Content Stories

Making money from online videos

2010-06-16T21:20:00.000-07:00

I am speaking at an event tomorrow, where I will speak to this very topic. Come hear me to hear all my thoughts on this matter ;)

At the very basic level, there are only three ways to monetize videos - all of which have been exploited to the hilt for decades, by the various players in the ecosystem.

PayTV Model:

This is the traditional cable network model. An aggregator/channel such as ESPN contracts the rights for content from the rights holders such as NFL. They then license it on a per subscriber basis to the distributors (MSOs), who in turn pass on the fees to the end user/subscriber via TV packages.

Ad supported Model

This is the traditional broadcaster model. Content is effectively paid for by Advertisers, and has a nice downstream effect of being free to the end user.

Pay (own, rent or subscriptions)

This is the traditional blockbuster model - users pay to own or rent content. Netflix did well by introducing a subscription model here and extending it to be a streaming service.

The beauty of the Internet is that it can enable players in the ecosystem to employ a mix and match approach of these models, and also make the model more efficient and targeted.

For example ESPN3 has employed a variation of the payTV model for its online site. Only subscribers of affiliated ISPs can access content online - this is the traditional payTV model. However, taking advantage of the Internet, they also enable subscribers of the affiliates to access the site when traveling within the US - the premise of TV Everywhere. Outside of the US, you can use a pay model to access the content. See here for some very detailed analysis on ESPN3.
EpixHD also announced a payTV approach for broadband access of its content.

MLB.tv is not tied to the payTV model, and is offering its content online directly to users on a pay/ala carte subscribe basis.

At youtube, premium content is mostly ad supported - ads can be targeted to preferred user demographics and can also be interactive. We are also working on pay content: youtube.com/store. A very innovative solution on ads is offered in the form of promoted videos. The concept here is that ads are also content - and can drive organic as well as promoted views in its own right. In fact, if you can drive more views for your video ads, that speaks volumes for the quality of the ad.

So which model will win on the Internet? Like I said, it will be a mix and match approach, with the winner being the ones who can take advantage of the unique aspects that Internet to make the model more effective and efficient for the end user.

Social recommendations leads to clicks on youtube

2010-05-18T17:59:00.001-07:00

Check out my interview at Digital Hollywood where I give insights into Internet video:
http://www.ultralivetv.com/partners.php?apid=ShaliniGovil-Pai

Media trends & analysis from Digitial Hollywood

2010-05-07T10:20:00.000-07:00

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.

What markets will the Apple ipad replace?

2010-04-06T13:11:00.000-07:00

I got an ipad this weekend. After playing around with it for a few days, here is my experience and predictions on what markets its going to replace

Books!

Wow - the device syncs with my kindle online account and the books are really readable in bed (surprised about this actually). I stayed up reading Dan Browns ' - last night and did not go to sleep with a headache
Whats its going to replace? The market for Amazon kindle (the device, not the online store), Sony Nook.

Video

Netflix app is awesome - as is the ABC viewer (did not test the CBS viewer which is presumably on HTML-5). Youtube is pretty good as well.
Whats it going to replace? portable DVD player market. Being able to download movies via iTunes and using the iPad for watching movies on the go is huge.

On the go productivity

I spend the whole day at work with just my iPad for taking notes and catching up on email during meetings. It was great oto have this light tablet in my hand rather than a huge heavy laptop. However:
What its going to replace? Nothing at this time. Apple needs to consider the following:

Better input mechanism (the virtual keyboarddoesnt cut it;( Perhaps a voice input method.. Another thought is enabling web sites to be more browse/gesture based rather than only search based as the web is today.
Multi-tasking: I really need to be able to have more than one window open at a time when at work!

More as I test further

Tablet Mania

2010-01-21T10:19:00.000-08:00

At my recent CES event, I blogged about how tablets were being positioned as a multi-purpose device - useful for on the go computing, reading books/magazines (ebook reader) and a collaborative device for family members at home.
The part of being a collaborative home device really resonated with me. Imagine a tablet being hung up on the kitchen wall and serving as your good old family notice board, reminders, calendar, sticky notes, control of heating, cooking recipes, media playback at dinner time etc. I can really see families buying into that.
Now, WSJ reported what Apple may be thinking (hey - looks like great minds think alike!). Seems consistent with my own views on the topic.

CES 2010 - Whats hot and whats not!

2010-01-12T13:47:00.000-08:00

Every year, a couple of major themes prevail at CES. Usually its the CE industry's attempt to gather mind share and trigger an upgrade cycle or kick start sales for a new device category. This year was not too far.. Three themes that I gathered from my visit to CES 2010:

3D (TVs and content)
Connected devices (touch screen devices and apps)
Green

Detailed notes and my own takeaways:

TVs:

The showfloor was abuzz with large 3D TV screens and content played in 3D - If I see one more trailer of Avatar in 3D I think I will puke ;).
All major vendors (Sony, Panasonic, Mitsubishi etc.) announced support for HD 3DTVs (buzzword alert!). Sony will be providing a firmware upgrade to their PS3 units to display video games in 3D on supported TVs, and will also upgrade the Blu-ray player to support 3D content. The Sony booth did have some light weight demos of 3D games that looked cool, but did not look production ready as yet. See here for some cool videos.
Panasonic announced a twin lens, full HD 3D camcorder (still pricey, but could be the content that we see on YouTube in the next few years)
Even Intel jumped on the bandwagon, claiming and demoing at their keynote, how their processors could handle editing of 3D content in real time.

Content:

Movie content is already on the 3D bandwagon - now comes time for TV content. ESPN announced it will launch a 3D TV sports channel, starting with the world cup. Sony, Imax and Discovery Communications unveiled plans for a 3D channel broadcasting films and children's shows.

Shalini's takeway: All 3D TV technology still require glasses - major bottleneck for consumer adoption. Note that sports content in 3D looked pretty realistic. Bringing this content to the living room may prove to get some mindshare from sports enthusiasts.

Connected Devices

Touch Screen Devices

Touch screen was the mantra of the day. Starting with mobile phones (The NexxusOne was well received) to tablets (posing as ebook readers or home collaboration devices) to video conferencing solutions, display solutions for retail all the way down to remote controls.
Tablets: Microsoft CEO showcased a tablet coming up by HP that can surf the Web, and display e-books and multimedia content. Many other vendors such as Lenevo and Fujitsu also demonstrated how their notebooks could be transformed into a tablet by detaching the screen. Intel's CEO demoed a tablet device posing as a home device for collaborative calendaring, controlling the lights/temperature and monitoring power around the home. He also demoed a touch screen display device for retail use - all based on Atom of course.
Remote Controls: Samsung talked up a touch screen remote control which demoed well, but I could not get my hands on. More here: http://ces.cnet.com/8301-31045_1-10427283-269.html. I met with a company called AmTran that also showed me a wifi based touch screen remote control.
Video conferencing: Asus launched a touch screen video conference phone using skype. The reps could not get it to work at the booth, so I could not judge the interactive experience of it. He did say they would try to get gmail chat onto it as well.

Shalinis takeway: A generic tablet which can handle ebooks well, esp via wifi; as well as serve as a in-home device is a good market - the touch screen demos I saw were very easy to use and navigate. Touch screen remotes worked well, but i think cost will be a major aspect to consider (no one commented on costs).

Apps

Every single device was connected, and every single device talked up the apps available on their device..
Samsung announced their own apps marketplace for their TVs which would work across mobile, BluRay players and TVs. They also announced iPlayer being available on their UK TVs. Samsung currently does have apps via Yahoo widgets, it was unclear to me whether they were laucnhing their own marketplace, or this was something in conjunction with Yahoo.
Intel also announced their apps marketplace - via the beta launch of AppUp Center, the app store for Atom devices running Windows and Linux. Paul O. mentioned how this would be extended to cover mobile and TV devices.
Yahoo TV widgets was showcasing Netflix, VUDU, Amazon VOD, CinemaNow/Blockbuster, Showtime and CBS. Im impressed they are still around. Definitely having Amazon VOD and Netflix could prove to show some usage of their platform. I tested out my current Yahoo widgtes framework on my Samsung TV last night - still dont have Netflix or Amazon on it, but I could see myself using it when it arrives - more than my Roku box.

Shalini's takeaway: Big Hype around apps right now - I do see the argument for having apps work across devices.. In the end, there will only be a few players who survive through this- My bet would be on Apple, Android and just simply webapps. Yahoo Widgets seems to be getting mindshare, but the company fate is unclear.

Green

Well - not much to talk about here. All exhibitors were trumpeting their green credentials – from hydrogen fuel cells to laptops made from recycled CDs - and even the expo itself had signs all around about its recycling programme and "sustainable planet" exhibition. Something we should all be aware of as we think of our own products and launch plans around it..

Successful panel at CES

2010-01-10T10:04:00.000-08:00

More notes and comments in a later post:
http://www.digitalhollywood.com/CES2010.html

Im not sold on TV Everywhere

2010-01-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2356103,00.asp

Speaking at a panel on Millenials

2009-06-08T16:57:00.000-07:00

http://www.fountainblue.biz/whenshespeaks.html

Digital Hollywood

2009-05-13T21:32:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spoke at a panel for Digital Hollywood. It was an interesting panel on Content Distribution Models.

Most interesting to me was the new buzzword in Hollywood: branded content.

Remember the concept of product placements? Simon Covell casually sipping Coke in American Idol?

Well - turns out that the 'brands' (like Coke, P&G, GM etc.) have decided if they are shelling out the dough, they want to be more of the hero of the show, and not an after thought. So take transformers, where the brand - Chevys - was so intertwined with the story and the characters that it was the perfect marketing vehicle for the company all in the guise of entertainment!

If done right, branded entertainment can be a win win for all. But more often that not, I believe that the creative process will bow to the brand needs - leading to sub par story lines and plots

Video content - broadcast or broadband?

2009-05-13T20:29:00.000-07:00

A paradigm shift is unfolding in front of us: - video content is finding so many more ways of getting itself to the consumer:

by traditional means (broadcast/cable/sat) and now also by broadband.
on all devices - ranging from your mobile phone to the PC all the way to the large screen TV.
you can consume it on the go or at your leisure in the work place ;) or at home

All the players in the content space are aware of this shift and are rushing to find the right 'new' model that will help them retain their audiences and their revenues.

The networks have all rushed to make their presence online - abc, cbs, nbc, fox: all have strong online presence. To make things even more interesting, all (except for cbs) are betting on an aggregator site - hulu.com to capture user demand for finding a single location for varied content (wait - I thought that was called Google Search!).

The cable guys are also rushing in - Time Warner has been public about their plans with TV Everywhere, and seemingly similar plans from Comcast and others.

The smaller guys are also jumping in - creating aggregator sites such as howcast.com or simply posting their videos on youtube and waiting for the viral distribution to kick them into their two seconds of fame.

One thing is clear - reaching the audience where and when they want to be reached, is good for the consumer and will result in longer 'video' watching, as hard data from Nielsen bares out.

Who will be the winners and the losers in this new paradigm? Much like what the iPod did to the music industry - My bet is that:

Networks as we know it, will die (ala the record labels)
Operators of the pipes will continue to win (the cable guys/telcos) - they still control the path to the consumer. Satellite guys will fade into oblivion
Aggregator sites like YouTube, hulu will still drive eyeballs (ala iTunes)
Content owners like will continue to be squeezed in the middle of the operators and the aggregators.

However, the end user will be the winner - better pricing and more ways to access their content. So thats why this paradigm is good for us!

How to sell (or not!) in the retail market

2009-03-31T15:03:00.000-07:00

Theres been plenty of news about the release of Samsungs new LED TV with Yahoo widgets incuding a nice review by Walt :

http://solution.allthingsd.com/20090324/yahoo-widgets-lend-brains-to-boob-tube/

So all excited, I headed to the closest Best Buy to find out for myself what the fuss was all about - what a waste of time!

As soon as I entered the TV show-room, I saw the three TVs prominently featured in the front: Samsung, Sony and LG.The Samsung model had a lot of details on the nature of LED etc. (breakthrough picture quality, eco-friendly design), but nothing about Internet connectivity or Yahoo.

I asked the store rep to show me Yahoo widgets - he had no idea what I was talking about. He went and got his boss, who then took me to the back of the show room for the TV with widgets (not all their LED TVs have widgets incidentally, and none of their LCD or Plasma TVs have it as yet).

We then spend 15 mins looking for a remote to operate the TV.When the remote finally showed, he realized that the TV was not hooked up to the Internet - and no, he could not do me the favor of running a long Ethernet wire from the back office or setting up the TV via wifi (despite the TV being wifi ready. When I persisted, he said he did not have the right dongle for wifi).

He did let me operate the offline widgets myself - the remote was terribly slow. The widgets themselves had a nice design and they open up to use abt a quarter of the screen (you can also resize the video so you effectively get two screens).

The widgets currently on deck were Yahoo services: Flickr, news, weather, twitter etc. The store-rep claimed a 100 more widgets were in the works.

All in all - if you ever have a product you want to sell retail, make sure you educate the store reps on how to sell it!

Great blurb about marketing vs ads on Superbowl

2009-02-06T10:34:00.000-08:00

Since I talk so much about ads on supwerbowl, I found this article extremley insightful:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/the-difference-between-a-show-and-a-story.html

SlingBox Pro-HD

2009-02-05T13:22:00.000-08:00

I got myself a SlingBox Pro HD over the christmas break. During the break I tried to install it, and realized that:

1. the device does not support wifi, only Ethernet in.

2. I dont have an Ethernet drop in my living room (duh! Even the new Sony Bravia with Internet suffers from the same issue. The reason that the Ninentendo Wiis have been so successful in getting users to connect online, is due to the fact that having wifi builtin makes it a snap connect to your home wireless network. Why do living room devices forget this simple fact?)

So I went ahead and ordered myself a LinkSys Ethernet Bridge (a wireless bridge enables you to connect any Ethernet enabled device to your wireless network) and finally sat down to set up the whole damn thing today.

Setting up the bridge was simple and quick. I then started to connect all the A/V components from my cable box to the Slingbox. It was not too hard but it was painful to pull everything out from under the TV and sort through the zillions of component and audio wiring (where is that wireless HDMI technology that everyone talks about?). After connecting everything I downloaded and installed the Slingplayer on my PC - and viola! I could now watch my satellite TV on the PC - and I can do this no matter where I travel (as long as my PC is with me). Sling also supports viewing DVR and other sources of A/V content.

The quality was ok - not true HD (1080p) by any stretch of imagination. In addition, if you have your TV and the Slingplayer on at the same time you can notice a lag of a few seconds while the devices translates the AV and slings it over.

Its a nifty product, but in the end, I believe if all content is moving online (Hulu.com, abc.com etc.) then why go through the hassle I just went through?

Nows the time to make it big online!

2009-02-04T14:33:00.000-08:00

As the economy worsens, there is more and more evidence that people are going online in droves, not only to find new jobs, but also for entertainment (stats released today from comScore show that 14.3 billion videos were streamed to nearly 150 million unique viewers during Dec 2008) and to find comfort by networking with their dear ones.

If you are an aspiring producer/director, this is the time for you to market your productions. Its free to put up on sites like youtube, costs almost nothing to market and now more than ever, there is a hungry audience waiting to be entertained.

Contact me if you want tips on how to produce and market your content online.

Video Books!

2009-02-03T10:41:00.000-08:00

Interesting release of a video book (available via Amazon digital download store):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362056606541549.html

TRENDS projections claim that book revenues will reach nearly $42 billion in the US alone with units at 3.24 billion by the end of 2011. E-books are happening, video e-books may be the next step. The hard part for the video phenomenon is that its not cheap to create compelling video productions that people would pay for. Case in point - would you pay to watch Youtube content?

Big News from Superbowl XLIII

2009-02-02T14:46:00.000-08:00

- Watch highlights of the superbowl on the NFL site.

- NBC’s broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ vs, the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII averaged 95.4 million viewers, ranking second behind last year’s record-setting game. NBC announced on Jan. 31 its advertising spots fetched $206 million, the most ever.

- Superbowl went social and used twitter to tweet about events. From the web site it looks like thy had 2,987 followers (compared with 95.4 million viewers who watched the game.) NFL also blogged about the event during the game. Not a huge number of followers, but definitely pointing to the merge of online and broadcast experiences.

- Hulu not only showed all the superbowl ads online immediately after their aires, they also broadcast their own ad during the live broadcast - for FREE! Good deal considering the going rate for ads was rumored to be 2-3 million dollars.

- Doritos ad won the USA TODAY'S 21st annual exclusive Super Bowl Ad Meter: a site for real-time consumer testing of how much they liked the ads as they aired. Whats amazing is that the ad was created for an online contest for amateurs (sponsored by Doritos) by two unemployed brothers . Certainly builds up on the momentum for user generated productions.

- You can still vote for your favorite superbowl ad on Youtube

- Oh yeah, almost forgot - the Pittsburgh Steelers won 27-23 ;)

Superbowl online?

2009-02-01T17:41:00.000-08:00

No official sites that are streaming Superbowl 2009 live - some not so legal ones can be found via a search. The bottom line is that the economics of streaming a highly watched event like the Superbowl does not compare with broadcast- as yet. More on this in another post.

But Hulu has the Superbowl ads online - a start since honestly this is the only reason I actually watch the Superbowl!

Content Release Windows

2009-01-30T12:36:00.000-08:00

TV and Movie content go through distinct release phases. The release window (as they are colloquially called), is based the revenue that the content derives from each phase. Traditionally, for film, theaters are given the first exclusive window, months after which it is made available via other formats: DVD/home video, followed by PPV/VOD and finally broadcast TV (ad supported). TV content usually has a first run on their programmer network (such as ABC) and then gets distributed via VOD and finally moves onto syndicated channels (such as TBS) as re-runs.

Films will likely always be released in theaters first, as box-office results tend to generate buzz that translates into demand for the film in other distribution channels. However, consumer demands are shifting towards Video on Demand. Most consumers have fancy home theatres and prefer watching entertainment when they want it, in the comfort of their homes or when on the road. This trend means that Video-on-demand is clearly where content distribution is headed.

Although cable has been providing VOD content for some time now, the Internet is increasingly becoming the way to distribute this content (both TV and film). Most shows are available for viewing the day after airing on web sites such as ABC.com, hulu.com etc. Movies are finding distribution via streaming services on Amazon, Apple iTunes and Netflix (whose recent earnings figures blew everyones expectations and seems to be largely based on their streaming service.

This shift in consumer behavior is causing distributors to not only experiment with smaller release windows, some have even gone so far as to flip the window head over heels. Warner Bros. is putting most movies onto video-on-demand at the same time they appear on DVDs. Paramount Pictures released the latest movie in its "Jackass" franchise, "Jackass 2.5," onto the Internet before any other distribution channel. Viacom just launched a join venture called Epix, offering up newly released movies such as with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, interestingly Epix is launching five months early to online subscribers first.

Are the days of theatre doomed? I don’t think so, see my article earlier on what theatres & hollywood are doing to fight back. What are your thoughts?

Hollywood and 3D

2009-01-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

When I was at Pixar, we started the trend towards Computer Graphics generated movies via the world's first 3D-CG animated movie 'Toy Story'. Now, 3D-CG is the lingua franca for all animated movies (save for a few like Coraline which is stop-mo)

This time, Jeffery Katzenberg wants to start a new trend in 3D - 'real' 3D via 3D glasses

To quote from the article in Hollywood Reporter:

150 million 3D glasses are being given away in the US so TV viewers can watch a 90-second commercial for the new 3D animated feature Monsters Vs. Aliens during the Super Bowl game Feb. 1.

The cost of the stunt is somewhere in the "tens of millions of dollars" said DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg.

In fact, last year when I attended IBC , Katzenberg gave his keynote by beaming in through a crystal-clear live 3D transmission from Los Angeles (yes, the fish in the pond behind him looked as if they could swim into the room). Katzenberg thinks that 3D glasses will be the next fashion statement - with glasses converting from sun glasses to '3D' glasses as you enter the theatre. The technology has come to point where nobody in the audience hurled. They applauded. So perhaps he is on to something.

Pixar/Disney is also releasing a 3D movie this summer called UP, as is Jim Cameron with Avatar.

Hollywood is definitely watching and waiting. With recent movie goers prefering to stay home and stream movies into their home theatre systems (as witnessed by Netflix's recent earnings), will this technology prove to be a lure to get audiences back in the theatres (the highest money raking operation for hollywood)? Will TV manufacturers incorporate technology for 3D viewing within the home theatre?

Of course the high level question is: will audiences want to watch 3D movies? Wait and see...