VideoNuze Posts

Last summer I wrote about Cisco's Visual Networking Index, a model that the company originally built to forecast traffic for its own internal planning, but which it now releases externally as well. Cisco's methodology is to combine analyst projections with data that it collects from its own customers.

Yesterday Cisco released an updated forecast focused on mobile traffic, which is an area of intense interest for many, in light of the huge success of the iPhone and the App Store. Once again Cisco has given me permission to make available the forecast slides for complimentary download. It was a pretty long deck so I've culled out the most salient slides.

Click here to download slides

Cisco is forecasting mobile traffic will grow 66x from 2008-2013 to 2.5 million terabytes/mo. The primary driver of that growth is video, which it believes will account for 64% of mobile traffic in '13, more than triple data's 19% share. Cisco believes that most of the mobile video consumed will be on demand, not streamed live.

As for devices that will fuel all this growth, Cisco believes that handsets (primarily smartphones) will account for 53% of traffic, and portable devices (primarily laptops using aircards) will account for 40%. According to its analysis, smartphones generate at least 30x the mobile traffic that standard handsets do, while laptops generate 450x the traffic of handsets. The forecast slides also break out growth by traffic type in each region of the world.

I've said in the past that although mobile video is lagging broadband fixed line video today, it is poised to quickly catch up. All of this traffic growth of course creates both issues and opportunities for wireless carriers. Soon enough consumers are going to expect that they can take their full video experience on the road with them. It's an exciting vision.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

In this economic environment, it's always refreshing to see signs of growth and progress. VMIX, a white-label video management and publishing platform is reporting both today. It has added Ted Utz, formerly VP of National Sales for CBS Televisions Stations Digital Media Group to open its New York office along with other new headcount in its main office in San Diego.

Mike Glickenhaus, VMIX's CEO told me the earlier this week that the company is also continuing to expand beyond its original media vertical. It is working with Pure Digital, JVC, Toyota's Scion and will be announcing deals in other verticals soon. This is partly the result of a new reseller program that's beginning to pay dividends.

Mike noted that while he believes VMIX's technology is competitive with that of others, the company has also been able to differentiate itself through its focus on monetization, service and experience with user-generated content. As I've written before, the video platform space is quite crowded, but it looks as though VMIX is continuing to win its share of business.

Yesterday Cisco released an updated forecast focused on mobile traffic, which is an area of intense interest for many, in light of the huge success of the iPhone and the App Store. Once again Cisco has given me permission to make available the forecast slides for complimentary download. It was a pretty long deck so I've culled out the most salient slides.

Click here to download slides

Cisco is forecasting mobile traffic will grow 66x from 2008-2013 to 2.5 million terabytes/mo. The primary driver of that growth is video, which it believes will account for 64% of mobile traffic in '13, more than triple data's 19% share. Cisco believes that most of the mobile video consumed will be on demand, not streamed live.

As for devices that will fuel all this growth, Cisco believes that handsets (primarily smartphones) will account for 53% of traffic, and portable devices (primarily laptops using aircards) will account for 40%. According to its analysis, smartphones generate at least 30x the mobile traffic that standard handsets do, while laptops generate 450x the traffic of handsets. The forecast slides also break out growth by traffic type in each region of the world.

I've said in the past that although mobile video is lagging broadband fixed line video today, it is poised to quickly catch up. All of this traffic growth of course creates both issues and opportunities for wireless carriers. Soon enough consumers are going to expect that they can take their full video experience on the road with them. It's an exciting vision.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Last month's CES brought a wave of news from TV manufacturers about plans to integrate broadband access directly into their new sets. There's going to be growing momentum around this capability and I believe it's inevitable that broadband connectivity will one day be a standard feature in virtually all HDTVs.

The wrinkle in this scenario is that for broadband video on TV to be a compelling experience for consumers there must be a user-friendly environment to discover and navigate to desired video. Simply offering an Ethernet jack or wireless connection is insufficient. In fact a strong UI becomes even more important as video choices expand.

Seeking to solve the problem of how to organize, present and deliver broadband video via connected TVs is an early-stage company called AnySource Media that I believe is going to be getting a lot of attention over the next couple of years. I saw a demo of their service last fall and recently I talked to Mike Harris, AnySource's CEO to learn more.

The first and most important thing to know about AnySource is that its executive team has deep and successful roots in the consumer electronics (CE), video processing and semiconductor industries. As a result, it has the relationships, technical understanding and subtle know-how to get things done with the opaque CE industry. For example, a key question for me with the new crop of connected TVs has been whether new, specialized chips would be required in the TVs. These would inevitably cause upward retail price pressure, thereby suppressing consumer demand. Mike was able to walk me through the specific capabilities of chipsets commonly found in digital set-top boxes, how they are already migrating into TVs and how AnySource intends to leverage them to avoid creating new costs for the manufacturers.

There are two pieces to the AnySource Internet Video Navigator (IVN) solution: a software client freely embedded into the TV's chipset, and a back-end data center that aggregates and streams/downloads the content, creates metadata, organizes the presentation experience and passes on relevant advertising or commerce information.

AnySource's goal is not to disrupt the underlying content provider's experience or require any new encoding; it simply passes through whatever the content provider wants to make available. At CES it demo'd with 80 content providers and Mike said over 200 deals are in the works. Given the simplicity of its pitch, I think that as AnySource's footprint expands content providers will be very interested partners. AnySource doesn't plan to obtain revenue shares from content providers, rather its business model is to sell its own ads in the presentation screens.

The key to AnySource's model is of course is getting TV manufacturers to embed the IVN software. Mike was reluctant to get into specifics, but at CES AnySource demo'd on a Sylvania set from Funai. The goal is be in the market with at least 2-3 TV brands in '09 with more in '10. Obviously if AnySource's model gets traction, further deals will become a lot easier to get done. Unlike other devices which require new remotes or keyboards, AnySource-powered content will be available using the TV's remote control.

The connected TV space is the most exciting frontier in the broadband video landscape because it holds the potential to unlock vast new value for consumers and content providers. We've started to see some traction from third party devices like Xbox, TiVo, Roku, etc, but long-term the market will only achieve ubiquity when TVs themselves come with user-friendly broadband access. It's a highly disruptive scenario, and one which AnySource could well be a central player in.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

The Olympic Games continue to be a prime area of broadband video innovation. Following on the heels of the groundbreaking Broadband Olympics from Beijing last summer, yesterday brought news from Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (which holds the Canadian rights to the 2010 Vancouver Games) of even more extensive broadband Olympic coverage at CTVOlympics.ca and RDSOlympiques.ca.

Alon Marcovici, the VP of Digital Media and Research for the consortium told me yesterday that the every single moment of Olympic competition will be streamed live, so that if you have a broadband connection, you won't miss a moment of the action. I had Alon on a panel I moderated last year at the NAB Show, and his description then of what's involved with this unprecedented coverage was pretty incredible to hear. Broadband has created a whole new workflow, often relying on newer technologies that have not been tested at this scale. It's a bit of a high-wire act, but when it all comes together the payoff for consumers is significant.

For the Vancouver games, the consortium will provide 2,400 hours of online coverage, including a quad-screen mosaic option that will allow the viewer to watch 4 live streams concurrently. Because of the cross-media ownership in Canada, there will be lots of integration with newspaper and radio coverage, as well as bi-lingual (English and French) streams. There's also going to be a real emphasis on user-generated content, such as "Call the Game," a contest where users can overlay their own audio on historic Olympic moments, with entries voted on by other users.

No doubt we'll be hearing more from NBC, which again holds the U.S. rights, about their extensive use of broadband again. Add it all up and the Vancouver Games promise to be another seminal moment in broadband's evolution.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Here's another sign of the times: thePlatform is announcing this morning that it has launched three new initiatives aimed at reducing small-to-medium (SMB) sized content providers' total cost of running their broadband video operations. In the context of the woeful economy, it's a savvy move.

In effect thePlatform (note, a VideoNuze sponsor) is using its scale to create a buyer's cooperative to save money on three services (CDN, storage and others), thereby enabling its SMB customers to receive pricing comparable to what big customers can negotiate themselves. With thePlatform's customers driving 440 million video views in December '08, (3rd place after Google's site and Fox Interactive Media) according to comScore, the company is in a strong position to use its size on behalf of its SMB customers. I talked to Marty Roberts, thePlatform's VP Marketing, who explained the specifics of how the savings would work.

thePlatform's initiatives are based on an analysis it conducted of its SMB customers' key cost elements. No surprise, the cost of delivery was the biggest chunk, coming in at 78% of total. This was calculated using a set of assumptions including $.55/GB for delivery. For its new "mpsManage CDN" service, thePlatform has partnered with EdgeCast to resell its service for $.35/GB, resulting in a 36% savings on delivery costs. It will also be available on a utility basis, meaning no monthly commitments. Marty said that thePlatform will continue to work with its other 15 CDN partners, but I would guess that this new program is going to gain a lot of attention among its SMB customer base.

Delivery costs have always been a central issue for making the broadband P&L work. Having done many business cases for various content providers over the years, I'm well-acquainted with how quickly CDN costs can gobble up potential profitability even though the cost/GB delivered has plunged over the years. Yet there is a raft of CDNs out there to choose from, and the key is finding the right one for your needs at the moment and your budget. Still delivery costs persist as a major flashpoint: some of you may have read Mark Cuban's post just 2 weeks ago "The Great Internet Video Lie" in which he basically asserted that large CDNs and their pricing are the real gatekeepers to a truly open broadband distribution model (for the record, I think some of his points are valid, but long-term his logic is flawed).

The other programs thePlatform is rolling out are important, though not as impactful as the delivery option, simply because their percentage of underlying total costs is so much smaller in size. thePlatform is offering a new storage program which slashes the cost of storage from $8/GB on average, to $2/GB. Though a big cut, thePlatform calculates storage only accounts for 5% of total costs today.

Lastly, through its new Advantage program it's tapping into a select group of its ecosystem partners to find another 10% or more cost reduction on services like advertising, reporting and analytics and online community creation. Advantage program participants include Panache, BlackArrow, TubeMogul, Live Rail, ScanScout, Gloto and Visible Measures.

Add it all up and thePlatform believes it can offer a 32% reduction in "total cost of ownership" for SMB video content providers. These new services create a new revenue stream for the company, as the reduced prices include a margin for thePlatform as well. And as Marty pointed out the SMB space is quite vibrant and these programs will allow thePlatform to be more competitive in winning deals by giving them another negotiating lever.

thePlatform's moves are also smart from a positioning standpoint; in this troubled economy I think providers who overtly message that they are doing what they can to save customers money generate valuable notoriety. In good times everyone's focused on top-line growth and wants more features and flexibility. In bad times those goals are still valued, but saving money - which can often make the difference in merely surviving - is prized over everything else (Ben Franklin said it best: "a penny saved is a penny earned"). As a result, I suspect we'll see more companies unveiling messages of this kind in the months to come.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

A reminder that early bird discounts are available for another 2 weeks for VideoNuze's next event, the Broadband Video Leadership Evening on Tuesday, March 17th in New York City. The evening will start with a "VideoSchmooze" cocktail/networking reception from 6pm - 7:30pm, followed by a panel discussion I'll moderate from 7:30pm - 9pm titled, "Broadband Video '09: Building the Road to Profitability." We have an all-star panel including:

• Albert Cheng, EVP, Digital Media, Disney/ABC Television Group
• Greg Clayman, EVP, Digital Distribution & Business Development, MTV Networks
• Karin Gilford, SVP, Fancast and Online Entertainment, Comcast Interactive Media
• Curt Hecht, President, VivaKi (Publicis Groupe)
• Tom Morgan, Chief Strategy Officer, Move Networks

Click here to learn more and register for the early bird discount

The event will be held at the Hudson Theater, a beautifully-renovated venue on West 44th Street just off Times Square. I'm pleased to have NATPE, VideoNuze's partner since launch, on board for the event. And I'm extremely grateful to lead sponsor Move Networks and supporting sponsors ExtendMedia, mPoint and PermissionTV who are making the evening possible. Note, additional sponsorship opportunities are still available, contact me to learn more.

I've set up a Facebook group so you can start meeting other attendees and also keep up to date on all the recent broadband news we'll discuss on the panel. Friend me on Facebook and you can join!

Note this event is on the evening before the start of the McGraw-Hill Media Summit in NYC; if you're coming in for that, plan accordingly to join us as well!

Click here to learn more and register for the early bird discount

Below is the 5th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Feb. 6, 2009. Once again, Daisy Whitney and I are talking about posts we've made recently. This week Daisy discusses her post about Facebook and Ashton Kutcher linking up to launch "Katalyst HQ." I provide some additional background on the Super Bowl ads which had a broadband video component based on data I shared in this post: "Super Bowl Ads are a Broadband Fumble Again."

Click here for previous podcasts