VideoNuze Posts

This morning Twentieth Century Fox and Metacafe are announcing "The Thirty Second Film Contest," which challenges contestants to put together a winning thirty second spot for the epic film "Australia," opening on November 26th. Though not yet fully live, I like the direction of this initiative a lot, and believe it provides an innovative example of how to blend traditional film marketing techniques with broadband-enabled audience participation.

Contestants visit the promotional site hosted at Metacafe, a large aggregator of short-form entertainment, to obtain film-related assets provided by Fox. These can be augmented with the contestant's own music, voiceovers, sound effects and artwork to create a highly original entry. Entries are submitted through Metacafe and will be judged by the folks at Fox and Bazmark (Australia director Baz Luhrman's company).

The contest is actually meant to be quite serious and semi-professional; Luhrmann has also created a whole library of videos about film-making, which a student of the art can use to help shape his/her entry, or just watch to learn. The grand prize is enticing: a trip for two to Australia, another to NY for a private screening/meeting with Luhrmann and inclusion of the winning entry on the film's eventual DVD.

The Australia contest builds on a similar one that Metacafe and Universal offered for "The Bourne Ultimatum" last year, which I reviewed enthusiastically here. The concept also follows on previous posts I've done about the value of what I call "purpose-driven user generated video" or "YouTube 2.0" opportunities for users to create videos that have actual business value. I continue to believe that user-submitted videos which go beyond goofball entertainment are a huge area of broadband industry opportunity.

The Australia contest is a winner on multiple levels as it; creates pre-release buzz for the film, allows fans and aspiring artists to get involved and showcase their work, taps into a large base of original (and free!) ideas to help promote the movie, and introduces a fresh, updated approach to film marketing that is sorely needed for differentiation.

This week I've been talking a lot about engagement and why it's so critical in the broadband era. While media and entertainment companies must always focus on driving ratings points or a big opening day box office, the ways to do so are changing. The key change I see is that films, TV programs and other entertainment must become part of a larger experience - complete with multifaceted engagement opportunities - rather than just a one-off moment of audience consumption. Broadband enables this shift in a big way. More marketers need to take advantage of the possibilities.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

Even before the recent economic crisis, broadcast networks were facing unprecedented challenges. An article in yesterday's WSJ, "Network Audience Keep Eroding" caught my attention as it highlighted the current season's viewership shortfalls. The article pointed out that 4 of the 5 major broadcasters have suffered double-digit percentage declines in same day prime-time viewing among 18-49 year-olds as compared with a year ago.

To me, the overarching thematic challenge that broadcasters now face is how to successfully address the core 18-49 year-old audience. This group is important not only for traditional reasons relating to its appeal to advertisers, but also because it represents the leading edge of audience behaviors that will only accelerate in the future.

So what should broadcasters be doing? Here are three suggestions:

Broaden definition of programming and brand promise

Broadcasters must re-imagine what constitutes compelling visual entertainment. The traditional paradigm of 30 and 60 minute time blocks, scripted to accommodate pre-set advertising pods and programmed sequentially on specified evenings is increasingly meaningless in an on-demand world. Programming should be looked at as anything that entertains the audience, on their terms, period. This is particularly relevant for 18-49 year-olds who arguably have the most entertainment alternatives.

Though it breaks with traditional success formulas, network executives should be excited by this, as it loosens creative constrictions. Further, it offers up the opportunity to expand a network's "brand promise" to become positioned as a "wherever, however, whenever entertainment provider." Going forward networks should view themselves as being in the entertainment business, not just the TV business. This would also help bring advertisers along, as they too are suffering from diminished consumer access.

Embrace new distribution platforms, and help drive new development

In the above vein, broadcasters must fully embrace new distribution platforms like broadband, mobile, VOD and DVR. Creating programming specifically for these platforms, suited for each one's strengths and weaknesses is essential. Simply repurposing TV shows for these platforms is insufficient to meet 18-49 year-olds' entertainment appetites.

Further, broadcasters need to take a leadership role in how these new platforms evolve. It is not enough to accept what technology and service providers choose to prioritize and offer. Instead broadcasters must have their own roadmaps and requirements, and work actively to see that their needs are met. This is a new role for broadcasters and they need to learn to embrace it.

Focus on experience, not just ratings

Broadcasters need to look at their shows as the hub of an ongoing and immersive entertainment experience, not just a once per week interaction to be measured in ratings points. A network's "customer relationship" is repeatedly put on hiatus between episodes (and worse, between seasons!), thus undermining the viewer's loyalty and engagement. A friend recently lamented to me that NBC is offering just 14 new episodes of "The Office" this season. Realistically, what kind of customer relationship should NBC expect to have when so many other weeks of the year pass without offering a product to its customers?

Broadcasters have incredibly compelling assets that can be the basis for deeper audience engagement and experiences. Mining all the various interactive tools and capabilities which 18-49 year-olds already regularly engage with are crucial to bonding with audiences and creating excitement and ongoing loyalty. To be sure, some of this is already happening, but in perusing the networks' web sites it's obvious there's a lot more that can be done.

Final Thoughts

Broadcasters are getting squeezed by audience fragmentation, new technologies and the shift to on-demand consumption. The 18-49 year-old cohort is ground zero for networks to maintain their future health. What the networks choose to do, and how well they succeed at it is surely a business school case study in the making.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

EveryZing, a company I wrote about last February, is announcing the launch of its MetaPlayer today and that DallasCowboys.com is the first customer to implement it. My initial take is that MetaPlayer should have strong appeal in the market, and could well shake things up for other broadband technology companies and for content providers. Last week I spoke to EveryZing's CEO Tom Wilde to learn more about the product.

MetaPlayer is interesting for at least three reasons: (1) it drives EveryZing's video search and SEO capabilities inside the videos themselves, (2) it provides deeper engagement opportunities than typically found in other video player environments and (3) it enables content providers to dramatically expand their video catalogs, while maintaining branding and editorial integrity.

To date EveryZing's customers have used its speech-to-text engine to create metadata for their sites' videos, which are then grouped into SEO-friendly "topical pages" that users are directed to when entering terms into the sites' search box. Speech-to-text and other automated metadata generating techniques from companies like Digitalsmiths are becoming increasingly popular as content providers continue to recognize the value of robust metadata.

MetaPlayer takes metadata usage a step further by creating virtual clips based on specified terms, which are exposed to the user. A user's search produces an index of these virtual clips, which can be navigated through time-stamped cue points, transcript review, and thumbnail scenes (see below for example). The virtual clip approach is comparable in some ways to what Gotuit has been doing and is pretty powerful stuff, as it lets the user jump to desired points, thus avoiding wasted viewing time (e.g. just showing the moments when "Tony Romo" is spoken)

Next, MetaPlayer enables deeper engagement with available video. Yesterday, in "Broadband Video Needs to Become More Engaging," I talked about how the importance of engagement to both consumers and content providers. MetaPlayer is a move in this direction as it allows intuitive clipping, sharing and commenting of a specific video clip within MetaPlayer. Example: you can easily send friends just the clips of Romo's touchdown passes along with your comments on each.

Last, and possibly most interesting from a syndication perspective, MetaPlayer allows content providers to dramatically expand their video offerings through the use of what's known as "chromeless" video players. I was first introduced to the chromeless approach by Metacafe's Eyal Hertzog last summer. It basically allows the content provider to maintain elements of the underlying video player, such as its ability to enforce a video's business policies (ad tags, syndication rules, etc.), while allowing new features to be overlayed (customized look-and-feel, consistent player controls, etc.).

MetaPlayer takes advantage of chromeless APIs available now from companies like Brightcove, and also importantly YouTube. For example, the Cowboys could harvest select Cowboys-related YouTube videos and incorporate them into their site (this is similar to what Magnify.net also enables). With the chromeless approach, the Cowboys's user experience and their video player's branding is maintained while YouTube's rules, such as no pre-roll ads are also enforced.

To the extent that chromeless APIs become more widely available, it means that syndication can really flourish. The underlying content provider's model is protected while simultaneously enabling widespread distribution. All of this obviously leads to more monetization opportunities through highly targeted ads.

Bottom line: EveryZing's new MetaPlayer addresses at least three real hot buttons of the broadband video landscape: improved navigation, enhanced engagement and expanding content selection/monetization. All of this should give MetaPlayer strong appeal in the market.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

Notwithstanding the countless times I've received emails with links to video clips or visited social networking pages where video is embedded, I've often had the sense that true social engagement around premium quality video has been lacking.

"Engagement" is one of those nebulous Internet words that can mean many things to different people. To me, the most appropriate online engagement opportunities should be modeled on how we have traditionally engaged with offline media. Some relevant offline examples that come to mind include recommending a movie to a friend, clipping a newspaper article to send to a colleague, chatting informally with friends and family during a TV show or sharing opinions about favorite actors and actresses over drinks.

As consumers shift their viewing to broadband, the key to engagement is to enable users to effortlessly and intuitively emulate some or all of these behaviors. I concede that's easier said than done. Yet in addition to existing efforts, I see new signs that premium video sites are starting to understand how strategic it is for them to incent user engagement. New steps are being taken to make deeper, more consistent engagement a reality, not just a goal.

For example, just yesterday CBS announced its "Social Viewing Rooms" which allow users to view programs together while commenting, interacting and finding each other (note this is something that Paltalk and others have pursued for a while). It wasn't clear from the announcement, but I think a critical success factor for CBS will be allowing users to bring existing friends (from Facebook, MySpace, etc.) into the rooms, rather than requiring new relationships to be built.

I found another example in a presentation I recently attended by Ian Blaine, thePlatform's CEO. In it, he made clear that his company is planning a big push into engagement-oriented features ranging from recommendations to ratings to social networking via sister company Plaxo. Still another initiative is "MediaFriends" a clever application that's coming soon from Integra5 which converges text messaging and social networking with viewing across multiple screens. Finally, another is from Volo Media, which is today announcing a plug-in for iTunes that allows one-touch sharing, bookmarking and more, helping open up a window from iTunes into the larger web environment.

All of these activities are in addition to other social media capabilities being brought to premium video from companies like KickApps, PermissionTV, Brightcove, Gotuit and Magnify.net. Then of course there's the steady migration of premium video into YouTube, which is the granddaddy of video sharing and social engagement.

Broadband is much more than an exciting new distribution outlet for video providers, it's also a whole new platform for extending social behaviors that are deeply valued and highly ingrained in all of us into the virtual world. Embracing opportunities for deeper engagement with and around premium video means thinking of viewers more as participants and less as passive audiences. When done right the payoffs in engagement, loyalty, viewing time and monetization will be substantial.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

Last week Apple announced that it has sold 200 million TV episodes to date and also that all four of the major broadcast networks are now providing HD versions of their prime-time shows. These periodic updates are always welcome as Apple is notoriously parsimonious with its iTunes numbers, making it hard for analysts to get a real handle on how the store is doing.

This latest total got me to thinking about the relative sizes of online aggregators of prime-time TV shows. Below I've made some calculations comparing the revenues of iTunes, the largest paid download store, with the revenues of Hulu, likely the largest free, ad-supported streaming site for TV programs. The conclusion is clear: for now at least, iTunes is a far larger business, demonstrating that despite the obvious appeal of free video, a segment of consumers are still plenty willing to buy and collect individual episodes.

iTunes calculations

I estimate iTunes is currently generating about 10 million TV program downloads/month. TV program downloads officially began just about 3 years ago with ABC's initial iTunes partnership. There's obviously been a ramp over the years, so if you assume 50% of the volume came in the first 3 years combined, and 50% in the 10 months of '08 alone, that produces 100 million TV program downloads year to date or about 10 million downloads/month. (that actually synchs with the fact that Apple last disclosed 150 million total TV program downloads in May, '08, 5 months ago).

To grossly simplify, let's say the download price is $2/episode. I know that doesn't take account of the $3 HD downloads iTunes launched last month (of which it says it sold a million) or the varying prices of international downloads. At $2/episode iTunes does $20 million/month in gross download revenues from TV programs.

Hulu calculations

Conclusions

Though the above numbers need to be taken with a grain of salt, they suggest there's a huge gap in TV program-related revenues between iTunes and Hulu. Now of course iTunes has been around a lot longer than Hulu, and of course it benefits from the massive popularity of the iPod, and more recently the iPhone. We also can't forget there are lots of places to watch free TV episodes online while there are comparably fewer online stores to purchase and download high-quality episodes. So it might actually be fairer to compare the monthly revenues of ALL the online aggregators (and the networks' own sites too) to iTunes to get a clearer comparison.

Still, I think comparing iTunes and Hulu does show how nascent the streaming TV market is today. In the long-run, I'm a believer that free, ad-supported trumps a la carte paid downloading. But for now, when it comes to real revenues - which for many is the only metric that really matters - it's no contest.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

On this Friday, something a little different from VideoNuze.

For all of us, these highly uncertain economic times are upending many assumptions and expectations we hold about the business climate in general and the broadband industry in particular. Questions abound: Will VCs continue to invest or will they recoil to the sidelines? Will media companies continue to push new broadband initiatives, or will they curtail them? Will advertising and consumer electronics spending hold up, or crater?

The economic crisis is causing tremendous anxiety, which I hear about daily from industry colleagues. This has all prompted me to recall a piece I wrote 3 1/2 years ago when I was doing a lot of consulting. The concepts feel more relevant today than ever, and so I'd like to share an except today. I hope it's valuable food for thought.

A Question for You

Several years ago I attended my business school reunion. At these reunions, various professors hold sessions featuring short lectures and mini-case studies. These are invariably thought-provoking and amusing.

One of the sessions I attended focused on understanding how we as human beings make our decisions. The assumption is that by breaking down and studying this process, we can improve the odds that our decisions and actions will lead to the results we seek.

To stimulate the audience's thinking and illustrate the particular points one professor sought to make, throughout the session he posed a series of questions and puzzles.

One of the questions was as follows:

"You are stranded on a deserted island. A genie allows you to have one book or person with you. Which book or person would you choose?"

(To play along, pause for a moment before reading on and consider how YOU would answer.)

...OK, who or what did you choose? And be honest!

In my session, attendees immediately started calling out all kinds of answers ranging from "my wife/husband/kid(s) to "Jennifer Anniston/Halle Berry/Brad Pitt/Harrison Ford" to "the Bible/Torah/Koran, etc.

The professor kept listening until someone quietly provided the answer he was hoping for:

"The best boat builder in the world."

Silence.

At this point the professor said, "Let me help you by this time asking the question a little differently:"

"You are stranded on a deserted island. On the likely assumption that you didn't choose to be in that situation, what's the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO YOU?"

In unison now, the attendees exclaimed:

"GETTING OFF!!"

Thinking in Terms of a "GOTI" Objective Radically Simplifies the World

"GOTI" stands for "Getting Off the Island." When faced with being stranded on a deserted island, there is really only one objective that matters (or should matter!) to you. Thinking in terms of a "GOTI" objective radically simplifies how to use your energies. It filters out the noise, distractions, anxieties and misperceptions about things you might be tempted to consider important, but which in fact aren't.

Like it or not, our motivations drive our actions. And our motivations are deeply influenced by the outcomes we are seeking. In the above example, not accurately identifying what should be the most important outcome (getting off the island) distracts our decisions and subsequent actions.

Why "GOTI" Thinking Matters Now More Than Ever

Most of the time we operate in a "multiple chances" environment. You don't quite get things right the first time, you get multiple chances to iterate and eventually find your way. That's not the case in uncertain economic times, when the difference between getting things right upfront or not could determine the actual survival of your company, job, initiative, etc.

"GOTI" thinking matters more than ever right now. Here's an example to make this tangible: The other day I had breakfast with a friend who's on the board of a young'ish technology company trying to get a foothold against a more established and better financed incumbent. The young company has limited resources and it believes it has two main differentiators: superior technology and the flexibility that its technology gives it to significantly under-price its larger competitor. Should it emphasize both differentiators equally?

In normal economic times the answer is likely yes. But GOTI thinking would lead its team to ask, "Look, we need sales NOW, so what's the quickest path to doing so? Might we actually lengthen the sales cycle by spending time trying to convince prospects of both of our benefits, especially since we already know that cost-reduction is one of THEIR key goals?"

This company would likely be better off just trying to establish technology parity with its competitor (an easier, "table stakes" positioning) and instead focusing heavily on proving its business case and cost-savings benefits. This kind of GOTI thinking would save the company's marketing and sales team from expending valuable energy on establishing technology superiority, which is not what matters most to the prospects right now anyway. This is an example of the kind of tradeoffs that GOTI thinking forces.

A Final Thought

I'm not suggesting GOTI thinking is easy, but I do think it's necessary. In the coming months many companies will squander valuable time and resources on things that are not truly important. Conversely, others will use GOTI thinking to stay focused and improve their odds of successfully coming through this economic storm. Which kind of company will yours be?

What do you think? Post a comment now!

A reminder that early bird seating will expire tomorrow for VideoNuze's inaugural Broadband Video Leadership Breakfast Panel. The breakfast, in association with CTAM's New York and New England chapters, will be held in Boston on Nov. 10th at 7:30am, preceding the first full day of the annual CTAM Summit (separate registration).

I'll be moderating the session which is entitled "How to Profit from Broadband Video's Disruptive Impact" and features an A-list group of executives:

• Deanna Brown - President, SN Digital, Scripps Networks
• David Eun - Vice President, Content Partnerships, Google/YouTube
• Roy Price - Director, Digital Video, Amazon
• Fred Seibert - Creative Director/Co-Founder, Next New Networks
• Peter Stern - Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, Time Warner Cable

Click here to register for the early bird special

I'm super-excited about this event because it will be an opportunity to dig into many of the key themes I've been exploring on VideoNuze such as business models, syndication, broadband-only studios, the role of existing and emerging distributors and more.

I think the breakfast is a must attend for anyone navigating today's broadband video world. You're certain to come away with a clear sense of how these 5 companies are benefiting from broadband's growth, and what you too can do to profit from its disruptive impact.

The Leadership Breakfast is generously sponsored by ActiveVideo Networks, Akamai, Anystream, KickApps and Yahoo.

Click here to register for the early bird special

I hope to see you there!

In the two years since Google acquired YouTube, I've often wondered about two things: (1) was there really a strategic rationale behind the deal? and, (2) if there was indeed a strategic rationale, when might we see it borne out in actual business initiatives?

For sure YouTube's organic growth has continued unabated during these two years and from a traffic perspective, it is more dominant now than ever. Yet the dearth of initiatives that are tangibly strategic (or meaningfully revenue-producing for that matter) to Google, or that even minimally strengthen either company's underlying value proposition, has led me to conclude that the deal had more to do with the Google guys wanting to acquire YouTube for its "coolness" factor - simply because they could - than anything else.

I don't mean to sound unfair to the YouTubers who work diligently to make YouTube an incredible experience, which of course it truly is. Yet it is hard to deny the obvious: exactly what has YouTube done differently during the last two years that it couldn't have done had it remained independent (and saying "afforded its monthly CDN bills" doesn't count!), and how exactly have either YouTube or Google benefited from being together during this time?

However, I think things are finally changing. In fact, with little fanfare or proactive PR, Google at last seems to be strategically flexing YouTube's muscles. While some of what they're doing is experimental, other moves have significant market potential and could be highly disruptive to other broadband oriented media and technology companies.

At the top of my "highest potential" list is Google Content Network, especially as it's envisioned as "spokes" tied to YouTube's "hub." I wrote at length about GCN a month ago in "Google Content Network Has Lots of Potential, Implications" so I won't rehash my arguments here. But note yesterday's news about "Poptub" as the second video series to get the GCN/YouTube treatment; I expect a steady drumbeat of these types of deals in the months to come. GCN has the potential to become a key driver of the Syndicated Video Economy.

Another high-potential activity is YouTube's plan to start streaming full episodes. The first deal with CBS is no doubt a signal of many more to come. Full episode streaming is strategic on a number of levels. It enhances YouTube's and Google's access to big brands' ad dollars. While Google has thrived in the self-service, "long tail of advertising" world, it needs more cred among big brands, especially as it pursues its Google TV initiative (see latest deal with NBCU) and other eventual broadband-to-the-TV activities. Full episodes are also a winner from a user standpoint: a unified video experience across premium, indie, long tail and UGC video is very compelling and also squeezes competitors with narrower offerings.

Yet another high-potential activity is the implementation of search ads on YouTube. When the deal was originally done, my first reaction was to think it was a no-brainer to simply start displaying ads against every YouTube search (example - you search for "West Wing" in YouTube and the results page shows an ad to buy the DVD set). If there's one thing Google knows cold, it's the search ad business. YouTube searches represent billions of incremental opportunities each year to extend its core franchise.

Lastly - and this is admittedly more of a "Will Richmond thing" than anything Google or YouTube are yet pursuing: I think it's practically inevitable that the company will start investing in independent broadband video companies at some point. I touched on this in yesterday's piece about NBCU-60Frames and MSN-Stage 9. As time marches on and some of the above activities bear fruit, it's going to become very tempting for Google/YouTube to lever its strengths more directly into content ownership. I know what Google's always maintained about being a technology company, committed to neutrality in way that even Switzerland would appreciate. But as Google's ad business matures and it inevitably is pressured for growth, content is going to be a very alluring opportunity.

Regardless of what happens on this last point, YouTube now seems to have a full plate of strategic activities underway. It's great to finally see this happening.

What do you think? Post a comment now.