Online Video: Should Content Creators Get a Cut?

At the Streaming Media East show on Wednesday May 21st, Eric Rosser Eldon from VentureBeat.com will be leading a session entitled "Online Video: Should Content Creators Get a Cut?". Last year, writers in Hollywood went on strike against movie studios and television broadcasters, in part because they demanded a share of revenue generated by the digital media they helped to create.

Meanwhile, the largest video site in the country, YouTube, barely pays its content producers anything. Some venture capitalists sense an opportunity, and are moving south from Silicon Valley to create new entertainment companies that in many instances put the writers—and directors and actors—in control. Learn what the role of content producers is in digital media, and how working with them can help your business.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Moderator: Eric Rosser Eldon, Writer, VentureBeat.com
• Gordon Castle, Sr. Technology Fellow, Turner Broadcasting Systems
• Justin Day, Co-Founder, CTO, blip.tv
• Bobby Tulsiani, Analyst, Media and Internet Video, Jupiter Research
• Kelly Rodriques, CEO, Blowtorch Entertainment

Have a topic or question for any of the speakers you want to see addressed? Submit it in the comments section and we'll add it to the Q&A portion of the session.

Registration is still open and you can see all the various pricing packages, including a one-day ticket on our website. Six years since we took over the StreamingMedia.com business and we've still managed to keep the conference very affordable for everyone to attend. A full two-day conference ticket is only $895.

How Old Media Is Embracing Online Video and New Media

At the Streaming Media East show on Tuesday May 20th, the National Academy of Media Arts & Sciences will be leading a panel session entitled "How Old Media Is Embracing Online Video and New Media".

This session will discuss how converging media technologies are redefining traditional distribution methods; how interactive and on-demand services are changing, and how entertainment and news video is being consumed. Come hear from some of the leading publishers, broadcasters, and advertisers about the impact that video and new media is having upon their business models.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Moderator: Peter Price, President and CEO, National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences
• Jordan Hoffner, Head of Premium Content Partnerships, YouTube
• Isaac Josephson, Director, Product Management, ABC News Digital Media
• Vivian Schiller, SVP, GM, NYTimes.com
• Richard Glosser, Executive Director of Emerging Media, CondeNet

Have a topic or question for any of the speakers you want to see addressed? Submit it in the comments section and we'll add it to the Q&A portion of the session.

Registration is still open and you can see all the various pricing packages, including a one-day ticket on our website. Six years since we took over the StreamingMedia.com business and we've still managed to keep the conference very affordable for everyone to attend. A full two-day conference ticket is only $895.

How To Monetize And Aggregate Niche Video Content

Over the next six weeks leading up to the Streaming Media East show in May I will be highlighting some of the speakers and sessions we have confirmed for the show. This year we have a lot of content producers, aggregators, new independent content studios and lots and lots of content demos.

One of the sessions I am personally interested in seeing is entitled "Monetizing And Aggregating Niche Video Content". The bottom line is that content creation is important but if the content is not promoted and does not generate revenue of some kind then this whole business model is broken. This session will show examples of ways to develop niche vertical sites without having to hire tons of new personnel and will discuss how to reach audiences on social networking sites like Facebook and others. Confirmed presenters are:

• Moderator: Steve Safran, Senior VP, Media 2.0, Audience Research & Development, AR&D
• Jim Louderback, CEO, Revision3
• Alex Blum, CEO, KickApps
• Herb Scannell, CEO, Co-Founder, Next New Networks

Six years since we took over the StreamingMedia.com business and we've still managed to keep the conference very affordable for everyone to attend. Registering before April 25th gets you a full two-day conference ticket for only $795.

"Streaming Content to Generate $70 Billion By 2013" - An Unrealistic Claim

Insight Research is forcasting that streaming content will generate almost $70 billion in the U.S. by 2013. I don't know how they come up with that number as I have not seen the full report, but $70 billion? They say the revenue prediction comes from audio and video files transmitted over the Internet, via an IPTV network or to mobile phones. They say that advertising revenue will fuel this growth and that "Questions surrounding consumers’ willingness to pay for content have been dispelled by the popularity of satellite radio and iTunes." I would disagree. Customers are willing to pay for music via iTunes, but so far, not videos on a mass-market scale. Over time, yes, more video specific content via iTunes will be purchased but you have to  back up the $70 billion number with more than just iTunes as an example. And what does satellite radio have to do with streaming?

They also say that if pre-stream costs drop faster than expected, or IPTV or 3G takes off faster than expected "it could blow the doors off of our forecasts, propelling this industry into explosive growth." I am all up for reports that show growth and make predication based on accurate data, but $70 billion is just so far away from reality. If someone has a copy of the full report, I'd love to see how the $70 billion number is calculated.

Adobe CEO Says Flash Player For iPhone In The Works

Last night, The Wall Street Journal was the first to report that Adobe's CEO Shantanu Narayen said on a conference call with investors that Adobe is working on a Flash player for the iPhone and hopes to have it ready around June. Shantanu said that Adobe has been working on the new media player since the release of the iPhone SDK by Apple last month. While this is good to hear from Adobe, I think there still are a lot of unanswered questions about how Flash video may work on the iPhone and what if anything Apple may do to prevent this if they have their own agenda.

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.

Free Product Giveaway: Microsoft Expression Studio

Thanks to the generous folks over at Microsoft, they have provided me with nine copies of Expression Studio that I can give away on the blog. The Expression Studio bundle includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Media and Expression Design and retails for $599. Expression Studio also includes a license for Expression Encoder and anyone can currently download a 180 day trail of the encoder here.

Three have already been given away in a drawing last month and I'll be giving the last six away in the next two weeks. I would like to give them away to those who will really use them as part of their daily job. To qualify to win a copy you must leave one comment in this post with a suggestion for Microsoft on how they can improve any aspect of Expression, Silverlight or Windows Media. Have you seen a feature you'd like included? Is there something missing that you think should be in the next version? Leave a comment with a working e-mail address. I will pick three users a week from today using a random number picker website and ship them out to the winners at no cost. Anyone is welcome to enter, but only your first comment will be counted.

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me. I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and potentially write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It's great exposure for your product.

Free Product Giveaway: Microsoft Expression Studio

Thanks to the generous folks over at Microsoft, they have provided me with nine copies of Expression Studio that I can give away on the blog. The Expression Studio bundle includes Expression Web, Expression Blend, Expression Media and Expression Design and retails for $599. Expression Studio also includes a license for Expression Encoder and anyone can currently download a 180 day trail of the encoder here.

This drawing is now over. Dustin Reyes, Brett Stime and Jeff Parr won the drawing.

I will be giving these away in batches of three at a time and would like to give them away to those who will really use them as part of their daily job. To qualify to win a copy you must leave one comment in this post with a suggestion for Microsoft on how they can improve any aspect of Expression, Silverlight or Windows Media. Have you seen a feature you'd like included? Is there something missing that you think should be in the next version? Leave a comment with a working e-mail address. I will pick three users a week from today using a random number picker website and ship them out to the winners at no cost.

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me. I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and potentially write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It's great exposure on a blog that does over 300,000 page views a month.

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.

Conference Session Preview: Streaming Media East Show Agenda

I've been a little slow in blogging as of late as I'm hard at work on finalizing the advance program for the Streaming Media East show taking place in May. We will have 36 sessions at the show and the first third are now confirmed with moderators.

This year I have decided to use the blog to post the conference agenda before the advance program is even printed so everyone can see the kinds of topics and subjects that are going to be discussed and the kind of demos that will be shown. Please keep in mind, this is just the first 1/3 of the program, there is a lot more to come.

If you see a session in particular you are interested in possibly speaking on you can send in a speaking request, but since the deadline passed more than two weeks ago, those who sent in speaking requests on time get first priority.

Effective Business Models For Short-form Video Marketing
Some advertisers see user-generated video sites as a free way to distribute their message, however this has rapidly evolved into a significant paid business, where sites charge based on video placement and search keywords. Learn the relative ROI of going to a major site (i.e. YouTube) vs. a smaller site (i.e. Metacafe) vs. a plethora of tiny sites. Learn what methods are successful for getting viewers and the importance of content vs. placement. This panel will discuss and show video examples of effective business models for both advertisers and publishers.

LifeCasting: How Fast and How Real Can We Get?
How did lifecasting videos get so hot? In the early days of television, live was the second choice, because of potential pitfalls, cost of production and a host of other problems. And yet, in the world of Internet video, lifecasting - using Internet video to share moments of our lives or to broadcast events and happenings - is the new hot thing. With platforms like Kyte.tv, Zannel, Mogulus, Stickcam and many others now available on the market, lots of new options and opportunities exist. Come see some of the hot and upcoming mobile lifecasting options in action and discuss is lifecasting will be become just a fad or the next big thing.

Best Practices in Enterprise Streaming for Communications and Learning
Use of online video in the enterprise has evolved well beyond the special occasion of rudimentary talking head videos that characterized early adoption. Today, innovative organizations take a holistic view of all their online communications, seeking to extract as much value as possible from any infrastructure that involves video. Whether webcasting executive briefings across the globe, or capturing and archiving rich media presentations for training, marketing, sales, and compliance, a growing number of organizations are capitalizing on the ability of Web 2.0 technologies. This session will show firsthand examples from Fortune 500 organizations of best practices in integrated online video for communications and learning.

CDN Pricing: The Going Rate For Video Delivery
With more CDN players in the market than ever before, trying to figure out what you should pay for delivering video can still be quite complex. This presentation will offer real pricing numbers from large, globally focused content delivery networks and show you the average going rate when you outsource delivery to a third party. The session will also cover some of the variables that determine the final price, how you should accurately compare the delivery services of one CDN to another and gives you a list of providers in the market today.

Monetizing And Aggregating Niche Video Content
This panel will discuss the new ways content owners and site developers are aggregating content and distributing it on the 2.0 web. We will give examples of ways to develop niche vertical sites without having to hire tons of new personnel and discuss how to reach audiences on social networking sites like Facebook. Learn about some of the new emerging platforms for niche video distribution and learn best practices of ways to increase your changes of making money with your content.

Focus Group: Young People's Attitudes Towards Online Video
This special session, a panel of high school and college students will discuss their online video consumption habits. Learn what types of online video content they like, what sites they get their content from, the devices they are playing it back on and how they interact with video advertising. Find out what their perspective is on pay media, portable content and what they think the future holds for the next generation of viewers on the web. Bring your own questions for a lively Q&A session with the students at the end of the session.

Live Broadcasting Over Mobile And WiFi Networks
While big media tests the waters of mobile broadcasting, many web video producers are already out there doing it live from the street, with a cell phone. Others are joining in and experimenting with two-way broadcasts via streaming video over cellphone networks and via WiFi, wherever they are. Viewers can chat while the broadcast is going on and affect and sometimes even direct the coverage of the content being produced. Come to this session to hear Steve Garfield talk with other pioneers in the live broadcasting space about their experiences on the forefront of this new technology for sharing their stories over the web.

The H.264 Convergence
Over the past year, more and more streaming media players are utilizing H.264 and providing support for the technology. Adobe's recent support for H.264 in their Flash player has sparked industry discussions amongst major broadcasters and online video producers about the role H.264 will play. This session will explain why H.264 is getting so much exposure, what recent announcements have put it into the spotlight and whether it can really be the one codec that the industry can all converge on. Attendees will also see real-world examples of sites and services that are utilizing H.264 today.

User-Generated Video in Education
The online video revolution has been embraced by students, teachers, instructors and researchers, many of whom are producing video for class assignments, teaching purposes and other uses. Learn what kind of content is being produced, where is it being posted and how user-generated content fits into the overall strategy of educational institutions. This panel of experienced educational media professionals will discuss the many ways your school, college or university can maximize the value of your user-generated video, and how you can assist faculty and students in making it better.

How Old Media Is Embracing Online Video and New Media
Led by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, this session will discuss how converging media technologies are redefining traditional distribution methods; how interactive and on-demand services are changing and how entertainment and news video is being consumed. Come hear from some of the leading publishers, broadcasters and advertisers about the impact that video and new media is having upon their business models.

Codec Comparison: VP6, H.264 and Windows Media
Choosing the right codec involves lots of factors, including quality, player install base, costs, and server related features. This session will compare the video quality of the big three codecs; VP6, H.264 and Windows Media. It will also include a comparison of the primary H.264 codecs including Apple, Sorenson, Main Concept and Dicas. The session will present attendees with the latest published penetration figures for the H.264 compatible Flash 9 player and Microsoft's Silverlight player and provide usage statistics among major broadcasters and corporations. Attendees will also learn how to compare relevant server and player related features, and costs associated with adapting and using each platform.

Delivering Media For Microsoft Silverlight With Windows Server 2008
This session will cover how to take advantage of the new Silverlight media serving features in Windows Server 2008. Attendees will learn about the new capabilities of IIS7 Media Pack including bit-rate throttling and playlist options for progressive download content. The session will also demonstrate the enhanced capabilities in Windows Media Services 2008, including scalability doubling and appliance-like cache/proxy deployment for edge networks specific to streaming.

Akamai Analysts Too Caught Up In Apple's New Movie Rental Service

All week long I've gotten lots of questions about Apple's new movie download service and what this means to Akamai. There is a lot of speculation out there about Apple's new service, but now that it has been officially released, I'm not sure why analysts who cover Akamai are so concerned about the impact they think this has on Akamai?

For starters, we all think that Akamai is delivering this content, but I have yet to hear anyone from Akamai confirm this in any public forum. Be that as it may, lets assume Akamai is delivering this content for Apple. What's the big deal? This is one customer, adding a video offering to the market that is anything but mainstream. Akamai is not going to be delivering so many movies over the next 2 months that it's going to have any large impact on Akamai's earnings for Q1. Apple's new movie service is anything but mainstream and won't me mainstream anytime soon. For starters, the service has a very limited library and the content only last 24 hours, which is going to turn a lot of people off. You can't transfer any of the videos to any iPod except for the absolute latest versions, the HD movies are not available expect when rented from an Apple TV device and for all of Apple's talk about their new MacBook Air, who's going to rent a movie to play back on that thing when the speakers in the new laptop are only in mono?

Bottom line, the new Apple movie rental service is a start, but it's not going to revolutionize the video market for movies anytime soon. Widespread adoption won't happen when you need a device to rent movies and when the amount of time you can watch them for is so limited. The number of Apple TV's that have been sold is very small and even if Apple sells a few million of them this year, that's anything but mainstream. Analysts know that the way any company like Akamai grows is by signing up many new customers or upgrading many current customers each quarter. Rarely does one customer have a direct impact on any vendor that results in a big spike in revenue in such a short period of time.

That's not to say that a new service like this by Apple is not good for Akamai or any CDN in the long run, but it is way too early to tell what real impact it will have on revenue and we won't be able to judge that impact for many quarters to come.

Free Product Giveaway: TiVo Series 2 DVR

UPDATE: Drawing is now closed. Tom Russo was selected as the winner using a random number picker website.

I have a brand new TiVo Series 2 DVR that TiVo sent me that I no longer need as I have upgraded to Verizon's FiOS TV service with their DVR. The unit records 80 hours and is brand new, with remote, but not with the original box or manual. No service is included, you will need to pay the monthly TiVo service fee.

To qualify to win the unit, all you have to do is leave one comment on this post with a working e-mail address. I will pick one user a week from today using a random number picker website and ship it out to the winner at no cost.

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me. I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and either write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It's great exposure on a blog that does over 300,000 page views a month.

Free Product Giveaway: MediaGate Wireless HD Media Player

UPDATE: Guillaume Courouge was selected as the winner using a random number picker website.

The nice folks over at MediaGate sent one of their MG-350HD Wireless HD Media Players for me to review, but with the holidays and other deadlines I am under, I won't have a chance to do a product review anytime soon. I did however find a really positive product review on the unit over at HomeTheaterBlog.com

Since I won't be able to review the unit, they have nicely said I can give it away to a reader of my blog. All you have to do is leave one comment on this post with a working e-mail address. I will pick one user at random a week from today and ship it out to the winner at no cost.  

If any company is interested in getting exposure for their video related product on my blog and is willing to give away the product, contact me. I will post pictures of the product, link to the company website and either write a product review or link to other reviews on the web. It's great exposure on a blog that does over 300,000 page views a month.

H.264 Makes It's Move: Moderate This Session At Streaming Media East

I've got another moderator spot open for someone who wants to organize a session at Streaming Media East around H.264 and talk to the major announcements that took place in the past year and what will become of H.264 next year. This session is probably more geared towards a technical discussion but should also cover content trends and usage adoption taking place in the market. H.264 is a hot topic and is only going to get hotter next year.

Ideally, the moderator is not from a vendor company or someone who is selling a product or service involved with H.264 of any kind or can convince me you don't have a conflict of interest. Again, bloggers and others who write and cover this topic for the industry are ideal. Send me an e-mail if interested.

Limelight Networks and Microsoft Team Up To Deliver Paramount's Movie For Blockbuster

As many sites have been talking about over the past week, the new Jackass 2.5 movie by Paramount Pictures will be distributed exclusively on Blockbuster.com starting next week. The content will be using Microsoft's Silverlight platform and will be delivered by Limelight Networks.

I was going to wait to post about this until later this afternoon when I have a call with the companies involved, but a Microsoft blog posted about it last night. I will post most about the project later this afternoon.

Adobe's New Flash Server Pricing Improves CDNs P&L, Lowers License Fee For Customers

While Adobe has gotten a lot of traction in the market with their Flash video platform, many content companies have not adopted Flash streaming due to the server license costs or the license fee that CDNs are required to charge for Flash streaming. With today's announcement by Adobe of Flash Media Server 3 and the new Flash Media Interactive Server, those licensing costs have now been drastically reduced.

As was expected, Adobe cut the cost of the Flash Media Streaming Server which is now priced at $995 for an unlimited connection license. And the newly announced Flash Media Interactive Server, which is geared towards customizable streaming solutions, multi-way social applications, content protection and allows for more server side customization is priced at $4,500. (For technical details about the functions of each server read Stefan and Ryan's blogs)

For some time now, Adobe has known that price has been the biggest hurdle for many customers to overcome in the adoption of the Flash platform. With the new pricing, Adobe has essentially removed the number one barrier to entry and while not discussed in the press release, has also reduced the cost that CDNs need to charge customers for Flash streaming delivery.

By reducing the costs that CDNs need to charge customers for Flash streaming, Adobe is making it a lot easier for customers to use CDNs  and enabling the content delivery networks to increase their margins. While the Adobe streaming license fee that most CDNs have been charging averages around $0.05 per GB delivered, the new Adobe streaming pricing is somewhere between $0.01 - $0.025 cents per GB depending on the CDN and the volume of Flash streaming they are pushing. Some CDNs have a better rate based on the volume they push and some CDNs include the price into their overall cost and reduce the price even further. The bottom line is that the average price per GB Flash streaming fee that the CDNs are now charging is at least 50% cheaper than what it was a few weeks ago. Within the past 2-3 weeks, quotes from many of the major CDNs have already shown lower license fees.

This is good news for the industry as a whole and for Adobe as the best way we can all truly benefit in the market is by having more widespread adoption, with a lower barrier to entry.

NBC Direct To Use P2P Video Delivery From Pando Networks

In September, NBC announced that come this fall they would launch a new service, named NBC Direct, that would enable viewers to watch some of NBC's top TV shows as ad-supported downloads. While NBC plans to use many platforms to make their content available including iTunes, the move by NBC is essentially driven by the desire to cut out the middle man and deal directly with the viewer.

While most details surrounding the service have not yet been disclosed, three companies have been working together to build the NBC Direct service. ExtendMedia is doing the interface, YuMe is providing the advertising platform and Pando Networks has been chosen as the P2P technology of choice. When contacted last night, executives at Pando Networks would not comment for me on their involvement, but others I have spoken to have confirmed that after a long evaluation of various P2P networks by NBC, Pando has won the business.

When NBC Direct launches out of Beta, this will be the first major TV network in the U.S. to adopt P2P and make it such a crucial part of their distribution strategy. I know some will say Joost is already doing this and the BBC has been doing it for awhile but they don't count in my eyes, for obvious reasons. The NBC Direct service will bring a lot of exposure to P2P and will help to legitimize P2P as a solution for some, not all, kinds of video delivery. NBC won't be using P2P exclusively and as anyone who truly understands the value of P2P will tell you, it's not a replacement for other distribution platforms but rather a compliment or enhancement.

For Pando Network's it's a big win and should lead to other major broadcasters and content companies giving them and other P2P platforms a legitimate shot at solving their video distribution needs. 2008 is shaping up to be the "perfect storm" for the video delivery segment of this industry.

Two weeks ago, I interviewed Yaron Samid, the Co-Founder and CMO of Pando Networks from the Streaming Media West show and discussed the current hurdles in the P2P industry and what role Pando Networks is looking to play in the market. (apologies on my audio levels as I was battling a cold)

Video Search: Finding Content In A Thousand-Channel Universe

With the arrival of "video everywhere" and increasing online video viewership, what role does search need to play to make it easier for consumers to find what they want to watch?

That's what we are looking to discuss next week at the Streaming Media West show with a session entitled "Video Search: Finding Content In A Thousand-Channel Universe". The confirmed speakers include:

• Larry Bouthillier, Educational & Multimedia Technology Architect, Harvard University (moderator)
• Dmitry Shapiro, CEO, Veoh Networks
• Tim Tuttle, VP, AOL Video
• Rose Karpel, Director, Video Products, Reuters
• Suranga Chandratillake, CEO, blinkx

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.

Consumer Generated Video Sites: Can They Be Monetized?

That's the question we're looking to answer at the Streaming Media West show next week with a panel entitled "Consumer Generated Video Sites: Can They Be Monetized?"

We've got a great lineup of speakers including:

• Dan Rayburn, Executive Vice President, StreamingMedia.com (moderator)
• Chris Carvalho, Director of Business Development, Lucasfilm
• Joel Sanders, Sr. Director of Site and Operations, AtomFilms, MTV Networks
• David Eckoff, VP, New Product Development and Innovation, Turner Broadcasting
• Steve Rosenbaum, CEO and Founder, Magnify.net

With nearly a hundred video portals or service offerings all based on user-generated video, and more launching each day, can any of them survive? What business models need to be put in place for these companies to make it in the long run? Will advertising ever provide the revenue they need or even help them cover their bandwidth bills? With so many sites that seemingly do all the same thing, how will these sites distinguish themselves from one another? Come hear directly from some of these UGC sites and learn what they are doing to try and lead the charge to profitability.

It's not too late to register. While the early registration discount period has now passed, if you have not yet registered and want a discount code, let me know.

TiVo Survives For One Reason: Customer Service

Last week my three and a half year TiVo box started showing signs of dying. Programs would not record and playback properly, video was constantly freezing and it was starting to affect the live TV signal as well.

I put in a call to TiVo this morning expecting to have to pay to get a new DVR since mine was over three years old and I was not under a contract, which apparently means the DVR is not under warranty. After telling me I had to pay $179 to get a new unit, I figured I should probably cancel my TiVo service since I will be switching from Cablevision to FiOS TV in the next few weeks anyway and would want a Verizon DVR. After harassing my local town board, calling each week for the past three months, I've learned that they have come to terms with Verizon for a TV license in my town and should be offering the TV service later this month. (I've had FiOS Internet service for almost two years now and love it.)

After telling TiVo it would be best to just cancel my service, I was transferred to someone who didn't try and sell me anything, flat out said they didn't want to lose my business and would just send me a new DVR at no cost. They didn't give me the run around, spoke English, was friendly and understood the situation and was honest and upfront. The sad part about this for TiVo is that while I didn't cancel my service, they can only get another month or so of my business as once FiOS TV is available, I can't come up with one strength TiVo has over the Verizon TV DVR. The Verizon DVR can record in HD, can record two shows at once, can playback recorded shows in multiple rooms at once with only one DVR and can record up to 85 hours of standard definition. Even the new TiVo box they are sending me can't do HD, can't record two shows, can't playback video in more than one room and only records up to 40 hours.

The only thing that TiVo has over Verizon that I can think of is the TiVo VideoToGo feature which while cool, I've never used once. I've always liked TiVo for their customer service and how easy their product is to use. And to date, it's their customer service that keeps me as a customer. But I'm afraid that pretty soon, that won't be able to keep me much longer. I wish Verizon would have licensed the TiVo software for their DVRs, but they ended up building all of that on their own. Just don't see how TiVo can survive in the long run, even though I wish they would.

The Five Biggest Technical Issues Hurting The Growth Of Online Video Advertising

For many years, the online video industry has always had some who like to point to limitations on the technology as being the excuse and reason why the industry is not grow as fast as some may like. For years it was people complaining that video quality is not good enough, that it's  too hard to deliver and too difficult to scale. Today, those arguments are no longer valid. The technology is here today to have great quality video, to deliver it with performance and to reach as big of an audience as today's business models support.

But when it comes to online video advertising, there is a valid argument that the technology today does not have the functionality that is needed for us to see video advertising growth on a faster scale. Will we get there? Yes. But it's taking longer than it should due to these ten technical and industry issues:

• There is no set standard for the length of an ad based on the length of the content. We all get ads at 10, 15 and 30 seconds in length for both long and short form content, with each content site doing it differently. And in some cases, like I outlined with Yahoo!, some sites deliver different ad lengths in the same piece of content. What a bad user experience. How can we expect viewers to get use to watching ads when the experience is different on each site?

• Many times, ads are delivered at a lower quality and smaller window size than the content itself. This is a trend I am seeing more and more of lately. I click to watch a video that is encoded at 300 or 500Kbps but the ad I get before it is only encoded at 100kbps and the ad only fills up a fraction of the video window. What a poor experience. For instance you are given a 320x240 window but then the ad shows up as 240x180. The only reasoning behind this that I can think of is that it's cheaper to deliver the ads this way since they are at a lower bitrate and/or the agency encoded all of it's ads at only one bitrate. It looks like crap.

• There is still very little being done in the way of targeted ads. Due to many technical issues, ads are still being churned out and delivered to web users with almost no insight into what the user wants to see or more importantly what the user should see based on their location. I always use the example of how I see Crispy Creme donut ads yet the closest Crispy Creme to where I live is 43.3 miles away in Milford CT. I know some ad platforms are doing more and more with targeting, but still not enough. This needs to be figured out faster. If you can't deliver ads based on a persons interests, geographic location or even gender, then the majority of these video ads are completely being wasted. It's no wonder the pre-roll ad format is dying.

• Reporting metrics. Where are they? It seems that every ad network I talk to all measures and records user metrics for ads very differently. What is the problem here? Not being able to give advertisers back the reporting they want, thereby enabling them to try and come up with their own metrics to judge if their campaign was a success or not is like shooting the industry in the foot. No service, product or offering is worth anything if you can't give the person who is paying for it the data they need to analyze if they should keep paying for it. The ad vendors make this WAY too difficult. For instance, if you look at the top six to eight vendors websites who provide these services, why can't you download a product sheet from their website that shows exactly what type of reporting is offered? Why are they hiding this info and keeping it mysterious?

• CPM rates. Ok so this one is not a technical issue but it is one of the biggest problems in the industry. Why is it that no one is willing to say what they get per CPM for online video ads? I ask content owners all the time, I ask the portals, I ask the major networks and to date, I don't know of a single specific example I could tell someone of what the rate is. I could not point you to one major content owner and say I know what price they are getting for CPMs rates and no one shares this info. Yes, everyone says it's between $10 and $60 and that's completely useless. All of the major studios keep telling us how well they are doing online with their content and how well the advertisers love to sponsor it and how much growth they are seeing yet, none of them will give any numbers, to anything. Short-sided thinking folks. You know how many content owners actually have good content worth syndication or licensing but don't as they have no idea what type of rates they can get? There is such a lack of information in the market for CPM rates and no one is doing any educating of the market. It's a losing proposition for everyone when this information is hidden away as if it's some sort of patented trade secret. They always have excuses like the one where the major broadcasters say advertisers are buying ads across many different platforms and they can't break out the P&L from just one platform like the web. What crap.

I'm certainly not the first person to point out some of the technical problems the online video advertising industry is facing and I won't be the last. We all see the potential that online video advertising holds and see the many ways that content owners and portals are embracing all forms of online video ads for pre-roll, post-roll, in page, in stream etc.

Part of the problem is the industry itself but a good deal of the problem lies with the technology of the entire ecosystem for video ad creating, selling, fulfillment, delivery and tracking. I'm as big a fan as anyone when it comes to ways that content can be monetized, but the industry as a whole needs to do a lot better job of working together to create as much in the way of standards as they can.

News Corp. & NBC Announce New Company Name: Will Keynote Streaming Media West Show

This morning, News Corp. and NBC Universal announced that their new online video portal, most recently referred to as NewCo, will now be officially named Hulu. The release says that starting today, users can sign up at the Hulu website to be included in an invite list for the private beta which will start in October.

Kevin McGurn, VP, National Sales Leader for Hulu will be one of our keynote presenters at the Streaming Media West show in November in San Jose. Keynote presentations are available for free to all registered attendees and online registration is now open.

Amazon Not Providing Content Delivery For Streaming

Last week, there was a lot of speculation about whether or not Amazon has built out a portion of their content delivery network specifically to deliver video via streaming media protocols. Based on a post two weeks ago on the Amazon blog, which spoke to a Justin.TV webcast, many believed Amazon may now be delivering streaming media services to content owners.

While Amazon did work on the Justin.TV webcast, it was Akamai that delivered the streams. Content owners who want to deliver Flash streaming can use Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and Simple Storage Service (S3) along with a CDN to deliver streaming media based content. Another way technical savvy customers are utilizing Amazon's EC2 and S3 service is with a product like the Wowza Media Server Pro.

Combining the Amazon services with Wowza Media Server Pro and you have a cost-effective and elastic hosting environment for Flash streaming applications. For those not familiar with Wowza, every Wowza Pro edition server has four key features that make it especially well suited for deployment on Amazon's EC2/S3 for live and on-demand streaming:

• Live Stream Repeater: For live streaming, you can configure one server as the “origin” server to which you will send your live stream. The origin server then sends streams to each edge server in EC2, and the edge servers send the streams to viewers. Adding capacity is easily done by adding more edge servers.

• Load-Based Load Balancing: For live or video on demand, load balancing is a key factor. You don’t want to have one server overwhelmed while other are mostly idle. Wowza Pro has very effective capability that enables you to ping a server over http to determine its load. This capability enables you to set up the system so that the latest viewer always attaches to the least used server in your cluster of EC2 servers.
  

• Efficient Code: Wowza Pro is a very efficient server application that is well suited to the low power CPU of an EC2 instance.

• Simultaneous Recording: Live events can be streamed and recorded on S3 at the same time.

Combining these features with Wowza Pro’s high reliability and performance makes the combination with Amazon EC2/S3 a potentially very attractive solution for Flash streaming. The ability to dynamically add or reduce capacity on Amazon EC2 matches well with the audience fluctuations and the need to dynamically provision for time-limited live broadcast events and when an on-demand video becomes viral.

Amazon's EC2 is a reasonable and a cost-effective way to go if you know what you’re doing and have a technical and operational experience. As with any webcast, not just for EC2, the quality of live video is very much dependent upon the quality of the link from the video encoding source to the streaming server. Companies have seen some great results with EC2/S3, but your mileage may vary depending upon your connection.

So far, Amazon shows no signs of getting into the CDN business themselves for streaming media delivery. That's not to say they couldn't if they wanted to, but to date, they have been happy to work directly with the CDNs and other solutions on the market like Wowza that tie well into EC2/S3. All in all, it’s great to have a broader range of options, and given the economics of both Amazon EC2 and Wowza, this one warrants a serious consideration for tech-savvy content owners who want to delivery their content themselves.

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?

Yahoo! Video Shows Us The Problems With Online Video Advertising Today

You'd think by now content companies, especially the large portals, would have figured out a better way to deliver online video ads in a compelling manner. But if Yahoo! News is any indication, the world of online video advertising has a long way to go before this business grows like we all want it to. Delivering online video ads is still a terrible user experience with un-targeted ads, of different lengths, too often in the content whilst taking away all of the user control.

If you want to see clips from the show 60 Minutes, Yahoo!, through a deal with CBS, has created a portal at http://60minutes.yahoo.com. While the interface of watching and finding videos is decent, the entire business and delivery of online video ads is horrible.

I chose to watch the story about online gaming and a window popped up with the video and nine thumbnail videos below the main window. Before the start of the video, I was delivered a 30 second ad for Netflix. While the ad was playing, nothing on the website was clickable, forcing me not to be able to click on any other links and disabling all content on the site. And once the ad was over, the video that played was only about a minute in length. What Yahoo! has apparently done is taken the 60 Minutes segment on online gaming, and cut it up to nine one minute segments. So when a user clicks one of the other thumbnails to watch the second section of the video, they get another ad, again for Netflix, again 30 seconds in length before you get to watch a video that's 48 seconds long.

And if you want to watch all nine segments of the show, get ready to also sit through nine ads. Adding this up, I have to watch nearly four minutes of ads, to see a segment of content less than nine minutes in length. And the ads are completely un-targeted. I got 6 Netflix ads, and 3 ads for online trading. So why is there no ad system in place showing me different ads? Does Yahoo! really think showing me the same ad six times is what consumers want or is effective for the advertiser? And why were some of the ads 15 seconds in length and others were 30 seconds? In the same piece of content you're delivering two completely different ad lengths which is a horrible user experience. I get a fifteen second ad which I then get use to with this content, only then to be delivered one twice as long when I watch part two of the same piece of content.

And even if you let all nine of the videos play back to back playlist style, Yahoo! still puts many ads before each of the segments breaking up all of the content into way too many pieces. If a segment like 60 Minutes is under nine minutes in length, it should not be broken up into nine pieces. And why is it that the 60 Minutes episode that is on the Yahoo! portals home page, is one from close to a year ago and not from the episode that aired last night on TV? The story of online gaming was one I saw on TV at least six months ago. But the one I saw last night on TV is no where to be found on the Yahoo! website.

To find it, I have to go to a different website. And not the CBS Innertube website where you would think it would be since that is where you can watch full-length CBS shows, but rather you have to go directly to the 60 Minutes website on CBS.com. And once there, while I can find the video, see the screen shot on how it plays. It is embedded into the page, in a window that is larger than it actually plays in. But I guess I can't complain since while the video window is super small in size, it is free of ads.

For all the talk of how big the online video industry is, it's not even going to be a billion dollar industry this year, compared to TV advertising which is expected to do over $22 billion this year. While many times different segments of the online video industry say that the business models are what's stopping the growth of an industry and not the technology, when it comes to online video advertising it's the opposite. Online video advertising technology still does not provide the level of functionality, standards, reporting, targeting and interactivity that is needed to drive this business forward a lot faster. The technology needs to get fixed before this business can really start to take off.

OMMA Video Archive With FOX, AOL, Yahoo! and ABC Now Online

Mediapost has now archived the sessions and presentations from the OMMA Video show in NYC. The session I moderated entitled "TV Content Comes Online: Prime Time on the Web" with FOX, AOL, Yahoo! and ABC is now available for viewing.

I asked the panelists some of the questions that readers of my blog wanted to know more about so check out the Q&A portion of the video about 15 minutes in.

You can also read David Kaplan's recap of my session over at PaidContent.org or another overview at Mediapost.com.

MSN Releases Traffic Numbers For LiveEarth Webcast, Sort Of

On Sunday, MSN put out a press release talking about the traffic to the Live Earth webcast. But as I mentioned in my previous post, the way the numbers are given out after webcasts, they don't really accurately measure  the traffic.

The title of the release says "Live Earth Global Concerts Reach More Than 10 Million Online At MSN..." More than 10 million what, people? Apparently not. Because the details of the release then say "MSN had received a total of more than 10 million video streams." So it's not 10 million people as viewers are making more than one request or visiting the site multiple times. So how many unique people was it? And why does it says MSN "received" the streams? MSN does not receive the streams, the receive the request for the stream.

They then say, "...and has the most simultaneous viewers of any online concert ever" but then the release does not give out any details on how many simultaneous streams they did. Why is it so hard for companies to keep from being so vague?

• how many total stream requests did you full fill?
• how many unique streams did you serve?
• what was the average length of time someone watched the webcast?
• what percentage of traffic came from what regions of the world?
• what was the average bitrate that someone watched?

Very easy questions. Basic. These are the same questions that all customers ask their stream hosting provider after an event and gets exact figures.

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.

New HD DVD Features Allows Consumers To Edit And Upload Video

As Blu-ray and HD DVD continue to battle it out over which format will dominate the market, last week, HD DVD released its first title that incorporates new user features that involves online video. These new features allows anyone who connects their HD DVD player to the Internet via a broadband connection the ability to download trailers to other movies, change menu styles and download other subtitles.

But the most interesting feature is that it will allow anyone to re-edit the movie, arranging the scenes as they want and then allow them to upload their edited video to a server hosted by the studio, in this case to Warner Brothers, for the movie 300. The other users can download that version of the movie to their HD DVD players and watch the re-edited video. What I'm trying to find out is what the technology is behind this, what compression is being used and how large of a file is the user uploading from their house to the studio. And where is the file saved that is being downloaded? To some sort of drive in the HD DVD player or to the disc itself? I can't find any technical details on the HD DVD site.

All of this seems like a bit of last ditch effort for HD DVD which clearly is not getting the market penetration over Blu-ray. Yes, from the data I have read, more HD DVD players have been sold than Blu-ray, but it's all going to come down to what content is available. The content will dictate which format wins. And the announcement by Blockbuster two weeks ago that it would not stock HD DVDs when it expands the high-definition section in its 1,450 stores next month and will only stock Blu-ray, is another bad sign for HD DVD.

I say good, let one of these formats fall by the wayside and lets get some standards when it comes to something in U.S.

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