In an open video address to Prime Minister Vladmir Putin, Alexei Dymovsky says, "Maybe you don't know about us, about simple cops, who live and work and love their work. I'm ready to tell you everything. I'm not scared of my own death." How much does Dymovsky have to fear? The answer might surprise those of us who are accustomed to the relative freedoms of self-expression.

Dymovsky served in the Russian army from 1996 until 1998. After that, he worked as a district commissioner of the city police in the Amur region. In 2004, he was transferred to the city of Novorossiysk police department, where he eventually advanced to the post of senior security officer and oversaw crimes related to drug trafficking.

"We are working as hard as we can with all our souls," Dymovsky says. After referencing losing two wives, who refused to put up with his work, and problems with "relationships with the bosses," Dymovsky says, "I want to talk about it now." He speaks of being denied leave of absence or medical treatment for illness, about police taking bribes and about pervasive corruption. "I am not afraid," he says, "I am telling my name... But I cannot stand detecting the nonexistent crimes, imprisoning people who are not guilty. I can't stand it anymore."

Take a look at one of the videos Dymovsky has posted so far:

These videos bear significant political impact, but they also speak to the importance of the Internet in acting as our generation's soapbox. Any wronged person has an almost infinite capacity to express, persuade and convince. Currently, a source at the Russian Interior Ministry's internal security department has confirmed to at least one publication that representatives of several human rights organization actively support Dymovsky.

The officers mentioned in Dymovsky's reports have filed libel suits against him, and the Russian interior minister has said his office is investigating the former police officer's claims.

Using technology from Vobile, an online video publishing company, Justin.tv partners (including FOX), will be able to use VideoDNA™ "fingerprinting" technology to watermark their digital content. If the content is spotted elsewhere on the site, Justin.tv will automatically remove the infringing channel. Think of it as DRM for real-time, streaming media.

"This has been part of our long-term effort to work with copyright holders... How can we help them automate the process of removing content?" said CEO Michael Seibel in a recent interview with NewTeeVee.

Vobile's solution, VideoDNA, is a compact, unique digital signature, a.k.a. a fingerprint, that can be attached to online video without changing the source content. To identify an unknown video, its fingerprint is found and matched against the entries in the reference database, known as the Vobile DNA Database. If a match is found, the querying application is provided with comprehensive data on the match. The VideoTracker component of this solution is intended specifically for content creators and has reportedly been adopted by many major Hollywood studios.

Using this huge library of fingerprints, Justin.tv has worked with publishers to integrate digital fingerprinting with live, streaming media. It's a complicated solution requiring the proactive responsibility of the copyright holders.

Check out NewTeeVee's video interview with Seibel below, and let us know in the comments what you think of the new measures for copyright protection of live, streaming media.

Right now, the easiest way to use Boxee in the living room is through hacking an Apple TV. While this is an easy hack, it doesn't help Boxee to bring its service to a mainstream audience. According to today's announcement, Boxee's goal is "to be on every Connected device in the living room" - and to do so, the company will need to partner with large, well-known brands that can push its software into the living room as a default feature.

On Collision Course With Roku

This announcement, as the NYTimes' Brad Stone points out, also puts Boxee in direct competition with Roku. Roku made a name for itself by offering a cheap and easy-to-use hardware device that allows users to stream online movies to their TVs. Just last week, Roku announced it will branch out from just offering streaming movies and that it plans to offer different channels with Internet content in the near future. Chances are that within the next few months, both Roku and Boxee will offer very similar services and hardware devices. If Boxee manages to strike up enough partnerships and gets its software into more devices, however, it will have a major advantage over Roku.

In total, the average viewer watched about 135 video clips. While full-length shows are becoming more popular, it is still important to note that the average video is only 3.7 minutes long. Hulu, which focuses on full-length TV shows, also recorded its best month yet, with 457 million views.

Another Record-Breaking Month

June, according to comScore, already broke most records, but at that time, the company credited the surge to the large number of high-profile events (including the death of Michael Jackson and the elections in Iran). ComScore argues that TV viewers are turning to the Internet right now because most of the shows on TV are currently on summer hiatus. While this probably plays some role in this current growth in interest in online video, we would also argue that a lot of viewers are simply changing their viewing habits and have moved away from watching shows on traditional TV and cable networks. Instead, they are watching popular clips on YouTube and full-length shows on Hulu.

A scan of the Break Media homepage headlines as of writing tells you all you need to know about the content on this site: 'Eight Perfect Pogostick Backflips,' 'Mexico Versus Uruguay Basketball Fight,' 'Kid Hit in the Face by Field Goal Kick,' 'iPhone Commercial for Ex-Boyfriends,' 'Human Head Turntables and Drums,' ... you get the picture.

I checked out a couple of videos from the site, purely for research purposes of course. And while I wasn't game to watch the one where a gymnast "snaps neck on dismount," (!!) I did watch and enjoy this one about a sports reporter in Prague dealing with drunken fans:

It doesn't take an in-depth analysis to figure out the appeal of Break Media - it's entertaining, generally funny and not to be taken seriously at all. So it's no surprise that Break Media is becoming one of America's most popular websites. The appeal for viewers is very similar to that of YouTube - and look how that turned out.

As well as a large monthly audience of 23.5 million unique users, Break Media has 'stickiness.' Break Media cites [PDF] a comScore report stating that viewers spend an average of 3.3 minutes watching a video, which the company claims is above average for video sites.

Other than the flagship break.com, Break Media owns a range of niche sites targeted to men; including Cage Potato, MadeMan, Chickipedia, Holy Taco, Screen Junkies and All Left Turns.

Is Break Media the future of Web entertainment? We sure hope not, but you can't argue against its general appeal as a place to go to waste some time... and that Prague sports reporter video was funny!

It seems the WTO ruled with Antigua after a long series of battles over the fact that US restrictions on online gambling were found to violate free trade agreements. Despite the decision, no new forms of offshore online betting were allowed in the US. In retaliation, Antigua received permission from the WTO to suspend US copyright obligations up to a value of $21 million dollars annually.

Zookz founder Hugh Marshall launched the site in the belief that the Antigua-based company is not subject to US copyright law until those within the space reach a profit of $21 million dollars. Nevertheless, it's unlikely that this is the case as it would mean that the WTO would allow Antigua-based websites to simply give away files or sell them at rock bottom prices in order to stay below the limit. While the actual terms of the WTO's sanction is blurry, John Healey of the LA Times suggests that the annual value limit is likely to represent the loss to US industries rather than the profit yielded. As well, the fact that the site is accessible by global audiences outside of Antigua makes this a particularly suspicious venture.

While the site's 1,500 movies and 50,000 songs represent a relatively small catalogue, it appears that for now, for the price of a Netflix monthly account, Zookz users can access unlimited downloads. Obviously this is tempting. Dubious legality aside, and regardless of how you perceive the RIAA and MPAA, please remember that in this case neither starving musicians nor billionaire record labels receive payment for the downloaded works. If you're still curious about the service, you can register at Zookz.com.

This is a good day to stay home, watch a baseball game, throw some hotdogs on the grill, eat an apple pie and watch fireworks on your computer. earthTV, an international live TV channel, has cameras located in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., New York City, Niagara Falls and Honolulu and will be broadcasting live streams of fireworks displays beginning at dusk in those cities. If you just can't wait until then, go check out its timelapse showing Independence Day displays from years past.

For those of you that are really feeling the American spirit today, check out this silly video we found. After all, it's not really a party until someone shoots rockets out of their butt or blows a hand off, right? (WARNING: Do Not Try This at Home)

Update: Matt Graves, imeem's VP of marketing and communications, left a comment below. Comments on the imeem blog post are now open, VIP subscribers will be able to get a refund.

The original post continues below:

Unhappy Users and VIPs

It's not surprising, however, that imeem's users are quite vocal about their dissatisfaction with the service's decision to delete the photo and video collections that many have poured quite a few hours of work into over the years. A lot of users are especially outraged by this because they specifically subscribed to imeem's VIP service in order to upload more of their own videos and photos. It's also noteworthy that imeem isn't giving users an easy way to download their content from the site. While users could right-click on every picture and save it to their desktop, there is currently no way to download videos from the site.

Not Handled Well

Overall, we would have to side with imeem's users and it doesn't look like the company is handling this current affair very well. Comments on the blog post are closed, nobody from imeem's staff (as far as we can see) is interacting with customers on imeem's forums, and the service isn't giving paying customers a chance to get a refund. imeem, of course, is under some pressure to make a profit at some point, and the service's relationship with the music industry has been rather rocky lately, but this decision to give users only five days of warning before deleting their content on the site just feels like a textbook case for how not to manage your user community.

A report on Bloomberg.com about the release of this movie highlights some of the frustrations with the current advertising situation among YouTube's executives. In an interview with the news service, YouTube's Anthony Zameczkowski argues that YouTube is a place where filmmakers can reach 350 million unique users a month, and that YouTube is "more than just dogs on skateboards." According to Bloomberg, YouTube's Zameczkowski also tried to encourage more studios and filmmakers to upload their films to the service at last month's Cannes Film Festival.

Interestingly, though, even some of the most popular movies on YouTube hardly ever have over 500,000 views, and some of the most popular films there look more like traditional YouTube videos than slick movie studio productions.

YouTube Still Tries to Make a Profit

As we have argued many times before, YouTube still has to find a better revenue model in order to become profitable. Short clips and home movies are not too popular with advertisers, even though most of us clearly love them. Brands, however, would probably be more than happy to support projects like this and other feature-length movies and TV shows, as the financial and popular success of sites like Hulu clearly shows. Currently, according to Bloomberg, YouTube only earns money from about 3% of all the videos it hosts.

Thanks to Barb Dybwad at Obsessable for alerting us to this story.

This study, which was sponsored by media research firm Nielsen, however, concludes that the average adult in the U.S. still watches an almost unbelievable 5 1/2 hours of live TV every day. 94% of adults watch TV on any given day, while most people only watch online videos for a few minutes a day.

TV (including DVR playback) represents 99% of all the video watched by U.S. adults, and even for the youngest group in the sample, those 18-24, online video only represented 2% of all screen time.

The Bad News for TV

In terms of general use, however, computers and mobile screens have clearly taken time away from TV, even if online video still has a lot of room to grow. Users 18-24 spend more time in front of their computer screens than any other group (143 min a day on average), but still watch 210 min of TV every day.

The older a person, the more time they are likely to spend in front of their TV (421 min for those 65 and older). For TV executives, however, this means that the next generation of viewers will most likely spend even less time in front of their TVs.

With YouTube XL, Boxee, and the new Hulu Desktop, a growing number of players are also now pushing online video onto the TV screens of mainstream users, and chances are that within a few years, online video and traditional TV will simply start to converge. While we will probably still be watching the majority of video on TV sets, users will care less and less whether it is coming from their cable company or ISP.

Note: we reported some data from a preliminary version of this report in March.

To gather its data, Nielsen monitors about 200,000 panel members, a technique that is clearly informed by Nielsen's method for gathering data about TV viewers. Other metrics companies use data from toolbars, ISPs, and other sources, though Quantcast also gives site owners the option to embed a code snippet on their pages that reports data directly to Quantcast (Hulu does so, for example, and so does RWW).

Stats Need Standards

The real problem here, of course, isn't even about knowing exactly how many people watched videos on Hulu last month (even though we have to admit that this discussion is quite interesting in its own right). Instead, this kerfuffle once again shows how hard it is to correctly estimate usage numbers on the web, especially in the absence of any real standards. As every blogger can easily attest, three different stats programs will give you three different numbers.

We have to take publicly available stats, no matter from which provider, with a grain of salt. In our experience, it is always worth looking at a number of different sources, and while the trends that these services show tend to be relatively trustworthy, the exact numbers are always open for debate.

Enter new media marketing for new media products! A rash of online promo videos for social products show how Internet and mobile entrepreneurs have taken lessons from traditional broadcast advertising as much as they have from YouTube.

Best of all, the videos have given great ROI (that's "return on investment" for you non-advertising types).

Regarding this promo video for MyNameIsE.com, founder and designer Renato Valdés Olmos said, "That video actually cost us rental money for the camera, some drinks, and pizzas!"

In 3 days, the video got "4,000 views and great responses" before Vimeo took it down; apparently, the site doesn't allow commercials. However, the E team got the video up on YouTube.

"Sign-ups spiked as soon as the video started being posted around," said Olmos, "and it also works great in pitches and presentations."

All this was acheived with no marketing budget and little support from major bloggers and Twitter influencers.

Another promo video making the rounds comes from iPhone app Birdhouse.

"There's no question that the adoption of Birdhouse benefitted hugely from the exposure that came from the promotional video we put together," said cofounder Adam Lisagor. "We knew from the beginning we'd be making a video people would enjoy despite any interest in the actual app. We heard over and over, 'I don't even know if I'll use Birdhouse, but the video made me buy it.'

"This is something that almost all software developers overlook: the power of entertainment to communicate why you built it and why you want others to enjoy it as much as you."

A third video we've seen is almost a straight-up live demo for LoveToGoOut.com, a new site that aims to organize pub crawls, club nights, and other nocturnal, boozy get-togethers.

"Originally, the video was created to promote the site at a local university event here in the UK," said advisor Barry Pace.

"[We] haven't promoted this too much online (if at all). Measurement of success is more about local awareness rather than attempting to monitor any buzz online."

Nevertheless, if current trends are any indication, site traffic will spike with proliferation of the video.

Unsurprisingly, this study, which tracked the media consumption habits of 350 Americans, also found that older adults tend to spend more time in front of their TVs, while they also spend significantly less time in front of their computers. Interestingly, among all age groups, the overall time spent in front of screens is very consistent (about 8 1/2 hours), but boomers 45-54 consume about one hour more than all the other age groups.

With regards to computer usage, surfing the web, emailing, and using 'any software' are the predominant activities. On an average day, young adults 18-24 watch about 5 minutes of online video. As expected, this group also uses email far less than any other group (20 minutes), except for users over 65 (11 minutes). According to this study, younger adults also have a stronger tendency to use all different kinds of media simultaneously (think surfing the web on the couch while watching TV).

Online Video is Still Very Small Compared to TV

Surfing the mobile web (0.9 minutes per day), and watching mobile video (0.1 minutes per day) is clearly only a hobby for a small minority of users. We do know, however, that those users who do watch online and mobile video tend to watch a lot of it, so clearly, this market has a lot of room to grow, even though TV will surely hold on to its dominant position as the preferred means of consuming video content for quite a while.

A Few More Interesting Results

• users who owned a DVR early on used it to watch TV far more often than those who only got a DVR recently.
• HDTV owners who just bought their first or second HDTV watch more TV than others
• Americans over 45 spend more time fiddling with the screens on their GPS navigation systems than they spend on watching Internet video.

Sadly, the report does not include data for users under 18. Our suspicion is that the numbers for online and mobile video viewing might be quite different for this demographic.

Overall, the results from this study also correlate well with Nielsen's own A2/M2 Three Screen Report from 2008.

Here is a copy of the press release (pdf).

CC-licensed logo image used courtesy of Flickr user Aaron Escobar.

This is a great idea and we expect that young people who discover it will appreciate it. At first glance it looks better to us than iTunes University. This could genuinely help young people make more informed decisions about what schools to apply to. There's also a lot of great content on the site for anyone to learn from.

Last year we asked "Is YouTube the Next Google?," noting that video search is one of the most compelling types of search online. There is video content online, and on YouTube in particular, about just about anything. College content? That's a no brainer.

If you like academic videos, make sure to check out Academic Earth as well.

Update: Looks like we were wrong about Hulu's ability to keep Boxee down. According to a statement on Boxee's blog, Hulu has now blocked Boxee's browser from accessing the service.

Boxee also released a new version of its player today, which includes a new application store (the 'App Box') that allows users to easily install new apps and plugins. Boxee's application is now also able to auto-update itself whenever a new version is released.

Hulu is Back

We had a chance to test Boxee's new Hulu integration today, and while it is billed as a workaround and not quite as pretty as Boxee's previous implementation, it actually turned out to be a very workable solution. All the shows are lined up in alphabetical order and while Boxee clearly overlays its own user interface over the Hulu flash player, you actually have to look very closely to see this.

App Box

The main addition to Boxee's feature line-up in this new version, however, is the new built-in app store/plugin repository. Unlike other app stores, Boxee uses a model that is similar to that of many Linux distributions: Boxee lets you add your own repositories to the mix, so that you are never locked in to the service's official selection of application. We can't help but wonder if this won't allow some enterprising developers to create another Hulu app that replicates Boxee's old Hulu integration.