5min is hitting the online video market hard. They already have $5 million in VC funding and have a catalog of 40k how to videos. They are cutting deals with many big web sites to serve their content in the 5min player on their page. The key is that they have all the videos tagged and automatically scans the text of the web page to see which videos are the best fit. Thanks to their partnership deals they are clearing over 110 million unique visitors per month. They also have their own ad serving network and sales staff in addition to using third party networks.

The geolocation market has been exploding as new, inexpensive tools and services are introduced. The company to watch in this area has been Google and its Google Maps products.

But this brings up another questions. What will become of the personal navigation devices (PND) like those from Garmin and TomTom? The question has been answered by ABI Research. The use of PND with their only or main function of helping users navigate is popular with the over 45 year old crowd. These users want a simple, easy-to-use device. The under 45 and especially the under 35 set is turning to their mobile devices to provide this functionality, among many others that it supplies.

The manufacturers of the one-trick pony devices like Garmin and TomTom will need to evolve to challenge the iPhones and Blackberries smartphones, their new competition. To survive, they will need to evolve quickly, before the under 35 crowd teaches the over 45 crowd how to use their new iPhones.

One point that came up at the Android Developer meetup that is a little unusual is that the majority of the developers there were unaware that there are other electronic markets from which they can distribute their Android apps. The most famous one is the Google Android Market, but I was the only one that knew that Handango has their own Android store. This store is good fro developers because it allows them to sell their apps now as opposed to the Google store which is giving everything away for free.

New Android app stores are popping up. I just read about a new store from PocketGear. I am sure that many more will be created, but I have to wonder if there is enough info given to Android developers to find and use all of these stores. And of course, if it is hard for the developers to find, it will be even harder to find for the end customers, who may not be as Internet aware as the developers.

Every other news article on the iPhone Apps Store includes a mention of how Apple is the ogre that controls who can pass over their bridge to the iPhone users. This monopoly is always compared to the other famous tech monopoly, Microsoft and its Windows product. The latest unhappy iPhone App Store developer is none other than Google.

On one hand, it is bizarre that a big company like Google cannot get their press releases and software releases synch up. On a side note, they did have a misfire on their Chrome browser as well. But it was not due to the delay of a competitor but by the efficiency of snail mail in Europe and the lack of a holiday. (Consider the irony: snail mail throwing of a Internet giant and the lack of a holiday in Europe compared to the U.S.)

On the other hand, it is nice to know that all developers, big and small, will be made to dance to Apple’s unknown App Store rules and policies.

Canada is pushing the edge of the landline and the cell phone together. Now Rogers, Telus and Canada Bell customers can send text messages to landlines for about $0.15. The text message is converted to speech and an automatic voice reads the message to the user over the landline. The lines and services are definitely blurring.