There is so much content out there, it’s impossible not to miss some things, so hopefully this can help prevent you from missing some good videos. If you like the compilation, or any of the videos within, why not share it with others? And certainly, feel free to comment on any subject mentioned in any of them.

Update: Don’t miss the videos from day two and day three.

We ran an article about this yesterday, but it’s still getting a lot of attention today. The Winklevoss twins have appeared in a Wonderful Pistachios ad.

Next Media Animation, the Taiwanese animation firm, which parodies many tech news topics, has a new video out about Ron Paul:

This follows one they recently release about Rick Perry:

Cisco has a marketing campaign bashing Juniper Networks for “not keeping its promises to customers” as the company puts it. There is a whole site dedicated to this campaign, which includes the following video:

Vitamin Water is running an ad campaign where it is calling upon consumers to upload videos showing how they embody “Nash-ness” – as in Steve Nash-ness:

Robert Scoble shared a video where he sat down with TechCrunch Disrupt finalist Shaker, which he says will be “an important company in the social world”. What do you think?

This trailer for the film Connected has been making the rounds. It’s about how technology is changing us and “what it means to be connected in the 21st century”:

We broke this down a bit in another article, but Google’s Matt Cutts put out this video talking about why webmasters may see a decline in their PageRank, and what they can do about it in some cases:

Speaking of Google, their Johnny Cash Project campaign is also getting a lot of attention:

Original Article (03/29): Cisco announced its intent to acquire newScale, a “self-service, service catalog, and lifecycle management software” provider for cloud-based IT. The above video does a pretty good job of explaining what newScale is all about.

newScale claims to have over two million users globally, and counts companies like AT&T, American Express, Boeing, and Allstate among its customers. It fact, its customers come from a wide range of industries, including: automotive, chemicals, consumer goods, education, energy, financial, healthcare, insurance, IT outsourcing, manufacturing, oil/gas, pharmaceuticals, public sector, retail/hospitality, services, technology, telecommunications, and transportation.

“Cloud computing represents a major shift in the evolution of the Internet, and as more customers migrate from traditional IT infrastructures, the need for rapid self-provisioning and efficient management becomes increasingly critical,” said Parvesh Sethi, SVP of Cisco Services. “With the acquisition of newScale, Cisco will be able to accelerate the deployment of cloud services through a service catalog and self-service portal that allows customers to easily manage their IT infrastructures.”

Financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed. The acquisition is expected to be complete in the second half of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011. newScale’s team would report to Cisco’s Advanced Services organization.

A couple weeks ago, Cisco announced its first-ever cash dividend, with a quarterly dividend of $0.06 per common share to be paid on April 20, 2011, to all Cisco shareholders. “As the role of the network expands across the IT sector, Cisco’s leadership position in the markets we serve is strong, and the time is right for Cisco to pay our first-ever cash dividend,” said Frank Calderoni, Executive Vice President & CFO of Cisco. “This dividend complements our leading position, and is an important part of our commitment to bring value to shareholders.”

Also about two weeks ago, Cisco completed another acquisition – that of Inlet Technologies, a provider of Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) digital media processing platforms. That one was about $95 million.

Was HD recording smartphones the downfall of the Flip model? Tell us what you think.

If you’re unfamiliar with Flip video cameras, they are a tiny, stripped-down video recorders, about the size of a digital camera. Cisco acquired Pure Digital Technologies, makers of Flip, back in March of 2009 for $590 million in stock. Cisco has stated they plan to support current FlipShare customers and partners with a transition plan.

In the release, John Chambers, Cisco chairman and CEO, said “We are making key, targeted moves as we align operations in support of our network-centric platform strategy… as we move forward, our consumer efforts will focus on how we help our enterprise and service provider customers optimize and expand their offerings for consumers, and help ensure the network’s ability to deliver on those offerings.”

With most smartphones allowing you to stream and record in HD, directly from your phone, Flip video cameras became less and less useful as time went on.

As mentioned in another article about how businesses can utilize video as the TV industry is revolutionized by connected devices, WebProNews spoke with "Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business" author Steven Garfield about humanizing your brand with video. 

For example, you can use video to show people how you’re different from your competitors. You can show off your place of business, your team, etc. It just helps customers get to know you, and that can help create a positive reputation in their minds.  

We also spoke with Tim Washer, who  works on Cisco’s social media marketing. He shared some examples of how Cisco does this. One way is through humor. For example, Cisco once had a Valentine’s Day campaign about how an $80,000 router would make a great gift for your lover.

Obviously, they don’t expect to sell expensive routers as valentine’s gifts, but they do leave an impression with such an ad. People remember it. One issue with using humor, as he mentions, is that you need to keep getting funnier. Here’s the slideshow from a presentation Washer game on humor at the Summit:

Ims10 tim washer View more presentations from Tim Washer.

Humor isn’t the only way to get through to people, however, it might be easier than you think to humanize your brand through video, without using up too many resources. Washer mentioned a Cisco employee, who was going on a trip to Malaysia and India, and they sent a flip camera with her, which she used to make a little Travel show of her trip. She used the camera to take shots of different foods she was trying, different places she was going, etc. She also slipped some business in there. She talked about the business people she met with, the challenges they were facing, and what Cisco’s products could do to help. 

Cisco is a large company, but it takes very little resources to do something like this. With online video in more living rooms, it only adds to the incentive. 

Another interesting point Washer made, is that the cost of something like this is essentially the time of the people involved. This employee was taking the trip anyway. The only added cost (other than the camera, which you might already have anyway) is the time it takes to put something together. For something like this particular campaign (or show, if you will), that’s not too much. 

The benefits? Letting customers get to know you, and possibly like you. That’s worth a lot. 

He was responsible for over $20 billion of annual revenue and the company’s  Borderless Networks, DataCenter and Collaboration architectures. He managed over 12,500 employees for Cisco. 

He also served as General Manager of Cisco’s Service Provider Group, responsible for annual revenue of $10 billion. 

"Skype is not only a powerful global brand but also a global technology leader in Internet communications," said Bates. "There are extraordinary opportunities ahead for Skype and I am eager to lead the company through this exciting juncture in its continuing transformation. I look forward to working with Skype’s management team and talented employees to engineer the next wave of game-changing products and services for our users."

"We are thrilled to bring on Tony Bates as Skype’s new CEO," said Miles Flint, Chairman of Skype’s Board of Directors. "His record of achievement and significant operational and management expertise, cultivated over a distinguished tenure at one of the world’s preeminent technology companies, presents a unique opportunity for Skype that we are enthusiastic to embrace."

Outgoing CEO Josh Silverman said, "I am proud to have led Skype’s growth during this critical transition period. The company today has over 560 million registered users in nearly every country and continues to develop products and services our customers love to use. With a world-class communications industry veteran like Tony, Skype is well positioned to become the communications platform of choice for consumers and businesses around the world. I look forward to supporting Tony and the team in ensuring a smooth transition."

Bates will join Skype as CEO at the end of the month. In the meantime, Skype CFO Adrian Dillon will assume the responsibilities. 

ExtendMedia’s systems manage video content through monetization for pay media and ad-supported business models. Cisco says that with ExtendMedia, it will be able to help service providers deliver multi-screen offerings as the market transitions to IP video.

"As the video market transitions and consumers expect multi-screen engagement, service providers are enhancing their infrastructure to manage and deliver video to any device while providing a rich user experience," said Enrique Rodriguez, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group.  "ExtendMedia will strengthen Cisco’s position in the delivery of IP video services by enabling service providers to provide a more interactive and personal experience and to optimize quality for consumer viewing devices."

Though ExtendMedia is based in Massachusetts, the majority of its employee base is in Toronto. The majority of the team will be integrated into Cisco’s Service Provider Video Technology Group.

Financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed. It is expected to be complete in the first half of Cisco’s fiscal year 2011.

Today Cisco announced new customers, features, and professional service options for the Cisco Eos social entertainment platform. The company also announced that it is providing a medianet (a media-aware IP video network infrastructure) to NBC during the network’s coverage of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics Winter Games, February 12-28.

"Video is rapidly expanding from a lean-back experience confined to the living room, to a new breed of exciting video experiences available on any device or screen — anytime, anywhere," said Ned Hooper, chief strategy officer and senior vice president, Consumer Business at Cisco. "The network is the platform to make this happen, and as a result, we are enabling new experiences that allow consumers to easily capture and share their lives and connect with the people and content that matter most to them."

Cisco also announced today its data for Flip Video obtained during the 2009 holiday season, which highlights huge growth in video usage over the past year. The company says, "There were more than one million Flip Videos uploaded through FlipShare software in December 2009. These uploads represent three million minutes of Flip videos viewed, which is equivalent to more than six years of continuous video streaming, representing an increase of 395% from December the year before. In addition, there were 42,000 gigabytes of video streamed in December, up from 525% the year prior, indicating an increase in HD video usage."

Cisco says it will be sharing its vision and progress towards developing an "entirely new category" of video communication called “home telepresence”, while at CES. This uses consumers’ existing HDTV and broadband connection to deliver a unique natural video communication experience from the living room, according to the company.

"With Cisco’s best-in-class telepresence technology and networks such as Verizon’s advanced, all-fiber-optic network, we believe we will deliver a video communication experience to consumers unlike anything they’ve seen before," said Marthin DeBeer, senior vice president and general manager for Cisco’s Emerging Technologies group. "Home telepresence will make a difference in consumers’ lives by allowing them to enjoy natural video communications with family and friends wherever they are located. To ensure that early home telepresence users will have plenty of friends and family to communicate with, in addition to calling other home telepresence users, they will be able to place calls to PCs using a webcam and video chat service."

More details about Cisco’s announcements can be found here and here.

Watch for more WebProNews coverage of CES, with exclusive video interviews coming soon.

Related Articles:

> CES About to Kick Off the Year in Technology

> The Truth About CES

> Looking Back on CES

Original Article: Cisco announced today that it is acquiring Starent Networks for $35 per share in cash, bringing the total to about $2.9 billion. Starent Networks is a supplier of IP-based mobile infrastructure solutions.

"Cisco and Starent Networks share a common vision and bring complementary technologies designed to accelerate the transition to the Mobile Internet, where the network is the platform for Service Providers to launch, deliver and monetize the next generation of mobile multimedia applications and services," said Pankaj Patel, Senior Vice President/General Manager of Cisco’s Service Provider Business.

"We are very pleased that Starent Networks will be joining the Cisco team, and we believe their products and engineering talent will greatly benefit our Service Provider customers as they build out their Mobile Internet offerings," said John Chambers, Chairman and CEO of Cisco.

"Combining Cisco’s strength in Video and IP with Starent Networks’ leading mobile infrastructure solutions, creates a compelling portfolio of products that provides an integrated architecture to offer rich, quality multimedia experiences to mobile subscribers on 3G and 4G networks," said Starent Networks President and CEO Ashraf Dahod.

The acquisition has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies. It is expected to close during the first half of 2010. The close date is subject to regulatory reviews.

Until the deal closes, the two companies will continue to operate separately. After it closes, Starent Networks will become the new Mobile Internet Technology Group, led by Dahod, within Cisco’s Service Provider Business , led by Patel.

Recent research from Nielsen shows that in May, unique visitors, total streams, streams per viewer, and time per viewer were all up compared to the same month in 2008. There was a 49% increase in time per viewer.

According to Nielsen, YouTube was way on top in video streams (with over 6 billion during the month) and unique viewers (95 million). Behind YouTube were Hulu, Yahoo, Fox Interactive Media, and ABC.com.

That was the past. What About the Future?

Cisco recently shared some interesting predictions (via Ben Worthen at the WSJ) of its own looking at the future of online video. Stats from this research include:

- Internet traffic will increase fivefold over the next five years, driven in large part by a jump in the amount of video transmitted

- Over 90% of traffic will come from video (including TV, video on demand, or file sharing)

- Video chat will increase tenfold between 2008 and 2013

- the amount of data flowing to mobile devices will double each year, increasing 66 times by 2013, with video being the fastest growing category.

Another reason why online video will likely continue to grow in a big way is that HTML 5 is continuing its path toward wide acceptance. Ryan Paul at Ars Technica has a fascinating piece on what this will mean for online video and rich media.

"A growing number of prominent companies that deliver content and services on the Web are putting their weight behind HTML 5 and touting it as the way forward for building interactive Web applications and deploying rich media in the browser," he says. "Video is one of the most significant areas where this trend will have a major impact. "

"For content providers like YouTube and DailyMotion, the HTML 5 video element offers numerous advantages," he explains. "It integrates seamlessly with conventional HTML content and can be manipulated with JavaScript and CSS. This enables Web developers to build video player interfaces that are more consistent with the rest of their website. The ability to control playback with JavaScript allows video to be a more native part of the user experience in interactive Web applications."

There’s no doubt that there are big things on the horizon for online video as a medium. Just how quickly it has grown thus far may be a little overstated though. Christophor Rick of video marketing firm ReelSEO talks about a study from Trendstream that calls online video the fastest-growing media platform in the history of media. That might be going a little overboard.

"Now they say that online video has only been around for three years (or maybe Mediapost said that) but I beg to differ," says Rick. "Online video was pioneered by the pornography industry way before YouTube showed up (which was 2005). Sure, many might not want to admit it but honestly, porn drove internet technology innovation for a long time. So that means the numbers seem to be slightly skewed."

"The heart of the matter is this – online video is rapidly expanding," he says. "Since its initial inception maybe a decade or more ago it has obviously become the media du jour online….So is video the wave of the future for online entertainment? Well, isn’t it the current wave we’re all riding already? Will that stop? No, probably not. Will it grow? Yes, without a doubt. Will more people upload, watch, share, create, comment on, Twitter, or otherwise talk about online video? Absolutely."

I think Rick’s conclusion is the main take away from all of this. You can probably fit online video into your budget whether you realize it or not. You can use video to improve your ranking and conversions, and as long as YouTube is top dog in the industry (not to mention the 2nd largest search engine), there are plenty of ways to use it to help your online business.