-
YouTube Dominating Online Video Ad Business; $1.3 Billion Forecast in 2011
A new report this week from Citi analyst Mark Mahaney forecasted that YouTube revenue could exceed $1.3 billion in 2011 and rise to almost $1.7 billion in 2012 (see below). Mahaney's conclusion is based on YouTube driving higher video views and an improved ability to monetize these views with advertising. Google has of course been famously tight-lipped about YouTube's financial condition, other than to issue increasingly optimistic statements in its quarterly earnings calls.
Categories: Advertising, Aggregators
-
Online Video Advertising Industry Keeps Innovating
Speaking of online video advertising, once again there was plenty of news this week. Among the highlights, Adap.tv launched its video ad marketplace in the U.K., PointRoll added new partners to its "Included" Program and launched new mobile and in-stream Included program, Casale Media announced a new "Videobox" format transforming display ads into video ads, AdoTube released new research that in-stream ads perform 7x better than rich media ads, and blip.tv revealed that it has built a creative services group to produce ads for its clients.
The online video ad market continues to experience strong growth. I've been talking to a lot of companies in the space recently, related to the ELEVATE conference on Tues, June 7th in NYC. There is a ton of enthusiasm, but also a continued strong need for market education and best practices, which is what we'll focus on at ELEVATE (more info coming next week).Categories: Advertising
Topics: Adap.TV, AdoTube, blip.TV, Casale Media, PointRoll
-
Former Blockbuster CEO and Investor Square Off Over Company's Failure
Coincidentally, as I was writing "Could HBO be the Next Blockbuster?" an essay appeared in Harvard Business Review this week by former Blockbuster CEO John Antioco describing his experience at the company and interactions with activist investor Carl Icahn. After the essay Icahn responds, to which Antioco then responds. It's a fascinating exchange.
Categories: Aggregators
Topics: Blockbuster, Netflix
-
Ohio University Clamps Down on Students' Netflix Use
How popular is Netflix among college students? Apparently so much that Ohio University, a 32,000 student campus, this week imposed a bandwidth cap on its students of a puny 5 MB when it found that 60% of its bandwidth was being
used for entertainment purposes, 28% of which was for Netflix (I think that means that 17% of bandwidth was being used for Netflx). The situation had gotten so bad that students and faculty weren't able to access the web-based curriculum management system. Much as I'm a fan of Netflix streaming, it's good to see OU trying to get its students back to hitting the books. Categories: Aggregators, Broadband ISPs
Topics: Netflix, Ohio University
-
VideoNuze Report Podcast #93 - Mar. 25, 2011
I'm pleased to present the 93rd edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for March 25, 2011.
In this week's podcast, Daisy Whitney and I discuss my post from earlier this week, "Could HBO be the Next BLOCKBUSTER." In it I provide a perspective on the challenges that HBO faces adapting to the new competitive landscape. The post has received wide distribution this week including being featured on the home page of the WSJ's AllThingsD technology web site and elsewhere.
For those further interested in the topic, I fleshed out some of the issues in a follow-on post, "Showtime Circles the Wagons, But to What End?" in which I discussed Showtime's decision to pull streaming rights to certain shows from Netflix. This week Starz also delayed the release windows of some of its shows as well. Quite a busy week for premium cable networks.
Click here to listen to the podcast (15 minutes, 42 seconds)
Click here for previous podcasts
The VideoNuze Report is available in iTunes...subscribe today!Categories: Cable Networks, Podcasts
Topics: HBO, Netflix, Showtime
-
Showtime Circles Its Wagons, But to What End?
Showtime's new decision to re-negotiate its deal with Netflix, excluding streaming rights to early seasons of current hit shows "Dexter" and "Californication," is a clear attempt by the company to circle its wagons against Netflix's newfound strength. The move effectively short-circuits Showtime's existing efforts to work with Netflix as a key promotional partner. By giving Netflix streaming rights to older episodes, the goal has been to expose a portion of its subscribers to Showtime programs, which would in turn help drive new Showtime subscriptions. (Note: Coincidentally, I happened to have just watched the entire first season of Dexter on Netflix, though I haven't chosen to subscribe to Showtime. More on that in a subsequent post).
With its decision, Showtime has doubled down on its relationship with its pay-TV partners. Maybe I'm missing something important, but from my perspective, the new decision seems grossly out of step with current market realities and it will only lead Showtime toward an even more uncertain future.
Categories: Aggregators, Cable Networks
Topics: HBO, Netflix, Showtime
-
Adobe Pass Boosts Cable Networks' TV Everywhere Role
Adobe is announcing a new service this morning called Adobe Pass, which is intended to streamline how pay-TV subscribers gain access to authenticated premium content online. While Adobe Pass offers a key benefit to users in the ability to have "single sign-on" across multiple devices and web sites, a more critical upside is that with Adobe Pass, cable networks gain far greater control over their relationships with viewers as TV Everywhere efforts ramp up. In this respect Adobe Pass is a potentially significant building block in helping make TV Everywhere a reality. Todd Greenbaum, senior product manager at Adobe, briefed me earlier this week.
First, from a technical perspective, Adobe Pass looks like a pretty elegant solution that positions it well to be the glue that hold TV Everywhere authentication together. The idea is that when a user visits a content provider's web site they'll still see freely available content, but they'll now also see some that is for paying subscribers only (see TNT example below). If the site has added the Adobe Pass software, then when the user clicks on the authenticated content, a selection of pay-TV operators who have integrated the Adobe Pass API will appear (currently Comcast, Cox, DISH and Verizon are all on board). The user selects their pay-TV provider and is then asked for the user name and password they use with their pay-TV operator.
Categories: Cable Networks, Cable TV Operators, Technology
Topics: Adobe, Time Warner Cable
-
NCAA's MMOD Offering In-Game Highlights, Powered by Digitalsmiths
An exciting feature of this year's NCAA March Madness on Demand (MMOD) is the availability of highlight clips during the games themselves. This near-real time metadata tagging and indexing capability is being powered by Digitalsmiths, and it represents a key milestone in the online sports experience.
As I described last month in my review of MLB.com's "Fantasy Baseball Commissioner" product which this season will include in-game highlights as well, these initiatives move metadata tagging and indexing from the realm of on-demand libraries to live streams. Digitalsmiths' GM Patrick Donovan wrote a post about this last Thursday, and I got a chance to catch up with him about it further.
Categories: Sports
Topics: CBS, Digitalsmiths, MMOD, NCAA, Turner Sports
VideoNuze Posts
Connect with VideoNuze
Exclusive News Roundup
- YouTube CEO Says Revenue From Its TikTok-Like Shorts Videos Is at Parity With Core YouTube in U.S., Other Countries Variety
- Netflix says its ad tier now has 94 million monthly active users CNBC
- Xumo Founder Launches Fairground, Startup Focused Exclusively on AI-Generated TV Series Variety
- YouTube introduces an interactive product feed for shoppable TV ads TechCrunch
- Warner’s Streaming Service Has New Name: Its Old One. Meet ‘HBO Max.’ WSJ
- YouTube Expands Deal With NFL, Scores Global Rights to Week One Brazil Game The Hollywood Reporter
