Kevin explained that Thought Equity indexed all 150 of the Sweet 16 games' video with rich metadata for players, teams and highlights. This yielded a searchable database of 6,000 moments, which users of the Vault can tap into in a number of different ways. They can search by player, team, year, game or description of the play they're looking for. For more casual use, the Vault also presents lists clips of great shots, blocks, plays and finishes, plus most outstanding players and current stars. In addition to being a standalone site, the Vault is linked to from the March Madness main site.
When you search for a specific play, it will load and when done, the remainder of the game will continue playing until you want to move on. I can say from doing this several times that watching a play quickly and addictively morphs into watching several minutes of the game itself. Below the video window there's a text description of each play in the game. If you scroll the list and begin clicking on different plays what you'll immediately notice is how fast the new video loads and begins playing. Kevin explained that part of the reason is because the system is simply moving to a new cue point in the existing video file (in other words a new video file hasn't been created). This is a similar technique other indexes use; still, I don't think I've ever seen a new clip load as fast as these do. It's comparable to the experience of changing TV channels.
Thought Equity is very mindful of how, for some users, the Vault will be essentially a "stock video" database and so it has done several things to really enhance its value. Most important, it has created a Publishing Guide, which provides URLs to each of the moments so that writers and fans can search for incorporate links to just the plays they want. Conversely, if you're watching a video highlight and want to link to that moment, one click generates a URL for that clip. Thought Equity has even integrated the bit.ly URL shortener, so that you get a Twitter-friendly URL to use. Finally, Thought Equity has created an API so that 3rd parties who want to integrate the database, or pieces of it, with their own services, can do so easily.
Kevin explained that Thought Equity's model is to partner with media companies and rights-holders to license exclusive rights to their archived assets in order to create rich, searchable video databases. In the Vault's case, monetization is through advertising and CBS will sell the new high-value inventory. Thought Equity has worked with other media partners (e.g. Paramount, HBO, NY Times, BBC, etc.) with a monetization mix of advertising and licensing (i.e. the "stock" model). Over 10.5 million hours have been indexed to date with many more on-deck.
From a user's standpoint, the Vault is another exciting example of how the combination of online video and indexing technologies opens up access to memorable sports moments. Consumer usage creates the ad opportunity, but equally interesting are the myriad professional uses of the video. For bloggers and others running sports-oriented sites, the Vault opens a ton of new upside. Last week I wrote about how MovieClips.com is trying to create a similar Vault-like experience for movie clips; no doubt others will follow as the value of archived assets becomes increasingly apparent.
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consumer disgust with the hyper-corporatized TV business, where CEOs who are paid tens of millions of dollars per year accuse each other of not being sufficiently focused on satisfying their customers. Inevitably, consumers' disgust will translate into interest in finding alternatives, particularly those that are cheaper. While the WABC/Cablevision brought out switching enticements from Verizon, the real competition is increasingly going to be "cutting the cord" and getting programming from online-only sources.
offing. While fee fights in the past have focused on amounts paid for cable networks, future fee fights are more likely to look like the WABC-Cablevision one - squabbles over how much cable operators should pay for broadcast stations. These fights are related to "retransmission consent" payments and reflect a very different dynamic unfolding between broadcast stations and cable operators. 
Hudson Theater in Times Square, NYC and the time is 6-9pm. The evening will include cocktails/networking and a panel discussion I'll moderate. The topic is 
Central's decision should come as a surprise to nobody. As I've been saying since I wrote "The Cable Industry Closes Ranks" in November '08, a bright line is being drawn in the broadband world between programs that consumers currently pay for and those that they don't. The industry is determined make sure the former stay that way and don't leak out onto the free Internet (in this sense, it's actually amazing to me that the Comedy programs are still available for free on its own site, but that's another story). 
in archived assets. As its name implies, the site offers searching and browsing for your favorite movie scenes/quotes. Rich and Zach have been going through the arduous process of signing deals with studios for legitimate rights to index their movies (of course a lot of this already lives illegitimately at social media myriad sites). Their goal is to become the key source of movie clips, supported primarily by ads.