Chandima Cumaranatunge has developed a free WordPress plug-in that allows users to incorporate micro video posts into their blogs. The plugin is designed to let you create and update Live blog posts using micro video application 12seconds.tv. The video site 12seconds allows bloggers to use the webcam on their computer or their mobile phone to record (in 12 seconds or less) and post “status updates.”

Once you’ve installed and configured the 12seconds widget with your account info, it will let you “add a sidebar widget to display 12seconds video status updates. For those of you who are familiar with Twitter; 12seconds is like Twitter, but with video instead of text updates. You can also embed the widget in WordPress posts and pages using shortcodes.”

Features:

• Displays the latest video status for a 12seconds user.
• You can choose to display a “skinny” (175 X 290) or “fat” (380 X 440) version of the widget.
• Can navigate to and view previous status updates in the “fat” widget using a thumbnail carousel.
• You can embed the widget in posts and pages using shortcodes.

The sidebar widget itself is essentially a video player. It uses the widget embed code provided by 12seconds.tv. The plugin eliminates the extra steps of copying and pasting embed code, and modifying templates. One can see you this would be a great tool for quick mini blog updates when out in the field: at a conference, on a trip, etc.

It also seems an interesting complement to the Twitter Liveblog plug-in we told you about two days ago, which puts Twitter status updates into your blog feed.

The 12seconds WordPress plug-in is available at Turing Tarpit.

Ben Affleck is the featured guest on the latest episode of media production podcast, “The Rough Cut.” Affleck will participate in a podcast with Avid Technology, maker of software tools for film, video, audio, and broadcast production, discussing his work as a director, producer and editor.

Avid brands include Digidesign, M-Audio, and Sibelius. The Rough Cut podcast features interviews with moviemakers (who use Avid software) about the creative and technical process.

Affleck, may be better known as a film actor (”Daredevil,” “The Sum of All Fears,” “Shakespeare In Love,”) feature film director (”Gone Baby Gone,”) and Oscar-winning screenwriter (for “Good Will Hunting”), than as a documentary filmmaker. But in this podcast interview, Affleck talks about working on his latest project, a documentary called “Gimme Shelter.”

Affleck collaborated with editor Dana Glauberman while documenting his experience in Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.  Affleck directed, co-produced and co-edited the documentary, which was made for the United Nations High Commissions for Refugees, and takes an inside look at the humanitarian crisis in the DR Congo. It has been released and screened at the UN and several cinemas nationwide.

The link to the Affleck podcast episode, the link is here. Other episodes of “The Rough Cut” are available through the podcast feed here.

Photo: via babble.com

Skype is expected Tuesday to release a free iPhone version of its software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet.  [UPDATE: The application appears to be available Monday evening, but is crashing servers with high download demand.]

In what is perhaps the greatest sentence in tech journalism so far in 2009, the Washington Post hails this iPhone app as bringing “a great waft of flatulence in the face of the [telephone service] carriers and, in one smooth motion, high fives the international community of Skype users.”

Skype is a voice-over-IP telephone calling service that’s free to other Skype users. Calls to landlines and non-Skype mobile phones are billed at an inexpensive rate. Users buy “Skype Out” minutes (or pay a flat rate for all-you-can-talk). Skype uses WiFi to make calls on your iPhone, and CNet says that “call quality will in part be at the mercy and strength of wireless networks”.

The iPhone Skype application will have most of the features and functionality of other mobile versions of the VoIP program. A few additional features take advantage of the iPhone’s unique capabilities, like making an avatar image by snapping a photo in Skype, or choosing a picture from your iPhone camera roll. Another “imperfect” (according to CNet) feature is the capability to answer incoming conference calls. The ability to initiate conference calls isn’t there yet, but is rumored to be added to the iPhone Skype app in an update later.

Even iPod Touch users can use their devices as Skype-enabled telephones, provided they have a set of earphones with an embedded mic available.

CNet has a great overview of the features and limitations of Skype for the iPhone, having been able to meet with the application developers before the app release.

Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. reached a record $23 billion last year, according to the 2008 Internet Advertising Revenue Report, released today by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.

Interactive advertising continued to grow, despite downward trends in the overall economy. IAB attributes this to “marketers’ increased recognition of the medium’s value in reaching consumers online,” where consumers are spending more of their time.

2008 revenues hit a record $23.4 billion, a 10.6% increase over 2007. By comparison, other sources indicate weakened advertising spending across all media. The Nielsen Company, for example, reported that U.S. advertising for 2008 was down 2.6%, compared to 2007.

This is the fifth consecutive year of record results for Internet advertising revenues.

According to the IAB report, online search remains the main driver of revenue growth, showing a whopping 19.8% increase over 2007. Digital video, though still a small overall contributor, more than doubled its revenue with an increase to $734 million from $324 million in 2007. IAB concludes that this demonstrates “how both marketers and consumers are embracing this dynamic platform.”

As in 2007, retail, financial services, computing and automotive remained the four largest verticals among Internet advertisers in 2008. Consumer packaged goods, an industry vertical historically slow to embrace interactive advertising, notably increased its share of total Internet ad revenues by 60 percent over 2007. The Internet is now the third largest ad-supported medium, marking its increasing significance to marketers and consumers.

“Though some categories in the fourth quarter slowed or even dipped, reflecting the current economic challenges, the overall performance is up, confirming interactive’s ever-growing importance to the successful marketing mix,” said David Silverman, Partner, Assurance, PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The report in its entirety can be viewed at http://www.iab.net/AdRevenueReport.

From the Whispers and Rumours Department, ClickZ is saying that a mid-April YouTube redesign will prominently feature premium and long-form content — and will segregate the professional videos from the vast storehouse of user-generated content.

ClickZ’s Zachary Rodgers writes:

“According to two sources familiar with Google’s plans for YouTube, the new design will do away with the current navigation scheme — which funnels users into “videos,” “channels,” and “community” categories. That layout will be replaced with a tabbed navigation with clearly defined sections for professional content.

“The new design will offer four tabs: Movies, Music, Shows, and Videos. The first three tabs will display premium shows, clips, and movies from Google’s network and studio partners, all of which will be monetized with in-stream advertising. Meanwhile the Videos channel will house amateur and semi-pro content of the sort major brand advertisers have shied away from.

“‘They’re putting up walls between all the UGC stuff, which will live within the video channel,…and the brand safe content,’ said one senior agency exec who was briefed on YouTube’s plans.”

The redesign is rumored to make the YouTube video player look like a Hulu clone, but perhaps with multiple in-episode advertisers like CBS’ online shows. NBC and ABC use an “exclusive,” single-sponsor advertising model.

Additional changes were vaguely hinted at last week when YouTube announced a number of updates and new features on the video site. Last week’s batch of announcements included

• the launch of an educational video resource, YouTube EDU,
• easier login
• easier HD video sharing
• Twitter update capability
• ways to use YouTube as a “social network”
• and better mobile phone-to-YouTube upload capabilities.

There would be a number of potential problems with this rumored separation of user-generated content from sponsored, professional, premium YouTube content. The current library of available TV series on YouTube mostly are oldy-moldy shows from the 1980s. Would advertisers really like to put their money on “MacGyver” reruns? I’m guessing that sponsors will hold out for contemporary shows for promoting their brands.

Another problem with segregating user-generated video is that a lot of what becomes popular on YouTube comes from that vast pool of “amateur” content. Many of the most popular pieces on YouTube are not the slick, well-edited premium videos; they are the quirky, stupid, funny amateur videos, (the ones you might call “viral”) of biting toddlers, evil chipmunks, dancing buffoons, and mascara-smeared emo boys.

It may be impossible for YouTube screeners to determine which of these silly videos will catch the public’s imagination, but to relegate these pieces to the hinterlands is not in YouTube’s best interests.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens.

UK’s Birmingham City University has announced plans to offer a a master’s degree on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Bebo. The University’s MA in Social Media will also explain how to set up blogs and publish podcasts.

“During the course we will consider what people can do on Facebook and Twitter, and how they can be used for communication and marketing purposes,” explains course convener Jon Hickman.

“There has been significant interest in the course already, and it will definitely appeal to students looking to go into professions including journalism and PR.”

“Social media is very important for jobs within the marketing and communications sector, as a skill set within other jobs, and as an industry within itself,” adds Hickman.