VideoNuze Posts

Today I'm pleased to share a contributed post from Alan Wolk. Alan is Global Lead Analyst at KIT digital. He frequently speaks about the television industry in general and second screen interactions in particular, both at conferences and to anyone who'll listen. Recently named as one of the "Top 20 Thinkers In Social TV and Second Screen" Wolk is one of the main architects behind the award-winning KIT Social Program Guide and writes about the television industry at the Toad Stool blog. You can find him on Twitter at @awolk

If you are interested in contributing to VideoNuze, please contact me!

Social Recommendations: No Surprises There
by Alan Wolk

There’s a firmly held belief in the world of social TV and social media that our social graphs-- the people we are friends with on Facebook and Twitter and other social networks-- are the best source of recommendations for anything from restaurants to movies to TV shows. (Witness this week’s Facebook Graph Search announcement.)

I’m here to suggest that may not be the case, particularly in regards to television.

Let’s take Facebook, the most personal of the social networks. While it is considered good form by many on Twitter and LinkedIin to connect with relative strangers, our Facebook friends are generally people we know in real life.

Or knew.

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I'm pleased to present the 164th edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon, now heading his own firm nScreenMedia. This week we dig into Netflix's Q4 results, which were reported this week. As I wrote yesterday, Q4 was certainly the best quarter Netflix has had in a couple of years, and it's encouraging to see the company getting back on track. It is still quite early in understanding how the overall streaming market will shape up and what Netflix's adoption will be.

In the discussion, we explore key questions around the company's growth prospects, competitive landscape and international expansion. On the last topic in particular, Colin adds his observations of how Netflix is doing in certain international markets where he been doing research and traveling.

Click here to listen to the podcast (26 minutes, 44 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

Netflix reported its Q4 '12 results late yesterday, adding 2.05 million domestic streaming subscribers, 1.81 million international streaming subscribers and losing 380K domestic DVD subscribers. All of these numbers were slightly better than the high end of the guidance range that Netflix provided with its Q3 report back on Oct. 23rd. Netflix also reported an $8 million quarterly profit globally, compared to its forecasted range of a loss of $13 million to a profit of $2 million.

Predictably - and just as happened a year ago when Netflix reported a relatively strong Q4 '11 - this morning's headlines are touting the company's turnaround (a sampling of what I've seen: "A Resurgent Netflix Beats Projections, Even Its Own," "Netflix's Q4 restores company's investment luster," "Netflix Posts Surprise Profit," "Netflix smashes street expectations," etc.). Investors are even giddier, sending Netflix's shares up more than 44% this morning.

To be fair, after the horrendous period beginning in mid-2011, with the ill-fated Qwikster and aggressive rate increase decisions, the Q4 results are quite heartening. Domestic streaming subscriber additions were at their best level since the heady days of Q1 '11. DVD subscription losses slowed to their lowest level since the losses began following Qwikster. And international turned in its best quarter of subscriber acquisitions to date. Management also said that churn is improving and international payment issues are being resolved.

Nonetheless, and at the risk of sounding like the "skunk at the picnic," I think there are still some key open questions for the company, which I would generally put into 3 buckets:

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Conviva, whose software preemptively optimizes video streams on multiple platforms, has renewed and expanded its existing deal with HBO for another 6 years. Conviva's original deal with HBO dates to May, 2011. Conviva has been supporting HBO's HBO GO TV Everywhere domestic distribution, and under the new deal it will be extended to support international distribution as well. HBO's parent, Time Warner, is also an investor in Conviva.

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Live video events have become a big business, as brands, sports leagues, music promoters, and others have come to realize their huge audience appeal can drive engagement and monetization. But planning and executing a high-profile live streaming event isn't easy, with multiple technologies required to work together for the kind of flawless delivery that viewers expect.

Given these opportunities and challenges, former AEG Digital Media executives John Petrocelli and Josh Lennox have joined forces to launch a new firm, Bulldog Digital Media, which will facilitate clients' live video content strategies and monetization across multiple platforms. I've known John and Josh from their AEG Digital days and last week I caught up with both.

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Ever had the experience of hearing about a movie, being intrigued by it, wondering when/where you'll be able to see it, and then, as time passes, forgetting all about it? GoWatchIt, a free service, cleverly solves this problem, allowing you to search for and save movies to a queue and then alerting you as they become available in the future, whether in theaters, on DVD/Blu-ray or online/on-demand.

Now GoWatchIt has partnered with the Sundance Institute, whose 2013 Film Festival is currently underway. Sundance is historically the place where some of the hottest independent films are debuted. However, given the nature of film distribution cycle times, frequently these movies won't actually become available for viewing for many months.

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I'm pleased to present the 163rd edition of the VideoNuze podcast with my weekly partner Colin Dixon. Before getting into today's topic, Colin shares exciting news that he has set up a new firm, nScreenMedia. Congrats to Colin!

This week we dive deeper into Smart TVs, focusing on the challenges they face, and what incremental improvements came out of CES (which Colin also wrote about earlier this week).

While we both agree that fragmentation and relatively low volumes are holding back app development, Colin sees the solution as a unified "app framework," while I believe what's really required is the equivalent of an underlying common operating system for Smart TVs. This OS would not only create baseline consistency among them, but would also be interoperable with other devices like smartphones and tablets. This is crucial for viewers to seamlessly move back and forth between all their devices.

Since I think the likelihood of something like this emerging any time soon is relatively low, I believe that the circumstances are ripe for Apple to extend its iOS to the living room by launching a full scale television (and an upgraded appliance as well). I wrote about this in detail earlier this week in "Post-CES, the Stage is Now Set for an Apple Television."

Click here to listen to the podcast (19 minutes, 30 seconds)

Click here for previous podcasts

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

Broadcast TV networks continue to find themselves in the middle of a ton of innovation, as clever entrepreneurs look for ways to help viewers discover and consume their content. The latest entry in this space is a startup called Fredio ("FREE-d-oh") which announced its launch at CES. Fredio enables viewing on smart TVs of freely available TV programs that are posted online.

The proposition is relatively simple: all broadcast TV networks, and some cable TV networks (for certain shows), have been putting their episodes online for years now. But if you want to watch them you're typically limited to viewing on your computer, tablet or smartphone. If you want to watch on your smart TV, you're out of luck because no apps exist, with the exception of Hulu Plus, which requires a subscription

Fredio aims to change that by creating a free app for smart TVs that crawls the web for free TV shows. The app then categorizes them by network, allowing quick search and personalization through a straightforward UI (limited online demo here). You'll also be able to search Fredio online or on its tablet/smartphone app, select shows there and have them ready to play on your smart TV. When a show is selected, Fredio simply calls the network's web site to initiate the stream.

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