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Taste of Home Forges New Model for Magazine Video
TasteOfHome.com (TOH for short), the companion web site of Taste of Home magazine, (a top 10 magazine owned by Reader's Digest Association with a circulation of 3.1 million) is forging an innovative new model for magazines seeking to pursue broadband video.
As many VideoNuze readers know, I've been bullish on the opportunities broadband presents to traditional print media, especially magazines with strong niche appeal. What's new and different about TOH's effort is that it brings together several other key broadband themes I've previously discussed - purpose-driven user generated video, simple syndication and the evolving editorial role in the broadband era - to create a compelling publishing model and value proposition for its target audience.
As background, TOH's original print model was to solicit, filter and package user-submitted recipes into a bi-monthly magazine. That model has continued online, and TOH now offers 34,000+ recipes. As Renee Jordan, TOH's General Manager, who I spoke to yesterday, told me, TOH's audience is highly engaged and cooks 5 days/week. They also seek information from many sources, TV, magazines, newspapers, online, etc.
TOH operates a test kitchen where its chefs prepare selected user-submitted recipes. About a year ago, seeing the growth of video, TOH began updating its kitchen so that the chefs could be taped. To date, the company has produced 300 videos - a big accomplishment, but still just a tiny fraction of its total 34,000 available recipes.
To address the need for more high-quality video while retaining a strong degree of editorial control, TOH has tapped into the UGV frenzy by using aggregation and filtering tools from Magnify.net, a company I've previously covered. An editor at TOH is able to create "playlists" or specialized sub-channels (e.g. "Death by Chocolate," College Cooking," "Football Kickoff Party") by aggregating the best user-generated videos to be found at sites across the web and also by mixing/matching TOH's own videos into the playlists.
Renee explained that sometimes TOH might pair a video of how to make roasted potatoes, for example, with a recipe for how to do the same. Or it might pair a video of how to make a great lamb chop with the potato recipe. The combinations are endless. And users have the ability to subscribe to different playlists as well as customize them. TOH's use of the web's embeddable videos is another example of what I've called the "syndicated video economy."
The key is that TOH retains editorial control over which videos it incorporates. By harnessing users' passion to create their own high-quality videos, TOH's editorial role shifts from solely creating - on its own dime - every ounce of content it offers, to instead becoming a hybrid creator-curator. Renee acknowledges this is a meaningful shift, which might make many in traditional media uncomfortable. Still, she says matter-of-factly, "this is what needs to happen in the real world of the Internet."
I wholeheartedly agree. As if the Internet itself didn't create enough upheaval for many in traditional media, broadband video is now blurring competition further. In this example TOH is now able to re-position itself to its audience as a credible alternative to FoodNetwork.com (for example) when searching for the best cooking videos. That benefit spills over to advertising as well, as it has huge upside inventory potential for targeted pre-rolls and overlays.
To be fair, this is still a very new initiative. But the results are encouraging: TOH has doubled its video selection in just weeks - at little expense - and has increased its video-related page views by 50%. Other print media would be wise to take note of this new model. Ditto for incumbent video providers.
What do you think? Post a comment.
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Fancast Gets a Facelift
Comcast's Fancast broadband portal has received a much-needed facelift, adding new features and content to compete with other well-funded players in this space. (Note: before you conclude that VideoNuze has become obsessed with covering Comcast - since just yesterday I dug into its ISP policies - rest assured, tomorrow I'll move on!)
Fancast is by far the most ambitious portal effort among the major cable operators. In fact, while other operators' portals target just their own ISP customers, Comcast's goal is to have Fancast compete for ANY broadband user's attention. That means that Fancast goes head to head with ad-based broadband aggregators like Hulu, Veoh, Joost, Metacafe, etc. And now with Fancast's new video download store, it also butts up against folks like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, Xbox LIVE Marketplace, etc. Then of course there's YouTube, the 800 pound gorilla of the broadband video world, which all aggregators, compete with on one level or another.
With such a formidable array of competitors, Fancast has a high bar to succeed. Still, I've maintained for a while that Comcast, with its 14 million+ broadband subscribers and 22 million+ cable subscribers is extremely well-positioned and needed to play aggressively in broadband video distribution. To date though I've been underwhelmed by Fancast, which seemed to have a solid vision, but sub-par execution. (For more on this, see 2 previous posts, here and here, comparing Hulu and Fancast.)
Now, with Fancast's facelift, the portal is getting some mojo. Fancast's director of communications Kate Noel recently took me on a spin through what's new. First up is a new home page (see below) that nicely showcases premium content that is curated by an in-house editorial team. Clicking on a selection reveals an oversize video player (which can be further enlarged to full screen). New features include embedding and sharing, along with a handy tool to be notified when a new episode is offered.
There's also a noticeable improvement in content selection, which Kate says now includes over 37,500 video assets; 320+ individual TV programs, 250+ movies and countless trailers and clips from over 100 content partners. Fancast is also putting a heavy emphasis on editorial differentiation, and has created sections such as "Today's Top 5," "Daily Buzz (blog)" and "Discover All Your Favorites." to help orient users on the site and provide editorial perspective.
This all plays to what Kate says is Fancast's larger mission to not just "offer TV online," but rather to "use Fancast as a cross-platform hub" that draws value from and drives value to Comcast's other offerings - digital cable, VOD and DVR service in particular.
With Comcast's huge cable subscriber base, that sounds right in theory. But how exactly Fancast fully executes on that potential still feels squishy. For example, doing a search for a current episode of "Mad Men" reveals a nice option to watch on VOD (since it's not currently on Fancast - that's a whole other story...), but is this really a game-changer? A much more significant lever at Comcast's disposal would be getting Fancast onto their digital cable boxes, so all that great Fancast content could be consumed in the living room (maybe along with YouTube, Funnyordie, NYTimes.com and other video?). The nagging question remains: will that day ever come?
One last thing that struck me about Fancast was its seemingly murky relationship with Hulu, which supplies many of Fancast's movies, and some of its TV programs. Is Hulu a Fancast competitor, a partner, both? Kate says Hulu is not competitive. Yet at the end of the day, aren't both Hulu and Fancast competing for the same ad dollars, and eyeballs? Here's another question: with Comcast's vast programming arm, why can't it procure movies directly from studios, instead of cutting Hulu in on the action? I must say, it's all very confusing.
Still, to the average user, the new Fancast is an improvement, and there is more progress yet to come.
What do you think? Post a comment now!
Categories: Aggregators, Cable TV Operators, Portals
Topics: Comcast, Fancast, Hulu
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Join Me for a Three Screen Webinar on Sept. 11th
Please join me next Thursday, Sept. 11th for a webinar entitled, "Don't Get Screened Out: How to Make Video Profitable Across Multiple Screens." I'll be sharing thoughts on how the video landscape is changing to incorporate not just broadband, but also mobile devices. With the recent introduction of the iPhone and a slew of smartphones, mobile video is starting to gain steam. The webinar is sponsored by ExtendMedia, and Chris Gardner, the company's Chief Marketing Officer will share details of how their customers are already succeeding with three screen initiatives.
Categories: Events, Mobile Video
Topics: ExtendMedia
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Debunking the Paranoia Around Comcast's ISP Policies
While much of the world was on vacation last week, yet another Comcast-related fracas broke out in the blogosphere, this time over the company's latest update to its broadband internet access policies. While this latest flap cements Comcast's status as the favorite target of those who put a totally unfettered Internet on a par with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, my immediate reaction was more "what's the big deal?"
The latest fracas centers on a seemingly innocuous, yet possibly longer-term significant change in
Comcast's "Acceptable Use Policy" which governs how much use you can get out of your Comcast High-Speed Internet service each month. In the past there was no theoretical limit, though Comcast says it always had on eye on its heaviest users (under 1% of its total base of 14 million) who would be contacted when an undisclosed threshold was reached. Last Thursday, Comcast posted a change in its AUP stating that starting October 1st, the usage cap would be 250GB/mo.
The blogosphere's reaction was immediate and sometimes raucously over-the-top (one well-known blogger pronounced the change "the end of the Internet as we know it"). While Comcast tried to translate the 250GB cap into say, how many emails a user could send each month (50 million) or songs that could be downloaded (62,500), others began furiously crunching the numbers to see more extreme scenarios, like how many HD movies/mo you'd be able to download.
For my part, I believe that Comcast's new cap - like much of the swirl surrounding its recent BitTorrent throttling - is much ado about nothing, at least for now. Where others see a raging fire threatening to burn down the Internet, I barely see signs of smoke just yet.
Yesterday I peppered Comcast spokesman Charlie Douglas with questions about the cap. While I had to ask several times whether it is intended to stifle broadband video consumption in any way (a favorite conspiracist belief), Charlie finally did provide an emphatic "no." He cited Comcast's own Fancast broadband portal as a key company priority, which itself would be harmed by any sort of broadband crackdown.
For sure some of you are thinking, "yeah but Will, he's their PR guy, what do you expect him to say?! Why do you believe him?!"
Fair questions. But contrary to the end-of-the-world crowd, I don't think Comcast has any sinister hidden motives with the cap, or with its network management policies. I do however think that Comcast does not take enough care in determining its policies or communicating them to its broadband users and other constituencies. Combined, these feed the distrust and dislike of Comcast that seems to be pervasive.
Even in my conversation with Charlie yesterday I found myself having several "huh?" moments that seem to strain credulity. For example:
Q: Why set a cap and especially one that's so high that it has little practical effect? A: Well, our customer feedback told us we needed to have a cap.
Q: How was the cap size determined? A: We thought it was a generous amount. Q: But the specific size? A: We thought it was a generous amount.
Q: Why release news of the cap in the last week of the summer (when many are on vacation and not paying attention) and in the midst of the ongoing FCC network management issue, instead of rolling out a comprehensive new plan that could be messaged accordingly? A: The cap and the FCC network management have nothing to do with each other, they are separate issues. Q: But in the media's coverage and public's perception, they are all considered part of the same picture. A: The cap and the FCC network management have nothing to do with each other, they are separate issues.
Q: Now that there's a formal cap, how about providing a simple tool so users can monitor their monthly usage, like cell phone companies do? A: Heavy users know how to find these tools; someone just told me last week that a Google search for "bandwidth meter" yields 290,000 hits. Q: Yes, but how about just offering a tool as a "good neighbor" gesture that your customers would appreciate? A: The cap is irrelevant to 99% of our users.
No doubt you'll find these answers as confounding as I do. All I can conclude is that 10+ years into the broadband game, Comcast still hasn't recognized how vital its broadband service is to its users nor how it has become part of a far-larger tableau including freedom of speech, the economy and American competitiveness. Comcast's seeming tone-deafness to all of this was fully evident in its continuously revised responses to the FCC's BitTorrent inquiry earlier this year.
This explanation will strike many as too generous and trusting. However, until I see real evidence of perniciousness on Comcast's part, to think anything else just feels like paranoia to me.
What do you think? Post a comment now.
Categories: Broadband ISPs
Topics: Comcast, FCC, Net Neutrality
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August '08 VideoNuze Recap - 3 Key Topics
Welcome to September. Before looking ahead, here's a quick recap of 3 key topics from August:
1. Advertising model remains in flux
Broadband video advertising was a key story line in August, as it seems to be every month. The industry is rightly focused on the ad model's continued evolution as more and more players in the value chain are increasingly dependent on it. This month, in "Pre-Roll Video Advertising Gets a Boost from 3 Research Studies," I noted how recent research is showing that user acceptance and engagement with the omnipresent pre-roll format is already high and is improving. However, as many readers correctly noted, research from industry participants must be discounted, and some of the metrics cited are not necessarily the best ones to use. I expect we'll see plenty more research - on both sides of pre-roll's efficacy - yet to come.
Meanwhile, comScore added to the confusion around the ad model by first highly ranking YuMe, a large ad network, very high in its reach statistics, only to then reverse itself by downgrading YuMe, before regrouping entirely by introducing a whole new metric for measuring reach. In this post, "comScore Gets Its Act Together on Ad Network Traffic Reporting," I tried to unravel some of this mini-saga. Needless to say, without trustworthy and universally accepted traffic reporting, broadband video is going to have a tough slog ahead.
2. Broadband Olympics are triumphant, but accomplishments are overshadowed
And speaking of a tough slog, the first "Broadband Olympics" were a huge triumph for both NBC and all of its technology partners, yet their accomplishments were overshadowed by a post-mortem revenue estimate by eMarketer suggesting NBC actually made very little money for its efforts. This appeared to knock broadband video advertising back on its heels, yet again, as outsiders pondered whether broadband is being overhyped.
The Olympics became a hobbyhorse of mine in the last 2 weeks as I tried to clarify things in 2 posts, "Why NBCOlympics.com's Video Ad Revenues Don't Matter" part 1 and part 2. These posts triggered a pretty interesting debate about whether technology/operational achievements are noteworthy, if substantial revenues are absent. My answer remains a resounding yes. But having exhausted all my arguments in these prior posts, I'll leave it to you to dig in there if you'd like to learn more about why I feel this way.
3. Broadband's impact is wide-ranging
VideoNuze readers know that another favorite topic of mine is how widespread broadband's impact is poised to become, and in fact already is. A number of August's posts illustrated how broadband's influence is already being felt across a diverse landscape.
Here's a brief sampling: "Vogue.TV's Model.Live: A Magazine Bets Big on Broadband" (magazines), "Tanglewood and BSO Pioneer Broadband Use for Arts/Cultural Organizations," (arts/culture), "American Political Conventions are Next Up to Get Broadband Video Treatment," (politics), "Citysearch Offering Local Merchants Video Enhancement," (local advertising) and "1Cast: A Legit Redlasso Has Tall Mountain to Climb" (local news).
I expect this trend will only accelerate, as more and more industries begin to recognize broadband video's potential benefits.
That's it for August and for the busy summer of '08. Lots more action to coming this fall!
Categories: Advertising, Analytics, Broadcasters, Magazines, Politics, Sports
Topics: 1Cast, CitySearch, comScore, eMarketer, NBC, RedLasso, Tanglewood, Vogue, YuMe
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Goodbye to a Busy Summer, Hello to a Busier Fall
As the traditional summer season winds to a close today, I have to ask: what happened to the normal summer slowdown? It just didn't happen. In fact, the pace of broadband video activity was unrelenting, and I know from speaking with many of you over the last few months that I'm far from alone in this assessment.
As just one metric of the busy summer of '08, approximately 600 broadband-related news items have been posted to VideoNuze since Memorial Day. Each of these items (available here fyi) is tied to a specific product announcement, partnership deal, financing, content initiative or other industry activity. And these 600 are just from the finite number of relevant publications from which VideoNuze aggregates its industry news. There was no doubt more news as well.
In addition, VideoNuze's contributors and I have made almost 100 original analyses/posts on the industry's key trends, products/technologies and research data during this busy summer. Demonstrating the sheer breadth of broadband video's growing influence, consider examples of just a handful of this summer's posts:
- Growth/challenges of pre-roll advertising
- Trends around short vs. long-form video programming
- Broadband ISPs' ongoing struggle to maintain their networks' viability
- Push by aggregators to differentiate themselves and gain market share
- Launch of a fashion magazine's original video series
- How a law firm is using video as a recruitment tool
VideoNuze remains laser-focused on broadband video as a unifying theme of all our analyses and posts. My world view - as most of you are no doubt painfully aware of by now - is that we are in the early stages of a relentless and inevitable shift to an open, broadband-centric era of video delivery, characterized by massive creativity and innovation, fierce competition and unprecedented consumer value.
As we say goodbye to a busy summer, I'm preparing to say hello to an even busier fall. Industry participants have a full plate of product announcements and partnerships pending and I expect the pace of activity will only quicken. VideoNuze will be there to separate the wheat from the chafe, helping all of you better understand what the flurry of news and data should mean to you.
Importantly, this fall also brings an exciting expansion of VideoNuze's mission, as we begin a push into focused, high-impact events. This is a natural progression of VideoNuze's overall value proposition and one which I've been eager to pursue for a while now.
Kicking things off will be our inaugural VideoSchmooze, a first-of-its kind industry networking event to be
held on Tues, Sept. 9th in Boston. There are already 200+ people registered, representing virtually every VC firm in the area, all video-focused startups and established companies and loads of entrepreneurs and others tied to the industry. Space is still available for this free event and registration is here.
Then on November 10th I will moderate VideoNuze's first Broadband Video Leadership Breakfast on the first full day of the annual CTAM Summit. Having moderated at dozens of industry conferences over the years, I've tried to bring together best practices I've observed, and have also personally recruited a blockbuster A-list group of executives for what I think will be a must-attend event. I'm excited to share more details later next week and hope you'll be able to join us.
In the meantime, I wish you a safe and restful Labor Day weekend. See you on Tuesday!
Categories: Miscellaneous
Topics: VideoSchmooze
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Why NBCOlympics.com's Video Ad Revenues Don't Matter - Part 2
Two days ago, I posted "Why NBCOlympics.com's Video Ad Revenues Don't Matter." I'll take the risk today of "beating a dead dog" by writing again about this same topic, for a couple of reasons.
First, there were some great comments on the site and I received many emails both supporting and challenging my arguments. (As a sidenote, I've discovered an interesting dynamic with VideoNuze - though I've repeatedly tried to encourage readers to post comments so all readers are able to see, folks seem more comfortable just emailing me directly for a one-on-one dialogue. I'm not going to resist human nature here, but again, I would love even more if you share your reactions by posting a comment so the whole community benefits!)
Second, the real trigger for writing a follow-up part 2 today is an incident I experienced yesterday. I gave a
presentation about broadband video to a group of investors. These were mainly people who are familiar with broadband video, but not necessarily steeped in it. Upon finishing up and opening the Q&A, an early question/comment was, "Hey Will you lay out great points about broadband, yet I just read somewhere earlier this week that even NBC's Olympic video, which should have been a big revenue opportunity if ever there was one, generated little money for NBC and looks like it was a total failure for them. Given that, why should people bother investing in this medium? It doesn't seem promising."
Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. This is exactly the perception that I sensed would be created out of the blogosphere's and mainstream media's coverage of eMarketer's NBCOlympics.com revenue estimate. And why it is so vital that people interested in broadband video not get distracted by this single data point. Instead, maintaining perspective about where the industry stands and what needs to be done to grow should be the real focus.
I totally get the point made by people in their comments and emails that video providers must show they can make real money in the broadband medium. Ultimately, that's paramount. In particular it's key that broadband not get tagged as the "digital pennies" medium, in contrast to the traditional "analog dollars" model.
But I'll continue to insist that the path to industry revenues and profits begins by demonstrating the technical/operational viability of the broadband medium, massive user adoption of it and differentiated engagement with it. To be sure, progress is being made on all fronts. Still, there is still a long road ahead to drive significant shifts in advertiser spending to broadband. If you're a media buyer today, you're very intrigued by broadband and are likely experimenting with it.
But you're looking for more proof points before making bigger spending commitments. Can broadband's architecture scale to handle massive traffic loads, or are the Chicken Littles right that the Internet will crash under video's massive weight? Can broadband video's quality compare with TV, and HD in particular? Given the broadband choice, will users in fact shift their consumption patterns? And if they do, how different will their awareness and engagement with ads be? Importantly, when is broadband video actually going to be widely and easily available on TVs, not just computers?
These are but a few of the questions repeatedly being asked. And many of these are what NBCOlympics.com has helped to answer. NBC could have done lots of things to squeeze more money out of its Olympics video (though my guess is that no matter what revenue they generated cynics would have still said, "Is that all?"). Instead they focused on user value/experience and pushed the broadband envelope considerably. Others are doing the same. More needs to be done, and I believe it will.
As the saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day." So too with this exciting new medium. Revenues will not gush immediately. Staying focused on the core building blocks is the key. In short, I'm bullish long-term, but highly realistic short-term.
What do you think? Please post a comment! Or send me an email if you really prefer!
Categories: Broadcasters, Sports
Topics: eMarketer, NBC, Olympics
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Join Me at Contentonomics on October 7th in LA
I'll be moderating a session at a new show called "Contentonomics" on October 7th in LA. Started by the gang over at Contentinople, who I've come to know well over the last 6 months, it's shaping up to be a dynamic new educational and networking opportunity for industry participants.
My session is "The Syndicated Video Economy: From Social Networks & Broadband Channels to Blogs" and features four great panelists:
- Gary Baker, Founder and CEO, ClipBlast
- Greg Clayman, EVP, Digital Distribution and Business Development, MTV Networks
- Jimmy Hutcheson, President, EgoTV
- Damon Berger, Director of Programming, Revision3
Contentinople is running a registration special of just $99 for a short time. You can register here. In the "Promotional Code" field at the bottom of the form, fill in "SPECIAL."
Hope to see you there!
Categories: Events