So who is the meshugga (left) spaceman who landed at the NY Hilton the eve of May 19?  He was there to bring Earthlings the message about NY Video 2.0′s move to embrace the theatricality of web-based video.

Compared to Webster Hall, the site of the last NY Video 2.0 meetup, the Hilton was decidedly “uptown” and sanitized, prepared for the next wave of midwest conventioneers, not the punk leftovers and preening auteurs who might skate through Webster Hall.

Personally, I prefer the grit and downtown vibe of Webster Hall – and that’s where the next NY Video 2.0 is headed on June 24.

The May 19 presentations were the most professional and interesting to date although it was clear that start-ups can really benefit from polished communication on their websites. All the presentations were good, some better than others, but I naturally follow-up for more info on a company’s website and the results are often disappointing

Yaron added an element of “American Idol” to the proceedings when he had three noted VC’s judge the presentations and give feedback. At the end we texted our preferences for an instant-on-site, on-screen vote. And the winner was .. BestTV (the choice of 2 out of 3 of VC’s) … or, possibly Magnify, the choice of one VC. Or was it the real NY Video 2.0 American Idol judged by the live SMS poll: Andrew Sternthal, co-founder, CEO, EkkoTV.

Best to describe best-of-breed BestTV in their own words: The world’s leading middleware solution for online video management and monetization.

Ugh. Is there a duller word than middleware? It’s even duller than backend. But that’s a good chunk of the NY Video 2.0 crowd – middleware and backend. With the BestTV V-wareâ„¢ UGC software application you can launch your own “YouTube” like portal. Maybe the VC’s are salivating over the “monetization” possibilities represented here.

Magnify.net – I should be Steve Rosenbaum’s target audience. I have a WordPress blog and I am hungry for a video plug-in that will deliver, well, video, and maybe generate some ad dollars. Scouring their website I couldn’t understand the value proposition, what Magnify.net offered, or how to embed it in my site. They need better communication and somebody sexier than the forthright but hopelessly geeky  Rosenbaum to educate us. I like the concept but what is it?

At EkkoTV … every voice has a face. Meaning you can instantly start a video chat with 2 of your friends. Again, good concept but what is it, what does it look like, what is the user experience? Hard to say – go to their website and right from the home page you are prompted to “Start Now” with no pretense of a demonstration. I am not likely to take the time to go through this unless I can see the benefit. It looked good at the demo at the Hilton but it’s missing on the web.

Adotube in their own words: Adotube is a publisher-centric video advertising platform that enables you to generate revenue by showing brand-names ads in your video content. In other words, these annoying animated cartoon characters pop up in your video and hold up ads. I would run from any video that even insinuated such an inappropriate intrusion. 

We were all really impressed with the incredible quality of the video presented by Vusion but the VC’s were unimpressed by the revenue potential. Where’s the monetization?

Back to Webster Hall and let’s see some kick-ass punk video presentations. Where are the artists who are supposed to be flocking to the new frontier of web-based video? 

Related stories:

• NY Video 2.0 Comes Of Age, April 1, 2008 PRBlogNews
• NY Video 2.0 Finds the Perfect Venue, January 30, 2008, PRBlogNews 

↑ Grab this Headline Animator