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Listening To Hulu's Jason Kilar: Motherhood, Apple Pie - And Reality
Listening to Hulu's CEO Jason Kilar today at NewTeeVee Live, it's hard not to admire what he and the Hulu team have accomplished. For the first time,
Jason disclosed 2010 projected revenues of $240 million, up 10-fold from $24 million in '08 and $108 million in '09, which is pretty impressive growth. As always, Jason's message is extremely user-centric and forward-looking. Hearing him speak, you definitely get a sense of the positive, relentless efforts he's led to improve the service.
A key part of Jason's message is that premium video should, and will be available anytime, anyplace and on any device in the future. It's a wonderful "motherhood and apple pie" message that's hard to argue with as a viewer. Unfortunately it's also a message that's bumping up against some hard realities in the TV business that Hulu is going to have to surmount to ultimately succeed. Here are at least a few of them:
Categories: Advertising, Aggregators, Broadcasters
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AOL Makes Yet Another Move Into Video With Eisner's Vuguru Studio
Another day, another move by AOL to deepen its commitment to online video. Today the company announced that Michael Eisner's independent online video studio Vuguru will produce at least 6 original series for distribution by AOL. Each series will be 90 minutes in length and broken into segments for episodic distribution. The companies are positioning the series as filling a role between high-cost Hollywood content and user-generated content on the low end.
The deal follows AOL's recent acquisition of video syndicator 5Min and its acquisition earlier this year of video platform and production company StudioNow. With 5Min in particular, AOL can further distribute the Vuguru series to a network of third-party publishers as well as on its own site. By expanding reach and leveraging its own ad sales capabilities, AOL is much better positioned to monetize the original content. I would also expect involvement of brands along the way as well, morphing some of the series or episodes into branded content or involving clever product placement. AOL has tied its future heavily to advertising, and clearly recognizes that video offers higher value opportunities than other forms and is therefore pushing hard to create more content and video ad inventory.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).Categories: Indie Video, Portals
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Irdeto Securing Content on Logitech Google TV Device
Logitech has chosen Irdeto's Cloakware to help secure premium content on its new Google TV-powered Revue device. The Revue offers access to subscription services like Netflix, and also open Internet access to other download-to-own and rental models. Irdeto has had a relationship with Netflix, which Irdeto's David Vogel told me yesterday helped the company understand the key security issues and speed integration. Cloakware helps secure the user authentication process and other digital assets.
Google TV is still a very new product, but it has already run into hiccups gaining access to free content, with most major broadcast TV networks and Hulu blocking their programs. The premise of being able to access paid and free, premium and independent video, all through one box, still remains an exciting prospect however.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).Categories: Devices
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Brightcove Opens Korea Office, Lands New Customers
Brightcove is announcing this morning an expansion of its Asia-Pacific operations, with a new sales office in Seoul, Korea to be led by James Yoon, a former 24/7 Real Media sales executive. He'll report into VP of APAC Dennis Rose. Separately Brightcove reported adding 4 new Korean customers, Autodesk Korea, Cheil Worldwide, Overture Korea and Proctor & Gamble Korea.
Korea seems like a natural place to expand given its historically high broadband penetration (ranked #5 in the world), leadership in mobile and headquarters for both Samsung, which is making a very strong push into online and mobile video, and LG. There should be no shortage of opportunities for helping manage online and mobile video.
Categories: International, Technology
Topics: Brightcove
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Movieclips.com Raises $3 Million Series A Round
Movieclips.com, which offers access to over 14,000 licensed movie clips, is announcing its Series A round of $3 million from Shasta Ventures, First Round
Capital and angel investors. In addition, the company is releasing new curated top 10 lists across categories as well as mashups.
I last wrote about Movieclips.com in March when it opened up for general use and began making available its APIs. One of the reasons I was a fan was that the site showed how new value can be mined from archived long-form content, especially when repackaged in web and social media-friendly short-form bites.
Categories: Deals & Financings
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SubPLY is Mining Value of Captions for Online Video
SubPLY, a captioning technology provider, is finding that captioning, a long-mandated feature in television, is also quite valuable in online video. Whereas in TV captioning has largely been a regulatory-driven requirement, captioning in online video is strategic as well, as VP of Business Development Matt Knopf explained to me recently.
For example, captions generate a written transcript of the video content, which is far more search-engine friendly and therefore helps drive discovery. In addition, as the Internet incents global distribution of content, the need for language localization is growing. But the cost of dubbing multiple languages and then managing all the files is expensive, so generating cost-effective captions is a great alternative. In addition, there's even a benefit to at-work viewership, allowing viewers to watch without risk of audio tipping off colleagues and supervisors.
Categories: Technology
Topics: SubPLY
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Tremor Media Acquires ScanScout, Creating Video Ad Network Giant
More consolidation among video ad networks, as market leader Tremor Media has acquired ScanScout, creating a new dominant player. comScore reported in its Sept. 2010 online video rankings that Tremor on its own was the #2 video ad network with over 525 million video ads served and reach to over 26% of the U.S. population. For its part ScanScout says it reaches 140 million unique viewers per month. Tremor most recently raised a $40 million round in April, bringing its total funding to $82 million, while ScanScout last raised another $8.5 million Oct. '09.
Categories: Advertising, Deals & Financings
Topics: ScanScout, Tremor Media
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Undertone Acquires Video Syndicator Jambo Media
Undertone, a large display ad network has acquired video syndication and technology provider Jambo Media. Both companies are private and terms were not disclosed. The deal comes on the heels of ad network Specific Media acquiring video manager/network BBE, and AOL acquiring video syndicator 5Min. All three deals - and no doubt others to follow - illustrate the consolidation underway between video advertising and other forms of online advertising plus the interplay between video syndication, branded content and advertising.
Undertone's CEO Mike Cassidy told me that Undertone has been fielding more calls from the agencies and Fortune 500 brands it serves who are interested in online video advertising as well. Mike believes that offering them an integrated approach between display and video so that they can buy, manage and measure their returns across formats will only become more important over time. So a key goal of the acquisition is to meld their publisher networks and and offer high quality reach for both display and video. Since display is more mature than video advertising, Mike also sees opportunities to leverage its underlying technology in areas like targeting.
Categories: Advertising, Deals & Financings
Topics: Jambo Media, Undertone
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