VideoNuze Posts

I'm on Beet.TV today discussing the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tues., June 19th in NYC. Thanks so much to Beet.TV's Andy Plesser, whose NYC office I visited last week. Beet.TV is a media partner for the event, which is shaping up to be an exciting day of learning and networking. Lots more to come! (click "continue reading" to watch)

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Vuguru's Chief Creative Officer Kristin Jones at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among other topics, Kristin describes Vuguru's business model, some of the successful originals that it has created, how she sees online distributors differentiating themselves and where the market for digital content is heading from here.

The interview runs about 7 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

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Last Thursday night, a Bloomberg headline, "Online Film Viewing in U.S. to Top Discs in 2012, IHS Says," caught my eye. The article reported that media research firm IHS Screen Digest is forecasting that "legal online viewings of films will more than double to 3.4 billion this year from 1.4 billion in 2011." Meanwhile IHS is forecasting that DVD/Blu-ray viewing will decline from 2.6 billion viewings in 2011 to 2.4 billion in 2012.

Over the weekend, as I kept seeing other publications essentially reiterating the Bloomberg story, I started wondering how IHS arrived at its forecast, the details of which I haven't seen. Doing a little back of the envelope analysis, as I show below, it's awfully hard to see how streaming movies in the U.S. will more than double from last year, unless some very unexpected things happen with Netflix (IHS notes that 94% of streaming movie volume was subscription-based, and of course, Netflix massively dominates this segment). Rather, it seems likely DVD/Blu-ray will hold on for another year.

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I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 126th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 23, 2012. This week finds Colin in London, providing him an even better perspective on our first topic this week, Sky's new over-the-top service called NOW TV, which it will launch this summer. Colin is bullish on NOW TV and likes the lessons it provides for U.S. pay-TV operators.

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Early bird discounted registration is now open for the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 19th in NYC. The Ad Summit takes the place of last year's ELEVATE conference, which VideoNuze co-hosted and which drew 400+ attendees.

I'm delighted to announce seven industry-leading companies as initial sponsors. These include Title Partners Auditude (Adobe) and YuMe; Premier Partner Adap.tv and Headline Partners Conviva, Mixpo, TubeMogul and Videology. All of these companies are bringing critical technologies to the online video advertising market and I'm honored they've decided to be a part of the Ad Summit.

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In another milestone for online video's evolution, independent online studio My Damn Channel is announcing today "My Damn Channel LIVE," a live daily comedy show. The show will be featured on My Damn Channel's web site and on its new YouTube channel. It will be streamed at 4pm ET starting a week from today and will be hosted by Beth Hoyt, an up and coming actor/writer/comedian.

The show is envisioned as a late-night talk show, but updated for all the elements that online offers. The format will include celebrity interviews, interaction with viewers, promotion of other My Damn Channel comedy shows and engagement with talent from other YouTube channels. Viewers will also be able to catch up on the show on demand.

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Generate's Founder and CEO Jordan Levin at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. In January Generate was acquired by Alloy Digital, in a deal that created a multi-platform media company targeting the young adult market. In the following interview Jordan discusses the rationale for the deal, the combined companies' top 2-3 priorities, how to judge the success of branded entertainment project and much more.

The interview runs 12 1/2 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

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Yesterday's news that Nielsen is collaborating with GroupM, the largest media buyer in the world, to introduce "Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings," is the latest move by the Nielsen to get its arms around the elusive problem of coherently measuring online video advertising. As I recently wrote, many in the advertising and content community believe there's a "measurement crisis" as video consumption rapidly splinters to numerous new connected devices.

Given that "what can't be measured, can't be sold," cohesive online video measurement is essential. And since Nielsen is the gold standard in TV ratings, many in the industry have expected it to pick up the mantle in online video as well. That has led to some grumbling at Nielsen's perceived slow pace of innovation, and the drag this creates on online video ad spending.

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