Majority Of Independent Content Producers Will Never Make Money

With all the talk of online video advertising and the projections people are making, one of the biggest downsides to it is that just about every independent content producer thinks they should be making money. But the reality it, most of them are not making any money today and never will, even year's from now when there are more eyeballs online.

Monetization is now the word that seems to be used in every discussion and in every article, yet rarely do we hear or read about any content producers who are making money from their content. We know of the success that some major broadcasters and those with very unique brands and content like MLB are having, but aside from those, there are very few content creators making any money.

One of the biggest reasons for this is that much of the content on the web today stinks. Not all content, but much of it is really bad, poorly produced and quite frankly, will never make any money no matter how much this industry grows. Content creators think that just because they can create content it must be worth something. When I speak to content creators I use the analogy of TV content. Lots and lots of shows are produced for TV yet many never make it. Only a small fraction of content on TV lasts and makes the networks any money. Now I know many will say that does not apply since the costs for TV style production is so much different than content produced for online, but the principle is still the same. Not all content is something people want to watch, let alone pay for.

Having a discussion with a content producer earlier in the week they said, "Media reviews of our site and customer feedback is very positive. Everyone thinks the idea is wonderful and they love the quality of the videos. We give website visitors two free views of the videos of their choice and then prompt them to sign up for a subscription. However, when it comes time to haul out the credit card to purchase a subscription the enthusiasm wanes."

The questions we need to be addressing are is the subscription-based approach working for anyone, or is sponsorship/ad-supported the only potential option for generating a reasonable ROI? Is the ad-supported model generating revenue for small producers who don't have tens of thousands of viewers per month? Does this revenue amount to anything more than pocket change? Must the small producer partner with a platform provider, e.g., Brightcove, in order to have a chance of success, or is it feasible to "roll your own" website realizing that most small players don't have ad sales staffs and experience in selling ads?

In the long run, the small content producer is still going to struggle to make any money from their content. Viral marketing, syndication and other forms of promotion can help, but not for the majority of those making video. Putting all of the business models aside I still think the biggest problem facing the industry is that there is not enough quality content on the web today.

The comments section is open and I'm sure many have their own take on the subject, so feel free to get the conversation going.

Entriq Acquires Dayport, Rumored To Be Around $45 Million

Entriq, a provider of digital rights management based solutions announced today that it has acquired video workflow company DayPort. While terms of the deal were not disclosed, various sources say Entriq valued DayPort at around $45 million, which seems about right.

This is one of those deals where the synergy between the two companies seems dead on. Entriq provides content owners with the ability to add digital rights management and commerce solutions for video and DayPort provides much of the content workflow including transcoding, publishing and syndication. By combining both company's platforms, Entriq says they will enable customers to "publish, approve, control, syndicate, monetize and analyze their digital media business reaching mobile, broadband, streaming, podcasting and IPTV environments."

More deals like this should be coming in the industry. Right now, there are a lot of small players in the space, in many product verticals, who would benefit from combing products and services and operations to better compete in the market.

Webinar: Online Video 2.0, Best Practices You Can Use Today

StreamingMedia.com is hosting a free live webinar today at 11amPST/2pm EST on the subject of "Setting the Bar for Online Video 2.0: Best Practices You Can Use Today". Sponsored by PermissionTV, join online video experts as they discuss the top trends in online video and review real-world examples of how companies are setting the bar for the next phase – Video 2.0. Whether a brand marketer, an advertising agency or a media company, this Webcast will arm you with the information you need to execute your own Video 2.0 strategy.

The webinar is free and you can sign up online.

Yahoo! Buys Maven Networks: Revenue Multiple Too High

As I'm sure you've read by now, Yahoo! announced earlier in the week it had acquired Maven Networks for approximately $160 million. While I see some of the synergy of the deal, I think Yahoo! paid too much. Based on the price tag, Yahoo! paid about 11x the sales revenue that Maven had in 2007. It's a good deal for Maven shareholders, but for Yahoo!, that's a high evaluation in my eyes in today's market.

Clearly, Yahoo! bought Maven for their technology platform and IP, but at some point, you have to also look at the buy vs. build numbers. Acquiring Maven gives Yahoo! a platform today, as opposed to them having to build one themselves, but at what cost? Considering the state of the rest of Yahoo! business, selling a software video platform is very different than the way Yahoo! has sold everything else for years. And not really knowing what Yahoo! strategy is as a whole moving forward casts doubt on what will truly become of a Maven/Yahoo! integration.

While it sounds like the product will still be branded under the Maven name, Yahoo! should re-brand this immediately and bring it under the Yahoo! brand. With the sate of flux that Yahoo! is in as a company, I think it needs to do everything it can to put forth one clear brand, strategy and core set of products. I think over time the Maven platform could be a good core product for Yahoo!, but only time will tell how successful the integration will be and whether or not Yahoo! sticks to the set of current products offerings they have in the market today. In my eyes, it's hard to for Yahoo! to say to the market that it is dedicated to any product platform, while at the same time laying off 1,000 employees. How much will Yahoo! truly support the Maven platform with additional dev work and new products features and functionality?

Broadcast TVs Demise More Fiction Than Fact

Considering I am in the online video industry, some may say I am crazy for not wanting to follow the bandwagon that wants to shout from the top of their lungs that TV is all but dead. Yes, I get the impact online video is having on traditional broadcasters on many fronts, but when folks like the NY Times publish articles proclaiming that "TV is becoming obsolete", then the industry is setting everyone's expectations incorrectly. TV is anything but obsolete.

Online video is having a huge impact on the way content is created, marketed and consumed, but distributing video online is not replacing traditional broadcast programming. I know some are under the impression that one day your computer will become your TV, but that's not going to happen and we all know the Internet can't even support those kind of numbers when it comes to viewers all watching a show at the same time. For all the talk of the writers strike and some of the data that has been put out saying that more people have gone online for videos, that does not change the fact that most of the content on TV is not available on the Internet.

I have over 60 season passes in TiVo. Going through all of them yesterday, more than 90% of the shows I watch are not available online anywhere. And the ones that are, like content from CBS and NBC, do not show up right after they are broadcast and typically take days if not longer to appear on the web. And in the case of something like 60 Minutes, one story alone is chopped up into 10 different video segments on their website and encoded at a pretty low bitrate. And sports, well forget that. No NFL games are available on-demand the next day online and while the MLB games are, it requires a subscription.

The demise of the TV is overrated and many in the industry keep saying the same thing as if they have to say it just to be cool. I keep hearing people in our space says things like "I don't even need a TV anymore, I'll just watch all my video online". Or, "there was nothing on TV last night so I went online to watch video". Nothing on TV? I don't know about you but I have hundreds of channels and can always find something to watch. I don't have hundreds of channels on the web of professionally produced content. It reminds me of the time when people in the industry had to use the word "convergence" or "broadband" in every single sentence they used as they were convinced that others would think that since they used those words they must "get it".

No one is throwing out their TV. And those who don't watch TV, probably never really did to begin with, as opposed to people who want to use them as an example and say that online video is the reason. The TV is not going anywhere and way too often in our society people want to talk about one thing replacing another, instead of being a compliment to it. The TV did not replace the radio. Internet video is not going to replace the TV. P2P delivery is not going to replace all CDN delivery. These things are all complements to one another. We should see the TV for what it is, just another way to get different kinds of content for various viewing experiences.

Brightcove's Consumer Upload Service Cancellation Overblown By Many

Last week, Brightcove announced via an e-mail to users that it was shutting down its consumer upload service at their Brightcove.TV destination. Many of the blogs that covered the announcement pretty much agreed that Brightcove should not have offered the service to begin with and felt that it didn't align well with their core service offering around professionally produced content; which is something I agree with. But much of what posts about Brightcove on WebTVwire, InsideOnlineVideo and Mashable talk about I completely disagree with. (note: I can read the InsideOnlineVideo article in Google Reader, but the link to it on their website is broken, hence why I don't link to it)

For starters, too many of them compare the Brightcove.TV service to YouTube or wanting to compete with YouTube which was never Brightcove's intention. Anyone who looks at the content on Brightcove.TV could easily see that it was not the same type of content shown on YouTube. Yes, there was some overlap, but not much. Most of it was still relatively well produced content, something YouTube isn't. And as the story on Mashable pointed out, Brightcove's cost to run such a destination site was probably extremely low since they were simply re-purposing the platform they already had in place. It's not like they re-invented the wheel and dedicated a lot of internal resources to the offering.

That being said, I disagree with the Mashable article as it portrays Brightcove as a company being in trouble and not being focused with it's offering. Shutting down Brightcove.TV does not put the company in jeopardy. It's focus from day one has always been about it's platform, their tools, syndication and advertising. The fact it used those tools to showcase consumer content in addition to professional content is not a big stretch. Yes, the consumer side is probably not a viable business model today, but if it costs them next to nothing to offer it, gets branding for the company name and Brightcove is smart enough to stop the offering as soon as they saw it didn't make sense, how does that put them in jeopardy? Mashable says management has problems but the fact they shut it down only a little while after it came to market, shows to me that management understands the market opportunity and moved quickly to address it. In my eyes, there would be problems with management if they waited years to shut it down all the meanwhile saying how great it is working out, like many companies in this industry do.

The WebTVwire article also questions the long-term success of Brightcove as a company and says, "Whether the company has a shot a succeeding now is still a question that is up in the air." True, but that can be said of any company, but I don't see how shutting down Brightcove.TV now creates more doubt. Yes, Brightcove has raised over $80 million and if we know how much revenue they were doing I'm sure their evaluation multiple would be quite high, but Brightcove is signing up a lot of new customer and content companies we have all heard of. They have large customers and they are getting more of them. While we don't know the average price they are paying, Brightcove had 800 customers at the end of 2006. Today, Brigthcove says they have over 4,000. No, customer count does not help us in trying to figure out revenue, but look at how many companies in the industry won't say anything about how many customers they have. At least it's one metric we can use to show Brightcove's growth.

As for the Brightcove service itself, options vary on how Brightcove's solution stacks up in the market. The post about Brightcove at InsideOnlineVideo says, "Their platform is a commodity, and they’re about to kill their own community. We may as well relegate Brightcove to the deadpool." The Mashable article likes Brightcove's platform and says "...they have the absolute most complex and cool back-end for their video management system that allows for customization of how your videos display. Personally, of the solutions I have used and looked at, I think Brightcove has the most robust tools and features in the market, however I don't use the advertising component of the platform so I can't speak to that functionality.

Some say that others have better tools than Brightcove and I'd love to see in the comments section who readers feel those companies are. Who do you compare to Brightcove when it comes to their platform?

For me, the bottom line is that more and more sites I visit are using Brightcove and years later, they are still focused on their core offering, that being their platform. I know what they do, what they offer and what the value is to a content owner. That is a lot more than I can say about many companies in this space who's service offering is confusing, complex or every changing. Is Brightcove guaranteed to make it in this space? No. No one is guaranteed anymore. But the fact that many companies have made acquisition offers for Brightcove and feel they have a platform worth owning also tells me that their business is not "shaky" or "in trouble" as some bloggers suggest.

Rocketboom Hosting Demo Session On Content Production For The Web

Next week at the Streaming Media West show, Andrew Baron from Rocketboom will be hosting a content demo session with folks from The Jet Set Show, TikiBar TV and PodTech.network.

The presenters include:

• Andrew Baron, Creator, Producer, Rocketboom (moderator)
• Robert Scoble, VP Of Media Development, PodTech.network
• Zadi Diaz, Executive Producer and Host, The Jet Set Show
• Jeff Macpherson, Creator and Host, TikiBarTV

With the explosion in online media content, new audiences are interacting with new kinds of content in new ways. Industry standard values have become disrupted and traditional content creators are adapting. What are some of the underlying threads in media content productions that are enduring and what new qualities are taking hold? What changes have new web structures brought about? What kinds of expectations must content creators have when the audience is in control? How is the audience different? Who is contributing, who is filtering and who is consuming? These are a few of the topics that will be covered.

It's not too late to register. While the early registration discount period has now passed, you can use PROMO CODE: DRF1 to get in with a discount.

Forbes.com: NBC, CBS, ABC and FOX's Internet TV Strategy

Forbes.com has a good article from last week about TV on the Internet and what NBC Universal, CBS, ABC and Fox are doing with online video. It contains Q&A interviews with Fox Digital Media President Dan Fawcett, ABC Digital Chief Albert Cheng, CBS Interactive's Quincy Smith and NBC Chief Digital Officer George Kliavkoff.

List Of RSS Feeds For Online Video News and Blog Sites

I get asked all the time what sites and blogs I read daily, so with that in mind, below is a list of all the RSS feeds in my Google Reader. This is by no means a complete list and while there are other sites out there, this list is tailored for my specific business and technology interests. 

Many of the large news sites are not listed here as they don't focus on topics pertaining to online video and when they do, my Google News Alerts picks those articles up for me. I also tend to not to list blogs where someone only posts once a month or where they are also posting their vacation photos, news about their favorite sports team, and lots of other things not pertaining to online video.

If there are ones missing from this list that I should know about, please add them in the comments section. Below are the feeds for each site but you will notice that in some cases, I am taking specific subject based feeds and not feeds for all the content on the site. (You can also Download a copy of all my RSS feeds exported from Google Reader into an OPML file.)

It would be great if other bloggers out there published their list as well as many time, the blog rolls on sites don't contain all the sites one reads. I ask a lot of others in the industry what they read and too many times, bloggers in particular don't want to say, as if they want to keep their list a secret so they are the only ones who have the news. Think bigger picture guys, help the industry move forward and help to educate as many as possible.

- Beet.TV
http://feeds.feedburner.com/BeetTV

- Bits
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/rss2.xml

- Blog Maverick
http://www.blogmaverick.com/rss.xml

- Business 2.0 Disruptors (video subject)
http://rss.cnn.com/rss/disruptors

- CinemaTech
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cinematech

- Contentinople
feed://www.contentinople.com/rss_simple.asp

- CrunchNotes
http://feeds.feedburner.com/crunchnotes

- Data Center Knowledge
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DataCenterKnowledge

- David Eckoff
http://www.davideckoff.com/atom.xml

- Digital Media Bulletin
http://feeds.feedburner.com/DigitalMediaBulletin

- Digital Media Wire - Video
http://www.dmwmedia.com/taxonomy/term/617/all/feed

- Digital Media- the haves and have-nots
http://digitalvista.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

- eMarketer Articles
http://feeds.emarketer.com/Articles.xml?src=rss_top_right_newsltr

- FierceIPTV
feed://www.fierceiptv.com/feed   

- Gartner Media Blog
http://blog.gartner.com/blog/xml-rss2.php?blogid=5

- GigaOM » Featured
http://feeds.feedburner.com/gigaom/featured

- HighContrast
http://simeons.wordpress.com/feed/

- Inside Online Video
http://www.insideonlinevideo.com/?feed=rss2

- Internet Communications
http://communicationtransformation.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

- Internet Content/Community - Seeking Alpha
http://internet.seekingalpha.com/by/type/internet-content/feed

- Internet Infrastructure - Seeking Alpha
http://internet.seekingalpha.com/by/type/internet-infrastructure/feed

- IPTV EVANGELIST: Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/IPTVEvangelist

- IPTV News at IPTV Watch
http://www.iptv-watch.co.uk/

- IT Broadcast and Digital Cinema
http://fullres.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

- [itvt] Bloggit
http://blog.itvt.com/my_weblog/atom.xml

- Jeff Clavier's Software Only
http://feeds.feedburner.com/softtechvc

- John Katsaros
feed://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnKatsaros

- last100
http://feeds.feedburner.com/last100

- LostRemote.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/LostRemote

- Media Stocks on Seeking Alpha
http://feeds.feedburner.com/mediastockblog

- Media Words
http://www.aleuromedia.com/blog/atom.xml

- NewTeeVee
http://newteevee.com/feed/

- NYT > Technology
http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/Technology.xml

- Olson's Observations
http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheWannabeVC

- Online Video Watch
http://www.onlinevideowatch.com/feed/

- Open Gardens
http://feeds.feedburner.com/OpenGardens

- P2P Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/p2pblog

- paidContent.org
http://feeds.paidcontent.org/pcorg/

- Pando Blog
http://feeds.feedburner.com/PandoBlog

- Parks Associates
http://parksassociates.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

- Publishing 2.0
http://feeds.publishing2.com/publishing20

- ScribeMedia (media feed)
http://www.scribemedia.org/category/media/feed/

- ScribeMedia (web 2.0 feed)
http://www.scribemedia.org/category/web-20/feed/

- Silicon Alley Insider
http://feeds.feedburner.com/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider

- Technology Evangelist
http://feeds.feedburner.com/technologyevangelist/bkxI

- The Business Of Online Video
http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/atom.xml

- The Digital TV Weblog
http://www.digitaltv-weblog.com/index.rss

- The GigaOm Show (Large QuickTime feed)
http://revision3.com/gigaom/feed/quicktime-large

- The Next Net
http://feeds.business2.com/blogs/business2

- The Universal Desktop
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Stewart/?feed=rss2

- Tim Reha
http://www.timreha.com/feed/

- Tremor Media Blog
http://blog.tremormedia.com/?feed=rss2

- TVover.net
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Tvovernet

- VentureBeat
http://feeds.feedburner.com/Siliconbeat

- VeriSign: Jeff Richards' Demand Insights
http://blogs.verisign.com/demandinsights/atom.xml

- Verizon - PolicyBlog
http://policyblog.verizon.com/PolicyBlog/rss/policyblog.aspx

- Video Insider
http://blogs.mediapost.com/video_insider/?feed=rss2

- Video On The Web
http://feeds.feedburner.com/typepad/kenmc1/video

- Web TV Wire
http://feeds.feedburner.com/WebTvWire

- WebVideoUniverse
http://www.webvideouniverse.com/icom_includes/feeds/special/wvu-15.xml

- Wired TechBiz
http://feeds.wired.com/wired/techbiz

BBC's Internet TV Service Provides Little In The Way Of A TV Experience

The BBC announced today their new free Internet TV service today and are heralding the arrival of their "on-demand" iPlayer as "important as the first color broadcasts in the 1960s." They have got to be kidding.

For starters, the service is only available to users running Windows XP, contains programming from only 65% of the total content on TV and is only available to users living in Britain. The BBC says that it's a priority for them to support other operating systems at some time, including Mac, Linux and Vista, but don't give a time frame as to when. You can't save the content to your computer and can't burn copies of the shows and you can only watch the content for a total of seven days. You can stream content on-demand, you can only download it. The iPlayer, which the BBC has been working on since 2003 and was originally called the iMP (Integrated Media Player) is still in beta mode and to date, I have not seen the BBC talk about what kind of market penetration they think they can get with their player when they do a full launch.

The content won't be HD quality and I can't find any article or info that details what the quality of the video will be. What is the bitrate and resolution? You'd think the BBC would really be focusing on getting this info out there being they are comparing it to a TV experience. But of the 37 news articles in Google News today, not a single one talks to the quality of the BBC service. The BBC is not the first broadcaster to offer this service in Britain. Channel 4’s ‘On Demand’ video download service has been out  for close to a year already.

Also, you can sign up to use the service, but the BBC is limiting the number of people initially who use as so as not to swamp the service and keep it to a controlled beta. I don't think there is anything wrong with  doing it that way, but then why promote it and talk about it so heavily when a large percentage of the people who sign up you will be turning away? Sets bad customer expectations.

The BBC has a long way to go before this becomes a real service and by continuing to talk about how important this is and comparing it to the color TV considering the service is only in beta, has not been tested for scalability, can't support multiple platforms, and can only do downloads, they are setting themselves up for failure in the eyes of customers. You can't promise the world, call it the start of a new revolution for TV and then not deliver an experience that is not even close to the one you say you are going to replace.

Microsoft's Internet TV Strategy

Last100.com has a detailed two-part story that outlines Microsoft's current and future strategy for Internet TV posted by Mack Male who also runs the WindowsMediaBlog.com site. It's a good read that gives insight into Microsoft's history in the space and covers many of the products and platforms that have had over the years including WebTV, UltimateTV, Windows Media Center, Microsoft TV Foundation Edition, MSN TV2, Xbox Live Video Marketplace and Microsoft Mediaroom.

Speaking of Internet TV, I'd be interested to hear readers feedback on whether or not the phrases Internet TV and IPTV are interchangeable in your eyes and mean the same thing?

Google And I Agree On One Thing: TV Is Not Dead

It's good to see that I am not the only one who thinks people are crazy when they say that TV is dead. TV is not dead. People kept telling me they don't watch TV anymore and only use their computer for video. What are they watching? Nearly every single show I watch is not available on the Internet today, in any form. TV is the only place I can see it. Yes, other means of distribution are going to affect the TV platform, but people are not abandoning the TV in favor of video online like people make it sound.

And to date, those creating content for the web are not creating the type of content that I personally want to watch. And even if they were, can I get it in HD? No. Can I watch it on a large screen? No. Can I easily watch it on my computer with someone else? No. When I travel and am in a hotel, is there a computer there? No. Can I TiVo it? No. Can the Internet scale like TV? No. The TV and the PC (or Mac in my case) are not the same platforms, showcasing the same content, or providing the same kind of experience.

An article in Business Week recently said, "when the line between the TV and Internet will blur..." and it's a comment you hear all the time. The line will never blur between them. They offer different experiences, on different devices, one via a closed network, one open. Yes, they will have some cross over, but they will never "blur". No one will even confuse their PC for their TV or vise versa.

And it's good to see that Google agrees. Vincent Dureau, head of TV technology for Google in a keynote address at the Internet Television Technology Conference this week said that, "on the surface it looks like TV is dead, but I believe there is actually a bright future for television." EETimes.com has details of the  keynote here. Some of their coverage said: Every minute six hours of video is uploaded to Google's YouTube service. What's more, "every day 95 percent of the YouTube library is watched at least once," Dureau said. That implies there is a broad, but fragmented audience for a wide variety of content. "You need to make the long tail of this content available, and the tail is very long," he said.

But I do disagree with Dureau when he says that the biggest problem right now is that users can't find the content they want to watch on the Internet and it's no surprise he says that search is the way to solve this problem. For me, it's not trying to find the content online that's the problem. The problem is that the content does not exist online. And telling me that there might be other content that is "similar" to the content I am looking for is not an answer.

If I like to watch MacGyver, which I do, then I want to see MacGyver shows online and not something that someone created that may be similar to it. I want to see that specific show. So search is not going to help me there. The Internet is not yet ready for TV as we know it and in my eyes, there is no such thing as "Internet TV" even though it is a phrase widely used in the industry.

Webcasting Large Entertainment Events Still Unprofitable

I love webcasting more than any other facet of this industry as it's how I got my start fourteen year's ago and it's what I use to do for a living. But it's sad to see that so many year's later, there is still no successful business model in place for large-scale entertainment based webcasts.

In the year's between 1997-2001, there was at least a couple of large music and entertainment webcasts each night on sites like SonicNet, Rocktropolis, MTV, Pepsi.com and many others. Back then, no website was making any money from the traffic or from the content, but they didn't need to. In those times all that mattered was getting eyeballs to your site and growing your page count while showcasing content available for free. Since the bubble burst in late 2001, there have been very few webcasts trying to reach a wide mass audience with entertainment based content.

The problem is that no one has yet to find a way to monetize the content. While this is nothing new as it's a topic we talk about every day in the industry in regards to on-demand content, producing live content is even more expensive and requires more in the way of resources and time. Some have tried doing pay-per-view events with no success as consumers are not yet willing to pay for something that has always been free.

And when it comes to the content rights, entertainers want huge payments as they think this stuff is worth a lot of money online thinking as if this is some sort of PPV event on TV. They quickly learn however that there is no money to be made with PPV on the web and they always end up scraping the webcast when they realize this is not a cash cow. How many large entertainment webcasts have you seen in the past 5 years?

It is a lot of work and money to put on a webcast and even more when it's goal is to reach a global audience all at the same time. But that is exactly what MSN is looking to do with it's LiveEarth series of concerts that kicks off today at 9pm EST. The Al Gore-promoted series of concerts will have close to 40 video feeds from countries all over the world for a span of 24 hours. The cost to produce something like this runs into the tens of millions, especially since some of the content will also be broadcast via traditional TV on NBC and Bravo amongst other channels. Since it needs to be TV quality and not just web quality, that means even more cost in the way of audio and video production. Throw in the cost to license the content, pay the artists, pay for audio and video production services, satellite time, encoding services (which one article says consists of a team of 80), not to mention distribution costs to deliver this via the web and you're talking serious dollars.

Now this event may make back some of it's money since it has a traditional broadcast component on TV and NBC can sell advertising around it, but even with that, this is a loss leader. And without the TV broadcast, I bet this would not even happen unless a sponsor, or MSN, was willing to kick in millions of dollars to cover the webcasting and productions costs.

The worst part about this whole thing is that it's just going to play into the hype about millions of people watching video on the web as if it is the TV. It's not. Remember Live 8 over two years ago? How did that make money? Where are the ROI articles saying how successful the Internet medium was for webcasting to big audiences? Most of the revenue generated from that event came from DVD and content licensing deals after the webcast for mediums other than the Internet.

Already, the hype is starting. ""We expect it to be the most highly watched entertainment event online," MSN senior director Lisa Gurry said in an Hollywood Reporter article. The article also says that "MSN, predicts Live Earth will be a record-breaker." Come on. Is that the best that MSN can say? How about telling us how many sponsors you have? Or how you plan to cover your costs? Or if this is a loss leader for MSN to create awareness for the brand? Or better yet, what metrics MSN is going to use to determine the success or failure of the event? And stop with the "record-breaker" comments. There is no such thing as a record breaker webcast or "largest webcast ever" as no one makes their logs available for review and everyone measure "viewers" differently. And many large webcasts never ever give out numbers or the numbers are inflated. I know. I use to give customers numbers of viewers after a webcast only to see them make the number a lot higher in press releases, sometimes by a few million. And if IF it was the largest ever, so what? Does that mean it's successful? No.

One other thing to note, unlike the Madonna event or the Live 8 event which was only on the Internet, much of the content of LiveEarth will be on TV. So why would I go to the Internet to watch it?

It's a shame this has not all been figured out by now. Like many, I love the webcasting medium. It's fun to webcast, brings its own set of challenges and is a technology that allows anyone to communicate without any geographical boundaries. And while the application has been successful in the enterprise, government, education and other verticals it still does not work for the large-scale entertainment events.

Fast Company Article Highlights Comcast's Web Video Strategy

There is a good article from Fast Company this month that profiles Comcast's online video business which has been around for over five years now. It's an interesting read since most cable companies have only recently begun to have online video strategies while the Comcast.net portal was launched in 2001 amidst down times in the industry. The article highlights the correct mentality that Comcast had back then to know how important a role online video would play to cable companies years later.

This summer, Comcast's new video portal FanCast is expected to launch and will contain content from the newly formed NBC and News Corp. joint venture.

Verizon's FiOS Service Pays Off: Adoption Growing, Service Capable Of 50MB Today

A few months ago I did a review of my Verizon FiOS Internet service commenting on just how good their 20MB fiber connection is for $45 a month. Since that post, I have gotten a lot of e-mails from users all over the country asking for more info on FiOS. Many can't yet get FiOS or their service does not yet have the ability to get 20MB (I actually have the ability to get 50MB today if I pay more) but they will before too long. To date, my post about FiOS has been the most widely read post on my blog over any other topic.

Verizon has been getting a lot of play in the media lately and in my eyes, it is well deserved. Last week, Verizon announced they had signed up their 1 millionth FiOS Internet customer and has almost half a million FiOS TV subscribers. I know those numbers sound small in relation to the market, but they are growing very quickly quarter to quarter and right now, their percentages are big. 50% of all their Internet customers are also buying video and they have a 16% market penetration rate for FiOS in areas where it is offered. In addition, nearly 80% if all FiOS customer take Internet, video and phone all as one package. Verizon plans to make the service available to 9 million homes by the end of 2007, and 18 million by the end of 2010.

In addition to the fast Internet service, Verizon also offers TV over the FiOS service is some areas. In NY State, Verizon has to apply to each town to get a franchise license to offer the service. I called my town Mayor last week to ask what the hold up was and was told I that a deal with Verizon for my town should hopefully be done within the next 30 days. I can't wait.

For me, TV is just as big as the Internet because for the first time, I see Verizon having the opportunity to be able to take the Internet and the TV and combine them into a real compelling experience. Last week, Verizon also announced that it plans to offer HD video on demand over the FiOS service. And doing a little bit of research about the cable box that Verizon uses and I found out that in some cases Verizon is using a Motorola set-top boxes, called the “QIP” series that allows broadband companies the ability to offer IPTV services. In addition, the Verizon DVR allows you to record in HD and add the multi-room functionality that allows you to watch recorded programs on multiple TVs in any room in your house.

There is also some interesting reading on CNET, who posted an article about a Q&A session that the CTO of Verizon did with a room full of reporters at the NXTComm telecom tradeshow two weeks ago. Verizon's CTO said their goal is "to eventually deliver 100 megabits per second to any device in the home." I believe them, as where I live, they are already halfway to that number.

I will be posting a lot more about Verizon's FiOS service over the coming months and will do a review of the TV service as soon as I can sign up for it. FiOS is the future and for some, the future is now. I have 20MB today, what can I do with it? Not much yet, as there is not a lot of content on the web taking advantage of this type of connection, but there will be soon as Verizon cuts content deals and starts looking at ways they can become a content distributor along with being a carrier.

FiOS is the real deal. It is the service that the industry has all been talking about wanting for years and it's finally a reality. Good service, fast, cheap and lots of support. Exactly what any product needs to have in order to get mass market adoption.

What Questions Would You Ask ABC, FOX, Yahoo! and AOL About Video?

This Thursday, I am moderating a panel at the OMMA Video show in NYC entitled "TV Content Comes Online: Prime Time on the Web" with panelists from ABC, FOX, Yahoo! and AOL. I plan on focusing the discussion around the "business models" that are trying to be established around professionally produced content. My questions will include:

• do the major broadcasters really see Internet video as "TV on the Web"?
• how many people are really watching this content on the Web?
• what does it costs to sponsor/buy ads around video content?
• how many eyeballs do content creators need to get before advertising can support and cover their costs of producing and distributing video online?
• has anything been successful from a sponsorship or advertising side of monetization of video?
• who has real numbers on how many more eyeballs the networks are getting to the TV, where they make their real money, because of their use of video on the Web?

What other points of discussion do you think should be discussed?

Readers of the blog can get a discounted pass to the show ($395) by registering here and using discount code VEDISCSTRM.

Microsoft Announces New IPTV Features, Renames Product Mediaroom

This morning, Microsoft announced that it had updated its IPTV software platform, providing several new capabilities and renamed the product Mediaroom. The new capabilities include music and photo sharing, picture-in-picture capabilities, digital terrestrial television support and mostly importantly, an application development toolkit. Opening up the platform is a crucial step for Microsoft as it now allows developers access to a once closed system and gives them an opportunity to develop new applications for Mediaroom.

Microsoft's press release states that "more than 18 of the world’s leading service providers have selected the Microsoft Mediaroom platform for their digital TV offerings, and commercial deployments are currently underway with 10 providers."

At the time of this posting, both the www.microsoftmediaroom.com and www.microsoft.com/TV websites were not working and giving directory listing errors.

While we're on the subject of IPTV, I think there is a lot of confusion as to what an IPTV service offering is and how that ties into streaming media technology and the online video industry. I hear the term IPTV and Internet TV used in the same manner but it's important to remember that IPTV is a closed network, the Internet is not. The two are very different technologies and distribution platforms.

Internet TV Platform Provider PermissionTV Gets $9 Million Investment

PermissionTV, the self described "Internet TV technology platform provider" announced today that it had received $9 million in funding from Castile Ventures and Point Judith Capital. Both are new investors in the company joining the other six investments firms who have already invested in PermissionTV. The  press release also says the company has signed over 30 new customers in the past year.

PermissionTV falls in the category of other companies like Narrowstep and Maven Networks that allow companies a platform by which they can create branded Internet TV channels and monetize the traffic via ad supported content, subscription based and various other means. There are a lot of players in the Internet TV platform space, whatever that means, but quite frankly, I can't really tell the differences between most of them. They all seem to focus on professional content, nothing user generated related, and sell the platform as more of an ASP model. The suite of features and functionality they have is all pretty similar but does vary from one provider to another.

For me, it all boils down to what exactly is defined by the term "Internet TV"?

Video Content Creators Like Rocketboom Can't Survive On Advertising

There has been a lot of talk about Rocketboom as of late (read Frank Barnako's Story on MarketWatch.com) as to how they are going to monetize their videos as they try to generate revenue. I think Rocketboom is a great example of where sometimes, our industry and the media that covers it, really goes overboard. From day one, Rocketboom was always talked about as being "successful" simply because they had a ton of traffic and eyeballs. Everyone talked about Rocketboom as the example of how to build a video business on the Internet even though enough people out there were saying, "where's the revenue"? What's the business model? Where's the syndication strategy?

Rocketboom should serve as a wake-up call to those who think that simply having traffic equals revenue and a sustainable, growing business model. Or to those that think online video advertising alone is going to generate a lot of revenue in today's market. Even companies like ABC and others are supplementing their advertising with corporate sponsorships, and in ABC's case, they have content that is professionally produced and is content people actually want to watch, unlike many of the other content sites on the web.

As an industry, we should be judging the success of any company based on revenue. I hate to say that as it sounds like something you'd hear from an analyst on Wall Street talking about a public company, but without real revenue, no company can survive. Sure, not all companies need to be huge and do tons of revenue. There is nothing wrong with being small, growing slowly and capturing more eyeballs or market share. But at some point, it all does come down to generating enough revenue to keep the company going, no matter how many eyeballs or notoriety your site has.

YouTube Content Coming To Apple TV, Changes Nothing

Yesterday, Apple announced that they will be making YouTube content available on the Apple TV in mid-June. In the initial beginning, only select content will be available with the entire YouTube catalog available by year's end. While some seem to think this is a big deal, it changes nothing in the way of either companies business.

Some have predicted that this is now the first real integration of web video and the TV but I beg to differ. Is there any business model behind it? No. Will Apple they sell more Apple TV's now? No. Does this give YouTube some sort of way of monetizing their content? No. Yes, YouTube will get some more viewers to select pieces of videos but the lack of traffic to YouTube is not what's stopping them from creating a revenue stream from their traffic. The only reason Apple and YouTube did this deal is is because they could. It's does nothing to change the dynamics of the business models or the industry.

This deal also highlights the lack of standards in the market as all of the YouTube content currently in the Flash format is going to have to be transcoded to be able to play back on Apple TV since the Flash videos would look bad on a TV screen. And if YouTube is going to make available however many tens of millions of clips they have, we're talking about a lot of work to do so. No, it's not rocket science, but it's not like YouTube can easily just re-purpose what they have. There is a direct cost to having to transcode millions and millions of clips to another format, not matter how big you are.

Am I the only one that is getting tired of hearing about YouTube? Ok, I get it YouTube, you're really cool and you got bought by Google. But what about a business model? How about discussing what your video advertising strategy is going to be? You have been saying for the past two years that you are "experimenting" with advertising models. Less talk, more action.

Creative Artists Agency To Scout Programs For Joost

Today, Joost announced that it had signed up Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to scout and secure new content for distribution on the online entertainment platform. This agreement shows the importance that online video distribution is going to play over the coming years for professionally produced content. CAA clearly represents some of the best music, movie, sports and media talent on its roster and potentially provides Joost with access to a vast amount of new content. I expect this deal will also enable some brand name stars to use the Joost platform to launch their own channel or online content offering. They should have more success via this route as opposed to another online video network as Joost will make sure the content is professionally produced and has nothing to lose by giving some stars a shot at creating their own programming.

NPR: Exploring TV's Takeoff on the Internet

Yesterday, NPR's show "All Things Considered" focused on the topic of Internet television and what is taking place on the web today with video. The piece is a pretty good overview of how both content creators and distributors are approaching the online video market. Myself, Brightcove and the founders of Joost all got some air time.

I would of liked to have seen them talk a little bit more to the business models taking place today, but you can only cover so many details in such a short piece. I would not want to be the editor who has to take a topic like Internet TV and condense the entire business down to a ten minute story.

 

Newsweek Does Q&A With Joost Founders

Newsweek just posted an article by Steven Levy where he got to do a sit down Q&A session with the founders of Joost. Nothing revolutionary in the article, but I do enjoy one of Niklas Zennström quotes as it is dead on, "New technologies very seldom completely replace things—they’re usually complementary."

NBC Teams Up With News Corp., AOL and Others to Form Video Site To Rival YouTube

NBC Universal and News Corp. announced today that they are joining forces to launch a new video portal this summer enabling them to better control their programming and give YouTube some competition. It's about time. What's taken these major content owners so long?

I like this deal for two major reasons. One, this new video portal will have real syndication in place since they are teaming up with Yahoo, Time Warner Inc.'s AOL, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, and MySpace as their initial distribution partners. In addition, they are going to focus on producing professional looking content as opposed to most of the junk you see on YouTube. Some have said this new video portal can't be compared to YouTube since YouTube is all about allowing users to upload their own videos and the new NBC Universal and News Corp. portal has not yet defined what roll user generated content will play.

It's hard to know how much of YouTube's traffic comes from user generated video or from TV produced content, but we know that a vast majority of traffic comes from TV content. I mean, how many jackass style videos can you really watch each day?

For me, the outstanding questions about this deal are:

• How will this new NBC Universal and News Corp. portal distribute content? Will they use a firm like Brightcove or try and keep most of the technology in-house? If they don't have a user generated function, then all they are doing is delivering video which they can easily do. But if they need to have transcoding and other functionality, my guess is they will partner with someone so that they enter the market faster.
• What will be the role of user generated video in the new portal?
• How many other content providers will jump on board with NBC Universal and News Corp. to add their content to this new portal? If it is successful when it launches, many other content owners will quickly want to join.

It seems every time there is a big deal announced people always seem to call it a "game changer" even when the new offering has not yet launched. In most cases, I think it's a bunch of hype and they use the term simply to create drama, but in this case, I think this announcement really does have the potential to change the economics for some content owners.

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.

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.

Big Surprise: Disney's MovieBeam Service Finally Sold

MovieBeam, the one time high-profile Disney spin off was bought by Movie Gallery for $10 million dollars. MovieBeam re-launched last year with nearly $50 million in funding and the rumor was that they spent many millions more on the now defunct project. You have to ask yourself why any company would want to spend $10 million dollars to acquire the assets of a company that has no revenue and no customers. Apparently, Movie Gallery bought the technology so they can develop a movie delivery service of their own.

Say what now? Your going to replicate a service that has already been proven to be one that consumers don't want? Am I the only one who thinks many of the companies out there today are not looking at mistakes made in the past? The history of the Internet can and does teach us many valuable lessons, if we are willing to learn from them. All that matters is what customers adopt and are willing to buy. The technology behind the service means nothing if it's not adopted, as was evident from the MovieBeam service.

Snacks and Meals: The difference between Online Video and TV

Love him or hate him, Mark Cuban's blog always makes for good reading. He's got a short little post from last month that explains the differences between TV and web video entitled "Snacks and Meals - The difference between Online Video and TV". It's a great analogy and some of the readers comments on the post make for good reading as well. Head on over to Mark's blog to read it.

Why is it that so many of us in the industry are still spending way too much of our time explaining to people the differences between online video and TV? Doesn't everyone get it by now? It is not a hard concept to grasp yet it seems like years later we're still having to point out the differences.

Expensive Bandwidth Means Joost TV Is Anything But Free

I didn't post anything on the Joost Viacom announcement last week because quite frankly, I don't really see it as news. While a deal was announced, Joost has not yet launched out of beta and no Viacom content is yet available to the public. While I am closely watching to see what happens, to me, no deal is real until the content is available, especially when a product is still in beta. In addition, there are plenty of other sites out there that gave their thoughts on the deal.

That being said, I came across an interesting article on itwire.com.au website this weekend. Alex Zaharov-Reutt writes in detail about how If you have restrictive bandwidth caps on your broadband connection, Joost TV is anything but free. It's an interesting read and one that looks at the Joost content distribution from a different angle.

The article is entitled "Joost Viacom warning: expensive bandwidth means IPTV not free" and you should head over to the iTWire site to read it.

Verizon FiOS Signs First Content Deal With Revver, Relaunches Broadband Portal

As predicted, Verizon FiOS signed it's first content deal with content syndicator Revver. I expect this is the start of many content deals to come from Verizon, specifically for the FiOS service. While Revver's content will initially be available only through FiOS TV, it will also be available on the Verizon FiOS Internet portal later in the year.

Speaking of the Verizon portal, I commented earlier in the week about some of the things I wanted to see Verizon do with their videos in the portal. Yesterday, I noticed they had overhauled the portal and changed the name of it to Verizon Surround. The portal, still powered by ROO, now offers videos at up to 700Kbps. Better then the 300Kbps the old portal had but I still am waiting to see some content encoded over 1MB.

Should Online Video Really Be Called Internet TV? I Say No.

I've been debating this for a long time with lots of people and it seems everyone has a different opinion. Many vendors have been describing their services as being that of "Internet TV". But is that really the right term to be using? For years now, many of us online video folks have been explaining over and over how the TV and video on the Internet are not the same. We're always giving examples of how different the user experience is, the way content is distributed etc.... but still, Internet TV seems to be the phrase put forth by many.

Personally, I think it's incorrect. We are so many years away from being able to truly think of the video we see on the computer as being compared to the video we see today on TV. Some of this is a good thing as we don't want the video we see on TV to be the same via the Internet. The whole point is that online video is changing the way the TV industry thinks about content, advertising and eyeballs, which is a good thing. But I still think combining the words Internet and TV together, at this stage in the game, just sets expectations incorrectly.

I'd love to hear your take on this subject in the comments section.

SM East Session: From the Web to Your TV: New Media Delivery Revolution

We have some great sessions at the Streaming Media East show in May talking about Internet TV.

One of the sessions, moderated by Jose Castillo (who has a great blog at thinkjose.com) will discuss how AppleTV, TiVo, Slingbox, and a host of other hardware and software products are starting to deliver new media content from the Web to TVs. The session will discuss what latest devices are being used to deliver consumer content and how content creators big and small are utilizing these new tools. Also discussed will be how online content is being treated differently from traditional broadcast content and what potential business models are being created for the monetization of consumer content. The panelists include:

- Tara Maitra, VP, GM, Programming, TiVo
- Bijan Sabet, General Partner, Spark Capital
- Jim Funk, VP, Marketing, Akimbo
- Fred McIntyre, SVP, AOL Video

What topics or points would you like to see discussed at this session? Please include them in the comments section.