Posts for 'thePlatform'

With momentum growing for "TV Everywhere" type services, it's to be expected that technology vendors will begin offering products that meet the evolving range of requirements video service providers will encounter. One example is ExtendMedia, which today is introducing OpenCase "Publisher." With TV Everywhere type services still so new, even labeling the various capabilities video service providers will require to succeed is still a work in process. In a meeting last week, Extend's executives helped me understand what will be needed and what the Publisher product provides.

To date, much attention around TV Everywhere has focused on "authentication" - how a service provider would implement credentials (e.g. logins and passwords) so only authorized users could access its online video catalog. This gatekeeping step has rightly received a lot of focus, because leakage of any premium video must be prevented. Authentication is tricky though, as users must be verified as being who they say they (e.g. passwords haven't been improperly shared). But assuming for a moment that tight authentication processes are implemented, other challenges and opportunities remain.

For example, once authenticated, service providers need to be able to expose only those parts of their overall catalog each specific user is entitled to view (e.g. if I'm not an HBO subscriber, I shouldn't get access to HBO programs online). This notion of "service management and provisioning" means service providers need to create different bundles online, just as they have done offline. And the bundles need to be easy to change: a service provider may want to change a channel lineup and/or a subscriber may want to add a new channel.

Service management and provisioning itself requires that there's a scalable content management system in place. The service provider will need to be able to ingest lots of premium video from many different sources while also and accepting and assigning specific rules to each program as needed (e.g. one program may be available immediately and indefinitely, while another will be available just for a week, but starting at a specified future time). In addition, metadata must be assigned so programs can be tracked, and searched by users.

The above requirements are further complicated because TV Everywhere services are envisioned to work across multiple devices as well. That means that authentication must also work on smartphones, gaming consoles, portable media players, etc. The devices themselves must be registered and recognized so they can be linked to users' accounts. In some cases license terms will further restrict how specific parts of services are accessible, and under what addition terms (in turn possibly requiring DRM).

Last but not least is monetization. Given current plans not to charge extra for TV Everywhere, advertising from online viewing is the main new revenue-generating opportunity. So integrations with ad servers already used by content providers, along with the ability to measure and report on usage, is another crucial capability. Separate, a totally new monetization opportunity will be trying to upsell online subscribers on new services. For instance, HBO might run a promotion offering a sneak peek of a "True Blood" premiere to all TV Everywhere users. The service provider needs to not only support the promotion, but also offer one-click upsell subscription to HBO, and dynamic provisioning of the whole HBO catalog to the new subscriber.

As I've written previously, TV Everywhere is an exciting step forward for both the broadband industry and video service providers. Yet it is a very new world where things get complicated very fast. Vendors like Extend - and other leaders like thePlatform and Irdeto to name two - which have traditionally focused on cross-platform support for video service providers are increasingly going to be called on to turn executives' visions into reality.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

(Note - ExtendMedia and thePlatform are VideoNuze sponsors)

This morning Kaltura takes the wraps off its "Community Edition" open source video platform, available as a free download, thereby threatening to disrupt its established proprietary competitors (e.g. Brightcove, thePlatform, Ooyala, Digitalsmiths, Fliqz, Delve, VMIX, etc.). Yesterday Kaltura's CEO Ron Yekutiel explained open source and Community Edition's opportunity. Later in the day I spoke to executives at many of its competitors to get their take what impact open source will have on the video platform market.

As a quick primer, open source isn't a novelty; it's a standard way that certain kinds of software are now developed. Successful companies like Red Hat have been built around open source. In fact many of today's web sites run on the open source software stack commonly known as "LAMP" - Linux (OS), Apache (web server), MySQL (database) and Perl/PHP/Python (scripts). Kaltura has been pioneering open source in the video platform industry which has been dominated by proprietary competitors. Ron believes the video platform industry is ripe for open source success because it has too many proprietary companies offering minor feature differences, all using a SaaS model only and competing too heavily on price.

Kaltura Community Edition's three big differentiators are that it's free for the base platform and offers greater control through self-hosting which can be behind the customer's firewall. Ron also believes that by tapping into the open source community, CE can offer more flexibility and extensibility than its competitors.

As with all open source options though, free isn't "free," because if you're interested in support and maintenance, professional services for customization and certain features like syndication, advertising, SEO and content delivery, these all cost extra. And you can't forget about the costs of the internal staff you'd need to run the video platform or the costs of the infrastructure itself (servers, bandwidth, storage, etc.). In the SaaS world, many of these costs are borne by the provider and then reflected in the monthly fee. Determining which approach is more cost-effective depends on your particular circumstances and needs.

When it comes to features, clearly the ability to download CE and self-host is a big differentiator, and will be valued by segments of the market. As Ron pointed out, there are government agencies, universities and others who have mandates to self-host. He also noted that by customers' gaining access to CE's code, their ability to integrate with other applications and customize is enhanced (though again, not without an additional cost).

Other industry executives countered that unless you have to self-host, these advantages are diminished by the fact that in this capex and opex budget constraints make SaaS more appealing than ever, especially for smaller customers with less in-house technical expertise. They added that they're rarely asked about self-hosting options (though that could well be due to self-selection).

Further, many of the leading video platform companies offer a slew of APIs, which open their platforms to 3rd party developers without needing to be open source per se (examples include Brightcove's and thePlatform's robust partner programs). Another industry CEO noted that while there's a gigantic and highly active open source community in the LAMP world, it remains to be seen just how vibrant it is in the video space. And it's important to remember that the intense competition among today's video platforms have already driven the feature bar quite high.

So the question remains: will Kaltura's CE open source approach truly disrupt the video platform industry, causing rampant customer switching and gutting today's pricing models? My sense is no, or at least not immediately. Instead, Kaltura will definitely grow the market, creating new video customers from those who have been dissatisfied with current choices or have not yet jumped into video, but inevitably will. CE will likely peel away some percentage of existing proprietary customers who have been eager for a self-hosted, open source alternative. For many others though, they'll be keeping an eye on open source and will successfully push their existing providers to adopt similar capabilities if they're valued.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Below is the 20th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for June 12, 2009.

This week I discuss the rampant innovation that I'm observing throughout the broadband video industry. My last few posts have provided several great examples of the technology, content and business model innovation now underway. These include product introductions from Blackwave and thePlatform, original online video from the Pennsylvania Tourism Office and syndicated product videos to online retailers from Invodo. Broadband video is far more than just a new entertainment medium!

Meanwhile Daisy discusses the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, which was held this week in San Francisco. Among other things, the company unveiled several video-centric features for its new iPhone 3G S. These include adaptive live streaming, video capture/edit and direct video downloads for rental or own (i.e. a sideload from iTunes no longer required). Daisy explains that the video capture/edit capability positions the iPhone closer to the Flip video camera, setting up a new competitive dynamic for Flip and its new parent, Cisco.

Daisy sees the iPhone becoming a bona fide "media portal" that takes on some of the appeal of Amazon's Kindle. I agree with that comparison. Notwithstanding other smartphones launching like last week's Palm Pre, the iPhone will continue to have the greatest impact on the budding mobile video market.

Click here to listen to the podcast (14 minutes, 23 seconds)

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I continue to be impressed with the ecosystem of technology companies whose products enable online video to be delivered better, cheaper and faster. Video quality has made incredible strides over the last ten years, evolving from grainy postage stamp-sized experiences to gorgeous HD or near-HD experiences that are becoming more routine. This is causing a powerful "virtuous cycle" to take hold: as users' video experiences improve they watch more video. As they watch more they help fuel more investment in the online video medium.

In particular, CDNs' ability to offer better service even as their delivery rates continue to plummet is based on continuous improvements in their infrastructure. Similarly, content providers' ability to offer higher-quality video is based on improving operational efficiencies and costs in their content management and publishing processes. Two announcements today illustrate both of these dynamics quite well.

First, Blackwave, a Boston-area early-stage provider of video storage and delivery systems that I've been following for a while, is announcing today the R6, its first production system, along with its first major CDN customer, CDNetworks. Last week, Andrew Grant, Blackwave's director of business development and Mike Killian, CTO gave me an update,

Blackwave's focus in on giving CDNs a more powerful, more efficient way of storing and serving high-quality video content. The R6 reduces the CDN's hardware requirements by offering both higher-density and more intelligent storage. One example is that Blackwave continuously gauges the popularity of certain pieces of content. If their popularity increases, more resources are provisioned for higher-availability; if their popularity decreases (as for Long Tail content), they get fewer resources. Among other things, Blackwave is also able to support WMS and Flash streaming, FTP uploading for content ingest and "multi-tenancy" for customer resource sharing.

The net effect of all this is that Blackwave believes it can deliver 10x improvements in both capex (through lower hardware requirements) and opex (through lower power, cooling, data center costs). All of this of course means that CDNs gain more financial flexibility to deliver ever higher quality content from their customers.

Separate, thePlatform (note a VideoNuze sponsor) is announcing today that it is launching mpsManage Ingest, a new streamlined feature for ingesting its customers' content. Marty Roberts, thePlatform's VP of Marketing told me last week that as video quality has increased - thereby causing an explosion of file sizes - the time and effort to ingest them has grown more burdensome and costly. This is particularly true for companies with large or dynamic video libraries.

mpsManage Ingest sets up "Watch Folders" where customers push their content via FTP, a feed reader for thePlatform to subscribe to updates and multi-format ingest adaptors. mpsManage Ingest carries no extra charge, and continues the company's recent efforts to lower the total cost of operating for video content providers (see earlier post on thePlatform's mpsManage Storage and mpsManageCDN offerings).

These are just two examples of how improved technology is enabling higher-quality video. There's plenty more happening; I recently received a briefing from Nokeena, which provides video caching, streaming and delivery intelligence for delivery across screens, a category that includes others like Verivue and EdgeWare, which I haven't spoken to yet. Then there is adaptive bit rate streaming from companies like Move Networks, Adobe and Microsoft, efficient transcoding from companies like Grab Networks, HD Cloud, mPoint and Encoding.com and file transfer and work flow acceleration from companies like Aspera and Signiant.

Adding it all up, the ecosystem of technology helping enable higher-quality, more efficient delivery of online video is impressive and its momentum is growing. Users will continue to benefit from all of these initiatives, as the quality line between conventional delivery and online delivery further blurs.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

The ad management company Adap.tv has taken the wraps off its new "Player Partner Program" this morning. Initial partners include Brightcove, thePlatform, Mogulus, VMIX, Twistage and Kaltura. All are now integrated with Adap.tv's "OneSource" ad management system.

Yesterday, Dakota Sullivan, Adap.tv's VP of Marketing told me that though the company has been working with Brightcove and thePlatform informally to date, the new program will provide more structure to partners. Included are a central location on the Adap.tv web site for partners for promotional purposes along with other co-marketing and technology updates. No cash is changing hands with partners though, as Adap.tv tries to maintain neutrality.

These types of partnership programs are springing up all around the broadband video ecosystem, as companies continue to carve out their specific niches, and seek to benefit from partners' marketing efforts in a resource-constrained environment. I expect we'll continue to see them get rolled out.

Below is the 6th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Feb. 13, 2009.

This week Daisy Whitney and I discuss the growth of mobile video and specifically new research that Cisco released earlier this week indicating massive increases in traffic over the next 5 years.

Of course mobile video has never suffered from a shortage of hype, but with the popularity of the iPhone and other smartphones, mobile video usage finally seems to be crystallizing in '09. Daisy and I discuss several apps, including one coming up this weekend from NBA.com and TNT whereby users will be able to watch 4 additional camera angles of the All-Star game on their iPhones.

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Here's another sign of the times: thePlatform is announcing this morning that it has launched three new initiatives aimed at reducing small-to-medium (SMB) sized content providers' total cost of running their broadband video operations. In the context of the woeful economy, it's a savvy move.

In effect thePlatform (note, a VideoNuze sponsor) is using its scale to create a buyer's cooperative to save money on three services (CDN, storage and others), thereby enabling its SMB customers to receive pricing comparable to what big customers can negotiate themselves. With thePlatform's customers driving 440 million video views in December '08, (3rd place after Google's site and Fox Interactive Media) according to comScore, the company is in a strong position to use its size on behalf of its SMB customers. I talked to Marty Roberts, thePlatform's VP Marketing, who explained the specifics of how the savings would work.

thePlatform's initiatives are based on an analysis it conducted of its SMB customers' key cost elements. No surprise, the cost of delivery was the biggest chunk, coming in at 78% of total. This was calculated using a set of assumptions including $.55/GB for delivery. For its new "mpsManage CDN" service, thePlatform has partnered with EdgeCast to resell its service for $.35/GB, resulting in a 36% savings on delivery costs. It will also be available on a utility basis, meaning no monthly commitments. Marty said that thePlatform will continue to work with its other 15 CDN partners, but I would guess that this new program is going to gain a lot of attention among its SMB customer base.

Delivery costs have always been a central issue for making the broadband P&L work. Having done many business cases for various content providers over the years, I'm well-acquainted with how quickly CDN costs can gobble up potential profitability even though the cost/GB delivered has plunged over the years. Yet there is a raft of CDNs out there to choose from, and the key is finding the right one for your needs at the moment and your budget. Still delivery costs persist as a major flashpoint: some of you may have read Mark Cuban's post just 2 weeks ago "The Great Internet Video Lie" in which he basically asserted that large CDNs and their pricing are the real gatekeepers to a truly open broadband distribution model (for the record, I think some of his points are valid, but long-term his logic is flawed).

The other programs thePlatform is rolling out are important, though not as impactful as the delivery option, simply because their percentage of underlying total costs is so much smaller in size. thePlatform is offering a new storage program which slashes the cost of storage from $8/GB on average, to $2/GB. Though a big cut, thePlatform calculates storage only accounts for 5% of total costs today.

Lastly, through its new Advantage program it's tapping into a select group of its ecosystem partners to find another 10% or more cost reduction on services like advertising, reporting and analytics and online community creation. Advantage program participants include Panache, BlackArrow, TubeMogul, Live Rail, ScanScout, Gloto and Visible Measures.

Add it all up and thePlatform believes it can offer a 32% reduction in "total cost of ownership" for SMB video content providers. These new services create a new revenue stream for the company, as the reduced prices include a margin for thePlatform as well. And as Marty pointed out the SMB space is quite vibrant and these programs will allow thePlatform to be more competitive in winning deals by giving them another negotiating lever.

thePlatform's moves are also smart from a positioning standpoint; in this troubled economy I think providers who overtly message that they are doing what they can to save customers money generate valuable notoriety. In good times everyone's focused on top-line growth and wants more features and flexibility. In bad times those goals are still valued, but saving money - which can often make the difference in merely surviving - is prized over everything else (Ben Franklin said it best: "a penny saved is a penny earned"). As a result, I suspect we'll see more companies unveiling messages of this kind in the months to come.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Brightcove is unveiling "Brightcove Alliance" today, a wide-ranging ecosystem of technology, distribution and solution partners who have integrated with and/or are building applications on the the company's platform. Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove's CEO briefed me last week.

As he explained it, Brightcove 3, the recently released, latest generation of the company's platform, represented a new push on openness and extensibility which are the key requirements for building out an ecosystem. Alliance partner benefits include platform APIs, training, support and improved access to Brightcove's long list of content provider customers through pre-built integrations.

The company is announcing more than 80 partners today, covering just about every aspect of the broadband world. The press release includes supporting quotes from a dozen partners and customers and Jeremy added that many others expressed interest and will be included subsequently.

The only other large and formalized industry ecosystem I'm aware of is thePlatform's Framework program, which was announced last February and added to in September. It now totals over 60 companies and includes some overlapping names with Brightcove.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

Notwithstanding the countless times I've received emails with links to video clips or visited social networking pages where video is embedded, I've often had the sense that true social engagement around premium quality video has been lacking.

"Engagement" is one of those nebulous Internet words that can mean many things to different people. To me, the most appropriate online engagement opportunities should be modeled on how we have traditionally engaged with offline media. Some relevant offline examples that come to mind include recommending a movie to a friend, clipping a newspaper article to send to a colleague, chatting informally with friends and family during a TV show or sharing opinions about favorite actors and actresses over drinks.

As consumers shift their viewing to broadband, the key to engagement is to enable users to effortlessly and intuitively emulate some or all of these behaviors. I concede that's easier said than done. Yet in addition to existing efforts, I see new signs that premium video sites are starting to understand how strategic it is for them to incent user engagement. New steps are being taken to make deeper, more consistent engagement a reality, not just a goal.

For example, just yesterday CBS announced its "Social Viewing Rooms" which allow users to view programs together while commenting, interacting and finding each other (note this is something that Paltalk and others have pursued for a while). It wasn't clear from the announcement, but I think a critical success factor for CBS will be allowing users to bring existing friends (from Facebook, MySpace, etc.) into the rooms, rather than requiring new relationships to be built.

I found another example in a presentation I recently attended by Ian Blaine, thePlatform's CEO. In it, he made clear that his company is planning a big push into engagement-oriented features ranging from recommendations to ratings to social networking via sister company Plaxo. Still another initiative is "MediaFriends" a clever application that's coming soon from Integra5 which converges text messaging and social networking with viewing across multiple screens. Finally, another is from Volo Media, which is today announcing a plug-in for iTunes that allows one-touch sharing, bookmarking and more, helping open up a window from iTunes into the larger web environment.

All of these activities are in addition to other social media capabilities being brought to premium video from companies like KickApps, PermissionTV, Brightcove, Gotuit and Magnify.net. Then of course there's the steady migration of premium video into YouTube, which is the granddaddy of video sharing and social engagement.

Broadband is much more than an exciting new distribution outlet for video providers, it's also a whole new platform for extending social behaviors that are deeply valued and highly ingrained in all of us into the virtual world. Embracing opportunities for deeper engagement with and around premium video means thinking of viewers more as participants and less as passive audiences. When done right the payoffs in engagement, loyalty, viewing time and monetization will be substantial.

What do you think? Post a comment now!

Welcome to October. Recapping another busy month, here are 3 key themes from September:

1. When established video providers use broadband, it must be to create new value

Broadband simultaneously threatens incumbent video businesses, while also opening up new opportunities. It's crucial that incumbents moving into broadband do so carefully and in ways that create distinct new value. However, in September I wrote several posts highlighting instances where broadband may either be hurting existing video franchises, or adding little new value.

Despite my admiration for Hulu, in these 2 posts, here and here, I questioned its current advertising implementations and asserted that these policies are hurting parent company NBC's on-air ad business. Worse yet, In "CNN is Undermining Its Own Advertisers with New AC360 Live Webcasts" I found an example where a network is using broadband to directly draw eyeballs away from its own on-air advertising. Lastly in "Palin Interview: ABC News Misses Many Broadband Opportunities" I described how the premier interview of the political season produced little more than an online VOD episode for ABC, leaving lots of new potential value untapped.

Meanwhile new entrants are innovating furiously, attempting to invade incumbents' turf. Earlier this week in "Presidential Debate Video on NYTimes.com is Classic Broadband Disruption," I explained how the Times's debate coverage positions it to steal prime audiences from the networks. And at the beginning of this month in "Taste of Home Forges New Model for Magazine Video," I outlined how a plucky UGC-oriented magazine is using new technology to elbow its way into space dominated by larger incumbents.

New entrants are using broadband to target incumbents' audiences; these companies need to bring A-game thinking to their broadband initiatives.

2. Purpose-driven user-generated video is YouTube 2.0

In September I further advanced a concept I've been developing for some time: that "purpose-driven" user-generated video can generate real business value. I think of these as YouTube 2.0 businesses. Exhibit A was a company called Unigo that's trying to disrupt the college guidebook industry through student-submitted video, photos and comments. While still early, I envision more purpose-driven UGV startups cropping up in the near future.

Meanwhile, brand marketers are also tapping the UGV phenomenon with ongoing contests. This trend marked a new milestone with Doritos new Super Bowl ad contest, which I explained in "Doritos Ups UGV Ante with $1 Million Price for Top-Rated 2009 Super Bowl Ad." There I also cataloged about 15 brand-sponsored UGV contests I've found in the last year. This is a growing trend and I expect much more to come.

3. Syndication is all around us

Just in case you weren't sick of hearing me talk about syndication, I'll make one more mention of it before September closes out. Syndication is the uber-trend of the broadband video market, and several announcements underscored its growing importance.

For example, in "Google Content Network Has Lots of Potential, Implications" I described how well-positioned Google is in syndication, as it ties AdSense to YouTube with its new Seth MacFarlane "Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy" partnership. The month also marked the first syndication-driven merger, between Anystream and Voxant, a combination that threatens to upend the competitive dynamics in the broadband video platform space. Two other syndication milestones of note were AP's deal with thePlatform to power its 2,000+ private syndication network, and MTV's comprehensive deal with Visible Measure to track and analyze its 350+ sites' video efforts.

I know I'm a broken record on this, but regardless of what part of the market you're playing in, if you're not developing a syndication plan, you're going to be out of step in the very near future.

That's it for September, lots more planned in October. Stay tuned.

What do you think? Post a comment!

Another day, and another milestone reached in the market's ongoing embrace of video syndication.

Yesterday's significant news was that the Associated Press, which has built arguably the largest private broadband syndication network, including over 2,000 affiliates which receive thousands of video clips each month, has signed up thePlatform to power its Online Video Network. The deal effectively replaces Microsoft, which has been AP's partner for OVN for the past several years. AP uses OVN primarily to feed daily video clips to its newspaper and broadcast partner web sites which it monetizes through ads. Yesterday I caught up with Ian Blaine, thePlatform's CEO to learn more about the deal.

Ian explained that while the scale of AP's video syndication model is far more extensive than anything his company has supported in the past, thePlatform's ability to handle similar kinds of issues that AP faces was crucial in winning the deal. First and foremost is providing a workflow model that allows video assets to be ingested, encoded, tagged and distributed to the whole OVN in under 15 minutes. In the news business, obviously every second counts.

Beyond workflow efficiency, Ian explained that AP has a dizzying set of business rules that apply to its syndicated video, depending upon the particular outlet. So AP producers also have to be able to expeditiously apply policies and track each video accordingly. AP is also enabling its affiliates to upload their own videos, which are melded with AP video in the affiliate's player. So that required some of thePlatform's tools to be extended to affiliates, along with some basic video player customization.

The obvious question here is whether and when AP will extend OVN to the thousands of sites beyond its 2,000 current affiliates. Like Google Content Network which has virtually infinite end points, or even Anystream-Voxant which has 30,000+ publishing partners, why should AP restrict itself, particularly when news video is one of the hottest categories around? While hesitating to speak for AP's roadmap, Ian's sense was that AP first wants to master syndication to its own affiliates before considering opening up a full-blown video marketplace.

As I've written previously, my enthusiasm for the Syndicated Video Economy is tempered by the reality that significant operational, financial and strategic friction still impedes the model. Coincidentally, late yesterday someone asked me:"How will this syndication friction be resolved and how long will it take?" My response: "I can't say how long it will take, but the more experience the broadband ecosystem gets with real-world syndication, the faster the model will mature." In this respect, partnerships between big content providers like AP and capable technology partners like thePlatform will help move the model forward for everyone.

What do you think? Click here to post a comment.

thePlatform, the video management/publishing company that's been a part of Comcast since early '06, had a very good day yesterday. First it jointly announced with Time Warner Cable a deal to power the #2 cable operator's Road Runner portal. And the Wall Street Journal ran a story stating that it has also signed deals with the cable industry's #3 player Cox Communications and #5 player, Cablevision Systems, which thePlatform corroborates.

Netting all this out, thePlatform will now power 4 of the top 5 cable industry's broadband portals (all except Charter Communications), with a total reach exceeding 28 million broadband homes, according to data collected by Leichtman Research Group. That also equals approximately 44% of all broadband homes in the U.S. And it's a fair bet that thePlatform's industry penetration will further grow.

I caught up with Ian Blaine, thePlatform's CEO yesterday to learn a little more about the deals and whether the industry's semi-standardization around one broadband video management platform harkens a serious, and I'd argue overdue, industry push into broadband video delivery.

Ian noted that of its various customer deals, the ones with distributors like these are particularly valuable because of their potential for "network effects." This concept means that content and application providers are more likely to also adopt thePlatform if their key distributors are already using it themselves. Ian's point is very valid, as I constantly hear from content providers about the costs of complexity in dealing with multiple distributors and their varying management platforms. Yet the potential is only realized if the distributors actually build out and promote their services, offering sizable audiences to would-be content partners.

This of course has been the aching issue in the cable industry. While they've had their portal plays for years, they've been eclipsed in the hearts and minds of users by upstarts ranging from YouTube to Hulu to Metacafe to countless others, each now drawing millions of visitors each month. While solidly utilitarian, cable's portals (with the possible exception of Comcast's Fancast) are not generally regarded as go-to places for high-quality, or even UGC video. That's been a real missed opportunity.

Ian thinks the industry is experiencing an awakening of sorts, now recognizing the massive potential it's sitting on. This includes its content relationships, network ownership and huge customer reach. Of course, all of this was plainly visible in 1998 as broadband was first taking off, yet here we are 10 years later, and it somehow seems discordant to think the industry is only now grasping its strategic strengths.

Some would explain this as the cable industry being more of a "fast follower" than a true pioneer, a posture that has helped the industry avoid hyped-up and costly opportunities others have chased to their early graves. Others would offer a less charitable explanation: the industry's executives have either been asleep at the switch, overly focused on defending traditional closed video models against open broadband's incursion, or both.

In truth, and as I've mentioned repeatedly, the broadband video industry is still very early in its development, making a "fast follower" strategy still quite viable. Semi-standardization on thePlatform gives the industry a huge potential advantage in attracting content providers. It also gives the industry a more streamlined mechanism for bridging broadband video over to the TV, an area of intense interest now being pursued by juggernauts including Microsoft, Apple, Sony, Panasonic and others.

Anystream, a long-time player in video transcoding, is announcing that its Media Lifecycle Platform has been implemented by 11 of Hearst-Argyle's 29 owned and operated TV stations.

The move suggests even more vigorous competition is coming to the video management/publishing space where players like thePlatform, Brightcove, Maven, ExtendMedia, PermissionTV, Akamai (StreamOS), WorldNow and others have focused.

I sat down with Anystream (note, a periodic VideoNuze sponsor) president Bill Holding and founder/chairman Geoff Allen recently to learn more about their expansion strategy.

Anystream is well-known in the digital media space as it Agility transcoding platform is deployed in over 700 companies. Leveraging this base of relationships and its knowledge of customers' work flows, Anystream is now "moving north" by focusing on the video management layer. The core technology comes from Anystream's 2007 acquisition of Cauldron Solutions, which has been built out, renamed as Velocity and integrated with Agility.

Anystream's new, broader positioning rests on its belief that the video "Produce-Manage-Monetize" lifecycle elements are deeply linked, and that ultimately a comprehensive, integrated solution will be prized by media companies serious about scaling their broadband video businesses. At the manage layer specifically, Velocity focuses on rights, scheduling, packaging, syndication and asset tracking.

Anystream believes metadata it gains access to, at the start of the video lifecycle through its transcoding role, is a unifying value driver in the video management and monetization phases.

Hearst-Argyle clearly saw the benefits of this approach, citing Anystream's metadata management as opening up new content re-use opportunities and creating competitive advantage. In the press release, Joe Addalia, H-A's director of technology projects, said H-A has cut its production and distribution to online channels "from 30 minutes to 3 1/2 minutes."

I continue to be impressed with how many companies are staking a claim in the broadband video management/publishing space. I'm constantly trying to discern the real competitive differentiators that separate industry players. Like many of you, I often find the landscape quite blurry, with overlapping capabilities. Each player tends to cite its traditional competencies as being the best building blocks from which to build a full scale management/publishing platform.

While it's tempting to say "they can't all be right," the fact that so many players are finding market success today indicates that content owners are not monolithic in their specific requirements and that a giant game of matchmaking seems to be occurring between content owners and video management providers. One day there may be a consensus on who truly has the "best" management platform, but for now that day seems to be far off.

What do you think? Post a comment and let us all know!

I am ever mindful of the old adage about "missing the forest for the trees" as I try daily to understand the often minor feature differences between competing vendors or the nuances of startups' market positioning. As we all know, when you get too close to something, it's quite easy to lose the larger perspective. So periodically I think it's essential to take a huge step back to try to identify the larger patterns or trends that crystallize from the daily frenzy of deals and announcements.

As a result, I've come to believe that recent industry activity points to an emerging and significant trend: the early formation of what I would term the "syndicated video economy." By this I mean to suggest that I'm seeing more and more industry participants' strategies - in both media and technology - start from the proposition that the broadband video industry will only succeed if video assets are widely dispersed and revenue creatively apportioned.

For content providers the notion of widespread video syndication big change in their business approach. In the past year I think we've observed content providers of all stripes transition from "aggregating eyeballs", to "accessing eyeballs," wherever they may live now or in the future: portals, social networks, portable devices, game consoles, etc. Underlying this shift is the realization that advertising-based revenues are going to fuel the broadband video industry for the foreseeable future. The ad model requires scale and syndication is the best way to deliver it.

This shift by content providers has been accompanied by a loosening of traditional tightly-controlled, scarcity-driven distribution strategies, an acknowledgement that fighting newly-empowered consumers is a futile exercise. The evidence of this shift abounds. Consider the broadcasters like CBS, NBC and Fox, which through their affiliates (Hulu, CBS Audience Network) are syndicating programming to many portals/aggregators (e.g. Yahoo, MSN, AOL, YouTube), social networks (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, Bebo) and others. And Disney's Stage 9 digital studio, which premiered with YouTube and explicitly plans to tap into broadband video hubs. And cable networks like MTV Networks, which is pursuing a plethora of distribution deals. And traditional news-gatherers like local TV stations, newspapers and news services (e.g. Reuters, AP) which have stepped up their activity to scatter their video clips to the Internet's nooks and crannies. And the list goes on and on.

Taking their cue from the media companies' strategy shift, technology entrepreneurs and investors have ramped up their focus on this market opportunity. The prospect of the syndicated video economy blossoming drives news/information distributors such as Voxant, ClipSyndicate, Mochilla, TheNewsMarket and RedLasso, an ad manager such as FreeWheel, and a content accelerator such as Signiant, plus many others. Then there are more established companies guiding areas of their product development process by the prospect of the syndicated video economy's growth: Google, WorldNow, Akamai, thePlatform, Anystream, Maven Networks, Brightcove, PermissionTV and plenty of others (apologies to those I've left out!)

All of this suggests that the eventual "value chain" of the broadband video industry will look quite different than the traditional one (for more on this, I've posted some my slides from late '07 here.) As with all economies, in the nascent syndicated video economy there is vast interdependence among the various players, not to mention shifting market positions and degrees of pricing power and negotiating leverage. It is far too early to gauge who will emerge as the syndicated video economy's winners and losers. But make no mistake, lots of energy and investment will be expended trying to nurture its growth and exploit its opportunities.

Do you see the syndicated video economy forming as well? Post a comment and let us all know!

Yesterday I did an hour-long briefing with Jeremy Allaire, Brightcove's CEO/founder at their Cambridge offices.

Background

If I were to make a list of the 5 questions I've been asked most frequently over the last two years, "What do you think about Brightcove?" would easily be on the list. Certainly a lot of the attention Brightcove has generated relates to its fund-raising leadership. Through three rounds, the company has raised $82 million, including the monster $59.5 million C round closed in January 2007.

By my count the only pure-play, private broadband video company that has raised more is Hulu, which raised $100M in one round from Providence Equity. But Hulu's probably not a fair comparison given that NBC and News Corp are the company's primary owners and are contributing exclusive content. (btw, if anyone has a different take on who's raised more, please leave a comment)

So this briefing was a great opportunity to get a first-hand update and also channel many of the follow-on questions I've been asked about Brightcove. (Full disclaimer, Brightcove is a VideoNuze sponsor.) Jeremy also shared some new stats with me that haven't been disclosed before.

Positioning

Brightcove's positioning has shifted around in the 18 months since its official launch causing many industry tongues to wag.

Jeremy explained that in the summer of 2007 the company did a candid assessment of its competitive standing across areas in which it was involved. While his original vision included a consumer-facing destination site (named Brightcove TV), this assessment concluded that with YouTube's dominance, Brightcove's goal to be number 1 in that business was unlikely to ever materialize. Further, the potential for conflict with its own media customers had become real. So though Brightcove TV had 8 million unique visitors in August, 2007 according to comScore (making it the number 5 player in that space), Brightcove decided to de-emphasize it and reduce investment spending on it to zero. As a result, Brightcove TV now functions mainly as a showcase site.

The company narrowed its focus to its broadband media publishing and management platform, which Jeremy says is now used by 4,000 professional publishers (sample list here), which Brightcove thinks makes it number 1 among its competitors. These publishers operate 7,000 web sites with an estimated combined reach of 120 million unique visitors per month.

The platform business model includes an annual software licensing fee with upside revenue based on the customers' usage. Jeremy denied that the company is taking ad revenue shares in lieu of platform fees, a rumor that has persistently circulated in the market. Brightcove has also continued to build out a professional support team serving the gamut of design, support, integration and customization required by customers.

Broadband Video Market and Advertising

From Jeremy's vantage point the major media companies Brightcove is serving are aggressively focused on building out their direct-to-consumer broadband video destinations, and only recently have they begun also considering syndication. Brightcove's customers' business models skew overwhelmingly in favor of advertising support, with only negligible interest being shown in Brightcove's commerce capabilities.

On this point Jeremy and I have been in agreement for a long time - the macro factors driving ad-supported broadband businesses are very strong, while those driving paid downloads continue to be challenged. The key catalysts for paid models will be mass connections from broadband to TVs, better portability and improved competitiveness with the DVD platform. In the longer-term all of these will no doubt fall into place, however, for as far as the eye can see, broadband is going to remain an ad-dominated industry.

The follow-up question of course is, what kind of advertising will predominate? Brightcove supports a range of options and Jeremy said that recently interest in overlays is running very high, though 15 second pre and mid-rolls are still used by 99% of its customers today. There's a lot of planning or rolling out of overlays coming shortly by Brightcove customers. People.com was shown as an example of a hybrid pre/mid-roll and overlay model that Jeremy thinks will become more prevalent.

Syndication

Going Forward

Not surprisingly, Jeremy's extremely bullish on broadband's future growth and sees opportunities galore to grow Brightcove's revenues by deepening its penetration of existing customers, driving more international business, especially in Asia, and expanding its fledgling presence in the enterprise/government sectors, where there's also been a lot of recent interest.

Regarding competition, Jeremy says Brightcove still sees internal development as an alternative being considered by some major media companies, though to a lesser and lesser extent recently. He also volunteered that both Maven and thePlatform are two companies Brightcove sees most often competing for deals. When asked what differentiates Brightcove, Jeremy cites product quality, ease-of-use, customer/market leadership, quality of its people and R&D. On this last point, he believes Brightcove's relatively deep pockets have helped it maintain a far more aggressive R&D budget, which grew by 300% this year.

Key upcoming priorities include launching "Brightcove Show", its new HD initiative, "Aftermix", its mash-up feature, which just finished up its beta test, multimedia capabilities (photos and audio) and enabling a slew of social/sharing features.

I couldn't resist asking Jeremy about Brightcove's last round valuation rumored to be north of $200 million. I've heard much skepticism in the market that the Brightcove's platform-centric strategy does not justify this lofty figure.

Jeremy's response is that based on the company's current revenue and recent growth trajectory, it has "grown into" its valuation and that its multiple is comparable to others he's aware of. His main objective is building a "significant global business" and if that's accomplished then there will be numerous options open for what ultimately happens with the company. He wouldn't comment on M&A, IPO or other potential exits, only saying that he feels no pressure from his investors to liquify their positions any time soon.

To achieve his global ambition, Jeremy says he's focused primarily on what actions Brightcove needs to make to dramatically scale the business, which he thinks can drive a real premium for Brightcove's valuation. To the extent that broadband remains mainly an ad-supported business, I think Jeremy correctly understands that scale - in customers, streams, usage, geographic reach, etc. - are absolutely central to success. When asked the classic "what keeps him up at night?", he cites as his chief source of insomnia the challenge of building out every part of the organization to support his goal of massive scale.

As Brightcove continues to evolve and grow, one thing is for certain - all eyes in the broadband industry will be watching its progress.

VideoNuze 1.0 accomplishes what I set out to do at launch - provide a high-value, user-friendly online publication and community for busy video executives seeking to keep up-to-date with the industry's vast array of news and better understand what it means to their businesses. The two primary components of the site, "Analysis" and "News Roundup", are already well-stocked with content and will grow rapidly over time. In addition, I have a full roadmap of features which will also be introduced in the coming months.

As with all online initiatives, VideoNuze is a work in progress and I welcome your feedback. Please have a good look around and let me know what you think. What works well? What's missing? What's broken? No comment or observation is too small, I invite them all.

Today's launch wouldn't be possible without the support of an incredible group of charter sponsors, so I want to acknowledge and thank them again. Each signed on when there was not so much as an official name for the effort. They made a bet on my concept - that an online publication that relentlessly focuses on informing and educating broadband video decision-makers would add real value to the market. I greatly appreciate their confidence.

These companies are all leaders in the fast-evolving video industry and I encourage you to take time to learn about how they can contribute to your company's success:

• Akamai
• ExtendMedia
• thePlatform
• Voxant
• Atlas Venture
• Digitalsmiths
• ICTV
• PermissionTV