VideoNuze Posts

Tomorrow morning Charter Communications will announce a redesigned version of Charter.net, the company's portal for its broadband Internet subscribers. I got a sneak preview of the press release and the new site along with a briefing with Himesh Bhise, VP &GM of High-Speed Internet for Charter, who oversees the portal.

According to Himesh, this redesign is the first key milestone for three main themes the company is pursuing for its portal: improved functionality and feature accessibility on its home page, increased video availability and more extensive TV listings.

I'm impressed with the direction Charter's taking. Charter's goals of enhancing the value of its bundle of video and online services is right on the money. I've said for a while that cable operators are potentially going to be the biggest beneficiaries of broadband video because they already have longstanding relationships with cable TV networks and video consumers, plus a huge base of broadband subscribers (Charter has over 2.5 million).

Charter's in synch with this thinking. They've done deals with a range of partners from biggies like Nickelodeon, HBO and FX to smaller ones like IFC, ResearchChannel.org and HAVOC. Charter's bringing selected video clips into its portal and will also offer some exclusive premieres of certain programming. Other cable operators like Comcast, Time Warner and Cablevision are already down this road with similar activities. Charter's initiatives add further momentum to this trend.

While I'm a fan of these moves, I would love to see the cable guys step up their broadband video activities even further. For example, Himesh and I engaged in an interested mini-debate about the definition and value of "exclusive" broadband programming. To me there's an terrific opportunity for cable operators to negotiate and obtain the broadband rights, at least for a defined window, for certain programs exclusively for their Internet subscribers. This would mean their subscribers get video they just can't get elsewhere. (Btw, that's kind of the way the cable TV world used to work until Congress stepped in with the "program access rules" in the '92 Cable Act).

Some kind of exclusive broadband programming would differentiate cable's portals from the Joosts and other next-gen broadband aggregators coming into the market. I think it's inevitable we're going to see some jousting for these kinds of rights, especially as things get more competitive.

I’m always on the lookout for innovating uses of broadband video and examples of organizations new to the video world.

So when Peter Marx, an acquaintance of mine forwarded me the following link, I was very intrigued:

http://www.jag.navy.mil/Multimedia/JAGMultimedia.html

Turns out the Navy JAG corps (basically the Navy’s in-house legal team) believes that video can tell a far more compelling story to potential recruits than simple text and graphics. After reviewing the video, I’d certainly agree. If I were a recent grad looking for some adventure beyond sitting in a window-less associate’s cubicle, the JAG opportunity looks pretty enticing!

Btw, to see more of Peter's fine work, check out:

http://www.legalinsight.com/

Here’s how this hit my radar: I was flipping the pages of the most recent New Yorker magazine. I noticed a full page picture of Salma, suggesting the reader visit http://www.campariusa.com/. Upon arrival and submitting my birth date, a 30 second video spot of Salma plays, with her sashaying down a corridor being proffered jewels and other enticements, until finally following an glittering tray of Campari on the rocks. After the video ends, there's all kinds of other stuff happening afterwards, with very heavy Flash emphasis.

What I found cool about all this is that an ad in a magazine got me to go online to see a video, which in turn prompted me to further engage with the site, learn about the company, get cocktail recipes, etc. A very multi-platform and multimedia approach, which is all part of the company's "Hotel Campari" campaign.

With TV networks still banning liquor ads, broadband presents a unique opportunity to reach target audiences above the legal age (of course, how that's verified is very sketchy to me....)

Nonetheless, with the sizzling Salma Hayek out front, the Campari campaign is sure to generate plenty of awareness and no doubt become a well-watched model for others looking to exploit broadband video campaigns in a more immersive way than pre-rolls allow.

Video continues to be a big focus for AOL. On Monday it will announce an update to its AOL Video portal (soft launch now available here)

According to AOL, the main benefits are:

• A redesigned main page that makes it easier for consumers to discover, search for and find millions of videos from across the Web;
• A redesigned video search experience that leverages industry-leading Truveo^TM video search technology and features better presentation of Web search results to help users more easily find what they are looking for and;
• A new embedded playback experience where consumers can find and watch videos from other popular video sites on the AOL Video site.

I continue to find Truveo to be a real differentiator for AOL (recall that AOL acquired Truveo back in January, 2006). The quality of the search results is consistently better than anyone else's. Just try running a "Tiger Woods" video search on all the different services. Truveo also helps AOL maintain a hybrid "open/closed" approach (my term) - with AOL simultaneously offering access to video anywhere on the web while also operating a walled garden of video supplied by numerous partners.

AOL noted that over the past nine months, skyrocketing consumer demand for online video has propelled the number of unique visitors on AOL Video to grow by 300% to eight million uniques per month.

I have no idea how that traffic divides up, but my guess is that a lot of those uniques are coming to AOL Video to run video searches. AOL pops a new browser window for video found at other places so it doesn't entirely lose the visitor.

In my firm's recent report on broadband video aggregators, AOL was among the 12 companies we identified as most likely to emerge as successes. I continue to like how they're blending web content with in-network content, branded with UGC, search with browse, free with paid and streaming with download. I think of Yahoo and MSN as their two closest portal competitors. While MSN is doing a respectable job, AOL is well out in front of Yahoo from a user experience standpoint. With the recent shakeup at Yahoo, I expect them to better capitalize on their considerable potential.

I made a quick trip to NXTcomm earlier this week to moderate a panel, have some meetings and walk the show floor. For those of you not familiar, NXTcomm is the joint event of the Telecommunications Industry Association (the association for telecom technology vendors) and the U.S. Telecom Association (the association of telecom service providers). This show, which drew about 20,000 people, grew out of Supercomm and GlobalComm conferences, is now the telco industry's main confab.

What struck me the most was how much the show focused on video and entertainment. I was at Supercomm years ago and remember it being a bunch of telco engineers inspecting the latest gear for routing phone calls. No more. As new NXTcomm executive director Wayne Crawford explained in an interview with Telephony magazine, "NXTcomm has a much broader conference program in terms of different types of technologies represented a and much more of its emphasis is placed on technology as it relates to the entertainment industry.

Boy, was this emphasis was evident on the show floor. All the big vendors, Microsoft, Intel, NEC, Nortel, Tandberg and others had major booth visibility around video. The telco industry is coming after the IPTV and broadband markets hard, and all of these vendors are providing the enabling gear. Having attended the Cable Show last month, NXTcomm doesn't yet have the glitzy booths of a Viacom or NBCU, but it wouldn't surprise me if they did by next year or the year after. Video is a major priority of the telco industry. Very exciting to see.