VideoNuze Posts

Google's new Chromecast device dominated the video landscape last week, making it easy to miss a highly noteworthy news nugget from Amazon: on its Q2 '13 earnings call last Thursday, Thomas Szkutak, the company's SVP/CFO said, "We're having new Prime members come to Amazon largely because of video." Szkutak's comment was a stark reminder of how far video has come for Amazon in the 2 1/2 years since it was first included in the $79/year Prime service.

Video - and other content/apps - are critical to Amazon because they all support two of the company's most important consumer-facing priorities: growing its highly profitable and sticky Prime service and supporting its line of Kindle devices in the fiercely competitive tablet market. Amazon's ability to successfully use video in service to these other businesses no doubt helps drive its willingness to spend heavily on content licensing and also to invest in its own original productions.

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I'm pleased to present the 189th edition of the VideoNuze weekly podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week we debate whether Google's new $35 Chromecast media streamer is a game-changer or not. I'm in the former category and Colin is in the latter. The caveat to my enthusiasm is that I haven't used Chromecast yet so I'm going by the Google demo and description.

As I wrote yesterday, I really like how Chromecast integrates the TV with mobile devices - something that Smart TVs hadn't achieved, but which many consumers yearn for. For many video content providers outside the pay-TV ecosystem, Chromecast offers, at last, a clear path into the living room, with increased advertising and subscription potential. If the Chromecast SDK is straightforward, I'm betting many content providers / app developers will quickly integrate it. Even with currently limited content, Chromecast sales are apparently very strong.

On the other hand, Colin is more cautious. He sees Chromecast as more of a transitional product. Colin likes how it helps the Google/YouTube ecosystem in offering an easy TV viewing solution, but doesn't see other content providers being as motivated, given other device priorities. Colin highlights the key question of how broadcasters will react to Chromecast - will they try to block its access to their online TV programs as they did with Google TV? If this is possible and they succeed, it would diminish Chromecast's value proposition.

It's a very robust debate, with no clear answers just yet. But one thing is for sure: Google has clearly stirred up the connected TV space with Chromecast. Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (22 minutes, 16 seconds)

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The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

By now, you've no doubt heard and/or read something about Google's clever new Chromecast HDMI device, a $35 media streamer introduced yesterday (Google's intro/demo video embedded below). Chromecast has a lot going for it, and could well become Google's first big hit product in the living room. If it does, there will be at least one significant consequence: instead of TVs continuing to become "Smart TVs," they are going to become dumb yet again. This would be a huge blow to TV manufacturers who have labored to convince consumers to spend extra to derive the benefits a Smart TV offers.

I don't think Google set out to kill Smart TVs with Chromecast, but I have no doubt the team recognized some of the serious shortcomings of today's Smart TVs and sought to capitalize on them. At the top of the list of Smart TVs' limitations are lack of integration with other devices, narrow content offerings and inability to entice developers.

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Video ad tech provider Dynamix has rolled out advanced reporting and analytics in its STREAMx platform, enabling advertisers and publishers to track at a deeper level the performance of dynamically-created video ads.  Dynamix's core capability is creating and delivering unique in-stream video ads and engagement opportunities based on data such as location, device, user behavior, etc.

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Late yesterday Netflix reported its Q2 2013 results that were mostly solid, although U.S. net subscriber additions were a little lower than many expected. Beyond the results themselves, it was the method by which they were discussed that was noteworthy - for the first time via a live-streamed video Q&A session, powered by Google Hangouts (embedded below). CEO Reed Hastings, CFO David Wells and Chief Content Officer Ted Sarandos were peppered with questions from CNBC reporter Julia Boorstin and BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield.

As Hastings said upfront, the format was meant to emulate a more informal, "fireside chat" style discussion, as opposed to the typical, highly structured quarterly audio conference call with Wall St. analysts. No doubt reactions to the video Q&A are subjective, but I liked it a lot and believe it should be a model for other companies to follow. Importantly, the Q&A was another example of the expansive role online video can play not just in entertainment, but also in communications.

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Three items last week brought to mind one central question I've long wondered about: can traditionally free, ad-supported online video providers make the leap to a paid, subscription model? The first item was a long piece in Variety that chronicled the struggles the first set of YouTube content partners trying subscriptions is having upselling their free viewers. Second, Reuters broke the news that Machinima, one of the biggest online video players (and a big YouTube partner) is planning to go it alone in creating its own subscription service to complement its free, ad-supported offering. And third was the milestone news that Netflix, by far the most successful online subscription service, garnered 14 Emmy nominations, including 9 for "House of Cards" alone.

How do these all tie together?

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I'm pleased to present the 188th edition of the VideoNuze weekly podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week rumors were once again flying about Apple and Google looking to enter the pay-TV industry, which Colin and I separately wrote about here and here.

In our discussion, Colin notes that any potential move would be expensive, given the need to carry many networks in a typical bundle. Colin also believes that Apple's rumored plan to compensate networks for ads skipped in a premium service it may offer has some merit based on his back-of-the-envelope analysis. But Colin is skeptical the networks will be interested in shifting their model away from advertising.

I see it the other way around; given high DVR penetration, networks could be intrigued by the idea of moving more of their economics to fees. The problem is I just don't see how the economics would work for Apple or consumers.

Regrettably, all of this is based on rumors so we readily admit we don't have solid facts on which to base our arguments. And that's why I consider Apple and Google's pay-TV aspirations to be the industry's longest-running soap opera.

Listen in to learn more!

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 53 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

Click here to add the podcast feed to your RSS reader.

The VideoNuze podcast is also available in iTunes...subscribe today!

There's still time to buy tickets for next week's Reel Video Marketing Summit to be held on July 26th in San Francisco and hosted by ReelSEO. The schedule for the day is focused on 'The Life of a Successful Video Marketing and Advertising Campaign' and will be kicked off with a keynote by Suzie Reider, Director of Media Solutions at Google.  No one knows the ins and outs of YouTube brand marketing better than Suzie!

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