VideoNuze Posts

Adap.tv and EyeWonder, two key players in the broadband video and rich media ad space are announcing a partnership today, meant to further streamline ad sales and monetization for video content providers. The partnership follows on the deal I wrote about last week between Panache and MTV also highlighting these points.

Particularly given the tough economy, video content providers are focused more than ever on maximizing the value of their inventory with the least possible amount of effort and cost. On the flip side, ad technology companies are trying to figure out how to cover more customer ground more cost-effectively. Inevitably these forces will lead to more partnerships, and likely some industry consolidation. Panache, Adap.tv, Tremor Media and others are among the companies driving the broadband ad market forward. I'll have more news on this front in the coming days.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Today I'm pleased to introduce the "VideoNuze Report," a weekly 10-15 minute podcast that I'll be doing with Daisy Whitney. Many of you have likely read Daisy's work in TV Week, OMMA, AdAge and other publications, as well as watched her "New Media Minute." She covers the broadband video and social media landscape as closely as anyone and become a great friend over the years.

Daisy and I have talked about the industry's goings-on countless times, and it finally dawned on us that maybe we should record some of our musings and record them as a podcast...So here we are! We're still tweaking the format, but initially we're each trying to add a little more color and back-story to a couple of the articles/posts we've written in the preceding week. It's pretty informal and definitely a work in progress. So we'd love to get your feedback on how we can improve the format and make it even more interesting.

This week we focus on key impressions from last week's Consumer Electronics Show, discussing the following:

"CES Marks Year of the Touch Screen" - Daisy, 1/11/09

"CES Attendance Takes a Significant Dip" - Daisy, 1/12/09

"Netflix and LG Go Over-the-Top with New 'Broadband HDTVs'" - Will, 1/5/09

"Yahoo Gets Traction in Broadband-to-TV Market" - Will, 1/8/09

In our maiden podcast, from December 23rd, we discuss the following:

"Web Video Hurdle: Good Recommendations" - Daisy, 12/21/08

"International Market a Growing Opportunity for Web Series" - Daisy, 12/21/08

"Recapping 5 Broadband Video Predictions for 2009" - Will, 12/22/08

Enjoy and please let us know your reactions!

In 2008, Canoe Ventures, the JV of six large U.S. cable operators, became one of the hottest topics of conversation in the cable, programming and advertising industries. Last week, I was fortunate to get time with Vicki Lins, Canoe's Chief Marketing Officer, to learn more about the company's plans. Though Vicki has been pulling double duty between her role at Comcast Spotlight and Canoe in recent months, she had only just started full time with Canoe, so she readily admitted that she's still getting up-to-speed.

Ordinarily Canoe's advanced TV advertising mission would be off-center for VideoNuze's strictly broadband video-centric focus. But the reason it's relevant to understand is because I think long-term, the world that Canoe is trying to create on top of cable's digital set-top boxes is on a collision course with the world that broadband video is trying to create. I see both eventually competing for the same viewers, ad dollars and mind-share.

Canoe is critical to the cable industry because it recognizes that ever-better targeting, interactivity and ROIs are driving ad spending decisions. For 10+ years now, the Internet (and Google in particular) has been resetting marketers' expectations, thereby placing ever-greater pressure on TV ad executives to improve their game.

Vicki explained that first and foremost, Canoe is a service bureau, helping advertisers, programmers and cable operators wring more value out of their ad inventory. It does not intend to sell any ads itself. Canoe's key is leveraging its access to its cable partners' digital set-top boxes. First up is what's called "Creative Versioning" or zone-based addressability - the ability to break down users into logical segments that get specific ads. Another focus is productizing the viewership data being captured by those set-tops to out-Nielsen Nielsen (while of course respecting users' privacy). A third is trying to enable user interactivity - the ability to get deeper information, zero in on a product feature in an ad, order an item, etc.

All of this would benefit cable and broadcast networks seeking to more effectively monetize their ad inventory, as well as cable operators which sell a portion of cable networks' ad inventory locally. Clearly these are key constituencies, but as Vicki points out, Canoe must also address ad agencies, brands, cable technologists, local operations teams where Canoe's technology is actually deployed, cable marketers and others who have a stake in this process. It's a pretty long list, and one wonders whether a start-up is able to handle all of this at once.

But there are two even bigger issues that I see. First, I find myself wondering whether Canoe is even aiming at the right target with these initial plans. Instead, why doesn't Canoe just focus 100% of its energies on monetizing these cable operators' billions of current VOD streams? It's amazing to me that years after VOD's launch, I don't see any ads on Comcast (my cable company) VOD. My kids watch lots of Ben 10, Hannah Montana, Wizards of Waverly Place, etc on VOD yet never see a single ad for a sugared cereal or wizzy new toy. As a parent this isn't something I'm complaining about, but if I were a Comcast shareholder it would sure have me scratching my head. It seems like such a big missed opportunity...is there something I don't understand here?

As Denise Denson, MTV's EVP of Content Distribution and Marketing recently told Multichannel News, "We have over a billion VOD orders this year on Comcast alone, but we've made virtually no money in advertising in that space....With the convergence of TV and the Internet, there is a danger that the Internet's interactive content could usurp it. It's unfortunate, but programmers will have to put their content where they can actually monetize it."

And that brings us back to broadband video's challenge to Canoe. The fact is that broadband is a parallel and fast-growing VOD platform that is generating significant content provider interest because of it offers substantial control of the user experience and relatively robust monetization. As I wrote yesterday, broadband advertising innovation is being adopted by major media companies like MTV. And because broadband ad innovation is diffused over many companies (as is all innovation in the hyper-competitive Internet realm), there are rapid and continuous improvements. Conversely, by concentrating its set-top box ad efforts through just Canoe I think the cable industry is limiting the platform's vast potential.

Denise Denson hit the nail on the head: resources are finite and programming networks will focus their attention on platforms that offer the best scale and monetization opportunities. With broadband coming to TVs very soon, it will soon be a de facto competitor to cable's digital set-top box delivery. To preserve the value of its video platform, cable needs to shore up its VOD advertising and user experience and not let broadband surpass it. For my money, that seems like the most productive place for Canoe to first focus its attention.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

The video ad insertion and management landscape continues to evolve as Panache is announcing this morning that its platform will be deployed across MTV Networks' sites. I caught up with Steve Robinson, Panache's president yesterday to learn more.

As Steve explains it, as major media companies have grown their broadband video usage, operationalizing the business has become increasingly complex. This is no surprise and I've heard it from others as well: multiple organizations including technology development, ad operations, ad sales and programming have had to learn to work together to deploy and monetize broadband video offerings.

This is important stuff, not just because of the potential for missed revenue, but because users can quickly notice when the organization's gears are grinding. How often have you seen the same untargeted ad play repeatedly? Or not seen any ads at all? Or have had a 30 second pre-roll ad in front of short 45 second news clips you're sequentially watching? As the broadband stakes have gotten higher, large media companies have increasingly focused on how to streamline their processes in order to scale and monetize more effectively.

That's where Panache comes in. In the MTV example, Panache first integrates with MTV's standardized video player. Once integrated, ad operations is able to use the Panache tools to create ad programs and logic, including campaigns, flights, formats, etc. This becomes the playbook for ad sales as it interfaces with customers, and can be readily modified to suit custom requests. A key benefit is that MTV's development organization doesn't need to get involved each time some part of the ad offering is changed. Improving the back-end processes helps ramp up sales, which for major media companies like MTV Networks is handled mostly by internal teams.

But the need for streamlining broadband video ad operations goes beyond the major media companies though, and there are other offerings with similar capabilities on the market too. For example in the past year Tremor Media has launched Acudeo, and Adap.tv has launched OneSource. Both are technology platforms for video providers that can pull ads from multiple sources (direct sales, ad networks, etc.) with an eye to maximizing fill rates and CPMs.

One key difference is business model: Panache and Adap.tv don't have ad sales organizations, whereas Tremor, as an ad network, does. For Panache or Adap.tv that means relying on some mix of licensing/platform usage fees and/or receiving a revenue share from customers, whereas for Tremor it means obtaining a chunk of the inventory to sell itself. There are no doubt feature-for-feature differences as well, but not having worked in ad ops myself, some of this is beyond my scope and would require specific due diligence.

For sure as the broadband video ad business becomes more integral to large and mid-sized content providers we'll continue to see more innovation and business process improvements in this area. Just as TV ad insertion has been refined to a science over the years, so too will broadband video.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

I've excited to share that VideoNuze has partnered with the National Association of Broadcasters for this year's NAB Show on April 20-23. For those not familiar with the NAB Show, it's an annual gathering of 100K+ industry professionals in Las Vegas. NAB has been steadily beefing up the show's focus on broadband and content in recent years and this year I'm helping strengthen it further.

I'm pleased to be organizing and moderating two panels at the show, one on the "Syndicated Video Economy," and the other on broadcasters' broadband video initiatives. I'll have more details on both soon.

Both panels will be held in the "Content Theater" right on the show floor. NAB has organized an exhibit space called the "Content Commerce Pavilion" right outside the theater for broadband-oriented companies. The focus is on content owners, aggregators, online syndication, distribution, advertising, blogging services, UGC, gaming technologies, CDNs, news, video search, DRM, social networking, content management and publishing tools.

Recognizing that budgets are tight and also trying to emphasize informal learning/networking, NAB has laid out the pavilion with compact exhibitor kiosks that are geared to demos and discussion. The pavilion is meant to be turnkey and affordable ($4K) for exhibitors.

I think it's going to be an exciting space for broadband-focused companies and attendees to concentrate their NAB Show time and attention. If you're interested in learning more about exhibiting, contact me or Kelly Alexis at NAB (kalexis@nab.org or 202-775-2526).

Hope to see you there!

The mobile video space is getting another boost this morning as MSNBC.com and the Weather Channel are announcing new mobile video initiatives, both with Transpera (which I previously wrote about here). Both weather and news/politics are in the top 5 mobile Internet web site categories according to Nielsen. The Weather Channel is the number one mobile content site and MSNBC has been the leader in Current Events and Global News for six months. All that suggests that video should be heavily consumed on both mobile sites.

Weather is offering video forecasts for the top 100 cities, along with national forecasts, top stories, weekend outlooks, severe weather reports and travel-specific conditions. Meanwhile, MSNBC intends to deliver the same kinds of video on mobile that it's been offering online for some time now, including NBC News video like segments from news shows "Today," "NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams," and "Meet the Press."

The Weather and MSNBC initiatives are the kinds of things that make a lot of sense to me (and cause me to be confident about my '09 prediction that mobile video is going to be big this year). Both sites have been deep into video for some time now, and as users develop a set of online expectations, it's only natural that they'll transfer these to their mobile experiences as well.

Soon enough, high-quality video on mobile devices will become table stakes. Transpera is gaining a lot of momentum by helping content providers quickly deploy their video to mobile users. Their emphasis on advertising, including selling inventory as part of their network, has been a key to their success. The mobile video space is one to watch in '09.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Have you caught any of the three-part, 25 minute "End of Wall Street" series running on WSJ.com right now? It may be too depressing to watch if you're nursing big 401k losses, but it does provide a very interesting template for how print publishers like the WSJ, whose reporters and editors have deep subject matter expertise, can use video to expand their value proposition to traditional readers.

In this case there's another twist: the video is actually a companion to a forthcoming book "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street As We Know It" written by Dave Kansas, a WSJ editor who hosts the video series as well. Oddly though, the video doesn't mention the book at all, which is a key missed promotional opportunity. Placing a display ad or post-roll video promoting the book would seem to like a natural.

Still, the series demonstrates that a print publisher has the chops to produce a compelling video documentary that explains, in simple terms, how the financial meltdown occurred and why it crushed Wall Street. At least a dozen WSJ staffers are tapped for soundbites outlining the chronology and underlying factors to the crisis. The music is gripping, and the cutaways to Kansas wandering Wall Street's alternatively bustling and empty canyons provide a vivid visual metaphor for the change sweeping through the financial sector.

I've been saying for a while that print publishers are sitting on top of a mountain of largely anonymous talent which would be compelling for their audiences to hear and see. "End of Wall Street" demonstrates this perfectly. Other print pubs would be wise to go to school on it.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

CES '09 is now behind us. As has become typical, this year's show saw numerous broadband video product and technology announcements. As I wrote often last week, the key theme was broadband-enabled TVs. Assuming TV manufacturers deliver on their promises, Christmas '09 should mark the start of real growth in the installed base of connected TVs.

Here are the noteworthy announcements that I caught, in no particular order (I'm sure I've missed some; if so please add a comment and include the appropriate link):

Intel and Adobe to Extend Flash Platform to TVs

Adobe and Broadcom Bring the Adobe Flash Platform to TVs

Samsung and Yahoo Bring the Best of the Web to Television

Yahoo Brings the Cinematic Internet to Life and Revolutionizes Internet-Connected Television

LG Electronics First to Unveil "Broadband HDTVs" That Instantly Stream Movies From Netflix

LG Electronics Launches Broadband HDTVs with "Netcast Entertainment Access"

Sony Debuts Integrated Networked Televisions

Vizio Announces New and Exciting "Connected HDTV" Platform with Wireless Connectivity

Netflix Announces Partnership with Vizio to Instantly Stream Movies to New High Definition TVs

MySpace Partnerships Bring Web Site to TV Set

Macrovision to Bring Instant Access to Digital Content Directly to Internet-Connected Televisions

Move Networks Improves Delivery of High Definition Internet Television to Intel-based Mobile Internet Devices and Netbooks

NETGEAR Unveils Two New Internet-Connected Set-Top Products to Enrich TV Entertainment for Internet Families and Serious Media Enthusiasts

Amazon Video on Demand Brings Customers New-Release Movies and TV Shows to the Roku Digital Video Player

Cisco Brings Manufacturers Together to Make Connected Home Products Simple to Set-up and Easy to Use

Sling Media Introduces SlingGuide: Redefining Search and Discovery for Satellite, Cable and Terrestrial Broadcast Programming