The video blog, Wallstrip, which describes itself as “stock culture meets pop culture”, has been acquired by CBS. The price is unknown, but CBS has denied it’s 5 million dollars as was first reported by the gossip blog, Jossip. At the time is was suggested that the main attraction for CBS was securing the services of the shows dynamic host, Lindsay Campbell, who was to become the new face for the studios online video initiatives.

That’s not the case says NewTeeVee. The deal is just as much about the talent behind the camera:

Wallstrip creator Howard Lindzon said CBS bought the show in part because of its “web 2.0” attitude towards widely syndicating and distributing its video… “Quincy wants to be everywhere,” he said, meaning Quincy Smith, CBS’ dealmaker and the initiator of the Wallstrip purchase. The team will be part of CBSNews.com, helping out with its video projects.

In other words, the deal should be viewed as an acquisition of a production company, rather than a single show. CBS clearly hopes to leverage what the Wallstrip team have learnt from their online video experiments, as well as harness the team’s ability to put out very cost effective content, with a distribution model that embraces the distributed nature of the net.

On a personal note, I count myself as a fan of the show. I’m not really all that interested in the stock market, but Wallstrip does a good job of explaining the cultural phenomena behind market success stories (and in an entertaining way), such as how Apple positions itself as a lifestyle company, and why people go crazy over Nike.

Congrats Wallstrip!

(If you’re new to the show, check out the announcement episode.)

The Pirate Bay, best known for illegal music, video, and software downloads via BiTtorrent, is set to launch its own video streaming site.

A cryptic message posted on the Bay’s official blog states:

…it’s in the works being done right now and as usual we put a bit of Pirate Bay mentality behind every project we do.

Torrent Freak interprets this as meaning that the site will be similar to YouTube but without compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

…it’s exactly that “Pirate Bay mentality” that, in our opinion, is going to make this site a winner. Think YouTube without Google constantly pulling down copyrighted videos.

It’s hard to imagine how a lawless ‘YouTube’ could survive in a world where IP laws are increasingly harmonized across borders, and countries have an incentive to comply with the World Trade Organization. But then again, The Pirate Bay has a pretty good track record of evading US lawyers.

This post was originally published on Read/WriteWeb on May 15th, 2007.

A new study from Forrester Research predicts that online video download services will see sales peak this year, as consumers move other sources of online video. Read/WriteWeb recently reported that CBS is increasingly releasing content for free or via ad-supported mediums such as, Joost. Further, consumers are confronted with a growing number of video-on-demand options from their cable or satellite providers and Internet services.

Though sales of television and film downloads via services like iTunes and Amazon Unbox will nearly triple this year, according to the report, it is unlikely that such services will see much growth in 2008 and beyond unless the market shifts dramatically.

This post was originally published on Read/WriteWeb on May 14th, 2007.

Last May CBS launched Innertube, an online video site that would allow the network’s viewers to watch popular television shows like “CSI” and “Survivor” online for free, as well as bonus content and original mini shows. The site, which was ad supported and used RealPlayer, was ill-conceived from the start since it was put to head-to-head with arguably more attractive offers from CBS (99-cent commercial free downloads of Survivor, and free, sans-commercials on-demand content for Comcast cable subscribers). Eventually CBS also offered content for download on iTunes and clips via YouTube, leaving Innertube in the dust.

But now, CBS has decided that forcing users to come to them just doesn’t work, reports the Wall Street Journal. Beginning this month CBS will start to distribute their popular content over ten different online destinations, including AOL and Joost [Ed. see our Joost review], as part of a new initiative called the CBS Interactive Audience Network. The company is also reportedly working on deals with web 2.0 sites like Facebook, Last.fm — which recently announced it was adding video, and Slide to distribute their video content over social networks.