Posts for 'Qik'

I continue to be impressed with how the mobile video market is gaining traction. It seems like rarely a day goes by now where there isn't an announcement by a technology vendor, content provider or service provider related to mobile video. Though it's still well behind online video's adoption, all of the pieces continue to fall into place for mobile video's continued growth.

From a consumer usage standpoint, the iPhone has of course been the key driver. Whenever I'm with an iPhone owner, I'm struck by how deeply they've integrated video into their mobile experience. It's not just that they've downloaded TV shows and movies to watch on planes and so forth, but rather how natural it is for them to start playing a video and then pass their phone around so others can watch also. The iPhone has turbocharged the whole concept of shared, out-of-home video experiences.

And though the iPhone's 30 million estimated units sold represents a huge footprint of new mobile video users (in turn generating a large ecosystem of app developers), from a device standpoint, new entrants are poised to grow the market even further. Devices powered by the Android mobile operating system are continuing to come to market, with the most recent, high-profile example being Motorola's Droid, offered by Verizon Wireless. Verizon is putting a huge marketing push behind the Droid, contributing to a growing sense of awareness by consumers of the appeal of smartphones and their video capabilities in particular. Not surprisingly given its Google parentage, YouTube has also weighed in on the benefits of Android in allowing easier uploading at higher video quality.

In addition the iPhone and Android, among business users, Blackberry continues to dominate and internationally, Nokia has the largest smartphone position. This all suggests there will be vigorous competition among these 4 platforms, leading to lots consumer-facing promotion and rapid innovation. In a recent AdAge piece, IDC estimated that 6% of U.S. cell phone users, or 18 million people, will watch video on their cell phones this year, rising to 27 million in 2013.

Content providers have taken notice of these dynamics and have been aggressively creating video-rich mobile apps, initially for the iPhone, but now also for Android, Nokia and Blackberry smartphones. In a recent conversation I had with Ujjal Kohli, CEO of Rhythm NewMedia, which specializes in "mobilizing and monetizing" broadcast and cable networks' TV shows, he explained how clients continue to bulk up their teams devoted solely to mobile video initiatives. An example of this is Warner Bros, which is among a number of film studios now pursuing mobile initiatives. In addition to building mobile video apps, Rhythm is also creating a mobile video ad network, like Transpera (which I last covered here). As mobile video usage surges, advertising will grow right alongside it. Mobile advertising in general received major validation earlier this week as Google acquired mobile video ad display network AdMob for $750 million.

With all this mobile video activity, technology providers are increasingly their attention to serving their content customers. Just yesterday, Kyte, a video platform company that focused early on mobile, announced that it has launched "application frameworks" for Android and Nokia, following on previous frameworks for iPhone and Blackberry. As Gannon Hall, Kyte's COO told me, its content customers have pushed Kyte for other platforms. Now with native support for all four platforms, Kyte's customers can quickly and cost-effectively adapt existing apps, incorporating full social and monetization functions. While Gannon believes Kyte has taken the lead among OVPs in offering mobile capabilities beyond just APIs, he envisions others ramping up as well. Some evidence of this is today's partnership announcement by VMIX and Qik, to integrate mobile live streaming into VMIX's platform. More will surely follow.

There are plenty of other examples of how the ecosystem supporting mobile video is being built out, such as Clearwire announcing this week $1.5 billion in additional capital raised for its 4G WiMax network, Verizon leading a group of venture investors in a $1.3 billion "LTE" 4G opportunity fund, Adobe releasing Flash Player 10.1 targeted for mobile devices, AT&T accelerating deployment of "HSPA 7.2" technology in 6 cities to boost 3G speeds and Akamai launching its "Akamai HD" network, which among other things supports HD video streaming to the iPhone. These and many other examples form the foundation for ever more robust mobile video experiences in the future.

One of my predictions for 2009 was that after many fits and starts, mobile video finally seemed poised to take off. Nearly 11 months into the year, I think we're seeing ample evidence of this happening. I expect only continued growth going forward.

What do you think? Post a comment now.

I'm back in the saddle after an amazing 10 day trip to Israel with my family. On the assumption that I wasn't the only one who's been out of the office around the recent July 4th holiday, I've collected a batch of industry news links below so you can quickly get caught up (caveat, I'm sure I've missed some). Daily publication of VideoNuze begins again today.

Hulu plans September bow in U.K.

Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips

Update on New Channels

ABC Content Now on Hulu

Nielsen Online: Kids Flocking to the Web

Amid Upfronts, Brands Experiment Online

Clippz Launches Mobile Channel for White House Videos

Prepare Yourself for iPod Video

Study: Web Video "Protail" As Entertaining As TV

In-Stat: 15% of Video Downloads are Legal

Kazaa still kicking, bringing HD video to the Pre?

Office Depot's Circuitous Route: Takes "Circular" Online, Launches "Specials" on Hulu

Upload Videos From Your iPhone to Facebook Right Now with VideoUp

Some Claims in YouTube lawsuit dismissed

Concurrent, Clearleap Team on VOD, Advanced Ads

Generating CG Video Submissions

MJ Funeral Drives Live Video Views Online

Qik Raises $5.5 Million

Why Hulu Succeeded as Other Video Sites Failed

YouTube's Pitch to Hollywood

Invodo Secures Series B Funding

Comcast, USOC Eye Dedicated Olympic Service in 2010

Consumer Groups Push FTC For Broader Broadband Oversight

Crackle to Roll Out "Peacock" Promotion

Earlier Tests Hot Trend with "Kideos" Launch

Mobile entertainment seeking players, payment

Netflix Streams Into Sony Bravia HDTVs

Akamai Announces First Quarter 2009 State of the Internet Report

Starz to Join Comcast's On-Demand Online Test

For ManiaTV, a Second Attempt to be the Next Viacom

Feeling Tweety in "Web Side Story"

Most Online Videos Found Via Blogs, Industry Report

Cox to Turn "MyPrimeTime" Dial to 100

How to Start a Company (and Kiss Like Angelina)

Brightcove and Qik are announcing a partnership this morning that further fuses the broadband and mobile video worlds. Under the partnership Qik users will be able to distribute their mobile-recorded video through Brightcove players if they have a Brightcove account. For Brightcove customers the deal will enables mobile recording as a new source of video into their catalogs.

Qik's client is one of a number of options for mobile video recording and uploading. As I wrote yesterday regarding the iPhone's new video recording capabilities, mobile video capture (and eventually full-featured editing) is poised to become a big activity, implying that few spontaneous significant live events will go unrecorded. We will see additional partnerships like Qik-Brightcove as mobile recording becomes a key source for content providers distributing video over both broadband and mobile.