Blockbuster Streaming Comes To TiVo, But Service Won't Reach Many Consumers

Yesterday, TiVo and Blockbuster announced that consumers who have a Series 2 or Series 3 TiVo unit can now rent movies from Blockbuster. The service, which was originally announced in March, went live yesterday with movies costing between $2.99 and $3.99 a piece. While the release says that "subscribers can now rent hot new release movies", I couldn't find any movies to rent that I would call "hot new releases". The "new releases" section contained movies like "Shrink", "The Last Resort", "Dance Flick" and "Battle For Terra". As of this morning, there were 658 movies available to browse and Blockbuster said that "in the coming weeks," it will expand the number of movies available and provide a "select" number of HD titles.

Frankly, I don't understand Blockbuster's strategy with TiVo. While it makes perfect sense to bring their content to the device, why launch with a service that's only half baked? One of the biggest arguments made by Blockbuster on why they have an advantage over Netflix is that they have rights to first-run movies, something Netflix does not have. But then they launch the service with no first-run movies and don't even offer anything in HD quality.

While it's good to see Blockbuster working to get content on more devices, TiVo alone won't do much for the company since according to TiVo, as of last quarter, the company had 1.6 million standalone TiVo subscribers. While TiVo doesn’t break out how many Series 1, 2 or 3 units have been sold individually, if we assume that one million of these subscribers have a Series 2 or 3 unit, Blockbuster is realistically reaching a million or less consumers. And based on adoption numbers we have seen with Netflix's streaming on the Xbox 360, about 10% of Xbox 360 owners use the Netflix service. Keep in mind, Netflix streaming is free so the adoption numbers will be higher than those who have to pay to stream a movie with Blockbuster. That puts the number of consumers who are realistically going to use the Blockbuster service on TiVo probably at around 50,000 or less. That's not a big number.

Anything Blockbuster can do to bring content to more devices will help the company and this is the first step of many. But without having "hot new releases", HD quality and a large enough consumer base, Blockbuster is still going to have trouble getting their digital media strategy to pay off.

Quick Poll: Does Video On Demand Keep You From Attending An Industry Show?

Google Not Buying Akamai. Who Starts These Baseless Rumors?

Baron's says Akamai "shares are trading higher in a down market this morning amid rumors that the company might be a takeover target for Google." Baron's is only reporting what they hear, but seriously, who starts these rumors? Why would Google buy Akamai? They don't need a CDN, they have their own. And even if they needed more capacity or reach, they would not spend billions to acquire it. They could build it for a fraction of that cost.

Not to mention, what would Google do with all of Akamai's customers? And why would Google pay to buy a bunch of servers and infrastructure that is dedicated to deliver content using Microsoft's technology? And for some who say that Google would want Akamai's revenue, they would not deliver content for Microsoft, so how much revenue is that alone they would lose?

I can't think of one single reason that makes sense on why Google would buy Akamai, unless Google wanted to get into the business of delivering content for third party content owners, which would not help their core business in any way.

The Video Platform Space Is Growing, Evolving And Maturing: See How Next Month

Eighteen months ago, the online video platform space was largely dominated by only a handful of providers in the industry. But today, with over two dozen companies now providing services to the market, the online video platform space is hotter than ever. We've seen Brightcove become profitable, Ooyala able to raise money in a bad economy, KIT digital making acquisitions and offerings like those from Kaltura based on open-source technology, coming to the market. The online video platform space is changing, services are evolving and more importantly, the business is maturing.

This was the main reason why StreamingMedia.com decided earlier in the year to dedicate two whole days to the subject and launch the Online Video Platform Summit at the Streaming Media West show in November. The entire event has been organized to show content owners how to use video management platforms, the value they provide and demonstrate successful real-world use cases. The event also brings together nearly every vendor in the online video platform space and gives attendees the ability to see many of these platforms in action. You can see the agenda here.

We are very pleased to announce, and would like to thank, the following companies who are involved in the show as sponsors, speakers or presenters: Adap.tv, Adobe, Akamai, Artivision, Brightcove, Datpresenter, Delve, Digitalsmiths, Endavo, EveryZing, Fliqz, Kaltura, KickApps, KIT digital, Kyte, LongTail Video, Multicast, Ooyala, Origin Digital, Reality Digital, Sorenson Media, Truveo, TubeMogul, Twistage, Veeple, Visible Measures, VMIX, voped and YuMe.

The summit has been designed to help organizations of all types, not just those for whom video is their core business. Come join video publishers of all types and sizes as well as the industry and see first-hand how these platforms work, what they cost and the impact they can have on your business.

As a thank you to my blog readers, I'm offering everyone the ability to register before October 30th for only $495, using my personal discount code of DRF1, which is $200 off the price to attend.

Sources Say Hulu Waiting For Subscription Service Before Launching iPhone App

Last week, multiple sources familiar with Hulu's video plans told me that Hulu already has an iPhone app ready to go, but won't launch it until Hulu rolls out a subscription based service. While Hulu has hinted at such a service in the future, the company is still downplaying it as though it won't come anytime soon. That said, Hulu did say from day one that they will look at a combination of free and paid content offerings for their business, so the idea of a subscription service is not a new one. It's only a matter of when, not if.

While the iPhone does not support Flash video today, one of the sources I spoke with said Hulu has already converted some of their content over to H.264 for playback on the iPhone. However, they didn't know how much of Hulu's content had been converted and for all we know, the content that was converted could have been just for testing purposes. While Hulu is usually quick to downplay anything they might be working on, they do have an entire team working on new projects and offerings and have a section on their website called Hulu Labs.

Even if these sources are accurate, there's still a lot of hurdles Hulu has to get through to make an iPhone app a reality. For starters, it has to be approved by Apple which could see Hulu as a threat to iTunes. While I don't think they would and could probably use Hulu's iPhone app to push sales of download to own content, with Apple, you never know. The other big hurdle is whether or not AT&T would allow Hulu streaming to the iPhone over 3G. Considering they won't allow services like Sling over 3G, it's possible that Hulu also only gets streaming over WiFi. But if Hulu was able to do some sort of revenue sharing deal with AT&T, one could argue they may allow it.

No one knows for sure when a subscription based service or iPhone app by Hulu will come to the market, but clearly Hulu is pretty far along with their plans for both. How much would you pay a month for a subscription to Hulu if the offering was better quality video to the PC, ideally HD, and the ability to get videos to the iPhone?

Speakers Wanted: TV Everywhere And Over-The-Top Video

I've just added a new session at the Streaming Media West show on the subject of TV Everywhere and over-the-top video, to be moderated by Colin Dixon at TDG. Ideally, we're looking for speakers from any of the cable providers or content owners who are currently providing content for TV Everywhere trials or are offering over-the-top video. This is a last minute addition to the program, which gets closed out in the next few days, so please email me ASAP if you want us to consider you for one of the speaking spots.

Bell Canada To Build CDN With Limelight Networks

This morning, Bell announced an exclusive partnership with Limelight Networks on a new CDN offering, targeting content owners in Canada. While this is not the first telco Limelight has worked with, the Bell partnership is unique since Bell won't simply be re-selling Limelight's service or licensing their technology. Instead, Bell is placing Limelight servers in their co-lo facilities, tying them into their IP network and using Limelight to operate and maintain the CDN.

This is a multi-million dollar deal for Limelight and the two companies have already lined up family.ca, themovienetwork.ca and superecran.com as the first clients who will use the new CDN. While the market for CDN services in Canada is still small when compared to the U.S., projections I have seen from Cisco say the total CDN market in Canada, for video and non-video content, was $106M last year, growing to $174M by the end of 2010.

Bell marks the latest of a long list of telcos and carriers that have entered the CDN market in the past twelve months and there will be more to come. You can see the entire list of telcos and carriers offering CDN services at www.cdnlist.com

Compuware To Acquire Gomez: Will This Change How CDNs Measure Performance?

This morning, Compuware announced an agreement to acquire Gomez in an all cash transaction valued at $295M and expects the deal to close next month. I last wrote about Gomez a year ago when they launched their new streaming media monitoring service called Active Streaming XF. While I don't know much about Compuware or the application performance software industry, I wonder if the sale of Gomez will have any impact on the CDNs who use Gomez today.

Currently, many of the CDNs use Gomez to monitor the performance of their network and while I have said many times the methodology used to measure the performance of one CDN to another are invalid, Gomez still seems to be what nearly all the CDNs are using when a customer asks them for third party performance data.

The reason each CDN shows a different result in their Gomez chart is due to the fact that the CDNs are all using different metrics to test. Most are showing the chart as if it represents video, yet might just be testing small objects and not video objects. Also, many times, some CDNs that use Gomez tweak the testing methods to be in their favor even if it is not a fair apple-to-apples comparison to other vendors.

With Gomez now being sold, I wonder what, if any, impact this might have on CDNs currently using their service. I also find it hard to believe that for an industry that uses the word "performance" more than any other word to describe their service, I have yet to see any CDN publish any public document that outlines the performance of their network or even the methodology that customers should be using to judge "performance". None of the CDNs have even defined in a public document what the word "performance" means when it comes to video.

FLO TV Unveils A Portable Personal Television, See It In Person On Nov. 17th

Today, FLO TV unveiled their highly anticipated "FLO TV Personal Television". A portable 3.5" touch-screen device with built-in stereo speakers that will let consumers take their TV with them on the go. The device will be available this holiday season with a suggested retail price of $249 plus at least $8.99 a month in FLO TV subscription fees. It measures 4.4 inches by 3 inches, is only half an inch thick and weighs just over 5 ounces. The company says it has a battery life of more than 5 hours of TV viewing or 300 hours on standby.

Bill Stone, President of FLO TV will be our keynote speaker on November 17th at the Streaming Media West show in San Jose and will have the Personal Television with him for viewing. All keynotes are free to attend, so register now for a free exhibit pass and come get hands-on with the device.

Cisco Has No Plans To Build Service Based CDN For Video Delivery

Back in April, I reported that two colocation companies had contacted me to say that Cisco was acquiring colocation space in various third party data centers in the U.S. for what Cisco was calling a new content delivery network. While I don't know Cisco's plans when it comes to the rumors of a commercial public cloud offering, I can confirm that Cisco does not plan to offer any CDN service specifically for video delivery.

After multiple conversations last week with various groups inside Cisco, it's clear that offering video delivery services via a Cisco operated CDN does not fit into the overall plans of the company. Numerous folks at Cisco said they would not compete with the same companies they already sell gear to and that Cisco's main goal is to help third party telcos, carriers and corporations deploy their own CDN's, which sometimes requires Cisco to take space within third party colocation facilities.

I don't know whether or not this approach by Cisco also keeps them out of the cloud-based storage and application services business, but I would think the same principle of not wanting to compete with their customers would apply and for now, keeps such an offering from coming to the market.