The BBC iPlayer continues to go from strength to strength. Last week saw the service win the Judges’ Award at the 2009 Royal Television Society Innovation Awards and get its own dedicated channel on the Nintendo Wii.

BBC iPlayer

The BBC iPlayer has shone like a beacon since its full launch almost two years ago in December 2007. The catch-up TV service lead the way not only in the U.K. but around the world, with Hulu being its big-name opposite in the U.S.

Rather than rest on its laurels, the BBC carried on improving the service despite already providing millions of streams to viewers. The current iteration of the iPlayer service is more user-friendly and easy-to-use than any Web application or online video site.

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The Roku Box, which started life as the Roku Netflix player before evolving to its current form, is getting some brothers in the shape of two new boxes. Roku is also promising new channels will be coming to the service soon. Which, with Netflix now headed for the PS3, is needed more than ever.

Roku and Netflix

Roku started out relying on Netflix’ ‘Watch Instantly’ streaming service as the be all and end all of its content offering to buyers of the $99 box. But since launching in May 2008, other content channels have been added, including Amazon Video-on-Demand and MLB TV.

Netflix soon moved on to a host of other set-top boxes and devices, including the Xbox 360, Internet-enabled televisions, and hybrid Blu-ray players. And it’s now adding a new one to its line-up in the shape of the Playstation 3.

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Music videos are a massively popular and successful part of online video culture. Which is clearly why everyone seems to want a piece of the action.

MySpace Music is now carrying music videos from all its partners – the big four major record labels and a host of independents. This is setting up a mighty bloodbath between MySpace and Vevo, the YouTube-backed music video-only site launching soon.

Music Video War

To say music videos are a popular part of the Web is an understatement. The chance to choose which videos to watch and when, rather than being beholden to MTV and other music channels, their playlists, and their “lifestyle” programming, is clearly appealing.

YouTube has realized music videos are such a big part of online video that it’s backing Vevo, the Hulu-for-music due to launch soon. There is also Muzu.tv, Vidzone on the PS3, and a number of other music video ventures in the mix.

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Full-length episodes of television shows and movies are an important part of YouTube heading forward. Which means the company must be delighted to have signed a deal with UK broadcaster Channel 4 which will see 3,000 hours of content coming to the video sharing site.

YouTube and Channel 4

YouTube has for a while now been moving away from user-generated content and trying to entice broadcasters into providing content via the site. It’s had mixed success but it has now nabbed a major broadcaster in the form of Channel 4.

Channel 4 was the first UK broadcaster to launch a video on demand service, doing so in 2006. But 4oD failed to get the attention it deserved and the BBC iPlayer snatched the limelight instead. 4oD has gone through some major changes since then and now rivals the iPlayer for user experience.

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It was three years ago today that Chad Hurley and Steve Chen sold YouTube to Google for $1.65 billion. It has celebrated that anniversary by revealing the site now gets over one billion views a day worldwide and talking a little about the future.

Three Years Ago Today

It seems like just yesterday that the co-founders of YouTube sold the site to Google. In fact, it was a full three years ago that Google decided to ante up $1.65 billion for the fledgling online video site.

We found out just yesterday that Google CEO Eric Schmidt thought that price tag was around $1 billion out, with the site actually worth more like $600 million. But Google wanted the site so badly it was willing to pay a premium for it.

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Were you one of the many who back in 2006 wondered why on earth Google was paying $1.65 billion for YouTube, a site with no revenue and a ton of problems? Then you weren’t alone because even Google CEO Eric Schmidt thought it was overpriced.

YouTube Is Go

In February of 2005, a site popped up on the Internet that would cause a massive shift in how video is served on the Web. It would ease the process, and provide a platform for video of all kinds, mostly user-generated content.

Its name, if you hadn’t already guessed, was YouTube. And it has grown in the last four years to become one of the biggest and most popular sites on the Web, with millions of people from all corners of the world visiting and using the site on a daily basis.

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The storm in a teacup which saw everyone, YouTube, Warner, and viewers, lose out when music videos were pulled from the video-sharing site is over.

YouTube and Warner Music Group have now forged a new deal which will see WMG having its own branded player and able to sell its own advertising inventory.

Warner Walks Away

It was late December 2008 when Warners decided to pull all its music videos from YouTube. It happened due to a breakdown in communications while the two parties were trying to thrash out a new licensing deal. The ones that had been in place for years were coming to an end.

As always, it came down to money. The Warner Music Group wanted a bigger slice of the revenue pie and YouTube was unwilling to deliver. Regardless of who was right and wrong, the incident helped no one in the end.

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