Posts for 'Beachfront Builder'

Beachfront Media announced earlier today that its Beachfront.iO video ad platform has been extended to deliver ads to connected TVs/devices including LG, Samsung, Google and Roku. This means that video content/app providers can tap into ads from multiple sources and manage them across smartphones, tablets, desktop and now connected TVs within one dashboard.

Primarily the extension allows content/app providers to maximize their revenues, improve targeting and achieve better time to market. Frank provided more details in a short video interview today at NATPE, see below.

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Yesterday's VideoSchmooze drew 230+ attendees for a full morning of deep dives into the hottest topics in the industry. One of the sessions focused on mobile video and featured executives from ESPN, PBSKids and VEVO, which are already achieving huge mobile viewership, plus technology provider Beachfront Media, which is powering many popular mobile video apps. While I was moderating, my partner Colin Dixon took notes and he shares his observations below.

Mobile Video Experts Share Insights at VideoSchmooze
by Colin Dixon

At the VideoSchmooze event in NYC Tuesday I sat in on a panel moderated by my podcast partner, Will Richmond, entitled Mobile Video Rising. And according to the panel participants, it is rising indeed. We were treated to a host of eye-popping data showing just how far video to tablets and smartphones has come.

Damon Phillips, VP of Watch ESPN and ESPN3, said that two thirds of smartphone viewing occurred outside of the home. This is very different from other data I heard in June of this year that said that 64% of smartphone viewing and 82% of tablet viewing occurred in the home. Mr. Phillips went on to say that he was very surprised at the length of time people watched. On a smartphone, 15 minute viewing periods are common, while tablet viewing can go the whole length of a game. With respect to the smartphone, this led Mr. Phillips to comment that ESPN targeted shorter subject matter at the devices. The long viewing times on tablets, however, suggest it is being used as a TV replacement.

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Beachfront Media announced the 2.0 version of its Beachfront Builder mobile video app platform at VideoSchmooze today, including new social, commerce, analytics and video management features. Beachfront's CEO Frank Sinton shared a demo with me last week and provided further details today.

Frank explained that Beachfront's customers have been looking to augment their video apps with more social and community-building capabilities. So with the Beachfront Builder 2.0, content providers can add social feeds from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Tumblr, enabling users to engage within the apps themselves. Users can also login to create cross-platform watch later lists, comment and share videos more easily.

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TV powerhouse FremantleMedia has launched a new mobile video app for its hit show Family Feud, available for iOS and Android devices. The app was built using Beachfront Media's Beachfront Builder technology and is being monetized via the company's Beachfront.io platform. The app offers dozens of short highlight clips categorized into channels such as Greatest Hits, Rated R, Interesting Answers, etc. FremantleMedia's Nicholas Dale said the app is meant to "connect with viewers in new ways and create engaging experiences in a multiplatform world."

Beachfront's CEO Frank Sinton told me in a briefing that a key part of FremantleMedia's decision to build its own app was to gain more control and improve the user experience vs. existing mobile viewing on YouTube and also to better monetize viewership. FremantleMedia will now funnel more of its mobile viewership to its own app.

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Beachfront Media, which last month announced its Beachfront.iO mobile video ad platform, is introducing a new interactive video unit, enabling features to drive deeper brand engagement (see samples here). Advertisers can select up to 4 different calls to action to add to their pre-roll ad, including Facebook/Twitter links, click-to-call buttons, map-it functions and links to app store for further downloads and others. A "skinned final screen" is also available for enhanced branding.

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Following is a contributed post by Frank Sinton who is the CEO and founder of Beachfront Media, a video solutions platform for publishers, advertisers, and enterprises. Previously, he worked for Sony Pictures Entertainment as executive director of architecture.

Video Apps, Devices, and Fragmentation: How to Navigate the Maze
by Frank Sinton

Fragmentation has long been an issue in the mobile industry. Even with the advent of the smartphone era, it’s still a problem. Take these stats from a recent report by app analytics company Flurry:

"Suppose you’re an app developer who wants to ensure that your app is optimized to function well on 80% of the individual connected devices currently in use (e.g., my iPad, your Windows phone). How many different device models (e.g., Kindle Fire HD 8.9" Wi-Fi, Galaxy S III) do you think you need to support? 156. Maybe you’re okay with having your app optimized for only 60% of active devices. That still means that you need to support 37 different devices. Even getting to 50% means supporting 18 devices, as shown below. If you’re a large or particularly thorough app developer, reaching 90% of active devices will require supporting 331 different models."

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Beachfront Media has announced that its Beachfront Builder video application development platform now supports connected TVs from LG and Samsung, along with connected TV devices such as Roku and most Google TV products. In addition to these devices, apps built using Beachfront Builder also run natively in iOS devices, Android phones/tablets, HTML5/Web and Windows 8. Beachfront apps also include analytics and monetization in the form of video pre-rolls.

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While the quantity and quality of mobile apps keeps expanding, there's one corner of the ecosystem that has lagged: high-quality video apps. Once you get beyond apps like HBO Go, Netflix, WatchESPN, Hulu Plus, Xfinity and a handful of others, the choice and quality drops off pretty quickly. That's because great video apps are expensive to build and to maintain, especially since the number of mobile device platforms keeps multiplying.

This is the problem that Beachfront Media, which has built the video aggregator MeFeedia, is trying to solve with a new mobile video app development platform it announced called Beachfront Builder, which launches in private beta next Thursday. With Beachfront Builder, content providers are able to quickly build video apps for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire, with others coming soon.

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