Mark Glaser's Tweet from earlier today about Google being in talks to acquire Brightcove made its way around the web in record time thanks to Twitter. While some might say that shows the power of Twitter, which it does, that's not a good thing. Within two hours of the Tweet, more than a dozen major websites and blogs were talking about the report, all based on a 102 character sentence.

While I'm not taking aim at Mark, I don't know who his source was or what was discussed, I think this is a great example of where Twitter is dangerous. If this kind of news first came out on a blog, people would expect some analysis of the story, would expect to read the authors take on what it means and the blog would give the author enough room to give their take on the news. But with Twitter, how much can someone really explain something in 140 characters? As Mark pointed out in a follow-up Tweet, he never said Google "acquired" Brightcove, he said his source told him they were in discussions. Something that probably would have come across a lot stronger if it was a blog post, as opposed to a one sentence comment on Twitter. That said, he should not be so surprised with the amount of coverage his Tweet got as Google and Brightcove are two companies that are well respected powerhouses in their individual industries.

But the bottom line here is that Twitter is a dangerous outlet to use for reporting news that may or may not be true. Blogs provide a lot better platform for being able to give your take on something and personally, I think too many people are becoming way too comfortable with Twitter and using it thinking it replaces a blog post. You can't explain anything on Twitter, which is why any Tweet that actually needs to talk about something useful, provides a link to it on a blog or website.

For more reasons why I'm not a fan of Twitter, see my post from last month, Twitter's Down Again, I Wish It Would Stay Down For Good.

I received a call from one of the parties involved in the Google/Brightcove rumor who would not talk on record but confirmed with me that the rumor that Google is buying Brightcove is in fact false. I won't say which side, Google or Brightcove the employee is from, but it's someone I trust.

Just goes to show you how much people love rumors with all the coverage this got. While I don't know who Mark Glaser's contact was that told him of the rumor, and don't plan to ask him since he won't be able to say anyway, it's given Brightcove and Google a lot of PR today.

PBS MediaShift editor Mark Glaser says on his Twitter page that Google is in talks to buy Brightcove for $500-$700 million. If the deal were to take place it would be a smart move on Google's part and would finally give them a way to generate immediate revenue from video content, although it might not be as much revenue as some may think since a large chunk of Brightcove's revenue comes from reselling Limelight's delivery services, by my estimates, maybe as much as 25%. Also, charging a monthly fee for the Brightcove platform or for delivering content would be a completely new business model for Google, since to date, their platforms like YouTube have always been free.

If this deal went through, what does that mean Google thinks of their YouTube ecosystem? Why buy Brightcove if you already have a way to ingest, transcode, manage, store, track and deliver content? While Brightcove has a really nice roster of top name clients, is Google willing to spend half a billion dollars just to get a customer list? Maybe, but that seems like a lot to pay for just customers.

While I see the upside for Goggle and how Brightcove would enable them to get into the door with top name content owners outside of the media and entertainment vertical, I don't see the value to content owners in a Google/Brightcove combination. I already feel like Google is trying to control too much of the video market, yet still does not have a very clear strategy of who they are and what they want to become with YouTube. Acquiring Brightcove would mean content owners would now need to deal with Google and one of the reasons many of them are with Brightcove now is the fact they don't want to deal with the company behind YouTube or have their content on YouTube. A Google/Brightcove deal would not mean customers content would automatically show up on YouTube, but the kind of customers Brightcove has want to deal with a company that understands more than just video platforms.

Not to mention, how would this affect customers who stream content today via Brightcove? Google's network does not support streaming protocols and I don't see Google setting up their network to stream content in the Microsoft format. Today, most of Brightcove's customers use Limelight for delivery or use their own CDN in combination with Brightcove. Unless Google were to continue to use a third party CDN for video delivery, something they have not done in the past in any volume, I don't see how a deal like this works. I can tell you this though. If this deal does go through, look for a lot of Brightcove's competitors to pick up a large chunk of their business that would not stay at Google.

I could completely see Google doing a deal like this, but I'm not convinced it would be that great of an offering in the market for content owners or that it makes a lot of sense.

Updated post at 2:19pm ET to add the estimates on Brigthcove's revenue from reselling CDN services.

Late this afternoon Adobe announced they had reached a deal to acquire Omniture for $1.8 billion, with Adobe expecting the deal to close in the fourth quarter. While on the surface it may seem odd that Adobe would buy a company and get into the Web analytics space, if integrated correctly, Adobe has the potential to provide a crucial missing piece to content creators.

Right now, everyone in the industry is saying that delivering higher quality video allows for better monetization since the average viewing time with higher quality video is so much longer. The idea is that content owners can provide a more engaging branding experience for advertisers and as a result, charge more for that campaign and deliver more of them. While no one has yet to prove this theory in the market, the biggest hurdle to doing so has been in the analytics. Most of the solutions on the market provide details on reporting, not analytics, and trying to pull together the data from the website, the video and the ad campaign has not been easy.

While I haven't spoken to anyone at Adobe about the acquisition and their strategy, it starts to get interesting when one thinks of how Flash fits into the picture. If Adobe can start taking all of the data from the Flash player and offering that on top of Omniture's SiteCatalyst product, all of a sudden content owners might truly be able to see what's taking place with their content from more than just a how many people watched, how long did they watch scenario. And with the vast majority of web ads being delivered in Flash, the potential tie with Omniture might allow advertisers to finally know what's being seen, by whom, with targeting and based on that data, decide how they want to buy ads across a network. Ad sales are driven by data, now they have the potential to be driven by the ad data from Flash.

The major problem today is the workflow between the content publisher, advertiser and delivery network is not tightly integrated. In order to truly monetize content, you need the data from all three to line up so you have a total picture of the user experience and the branding. Once also has to wonder if Adobe will take Omniture and bundle it into their family of Flash Media Server's which would give content owners a lot more incentive to buy the server, knowing it has built into reporting AND analytics, something no video server has today.

The combination of these two companies is going to be an interesting one to watch come next year.

Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen a lot of new content offerings announced by companies like Netflix, Amazon and YouTube as they look to directly target the living room via entertainment devices. Indeed, the adoption rate of hardware devices like the Xbox 360, PS3, TiVo, Roku, VUDU, Apple TV and broadband-enabled Blu-ray players and TV sets will be crucial in determining if content owners can make money delivering video to the TV.

But despite all these new offerings, that content still only reaches a few million customers, a number largely unchanged from this time last year. Such low adoption rates in the face of so much effort leads me to think that while the market of delivering content to the TV will grow, it is unlikely to do so at the rate that many in this industry would like to believe. In fact I don’t think we’ll see these devices having a combined impact in any measurable way for at least another 3-4 years.

Here is a breakdown on the number of devices on the market and some data on the volume of content being consumed on them:

Xbox 360: To date, Microsoft has sold 15.95 million Xbox 360 consoles in North America, according to NPD. Since the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace launched in November 2006, there have been more than 42 million downloads of entertainment content, which includes movies, TV shows, music videos and featured trailers, while Xbox 360 owners have downloaded nearly 12.3 million hours of video content from the Xbox LIVE Video Store. (Source: Microsoft)

Xbox/Netflix: As of February, 1 million Xbox LIVE Gold members had downloaded and activated the application for streaming Netflix movies to the Xbox 360 console. Meanwhile, users had watched more than 1.5 billion minutes of movies and TV episodes from the Netflix Watch Instantly library. (Asked Netflix for an updated number. Will update if they provide one.)

PS3: To date, Sony has sold 8.26 million PS3 consoles in North America, according to NPD. I don't have any details or estimates on what percentage are connected via broadband.

TiVo: While TiVo doesn’t break out how many Series 1, 2 or 3 units have been sold individually, at the end of June, it had 1.6 million standalone TiVo subscribers. I estimate that 65 percent of those are Series 1 or 2, which means that there are roughly 525,000 Series 3 TiVos today. The company has said that 85 percent of its HD TiVos are connected via broadband, which puts the number of units capable of getting content via Amazon or Netflix at around 445,000. For DVRs that can get YouTube content the number is likely higher, since YouTube only requires a Series 2 DVR. TiVo also said that to date, about 50M downloads have taken place to TiVo units. They didn’t say that was "paid content" but rather total downloads. They also said that “millions and millions of streams to date” have taken place for Netflix and YouTube content.

Roku: Roku won’t say how many units it’s sold to date, other than to say "high six figures". If we estimate that 6 percent of Netflix’s 10.6 million subscribers at the end of the second quarter bought the $99 unit, that would mean a total of about 650,000 Roku units have been sold.

VUDU: VUDU told me it’s sold “five figures” worth of devices, which I believe is less than 50,000 units.

Apple TV: Published reports put the number of Apple TVs sold at less than 500,000. Notably, of course, Apple has, on multiple occasions, acknowledged that the device hasn’t been nearly as successful as the company had hoped it would be.

Blockbuster Mediapoint Player: The company has never offered up numbers as to how many of these have been sold, nor has anyone really bothered to hazard a guess. Bottom line: Blockbuster has no online video strategy of any kind and while the Mediapoint player was first unveiled some five months ago, when you visit the Blockbuster.com web site, it’s nowhere to be found.

Broadband-enabled TVs: There are more than 50 broadband-enabled TV models due out in 2009, but analysts estimate that only about 3 million total sets will be sold in the next two years combined.

Broadband-enabled Blu-ray Players: To date, 9.6 million Blu-ray players have been sold, but less than 2 million of them don’t include the PS3, according to DEG. While new broadband-enabled players continue to be released into the market, the total number of sales to date has to be less than 50,000.

Even with all these numbers, they don’t truly give us an idea of the growth, as there are a lot of unanswered questions. For starters, Microsoft won’t say how many of the 15.1 million Xbox 360 consoles are connected to a broadband connection, although I estimate about 80% of them probably are. And while Netflix says that a million Xbox LIVE members have downloaded and installed the Netflix app for their Xbox 360, since Netflix offers free 48-hour streaming trials to Xbox 360 owners, we don’t know how many paying Netflix subscribers are using the service today. With Netflix spending about 5 cents to stream every movie to the Xbox 360, clearly content offerings such as this are not yet making any money due to the small number of devices in the market.

While some may suggest that the Wii gaming console is missing from this list, so far the Wii doesn’t really offer up any content. Whether or not set-top boxes should be included in these numbers is debatable. It’s my belief that the cable companies are the ones that should be winning in the market when it comes to delivering Internet-based content to the TV or premium content with all-you-can-eat models. But so far, I don’t see the cable companies doing a very good job at this. Also, while some want to suggest that the PC should be include in this list since you can hook up your computer to a TV set, the computer is not a broadband enabled device that was specifically made to connect to the TV, like the devices mentioned above.

On the surface, some of these numbers look really big. But once you break down how many of these devices are being used via a broadband connection and how many consumers have more than one of these devices in their living room, the actual number of individual consumers content owners are reaching via these devices is still very, very small. That will change over time, but realistically it will be a few years before the number of broadband enabled devices makes a real impact in the market.

Note: An older version of this article originally appeared on the GigaOm.com website in May. This one has some updated numbers since that time.

While many are already aware of the CDN pricing I publish every quarter at cdnpricing.com, I am regularly asked by content owners what I charge to review their contract terms, look at their pricing and advise them on what they should be paying. For those that's don't know, this service I provide is completely free and always has been. This is something I have been doing for years and anyone can call me anytime, seven days a week at 917-523-4562 with any questions about their CDN pricing.

So why do I do this and what's in it for me? Very simply, it helps me collect industry data and more importantly, it's my job to help educate the market and try and help content owners adopt and use more CDN services. Being available to content owners 24×7 allows me to speak to and collect CDN data from hundreds of customers a year, of all shapes and sizes. So for those that come across the CDN pricing data on my blog or might have been wondering what it costs to have me review your CDN contract, call anytime, it's free.

Slowly but surely, the NFL continues to make more games both live and on-demand available online, although the vast majority of their offerings still require some sort of paid subscription. While last night NBC kicked off their "Sunday Night Football Extra" offering, (I'll have my review of that up shortly), there are quite a few other ways to get in on the action. He's a quick rundown of all the offerings I know of in the market:

• "Sunday Night Football Extra" is done in conjunction with NBC, NFL and Microsoft. Akamai is doing the delivery and seventeen games are being streamed live for free this season on NFL.com and NBCSports.com

• "Game Rewind" is an on-demand service that allows access to all games, commercial free, within 24 hours after the game are completed. The service cost $39.99 for the season and Move Networks is the video platform, with Level 3 doing most, if not all of the delivery. You can read my review of that service here.

• "Game Pass HD" is a live NFL based subscription offering that is only available to users outside the U.S. and Canada. The service costs $279.99 for the season and Like "Game Rewind", they are using the Move Networks platform and Level 3. More on the service here.

• "SuperFan" is a another live option in the market, which is basically an upgrade to DirecTV's "NFL Sunday Ticket" offering. "SuperFan" is only available to DirectTV subscribers who have the "NFL Sunday Ticket Offering" and costs an additional $89.99 for the year. Level 3 was streaming the DirecTV games last year, which you can read about here, but I haven't yet confirmed if they are doing it again this year.

The NFL offers a live audio only streaming service as well that is subscription based call "Field Pass" for $39.99 for the season and offers a mobile solution with Sprint called "NFL Mobile Live" that's free for Sprint customers that already have a data plan that costs more than $69.99. Sprint customers without a data plan can add one for the NFL service starting at $15 a month.

With the NFL getting more aggressive in their video offerings, one has to wonder how much longer before they start testing video to other devices