You 2be?

The founders of YouTube, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, just launched Mixbit, their latest video venture.

With this project, they seem to have their targets set directly on Vine and Instagram. Using the newly available iOS app, you’ll be able to record up to sixteen seconds of video, similar to its social video app rivals. Unlike those popular services, however, MixBit allows users to edit and combine videos, making it possible to create lengthy mashups.

When remixing video, you’re not limited to your own clips. You can remix other peoples contributions as well. Remixed movies can be up to an hour in length. Each submission is anonymous, and the service has no commenting system. Some analysts believe this limitation could hinder the app’s growth.

It is believed that the competition to create popular or viral videos helped build YouTube into what it is today, and there’s no denying that showing off is a big part of modern internet culture. MixBit is exclusive to iOS at the moment, but the founders have said that the app will arrive on Android in the next few weeks.

Microsoft’s App App

In a move to bring more creative minds and apps to Windows Phone, Microsoft has decided to launch a new developer tool that lets anyone create apps from the web without any knowledge of how to write code.

A beta version of the Windows Phone App Studio is already available to anyone willing to try. Instead of making you build your app from scratch, the tool offers a set of templates where you can drag and drop text, and images into the page to create your app.

Once the app is completed, you can test it for free by simply registering your phone, and side-loading it directly onto your device. Unfortunately, as part of the service conditions, apps won’t automatically be listed in the app store, as developers are required to pay an annual registration fee to publish their work.

In a related move, Microsoft will also update their developer center to include a live chat service, so new developers can be aided through the process with the help of live support representatives.

Adobe Upgrayedd

This morning Adobe announced the first update to its Creative Cloud service, which the company debuted earlier this year.

The update gathering the most attention is their new Edge Reflow feature, which now lets users create entire sites — instead of just single page responsive designs.

Other noteworthy changes include support for third-party plugins in PhoneGap Build, and even a new in-app preview mode that gives users a more immediate way to see their designs in their final form.

When Adobe changed to the subscription model, some customers have been skeptical about the value and frequency of updates they could expect from Creative Cloud. The new model has even led some die-hard customers to reject the service altogether. For Adobe, the most important part of providing regular updates is proving to their customers that these upgrades are worth the new monthly fee.

Many users feel like the creative software company has yet to do that.

Make Me!

Makerbot, in a huge move to get 3D printers into the hands of everyday consumers, has announced a deal with Microsoft and will begin selling 3D printers in Microsoft stores across the country.

As part of the deal, Makerbot will also feature public demos that will allow customers to see 3D printing first hand. Test sites in San Francisco, Seattle, and Palo Alto, have already seen a great deal of success, and there are plans to add fifteen more locations.

Commenting about the deal with Microsoft, Makerbot’s CEO Bre Pettis said in a release, “We’ve seen tremendous interest and enthusiasm at the three initial ‘MakerBot Experience’ stores. Rolling the program out to 15 additional Microsoft Stores supercharges our mission to bring 3D printing to more people.”

Currently, Makerbot’s Replicator line is the most popular 3D printer on the market, with the Replicator two being the fourth and most current version. Consumers can buy their very own Replicator Two for a little under twenty-six-hundred dollars, and it comes with a one year service plan.

Issuing his own comments on the deal, Microsoft retail COO David McAughan was reported as saying, “3D printing is a significant technological innovation, and we want all our customers to experience it first-hand, to learn how they can use and benefit from it in their own lives.”

Bebo’s Back, Baby!

Bebo announced today that the site will begin an initiative to reinvent and reinvigorate the flagging social network.

Old and new users alike have been invited to take part in the re-launch. Old accounts have been archived, meaning users will be able to export their photos within the next few months, and new accounts are accepting signups right now, with plans to let the first ten-thousand in early.

Bebo was founded by Michael Birch and his wife in 2005, and at the time, the site was aimed at competing with young social networks like MySpace and Facebook. After it was acquired by AOL for eight-hundred-and-fifty million dollars, the site failed to innovate and compete with Facebook, and according to Birch, the site simply “lost its mojo.”

Now, four years later, in a strange twist of fate, Michael Birch used a fraction of the money he obtained from the sale, and bought the company back for a paltry one-million dollars, or about one tenth of one percent of the site’s original value.

SuperHD LIES!!!!

As many are coming to find, ever since Netflix introduced its SuperHD streaming in January, the service has been restricted to ISPs participating in their OpenConnect CDN program.

People are paying for the higher quality 1080p video and 3D support, and for a short time, they were getting what they paid for. However, in a bit of a surprise to everyone who already paid for the service, users with unsupported ISPs, like Comcast and Verizon, are finding that the option is no longer available.

It’s unclear if the SuperHD option was a temporary glitch, or a sign of things to come as internet TV continues to gain traction.

Today’s Total Tweets

Finally, if you’ve ever been curious about how big the web’s gotten, a new website has been designed to show visitors just how expansive the internet has actually become.

By displaying what happens on the web every second of every day, and running up totals for each second you’ve been on the page, users can see in visual form exactly how much content is being produced on the internet in real-time.

For example, more than four-hundred photos are uploaded to Instagram and over a thousand Skype calls are made every second.

Nearly four thousand tweets go out every second, and YouTube alone is responsible for forty thousand video views.

To top it off, over fifty-thousand Facebook likes take place every second, and the number of emails per second total in the millions, with nearly twenty-six million being sent every second of every day.

Pretty mindblowing isn’t it?

And that’s all the news we have for today. For this and more news, be sure to join us every weekday on NewsDesk with Kristin Feledy.

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