Zappos.com Sells 6-30% More Merchandise When Accompanied By Video Demos

While the rest of the online video world seems to be paying attention to ad formats, the death of pre-roll, YouTube's ineffectiveness, and video content monetization, a quiet revolution is brewing in the commerce industry. At the Streaming Media West show last month, we had a great session with speakers from the retail industry who explained just how crucial video is to their business.

On of our speakers, Rico Nasol, a Content Team Senior Manager at Zappos.com gave out some great details on what video means to their business, how they utilize video today and what their goals are for next year. Rico was also one of our speakers that was interviewed live on Fox Business News which you can see here. Also, check out this link for a longer interview with Zappos from the show.

The best stat Rico gave out was that Zappos sells anywhere between 6-30% more merchandise, depending on the item, when accompanied by product description videos. Rico says that by the end of next year, Zappos will have ten full working video studios, with the goal of producing around 50,000 product videos by 2010, up from the 8,000 videos they have on the site today. If you want to see a longer interview with Rico, you can check out his red carpet interview on the StreamingMedia.com website.

I get the sense that a lot of people in the online video world forget just how much is going on outside of the media and entertainment industry, or are simply not aware of what's taking place. The commerce, enterprise and government sectors are all doing more with online video today, with positive results, than we have seen so far seeing in the broadcast world. If you're interested in following the online video market in the commerce industry, then you need to check out Justin Foster's blog at www.video-commerce.org and Xavier Casanova's blog at www.videoretailer.org

Movie Studios Just Don't Get It, Part IV: Pay More For Movies On USB Drives

First it was the studios delivering two-hour movies to cell phones, even though consumers weren't and still aren't asking for the service. Then came the studios charging more for a digital download over the physical DVD. That was quickly followed by Sony charging $24.95 for a 24-hour rental and admitting it does not want to upset Walmart and the studios own DVD business.

Now comes word that Kingston, manufacturer of USB drives and SD cards, has teamed up with movie studio Paramount Pictures to release Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen directly on to a 4GB USB stick. The catch? A 4GB USB stick with the movie costs $29.99 through Office Max stores nationwide. Where is the value to the consumer with this offering? The physical DVD costs $17.99 on Amazon and a 4GB Kingston USB stick costs $8.89. So why is does it cost the consumer almost $4 extra to get the movie on a USB stick? Where is the demand in the market for this offering?

Keep in mind, the quality of the movie on the device is not at 1080p and it's only being offered online or at Office Max stores, not exactly the place most folks go when they want to buy a movie. But maybe that's exactly why the studios are doing it this way, since the average person visiting an Office Max store has no idea it's more expensive than it should be.

Paramount and Kingston have announced that they have signed a deal to deliver additional movies on Kingston USB drives and SD cards, so expect to see more of these pointless offerings in the market shortly.

China Based PPLive Confirms Investment Round Of About $15M

This morning, China based PPLive confirmed in an email that it has in fact raised another round of funding. While the company would not confirm the exact number, they said the earlier report of ir being around $15M, in U.S. dollars, is pretty accurate. NewTeeVee.com did a write up of PPLive and their business earlier in the year.

CEOs from Move, Internap, Highwinds And Others Provide Update On Their Business

One of the great things about the Streaming Media West show two weeks ago was the fact that so many industry CEOs were in attendance. Many of them have only recently taken on their CEO roles and I had the chance to sit with a bunch of them for the first time. I came back with over 100 business cards that I now need to follow up on.

I spent a good deal of time talking with Roxanne Austin, Move Networks' new President and CEO on the TV Everywhere business and what they are seeing in the market. Much of the conversation was off the record, but I'll have a great follow up post shortly about my conversation with Roxanne and what Move Networks is working on.

I also had the chance to meet with Eric Cooney, Internap's new President and CEO and got an update on their CDN business and we chatted about some of Internap's strategy moving forward. I still have a post to do about Internap's recent re-launch of their CDN offering and will have more on that later this month.

Speaking of CDNs, I also had a chance to sit with Steve Miller, President and CEO of Highwinds, along with some of his executive team. I now have a very clear picture on what Highwinds is working on with regards to their CDN offering in the New Year and where the future lies for the company's CDN business. I'll be doing a write-up of that shortly as well.

I had the chance to have lunch with Jamie Howard, President and CEO of Imagine Communications, who are the folks behind the digital platform that runs many of the cable and satellite companies digital video services. Some really interesting things are taking place in that arena which I'll also be discussing on the blog shortly.

In addition I had the chance to talk with Bill Stone, President of FLO TV, Peter Csathy, President and CEO of Sorenson Media, Jim Louderback, CEO, Revision3, as well as many others. Other C levels executives in attendance included Paul Scanlan, President, of MobiTV, Tal Saraf, GM of Amazon's CloudFront services, Emil Rensing, Chief Digital Officer of EPIX, Mitch Berman, CEO of ZillionTV, Bob Donlon, GM of Adobe TV, Mark Pascarella, CEO of Gotuit, Mike Newman, CEO of Accordent Technologies, Herve Utheza, President of RCDb, Brett Wilson, CEO of Tubemogul, Marc Whitten, GM of Xbox LIVE, Eric Armstrong, President, Kontiki, Alex Castro, CEO of Delve Networks, Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO of Kaltura, Bismarck Lepe, Co-Founder of Ooyala, Daniel Graf, CEO of Kyte, Jeremy Allaire, Chairman and CEO of Brightcove, Brian Shin, Founder & CEO of Visible Measures, Ben Weinberger, CEO & Co-Founder of Digitalsmiths,  Pete Kocks, President of Truveo, Tom Wilde, CEO of EveryZing, Lou Schwartz, Chairman and CEO of Multicast Media Technologies, Jay Pritchard, CTO of Datpresenter, Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz, Alex Blum, CEO of KickApps, Scott Broomfield, Co-Founder and CEO of Veeple, Max Haot, Co-Founder and CEO of Livestream and many, many others.

The number of C-level executives in attendance at our Streaming Media East and West events continues to grow each year and it was great to see so many of them in person, even if it was just to say hi. If we didn't have the chance to chat at the show, my apologies, I simply could not make it to all the meetings I wanted to. I'm happy to catch up with any of you now that the show is over.

Free Product Giveaway: Roku HD-XR Digital Video Player

The drawing is now closed. Last month Roku announced the launch of their new Channel Store and while I got hands on with the offering, I didn't have time to write up a review since I was at the Streaming Media West show. Winner: Josh B. from New York, NY.

In celebration of the launch, the nice folks over at Roku are letting me give away one Roku HD-XR unit to a reader of my blog. All you have to do is leave one comment on this post on why you want the Roku unit. Make sure you use your real name and a valid e-mail address and I'll pick one lucky user at random at the end of the month. on December 14th. A big thanks to Roku for the gear and for making a really kick-ass player, one of my favorite devices on the market today.

Apple Hit With Lawsuit Over HTTP Streaming Technology (Updated)

Israeli based company Emblaze is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on patents related to the company's HTTP Live Streaming feature in QuickTime. For those that have been in the industry for a long time, the name Emblaze might ring a bell as the company spent many years, dating all the way back to 1999, trying to get their Java based video technology to get adopted, with no luck.

Fast forward to 2005 when Emblaze became a holding company for a group of technology companies, including Emblaze Mobile, who's technology seems to be at the center of this lawsuit. For the past two years, Emblaze has been building the First Else smart phone which will be released through Emblaze's subsidiary company Else.

What's not known is exactly what technology Emblaze feels Apple is infringing on. No one from Emblaze has yet to respond to my request for more patent details and some have speculated that the patent has to do with a recently approved iPhone app, called Knocking, which allows for live video streaming over 3G from one device to another.

I'll update the post with the patent number in question as soon as I track it down. Updated: Thanks to a reader for providing the patent number, which is 6389473, and filed in March of 1999. Reading the filing, the patent seems pretty broad in terms of what it covers. Emblaze has said Apple has until December 15th to respond to the suit and as of the updating of this post, still has no from Emblaze has responded to my request for more info.

Back To Blogging After A Successful Streaming Media Show: Lots Of Posts To Come

It's been a few weeks since I've been able to blog due to the Streaming Media West show we had last month in San Jose. By all accounts, we had a great show with a record number of 2,768 registrants. FOX Business News spent an entire day broadcasting live from the show floor, we had packed session rooms, great speakers and we kicked off the launch of our sister event, the Online Video Platform Summit. Thanks to everyone; sponsors, exhibitors and speakers who helped make the show successful. Next year, we'll be moving the show to Los Angeles.

In the next two weeks, we'll have all of the sessions from the show available on-demand, all of the presentations are now available for download, and you can see a run down of all the news from the show here.

At the show, I had a chance to meet with a lot of content owners and as a result, I have a ton of stories and news items to write about. I also have a lot to get up regarding CDN pricing along with all of my pricing data. It's going to take me a little while to get all the content up as I have outlined over three dozen stories I need to follow up on from the show.  I also be giving away some left over gear from a show including a Roku unit and an Xbox 360, so keep an eye out for those in the next week.