The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) was last week and we saw a number of new products and services that companies launched that use and promote online video and a few exciting .tv’s.

Flingo.tv

As covered by GigaOM, two .tv’s that showed new products are Flingo and Simple.tv.

Flingo, headquartered in San Francisco, launched in late 2008 as a way for sending online video to internet-connected TVs (including sets from LG, Samsung and Vizio). They launched a new product at CES, called SyncApps, which they claim allows users to share easily on Facebook and Twitter, while allowing social content from broadcasters, like polls and updates, to be sent to the user’s TV screen. There have announced a number of really exciting features, including an API that enables developers to create application that use SyncApps to hook into their system. This looks like the next phase of social television and we can’t wait to see where this goes.

Another .tv that emerged from CES is Simple.tv, a set-top device that lets you stream live and recorded TV content to supported mobile devices – including the iPad.  Simple.tv announced availability for Spring 2012 and are taking reservations for their device on their website. Simple.tv also announced a premium subscription package will be available  that will include an enhanced program guide, automatic recording and streaming to a set number of connected devices.

Simple.tv

These are pretty exciting uses of technology for online video – it looks like the future is really here!

We’re also looking forward to exploring great new features that are being implemented in cameras – like Wi-Fi and 3D – that will help take online video up to the next level.

One of the big events of this year’s CES was the International Academy of Web Television Awards. This is an organization that promotes and celebrates online video and the amazing creators behind them. The awards were given out on January 12^th and you can watch the stream of the ceremony here.  We were really excited to see one of our advocates, Brad Powell’s webshow, DadLabs, win Best Educational Web Series – Congratulations Brad!

Once again, the Consumer Electronics Show was an exciting kick-off to the year and we’re looking forward to seeing all of these products in use during 2012!

Twitch.tv website

We’ve written about Twitch.tv before and have followed it’s progress since it’s spin off from Justin.tv in June 2011. Twitch.tv is a site for video gamers to watch, broadcast and chat about their gameplay, a great site to discover new games and personalities to follow.

The site has been growing at an incredible rate – 11% month over month since their launch – and announced in December that Twitch.tv is now engaging more than 12 million unique visitors a month. They also launched an iPhone application, which had over 80,000 downloads in the first month.

Twitch.tv has a premium partner program that includes the Electronic Sports League, Major League Gaming and the IGN Pro League, and is now more than 1000 members strong.

There is an incredible amount of momentum going into 2012 around Twitch.tv and the gaming space – what we see is that this is an incredibly connected and vibrant community that’s passionate about video gaming and online video.

This is the time of year for many of us to make, and to hopefully not break, our New Year’s resolutions. We hope your 2012 resolutions include shooting a ton of great video and showcasing it on the web.

Happy New Year!

We had an amazing time at BlogWorld and New Media Expo LA – we met a lot of wonderful people who are using video to make great things. Our studio was really busy and we were incredibly fortunate that a lot of the BWELA speakers and personalities stopped by the booth to be interviewed. One of these people was podcaster, author and speaker Mitch Joel of Twist Image.

In this video, .tv Advocate C.C. Chapman and Mitch talk about the evaluation of client video content strategy and the importance of making great online video.

Thanks Mitch for such a great interview! Is video in your company’s content strategy for 2012?  Send us a tweet or comment here, on our Facebook page or YouTube channel.

* Disclosure: C.C. is a compensated member of the .tv Advocate Program, http://cmp.ly/3/vakqdV

In the next couple of days we’re going to be posting a number of our great interviews from the last year. This one was done at BlogWorld and New Media Expo in LA this last November – our .tv Advocate Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff talks with Scott Parent from eBay about how the company is using video today and how eBay was the first social network.

Thanks Scott! How are you planning to use video in 2012? Let us know what – send us a tweet, comment here, on our Facebook page or on our YouTube channel.

Stay Tuned!

* Disclosure: Mark is a compensated member of the .tv Advocate Program,  http://CMP.LY/3/zNxf55