HULU will acquire MOJITI, a Beijing-based startup. Mojiti allows users to annotate videos, leaving comments at specific points for others to see. Its technology will be used extensively on Hulu.com, the joint online venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal. The deal is estimated to be worth $10 million.
MYSPACE has signed a deal with two established producers to create and distribute an original online series. Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick, the team behind “Thirtysomething” and “My So-Called Life,” will create Quarterlife, an online show about post-college Twenty-somethings. The show will feature TV-quality production values, and TV-level costs. Each episode will be one hour, broken into six shorter segments. The segments will premiere on MySpace TV, followed by full Internet distribution.
YAHOO MUSIC and MTV have entered into a new partnership. Yahoo will distribute its “Nissan Live Sets,” a currently online-only music series, through MTV’s high-def channel MHD. The show features live performances from popular musical acts, and is part of a multi-million dollar sponsorship deal signed with Nissan. MTV will air its first episode of Live Sets on September 17.
COMSCORE released some new data that gives insight into online-viewing habits. According to the new report, 75% of Internet users in the US watch an average of three hours of video per month. The average video watched is 2.7 minutes long. YouTube, of course, dominates – serving up 2.4 billion videos in July alone.
VERIZON continues its FiOS TV march into Cablevision and Comcast territories. The service has been added to 24 New Jersey communities. FiOS TV is now available in 12 different states.