VideoNuze Posts

Ad tech provider Mixpo has hired ad industry veteran and long-time board member Jeff Lanctot as its new CEO. Lanctot takes over the role from co-founder Anupam Gupta who remains on the board. Lanctot was most recently Chief Media Officer at digital agency Razorfish, and previously served as GM and Chief Strategy Officer. Prior he was at aQuantive and Microsoft Advertising.

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Here's another great reason to register now for the Dec. 3rd VideoSchmooze Online Video Leadership Forum in NYC: all early bird registrants will be entered in a drawing to win an iPad, the complete "Breaking Bad" series on Blu-ray/UltraViolet and several Chromecasts, all generously provided by Unicorn Media.

The early bird discounted ticket price is $95, an amazing value which includes the full morning program through 12:30pm, continental breakfast and networking. Save even more with a 5-pack of tickets for $430 and a 10-pack for $760.

VideoSchmooze will be a premier morning of learning and networking. The program starts with "A Deep Dive Into Video's Tectonic Shifts," with two top video analysts, Craig Moffett of MoffettNathanson LLC (formerly SVP at Sanford Bernstein) and Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst at Leichtman Research Group. Other sessions include "Is TV Everywhere Finally Breaking Through," "Online Video Advertising Takes Center Stage" and "Mobile Video Rising: New User Experiences and Monetization."

In addition to these sessions, we'll have 2 special research presentations, from FreeWheel and Videology, during which each will share brand new research results.

The lead sponsors for this 10th VideoSchmooze are FreeWheel, Synacor, thePlatform and Undertone, with branding sponsors Clearleap, Unicorn Media and VideoHub. VideoSchmooze a must-attend event for industry executives!

I look forward to seeing you on Dec. 3rd!

REGISTER NOW AND SAVE!

It's been a little over 3 months since the Washington Post rolled out its new "PostTV" video initiative, and according to executives at the company, there are ample signs of early success. I recently spoke with Steve Schiffman, GM, Video and Andy Pergam, Senior Editor for Video at the Post who both stressed that while the company is very much in learning mode, there's good progress with PostTV's programming format, distribution strategy and monetization plan.

Post TV has pursued a very focused programming agenda, with 3 "franchise" shows: "In Play" (political deep dive with hosts Chris Cilizza and Jackie Kucinich, which Steve likens to "ESPN for politics") and "On Background" (interviews by Nia-Malika Henderson on Washington news) joining "The Fold" (news magazine format, originally started in conjunction with Google TV in Fall, 2012). Each show has its own production team, who all work as part of one video group.

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The WSJ has reported that Netflix is holding early stage discussions with at least two U.S. cable operators, Comcast and Suddenlink, about having its app included in their set-top boxes. I've been seeing a lot of arguments for why Netflix partnerships would be good for cable operators, but it seems to me there would be a lot of risk involved for them if such deals materialized.

Helping Netflix become bigger and stronger would be disadvantageous for cable operators. First and foremost, this would be felt in the area of content rights. By securing past seasons of TV programs, Netflix has driven the binge-viewing phenomenon and become its biggest beneficiary. I expect binge-viewing will only gain in popularity going forward as more people experience it and more devices make it ever easier to do. Adoption of binge-viewing means those distributors with strong video libraries will do better.

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(Note: This is the second of several interviews I'm doing with speakers appearing at X Media Research's upcoming BroadbandTVCon in Hollywood on Nov. 5th and 6th, where I'll also be moderating. VideoNuze readers can save $75 on registration using the code "VideoNuze.")

Following is an edited transcript of my interview with Alex Vikati, executive director of Tribune Media Services (TMS), and previously co-founder of CastTV, which TMS acquired in December, 2010.

Describe TMS and its role in the ecosystem.

TMS is the world's leading provider of entertainment metadata - information about TV shows and movies. When you turn on a TV or device, most likely the scheduling information is coming from TMS. We have over 4K customers in 40 countries and our customers reach over 100M people.

You personally focus on online video and social data products at TMS. Can you explain more what TMS is doing?

TMS started by looking at linear TV. A few years ago we realized our main customers (pay-TV operators, CE manufacturers, etc.) needed data about online video too. Online video is different than traditional TV in that it's mostly on-demand viewing. TMS acquired my company CastTV, which was focused on online video data, and we turned it into a TMS product called Online Video Data ("OVD"). It takes the concept of a TMS identifier for a TV show and matches it to location of copies of that show available on the web, at Netflix, Amazon and other places. We're seeing a lot of interest in OVD as more content is coming online.

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It's common knowledge that watching online videos has become hugely popular, but it turns out that posting videos has also experienced a huge surge recently. According to new research from Pew, 31% of adult Internet users now post videos, more than double the 14% that did so back in 2009. Though posting is still most common among 18-29 year-olds (with 41% doing so), 30-49 year-olds are right behind (36%), trailed by 50+ year-olds (18%). See chart below.

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I'm pleased to present the 199th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. In this week's edition we discuss the new "See It" tool announced in a partnership between Comcast/NBCU and Twitter.

Beginning in November, certain tweets about TV shows will carry the "See It" button. When users click on it, they will be given choices to watch the program now on their mobile device, tune their Comcast X1 set-top to that channel to watch on TV, set their DVR or receive a reminder (more about how See It works here).

Colin and I both like See It's potential to convert the "chatterfest" that now regularly occurs on Twitter around TV shows and live events (sports, award shows, etc.) into higher viewership. Tightly coupling social discovery and the opportunity to immediately watch is very compelling. If Twitter can show See It can actually driving viewership (note, still a big "if"), it would become a very important promotion tool for the TV industry.

We also discuss how See It works with authentication/TV Everywhere, the critical role that Comcast's new IP-based X1 set-tops play in enabling See It, how the rest of the pay-TV industry might adopt See It, and the potential to spread See It to other social sites. See It's widespread adoption will require a lot of TV ecosystem support, but if its value is quickly proven, we believe that could happen.

(Last - Colin and I will both be participating in BroadbandTV Con in Hollywood Nov. 4-6.  Come meet us! VideoNuze readers get $75 off conference registration using the code "VideoNuze." Colin will also be hosting a pre-conference workshop.)


Click here to listen to the podcast (17 minutes, 19 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

The IAB has released its Internet advertising report (based on an industry survey conducted by PwC) for the first months of 2013, revealing a 17.8% increase in total online advertising to $20.7 billion in 1st half 2013. Online video's share was $1.3 billion, up 30% from the $1B it totaled in 1st half 2012.

The 30% growth was the highest of all categories of online advertising except mobile, which grew to $3 billion in 1st half 2013, up a blistering 145% from the 1st half of '12 and almost 4x from the $636 million it generated in 1st half of '11.

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