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Althea's Shufflr Social Browser Launches
Althea Systems' Shufflr, will launch today, another newcomer to the crowded lean back video browser space. It attempts to be an all-encompassing social video, search and recommendation engine in one platform. Called "Shufflefeed," it crawls the web ingesting video metadata in an attempt to make a smarter recommendation engine. Althea's CEO, Vinod Gopinath, who I had a chance to talk with last week, explained their belief that a greater service will come out of bringing all of these components together and more importantly mining all of the data.
Shufflr has been available for the past couple of months under an unpublicized open alpha and has attracted thousands of users worldwide. The browser has a slick and intuitive 10-foot optimized interface and focuses solely on video. The videos are shown in a wall format and are fun to scroll through. As for the content, rather than grouping by show or content partner, such as Clicker, Boxee or Roku, it is split into three main verticals, Recommendations, Friends Activity, and Buzz.
Categories: Startups
Topics: Althea Systems, Shufflr
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YouTube Surges to Almost 15 Billion Views in May
comScore has released its May online video rankings and at the top of the list, as usual, is YouTube. In May it racked up a record 14.6 billion video views, up 11.5% from April. YouTube's market share actually dipped slightly in May, to 43..1%, still its 3rd-highest monthly share since comScore began releasing this data in Jan '07. Total video views were also at a record high of 33.9 billion views in May.
The chart below shows how remarkable YouTube's growth has been since Jan '09. YouTube has more than doubled its monthly views from 6.3 billion. Meanwhile, YouTube's market share has hovered right around 40% each month, with its lowest level at 37.7% in Oct '09 and its highest of 43.5% in April '10. YouTube is generating more than 10 times the monthly views it was when Google acquired it.
Categories: Aggregators, Music
Topics: comScore, Hulu, VEVO, YouTube
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Clearleap and Roku Partner, Blurring Traditional Video Distribution Boundaries
Clearleap, a web-based TV technology platform, and Roku, maker of the popular digital video player, are announcing a partnership this morning that blurs the boundaries between traditional and broadband-centric video
distribution. The partnership enables incumbent Pay-TV providers to deliver premium content, including their own video-on-demand (VOD) libraries, plus supplemental online video, to their customers via Roku boxes. As a result, instead of Roku being thought of as one of the "over-the-top" disruptors of the existing video ecosystem, the Clearleap deal will help it - and other connected devices to follow - potentially find a role working with Pay-TV providers to extend their services.
For industry analysts like me, the deal is a bit of a mind-bender; when I got a sneak preview of the implementation at the Cable Show in LA last month I had to ask more than once about the context and motivations of the parties involved. I refreshed my understanding earlier this week in phone calls with Braxton Jarratt, Clearleap's CEO and co-founder, and Jim Funk, Roku's VP of Business Development.
Braxton explained that several of Clearleap's cable operator customers have acknowledged the expanding role of online video viewership (e.g. Netflix, YouTube, Amazon, MLB, etc.) via connected devices and are growing concerned that they pose a double negative: diminishing the importance of operators' own video services while also generating additional network traffic, but no incremental revenue upside (assuming the broadband user stays beneath their data cap and doesn't need to upgrade their service tier).
Categories: Cable TV Operators, Devices, Partnerships, Video On Demand
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Verizon Launches Droid X; Video is a Key Proposition in Battle with iPhone 4
Verizon officially unveiled its latest Droid smartphone this afternoon, the Droid X from Motorola, running Google's Android 2.1 mobile OS (with an upgrade to Android 2.2 planned for later this summer). I've been following
coverage this afternoon, and aside from all of the other cool new features, what resounds most for me is how video-focused the device is, and how strongly Verizon will be promoting this. I've previously said that video would move to the forefront of the ferocious smartphone battle underway between Google (with Android) and Apple (with the iPhone). With the Droid X launch, and the recent HTC Evo from Sprint (which I've been testing and will report on next week), plus numerous others to follow, I'm convinced that we are now getting into the thick of things.
From what I've read about the Droid X, there are 3 dimensions of the video proposition, each of which stacks up differently with the iPhone 4: (1) shooting video, in 720p HD, (2) watching video on the device's 4.3 inch 854 x 480 resolution screen, and (3) connecting the device via DLNA over a home network or via an HDMI-out port to your widescreen TV.
Categories: Mobile Video
Topics: Android, Apple, Droid, Google, Motorola, Verizon
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thePlatform Unveils Support for Numerous Over-the-Top Devices
thePlatform is announcing this morning that it has integrated with numerous "over-the-top" consumer electronics devices, enabling its content customers
to more easily deliver online video to them. Devices cited are boxee, Roku, TiVo, Vudu (which includes connected TVs and Blu-ray players from LG, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Toshiba and Vizio), DivX devices, Syabas (popbox), FlingoTV and others to come (including Google TV when ready). I caught up with Marty Roberts, thePlatform's VP of Sales and Marketing yesterday to learn more.
Marty explained the impetus was thePlatform's content customers telling the company they want to generate more video views and have easy access to the range of OTT devices coming to market. While conceding that the universe of all these devices combined is still probably in the low single-digit millions, thePlatform and its content customers are betting on future growth. The move is significant as it underscores the mindshare that direct access to TVs via broadband and connected devices has gained in the content community.
Categories: Devices, Technology
Topics: Boxee, DivX, FlingoTV, Google TV, LG, Mitsubishi, Roku, Samsung, Syabas, thePlatform, TiVo, Toshiba and Vizio, VUDU
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Brightcove Extends Platform to Serve Android Mobile Devices
Brightcove is announcing this morning that it has extended its platform to serve Android mobile devices, the latest sign of momentum behind Google's
mobile operating system. The new functionality includes an SDK for Android and new mobile templates for Flash Player 10.1, which together cover the spectrum of video viewed in apps and in browsers. Brightcove's president David Mendels provided further insight in a briefing last week.
What Brightcove is now doing for Android mirrors what the company did for the iPhone last November in the Brightcove 4 launch. Resources included in the Android solution are pre-built components for playback, content discovery, and connections into the Brightcove Media API. Next on the Android support roadmap are easy sharing to social media sites, improved navigation and discovery. For Flash 10.1, Brightcove has created a set of templates that will adapt to mobile devices and their playback context. These include right-sized player controls and a UI for smaller mobile screens. Flash 10.1 is now available for Android devices running Android 2.2 ("Froyo") and is also supported on BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, Symbian and others.
Categories: Mobile Video, Technology
Topics: Android, Brightcove, iPhone
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RoxioNow Expands Retail Strategy, Licenses Platform to Sears
This morning video technology company Sonic Solutions is announcing that Sears (which also owns K-Mart), will be the latest company to license its RoxioNow platform, a customizable white-label electronic sell-through (EST) and VOD rental service delivering a large library of premium new release
studio content through a variety of connected devices. The deal shows momentum for the fledgling platform that has within the past year signed Blockbuster, Best Buy, and Boxee, while amassing a library of over 30,000 download to own and 5,000 new release studio titles.
Mark Ely, EVP of Strategy at Sonic Solutions, whom I spoke with yesterday, is excited to have another retailer on board. He believes retail stores with RoxioNow will help speed up the consumer transition to the digital medium through promotions and education. Brick and mortar stores definitely have an advantage, as it is where many consumers still go to learn about new technology before they purchase. On top of that, it gives retailers a chance to bundle in download offers as an incentive to purchase new Internet connected devices giving consumers a free taste of the platform.
Categories: Devices, Downloads, Technology
Topics: RoxioNow, Sears, Sonic Solutions
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Next New Networks Poised to Hit 1 Billion Views Since Inception
In July, independent online video creator Next New Networks will hit 1 billion views since its inception, company CEO Lance Podell me in an interview last week. Next New Networks is now generating 60 million views/mo across its whole network. Lance shared this statistic and more in the following interview, in preparation for NATPE's LATV Fest, scheduled for July 12-15. Lance will appear on a panel titled, "The NEXT new Network: The Intersection of Cable and Web Programming." An excerpted transcript follows.
VideoNuze: Which of your networks are doing the best, and why?
Lance Podell: The biggest are Barely Political and Barely Digital. The primary reason is because we've really tapped the mix of pop culture currency and comedy. A majority of our viewing is on YouTube and the discoverability on YouTube is still around comedy. Comedy is really, really strong.
Also interesting about YouTube is that success is relative. For example, our IndyMogul network which is about movies, but from a different angle at what's hot, is in a different vertical and at 5 million views per month, does very well there. A recent network we launched is HungryNation, which is real food for the YouTube generation has doubled and trebled over the last few months. We give new networks 90-120 days to really take off or not. YouTube and others are working hard to make new content more discoverable which is really important to launching new shows.
VN: There's been recent discussion of online video gaining viewership in primetime. Are your networks gaining in primetime?
LP: Primetime is a thing of the past - it's just not relevant any more. People can watch video-on-demand. Their lives are very different. Our viewership, at 60 million views per month, is the same as some smaller cable TV networks in primetime. So we're getting big enough to compete. Something that is interesting for us is "anytime" viewership. For example, we did some research recently and people said things like, "I come home from work or school and turn on YouTube." It's like they think of YouTube as a network. They tell us they find our humor more real and authentic. They also tell us they don't like being committed for 22 or 44 minutes or more.
Importantly, over the last 2 years web-only programming has become more reliable. Our shows come out at the same time every week. So people are tuning in, not just relying on people sending email links. And because all episodes are available they can really get into it.
Categories: Indie Video
Topics: LATV Fest, Next New Networks
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