DeliTV is a Yahoo Pipe created by Tony Hirst, a lecturer at The Open University in the UK.

This pipe allows anyone to program their own online TV channel from Boxee by bookmarking pages on Delicious with the tag “delitv”.

• Yahoo Pipes is a tool that aggregates and manipulates all sorts of content from the web.
• Boxee is free software that streams content from sites like MLB, Netflix, Pandora, Last.fm, and Flickr on a laptop or connected to a TV.

DeliTV supports:

• BBC iPlayer category feeds
• podcast feeds
• Youtube videos
• Youtube Playlists
• Youtube channels
• another DeliTV playlist
• an MP3 file

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As Yahoo prepares a new version of its Yahoo Messenger chat application, a beta version of Yahoo Messenger 10 is already downloadable for Windows users.

For this version of the application, Yahoo has focused its attention on webcam features. The selling point on this update is the ability to start high-quality video calls with audio. Until now, users could make low-quality video calls with no audio feature.

This new feature will only work for one-to-one calls to other users with the same version. The older ability to broadcast your webcam to multiple users (no audio) has not been updated.

From the Yahoo Messenger Blog:

Features include the ability to swap video windows, position the video windows side-by-side, mute the call or place it on hold. You can even go full-screen with your video call. To get started, click the new “Video Call” button in the IM window.

Video of New Features:

In addition to the video update, Yahoo has made a few other improvements:

• Real-time stream of updates from Twitter, Yahoo Buzz, last.fm, etc.
• Start chat from updates (recent activity, availability)
• New ways to sort contacts
• Updated icon designs

I don’t know anybody who uses Yahoo Messenger anymore; most of my friends have migrated to Skype or Google Chat. However, they either have enough users that Yahoo would bother to invest in building up the video application or else they are trying to attract users from other apps.

Complaints Already Pouring In

Despite the Beta tag, over 100 comments on the Yahoo Messenger Blog are complaints about design, missing features and user friendliness.  At least 20 bugs were found by users within the first few hours of release, which will hopefully be fixed for the final version.

Personally, I think they’ve lost this fight, although Y! Messenger seems to be very popular in some European countries. Several commenters from Romania are begging for a translation; one said:

Oh come on Romanians are mega-fans of Y! Messenger… it’s a true phenomenon… we even have the word “mes” to denote Y! Messenger in sentences like “hai intră pe mes” (”go log in on Y! Messenger”)

Get Yahoo Messenger 10

Download:
Version 10 Beta Available at Yahoo

You may also be interested in:

• WebTVWire’s Free Video Chat Guide
• Trillian – Use AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, ICQ and Gtalk, Skype Twitter & more all in one program.

Webcam Deals on eBay:

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NBC paid almost $1 billion to have the exclusive rights for television and video coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games in the U.S. But it seems that it is still losing the battle for viewers with Yahoo.

NBC spent the run-up to the Olympics in China talking up its extensive coverage of the Games.

And with over 2,200 hours of footage being made available online, it certainly had a right to brag.

Technical Issues Galore

Unfortunately, there have been technical limitations and issues surrounding the online coverage. This means viewers not only need to have Vista to watch any footage, but also have no firewall installed on their PC.

Broadcast delays to stop any loss of viewers and advertising from traditional TV have also affected Web viewer numbers, with many finding alternative (and often illegal) methods of watching their favourite event.

Even when viewers do get the chance to watch coverage of the Games on NBC’s site, they are often faced with footage without any kind of commentary, poor quality video, or even an event location but no action taking place.

The politicians fighting to replace George W. Bush in the White House have embraced the Web, new technology, social networking, and Web video completely in an effort to prove they are with it.

However, Bush himself clearly hasn’t been with it.

However, now that he’s on his way of the White House door, hopefully to be replaced by Barack Obama, he’s decided to embrace the medium and this week gave his first video interview intended purely for the Web.

Yahoo! currently seems to be on a mission to take over the world of online video, despite facing the immediate threat of a hostile takeover bid by industry giant Microsoft. They say all good things come in threes, and Yahoo! seem intent on proving that at the moment.

Last week saw the unveiling of Y! Live, a lifecasting site to compete with the likes of uStream, Mogulus and Operator11. As those sites do, Y! Live enables ordinary members of the public to become broadcasters in their own bedroom, setting up a video channel, and showing whatever footage reels off from their webcams.

Then a few days ago, we saw Yahoo! acquire Maven, an online video platform which could see the company up the ante on the advertising and monetisation side on web television.

Yahoo! may be going through a rough patch at the moment (read understatement of the year), with Microsoft launching a hostile takeover bid worth $45 billion, and staff being culled left, right, and centre, but that hasn’t stopped it from carrying on business as normal.

Today, they have formally announced the acquisition of Maven Networks, an online video platform which offers video hosting and distribution services, as well as a targeted video advertising system.

The deal, which has been rumoured around the blogosphere for the last fortnight, right before Microsoft threw a spanner in the works with its bid, is worth an estimated $160 million, about $10 million higher than was first thought.

Tom Huntington, a spokesperson for DivX has announced that DivX, a growing video compression software company, has signed a two year deal with Yahoo! that replaces a previous agreement that DixX had with Google.

As the terms of the contract state, DivX software will now be offered with a co-branded Yahoo Toolbar and a version of IE7 pre-configured with Yahoo tools. Yahoo!, in exchange, will now provide links to DivX and its online video service, Stage6, within the Yahoo toolbar.

Could Yahoo! possibly be a better partner for DivX than Google?