VideoNuze Posts

Not breaking news now, but Hulu lifted the veil of secrecy a bit today, releasing some screen shots and setting up a private beta (I'm trying to yank some strings to get access), in advance of a planned public launch early next year.

Hulu's been surrounded by a bunch of naysayers from the beginning, though much of the nay-ing has been based on little else than cheap shots about the name, delayed launch, etc. Things that in the grand scheme of things mean virtually nothing in my opinion and only serve to distract attention from the real question at hand: can Hulu become NBC and Fox's (for now) formula for success in the broadband video era?

Now it's time for Hulu to silence the rabble. Until I get my own hands on it, I'm going to reserve in-depth commentary. But at least several things that look intriguing:

• Shorter commercial breaks and overlays - Looks like the tension between user focus vs. advertiser focus is skewing toward users. A welcome change from traditional media thinking.
• Widespread distribution - I've been a big fan of this from the start. Deals with AOL, Yahoo, MySpace, Comcast, etc. ensures that Hulu content is widely available where users already are.
• More content deals - One of the knocks on Hulu was that neither CBS nor ABC joined up front. However, recent deals with Sony and MGM show Hulu continues to gain traction with other premium providers.
• Features - Beyond the standard range of embed, full-screen, send-to-friend features, it looks like there's an interesting "custom clip" capability to let users crop out scenes from favorite shows to pass along. This user control could enable massive new short form video inventory and could be a precursor to more interesting and creative user-generated mashups. All of this is highly monetizable.

More thoughts on Hulu to come.

And for Brotherhood, a program set in Providence, Rhode Island, they landed a cardstacker to create the state's capitol building out of 22,000 cards. Posted on YouTube 3 weeks ago, it's generated 350,000+ views.

For Showtime, and for any other premium content providers, broadband's ability to expose potential viewers to their shows is huge. Doing so with novel approaches like the ones above continue to demonstrate how broadband opens up a whole new creative palette for marketing and programming teams. More evidence that traditional marketing equations are changing.

Ok, no gloating, but hey, maybe time to spell D-Y-N-A-S-T-Y?

When I was in NYC earlier this week I caught up with my old buddy Lewis Rothkopf, who's now the VP of Biz Dev at PaltaIk. I got to know Lewis when he was at Lightningcast before it was sold to AOL. Lewis and Joel Smernoff, Paltalk's COO/President gave me a demo of their latest offering Paltalk Scene.

This product allows full video chat and interactivity in private or public rooms, with up to 5K participants per room. It enables what Paltalk calls "social-casting" which means that all chat room participants can watch the same video in the main window and comment/interact around that video. Kind of like a "virtual bar".

I think this kind of engagement around a specific video is very cool and is certainly going to become more popular going forward. Paltalk has already implemented with a bunch of partners including Lifetime for its new Lisa Williams show. And Paltalk is creating a slew of its own "programs" including comedy specials, celebrity "talk shows" and sporting events (wrestling, tennis, etc.).

For Paltalk the goal of these events is to upsell basic members to subscribe to the premium service so they can see video of other members. Down the road there are certainly many other models (PPV, subscriptions, software licensing, etc.). Any user is able to access Paltalk Scene to create their own room.

Paltalk also has an Active X control right now so content partners can embed the video chat window right into their web site, to both retain branding and also offer sponsorship opportunities. Soon there will also be a Flash embed version, which will allow Mac users to enjoy as well.

In short, Paltalk Scene seems like an easy-to-use system for content providers to deepen engagement with their audiences around specific video events creating a totally new user experience.

It seems like half the world I know is coming to Boston next week for VON and the other half is going to LA for Digital Hollywood. Some of the unlucky ones are trying to make it to both. Too bad that two good shows are overlapping.

Though I'm based in Boston, I'll be heading to Digital Hollywood and will be there from Tuesday morning through Thursday morning.

It's always a great networking event, and I'll be around to meet up. Just drop me a line if you'll be there too.

Based on answers to several questions of mine that Metacafe executives answered, I sense that behind all those words Metacafe is trying to create its own "virtuous cycle". This is a concept taught in all MBA programs, which describes how various elements of a business can act to reinforce one another. When it occurs, both operational and financial results are optimized.

Here's how I think Metacafe's virtuous cycle, as exemplified by "Director's Cut", could work:

By showcasing their highest-quality producers (as determined by Metacafe's own users) in a prominently highlighted section of its well-trafficked site, Metacafe will no doubt drive lots more views of these videos. These views count for their producers' in Metacafe's "Producer Rewards" program, which in turn results in more earnings for the producers. In theory, greater earnings will result in more loyalty to Metacafe among their best producers. Ultimately this yields an overall better-quality user experience and more overall ad revenues.

If successful, this kind of self-reinforcing program could be a real differentiator for Metacafe as it pursues the short video segment which is its focus. All UGC/video sharing sites, led by YouTube, are trying to ratchet up their video quality from their roots as pure UGC sites. Yet doing so is elusive. Even with the proliferation of the number of video producers, there's always going to be a finite number of really high-quality ones. So helping them genuinely earn a living from their work is a real key to winning their long-term loyalty.

All content providers or aggregators should be thinking like Metacafe in terms of how they too can create their own "virtuous cycles."

Today I had a pretty interesting meeting with The Fifth Network, a company which I'd only been minimally aware of. TFN's been focused on media services for the past couple of years, but is now poised to launch a pretty comprehensive solution for broadband video delivery.

We didn't get into too much detail or extensive demos, but what I did see looked impressive, especially from a video quality perspective. They shared a preview of a deal being implemented for a big brand advertiser and also for a potential film studio.

I thought all the companies that had planted their flag in the content/ad management and content publishing spaces were now declared, but TFN shows that there are still some stealthy efforts out there, which when released will continue to push further innovation in this space. I'll have more details on TFN's deals just before they go live.