Author: James

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An 11th Online Video Prediction Added to Unleash Video's 10

unleash-video-logo

Straight from @TimJahn his 10 Online Video Predictions for 2010 are available over at his UnleashVideo.com site. Have to say I agree with most all of them, though maybe a bit askewedly (is that a word? :))
Here’s my take on each of his items. You’ll obviously want to click through to read his post to know what the heck I’m talking about!

10 Online Video Predictions for 2010

  1. There’s a lot of money out there for company’s to spend advertising. Recession? Blah!
  2. Sounds like social media video production. I’m for it, however not to overlook the value of creative juice production when working in close proximity to other creatives.
  3. If Apple doesn’t do this, someone else will. From what I read Hulu.com is likely to move into subscriptions as well.
  4. Too much “creative integration” of product marketing might harm video monetization. But only if done in cheesy fashion.
  5. Very excited to see what creative minds will do with live, streaming services from an entertainment vs. reporting perspective.
  6. Not looking forward to 500,000,000 channels of lifestreams 🙁
  7. I really liked Joost and its first application. Much better than MCE, at least in my eyes.
  8. The players are all mostly the same that are making “real” movies, so it makes sense they’d find funding based upon fame and marketshare in their online pursuits.
  9. Pre-roll ads are fine. 12 pre-roll ad units: NOT!
  10. A little scared about small businesses getting into video promotions of their wares. Have you seen some small business websites? Yikes!
  11. My 11th? I’d like to see company’s like Vidli.com and even Youtube extend the earnings potential to sites that embed other’s video content. If you’re making money when it is shown, and it gets seen on my site, share the wealth!
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Rendering Video Monetization with the Best Metrics

$5700
Creative Commons License photo credit: AMagill

From ripping off live MMA to trying to figure out just what works and doesn’t regarding the monetization of online video, today’s stories are all about searching for the answers.
Startup companies like Vidli.com will definitely need to be way on top of their game if they are going to go head to head with the Ooyala’s, Apple’s and Ustream’s of the video delivery world.
We shall see! In the meantime, here’s what seems to be more pertinent snippets about licensing video and delivering profitability and ROI to the content owners and network operators. Just click through on the headlines to read their entire stories.

The Future of In-Stream Video Advertising for Yu and Me

On the topic of measuring performance for online video advertising campaigns, Jayant agrees that what may be considered acceptable performance metrics for many interactive ad formats does not necessarily translate in terms of measuring the complete success of a video advertising initiative.
“In the search business and in the display business, the primary metric people use is clicks… In video, depending on the campaign, a click may not be the best metric… You have a myriad of things that you can try…”

Apple TV Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk

Once again, talking about Apple’s future as a multichannel video distributor is all the rage. But people familiar with the discussions between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and video programmers over a possible subscription package say the talk is far ahead of the action, one reason why details are still murky. If the subscription package could be pulled off with an announcement from a single player, I have no doubt Disney (NYSE: DIS), which isn’t commenting about this but multiple sources tell me is open to the idea, would be first in line.

UFC targets online piracy. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go all RIAA on us

It’s been a running theme for the past few years, and as more and more people get faster Internet connections, and as video compression technology continues to improve, we’re going to be hearing a lot more about it. I refer, of course (of course!), to illegal streams of live sporting events. Whether you’re firing up TVAnts on Sunday to watch Arsenal take on Aston Villa, or trolling USTREAM for a live feed of WWE’s Royal Rumble, or looking for MMA-TV to watch this month’s UFC pay-per-view, you are, in fact, breaking the law. Not only are you breaking the law, but you may even be taking money away from the companies/teams/sports you purport to support. But is that all there is to it?

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Cool Amazon Stuff

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Cool Overstock.com Stuff

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Vidli.com's Licensing Model Appears on Right Track

As I’ve reported here over the past weeks, Vidli.com, The Official Video Licensor is launching in early 2010. They hope to provide the copyright owners of videos with the ability to monetize them with licensing fees. This instead of the current generally accepted model of placing ads in front of, during and after the playing of the video.
The other way to generate revenues to charge for subscriptions to a site that plays all of your favorite videos. In veiled promises, both Youtube and Ooyala have indicated they are leaning towards pay to watch models “in the near future”.
None of the video delivery networks are yet willing to make the stand on just when they are going to start charging visitors to watch videos they serve. It’s clear this business model, one which Vidli.com hopes to compete in is heading somewhere. Vidli just hopes it’s towards profitability.
Some of today’s pertinent stories about video monetization, pay per view (or pay per video as Ooyala’s calling it now), and video licensing:

YouTube Is the Top Social Media Innovation of the Decade

YouTube didn’t even exist for more than half the decade, but a perfect storm of increasing bandwidth, advances in Flash, and the rise of social networks (where YouTube content could be embedded) made 2005 the perfect time for the site to make its debut. The growth was meteoric, and within 18 months, the website became one of the most trafficked on the web and the company was sold to Google for $1.6 billion

Video Monetization via Pay Per View – Ooyala Interview

I Interviewed Bismark Lepe, Founder and President of Products for the online video platform Ooyala , about how their solution also allows content providers to make money from their “premium” video content via subscription models and pay-per-video (PPV) models – or what I refer to as, “video for sale.” I caught up with Bismark after his session at the recent Streaming Media West / Online Video Platform Summit in San Jose, California, where he was speaking on the panel, Defining Online Video Platforms . As the session preview stated, “There have never been more people publishing online video, and there have never been more online video platform solutions on the market. But with so many choices, it can be confusing to decide what services are right for your online video initiatives.”

YouTube Paid Video Could Come “In the Not Too Distant Future”

YouTube is serving up more than a billion videos per day and all of them are free. That could change soon, says YouTube executive David Eun. Eun, who runs partnerships for Google’s site, confirmed earlier reports that YouTube is looking to stream movies and/or TV shows that aren’t available on the site now and won’t be supported by advertising. So someone, either consumers themselves or a sponsor who picks up the tab, would need to pay for them directly. When? “In the not too distant future,” Eun says–while leaving enough wiggle room for Google (GOOG) to avoid actually saying that it is committed to any particular plan.

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Great Buys at Amazon.com

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Great Buys at Overstock.com

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Where will Vidli.com Fit into the Value Add Chain of Online Video Monetization?

As the new year is strapping up its boots and getting ready to launch us all into a brand new decade, those of you (and I) interested in online video may be wondering what’s next. As I continue my quest to become Vidli.com’s next Social Media person (you can help by clicking here and signing up to receive a free beta invite. TIA!) I find myself learning more and more about the marketplace.
The work I’ve done in the past for EPI, LLC (where I’m a founding partner) as we attempt to launch TheFightChannel.com, an all fighting online video network has been very educational. In fact, during 2008 I actually designed and submitted to applications for patent protection on processes to deliver audio and video online in new and unique fashion.
Couple the above with the thousands of hours of fight related video we hope to one day launch to fight fans around the world, and you can better understand why having all this knowledge around video licensing and monetization is important. From a business model perspective, we needed to be able to talk to content owners in terms they could understand.
So, now I’m more closely following the happenings in delivery, licensing, monetization and more in the world of online video. Following are some interesting stories from the past couple of days.

Internet TV advances with Boxee Beta and FCC probe

The maturation of Internet TV software like Boxee signals a shift to a more distributed media environment. However, bridging the gap between television and online media is a difficult proposition, not least because traditional content producers are slow to embrace these services.

How Digital Distribution is Changing Viewers Habits {Web Strategies for storytelling}

This paper will identify the current advancement of digital distribution channels and its viewers imminent behavior habits. I hope to prove that today filmmakers, storytellers, and documentary producers can now bypass the traditional methods of video circulation and target their own markets directly using social media websites, live streaming and video podcasting.

New Year’s Wishes For Online Video In 2010

The very best thing to happen to the execution side of our business in 2009 was the emergence and adoption of the VAST standard. VAST compliance allows buyers of inventory to integrate with publishers in a matter of hours, as opposed to custom integration processes that could take days, weeks or months. The efficiencies inherent to VAST enable increased productivity across the board by letting buyers get time-sensitive campaigns up faster, dramatically reducing the potential for errors caused through manual trafficking, and by allowing publishers to significantly reduce trafficking burden. A growing VAST adoption rate coupled with more embracement of standards will benefit all participants in the online video value chain.

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Early Christmas Taco Dinner

From Early Christmas Dinner

Because my Sister and her husband have plans to be with their daughter’s boyfriend’s family during the actual holiday and that weekend, we decided to have our dinner and gift giving yesterday.
As such, we made one of our favorite family style meals, tacos. Mom has that wonderful serving tray that houses 9 different bowl containers for all the yummy stuff that you might want to put on your taco. And you can’t see it in this picture, however, if you click through to the complete album, you’ll see the entire table setting.
Have to say that it was a super delicious meal and the four of us thoroughly enjoyed dining together. And that was before we opened up all of our gifts. Woo Hoo!

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Where Were You During My Ratatouille and Sirloin Experience?

Top Sirloin and Ratatouille
I decided I needed to use the makings I had bought for ratatouille, else risk losing perfectly good vegetables to the compost heap. Are you like me that way? Just despise allowing your laziness to cost you? Money. Time? Effectiveness? Yeah, I dislike it as well.
So, I made sure I had the time (i.e., all my tasks were done and submitted properly) and simply spent the afternoon in the kitchen. I’ve been making ratatouille for about 6 months now. Guessing at least a dozen times. Really!
Why so much, you ask? Mainly because I like experimenting with recipes I enjoy. Tweaking ingredients, methods, flavor profiles. Starting with the same recipe that Julia Child used on her television show, my first attempt was hatched. I enjoyed it well enough to make it again (from the same recipe) and liked it again, even more.
Then I went online searching for other recipes, finding about a gazillion, of course! There’s really a lot of different philosophies when it comes to making this pleasant peasant dish. I even found and tried a couple of times the biyaldi recipe that was the basis of the dish in the movie “[asin=B000VBJEEG]Ratatouille[/asin]”. I especially liked the addition of yellow squash in that one.
Anyway, the meal was a great thick cut Top Sirloin broiled to a juicy rare (but fully safe!) and the ratatouille served over fluffy white rice. I must admit that Mom and I were very pleased! You would have been too. Where were you? Next time! 😉

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If Vidli Takes on YouTube & Ooyala, Who Wins?

. . . and tellys!
Creative Commons License photo credit: Elsie esq.

As Vidli.com prepares to enter the video licensing and monetization market, they’ll find the stakes getting higher by the moment.
Recently, video site giant, YouTube has been heard mumbling they may begin to offer premium content, ala Hulu.com, but for a fee. To be fair, similar whispers have also been rumored to be true for Hulu as well.
Another upstarting video delivery company, Ooyala, former winner of Amazon’s Web Services Start-up Challenge has steadily built up its offerings to be a contender in both live streaming of video events as well as on-demand delivery. Earlier reviews of their services showed interesting video monetization via ad insertions as well as a number of other methods.
The question for newcomer Vidli.com is whether or not they will be able to jump into the fray and compete with the big boys and girls of video delivery. From the Vidli blog, their aim is to “help people buy, sell and rent videos online.”
There’s clearly a lot of content to go around and it seems that any new entry into the space should be able to forge a successful business if they go about things correctly. Of course in today’s world of monetizing video online, knowing the correct course IS the battle!
Following are two stories characterizing Vidli’s challenges as they enter this sphere.

Vans Triple Crown of Surfing and Ooyala Team Up to Give Fans a Front Row Seat

The Vans Triple Crown of Surfing presented by Rockstar Energy Drink, the last stop on the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) World Tour, known for attracting top-ranked surfers looking to battle it out with the world’s biggest and most popular waves, teamed up with Ooyala, a leading provider of end-to-end video platform applications and services, to deliver first-class viewer experiences with continual live-streaming coverage.
Ooyala’s live streaming technology allows customers to create and manage live streams within the same console from which they manage their Video-on-Demand content. The native support of live streaming makes it very quick and easy to showcase coverage of key events, reaching broader audiences worldwide. Ooyala’s analytics engine provides real-time viewership data for key metrics such as the number of plays, displays, amount of video watched, geographical distribution and domain distribution.

YouTube considers pay-for movies and TV shows in push to attract new content

A senior executive said they were considering allowing pay-for content to encourage more media companies to license premium movies and TV shows on the popular video-sharing website. Although YouTube is the most visited video site in the U.S. with more than 125 million users a month, many analysts see rival Hulu, which carries full length shows, as the future of the Web video business.

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What's Next in Video Monetization and Premium Content Licensing

YouTube, LLC

We’re seeing a number of announcements by the big boy companies attempting to grab major foothold share in video monetization industries. Companies like Google’s YouTube is considering a subscription model in an attempt to entice premium content copyright holders to use their system.

Hulu, LLC

A move like that would place them in direct competition with Hulu.com with whom it is anticipated will start its own subscription model soon after the new year. Clearly however, in that marketplace, with Hulu’s owners being Disney, NBCU, and FOX, they have an advantage in getting that premium content.
For everyone else that’s not a Google or Hulu, there might be hope to make money with their copyrighted video by using Vidli.com, the Official Video Licensor. Their stated goals are to provide a place for you to sell, rent and buy videos online.
Here’s some snippets of stories that jumped out at me today. What do you think?

Widevine raises $15M for delivering web video to consumer gear

$15M for delivering web video to consumer gear
Widevine has raised $15 million in funding for its business of delivering video to web-connected consumer electronics gear. The company’s technology includes video optimization, which means it will size the video for a particular display and play it at a rate that matches the speed of its Internet connection. It lets consumers bookmark, fast forward, or rewind Internet video. The content it distributes has digital rights management to prevent piracy.

How You Can Make Money Remixing Someone Else’s Stuff

Our model also gives property owners a structure for inviting the creative community to collaboratively help the owner build out content on a scale not feasible under traditional approaches, which translates to new opportunities for fans to engage meaningfully in their favorite entertainment.
Imagine a video game developer releasing a new title. They could spend thousands of dollars on an alternate reality game, which is basically a one-time marketing expense that – hopefully – will generate indirect revenue by driving sales of the new title. Or, they could selectively open up certain elements of the game world and allow fans to create original works of fiction, art, comics, video, music, etc. within the video game property.

YouTube looks at subscriptions, more ad dollars

YouTube is considering offering users the option to pay for subscriptions in a bid to encourage more media companies to license premium TV shows and movies to the popular online video site, a senior executive said.
YouTube, which is owned by Internet search giant Google, is already known to have held talks with several major movie studios about renting movies.

Paramount Begins Licensing Clips Online, With Help from Digitalsmiths

What do you do when your DVD business starts to show serious signs of decline? If you’re Paramount, you look for ways to create a new revenue stream from your existing catalog of video content. With that in mind, the movie studio today launched ParamountClips.com, a warehouse of short-form video assets created and indexed with the help of Digitalsmiths.
The site will enable users to license clips from Paramount titles such as The Godfather, Forrest Gump and Top Gun, all without reaching out to the studio to do so.

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Monetizing Video Clips the Next Ringtone Success?

paramount-insceneThis should prove to be an interesting service. As reported in the NY Times, Paramount will open a movie clip licensing service tomorrow. And tomorrow is not today, as I’ve just found out. Tried to sign up and access their site, and after submitting, nothing. Just nothing. Maybe tomorrow it will be accessible. We’ll see.

Paramount to Start Online Service to Sell Movie Clips

Paramount Pictures, looking for new ways to turn its old movies into cash, especially as DVD sales continue to decline, is creating an online video clip service that will allow users to search hundreds of feature films on a frame-by-frame basis.

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How Could Vidli.com Monetize a Video of Blue Footed Boobies?

Just a quickie post today before I get to brave the elements (and worse, holiday shoppers!) During my morning reading routine I came across this way too cute video of an actual mating dance between two Blue Footed Boobies. It is possibly the most bizarre and cutest thing I’ve seen in quite some time. Betting it will be for you as well. If you aren’t able to see the video, here’s the link to the Blue Footed Booby Mating Dance on YouTube.
[youtube oYmzdvMoUUA 500 315]
Blue Footed Boobies from the Galapagos Islands doing their famous mating dance.
Now, if plumdiggity, instead of just posting that video up on Youtube, had used Vidli.com, The Official Video Licensor, they might have been able to make some money.
I’m not sure how many views it will take, but if nearly 40,000 people are interested in the video content you create, you can bet some of them are going to be willing to pay to see it.
And this is where Vidli comes in. The company is nearing its launch and has opened up beta invitation sign ups. They are also looking for a Social Media Person to bring on board. As such they’ve concocted a unique contest for folks like me to garner support from great folks like you. If you can take 37 seconds or less and click through to sign up for a FREE Vidli.com beta invitation, you’d be doing me the HUGEST favor.
You won’t regret it. Honest. And think of all those adorable little blue footed boobies just waiting for your love and affection! 😉

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