VideoNuze Posts

I'm pleased to present the 166th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week Cisco released its VNI Mobile Data Forecast, which Colin and I both wrote about (here and here). Each of us was particularly focused on the role of mobile video, which Cisco forecasts will account for 66% of all mobile data by '17.

Colin and I discuss the critical role of wireless carriers' tiered data plans as the big driver of what happens with mobile video adoption. To the extent that caps remain relatively low and plans quite expensive, video usage on carrier networks will be suppressed. However, users are already savvy about moving video usage to WiFi networks, typically within the home. As a result, "portable" video (as we think of it) - is soaring.

Both of us share a number of specific data points we're seeing and hearing about which support the shift to video viewing on smartphones and tablets. Although we agree it's still a bit of a murky picture, we both believe strongly that consumer behavior is clearly shifting to watching video on smartphones and tablets. Over which types of networks they will do so going forward is an issue to be tracked closely.

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 49 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

Last week at NATPE, I had the pleasure of interviewing Frank Cooper, PepsiCo's Chief Marketing Officer, Global Consumer Engagement. Frank provides great insights into how PepsiCo's brands are evolving from a traditional approach to marketing to the consumer, to one that is more focused on engaging them with the brands. Part of doing this involves adopting a "beta culture" throughout the company, where campaigns are iterative and not necessarily fully polished at the outset.

Frank sees content as a key element in engaging consumers and believes there's a huge opportunity in episodic content online, where PepsiCo brands themselves will become more active. That said, he's very pragmatic about branded entertainment, explaining that these days everyone is vying for the consumer's precious attention. Brands can't do sub-par work if they expect to be competitive in their entertainment offerings.

Among the other topics Frank discusses:

- The increasingly important role of data in informing content choices, channels and other decisions.

- How expectations of those under age 25 differ from those older than 25.

- Success metrics of two recent campaigns, Mountain Dew's "DEWmocracy" and Pepsi Refresh and what the company learned from each of these.

- The organizational challenges consumer packaged goods companies face in adapting their marketing practices.

And more.

Watch the interview

Cisco has released its 6th annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast, for 2012-2017, with heady growth predictions, including a 13x increase in mobile data traffic from .9 exabytes/mo in 2012 to 11.2 exabytes/mo in 2017. Cisco points to 4 key growth drivers over the forecast period: more mobile users (5.2B, up from 4.3B), more mobile devices/connections (10B, up from 7B), faster average mobile speeds (3.9 mbps, up from .5 mbps) and more mobile video (66% of mobile traffic, up from 55%).

Most intriguing from my perspective is the mobile video forecast. With the proliferation of tablets and smartphones, "mobile" video has become a huge topic of interest in the industry, even though the term still means different things to different people. For example, while some loosely lump viewing video on an iPad within the home over a WiFi network as "mobile" video, I've thought of this as more "portable" video over an extended fixed network. Cisco defines mobile video as carrier-based, which I believe is more accurate.

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At the NATPE conference in Miami Beach last week I did a series of short one-on-one video interviews, which I'll be posting to VideoNuze over the next couple of weeks.

First up is Rob Barnett, CEO of My Damn Channel, which announced its new "My Damn Channel Comedy Network" at NATPE. In the interview, Rob talks about My Damn Channel's positioning and how the new comedy network differentiates itself. He delves into how he sees bigger online video properties emerging in the same way as happened in cable TV.  Other topics Rob discusses:

- More than 30% of the company's videos are now viewed on mobile devices and durations are being mainly kept to 2-3 minutes max as a result.

- Why My Damn Channel continues to focus on the series format, rather than one-off comedic clips.

- The important role of the "human element" in curating how creative work gets noticed and promoted.

- Brand extensions and the importance of entrepreneurs doing one thing right before moving on to others.

Watch the interview

Last week, when Time Warner Cable and the L.A. Dodgers sealed a deal creating a new regional sports network to carry the team's games, the Dodgers' CEO Stan Kasten released a statement that read in part, "Our fans deserve the best - the best players, the best baseball and the best experience - whether that's at the newly renovated Dodger Stadium or on television."

That's a wonderful aspiration, but there's one significant problem with it: the reality is that non-fans (or at least those that don't tune in regularly to watch the team play) will be paying the lion's share for all of these "bests." Given the reported terms of the new Time Warner Cable - Dodgers deal, by my calculations, the non-fans' tab could amount to a staggering $6 billion over the life of the deal, making it the single biggest non-fan "tax" the pay-TV world has yet tried to assess on beleaguered non-sports fans.

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I'm pleased to present the 165th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon of nScreenMedia. This week I first share some reflections from spending 2 days at the NATPE conference earlier this week, focusing on content creators' attitudes toward online video.

That's a segue into discussing "binge-viewing," which will get a lot more visibility starting today, as Netflix releases all 13 episodes of its high-profile original series "House of Cards" (I watched the first 5 minutes of Chapter 1 this morning, and I'm hooked already). We discuss how binge-viewing is changing viewers' expectations and influencing content creators. For more about the pros and cons of Netflix's binge-viewing  strategy, see my prior analysis here.

Next we talk about eyeIO, and its THX certification announced yesterday. Colin provides a layman's explanation, that augments his post yesterday, of why this is so important along with the context of H.264 and the new H.265 standard just approved by the ITU. We also review the benefits to content providers and viewers.  

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 36 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

If you've been watching streaming video for as many years as I have, then no doubt you agree that one of the most remarkable changes has been the quality of video delivered. It wasn't that long ago when postage stamp sized windows with audio and video out of synch were the norm, whereas today, we can watch on big screen TVs, with buffering a random occurrence.

But the quality bar is getting even higher as this morning eyeIO ("I-I-O"), an early stage video processing technology company, is announcing it has been awarded THX certification for digital cinema HD video quality, a first for an online video encoder. The certification program objectively tests picture quality using 46 data points in 6 categories that were developed by the major Hollywood studios. A score over 90, on a scale of 100, is viewed as "THX Excellent Quality." eyeIO achieved a score of 95.528 for its H.264 first-generation encoder, when streaming at a rate of 5.8 mbps.

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Anyone working in or around the video ad tech space knows how incredibly crowded and well-funded it is. So, when a couple of weeks ago I noticed that a company I was only mildly familiar with, Altitude Digital, announced it had raised $5 million, I was intrigued. While not a blockbuster-sized round, financings of this size signal that the investors, after having done their customary due diligence, see some "white space" still available to operate in.  To learn more, I recently spoke to Devin Yeager, Altitude's COO, and Joe Salvador, VP of Video Operations.

Denver-based Altitude started up about 4 years ago as a display ad rep firm, but 2 years ago began building its own technology. More recently, Altitude has expanded into video, creating a new division called Visualtising. As a whole, the company is now processing about 12 billion display and video ad impressions per month. Altitude currently has 20 employees and is looking to double in size this year. It was also #54 ranked on Inc. 5000 list last year. Expanding Visualtising is the main purpose of the new financing.

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