Posts for 'Sports'

Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 30th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for September 4, 2009.

This week Daisy shares more detail from her most recent New Media Minute, concerning what broadcast networks are doing this Fall with online video extensions of their shows. For example, CW is launching an original series in conjunction with "Melrose Place." ABC is doing a 3rd season of an "Ugly Betty" web series and a tie-in for "Lost." CBS is launching its first web series, via TV.com, with Julie Alexandria, focused on recapping highlights from various shows. Daisy notes that these efforts are focused mainly on marquee shows and when advertisers are already on board.

In the 2nd part of the podcast we discuss my post from yesterday, "2009 is a Big Year for Sports and Broadband/Mobile Video." In that post I observed that many big-time sports, and the TV networks that have the rights to televise them have realized this year that broadband and mobile distribution are friend, not foe. As a result they've rolled out many different initiatives. We also touch on the various lessons other content providers can take away from what's happening with sports and broadband/mobile distribution.

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Pick your favorite sport - baseball, basketball, football, golf, tennis, auto racing, etc. and it's likely that in 2009 some part of the action has been available via broadband or mobile video. 2009 is looking like the year that sports executives - and the TV network honchos that pay dearly for sports' broadcast rights- concretely realized that broadband and mobile complement traditional sports broadcasting and that they should be embraced, not spurned.

In VideoNuze's News Roundup, I've been keeping track of all the broadband and mobile sports headlines this year. Here's just a partial list of what I've captured, along with links:

- PGATour.com to Offer Live Video Streams of Key Holes for Tour Playoffs (B&C)

- U.S. Open to Stream Almost All Matches Online (PaidContent)

- DirecTV Offers NFL Sunday Ticket via Internet in NY Trial (USA Today)

- "Live at Wimbledon" Streaming Coverage Announced by NBC (Sports Media News)

- Cablevision Subs Will Gain Access to In-Market Streaming of YES's Yankee Telecasts (Multichannel News)

- MLB.com Streams Live Baseball Games to the iPhone (NYTimes Bits)

- NBA Playoffs to Stream on Android App (Online Media Daily)

- Speedtv.com to Stream Part of Le Mans 24 Hours (Multichannel News)

- NHL to Launch Daily Stanley Cup Pre-game Web Series (Mediaweek - reg required)

- Follow the Masters on Your iPhone (Electronic House)

- March Madness! YouTube Gets Live Video via Silverlight (NewTeeVee)

In some cases the initiatives provide specially-produced video, while in other cases they offer streams that are already available on TV. The former type isn't that surprising as supplementary video can add a lot of value to the main event (the analog in entertainment are the popular "behind-the-scenes" extras that come with DVDs).

It's the latter type - where broadcast streams are delivered via broadband or mobile, either live or on-demand - that is much more intriguing as it represents a big step forward in sports and TV network executives' thinking about multi-platform distribution. Traditionally the approach has been to tell fans when the sporting event was on and on which network to find it. But with these broadband and mobile efforts, increasingly we're seeing executives scrap that model and replace it with a more fan-friendly approach that seeks to bring the action to fans, on-demand and wherever they might be.

In my view, this is a welcome change. Regrettably, big-time sports are now all about big-time money. To understand the stakes, I'm fond of reminding people to do the math on what just ESPN rakes in on just its U.S. monthly affiliate fee of approximately $3.75 from cable operators, satellite operators and telcos carrying the channel into 90 million + homes (your calculator may run out of zeros if you try). With that kind of money on the line, it's imperative that networks and sports themselves figure out how to harness new technologies to deliver more value. From the looks of 2009's initiatives, they appear to be well on their way.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 29th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for August 28, 2009.

In this week's podcast we discuss comScore's rankings of video ad networks' potential reach for July, 2009. I offered a first look at these rankings in Wednesday's post. As I pointed out, these rankings represent the aggregate reach of each ad network's publisher list. This is different from a ranking of actual reach, which comScore is working on, and plans to begin releasing at some point in the near future. Daisy and I remind listeners that potential reach is an imperfect measure, but it is still an important filter for media buyers trying to gain insight into who the major video networks are.

Unrelated, I touch base on last week's podcast in which Daisy and I discussed the Southeastern Conference's shortsighted ban on fan-generated video in stadiums. I raise the topic because earlier this week I had the pleasure of taking my 9 year-old daughter to Fenway Park to see a Red Sox-White Sox game. All around us were people taking pictures and video. And go to YouTube and you'll find plenty of fan video of key Red Sox moments.

Somehow fan video doesn't seem to bother MLB as it does the SEC. I don't claim to understand the difference in thinking, but Daisy notes that MLB has been among the most forward-looking sports leagues around. Daisy is so peeved at the SEC that she's protesting by vowing never to attend an SEC game (a relatively insignificant threat since she's in fact never attended an SEC game and lives on the other side of the country!)

Click here to listen to the podcast (13 minutes, 53 seconds)

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Following are 4 news items worth noting from the week of August 17th:

CBS's Smith says authentication is a 5 year rollout - I had a number of people forward me the link to PaidContent's in-depth coverage of CBS Interactive CEO Quincy Smith's comments at the B&C/Multichannel News panel in which he asserted that TV Everywhere/authentication won't gain critical mass until 2014.

I was asked what I thought of that timeline, and my response is that I think Smith is probably in the right ballpark. However, these rollouts will happen on a company by company basis so timing will vary widely. Assuming Comcast's authentication trial works as planned, I think it's likely to expect that Comcast will have its "On Demand Online" version of TV Everywhere rolled out to its full sub base within 12 months or so. Time Warner Cable is likely to be the 2nd most aggressive in pursuing TV Everywhere. For other cable operators, telcos and satellite operators, it will almost certainly be a multi-year exercise.

NFL makes its own broadband moves - While MLB has been getting a lot of press for its recent broadband and mobile initiatives, I was intrigued by 2 NFL-related announcements this week that show the league deepening its interest in broadband distribution. First, as USA Today reported, DirecTV will offer broadband users standalone access to its popular "Sunday Ticket" NFL package. The caveat is that you have to live in an area where satellite coverage is unattainable. The offer, which is being positioned as a trial, runs $349 for the season. With convergence devices like Roku hooking up with MLB.TV, it has to be just a matter of time before the a la carte version of Sunday Ticket comes to TVs via broadband as well.

Following that, yesterday the NFL and NBC announced that for the 2nd season in a row, the full 17 game Sunday night schedule will be streamed live on NBCSports.com and NFL.com. Both will use an HD-quality video player and Microsoft's Silverlight. They will also use Microsoft's Smooth Streaming adaptive bit rate (ABR) technology. All of this should combine to deliver a very high-quality streaming experience. But with all these games available for free online, I have to wonder, are NBC and the NFL leaving money on the table here? It sure seems like there must have been some kind of premium they could have charged, but maybe I'm missing something.

Metacafe grows to 12 million unique viewers in July - More evidence that independent video aggregators are hanging in there, as Metacafe announced uniques were up 67% year-over-year and 10% over June (according to comScore). I've been a Metacafe fan for a while, and their recent redesign around premium "entertainment hubs" has made the site cleaner and far easier to use. Metacafe's news follows last week's announcement by Babelgum that it grew to almost 1.7 million uniques in July since its April launch. Combined, these results show that while the big whales like YouTube and Hulu continue to capture a lot of the headlines, the minnows are still making swimming ahead.

Kodak introduces contest to (re)name its new Zi8 video camera - It's not every day (or any day for that matter) that I get to write how a story in a struggling metro newspaper had the mojo to influence a sexy new consumer electronic product being brought to market by an industrial-era goliath, so I couldn't resist seizing this opportunity.

It turns out that a review Boston Globe columnist Hiawatha Bray wrote, praising Kodak's new Zi8 pocket video camera, but panning its dreadful name, prompted Kodak Chief Marketing Officer Jeffrey Hayzlett to launch an online contest for consumers to submit ideas for a new name for the device, which it intends to be a Flip killer. Good for Hayzlett for his willingness to change course at the last minute, and also try to build some grass roots pre-launch enthusiasm for the product. And good for the Globe for showing it's still relevant. Of course, a new name will not guarantee Kodak success, but it's certainly a good start.

Enjoy your weekend!

Daisy Whitney and I are pleased to present the 28th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for August 21, 2009.

In this week's podcast, Daisy and I first tackle the subject of the Southeastern Conference's new media policy fumble that I wrote about on Wednesday this week. For the upcoming football season, the SEC first banned all social media in the stadiums by game attendees, and later revised it to just exclude fan-generated video of game action.

I took the SEC to task, suggesting that the policy was wrongheaded because it limits the role that fan video could play in expanding the game experience and incorrectly assumes that fan video might actually compete with live game feeds from partners ESPN and CBS. Further, the policy is completely impractical to enforce, requiring security officers to frisk entering students and examine cell phones for video capability.

Daisy raises the example of when YouTube posted the infamous SNL "Lazy Sunday" clip, and NBC ordered it to take the clip down, foregoing tons of free promotion. That incident occurred almost 4 years ago, and since then major media companies have come a long way in adopting the role of user-generated video and video sharing as a promotional tool (see this week's Time Warner-YouTube clip deal as further evidence). On the other hand, the SEC still appears to be living in the stone ages. Somebody there needs to get their game on.

Shifting gears, Daisy explores the idea of how technology is helping video producers collaborate far more extensively than ever before. Producers and creators are now able to share images and raw footage to an unprecedented degree, which is making the creative process far more efficient. That in turn leads to more extensive creative output. Daisy identifies a slew of technology providers who are active in this emerging space.

Click here to listen to the podcast (13 minutes, 50 seconds)

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The college football season hasn't yet officially begun, but the Southeastern Conference (SEC) has already fumbled the ball a couple of times with its confusing new media policy which bans fan-generated videos at games.

The confusion began when the SEC told its member universities that "Ticketed fans can't produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event." As Mashable and others noted, the policy effectively - and bizarrely - barred all social media activity at games. The policy was widely translated to mean that Facebook updates, Tweets, photo uploads and of course YouTube clips would be verboten.

But, faced with a sharp backlash, the SEC softened its stance, allowing "personal messages and updates of scores or other brief descriptions of the competition throughout the Event." Further, it allowed photos to be taken, as long as their "distributed solely for personal use..." But while Twitter, Facebook and the like would be allowed under the new policy, fan-recorded game action videos would still be prohibited.

In an interview with The Buzz Manager Blog, Charles Bloom, the SEC's Associate Commissioner of Media Relations explained, "the intent of the policy....is trying to protect our video rights, as they pertain to our television and media partners. So, someone in the stadium can enter Twitter feeds or Facebook entries and photographs, but the game footage video is something that we will try to protect." He added further "We're in the new year, the first year of our television and digital rights agreement, so there was a feeling that we needed to push this through pretty quickly..."

The SEC indeed has two big money contracts - a $2 billion, 15 year deal with ESPN, and an $800M+, 15 year deal with CBS, which includes an assortment of wireless, VOD, and data rights. The SEC also recently announced a partnership with XOS Digital to launch the SEC Digital Network, intended to be the "largest online library of exclusive and comprehensive SEC sports content available anytime, anywhere." With so much on the line, the SEC pursued the hardline path - pre-emptively prohibiting fan-generated video.

Is this a smart policy? Does fan-generated video really "compete" with professionally-captured video? And is the policy even enforceable? I'd argue the answers are no, no and no, making the SEC look both paranoid and out of touch.

First off, fan video serves to enhance the overall event experience, a key goal of the sports-crazy SEC. One can imagine fans at various locations in the stadium capturing compelling new angles that the TV producers may have missed or edited out. A curated collection of these clips could be added to the SEC Digital Network, possibly in a well-marked, "Fan Zone." Note this would be free content the SEC would be getting, that could also be monetized.

Second, it's ridiculous to think fan-generated video "competes" with the networks' feed. The limited zoom and audio capabilities of an iPhone or Flip video camera mean the fan videos captured in a raucous 90,000+ seat stadium are going to be iffy at best. That's not to say these videos won't have value, but please - nobody is going to turn off their HDTV to watch some fan's live stream. At some point technology may evolve so that a fan's inexpensive video camera can produce comparable video to a professional's; but that point is still a ways off.

Third, the video policy is impossible to enforce. Is security at the stadiums going to frisk students before entering and then confiscate phones with video capabilites, while letting others pass through? All while it tries to hustle tens of thousands of rambunctious fans through the gates? Bedlam would result.

While the SEC rightfully wants to protect the value of its TV contracts, its lack of understanding for how its policy plays out in the real world is plainly obvious. If the SEC - and others - looked at social media and user-generated video as an opportunity rather than a threat then the policies they created would make a lot more sense.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Following are 4 news items worth noting from the week of August 10th:

Discovery Channel signs onto Comcast On Demand Online trial - Comcast added yet another cable programmer this week to the roster of those participating in its TV Everywhere trial. Discovery will make available episodes of "Man vs. Wild," "Swords," "Stormchasers" and "Verminators" though with some delayed windows that take a little edge off their appeal. Comcast has made a ton of progress corralling networks for its trial, but 4 of the big 5 cable network owners - Disney, Fox, NBCU and Viacom - remain holdouts. No coincidence that the first 3 are Hulu's owners.

Swarmcast powers MLB.TV on Roku, introduces "Autobahn Live for CE" - Following on Roku's announcement this week that it is offering MLB.TV, Swarmcast announced it was powering the service through a new offering called "Autobahn Live for CE." Swarmcast's COO Chad Tippin explained to me that integrating with CE devices that drive broadband/TV convergence is a key company goal. Chad is confident that Swarmcast's high-quality, scalable HTTP streaming service will work on these various CE devices, and that as the number of them deployed swells, a new "long tail of live sports" will flourish. Live sports and events (e.g. concerts) could be a significant contributor to device adoption. For example, picture getting a coupon for $50 off the purchase of a Roku when you buy a pay-per-view of a streaming blockbuster concert.

Babelgum grows to nearly 1.7 million unique visitors in July, 2009 - I heard from Michael Rosen, EVP and Chief Revenue Officer at Babelgum this week, with news that the site has grown to nearly 1.7 million unique visitors in July (comScore), following its U.S. launch in April. I profiled Babelgum back in April and was cautiously optimistic about its approach to curate high-quality, independently-produced video into 5 channels (music, film, comedy, Our Earth and Metropolis). The site is fully ad-supported. Babelgum's growth comes on top of a slew of made-for-broadband video initiatives I detailed recently. The NY Times also had a great story this week on how independent filmmakers are taking distribution into their own hands. Despite the recession, this corner of the broadband market seems to be hanging in there.

Zune HD coming Sept 15th - Microsoft at last announced this week that the Zune HD digital media player will be in retail on Sept 15th, with pre-orders now being accepted. Zune HD introduces a touch-screen interface, 720p video playback, HD radio and other goodies. It is sure to raise the visibility of high-quality portable video another notch. But I find myself wondering: as the iPhone and other smartphones incorporate video playback (and recording) into one device, how large is the market for standalone high-end media players like Zune? Related, the iPhone's risk of cannibalizing the iPod has become a hot topic recently. Things to ponder: will users want to carry 2 devices? Or might they appreciate the ability to drain their battery watching video without risking the loss of their cell phone? Lots of different things in play.

Roku has announced this morning that MLB.TV Premium subscribers will now be able to access the service on their TVs via the $99 Roku video player. MLB.TV joins Netflix, Amazon, and blip.tv programs already accessible via Roku. According to Brian Jaquet, Roku's director of corporate communications, who I spoke to last week, dozens of other partners will be added to the service by the end of '09. The MLB.TV integration is obviously an exciting value proposition for its subscribers and for Roku adds live programming for the first time.

To go a level deeper than the headlines about the deal that you're likely reading elsewhere this morning, here are 3 key takeaways:

1. Roku's textbook "Crossing the Chasm" marketing strategy could make it a big-time winner - I've long said that as remarkable as the growth in broadband viewership has been over the past few years, what's more remarkable is that virtually all of this viewership has occurred not on consumers' primary viewing device - the TV - but rather on computers. As such, the last and most significant catalyst in broadband video's evolution and for its disruptive power to be realized is broadband connections bridging to the TV, for the masses.

The problem is that while avid market watchers and participants like you and me know what the above buzzword gobbledygook means, average consumers not only don't know, but they don't care. For technology marketers seeking to penetrate mainstream buyers, this is in fact the central challenge described in Geoffrey Moore's classic book, "Crossing the Chasm" (which I highly recommend if you want to understand the technology product marketing further). I have a lot of respect for Roku because it understands all of this and because it is following a textbook chasm-crossing marketing strategy tailored to the pragmatist mindset of its target market.

Roku's strategy reads right out of Moore's book: piggybacking off popular existing brands (Netflix, MLB, etc.), focusing on the "whole product," pursuing niche applications first and presenting its benefits "face-forward" as Moore says (e.g. see Roku's home page that blares "50,000+ videos to watch. INSTANTLY"). By doing all of the above and also pricing low ($99) and keeping the product radically simple, Roku is speaking strongly to its prospects and minimizing their purchase risk (a critical barrier in mainstream technology adoption). All of this means Roku could be a big-time winner in the convergence race.

2. Rapid technology changes are driving broadband video innovation - I asked Brian last week if Roku has any plans to add a hard drive to the box, which would allow both storage/downloading and possibly an ability to cache content for higher-quality delivery. His response, that "we believe streaming is robust enough to accomplish all of our objectives," dramatically illustrated for me how quick technology change is in the broadband market. I say this because just 6 short years ago, I consulted with Maven Networks, whose whole original value proposition was built around a desktop app for video downloading. The point of it was to work around streaming limitations to offer content providers and users a breakthrough experience. Streaming technology advances have quickly and completely eradicated Maven's whole initial reason for being.

This example illustrates how broadband market participants must never accept today's technologies as the defining parameters of future services (or as a wise CTO mentor of mine used to say, "Never fight technology progress. It's relentless and it will always win."). I try to constantly remind clients and other industry colleagues that it is crucial to understand the strands of technology progress - where key challenges lay, how quickly they might be resolved, what motivations are at work in fueling or stymying progress. What Roku is doing today would have been impossible just 5 years ago. The same goes for YouTube, the iPhone, etc, etc. To succeed in broadband it is crucial to acknowledge current technology limitations, but simultaneously look beyond them and stay aligned with technology's relentless progress.

3. A major video industry PR battle for consumers' hearts and minds is about to explode - As players like Roku bring well-loved brands like Netflix, Amazon and MLB to the TV, the degree of consumer awareness and interest in convergence or "over-the-top" services is going to grow considerably. It will be increasingly common to go to a cocktail party and hear 2 neighbors carry on about how cool it was to watch this show, or that game, or this movie, all without their incumbent video service provider involved. To be sure "cord-cutting" is not going to skyrocket any time soon, but what is going to happen is the kind of buzz-building that can lay the groundwork for major future change (e.g. remember when you first started hearing about how fast or accurate this new thing called "Google" was? Pretty soon everyone was using it for search).

Cable companies in particular know this, and are preparing an all-out response with TV Everywhere. I've been critical of Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes's hyping of TV Everywhere, though I'm beginning to appreciate more why he's doing it. The cable/satellite/telco ecosystem must not only stay relevant in the coming convergence era, they must remain consumers' preferred providers. The money at stake is in the tens of billions of dollars. All that means that as consumers we should anticipate a dramatic increase in the decibel level for promotion of various video alternatives. A pitched PR battle for our hearts and minds lies ahead.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

One might think that the depths of the worst economic recession in decades would be a lousy time to begin asking penny-pinching consumers for additional payments to access content. Yet this is exactly what many video providers plan to do, as a variety of broadband-delivered video subscription plans are beginning to take shape. Based on conversations I've been having with industry executives and what I've been reading, various subscription plans are now underway. This leads me to think that "subscription overload" is on the horizon.

Interest in getting consumers to pay has several sources. Many executives have concluded that advertising alone is an insufficient model, even as the cost of delivering broadband video is actually plummeting. Some of this concern relates to the widespread advertising slowdown, where even established players like the big broadcast networks are being forced to accept rate cuts. These declines cannot be made up with greater ad quantity as there's prevailing worry about just how many ads can be loaded into a broadband-delivered program before the viewer gets turned off.

There is also significant fear of not learning from the demise of the U.S. newspaper industry, which largely adopted an ad-only online business model that hasn't worked (causing some like the NY Times to now consider reinstituting subscription services). Newspapers' woes have become a touchstone in practically every conversation I've participated in recently. Last, but not least, there's no small amount of envy toward cable networks, whose dual subscription/advertising revenue model has allowed them to weather the recession better than most.

Subscription plans seek some combination of differentiators: offering premium video in better windows, at better-quality, with deeper selection, across multiple devices and with some degree of exclusivity. The thinking is that these enhancements will allow subscription services to be distinguished from and co-exist with free ad-supported services. The implicit bet is that these differences will be understood and valued by consumers.

Subscription plans are beginning to leak out, as happened last week in remarks by Disney CEO Bob Iger. Many in the industry (including me) anticipate that Hulu will launch a subscription service soon, particularly as it seeks to become a part of cable operators' TV Everywhere initiatives (which themselves seek to enhance the value of current cable subscriptions).

Other plans are on the drawing board. When I read yesterday, for example, about NBC's Ben Silverman jumping to IAC to form a new video venture, I suspect it's almost a given that the venture will consider some type of premium model. The growth of mobile video is another factor fueling subscriptions. This is what MLB is doing with its new At Bat 2009 subscription app for the iPhone, which builds on its highly successful MLB.TV broadband subscription service.

Still, with broadband allowing video providers direct access to their target audiences, their well-known brands as powerful enablers, and the crummy advertising climate showing no letup, it is no surprise that the pendulum is swinging heavily toward subscriptions.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

The first round games of the NCAA's March Madness are a week from today and the hype surrounding the tournament is in full swing. But the tournament itself is no longer the only story; the broadband-delivered "March Madness on Demand" has become a big part of the 3 week experience as well. Since converting from a subscription service to a free, ad-supported format 4 years ago, CBS Sports and the NCAA have made MMOD a huge winner, providing plenty of lessons for others. These include:

1. Under the right circumstances, free with ads beats paid with subscriptions. It was big news back in '06 when CBS converted MMOD from subscription access to free, ad-supported. In retrospect, it looks like a stroke of genius. The $30M in ad revenue MMOD will generate for CBS this year would have required 1.5 million of the old $20 subscriptions. Hitting that subscription number would have been miraculous. With the free model, instead of allocating scarce marketing dollars and resources on acquiring temporary subs, CBS can focus on promoting the games, selling ads and striking high-quality distribution deals - 3 things that networks do very well. Free vs. paid will be a perpetual debate for premium video, but solid market research, well-thought out business cases and a willingness to experiment can lead to big payoffs, as MMOD has shown.

2. Well-executed online access burnishes the brand. Following the above, MMOD is a huge win for the CBS brand and for the NCAA. Fans love MMOD and appreciate the easy online access. Of course, anything for free is always well-received, especially in a down economy. Large audiences mean lots of cross-promotional opportunities for other CBS programs. Abundant media coverage means the brand gets tons of free promotion. And the list goes on.

3. Advertisers love being a part of engaging, high-quality online experiences. The increase in MMOD ad revenue from $4M in '06 to $30M this year speaks to advertisers' interest. It's no surprise that big brands are increasingly challenged to access large target audiences and have their messages heard (that's why the Super Bowl maintains its massive appeal). MMOD offers an exciting, immersive and interactive avenue to augment brands' on-air tournament spending. MMOD gives CBS ad sales teams a formidable differentiator. As AdAge notes, that helped CBS retain wounded GM as an advertiser, while the company dropped the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards from its media plan.

4. User experience matters, a lot. MMOD is a hugely complex undertaking for CBS, but delivering a positive experience that lives up to the hype is ultimately what matters. In the past, not knowing how many simultaneous users to expect or what bandwidth would be required, CBS cautiously proceeded with its so-called "waiting room" model. That's now been eliminated, and everyone can watch on-demand. This year CBS is also offering a high quality or "HQ" option, powered by Silverlight. Overall, CBS's player is clean and easy to use. My experience in the past has been that the ads are obvious, but not overwhelming. All of this registers with users and contributes to a positive experience.

5. The side dishes complement the main meal. There's no question that the games themselves are the primary attraction. But CBS has been clever in augmenting the games with lots of other stuff that contribute to the overall experience. For example, if you go to the site now, you can see highlights of past championship games. Then on Sunday will come the selection show. There's a Facebook integration, widgets and the "Selection Sunday Challenge." And this year CBS is also introducing mobile access, albeit for a fee. Add it all up and CBS has been able to build a far larger franchise around MMOD than just offering the games themselves.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Microsoft's Silverlight notched another high-profile win with yesterday's announcement by CBS Sports and the NCAA that CBSSports.com's March Madness on Demand (MMOD) will offer a high definition option using powered by Silverlight.

Over the past few years MMOD has become the signature online video sports event, with CBSSports.com successfully converting it in 2006 from a paid, subscription based model to one fully supported by ads. The payoff has been evident: in '08 MMOD had 4.8 million unique visitors (a 164% increase over '07) who watched 5 million hours of live video (an 81% increase over '07).

CBSSports.com is building on its MMOD success by offering the higher quality option via Silverlight this year. Users who download the plug-in will get 1.5 mbps streams vs. the standard player's 550 kbps. Once again, all 63 games, from the first round through the championship game will be available. For office workers unable to watch on TV, online distribution continues to be a compelling value.

With MMOD, Microsoft is continuing to push Silverlight into high-profile sports events. Recall that Silverlight's inaugural run, supporting the 2008 Summer Olympics, was executed superbly. It showcased new features like multiple viewing windows and instant rewind/fast-forward. MMOD promises yet another premier opportunity for Silverlight to show its stuff.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Sports continues to be on the front lines of the broadband video revolution and with its All-Star game this weekend it's the NBA's turn to show its stuff. Not to be outdone by the Olympics, MLB or NHL, the NBA is going all out with mobile and broadband video supplements to this weekend's game festivities, building on last year's "TNT OverTime Extra" initiative.

Among other features, there will be 4 additional camera angles available in OverTime Extra. There's an integration with Facebook (similar to what CNN did with the inauguration) which will build community interaction during the game. New also is the NBA.com All-Star Live app which will allow iPhone users to watch the extra 4 camera angles live on their iPhones. (hmm, I wonder what AT&T thinks of all that network consumption?) And there's "All-Star Scene" offering a range of fan-generated content and interactivity.

Broadband is continuing to prove itself as a highly valuable companion to traditional on-air sports coverage, opening up significant new engagement and monetization opportunities. Much more is yet to come.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

The Olympic Games continue to be a prime area of broadband video innovation. Following on the heels of the groundbreaking Broadband Olympics from Beijing last summer, yesterday brought news from Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium (which holds the Canadian rights to the 2010 Vancouver Games) of even more extensive broadband Olympic coverage at CTVOlympics.ca and RDSOlympiques.ca.

Alon Marcovici, the VP of Digital Media and Research for the consortium told me yesterday that the every single moment of Olympic competition will be streamed live, so that if you have a broadband connection, you won't miss a moment of the action. I had Alon on a panel I moderated last year at the NAB Show, and his description then of what's involved with this unprecedented coverage was pretty incredible to hear. Broadband has created a whole new workflow, often relying on newer technologies that have not been tested at this scale. It's a bit of a high-wire act, but when it all comes together the payoff for consumers is significant.

For the Vancouver games, the consortium will provide 2,400 hours of online coverage, including a quad-screen mosaic option that will allow the viewer to watch 4 live streams concurrently. Because of the cross-media ownership in Canada, there will be lots of integration with newspaper and radio coverage, as well as bi-lingual (English and French) streams. There's also going to be a real emphasis on user-generated content, such as "Call the Game," a contest where users can overlay their own audio on historic Olympic moments, with entries voted on by other users.

No doubt we'll be hearing more from NBC, which again holds the U.S. rights, about their extensive use of broadband again. Add it all up and the Vancouver Games promise to be another seminal moment in broadband's evolution.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

The Super Bowl ads are continuing to generate all kinds of buzz and continued chatter. In the spirit of "everything's been said, but not by everyone," here are a few additional broadband-related thoughts.

Doritos user-generated contest is a big winner - Doritos snagged 2 of the top 5 placements in the USA Today Ad Meter popularity rankings, displacing Anheuser-Busch for the first time. The fact that the Herbert brothers of Indiana could have created an ad more popular than all of those by the pros is impressive enough. More interesting though to me is Doritos is steadily morphing its brand into one which its customers control. This was the 3rd time Doritos handed over its Super Bowl advertising to fans to both submit ads and also vote on them. I've written about other brands' UGV contests, but Doritos is clearly the furthest along in embracing this concept. It's a great differentiator for the brand and will only build further momentum in the future.

The ad development process usually starts with identifying key brand attributes (e.g. "convenient," "affordable," "wide variety," "hip," etc.). Did the Hulu marketing team start with attributes like "deceitful" or "creepy" or "offbeat?" Seemingly so. Although the spot was fun, it didn't do anything to articulate Hulu's great value proposition. Further, is Hulu now going to pursue this creepy positioning further? If they do, does that make sense for the brand? But if they don't, wasn't the ad a waste of effort, with little continued momentum? I'm not an ad expert, but I'm not clear on what Hulu was trying to do here, other than get some great yucks.

How about some more "behind-the-scenes" and "making-of" video - Ad executives don't seem to understand what filmmakers discovered with DVDs years ago - that the backstory around the final cut is often even more interesting to fans. Since DVDs offer the capacity to provide director's notes, explanations of special effects, outtakes, actor interviews, etc they often do. This stuff is fascinating. Same with broadband; it offers brands the ability to provide a lot more video than just the ads themselves on their web sites, which some did indeed do.

But many others who could have done so, did not. Two that come right to mind: Coke, whose fascinating ad with insects stealing a sleeping man's bottle had some of the best special effects ever. How about some interviews with the computer animation team that did them? That would be fascinating. The other: E-Trade's talking babies. How'd they do that? Would love to know.

Should ads be rated or filtered? Ok, here's something controversial to think about - should Super Bowl ads be rated or filtered somehow? This is supposed to be family entertainment after all, isn't it? Does the woman getting stripped in the Doritos "Bus" ad or the suggestive GoDaddy girls belong in prime-time? I wonder. Or maybe the online galleries should rate the ads somehow? Maybe the racier ones deserve a parental warning? Just a thought.

Ok, that's it for the '09 Super Bowl, on to other topics...

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Once again it was an incredibly exciting Super Bowl. And once again, the ads were a broadband fumble. I've been saying for three years now that broadband has introduced a whole new opportunity for Super Bowl advertisers to derive more value and drive engagement, making the ridiculous $3 million per ad that they pay far more worthwhile. Regrettably, the brains behind most of the Super Bowl's ads seem hopelessly oblivious to this notion.

I've watched all 56 ads this morning to see which ones had a broadband or online component. Here's what I found:

• 37 of the ads (66%) were tagged with the advertiser's URL (though some of them went by so fast it would have been nearly impossible to remember or write them down). Akamai has reported traffic spikes for many of these sites. For the online sites like Priceline, Overstock, Monster and CareerBuilders, tagging works very well to reinforce the brand.
• 19 of the ads (34%) were not tagged with the advertiser's URL. Oddly, this includes all of the Budweiser ads. From the people that brought us Bud.tv one would think they'd have a little more appreciation for the role of the web.
• Of the 37 ads with a URL shown, only 6 contained an explicit call to action to visit the web site (GoDaddy "Continues at GoDaddy.com," Disney-Pixar "Up" movie, "To see a special first look go to Disney.com," Universal Heroes, "Visit site for a free 7 day ticket," Monster.com, "Never been a better time to go to Monster.com,", Frosted Flakes, "Help decide where at FrostedFlakes.com," and Vizio, "Visit us at Vizio.com to check out 55 inch million dollar event."). These show solid attempts at engaging the audience beyond the on-air ad itself.
• Upon visiting the web sites of the 37 advertisers who tagged their ads with their URLs, 29 of them contained some video. But of these only 13 offered some video beyond just a replay of the ad. That means that of the total 56 ads, just 23% leveraged broadband video in some meaningful way.

What are a few examples? GoDaddy was surely a hands-down video winner again, by urging viewers to visit their web site, presumably for even more titillating video of the GoDaddy girls and Danica Patrick. Bridgestone Tires offered behind the scenes of how their Potato Head ad was created. Three films, "Year One, " "Up" and "Monsters vs. Aliens" all provided some first look or behind the scenes video. Gatorade introduced the "MissionG" reality series that the brand is sponsoring. NFL.com which showed the winner of its "Super Ad Contest" (Usama Young) also has the full gallery of all the players' ads. In addition, Discovery told me that Toyota has a very cool "Making of" video for its Killer Heat ad for its Tundra playing on HowStuffWorks.com. Unfortunately, there was no promotion of it during the ad itself, or even on Toyota.com.

Three years ago I thought for sure this would happen, and as a result I was speculating that Super Bowl ads could eventually fetch $10 million. But with each passing year I'm getting a little more skeptical that big brand advertisers and their agencies actually understand what's happening with broadband video and how it opens up new horizons for them. Maybe 2010 will be different...

What do you think? Post a comment now.

I got a tip yesterday about "Game Rewind," a feature that NFL.com has apparently launched in the last week or so. For a mere $20/season, you can now watch full, commercial-free replays of all the season's games. The video is delivered in terrific quality by Move Networks, and as seen below, also offers a side window that shows a synopsis of the game's scoring. I'm not a huge football fan, but since I missed the exciting end of last week's Patriots-Seahawks game, I simply dragged to the fourth quarter and sat back and enjoyed (btw, how nice is it to watch commercial-free?!).

One suggestion for the NFL team: introduce EveryZing's MetaPlayer, Gotuit VideoMarkerPro or Digitalsmiths (or someone else's metadata-based search technology) so that fans can quickly retrieve only the highlights they care about (especially for the fantasy crowd). If I just want to see Matt Cassel's touchdown passes, it would sure be nice to enter that phrase and be shown those specific highlights only. Still, Game Rewind is a very cool new feature, of course only possible courtesy of broadband delivery.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

1. Advertising business model gains further momentum

I saw '08 as a year in which the broadband ad model continued growing in importance as the paid model remained in the back seat, at least for now. I think that's pretty much been borne out. We've seen countless new video-oriented sites launch in '08. To be sure many of them are now scrambling to stay afloat in the current ad-crunched environment, and there will no doubt be a shakeout among these sites in '09. However, the basic premise, that users mainly expect free video, and that this is the way to grow adoption, is mostly conventional wisdom now.

The exception on the paid front continues to be iTunes, which announced in October that it has sold 200 million TV episode downloads to date. At $1.99 apiece, that would imply iTunes TV program downloads exceed all ad-supported video sites to date. The problem of course is once you get past iTunes things fall off quickly. Other entrants like Xbox Live, Amazon and Netflix are all making progress with paid approaches, but still the market is held back by at least 3 challenges: lack of mass broadband-to-the-TV connectivity, a robust incumbent DVD model, and limited online delivery rights. That means advertising is likely to dominate again in '09.

2. Brand marketers jump on broadband bandwagon

I expected that '08 would see more brands pursue direct-to-consumer broadband-centric campaigns. Sure enough, the year brought a variety of initiatives from a diverse range of companies like Shell, Nike, Ritz-Carlton, Lifestyles Condoms, Hellman's and many others.

What I didn't foresee was the more important emphasis that many brands would place on user-generated video contests. In '08 there were such contests from Baby Ruth, Dove, McDonald's, Klondike and many others. Coming up in early '09 is Doritos' splashy $1 million UGV Super Bowl contest, certain to put even more emphasis on these contests. I see no letup in '09.

3. Beijing Summer Olympics are a broadband blowout

I was very bullish on the opportunity for the '08 Summer Games to redefine how broadband coverage can add value to live sporting events. Anyone who experienced any of the Olympics online can certainly attest to the convenience broadband enabled (especially given the huge time zone difference to the U.S.), but without sacrificing any video quality. The staggering numbers certainly attested to their popularity.

Still, some analysts were chagrined by how little revenue the Olympics likely brought in for NBC. While I'm always in favor of optimizing revenues, I tried to take the longer view as I wrote here and here. The Olympics were a breakthrough technical and operational accomplishment which exposed millions of users to broadband's benefits. For now, that's sufficient reward.

4. 2008 is the "Year of the broadband presidential election"

With the '08 election already in full swing last December (remember the heated primaries?), broadband was already making its presence known. It only continued as the year and the election drama wore on. As I recently summarized, broadband was felt in many ways in this election cycle. President-elect Obama seems committed to continuing broadband's role with his weekly YouTube updates and behind-the-scenes clips. Still, as important as video was in the election, more important was the Internet's social media capabilities being harnessed for organizing and fundraising. Obama has set a high bar for future candidates to meet.

5. WGA Strike fuels broadband video proliferation

Here's one I overstated. Last December, I thought the WGA strike would accelerate interest in broadband as an alternative to traditional outlets. While it's fair to include initiatives like Joss Wheedon's Dr. Horrible and Strike.TV as directly resulting from the strike, the reality is that I believe there was very little embrace of broadband that can be traced directly to the strike (if I'm missing something here, please correct me). To be sure, lots of talent is dipping its toes into the broadband waters, but I think that's more attributable to the larger climate of interest, not the WGA strike specifically.

6. Broadband consumption remains on computers, but HD delivery proliferates

I suggested that "99.9% of users who start the year watching broadband video on their computers will end the year no closer to watching broadband video on their TVs." My guess is that's turned out to be right. If you totaled up all the Rokus, AppleTVs, Vudus, Xbox's accessing video and other broadband-to-the-TV devices, that would equal less than .1% of the 147 million U.S. Internet users who comScore says watched video online in October.

However, there are some positive signs of progress for '09. I've been particularly bullish on Netflix's recent moves (particularly with Xbox) and expect some other good efforts coming as well. It's unlikely that '09 will end with even 5% of the addressable broadband universe watching on their TVs, but even that would be a good start.

OK, that's it for '08. On Monday the focus turns to what to expect in '09.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

EveryZing, a company I wrote about last February, is announcing the launch of its MetaPlayer today and that DallasCowboys.com is the first customer to implement it. My initial take is that MetaPlayer should have strong appeal in the market, and could well shake things up for other broadband technology companies and for content providers. Last week I spoke to EveryZing's CEO Tom Wilde to learn more about the product.

MetaPlayer is interesting for at least three reasons: (1) it drives EveryZing's video search and SEO capabilities inside the videos themselves, (2) it provides deeper engagement opportunities than typically found in other video player environments and (3) it enables content providers to dramatically expand their video catalogs, while maintaining branding and editorial integrity.

To date EveryZing's customers have used its speech-to-text engine to create metadata for their sites' videos, which are then grouped into SEO-friendly "topical pages" that users are directed to when entering terms into the sites' search box. Speech-to-text and other automated metadata generating techniques from companies like Digitalsmiths are becoming increasingly popular as content providers continue to recognize the value of robust metadata.

MetaPlayer takes metadata usage a step further by creating virtual clips based on specified terms, which are exposed to the user. A user's search produces an index of these virtual clips, which can be navigated through time-stamped cue points, transcript review, and thumbnail scenes (see below for example). The virtual clip approach is comparable in some ways to what Gotuit has been doing and is pretty powerful stuff, as it lets the user jump to desired points, thus avoiding wasted viewing time (e.g. just showing the moments when "Tony Romo" is spoken)

Next, MetaPlayer enables deeper engagement with available video. Yesterday, in "Broadband Video Needs to Become More Engaging," I talked about how the importance of engagement to both consumers and content providers. MetaPlayer is a move in this direction as it allows intuitive clipping, sharing and commenting of a specific video clip within MetaPlayer. Example: you can easily send friends just the clips of Romo's touchdown passes along with your comments on each.

Last, and possibly most interesting from a syndication perspective, MetaPlayer allows content providers to dramatically expand their video offerings through the use of what's known as "chromeless" video players. I was first introduced to the chromeless approach by Metacafe's Eyal Hertzog last summer. It basically allows the content provider to maintain elements of the underlying video player, such as its ability to enforce a video's business policies (ad tags, syndication rules, etc.), while allowing new features to be overlayed (customized look-and-feel, consistent player controls, etc.).

MetaPlayer takes advantage of chromeless APIs available now from companies like Brightcove, and also importantly YouTube. For example, the Cowboys could harvest select Cowboys-related YouTube videos and incorporate them into their site (this is similar to what Magnify.net also enables). With the chromeless approach, the Cowboys's user experience and their video player's branding is maintained while YouTube's rules, such as no pre-roll ads are also enforced.

To the extent that chromeless APIs become more widely available, it means that syndication can really flourish. The underlying content provider's model is protected while simultaneously enabling widespread distribution. All of this obviously leads to more monetization opportunities through highly targeted ads.

Bottom line: EveryZing's new MetaPlayer addresses at least three real hot buttons of the broadband video landscape: improved navigation, enhanced engagement and expanding content selection/monetization. All of this should give MetaPlayer strong appeal in the market.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

The frenzy around user-generated video ads hit a new peak yesterday as Frito-Lay announced it is offering a $1 million prize to an amateur who creates a Doritos ad that scores the highest rank in USA Today's Super Bowl Ad Meter.

I believe the new campaign, which comes on top of 2 previously successful Super Bowl user-generated video ("UGV") ad contests from Doritos, is a sure-fire winner for the brand. It reflects some very smart thinking by Doritos' executives and will further accelerate the very significant trend around brand-sponsored UGV contests (see chart below for examples of UGV contests that have run in the past year). I've been writing about the UGV ad craze for a while now on VideoNuze and I see it driving continued evolution in brand-agency relations.

The new Doritos UGV campaign works for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, the top prize, and the four finalist prizes of $25,000 and a trip to the Super Bowl, are all very enticing awards, certain to drive tons of submissions. Winning the top prize - which requires the #1 rank in the USA Today Ad Meter - is a big-time challenge, but it is seriously aided by all the pre-game publicity this contest will be receiving. Doritos is cleverly stoking things by positioning the ad as an opportunity to "take down the big guys" - an obvious reference to Anheuser-Busch which has won the #1 rank for the last 10 years. With "Yes We Can" and "Yes We Will" political slogans ascendant, "power to the people" pitches like the one Doritos is making have a nice tailwind on their side.

This pre-game buzz means Super Bowl viewers are specifically going to be on the lookout for the Doritos UGV ad, helping its rank. Of course if you're an advertiser, especially in this ad-skipping era, viewer anticipation for your ad is close to nirvana as it gets. It builds brand awareness, engagement and presumably sales...3 big wins when you're spending an estimated $3 million for a 30 second Super Bowl ad. And of course, just think about all the free market research Doritos is collecting along the way, as loyal buyers showcase their thoughts and feelings about the product and brand.

In fact, it's Doritos' decision to morph a conventional Super Bowl ad buy into a broadband-centric, user-oriented campaign that's truly noteworthy here. VideoNuze readers know that I've been ranting for 3 straight Super Bowls that broadband opens up all kinds of new creative avenues for brands to extract new value from their game-day spending and generate a far-better ROI on the insane prices they're required to pay for this once a year extravaganza.

I have been appalled at how few Super Bowl advertisers have actually seized their broadband opportunities (note having ads playing in post-game online galleries is nice, but nowhere near what broadband is capable of). All of this has caused me to wonder whether agencies, and brands, were hopelessly oblivious to broadband's emerging role.

Doritos clearly is not among those trapped in yesterday's advertising thinking. It seems to get what broadband can do for its brand and its Super Bowl ad strategy. With its new UGV campaign, the ROI that Doritos will get on its actual game-day spend will far surpass those of its competitors. With luck that should help spur others to focus more on broadband in their future Super Bowl ads.

What do you think? Post a comment!

Welcome to September. Before looking ahead, here's a quick recap of 3 key topics from August:

1. Advertising model remains in flux

Broadband video advertising was a key story line in August, as it seems to be every month. The industry is rightly focused on the ad model's continued evolution as more and more players in the value chain are increasingly dependent on it. This month, in "Pre-Roll Video Advertising Gets a Boost from 3 Research Studies," I noted how recent research is showing that user acceptance and engagement with the omnipresent pre-roll format is already high and is improving. However, as many readers correctly noted, research from industry participants must be discounted, and some of the metrics cited are not necessarily the best ones to use. I expect we'll see plenty more research - on both sides of pre-roll's efficacy - yet to come.

Meanwhile, comScore added to the confusion around the ad model by first highly ranking YuMe, a large ad network, very high in its reach statistics, only to then reverse itself by downgrading YuMe, before regrouping entirely by introducing a whole new metric for measuring reach. In this post, "comScore Gets Its Act Together on Ad Network Traffic Reporting," I tried to unravel some of this mini-saga. Needless to say, without trustworthy and universally accepted traffic reporting, broadband video is going to have a tough slog ahead.

2. Broadband Olympics are triumphant, but accomplishments are overshadowed

And speaking of a tough slog, the first "Broadband Olympics" were a huge triumph for both NBC and all of its technology partners, yet their accomplishments were overshadowed by a post-mortem revenue estimate by eMarketer suggesting NBC actually made very little money for its efforts. This appeared to knock broadband video advertising back on its heels, yet again, as outsiders pondered whether broadband is being overhyped.

The Olympics became a hobbyhorse of mine in the last 2 weeks as I tried to clarify things in 2 posts, "Why NBCOlympics.com's Video Ad Revenues Don't Matter" part 1 and part 2. These posts triggered a pretty interesting debate about whether technology/operational achievements are noteworthy, if substantial revenues are absent. My answer remains a resounding yes. But having exhausted all my arguments in these prior posts, I'll leave it to you to dig in there if you'd like to learn more about why I feel this way.

3. Broadband's impact is wide-ranging

VideoNuze readers know that another favorite topic of mine is how widespread broadband's impact is poised to become, and in fact already is. A number of August's posts illustrated how broadband's influence is already being felt across a diverse landscape.

Here's a brief sampling: "Vogue.TV's Model.Live: A Magazine Bets Big on Broadband" (magazines), "Tanglewood and BSO Pioneer Broadband Use for Arts/Cultural Organizations," (arts/culture), "American Political Conventions are Next Up to Get Broadband Video Treatment," (politics), "Citysearch Offering Local Merchants Video Enhancement," (local advertising) and "1Cast: A Legit Redlasso Has Tall Mountain to Climb" (local news).

I expect this trend will only accelerate, as more and more industries begin to recognize broadband video's potential benefits.

That's it for August and for the busy summer of '08. Lots more action to coming this fall!