Cynopsis

Exclusive games aren't the only thing that will drive users to a gaming platform. Microsoft is working with producer Peter Safran (Scary Movie, Meet The Spartans) to create a series of comedic shorts for free distribution on the 12 million member Xbox Live platform, directed by leading horror film directors including James Wan (Saw) and Marcus Nispel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre.) The 10-minute shorts, which will also be available on MSN and Zune, are actually pilots that could be developed into full blown online series, according to Microsoft.

Research: Short Form Video Still Dominates Online Viewing
via Cynopsis

Short form videos still dominate online viewing, according to a new study conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates & Metacafe. The online survey, which looked at the habits of 2,000 users aged 12-64, identified Comedy (37%), music videos (36%), UGC (33%), news (31%) and movie trailers (28%) as the top 5 short form categories. Other findings include:
50% of respondents watch online video weekly
11% watch online video daily
28% of those who watch online videos report watching less TV as a result
19% of online video users report regularly sharing a link to a video with someone else

Industry Moves
via Cynopsis

NBC Universal named Dan Bethlahmy to Director, Wireless Marketing, in the Digital Distribution group; Tracy Kim as Manager, Digital Products; and Emily Powers as Manager, Business Development. Each will oversee aspects of the company's digital distribution efforts for properties including Bravo, Chiller, CNBC, CNBC World, MSNBC, mun2, NBC Weather Plus, Oxygen, SCI FI Channel, ShopNBC, Sleuth, Telemundo, Universal HD and USA Network.