Posts for 'WashingtonPost.com'

It’s no secret that Google, Facebook and other social platforms can help video publishers expand their audience reach and monetization. But the downside is they create risks around losing control of the business, exposing valuable viewer insights and reducing margins. All publishers are grappling with how to balance opportunity and risk with respect to their platform strategies.

At our Online Video Ad Summit, we had a really thoughtful panel called “The Playbook for Surviving and Thriving in the Platform Era” which dug into many of these issues and how publishers/agencies are managing the inherent tradeoffs.

The session included Jarrod Dicker (Head of Commercial Product and Technology, Washington Post), Paul Marcum (President, Truffle Pig), Michael Shane (Global Head of Digital Innovation, Bloomberg Media), with Lorne Brown (President, SintecMedia) moderating. All participants offered highly specific examples of their decision-making and what’s working for them.

Watch the video (37 minutes, 27 seconds).

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Everyone knows that video viewing is exploding, but for content publishers and creators, figuring out how to monetize all that usage is an ever-present challenge. This question was the focus of our Video Ad Summit session, “Unlocking Video’s Value in the OTT Era,” which included Jarrod Dicker (Head of Ad Product and Technology, Washington Post), Nathan Guetta (VP, Product and Technology, Conde Nast Entertainment), Shaun Koiner (Chief Product Officer, Perform Media), Brian Rifkin (Co-founder and SVP, Video Sales, JW Player) and Mark Yackanich (CEO, Genesis Media), with Tom Herman (CEO, DashBid) moderating.

The panelists addressed a number of critical issues including how to deliver world-class user experiences that combine both content and advertising, why it’s critical to distribute content to as many places as possible, how to help advertisers capitalize on emerging opportunities like vertical video and other new formats, the role that data is playing in their monetization strategies and what important trends are going to play out over the next year, among other things.

It’s a dynamic discussion with lots of insights for anyone involved with content creation and monetization.

Watch the video now (34 minutes, 52 seconds).

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It's been a little over 3 months since the Washington Post rolled out its new "PostTV" video initiative, and according to executives at the company, there are ample signs of early success. I recently spoke with Steve Schiffman, GM, Video and Andy Pergam, Senior Editor for Video at the Post who both stressed that while the company is very much in learning mode, there's good progress with PostTV's programming format, distribution strategy and monetization plan.

Post TV has pursued a very focused programming agenda, with 3 "franchise" shows: "In Play" (political deep dive with hosts Chris Cilizza and Jackie Kucinich, which Steve likens to "ESPN for politics") and "On Background" (interviews by Nia-Malika Henderson on Washington news) joining "The Fold" (news magazine format, originally started in conjunction with Google TV in Fall, 2012). Each show has its own production team, who all work as part of one video group.

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