—60Frames Entertainment : Beverly Hills, Calif.-based 60Frames Entertainment has laid off six employees, or about 40 percent of its workforce. The digital entertainment studio announced a number of deals over the summer, including one to produce print- and Web-based coming books with Oni Press, and a content development deal with NBCU, but The Hollywood Reporter says the job cuts won’t affect the output. The brainchild of execs from talent agency UTA and Web-based TV ad company SpotRunner, 60Frames launched in July 2007, with $3.5 million from Tudor Investment Corporation and the Pilot Group. It’s the latest—though likely not the last—video startup to cut staff as a result of the economic climate, including Heavy.com, ManiaTV and Veoh.

60 Frames are the folks behind this amazing video:

This is the problem with most of these new media studios: they aim for hits… which is never easy, but even when a hit is created, it is not easily monetizable. This is a perfect example of this video: 3M views in 10 days or so, but not exactly easy to create a business around. Unless, of course, Obama 2008 paid 60Frames to produce it… which is very possible, in which case it supports my other argument, that ad-supported online video might not even be the right tree to bark up to.