VideoNuze Posts

adRise, which has offered a video ad exchange for connected TVs, is moving upstream, introducing "adRise Connect," for content providers to easily create and distribute video apps across multiple devices. Farhad Massoudi, founder and CEO of adRise told me yesterday the product is will allow content providers to avoid developing expensive custom apps, as well as dealing with the submission process, for each connected TV platform.

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I'd wager the two most spoken words in the media and entertainment industries these days are "devices" and "access." Executives are gripped by the idea that consumers must have access to their content across a growing universe of video-enabled devices. In fact, the premise of the industry's two most strategic initiatives - UltraViolet and TV Everywhere - is that by enabling access to content on multiple devices, traditional business models will either be reinvigorated (in UV's case for DVD purchases) or buttressed against attack (in TVE's case for pay-TV's multichannel bundle).

If only things were that straightforward. While it's undeniable that improved access on multiple devices is extremely valuable, especially for today's on-the-go viewer, the shortcoming of both UV and TVE is that neither addresses fundamental changes in consumer behaviors or preferences. Broader access is only half the battle here; the other half is devising the right business model that meets consumers' vastly changed expectations. Until this piece of the equation is solved, I doubt that either UV or TVE is going to have the industry's hoped-for impact.

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If, as the WSJ is reporting, Intel is indeed serious about launching an over-the-top TV service later this year to compete against incumbent pay-TV operators, it faces long odds against success. The chip giant would be wading into the same terrain that has enticed Google, Microsoft, Apple, Sony and others. All of these technology companies are justifiably intrigued by the opportunity to disrupt a multi-billion industry rife with inefficiencies, cross-subsidies, inferior living room technologies and crummy user experiences. The problem is none of them can crack the code on how to succeed. Intel is likely to be no different.

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More proof that online video is opening up new advertising and engagement possibilities beyond traditional TV, as premium travel lifestyle company Tumi - which has never run a TV ad - has opted to exclusively sponsor a new web series called "Bourdain's TV Crew." Tumi's SVP, Brand Management, Alan Krantzler told me last week that its commitment was driven by a desire to increase brand awareness among younger customers and to leverage Bourdain's large Facebook fan base to build its own.

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I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 124th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 9, 2012. In this week's podcast we discuss Apple and its TV ambitions.

This past Wednesday Apple announced a few minor feature updates to its $99 Apple TV device. While the device continues to improve, in my view it still does not come close to representing Apple's ultimate ambitions in the living room. I think it's inevitable that Apple will introduce some type of "television" (timing TBD) and that when it does, it will be both a design and an experience breakthrough. My caveat here is that Apple needs quality content to support the device, and what it will be able to offer is still unclear. Stirring the pot, in the past week the NY Post reported that Apple is negotiating for rights to turn channels into apps, and Steve Jobs's biographer said that he purposely left out of his book details of what Jobs thought Apple TV should be.

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TV Everywhere (TVE) should not be a way for pay-TV operators solely to deliver existing content to connected devices, but rather a whole new paradigm for offering subscribers targeted packages of custom content to drive new value and potentially incremental revenue. That's the message video management provider thePlatform is conveying this morning with updates to its mpx system. Though many operators are still early in their TVE rollouts, thePlatform is providing a tantalizing longer-term vision of how they can use TVE to greatly expand their video services in the broadband era, far beyond the traditional one-size-fits-all multichannel bundle.

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Yahoo's EVP, Americas, Ross Levinsohn at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. Among the topics Ross addresses are::

How Yahoo is breaking through given the proliferation of online video choices?

How did the new Tom Hanks project "Electric City" for Yahoo come about?

Why is Yahoo's user data so important to developing original programming?

What's the timetable for shifting TV spending to online video and what are the key challenges?

Are there non ad-based revenue streams Yahoo envisions for its video?

What's the big surprise he foresees for 2012?

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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London-based Videoplaza has rolled out "Karbon," its new flagship ad management platform, to serve ads to all imaginable connected and mobile devices. Katy Turner, Videoplaza's VP of Marketing, told me that Karbon is the direct result of broadcast and publishing customers demanding simplified ways of monetizing content on the variety of devices now being used.

Karbon includes The Device Library, with profiles of over 7,000 different devices' supported codecs, bit rates and resolutions and The Asset Factory, which transcodes ads for the requisite devices and delivers them appropriately. The idea is that an ad can be uploaded to Karbon once with target devices selected. The ads are transcoded so that when an ad call is made the device is detected, its profile understood, and the proper ad delivered - all in real-time.

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