YouTube

TiVo, Amazon tackle TV/Web integration

Dan O'Shea — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:18:24 -0400

IPTV service providers, cable TV companies and many different kinds of set-top device and online companies are trying to figure out how to merge online video and TV content and viewing practices, and TiVo and Amazon separately announced offerings this week that take the evolution a little further. TiVo is now offering YouTube through newer TiVO hardware, and Amazon announced plans for a new online video-on-demand store.

The future evolution of set-top boxes like TiVo DVRs has been in question, but TiVo is looking to cement its place on the TV stand by tackling the online video/TV integration with a large, known player while some IPTV service providers are still approaching the integration tentatively. Meanwhile, Amazon possibly learned a few things from its unloved Unbox venture about how to more efficiently make movies and TV content available online. These moves bear watching for any TV service provider feeling pressure to incorporate online content, while wondering how such ventures from giant online retailers and well-known device companies could affect their bottom lines.

For more:
- see this post about TiVo at Wired News Blogs
- read this story about Amazon at The New York Times

Related article:
Online TV growth could affect the success of IPTV. Online TV report

NAB: Will online TV movement hurt IPTV?

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:59:40 -0400

The National Association of Broadcasters trade show last week in Las Vegas appeared from some press coverage to be more of a telco IPTV meet-up. While there was plenty of positive chatter, there was also some caution. One bit of caution had to do with the growing trend of TV programming moving online--and being viewed online during prime TV viewing hours. Online video aggregation company Veoh Networks said it is seeing that trend, but even a firm from the telecom world, Motorola, noted the increasing impact that online video viewing could have on telcos' IPTV hopes. Of particular threat is the increasing amount of free TV content online from TV broadcasters themselves.

For more:
- read this story in Light Reading

Related articles:
- NAB was a place for telcos to work on content relationships. NAB report
- Content deals blooming everywhere. IPTV content report

Mediaroom enters TV streaming war

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:50 -0400

Microsoft's next upgrade of its Mediaroom software will enable the fusion of live video and web streams to the TV. The "Milwaukee" upgrade is also promising improved personalization and recommendation options. On show at the IPTV World Forum last week the software is due to ship late summer. The major upgrade comes as operators rush to gain dominance as the critical home hub provider. At the same forum BT Vision announced it would be upgrading its service using the next generation Mediaroom platform

TiVo also announced a partnership with YouTube to enable the streaming of their massive library of user generated video to the TV using a new TiVo box. Apple earlier this year announced an upgrade for its Apple TV set top box which will also include the same ability to mix downloaded VOD content with streamed content from the Internet.

Remarkably there remains little consumer research on how audiences will use these fusion services, nor how best to structure the browser interface to optimize the consumer experience. Also uncertain is how consumers will respond to the inferior quality of online video when blown-up to a full wide-screen TV size.

YouTube has been recently experimenting with HD formats set for PC use. Last week YouTube also launched a white label API which enables publishers to embed video content using their own skin and specifications. The API threatens the many video providers that have grown by letting publishers manipulate their players. The service enables publishers and enterprises to effectively outsource the pain of video delivery to Google's robust video delivery infrastructure.

For more:
- Microsoft preps next generation Mediaroom Article
- TiVo and YouTube to deliver web video to the TV Article

Related articles:
Lounge room wars Article
Apple seeks control of the video home Article

YouTube API enables free web hosting for all

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 07:59:40 -0400

YouTube has launched a powerful API that enables publishers to broadcast video content using their own skin and specifications direct from their own web sites--free. The co-branded API is being pitched at businesses, but also threatens the many video providers that service the custom-player market.

The no-cost service enables publishers and enterprises to effectively outsource the pain of video delivery to Google's robust video delivery infrastructure and will be a boon to firms seeking to deploy video for training and in-house comms. Externally it offers enterprises a branded player with a powerful set of recommendation and other features and potentially enormous distribution to promote and inform.

The offer of what is, in practice, free video hosting is possibly very disruptive to other professional video-hosting platforms such as Move, Brightcove and Yahoo's Maven Networks. While Google says it is not a white label exercise, in reality the co-branded API takes away both the complexity and cost of video delivery.

The API represents a major evolution for the user-generated site. It moves YouTube from a (hugely popular) destination platform to being a highly advanced video publishing infrastructure available to business and publishers alike.

New features in the API include the ability to add and edit user and video metadata as well as localized feeds for the 18 international markets YouTube supports.The new API comes as YouTube is testing HD delivery and as it promises to provide a real-time player later this year. To see the H.264 encoded clip in action compare these low- and high-quality versions of Tillman the skateboarding dog!

For more:
- YouTube Everywhere Blog
- YouTube pitches for business Article

Related articles:
YouTube tests HD Article
YouTube extends to mobile Article
Stage6 video portal closes Article

Stage6 video portal shuts down

Tom Burton — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 06:59:30 -0500

DivX is shuttering its Stage6 video sharing portal, admitting it was chewing resources it does not have. DivX launched the service to showcase its media player technology. It attracted nearly a million users but without revenue to pay for the high cost of quality video delivery it was doomed.

In the end, DivX could not even find a buyer for the portal. According to DivX: "So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide."

It is another case where the superior technology does not necessarily win. Market titan YouTube may have inferior quality to almost all the would-be portals, but is the accepted go-to site for user-generated content. And the imminent arrival of Adobe's next-generation-player software is likely to narrow the quality gap significantly. This will further challenge the various proprietary providers, all of whom are paying a high price to serve bandwidth chewing video with little to show for it other than invoices from their CDN provider.

For more;
- DivX closes its Stage6 portal Feb. 28 Statement and Blog
- DivX finally shuts Stage6 video portal Article

Related articles:
Roo jumps out of P2P services Article
Joost struggle in video portal battle Article

Rentals to power 2.4 billion video downloads

Tom Burton — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 06:59:40 -0500

Fresh from Apple deciding rental is the way to go for their TV service, research group ABI has also concluded this is what will drive the video on demand (VOD) market, claiming half of what is expected to be 2.4 billion download in 2012 will be offered as rentals. There will be an estimated 215 million downloads this year.

ABI says a barrier to industry growth are the restrictive usage policies the studios are requiring of distributors, like having to use the download within 24 hours. ABI research director Michael Wolf predicted studios eventually will offer greater flexibility, in particular as DVD and other physical media continue to mature and new consumer Internet-to-TV hardware expands their audience of consumers.

In a separate report, ABI argues vertically integrated solutions, such as Apple TV, Netflix and TiVO, will drive the market, rather than general providers who utilize public and home networks to deliver their service. Tell that to You Tube, but the point ABI makes is, that for consumers, it is services that offer an end-to-end solution that will be attractive to users.

For More:
- Video download business snowballing Article
- Vertical Integration Is the Key to Successful Internet-TV Convergence Release

Related articles:
Apple seeks control of video home Report
Netflix and LG go for VOD Report

30-second TV ads not good enough

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:59:30 -0500

Throwing your 30 second TV commercial onto the web is not enough, says interactive web advertiser Tom Walker. Walker has recently started at interactive video house, Firstborn, and told Advertising Age the days of simply taking 30 second advertisements designed for TV and slapping them up on the web are over.

"It's an enormous mistake when a marketer just takes a 30-second spot and throws it on the web," said Walker. "A 30-second spot has been crafted for TV, and a web experience is very different. Even if [consumers] are going on the web to watch "Lost," the experience is different. Video is an incredibly valuable tool on the web, it has to be created and produced in a manner relevant to what's happening on the web. [It has to be] edited in a way that feels natural and not interruptive, that helps boost the experience and add to it."

The online video ad industry is only just emerging as a key part of the Internet video industry and, while much of the content coming down IP pipes is traditional linear TV, the success of YouTube as a marketing channel suggests marketeers are going to increasingly dedicate much larger budgets to purpose-built interactive video advertising.

Advertising is set to be a critical component of the online video market with some analysts at the recent CES predicting the download market is going to move to a free ad supported model, rather than the paid download model now being experimented with.

For More:
- For Online Video, Think Beyond 30 Seconds Article

Related articles:
TV shows more popular than news online Report
Adap.tv ups the online advertising game Report

No Yankees please

Tom Burton — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 06:59:30 -0500

Light Reading is a respected player in the technology media world but its recent top ten Global IPTV carriers has caused controversy. The survey confirmed France as the leading IPTV market with French carriers taking out three positions, including Iliad which was number one. Verizon's U.S. based FiOS TV service and its 700,000 plus customers would have walked it in to the number four slot if not for a definition technicality. FiOS TV is delivered by fiber optic cable and while the interactivity is IP based, the actual TV signal is sent by an overlay network using the radio frequency spectrum.

Similarly Google's YouTube with its tens of millions of users would have won easily, but was vetoed because it is not delivered by a dedicated DSL or fiber line. Such line drawing confirms just how quickly some industry structures have become out dated and how dynamic the surging Internet video industry is. The days are long gone when IPTV could be considered a telco only domain.

For more:
- Light Reading's Top Ten Global IPTV carriers Article
- No US carriers in top ten list Article

Two (YouTube) videos a day now the norm

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 06:59:30 -0500

The average online video viewer in September consumed 68 videos--more than two per day--according to the latest report from comScore Video Metrix. ComScore also found nearly 136 million Americans, or approximately three in four U.S Internet users, viewed online video in September.

The report found that yet again Google, through YouTube, dominate the video media landscape with the largest online video audience of 71.6 million unique viewers. This was followed a long way behind by Fox Interactive Media with 41.2 million viewers and Yahoo with 39.6 million. Nearly 70 million people viewed more than 2.5 billion videos on YouTube.com, while 38 million people viewed approximately 360 million videos on News Corporation's MySpace.com.

Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during September and the average online duration was 2.7 minutes.

At the same time a separate report from Bain & Company suggests US viewers will watch an additional 2 hours of TV per week by 2012 spurred on by video-on-demand & the use of digital video recorders. This would suggest TV watching is in fact growing faster than web TV.

For More:
- TV watching grows faster then internet video Report
- YouTube Dominates Internet Video, with 27.3% Share Report

Related Articles:
- YouTube goes mobile Report
- Watching YouTube at your peril Report

Advertising for the brave

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 06:59:55 -0500

Unilever is learning about the dangers of advertising on user generated sites with the giant consumer company suddenly finding itself under attack for peddling pro- and anti-beauty care campaigns at the same time. Unilever soap brand, Dove launched its anti-beauty care viral video "Onslaught" on YouTube on Oct. 1 and has enjoyed nearly a million views plus countless mentions in the traditional media and blog world.

But not all the mentions have been on message with many pointing to the hypocrisy of Unilever appealing to the anti-beauty brigade with its Dove YouTube video and at the same time promoting an endless stream of big breasted, scantily clad, sex-crazed women in ads supporting its male deodorant, Axe.

And of course it has not taken long before some bright spark mashed the AXE and Dove ads together with the tag line "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does" changed to " before Unilever does." All part of the new world of video media. -Tom