Could huge banner ads on the YouTube homepage be the solution for Google’s lack of monetizing strategy for the site? No, but it’s a good start.

Google has been struggling to work out a strategy for making YouTube more profitable over the past few months.

It probably actually started way before that, but the last few months have seen the efforts attract public scrutiny.

Traffic = Revenue?

While YouTube is one of the most trafficked websites on the Internet and by far the biggest Web video site, traffic doesn’t necessarily equal revenue.

One of the main problems Google has with monetizing YouTube is that user generated content, the videos people upload showing their pets doing strange things, or their kids dancing, can’t have adverts added to them.

Could the decision to throw out a copyright infringement case against Veoh have an impact on the $1 billion lawsuit Viacom is currently pursuing against YouTube?

The U.S. District Court has dismissed a copyright infringement case in which Io Group alleged Veoh had broken the law by the use of its transcoding method.

DMCA Takedowns Not Sufficient?

Io Group, an adult entertainment company, launched the lawsuit back in 2006 after some of its pornographic material ended up on Veoh due to being uploaded by a user.

Io Group first sent DMCA takedown notices, which were duly and very quickly honoured with the removal of the videos. But that wasn’t enough and it sued Veoh anyway.

YouTube is about to air its first full-length feature film: a political documentary being shown coincidentally during election year in America.

No End In Sight is a documentary movie by director Charles Ferguson which has won many awards, including the Documentary Special Jury Prize at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

In Full On YouTube

The Academy Award nominee has now been announced as the first widely-released feature film to be screened in its entirety on video sharing site YouTube.

The film looks at the political decisions made before, during, and after the invasion of Iraq and America’s continuing occupation of the country.

Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, an original series aimed to draw revenue for Google, was announced back in June. And it’s about to start.

No official start date for the Web video series from the creator of Family Guy was known in June when we previewed the series and discussed its innovative distribution model.

NewTeeVee now reports that the series is set to launch on September 10th. In advance of the launch, Burger King has set up a new YouTube channel, and has a trailer for the Cavalcade online.

The BBC iPlayer continues to go from strength to strength. But the latest move is sure to annoy the already overstretched ISPs even more.

After last week’s announcement of new high quality streams using the H.264 video standard, the BBC has now announced the trialling of what is being called ’series stacking’.

Series Stacking

Series stacking means that rather than episodes of shows disappearing from the service after the usual seven days of being available, they will stay on the site for the duration of the entire series.

According to Brand Republic, the trials of series stacking will begin on September 13th with shows such as Merlin, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Little Dorrit, and Survivors.

The Democratic National Convention begins today in Denver, and unless you’re a delegate you won’t be able to attend. But that’s no reason to miss the action as there is an abundance of ways to watch the coverage online.

The majority of us won’t be in attendance to see Barack Obama and newly announced running mate Joseph Biden set the stage for their run at the White House, but thanks to the power of Web TV, that no longer matters.

Watch The Democratic Convention Online

Last week, NewTeeVee compiled a list of the places to watch the Democratic National Convention on the Internet, and here they are for your perusal.

The Democrats, who seem to be embracing new technologies and the power of the Web much more than the Republicans, are airing the whole Convention at DemConvention.com. And even better, it’s all in glorious high definition.

The Beijing 2008 Olympic Games have now come to an end, with a spectacular closing ceremony ending the Chinese Games and handing the torch on to London 2012. But did the online coverage of the Games live up to the hype?

Certainly the Web portion of NBC’s offerings didn’t make as much money for the company as it would have liked. But whose fault was that?

$5.75 Million Revenue?

According to The Wall Street Journal, research firm eMarketer Inc estimates that NBCOlympics.com will have generated only about $5.75 million in video advertising revenue for the American television network.

We’ve spoken about video advertising and the difficulty in monetizing Web video a lot here on Web TV Wire, and that difficulty has seemed to rear its ugly head yet again for the Olympics.