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Technology Innovation is the Key to Online Video's Rise
While in LA this week, I moderated a short panel at Always On's "OnHollywood" conference with Kaltura's Ron Yekutiel, Akamai's Kevin Freund, Microsoft's David Sayed and Fox Digital Media's Gregg Colvin. The conversation focused on the key technology building blocks for online video.
Clearly there has been a ton of innovation in online video technology, and the panel concluded that online distribution has now come into its own, with key strides in publishing/delivery, devices, user experience and monetization. In particular, panelists pointed to adaptive bit rate streaming, live streaming, HD and video opening up to new applications as important steps forward. On the flip side, the challenges identified as remaining included better measurement, improved capacity in broadband ISPs' "last mile" and reduction in work flow complexity to distribute to multiple devices.
The panel was short and we didn't get to dive too deeply into anything in particular, but I was struck by how optimistic the group was about online video's prospects, especially premium quality video. Granted, they have a vested interest in taking this position. But their tone was one I commonly hear around the industry. Somewhere in the last year or two, the mindset around industry maturity has shifted from "can we do this?" to "yes, it's actually happening." It wasn't that long ago when only the true believers thought online could become a legitimate medium for premium video content.
I strongly believe that's due to a diffusion of efforts by many technology companies, based largely on open standards often already in use on the Internet. This contrasts with the approach, for example, in the pay-TV industry, which traditionally has had far fewer vendors and is too often constrained by proprietary, legacy approaches (the prime example of this is the closed set-top box). These drawbacks have limited the industry's ability to stay current with web-based user experiences. A great example is the grid-formatted on-screen electronic program guide (EPG). At the Media Innovations Summit earlier in the week, I must have had a dozen conversations with attendees about the roll that Netflix is currently on. Often the conversations noted that Netflix has distinguished itself with web-based content discovery/navigation vs. pay-TV operators' EPGs.
These days there's no end to chatter about over-the-top competition leading to cord-cutting. While the jury is still out on how real cord-cutting is, one thing's for sure: online video technology is advancing at a rapid rate, enabling new user experiences and business models. If you want to understand where the battle line between OTT and incumbent video providers is drawn - and being re-drawn - it's essential to focus on technology. That's a reliable predictor of where customers and dollars will flow in the future.
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Topics: Netflix
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