The Business And Technology Network

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Both Silicon Alley Insider and Mashable are reporting that Google is in talks to buy Web video provider Brightcove for $500 million to $700 million. If true,  The move would make Google’s YouTube, the top consumer Web video site, a powerful player in the commercial Web video industry as well. Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire says that the company is profitable and cash flow positive. Analyst estimates put Brightcove on pace to do $80 million in sales this year—which would put this deal around 6-9X revenue.

To date, Brightcove has raised approximately $91 million in venture capital. For those unfamiliar with the service, Brightcove is essentially the YouTube of business to business video, powering video streaming on large sites like AOL, The New York Times and The Washington Post. And if completed, such a deal would give Google significantly more reach in online video. (more…)

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Yahoo recently notified Yahoo Publisher partners (third party sites that display Yahoo cost per click ads) that they should expect to see new “pricing adjustments” which will be based on the quality of traffic coming from their sites.

TechCrunch reports that Yahoo (and its competitors) regularly make adjustments to CPC payments doled out to publishers based on the perceived “quality of traffic.” Supposedly these payments are credited to advertisers, but there is really no way to know. And the changes Yahoo has implemented appear to make more dramatic adjustments to outbound payments. (more…)

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Adobe Systems Inc. is adding a new digital rights management (DRM) component to its Flash video technology that will allow users to download and watch content in-browser even when not connected to the Internet.

The new DRM scheme will be supported by an upcoming version of the Adobe Flash player, and will enable Adobe to support a wider variety of business models, including electronic sell-through, rental, and on-demand for streaming or for download.

While Flash is popularly used to stream video, more high quality, long-form content is going to be increasingly downloaded more and content owners want more protection. Adobe Flash Access 2.0, which is a rebranded version of the company’s Flash Media Rights Management Server, will allow content owners to encrypt and deliver videos content to the browser, something that existing Flash DRM doesn’t support. The new DRM technology is expected to be launched in the first half of 2010. (more…)