Media trends & analysis from Digitial Hollywood

I recently attended and presented at Digital Hollywood 2010. DH is an industry event which invites technogy companies (software: such as Adobe, Google/YouTube, MSft; hardware: CE mfgrs & chipset vendors,), cable operators (DISH, Comcast, DirecTV) and producers (mostly independents) to discuss and debate technology trends and how it impacts media.
Complete link is here:
http://www.digitalhollywood.com/LASpring10Agenda.html

The key takeaways for me from this event:

Highlights (The Winners)

1. Social is the mantra:

Youtube is still popular place for Indies, however there was a common theme on how media companies are relying more and more on FaceBook to generate traffic for their videos/content. Couple of real live anecdotes

• One producer asked me if he should use YT anymore, since FB is apparently proposing to provide his users with the same level of video playback support that YT does. (We are of course, putting in a lot of effort to make sure his (and all of your) videos are displayed and distributed effectively to his audience.)
• An ex-colleague of mine, who is now CEO of a widely distributed news site, commented on how much traffic from FB he was getting via Like/Share buttons - almost to the point where it was overtaking the referals he was getting from Google.com. I asked him how it didnt bother him that FB was getting to know his user more than he could possibly know. His answer: 'I have no choice'. Thats very telling..

2. Advertising & Analytics:

All media companies & agencies said they were upping the ante on getting detailed analytics in order to figure out best ways to target audience and media buys, and to analyze how their campaigns were doing.
Further, they also commented that they could not rely on ad networks like Google or Rubicon. The CPMs were just too low - they had to supplement ads via their own direct sales force, for which the CPMs and ad quality was just much much better.

3. Ubiquitous video

TV Everywhere/video everywhere is still being hotly discussed and debated - who will be the winners and the losers in this new world (this was also the theme of my panel)?
My personal opinion: winners will be the content owners, with so many ways to distribute their content, they no longer have to be tied to one distributor for their success. Look at what the operators are doing!!

Lowlights (the Losers)

1. 3D in the Living Room
Although the conference tried to muster up enthusiasm for 3D in the home, almost all panelists and attendees agreed this was not the right time - not enough content, too expensive and most importantly it was still at the point which made people want to hurl when viewing at close qtrs in their living room.

I personally agree, although I will point out that I am very bullish on 3D in theaters.