We’ve dropped a note into Pulver’s Twitter account asking for confirmation on what would be disappointing, but perhaps not unexpected, news about his company. Pulver’s travel schedule has him heading to Atlanta and Boston in the coming week.

If the rumor cited at GigaOM proves correct, a withdrawal of funding by a backer caused the situation. Says Om Malik:

According to my sources, earlier this month when the Pulver Media executives were in San Jose, Calif. For the Spring VON, their investors, TICC Capital Group pulled the rug from under Pulver Media, and shut down the company. They also seized control of the bank accounts. As a result many folks saw their checks bounced.

TICC Capital also lamented the financial performance of Pulver Media in an SEC filing earlier in March. “Pulvermedia indicated that it was projecting a sudden and dramatic decline in projected revenues and earnings for the coming year,” the filing said.

We have not heard back from Pulver as of press time.

“The way it was”: when confirming a friendship, users would be asked how they knew the person – from school, work, etc. – but were also given the option of moving on without checking any box.  It was when the “skip this step” button disappeared that Facebook’s problems began.

“[I]f Google was the Database of Intentions and Facebook is the Database of Connections, then Facebook’s value is maximized if Facebook knows the nature of every single relationship within its database,” reasoned Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.

But lots of people, including Fred Wilson, Pete Cashmore, Chuq von Rospach, and Ouriel Ohayon didn’t much care about Facebook’s value.  “This combined with the facebook spam that’s taking over my email inbox is getting me damn close to leaving the service entirely,” wrote Wilson.

In Mashable’s “Comments” section, Blake Ross (who joined Facebook during the Parakey acquisition) put matters into a slightly different light.  “This is a bug that will be fixed soon,” he assured readers.  “Trust me, we find this as annoying as you do ”

And now the problem is indeed resolved, and yet another Facebook uprising appears to have been quelled.  Whew.

I don’t take advertising here, well, except if you count my Amazon link and my occassional mentioning of Seagate, which sponsors my video show.

Anyway, there’s a cost to advertising in clutter, in extra bits that the infrastructure needs to push out, and in reduced quality of experiences for users.

And, it’s a smart piece of business on the part of Craig’s List to try to be different. You get audiences that way. There’s other ways to make money from audiences than just putting a few ads on your site.

I’m very loyal to Craig’s List, cause he got me my job at NEC, which led to getting a job at Microsoft.

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Robert Scoble is the founder of the Scobleizer blog. He works as PodTech.net’s Vice President of Media Development.

Go to Scobleizer …

WebProNews will have its own representatives there – Mike McDonald and Chris Richardson, along with the WebProNews video team, plan to cover (and participate in) the festivities.

Mike and Chris may well end up rubbing elbows with keynote speakers Danny Sullivan, John Battelle, and Jon S. von Tetzchner. Brett Tabke, the CEO of WebMasterWorld, should also be present – he founded that forum, as well as PubCon.

Tabke spoke to WebProNews contributor Lee Odden, and commented on the positive effects of the event. It’s nice to see it "serve the community," he said, and good to watch "these people that have little in common culturally work past the differences and do good business and build friendships in the process."

According to the PubCon site, this year’s conference will continue to spread goodwill and good business practices. Amidst proclamations of "Everyone Loves Vegas Baby!" it says that the "conference is jam packed with leading-edge sessions and one-of-a-kind presentations. Looking at the current speaker list (which includes about 122 names), that’s easy to believe.

Andy Beal, who’s on that list, spoke to WebProNews writer David Utter just the other day. PubCon Las Vegas has some prominent "Gold Signature Sponsors," as well, including Yahoo, Google, Opera, Ask, and Text Link Ads; Microsoft was noticeably absent.

PubCon Las Vegas 2006 looks like it will be an extremely successful event – "full of energy and excitement" – and we’ll bring you updates as they occur.

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Doug is a staff writer for WebProNews.

Live (sort of) from the Video on the Net conference, our publisher Rich Ord delivered notes on the session titled “Venture Capital: Leadership for Future” (no, I don’t know where the “the” is, just think of it like the missing “a” everyone wants to insert into Strother Martin’s quote from Cool Hand Luke.

One of the most notable names in online video, the popular sharing site YouTube, has been heard in conversations throughout the Fall 2006 VON conference halls. From their high traffic volume to even higher bandwidth bills, the site has been a magnet for discussions of the business potential for video on the net.

Video makes greater demands of a business than other forms of digital media. The text in this article occupied a teeny-tiny bit of bandwidth. If you were so unfortunate as to have to see my face in a 60-second video report, my publisher would pay much more for the bandwidth to provide that to you.

(Jason Lee Miller talks costs in his article about another VON session; naturally he didn’t see fit to include my suggestion about micropayments as a digital media revenue option; boo Jake! – David)

Even the coolest startups in the world have to pay something for their Internet connectivity. An investment of capital, if it can be obtained from outside the company, can be the difference between 10 people seeing a great idea take shape, and a million.

That’s where the venture capital community comes in, and where an online video startup may turn for seed funding.

David Weiden, Partner, Khosla Ventures, offered a cautionary warning. While he sees some companies doing well in the short term, “There is a definite bubble with many web video businesses,” he said. “There are some businesses being built that I’m not sure could be stand alone businesses.”

For those who are receiving money, many need further rounds of funding beyond that initial seeding. George Bell, Special Venture Partner, General Catalyst Partners, said, “There is more money chasing deals right now… so B and C deals are getting funded. This is not necessarily a good thing.”

“It is also more difficult to get an IPO done,” he noted, since companies need more of a stable history and track record for one. “This means it is harder for investors to get a good exit,” said Bell.

There’s no reason to despair. Weiden looks at plans he receives by email. “It is not that hard to get in to see us,” he said, to which Bell quipped, “If David looks at it it makes me more interested!”

When it comes to those plans, the VCs want to see something with home run potential. The company has to grow sufficiently so they are large enough to distribute to a variety of investors, according to Bell.

So why so much interest in web video, then, one person at the session asked. Weiden said, “When I think of video on the net more broadly…I think of companies like Spot Runner. It’s not over a 1 or 2 year period but where is that company going to be in 10 years.”

There could even be a time when citizen journalists can get in on the venture capital action. They would need a good business plan, and Weiden said he wouldn’t be surprised if some type of grass roots company came along this way.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

WebProNews publisher Rich Ord attended the “Innovative Video for the Internet” session at VON and sent back his notes. This is what became of them.

Television is based on formulas to reach a broad audience – lowest common denominators serve as the foundation; highest paying sponsors provide the free content to the highest number of viewers possible – simple, brilliant, and it works for TV.

Formulas are why there are 317 CSIs and a new incarnation of the New Kids On The Block every 5 years or so. The TV industry has had 60 years to figure it out and pull it down to a nearly perfect science.

But since October 12, 2005, as Advanced Media Ventures Group’s Shelly Palmer pointed out, the video on the Net industry has changed. That’s the day video came to the iPod. The year 2005 may also have been the first time you ever heard of YouTube. And with both of them came the death of the old formula, and the TV industry is trying desperately to find a new one.

And they’re doing it backwards.

Big media is focusing on how to bring their content online, like a new millennium version of a broadcast. But, television is courting its own replacement.

The replacement is fragmented, distracted, impatient, greedy, distempered, and unlimited. How do you formulize that?

“Fragmentation has always been the enemy of broadcast. But we have people that want what they want,” said Palmer.

“I think it is about using television to push people to the Web,” said Michael Hirschorn, Executive VP, Original Programming and Production, VH1.

That’s right for now. But what happens when the Web becomes TV? What will happen then? VH1 has been actively creating podcasts and is quite ahead of the game with their show “Web Junk,” where the most popular user-generated videos are reviewed weekly.

“Our sponsors are begging for ideas that are multi-platform,” he said.

But he admits they’ve tried to distance themselves by making fun of user-generated content. The concept of unpolished, amateur raw footage in short doses is as foreign as reality TV was when “The Real World” was such an unexpected hit.

The thinking then was, it takes actors to make good characters. The thinking now is that it takes expensive productions to make good content. But the next generation of couch potatoes is telling them otherwise. Keep it short. Keep it stupid. Entertain me for free without bugging me about who paid for it – just make sure it’s still paid for.

“Let’s not be politically correct about user generated content. Lets call it useless crap!” complained Palmer.

Useless because it can’t be controlled. Useless because if they want bad quality, they can give it to themselves. Useless because advertisers want attention too. But here they are, media sellers, who are telling advertisers that 30 seconds is just too long.

“I think 30′s are dead in broadband video,” said Sandy Malcolm, executive producer for CNN.com video. “We are telling our advertisers not to shove a 30 second spot on web video viewers.”

So now what? Back to subliminals?

“One of the things we’ve done well with on TV is to celebrate the trashiest and messed up stuff,” said Hirschorn.

Because it worked for Jerry Springer, too. They’re saying bad is the new good, but wasn’t good bad all along? Never mind, that’s too subjective. They mean poor quality video, poor acting, poor monetizing.

The session at VON devolved into a pile of questions with no clear answers (much like this article).

Wouldn’t GM rather have 100,00 leads than 5 million viewers?

Surebut brand awareness is good too.

Maybe we could build a community and build a brand around it?

Sure, as long as you have good content.

My least favorite overused phrase is ‘content is king’. That is only true if you are producing the Super Bowl.

Yeah, but, this isn’t broadcasting. This is more flies-to-honey than fishing. Search engine marketers get that.

How did the online video game World Survivor get 7 million subscribers paying $14 per month?

Content.

Maybe brand builds the Internet rather than the Internet builds the brand. Star Trek fan sites are better than the official site.

That’s because it focuses on content. It’s pure.

People seem to have an appetite for raw footage.

That’s because it’s real. They’re tired of being tricked.

An audience member revisits the 30-second spot question:

Is a 10-second spot too long as well? I don’t want to leave here without knowing how long is too long.

“The people who need to tell you that are your Web video viewers. They will tell you what they’ll tolerate and won’t tolerate. None of us can speculate, and it will be different for different brands.”

In other words, we’re still figuring out the formula.

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“You don’t need to go out and get venture capital,” said Baron. “It is so cheap to produce. You should really focus on building a big audience. Then, later, you can sell advertising and sponsorships.”

Baron does his own ad sales for Rocketboom, which garners up to 350,000 page views per day. A short while ago, the show’s host, Amanda Congdon shocked him and everyone else by leaving abruptly – from the anchor chair.

Rocketboom 2.0 came back online with former MTV host Joanne Colan. Baron said page views dropped a bit at first, but have since returned to previous levels.

Baron attributes the success of Rocketboom to a blend of entertainment and information (as the media academics call it, “infotainment”), but also there was a third factor, he says: interactivity.

“If you can combine those two and add a third component via an online collaborative audience – getting people involved – this can be very powerful. We report like a blog, in a snarky way, and people leave comments immediately.”

About 25 percent of Rocketboom’s content comes from audience suggestion and participation. “As a result of Web 2.0there’s no one controlling content anymore,” said Baron.

The panel, which also included Alex Clive of WorldTV.com, enumerated the ways to promote your vlog, which for the most part match how you would promote any media content on the Net. Clive said his company focused on traditional SEO and AdWords.

Baron is a believer in the power of link building and social networking. “I always say ‘target bloggers,’” he said. “Make them your first niche with Web video. Focusing on top-level bloggers will lead to many bloggers linking and discussing your content.”

Speaking of content, Clive reiterates the Truth of the SEO Ages: content is king – and provides the quote writers everywhere will scribble down and remember.

“Writing is underrated. We have flashy websites, but often a really good writer who can engage is more important.”

Cheers to that.

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WebProNews publisher Rich Ord sends word from VON 2006 in Boston after sitting in on a panel discussion labeled, “Is Video Peer to Peer a Money Making Proposition?”

Sitting on the panel was Patrick Norton, executive producer for Ziff Davis Media; Michael Weiss, CEO of StreamCast Networks; Roger Zimmerman, research assistant professor at the University of Southern California; and Bram Cohen, CEO and co-founder of BitTorrent.

The panel agreed that with video on the Net, bandwidth was the key issue, especially in regard to high definition video. Utilization of p2p may be a solution, but there still remains the question of how to monetize it.

Weiss mentioned YouTube’s colossal bandwidth bills before, like someone with new windows brags about their heating bill, noted that p2p dropped the costs of bandwidth at StreamCast to just $7,000 per month.

“For a $15 movie, the cost of downloading is only a buck or two,” added Cohen. “However, for the retailer that is pretty much your profit being blown away. For lower cost content like TV shows that sell for a lower price, it is only possible to deliver via peer to peer from a cost standpoint.”

Great, p2p is much cheaper. Now, how do we monetize it?

“Pay per download is not the key question,” noted Ted Dunning, an audience member. “The key question is: can advertising support video?”

“There are quite a few companies making money off of advertising,” replied Cohen, later. “One you may have heard of is Google, and there are others.”

Yes, in fact they seem to be springing up all over. Last month, a new company called Skyrider, headed up by some guys with an impressive background, announced acquiring funding to start up their p2p platform. Skyrider will focus on search marketing as users search for video content.

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WebProNews publisher Rich Ord sat in on the User Created Content session at VON. Speakers included Julius Genachowski of Rock Creek Ventures and General Atlantic; Mike Hudack, CEO of Blip.tv; Chris O’Brien, CEO of Motionbox; Dmitry Shapiro, CEO of Veoh; Rex Wong, CEO of Dave.tv; and Mary Hodder, CEO of Dabble.

Dmitry Shapiro has a dream. He wants to watch a reality show starring a sound engineer and all “his gear,” in which the sound engineer shows him all kinds of new “gear.” He would like to see this show on his TV tonight for ten hours.

“Did I mention I am a strange guy?” he asked. And that was the point. People have strange tastes and not everything packaged up nicely on cable TV is to the taste of everyone. For guys like Dmitry, there needs to be the Sound Guy Channel. For guys like me, there needs to be the Pens, Ghosts, and Stuff-I-Can’t-Afford Channel.

“You can’t program to strange people,” said Shapiro.

But when the audience becomes a network of producers, and strange people make up a part of that network, the cheap, easy-to-produce videos appear. All we need now, is a way to organize it all and pipe it through to the TV, viewable in a way that TV is viewed already.

Enter something like Veoh, which Shapiro calls “a new type of television broadcasting” using a peer-to-peer delivery method. The p2p platform allows broadcasters to use newly defined “spectrums” to deliver content. This is what happens “after YouTube,” says Shapiro. You want Sound Guy in the living room? You got him.

Blip.tv’s Mike Hudack mentioned “Brian,” who uploads video from downtown Baghdad to Blip.tv. “He has now developed a show via Blip.tv that is amazing. Brian shouldn’t have to worry about hosting, advertising and distribution.” That’s Hudack’s job.

Hudack plugged a deal with Akimbo that will allow content on the site to be available on regular TVs. “We are also encouraging people like Brian to make their content – especially his B-roll footage – available with an open license so that others can utilize this footage as well.”

Of course all this means that Web-to-TV broadcasts, which lay about on the Web all disorganized like, will need to be aggregated and pulled together. Mary Hodder adds Dabble to the mix for exactly that reason. “Media is really hard to search,” she said, “especially user-generated video.”

Soon, people will be complaining about TV choice overload rather than “there’s nothing on TV.” And your favorite TV celebrity could be the low-pantsed plumber next door.

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Delivering Web Video The Rocketboom Way

Our men on the scene, Rich Ord and Mike McDonald, continue to feed us reports from the conference. These notes come from Baron’s industry perspective chat on The Implications for Media in a Global Internet Culture to attendees, which we’ve excerpted for presentation here.

VON organizer Jeff Pulver welcomed Baron to the conference, and effused on how much he enjoyed being around “a bunch of people who really get it. I want to thank all of you for making this really cool.”

Baron thanked Pulver for his welcome and opened his talk. (Readers: please note this is a raw cross-section of Baron’s talk; we’re giving it to you this way to give you a feel for the impression he makes. Any perceived deficiencies in the flow or content are the fault of your humble scribes, not Andrew. – David)

Quickly, Rocketboom is a 3 minute blog style program where Joanne … our host … does quirky stories. One of the things that made Rocketboom so popular (about 350000 views a day)… is because we were one of the first adopters. I took an approach that I didn’t have fear of people grabbing RocketBoom and redistributing it.

By letting this go these people are becoming aware of Rocketboom as a brand. I feel that people online are inclined to come to us at the home page if they liked the content. We don’t allow commercial use without something worked out, but for any other reason I have no problem with that. Essentially, Rocketboom is like a big catcher’s mitt. We don’t do press releases or PR.

I found that if people want it over here I think we should make Rocketboom available …. So, we have an obnoxious number of file types.

Another thing I noticed is that the mainstream media does a good job with mainstream entertainment. Then there is the other side, and that is more about information. The qualify of production and effort for those kinds of programs is somewhat incidental.

So I thought ‘why not put entertainment and information together?’

Another element of a successful web video site is the sense of belonging. At least 25 percent of the content comes from viewers. We also have barely filtered comments off of every video cast. If you are watching a video on your iPod or on TV you can’t comment.

If you noticed we kind of have a Google aesthetic to the site…. websites are like your house or office…. it is a space where you want people to feel comfortable to watch your content.

Over the next year I will probably become a real proponent for wikis. This allows my audience to come in and really belong, really take ownership of the site. So far we only have 24 articles in the wiki I just set up. I showed which camera I used, and what happened is that the audience came into my wiki and corrected spelling and formatting and sort of cleaned it up.

We recently posting a question in the wiki; one was ‘where were you on September 11, 2001?’ It was fascinating to watch and see how people are reacting to it.

Imagine you come onto someone’s website, suppose you are a fan of the show… oh here’s Steve Garfield in my wiki…. it is interesting that the audience can come in and mess with this …. the audience feels like it belongs. That’s really powerful and important.

Now lets jump into monetizing web video. I have a sense that monetization is what people are interested in …

So far over the last 2 years because we all know that the level of entry is so low, you don’t need to raise money or even have money, but what you need is time. So then, where am I going to make my money?

I say set that aside and focus on building your audience. If I have 200,000 people or 400,000 people viewing, anyone on Wall Street will say that there is value there.

We charge $60,000 for a weeks worth of ads. We aren’t yet selling many ads because I am selling them myself at this point. I’m good at making the sale but I don’t have any feeling for it. I’m sorry but that’s me.

We like to create ads for our advertisers because I feel I know our audience best, and I know what works and what doesn’t work.

Our advertisements increase in value over time. As an example we used a Guinness commercial at the end of a segment on a brewery called Brooklyn Beer. Now here it is a year later, and because Rocketboom has a good link value on Google, there are over 6 million links in. It is more likely if someone is searching for a brewery in this area Rocketboom will come up. I see this as value for the advertiser.

We have a larger audience than many TV shows.

Another way to monetize your content is a premium subscription. For the hardcore fans, we will give you extra content and our newsletter, and ask them to pay $3.50 a month. For 10,000 people that is $35,000 per month.

Another method of monetizing is merchandising. At CollegeHumor.com these guy were making $400,000 per month. It’s crazy. At Rocketboom we are lousy at this, but still make $3,000-$4,000 per month from our one T-shirt.

Later I may plug in other shows to my huge catcher’s mitt of Rocketboom.

Blogging is so important to Rocketboom. How does blogging translate to video blogging? The answer is making the videos compelling and interesting. If you can find bloggers with a lot of authority to talk about you, that prompts the thousands of other bloggers to comment and take action.

Then journalists who feel threatened by bloggers notice what bloggers are saying; their big megaphone talks about you.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.