Agencies Warned: In Digital Media, Change Or Die

Mediapost has a good article on their website today that reviews some of the sessions going on at the OMMA Hollywood conference this week. Specifically, this article talks to how the role of the agency will need to change to keep up with the emerging media planning platforms.

This is not unique to our industry or a media business. This applies to companies in any industry that allow themselves to not embrace change and work with it, instead of against it. The record industry is a great example of an industry that in my opinion has never kept up with or embraced change.

Call For Speakers Now Open For The Streaming Media West Conference

The call for speakers for the Streaming Media East conference and exhibition taking place Nov. 6-8th in San Jose is now open. I typically receive ten times the number of speaking submissions I have available so I strongly suggest you submit your proposal early, as they are reviewed and possibly confirmed upon receipt. The submission deadline is May 11th.

It should be noted that we are always looking for speakers from the media who cover and track this industry via print, web and blogging. For the East show in May we have speakers from Economist, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, eWeek, ClickZ News, MarketWatch and About.com amongst other media outlets.

If you are interested in moderating your own round-table session at the show and are looking to help organize and participate in the topic and creation of a session, contact me immediately via e-mail with your idea.

As you are all aware, the online video market is hotter than ever and our shows continue to grow each year and continue to attract more and more speakers. The demand continues to grow for speaking spots so I can't stress enough how important it is to get your submissions in on time.

Industry Leaders Form Consortium to Develop End-to-End Specification for IPTV

AT&T Inc., Ericsson, France Telecom, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Siemens Networks, Sony, and Telecom Italia today announced the founding of the Open IPTV Forum, an industry consortium that will work to define an interoperable end-to-end specification for delivery of IPTV services.

The release says that the forum, which is fully open to participation across the communications and entertainment industries, will focus on development of open standards that could help to streamline and accelerate deployments of IPTV technologies, and help to maximize the benefits of IPTV for consumers, network operators, content providers, service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers and infrastructure providers.

As with any organization or association, I'm skeptical only because we have seen so many of these types of groups launch with big fanfare but they end up having little impact on the industry. Many don't end up actually doing anything or get so caught up in their own internal politics that they can't get out of their own way. That being said, I give these companies credit for joining together to try and accomplish something instead of just sitting on the side and doing nothing. I hope to see them succeed.

Other companies in the online video industry should take note. There is no where near enough co-opetition going on amongst vendors in this industry which in many cases is just short sighted thinking. There are way too many important decisions being made about our industry, by those outside our industry.

Looking For Interesting Board Positions Pertaining To Online Video

Years ago, I've used to be on a lot of boards of companies from hardware manufactures and content creators to non-profits and service based providers. I really enjoyed the positions as it gave me insight into other segments of the industry and allowed me to continue to always learn more. I'm looking to do more of that again and have been getting a bunch of offers as of late. If you know of an interesting board position or have one at your company and think it's a fit, please drop me a line. I am more interested in companies who have an actual product or service out on the market as opposed to companies who are still in stealth mode and have no proof of concept.

I'm open to any ideas and will be evaluating all of the offers and picking two or three companies to work with starting this year. It could a company involved in any form of IP based video content/service across any kind of network. I like working with companies who want to build a real long term business and who's business model is not to build something in twelve months and then try and sell it.

Streaming, Online Video, Internet TV, Video On The Net: How Do We Describe The Industry?

I know I am not the only one that struggles when it comes to using the correct term to classify this industry. Now some would argue that streaming media or online video is not even an industry to begin with and they are right. Streaming media is a technology and online video could be an industry but it also describes the technology used.

So how do we classify this industry? Clearly there is a need to come up with a term that the industry settles on because as this market grows, there are times the industry is going to need to work together on many fronts. For some time it seems the "digital media" term is what's used, but to me that's completely generic and really does not describe what we do.

So how would you classify this industry? What terminology do you think best represents what we are doing as a collective group?

Internet Television: Who Will Win The Day?

Roger Ehrenberg had a great article last week on the SeekingAlpha.com website talking about what companies are best positioned to win in an IPTV-enabled world. As Roger points out, "the trend towards an on-demand, take-it-with-me world was seeded over 20 years ago, and is just now being more fully played out."

I couldn't agree with him more. The idea that IPTV is some sort of "new" concept is far from the truth. IPTV as a term is fairly new, but the whole idea of IPTV has been around for some time and many companies have been working on this form on content distribution for more than just the past year.

Is P2P The Answer To Large Scale Video Delivery?

That's the focus for discussion on the P2P session taking place at the Streaming Media East show in May. With the recent offerings by BitTorrent, VeriSign, Joost and others, is legal P2P finally ready for prime-time? This panel of content owners and technology experts will discuss whether P2P will finally revolutionize online video distribution. They will discuss whether the cost savings advantage with P2P is real, how P2P will translate into a competitive advantage, how P2P distribution may affect the networks and CDNs and what some of the potential problems are that P2P technology may face from the telco's. Come hear the debate on whether P2P is the answer to the fundamental capacity limitations for large-scale video audiences for today's Internet.

• Moderator: Rich Mavrogeanes, Founder And CTO, VBrick Systems
• Panelist: Brian Taptich, VP, Business Development, BitTorrent
• Panelist: Nick Rockwell, CTO, MTV Networks
• Panelist: Monty Mullig, SVP, Internet Technologies, Turner Broadcasting System
• Panelist: Christopher Levy, Chairman, Digital Media Management Working Group, DCIA

What topics or points would you like to see discussed at this session? Please include them in the comments section for your chance to win a free conference pass to the show.

Job Opening: Sr. Analyst Covering Video Industry For Current Analysis

Was sorry to hear from Counse Broders over at Current Analysis that one of their analysts, John O'Keefe, passed away three weeks ago. John was a Sr. Analyst covering the Internet/Managed Services industries. The company has a small memoriam about his passing on their home page. I can't say I really knew John personally, but I don't know of anyone who didn't talk about him in the nicest manner.

Counse says they are looking to hire a Sr. Analyst that has a combination of writing talent and analysis skill-set especially in the hosting, streaming media, and CDN markets. If you are interested, contact Counse Broders directly.

Cisco To Buy WebEx For 3.2 Billion Dollars: Will Video Now Be Added?

Cisco announced today that they have agreed to acquire WebEx Communications for 3.2 billion dollars. While we have all used the WebEx platform many times, personally, I was never impressed with it and I think the value Cisco paid is completely overpriced. For starters, WebEx did $380 million dollars in revenue last year so Cisco is valuing WebEx at almost nine times revenue. This from a product that barely even supports any video functionality but is suppose to be thought of as the tool for on demand collaboration.

Cisco said they were acquiring WebEx because "...companies are looking for rich communications tools to help them work more effectively and efficiently." No argument there, but does a tool set that includes almost no option for live video and very limited functionality for linking to on demand videos classify as a real "rich communication" tool? I guess to some people it does, but I'd classify a system that focuses on video, like a Tandberg system real rich communication before I would WebEx. I know, Tandberg tends to be more of a point-to-point system as opposed to the WebEx platform but even the WebEx solution is operated across their private network. So the two are very similar in many ways, except one makes video a core component of their offering.

With the acquisition, I'd like to see Cisco add a lot of video functionality to the WebEx product line for real collaboration in live and on demand presentations and increase the size of the audience that can come to a WebEx, which currently is very limited. If they can do that, I think Cisco can be very successful with this application in the small and medium sized business market.

Are there any features or functionality in the current WebEx system that you think are missing?

Job Opening: Chief Marketing Officer, Digital Fountain

Digital Fountain is looking to hire a full-time Chief Marketing Officer based near their Bay area headquarters. Digital Fountain is a IPTV solutions provider and their technology enables the delivery of home-theater quality television over the Internet, multimedia broadcasting to mobile devices and mission critical defense applications.

Contact Judy Redeker at Taylor Winfield who is conducting the search if you are interested.

If you are looking for a new position, have taken a new job or are a company that has a job opening, let me know. In many cases I will highlight it here on the blog - free of charge.