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NCAA and Thought Equity Motion Renew Deal For Video Archive Access
The NCAA and Thought Equity Motion are announcing this morning a multi-year extension of their technology and rights management agreement. Last March, in conjunction with the NCAA Men's Basketball March Madness, the "NCAA Vault" was introduced, which contained searchable access to every moment of video from the last 10 years of the final 16 teams' games. One of the things I was most impressed about with the NCAA Vault is how flexibly exact clips could be found and also how fast the response times were.
In the renewed deal, Thought Equity will also be adding other NCAA Division I championship events like Women's Basketball and Baseball and Wrestling, plus add social media capabilities and enhanced metadata. Thought Equity will also be working with the NCAA to identify other rights windows and business models.
Categories: Sports, Technology
Topics: NCAA, Thought Equity Motion
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Netflix Racked Up Almost 2 Million Subscribers in Q3, A New Record
Netflix just reported Q3 '10 results and the eye-catching number is 1,932,000 net subscribers added in the quarter, a new record for the company, and
almost 4x as many as the 510,000 it added a year ago in Q3 '09. Netflix ended Q3 '10 with 16,933,000 subscribers, almost double the 8,672,000 subscribers the company had 2 years ago, at the end of Q3 '08. Revenue was up 31% to $553.2 million.
Netflix ascribed the growth entirely to streaming, with CEO Reed Hastings saying in a statement, "By every measure, we are now primarily a streaming company that also offers DVD-by-mail." That's the first time I've heard this positioning, and it is only partly true, as only 66% of subscribers watched 15 minutes of streaming video in Q3 (though up from 61% in Q2 '10), whereas my guess is that 95%+ of the company's subscribers still take out at least 1 DVD each month and the volume of overall viewership must still tilt heavily toward DVDs. (see update below)
Categories: Aggregators
Topics: Netflix
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Metacafe's "Shocktober Showcase" Promotion Gains 2 Million Views
Metacafe launched a new channel at the beginning of October dubbed "Shocktober Showcase" which features 2 new pieces of exclusive short-form content each day from recent or upcoming movies and video games. Metacafe says the promotion has already racked up over 2 million views from 30+ pieces of content featured. Partners in the promotion include Electronic Arts, KONAMI, Sega, Ubisoft, Summit Entertainment, Paramount, The Weinstein Company and others.
The promotion is meant to underscore Metacafe's positioning as a destination for curated short-form online video entertainment for males 18-34.
Categories: Indie Video
Topics: MetaCafe
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Looking Ahead to Netflix's Q3 Results Today
Later today Netflix will report its Q3 results and if you're trying to get a sense of how over-the-top video is growing, there's no better company to look at. Netflix is the leader in paying subscribers viewing streaming Hollywood-quality video (at least 9 million/mo at the end of Q2), in availability on connected devices (200 and growing) and in offering the deepest catalog of movies/TV programs under subscription. As a result, its performance is as good a gauge as any for consumers' growing appetite for OTT video alternatives.
Q3 was a particularly productive quarter for Netflix in acquiring more content for streaming, arguably its most important priority as it transitions from its traditional DVD-by-mail business. The big content deal of Q3 was with premium cable network EPIX, but this quarter Netflix also inked new or expanded deals with Relativity Media, Warner Bros., NBCU and Nu Image/Milllenium Films. These deals have brought a combination of popular newer and classic movies along with recent-season TV episodes.
Categories: Aggregators
Topics: Netflix
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Encoding.com Now Offering Expanded Codec Support for HTML5
HTML5 is gaining further momentum today as leading cloud encoding provider Encoding.com is now supporting the WebM and Ogg Theora video codecs,
adding to its longstanding support for H.264. As a result, customers can now choose "presets" for these codecs so that all browsers and devices supporting HTML5 will be able to seamlessly playback video.
Topics: Encoding.com, HTML5
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Interview With BBE's Matt Wasserlauf On Its Acquisition By Specific Media
Yesterday, BBE, one of the earliest online video ad networks, announced it has been acquired by Specific Media, a large display ad network. I caught up
with BBE's CEO and founder Matt Wasserlauf to learn more about the deal. An edited transcript follows.
VideoNuze: Why did you decide to be acquired now?
Matt Wasserlauf: The market needs some consolidation, there are a lot of companies trying to do similar things and most important customers need a one-stop solution. They need to be able to buy reach against all display - banners, rich media and video.
VideoNuze: Why Specific Media?
MW: They're the leader in targeting and that's where video is going next. We've done a great job delivering reach and brand metrics, but many of our customers are getting savvier about video and are looking to reach specific audiences. The targeting that Specific Media brings to BBE is going to create the leader in video targeting.
Categories: Advertising, Deals & Financings
Topics: BBE, Specific Media
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Unicorn Once Enables Dynamic Ad Insertion in Mobile Video Streams
Unicorn Media is unveiling "Unicorn Once" this morning, which allows content providers to dynamically insert ads into videos viewed on mobile devices,
including iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch. Yesterday I caught up with Unicorn's chief strategy officer David Rice and its VP, Client Services, David Morel, to learn more.
Unicorn Once is being positioned as a "stream management service" which gives customers comparable control over their ad insertion practices in mobile as they're accustomed to in online. David and David explained customers have been highlighting the problems of dynamic ad insertion in the rapidly-growing mobile video space (especially in iDevices) for some time, and have resorted to time-consuming and inelegant solutions like writing custom JavaScript to achieve similar results as they're seen in online. Unicorn Once supports HTTP delivery and Apple's adaptive bit rate segmented streaming protocol and it also supports Android, BlackBerry and other mobile devices. It is available for on-demand videos for now, not live.
Categories: Advertising, Mobile Video
Topics: Unicorn Media
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Ooyala Introduces Paywall Feature
Online video platform Ooyala is introducing "Ooyala Paywall" this morning, a feature that allows customers to charge for their video. Paywall is integrated with
online payment processor PayPal so that selected videos can be paid for with a user's PayPal account or with a credit card. The demo makes it look pretty simple for Ooyala customers to set up and experiment with Ooyala Paywall; they choose which on-demand or live videos to include, how much to charge for rental, how long after start-time the paywall appears and how long the rental period will be. They can experiment with pricing and get reports on activity.
As the online video industry continue to mature, utilizing a range of different business models will be increasingly important. In particular, as connected devices proliferate, which allow familiar on-TV viewing and better experiences, I believe a perception change will begin to occur as users are more in the mindset that paying for content is the norm. In other words whereas many people equate the Internet with "free," with 90 million+ homes subscribing to multichannel video services, plus millions more buying or renting DVDs and or subscribing to services like Netflix, TV viewing is more associated with "paid." That's not to say getting users to pay for online video will be a slam-dunk, but connected devices are going to help a lot.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).
Categories: Technology
Topics: Ooyala
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