• Goodbye to a Busy Summer, Hello to a Busier Fall

    As the traditional summer season winds to a close today, I have to ask: what happened to the normal summer slowdown? It just didn't happen. In fact, the pace of broadband video activity was unrelenting, and I know from speaking with many of you over the last few months that I'm far from alone in this assessment.

    As just one metric of the busy summer of '08, approximately 600 broadband-related news items have been posted to VideoNuze since Memorial Day. Each of these items (available here fyi) is tied to a specific product announcement, partnership deal, financing, content initiative or other industry activity. And these 600 are just from the finite number of relevant publications from which VideoNuze aggregates its industry news. There was no doubt more news as well.

    In addition, VideoNuze's contributors and I have made almost 100 original analyses/posts on the industry's key trends, products/technologies and research data during this busy summer. Demonstrating the sheer breadth of broadband video's growing influence, consider examples of just a handful of this summer's posts:

    • Growth/challenges of pre-roll advertising
    • Trends around short vs. long-form video programming
    • Broadband ISPs' ongoing struggle to maintain their networks' viability
    • Push by aggregators to differentiate themselves and gain market share
    • Launch of a fashion magazine's original video series
    • How a law firm is using video as a recruitment tool

    VideoNuze remains laser-focused on broadband video as a unifying theme of all our analyses and posts. My world view - as most of you are no doubt painfully aware of by now - is that we are in the early stages of a relentless and inevitable shift to an open, broadband-centric era of video delivery, characterized by massive creativity and innovation, fierce competition and unprecedented consumer value.

    As we say goodbye to a busy summer, I'm preparing to say hello to an even busier fall. Industry participants have a full plate of product announcements and partnerships pending and I expect the pace of activity will only quicken. VideoNuze will be there to separate the wheat from the chafe, helping all of you better understand what the flurry of news and data should mean to you.

    Importantly, this fall also brings an exciting expansion of VideoNuze's mission, as we begin a push into focused, high-impact events. This is a natural progression of VideoNuze's overall value proposition and one which I've been eager to pursue for a while now.

    Kicking things off will be our inaugural VideoSchmooze, a first-of-its kind industry networking event to be held on Tues, Sept. 9th in Boston. There are already 200+ people registered, representing virtually every VC firm in the area, all video-focused startups and established companies and loads of entrepreneurs and others tied to the industry. Space is still available for this free event and registration is here.

    Then on November 10th I will moderate VideoNuze's first Broadband Video Leadership Breakfast on the first full day of the annual CTAM Summit. Having moderated at dozens of industry conferences over the years, I've tried to bring together best practices I've observed, and have also personally recruited a blockbuster A-list group of executives for what I think will be a must-attend event. I'm excited to share more details later next week and hope you'll be able to join us.

    In the meantime, I wish you a safe and restful Labor Day weekend. See you on Tuesday!