Instructional video site 5min has released a new beta version of their SmartPlayer, introducing support for text, video, and images that can be merged into a single embeddable flash widget. The site considers the player to be revolutionary, and believes that it will help set 5min apart from their numerous competitors in the instructional video space.

The original SmartPlayer gave users the ability to manipulate instructional videos on the fly, allowing for frame-by-frame progress, slow motion, and zooming. The new version improves on these features by introducing ‘add-ons’, which are essentially pages of text and images with no limits on length. By including all of this data, the 5min videos have become self-contained guides that can be embedded on any website.

I think that the updated player has a lot of potential. Chefs will be able to include their recipes alongside detailed videos demonstrating how to prepare a dish. And musicians will be able to include sheet music or tablature alongside their lessons – a godsend for instructors.

But despite the improvements made since the first Smartplayer, 5min still has a ways to go. For one, it seems that there is no way to resize the video and attachment windows, which is a pain when there is a lot of text. There is also no way to get the ‘add-on’ field to auto-scroll, which would be key for musicians attempting to play a score along to a video.

Other competitors in this crowded space include Howcast, Expert Village, and Instructables. You can check out a sample video below (you might want to make it full screen).

In February the Israel Web Tour rolls into Silicon Valley. Ninety Israeli startups applied to join the tour, and fifteen of them were selected to attend. The tour consists of a week-long conference and cultural exchange between Silicon Valley and Israeli entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

The general public is invited to parts of the show. more information is available on this website, including speakers.

Participating startups include 5min, Plymedia, AllofMe, Nuconomy, ClickTale, blogTV, Sportingo, PicScout, Qoof, 8hands, Velingo, Innovid, Semingo, PageOnce and Journeys.

I moderated a panel at the event last year. Highlights from that panel and the event in general are in the video below.

Rumor has it that Israeli video startup 5Min, which has user-uploaded “how to” videos, has raised another $5 million in cash, from Spark Capital.

We covered the startup recently – think YouTube with special features like slow motion to make the videos more useful. Our original profile is here, and our coverage of competitors is here.

Ouch! How Not To Do An Angel Round

The company previously raised $300,000 in angel funding. For those entrepreneurs who are curious about the economics of angel rounds, the details around 5min are interesting. In their case, it was ugly. An Israeli (print) magazine called Globes recently got their hands on the capitalization table of 5min and published the details. The angels ended up with nearly half the company for that $300k, leaving the three founders (the first three on the list) and all other employees to split the rest.

It’s rare that this kind of information about a company is published publicly, but it shows how angels can squeeze a company if they have the negotiating leverage.

Sometimes its worth taking a second look at a startup a few months after we cover their initial launch to see how things are going. We first covered Israeli startup 5min back in May. The site is a sort of YouTube for short user generated instructional videos.

And there are some indications that it may be taking off. The company says 2 million videos were watched in August, and traffic is doubling month to month.

The video embedded above is a good example of the kind of content that you can find on the site – short, amateur videos that might actually be very helpful to various niches of people. There are videos on scores of subjects – dog training, cooking, working out, fashion (tying a tie, coloring you hair, etc.), playing instruments, parenting, etc. More good content is added daily.

And some of the videos are racking up decent view numbers, although it’s still peanuts compared to YouTube.

Part of the attraction of the service is more than the sign they’ve hung on the door saying people should upload instructional videos. The player also has special controls that are made for instructional videos, including freeze frame, slow motion, accompanying storyboards, and various language subtitles.

We’re keeping an eye on them to see if the growth rates and user adoption continues. In the meantime, I’ll be practicing those breakdancing moves.

The following video “How To Raise Money From VC’s” comes from 5min.com, an instructional video site we covered in May, and is currently getting a lot of attention in Israel. The video (in Hebrew with English subtitles) provides some fun advice for anyone looking at raising money from VC’s. Content aside I was just impressed at not only the quality of the video playback, but the built in support for switching subtitles on and off as well. If quality is the defining point of differentiation amongst instructional video sites, 5min has positioned itself very well. Enjoy.

The semi-finals of the European focused Startup 2.0 contest were held in Madrid on the weekend, an event with 15 of the best/ most promising Web 2.0 startups out of an initial 300 nominees presenting.

5 startups were chosen as finalists with the final to be held in 2 weeks time.

Amongst the final five was 5min, billed as a “Life Videopedia”.

We’ve covered similar start ups previously, most recently SuTree, which like 5min hails from Israel. English company VideoJug also operates in the space and took $30 million in funding last week.

5min sits between the two in terms of function. SuTree is an index of external how-to content, VideoJug creates their own how-to content. 5min is more like YouTube, content is hosted on the site and is user submitted.

5min have created a video system specifically for instructional content. Video creators can add a storyboard to uploaded videos to help others better understand the content. The need to focus on particular skills in uploaded videos has not been forgotten. Video on 5min can be played in slow motion or frame by frame, and the inline player supports zooming in and out for a more up close experience.

Given the interest and money in this particular niche there’s definitely something in the water. 5min presents a familiar setup to any person who has used YouTube style video sites whilst applying a number of unique features that are sure to win the hearts and minds of the DIY minion army.