YouTube's Live Event As Overhyped As The Company

I hate to add yet another post in the blogsphere about YouTube's live event from this past weekend, but I really have to ask, does anyone really care about it? It's not a big deal. Over the past ten years there have been a lot of live broadcasts on the web with music and entertainment acts. YouTube has no business model and can't figure out how to make money, even with all of their traffic, yet people are excited that YouTube did a live webcast as if this is some new, cutting-edge trend.

And why is there so much talk about how the webcast was delivered? I see all these posts talking about how YouTube worked with Akamai as if that is some sort of big news and people seem all surprised. Of course YouTube did not stream the event themselves and used a CDN. Who did they think was going to do this? Even TechCrunch says, "We’d heard rumors that Google had partnered with one of the big three live streaming services - Mogulus, Ustream or Justin.TV", "But instead of working with them, or building their own streaming media CDN, they chose to work with Akamai." Who does TechCrunch think Mogulus, Ustream and Justin.TV uses when they do large-scale live events? They aren't CDNs either. So even if one of them was "used", the event would have gone through Akamai, Limelight or another third party anyway. Why is anyone surprised by any of this? How is this a story?

But of course, that does not stop folks like TechCrunch trying to add drama by saying, "All this expensive CDN infrastructure really isn’t necessary to handle live video streams effectively. P2P software can handle it effectively and far cheaper since the users are serving most of the video to others." Really? Of all the P2P based services on the web, almost none of them support live streaming. Some say they do, but try getting a real demo of a live P2P stream. Octoshape works (used by CNN.com), but most others aren't doing live at all. So how is P2P going to solve the problem? It won't, but it's easy to simply make a blanket statement that says CDN is crap, just solve the problem with P2P.

I think too many people were expecting YouTube to roll out their own webcasting service, which makes no sense. If YouTube were to do that, they would not do it via their own network and would have to use a content delivery network. But the bigger question is does YouTube really need a live service? Absolutely not. If they can't make money with on-demand video, they won't make it with live content either.

I also read posts from a few folks who said the live event probably broke records and that it was the largest event ever online. First, that's not true. It is not possible for anyone to know what live broadcast has had the most simultaneous users because no one shares the raw data. Anyone can say anything they want since no one is checking it. I've done enough webcasts to know what the real numbers were, only to then see the client put out a press release the next day with numbers three times as large.

I don't get all the fuss about YouTube. It has no business model, no clear ad strategy, is slow to adopt technology, has poor video quality and has absolutely no focus at all. I'm reading articles now about how YouTube is starting to offer some videos in HD. You mean the same HD quality that ABC and others started offering a year and a half ago? Welcome to the game YouTube, late as always.

I think it is a shame YouTube gets so much attention in the press. I'm not surprised it happens, but in a time when we should be looking for those companies who truly have innovative products, instead, too much of our time is reading stories about companies like YouTube. I apologize for adding another yet post about them to your RSS reader.

Two Year's Later, Google Still Can't Deliver YouTube Without Stuttering & Buffering

It's been just over two year's now since Google acquired YouTube and while the debate rages on in the industry about how YouTube will make money, few people are discussing the quality problem Google continues to have with delivering YouTube videos. While we know the sheer volume of bits that Google is delivering for YouTube content is massive, you would think that by now they would have figured out how to do it without all the buffering, stuttering and terrible user experience.

And I'm not talking about the quality of the video in terms of the production value of how the video was shot. I'm talking about simply being able to deliver a video without having to wait 15, 20 or 30 seconds for it to start up. Most of the videos on YouTube are short-form and only a few minutes in length. Yet regularly, I have to wait 20-30 seconds for a clip to buffer, even though the clip itself might only be 30 seconds in length. And to make matters worse, for all the people that say "YouTube streaming", YouTube is not streaming. All YouTube content is delivered progressive download, via HTTP, and is not being delivered from a Flash Media Server (FMS). Delivering and scaling video via HTTP is much easier and cheaper than using a streaming media server and streaming protocol. So what's Google's excuse?

It's not as if I am the only one who has this problem. So many people do Google searches regarding the topic of YouTube buffering issues that a short little post I did on my blog a year and nine months ago entitled "Is Google Having Problems Delivering YouTube Videos?", continues to be the number one post on my blog in terms of traffic. As you can see from the comments with that post, this is a constant problem for YouTube viewers.

For all the talk of how YouTube is going to monetize publishers content or what ad model will work best, Google seems to be forgetting that none of those questions matter if you can't even deliver the content with reliability. With such a terrible reputation for video delivery, how does Google think YouTube will ever make money? Viewers only watch so much YouTube content and put up with the poor experience because the content is free and has no ads. Try getting someone to watch a video that takes 15 seconds to buffer and then delivers them an ad before the content. It won't happen.

While I don't know all the details surrounding how Google delivers YouTube content, I know that the vast majority of it is delivered by Google themselves, without the use of any content delivery network. Based on the size and scale of what Google is already delivering, it would make sense that done correctly, Google could deliver the video cheaper than a CDN could offer. But when does Google take into account the quality factor? Why don't they care about the user experience at a time when they are trying to figure out how to make money? YouTube is the quintessential example of how simply having tons of traffic and eyeballs does not guarantee you a business model or sustainable revenue. Quality also plays a role.

While I asked Google for details on why YouTube videos buffer so much and why video delivery is still such a problem, no one from Google would comment. The same way no one from Google ever comments when asked about their bandwidth or delivery costs. And why Google is under no obligation to say how much it costs to deliver YouTube videos, Google should feel an obligation to explain to their users why they have such a bad user experience. YouTube would be nothing without all the people who supported it and made their traffic go through the roof and as a result, enabled YouTube to get bought by Google in one of the worst deals, in my eyes, the online video industry has ever seen.

Niche Video Networks: Can Content Owners Make Money?

I get a lot of calls and e-mails from content owners of all sizes. Aside from the major broadcasters, many of those who contact me are smaller content owners producing their own online content and are trying to figure out their distribution, syndication and advertising strategy. In the past 12-18 months, niche video networks or micro video networks as some call them, such as For Your Imagination and Next New Networks have ramped up their offerings for small content producers trying to gain their business. At the same time, video platforms like Babelgum and Brightcove are also competing for these same content owners and the differences between a network and a platform continue to confuse people.

These types of aggregators and networks offer content creators a promising new vehicle for syndicating and monetizing content that would be hard to do on their own, but many of those content owners keep asking what exactly the niche video networks offer and how the business relationship works? Much more info is needed on how these services actually operate and whether they might be good partners for content owners looking for an effective channel for distribution and monetization. As an industry, we talk about the value the networks provide, but from a very high-level with few details. As a result, content owners don't know where to start and I get the same frequently asked questions all the time.

To try and shed some light on this for content owners, I asked Revision3, Next New Networks and For Your Imagination amongst other, on how they explain their business model to content owners and how they set customers expectation properly on licensing, syndication and ad revenue.

The first question I am always asked is are these networks looking to license content, or are they primarily interested in acquiring and owning content? From those I spoke with, the consensus was that most networks look for a non-exclusive licensing type agreement that is based upon an advertising rev share, which is what most of the video sharing networks offer today. Some destination type sites may ask for an exclusive license for a fee upfront with no rev share, but those are less common. Another model might be the opportunity for a content owner to produce exclusive new content for a destination type site which works as a work for hire type of relationship.

Of course, content owners also want to know how is ad revenue generated and shared with content owners? Generally, rev share is some kind of a split of net revenues, maybe as much as 50/50 for on network and some three way split if it is on a publisher network. Net revenue is calculated by taking gross revenue minus any network costs for your content and the ad campaign, such as operations, management and hosting. Those costs usually amount to about 25% of the gross, with the remaining balance split with the content creator. While it sounds easy enough, the problem is that there is no "average" split of net revenues. The only true way for a content owner to know how much their split would be is to get an actual quote from the network.

Another question often asked is what demographics are networks interested in reaching? Only 18 - 30 yr. old males, or a wider audience? Each network has a different focus and target vertical, but for the most part, the wider and more generic the network the more broad the demographic reach is. The niche networks can get more specific and as a result should be able to offer better rev share models, but it may end up content owners get less revenue because the traffic is smaller. Targeted should mean better CPMs, but that's not always the case and it's nearly impossible to get the networks to tell you their CPM average across a certain type of content or niche vertical.

With all the talk in the industry of the costs to deliver video online, many content owners also ask if the networks pay for the bandwidth of delivering content from the website, or does the content owner foot the bill? If you are using a platform, like Brigthcove, the content owner foots the bill. If you are using a network, it can go both ways. For Your Imagination says that when they embed a video with blip.tv, Viddler or Revver player for example, those companies cover the delivery costs of the video in return for the right to sell ads on the videos and to share the revenue with For Your Imagination. For Your Imagination says this is super important because even though a show may not make a lot of money, at least they are no video delivery fees which for some shows can be expensive, easily over $1000 a month.

As for the question of what's the duration of and standard provisions offered in a typical contract? All of those I spoke with said their is no "typical" contract as so many variables are taken into account. That being the case, I have yet to see any niche video network publish a list of all the factors that are taken into account that determine their contract terms with a content owner. I understand if you don't want to publish your rates, but wouldn't it be nice if content owners had some idea of what factors affect the revenue share numbers?

A lot more work is needed by the nice video networks and video platform providers to make their pricing and business terms easier to understand for content owners. If it was made easier to understand, content owners wouldn't be so confused and the market would grow faster. We'd see more adoption and more usage of online video and we'd have a better chance of content owners not having to struggle to figure out what the pricing is, how it works and what their cost would be. And it's just not the networks that have this problem, the platform providers as worse. Last week I was trying to help a content owner review pricing from both Brightcove and thePlatform and trying to decipher what the terms are that they use is confusing even for me. On one hand, many of these video platform providers say you pay one price to use the platform, but then charge you for "software platform fees", bandwidth, the number of media clips you have, storage, use of APIs and the number of "user accounts" you have. Come on guys, this needs to get easier.

YouTube Coming To TiVo, But For Less Than 750,000 Users

Updated Post: TiVo and YouTube announced a deal today that brings YouTube content available to TiVo Series 3 customers. While it's good to see TiVo add more content to their box, something I think they have been severely dragging their feet on, unfortunately it won't have any major impact for either company since it is only available for TiVo customers with a Series 3 box connected via broadband. While TiVo has about 4 million subscribers, only about 750,000 of those are on a Series 3. And out of those 750,000, how many are connected to a broadband connection and not just a phone line? I know of many friends who have a Series 3 but only connect to a phone jack as they don't have a TiVo WiFi adapter and their phone jack is near the TiVo and easy to plug into. While TiVo does not give out exact numbers on how many Series 3 boxes they have sold, TiVo did e-mail me on 7/21 to say that they have 750,000 Series 2 AND Series 3 TiVo's connected via broadband, excluding DTV and Comcast. Since they are more Series 2's out in the market, the number of Series 3 TiVo's that make up the 750,000 number is far lower than that. So while the new YouTube offering is available for less than 750,000 customers, a more realistic number is probably under 300,000 if you figure that half of the broadband connected TiVo's, if not more, are Series 2. (NewTeeVee has a video of the new service here)

While this will be nice for some customers, the majority of those who view YouTube content will still do so from a computer and not from the TV. Since the Apple TV announcement with YouTube, I have not seen any reports by either company as to what kind of viewing numbers YouTube is getting on Apple's device and clearly it is small. This new announcement is a nice to have option, but won't enable TiVo to sell more units and will make no impact in helping YouTube try and make money from eyeballs.

Pure Digital Announces It's New Flip Video Mino Camcorder

Today, Pure Digital Technologies announced a newer, smaller version of the widely popular Flip Video camera. Called the Flip Video Mino, the unit comes in at 40% smaller than the original Flip and has rechargeable batteries. Retailing for $179.99, the new unit weighs just over three ounces and is being targeted primarily towards teenagers.

Unfortunately, the new Mino only has 2GB of on-board flash memory and captures up to 60 minutes of TV-quality video, which are the same specs as the original Flip. The Mino has new touch-sensitive buttons to record, fast forward, rewind, pause and delete and the new internal, rechargeable lithium ion battery recharges whenever the camcorder’s USB arm is connected to a computer and provides more than four hours of recording time on a single charge.

I'll have a review unit in a couple of days and will do a follow up post with some videos.

Lifecasting: The New Broadcasting Platform

At the Streaming Media East show on Wednesday May 21st, community social media guru Chris Brogan will be leading a session entitled "Lifecasting: The New Broadcasting Platform". 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 personal events and happenings—is the new hot thing.

With platforms like Kyte.tv, Zannel, Mogulus, Stickcam, and many others now available, lots of new options and opportunities exist. Come see some of the hot and upcoming mobile lifecasting options in action and learn if lifecasting will become just a fad or the next big thing.

Confirmed speakers include:

• Moderator: Chris Brogan, VP, Strategy and Technology, CrossTechMedia, co-founder, PodCamp
• Scott Monty, Consigliere, crayon
• Sarah Austin, Founder, Pop17.com
• Brad Hunstable, Founder, Business Development, Ustream.tv

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.

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.

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.

Who Wants To Moderate A Session About Lifecasting: Kyte.tv, Justin.tv, Zannel and Seesmic?

I'm looking for an individual who covers the lifecasting segment of the industry and has been keeping a close eye on companies like Kyte.tv, Justin.tv, Zannel and Seesmic. I plan to have a session about this topic at the next Streaming Media East show in May in NYC and am looking for a moderator who wants to organize and lead this session.

The ideal candidate would be someone who is writing about these companies in the market, has a blog of their own, or has experience in what is required as a moderator to produce a quality session. If you're interested, please send me an e-mail along with a brief description of why this is a fit for you.

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.