VideoNuze Posts

Back on July 22nd I passed on news from comScore that YuMe had broken into the top 10 ad networks, reaching almost 135 million unique visitors in June. Not so fast it turns out. As reported well by both NewTeeVee and Online Media Daily over the few days, comScore has quietly revised YuMe's reach down to 59.2 million uniques, which would actually land it at number 32 on comScore's June Ad Focus report.

The change results from re-assigning some traffic from major YuMe client MSN. comScore had given YuMe credit for all of MSN's page views, when in fact YuMe was only serving ads on certain sections of the portal. So comScore has decided it's more accurate to give YuMe credit solely for those pages.

Needless to say, YuMe is not happy about the change and is protesting the new numbers. Its argument is that with comScore's revised approach, YuMe traffic is being counted differently than all other ad networks. For now it continues to prominently showcase the original comScore numbers on its home page. YuMe seems determined to see a revision to the revision, so we'll all have to see what comScore does next.

There are many posts on VideoNuze about the various ad networks and how they seek to differentiate from each other. Traffic is certainly one of the key battlegrounds, so it's no surprise this skirmish has broken out over the comScore numbers. One is tempted to feel some sympathy for media buyers...if the measurement firms haven't yet figured out how to accurately count the networks' relevant traffic, how are the agencies expected to buy on behalf of their clients?

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As many of you know, there are countless early stage and established broadband video-related companies in the Boston area. For a while I've been eager to get this community together to mix it up. VideoSchmooze will be a premier opportunity for executives, entrepreneurs, investors and other decision-makers to meet up and swap ideas. And yes - out-of-towners are welcome!

VideoSchmooze is generously underwritten by Flybridge Capital Partners, Atlas Venture, Goodwin Procter and Silicon Valley Bank.

In case you missed it, last Friday the FCC took the unprecedented step of sanctioning Comcast for what it considered unreasonable network management policies. Before you deem this "inside-the-beltway" bureaucratic wrangling and click away to your next piece of business, I suggest you take a moment to consider the broad-reaching implications of the FCC's action, and how they will undoubtedly affect you and your video business long-term.

(If you'd really like to dig in, the FCC commissioners' opinions are here)

There has been a lot written about what precipitated the FCC's action, so I won't restate all the gory details here. Very briefly, last Fall formal complaints were filed with the FCC alleging that Comcast treated certain of its broadband subscribers' use of BitTorrent, a peer-to-peer (P2P) application, in a discriminatory manner vis-a-vis other network traffic.

After collecting comments and taking testimony from experts, the FCC concluded (with its Republican chairman leading the charge) to sanction, but not fine, Comcast for its actions. Importantly, it also stipulated that Comcast has to submit its network management plans to the FCC going forward, effectively anointing the FCC as the nation's new broadband network management czar.

I submit that for those in the broadband video industry, nothing good will come from the FCC's action. The FCC and other governmental bodies are understaffed and ill-equipped to be making highly technical network management decisions. The FCC's decree may well usher in an era of confusion and sclerotic decision-making, forcing broadband ISPs to curtail network investments at exactly the time when they need to be increasing their spending to enable more video traffic to flow.

It is worth noting that the Internet's periodic growing pains have been overcome not by the government stepping in, but by the government stepping away. This surely seems counter-intuitive to regulatory traditionalists. But it works because the ethos of the Internet's technical community is by and large collaborative and forward-looking. Supplanting that spirit with litigious, bureaucratic sprawl benefits nobody. In saying all this, I'm guided by pragmatism, not political bias.

Though we all want to be able to use the Internet free from any interference, the problem is that the Internet is still a wild west of sorts, where lawless and lawful behavior can be heavily intertwined. P2P is a perfect example. While legal (when used appropriately), its use can wreak havoc for other users and for network operators. Previously, there were no clear rules about how operators should respond when a handful of P2P users swamp the network. The Comcast sanction doesn't change that, it just puts the FCC in the position of judging, case-by-case the reasonableness of the network operator's containment actions.

Happy Friday and welcome to August. Recapping another busy month, here are 3 key topics from July:

1. Skyrocketing video consumption has a downside, just ask the broadband ISPs

This month I touched on the growing problem of broadband ISPs' networks getting overwhelmed by broadband's surging usage. In "Video Usage is Creating a Hairball for Broadband ISPs, Others," I reviewed the issue and solutions ISPs are implementing. To get a sense of why the bandwidth problem is only going to intensify, slides were offered in "Broadband Video Drives Cisco's Zettabyte Forecast."

Two posts provided evidence of how consumption surging is at both ends of the duration spectrum (See "Longer-Form Live Streaming Events Get Traction" and "New Magid Survey: Short-Form Dominates Online Video Consumption and Hurts TV Viewership"). ISPs are scrambling to deal with all this, yet they are constrained in their options by fulminating regulators net neutrality-seeking free-speechers. Just ask Comcast, which today faces a sanction from the FCC for its network management practices. Bandwidth problems are only going to grow over time, requiring all constituencies to work together toward productive solutions.

2. Brand marketers continue to embrace broadband opportunities

What do marketers like Baby Ruth, McDonald's, Klondike, Kmart, Sears, Virgin Mobile and others have in common? They all launched user-generated video contests in July, aiming to engage their audiences in new and creative ways. Meanwhile, what do Hewlett Packard, Sierra Mist, Southern Comfort, Revlon, Unilever, GMC, Home Depot, Red Bull and others have in common? They all announced or launched original broadband video shows (often with partners) during the month. All are chronicled in VideoNuze's news roundup section for brands.

3. Syndication continues to gain ground

In July I also continued chronicling the concept of the Syndicated Video Economy, which I introduced last March. This is a key trend, with multiple dimensions. Just yesterday, in "Dispatch from the Syndicated Video Economy's Front Line" I recapped a panel I moderated on Wednesday, in which four industry executives detailed key SVE opportunities and challenges.

Various forms of syndication are being embraced, as illustrated in two additional posts, "Google, Others Syndicating Video Into the Long Tail" and "EgoTV, Clearspring Show How Widgets Successfully Distribute Video." Mobile is yet another syndication front in the offing. "Azuki Systems is Poised to Ignite Mobile Video" provided a glimpse of how both content providers and users may soon turbo-charge syndication using mobile devices. Based on several briefings I've had in the last two weeks, I'm able to say there's plenty more exciting syndication news coming shortly.

That's it for July. If you want to see a list of all the month's posts, they're available here. See you on Monday!

Yesterday I moderated a panel at the NATPE LATV Festival Digital Day entitled, "The Syndicated Video Economy: Expanding Broadband's Reach." The Syndicated Video Economy or SVE, is a concept I introduced back in March, to help articulate the trend toward widespread video distribution online, and the ecosystem of companies facilitating it.

The session was a unique opportunity to hear from four executives whose companies are very much on the front line of the trend toward syndication. They shared many insights based on their experiences, and I thought it would be worth passing on a synopsis of these today.

The four panelists were:

• Greg Clayman, EVP, Digital Distribution and Business Development, MTV Networks
• John Fitzpatrick, Director of Business Development, blip.tv
• Jonathan Leess, President and General Manager, Digital Media Group, CBS Television Stations
• Brian Shin, Founder and CEO, Visible Measures

Here are four key takeaways:

1. Syndication is required to capitalize on the significant fragmentation of online audiences. John summed this up well, suggesting that content creators need to think in terms of their "total potential audience," not just viewers that may come to their web sites. Particularly for established media companies, steeped in traditional destination-oriented, "must-see" mind-sets, this is a crucial point of adaptation to the online world. Jonathan's group gets this, as he reported 60% of its 25 million monthly are already coming from third parties.

2. Syndication is operationally complex. Jonathan made the point that, for all of syndication's appeal, it poses daunting tactical challenges, particularly with an "always-on" news gathering/dissemination ethos. Challenges he cited include integrating video players with partners' sites, implementing ad management across heterogeneous environments, distributing content correctly and promptly, measuring results and honoring financial obligations. Until the ecosystem of companies enabling the SVE significantly matures, scaling the model will cause ample headaches.

3. Retaining full control of advertising sales is crucial. While the SVE opens up new audiences, Greg reminded us that nobody is better equipped to sell MTV's inventory - wherever it may be generated - than MTV's own sales team. This is one of the reasons content providers seek to syndicate not just their video, but also their player as well. Jonathan echoed this point from the local perspective. Lack of tight advertising control leads to chaos for media buyers and sub-optimization of pricing. A bonus, as John pointed out, is that distributors will often be happy to just collect their revenue-sharing checks and not have to sell themselves.

4. Analytics are the ultimate key to fully exploiting the SVE. While traditional web analytics have focused on on-site performance, SVE analytics must encompass video performance over many distribution points. Brian noted that making sense of how a video performs in varying environments - and then adjusting ongoing syndication strategies accordingly - is necessary to optimize viewership across the total audience. Inevitably viewership and engagement will vary by distributor. Collecting, understanding and acting on the data optimizes syndication and monetization.

Ok, that's a mouthful. Like the panelists I remain optimistic about the SVE's potential, but I'm also clear-eyed about the challenges the SVE raises. I'll continue to track its progress and share findings.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

Here's another example of the multiple cross-currents in the broadband video market.

Just last week I reviewed new Magid research showing that short-form dominates broadband video consumption. Now this week I received news from Swarmcast which provides a high-quality streaming delivery platform, revealing that the average length of live streams it's serving for its customers now averages more than 75 minutes, suggesting the long-form opportunity is now firming up. An apparent contradiction? Yes. An actual contradiction? No.

What's happening is that while short-form still accounts for the vast majority of viewing instances, there are now marquee events from Swarmcast customers like MLB.com being streamed live that are generating sustained viewership. Swarmcast provides multiple examples of events that it has streamed which lead to the 75 minute average:

• July 15 - All-Star Game
• July 14 - Home Run Derby
• July 3-6 - Rothbury Music Festival
• June 28 - Nelson Mandela's 90th Birthday celebration

I think the success in live streaming events speaks to broadband's convenience. While TV is clearly the preferred viewing device, if you don't have access to one when a compelling event is on, or that content provider has chosen to stream it instead of broadcasting it, broadband is incredibly convenient.

Even so, what's traditionally held back longer-form consumption is low-quality delivery. This is the problem Swarmcast has focused on. I've seen examples of some of their events and the quality is impressive, even at scale. So as content providers recognize that they can indeed stream high-quality long-form events, interest will build. The next key challenge of course will be monetize these streams.

MLB has been a poster child for succeeding with the subscription model, leveraging its loyal fan base and exclusive games. While their brand is unique, it seems like there should also be pay-per-view opportunities for high-profile live events, akin to what has worked on cable (e.g. wrestling, boxing, music, etc.). Outside of the paid model, if audiences can be built for free events, advertisers will also take interest.

Swarmcast's customers' success in longer-form live streaming is again showing that despite the current popularity of short-form, broadband is still evolving, opening up diverse opportunities for content providers.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Yesterday, in "Video Usage is Creating a Hairball for Broadband ISPs, Others," I scratched the surface of how ISPs' networks are becoming overwhelmed by the sheer volume of broadband video being consumed each day along with potential solutions currently under experiment.

Today, to help put the problem in some context I'm pleased to offer a dozen slides excerpted from Cisco's recently released Visual Networking Forecast, which shows strong growth ahead for video, as it becomes the predominant type of Internet traffic. To learn more about the forecast and its implications, I recently spoke to Cisco's primary forecasting analyst, Arielle Sumits.

Click here to download the slides.

Arielle explained that Cisco started doing the forecast years ago as an internal project to help inform its own business decisions. As it recognized there was a dearth of this information available publicly, it decided to release the numbers.

Cisco bases its calculations on analyst projections for Internet users, broadband connections, video subscribers, mobile connections and Internet application adoption. As a significant equipment vendor to service providers, it is also able to collect data from these customers to validate its forecast. In fact, Arielle said that in Q4 '08, Cisco will begin supplementing the forecast with actual data from 12-15 service providers, breaking down their users' consumption by video type (professional, UGC, etc.)

The forecast shows that broadband video's growth will continue apace. Cisco is forecasting half a "zettabyte" (definitions are provided) of data will cross the global Internet by 2012, with broadband video accounting for nearly 50% of the total. Accounting for video's rapid expansion, global consumer Internet traffic will quadruple by 2012.

Putting this in perspective, Cisco estimates that in 2012 global broadband video traffic will be 380 times what U.S. Internet backbone traffic was in 2000. Even in 2008, video is already impressive, with Cisco estimating that the video viewed at just 7 sites (YouTube, MySpace, Xbox Live, iTunes, NBC, ABC and Yahoo) is already greater than what U.S. Internet backbone was in 2000. (If you want to read the whole white paper Cisco wrote about the forecast, it is available here.)

While all of this is good news for those pursuing broadband video business opportunities, the forecast again underscores the significant issues facing broadband ISPs, on whom we all rely to actually deliver video across the so-called last mile. Broadband video's growth is dependent on these companies figuring out how to economically keep up with the explosion in video consumption. As I tried to point out yesterday, there are, as yet, no perfect answers to be found.

Click here to download the slides.

What do you think? Post a comment.

The explosion in broadband video consumption is creating a significant and growing hairball for broadband Internet Service Providers, content providers, regulators and others. The core problem is that ISPs' networks are getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of video being consumed each day.

ISPs have several ways to address the situation, but unfortunately none are perfect. For example, Comcast's approach until recently has been to use network management tools to block or slow certain kinds of traffic, such as peer-to-peer. P2P is a particular issue for cable ISPs because it uses scarce "upstream" bandwidth. Network management is highly technical, making it hard for policy-makers to understand it, let alone legislate it. So Comcast is now facing a sanction from the FCC over its network management practices (which it says it's moving away from anyway), because the FCC didn't consider them "reasonable" by its own vague definition.

Time Warner Cable is experimenting with another approach: tiers of service carrying bandwidth caps for users. This is a little bit like today's cell phone model - you buy a package of minutes, and if you go over, you pay extra. Though that may sound reasonable, it invites all kinds of confusion for consumers (e.g. "do I watch that show on CBS.com? Maybe I'd better not, I think my kids have watched a lot of YouTube clips this week and I don't want to go over my cap."). Content providers are justifiably concerned about this potential scenario. Separately, for its part, AT&T recently tried to clarify what its users can and cannot expect from their broadband subscriptions.

Yet another route is for broadband ISPs to adopt a much more expansive technical approach to how content is hosted in their networks and delivered to their users. Equipment vendors like Alcatel-Lucent and Cisco believe that ISPs could convert the current bandwidth problem into a full-fledged business opportunity. This would involve ISPs deploying hardware and software that would enable "managed services," each to be delivered at a specified quality level and for a specified price. So rather than a consumer buying a tier, they would buy a specific service offering (e.g. unlimited Hulu, with HD delivery guaranteed).

This wouldn't be a totally unfamiliar concept. Content providers have been buying managed hosting/delivery services for years from CDNs like Akamai, Limelight, Level 3 and others which guarantee certain delivery metrics. But these CDNs' guarantees can't reach into the "last mile" the ISPs' networks serve. So as ever-more bandwidth intensive content is launched such as HD and long-form, content providers should have an increasing motivation to see last mile ISPs offer comparable managed services offerings from ISPs as well.

However, ISP managed services would require fundamental changes in how these companies currently work together, and also invites concerns from "net neutrality" advocates that ISPs could bias in favor of one content provider or another when making their deals. Though compelling in concept, there are many details to sort out in the managed services approach, making it a longer-term option.

All of this just scratches the surface of the growing bandwidth hairball. Layer on the free-speech advocates like Free Press and Public Knowledge and the politicians looking to make hay with constituents and it's evident that the debate over bandwidth is only going to intensify.

What do you think? Post a comment now.