VideoNuze Posts

After a week off for R&R, I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 146th edition of the VideoNuze-TDG Report podcast. Colin is at the IBC conference in Amsterdam this week, so his audio isn't quite as good as usual. There, he attended a fascinating presentation by a Unilever executive on how the company is adapting its advertising to the realities of a multi-screen world. Colin shares his reactions, particularly to how Unilever is creating its own online content in order to engage its audience in ways not possible with traditional TV advertising.

Shifting gears, we then discuss Amazon's aggressive content licensing blitz that I wrote about earlier this week. Having spent hundreds of millions of dollars licensing premium content over the past 15 months in support of its Prime Instant Videos, I think it's pretty clear that Amazon has emerged as the strongest new competitor to Netflix. Colin agrees, but reminds us that although content parity is critical to competitiveness, user experience matter as well. On this front, we agree Amazon still has a lot of work to do to match Netflix. Listen in to learn more!


Click here to listen to the podcast (23 minutes, 41 seconds)
 

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Several weeks ago, after the WSJ reported that Apple was talking to cable operators about building a set-top box, I wrote in pretty absolute terms that I could not envision this coming to reality ("Apple to Make Cable Set-Top Boxes? Not. Going. To. Happen."). Given the shifting sands of the video landscape, I'm generally reluctant to argue so one-sidedly. But, as I wrote, with so many reasons for cable operators not to foolishly outsource living room innovation to Apple, I asserted that the odds of cable operators getting in bed with Apple were next to zero.

Well, three short weeks later, this morning Bloomberg wrote that Apple's set-top box dreams have gone essentially nowhere, buffeted by a laundry list of cable operator requirements and concerns. Among them: control over the user interface, whether the boxes should be sold direct to consumers or leased by the operator, concern by operators that a superior Apple set-top could undermine their multichannel business model, and access to content among others.

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The process of authenticating users for TV Everywhere content access is improving yet again, as Synacor announced this morning that users will be able to log in via their Facebook, Twitter and Google accounts. The use of social IDs has become widely deployed by web services providers, but had not yet been made available in the TV Everywhere world. With the feature, users will be able to tie their pay-TV accounts to their social media accounts which means they'll no longer have to remember pay-TV specific login credentials to gain access to TV Everywhere content. This will reduce friction and should drive higher TV Everywhere adoption.

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Brightcove is announcing a clever new cloud-based transcoding service this morning that allows users to begin playing back a video even before its entire file has been transcoded. Dubbed "Zencoder Instant Play" (for the transcoding company Brightcove recently acquired), the service gives content providers with time-sensitive video the key benefit of a faster publishing cycle. In areas like news and sports, this could mean establishing an early lead in viewership and monetization for breaking stories.

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This morning Akamai is taking the wraps off Sola Media Solutions, a suite of services aimed at content providers struggling to keep up with the steep challenges posed by the explosion of online video content, rapid device proliferation and changing viewer expectations.

Sola Media Solutions replaces the prior "Akamai HD Network" branding. As Ahmet Ozalp, Akamai's VP, Products, Media Division explained to me, Sola builds on the company's traditional CDN strengths, and also introduces new modular services that address particular online video work flow, storage, security and delivery needs.

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Back in February, 2011, when Amazon unveiled Prime Instant Video, I noted that the service's Achilles heel was its minimal content selection. And since the video service was embedded in the larger Prime free shipping offer - rather than getting its own standalone brand - I sensed  hesitancy that Amazon would spend big bucks to license lots of premium-quality video. That indeed seemed to be the case as Amazon didn't announce a single content licensing deal to support Prime Instant Video until July, 2011.

However, since then, things have changed markedly; Amazon has been on a content licensing blitz over the last 15 months, announcing at least 14 different deals, culminating in today's with EPIX (see below for links to all). Despite the slow start, Amazon's huge content investment shows the company is quite serious about achieving content parity, or better, with its closest rival, Netflix, while leaving others like Google, Apple, Wal-Mart/VUDU, Verizon/Redbox and others playing catch-up in user-friendly subscription OTT services. Including the EPIX content, Amazon says it now has 25,000 titles/episodes, up 5-fold from its February, 2011 launch.

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If you were trying to tune out last week, whether lying on a beach or on a family getaway, you didn't miss all that much exciting online video-related news. However there were some items worth noting and below I've highlighted five that caught my eye.

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Adobe has announced that its Adobe Pass technology notched a 10x increase during the first half of 2012 in the number of video streams it authenticated. Big contributors included NCAA March Madness, UEFA Euro 2012 soccer and the NBA playoffs, along with entertainment content from Disney and Turner cable networks. Adobe Pass also powered authentication for the London Olympics, which drove 88 million authenticated streams.

Adobe Pass is now used by 40+ sites and mobile apps from 25 content providers, and is integrated by 150 pay-TV operators covering 98% of U.S. homes. That's considerable progress for a technology which was only announced a year-and-a-half ago.

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