The Internet’s New Frontier - Video SearchYou may not realize it but there is a high-stakes technology arms race going on for control of your living room. Broadband growth has been the catalyst for the Internet as it has matured into more of an entertainment platform and video is playing a key role. Although it is becoming more routine for consumers to load audio, video and other data to our new network of Internet-connected gadgetry the key to success will be in finding relevant files.
The current technology used by today’s most popular search engines look for text like ".mov" or ".avi," and for keywords or links that might be in a document which give a sense of what type of content is there. Unfortunately this identifies only a small percentage of the video that’s currently available. Yahoo is trying to address the problem with new standards like “Media RSS” however how much can we rely on video providers to “submit” feeds. Google’s plan to search the closed-caption text is fine for present and future video but that is still text based and relies on a technology that is not used in many video productions. At best these approaches are workarounds and are only going to scratch the surface when it comes to identifying the millions of video files (growing exponentially) on the web.
AOL, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others have each been quietly developing new search tools for digital video. They all realize that searchable video is an extremely attractive new market and this new tool is extremely relevant to consumers hungry for multimedia. From a financial standpoint it also helps the companies appeal to brand advertisers, which spend about $60 billion annually on TV commercials. Recently I have taken notice of Truveo.com. They’re approach to video search is new an unique and its generating quite a buzz. It’s worth some research and perhaps a follow up post on this topic. I’d be interested in hearing your POV. Link: ZDNet Nov 29, 2005 – Striking up Video Internet Search, Previous SMM Posts: Oct 6, 2005 - Video over the Internet
2005 A new milestone for the online advertising industryIt appears that online advertising has become mainstream as Corporate marketers have made it a standard part of media budgets. Spending on online advertising is projected to reach $12 billion in 2005 as more marketers lose confidence in the effectiveness of traditional ads and spending looks set to accelerate further as we enter into 2006. According to a study released in May by Forrester Research, nearly all of the marketers surveyed said they plan to cut spending in traditional channels such as print and direct mail to fund increases in online ads. Tim Armstrong, Google's advertising sales vice president, believes that 2005 marks the turning point when advertisers switched from testing to investing in the decade-old medium. "The experimenting and testing phase begun in the 1990s has ended. Corporate ad buyers are investing now.” According to Armstrong, there are two primary factors are driving advertisiers interest and realocation of their ad budgets. First, consumer adoption of the Web has far outpaced advertisers' commitment to the medium and secondly, Madison Avenue executives have begun advising clients to close the gap by committing more dollars online. These shifts are not just benefiting Google but the entire industry. Greg Stuart, IAB President and CEO states that “On average, people today spend about 14 percent of their "media time" on the Internet, up from basically zero ten years ago, and advertisers are reacting to this change. When consumers shift like that, marketers are sure to follow".Jupiter Research estimates the U.S. online advertising market will grow 28 percent over last year, to $11.9 billion in 2005 (the IAB concures), moving to $13.6 billion in 2006 and $15.1 billion in 2007. Industry estimates put Google's market share at 30 percent of overall online ad spending, with as much as 40 percent of the category it dominates--paid search. Estimates vary however analysts believe about 5 percent of U.S. advertising dollars will be spent online this year, up from about 2 percent just a couple years ago. In short order, 10 percent or more could move online. After years of fighting an uphill battle, it appears that the business can finally carve out a piece of the media budget pie that they can call they’re own. The question that is yet to be answered for the years to follow is just how much of it they will leave for the others!
Who Are The Real Pirates? Written By: Shelly Palmer, ChairmanAdvanced Media CommitteeThe Emmy AwardsWe hear the content industry and rights holders complaining about piracy everyday: file sharing, physical piracy, theft-of-services, derivative works, etc. But has anyone stopped to think about how many times consumers are asked to pay for the same content?Computer files may be the final form factor, but that is not stopping media companies from extracting every last bit of value from each file. Because most media is delivered through walled gardens or physical copies, even files can be resold. For example: first you pay 99¢ to purchase a song on iTunes. Then you pay $2.49 to download a portion of that song as a ringtone. You can then pay $1.99 to use a portion of that song as a ringback tone--and $1.99 on iTunes to purchase a download of the video for that song. Next comes a charge of $1.49--for a still image of the artist to use as wallpaper on your mobile device. You would rather download it for free from the Internet, but you can't get it into your phone. (Some people actually take a picture of the computer screen with their cell phone cameras to avoid this charge, but not many.) You may pay $14.99 for the DVD of the movie that features that song and, if you are truly out of your mind, you will pay $19.99 for the CD of the album that includes that song. Then you will pay $3.95 to watch the pay-per-view or video-on-demand version of the movie--and another $6.95 for the HD VOD concert that features the same song.If the media company has its way, you will pay $12.95 per month for the subscription to HBO that will broadcast the movie and the concert on the cable company¹s linear and VOD channels. Ultimately, part of your basic cable or satellite package will go to pay a per-subscriber fee to Music Choice, where you will hear the song. You may also pay $12.95 per month to a satellite radio company where you can hear the song and, if Apple continues its world dominance over the personal music player world, you will ultimately purchase a co-branded iPod with the complete collected works of this artist (including this same song) for about $200.How many times can you sell the same master file? There doesn’t seem to be any limit. You just have to keep the walls in the walled gardens up and keep the formats incompatible. How many times will you buy the same master file? That question is being answered every day on P2P networks, via email and podcasts. Obviously, some consumers are willing to pay for the convenience of not having to bother converting their own files to be used in all of their devices. But there are far more consumers who would rather not pay for the same thing over and over again. Is there a middle ground? I doubt it, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.Read more from Shelly Palmer: Advanced Media Committee Blog
Online content just got richer with AOL’S In2TV
The AOL announcement this past week about its deal with Time Warner sister company, Warner Bros. Domestic Cable Distribution, that enables it to offer a free, Web-based VOD service, they will call In2TV. The service will offer over 3,400 hours of archive programs from 100 series of Warner Brothers productions. While the deal is exclusive for one year, AOL executives have stated that they are in negotiations to secure content from other studios as well. In2TV is expected to eventually increase the amount of WB content it offers: It is rumored that they have secured agreement from rights owners to offer up to 14,000 episodes from 300 series on the service.“This builds on what has been our programming focus
for many years and aligns well with our move to the open Web,” says Kevin
Conroy, AOL Media Networks executive VP. “Our focus is on building a media
business and driving advertising revenue.”
The service will also include interactive features, such as games, quizzes, polls and trivia contests. AOL states that In2TVthe will serve as a "cornerstone" of the AOL.com Web site's commitment to delivering broadband video through AOL Video on Demand and AOL Video Search as well as through AOL Television. AOL Video Search now draws on an archive of over 18,000 licensed and original content assets that is maintained by AOL VOD, as well as on over 1.5 million pieces of video content on the Internet indexed through AOL's Singingfish. "This service will bring an unprecedented collection
of popular TV series to a totally new platform, revolutionizing the distribution
of television programming," said Eric Frankel, president of WB Domestic Cable
Distribution. "It will enable users the opportunity to be entertained and to
interact with the programming that has groundbreaking interactive features.
Visitors will be able to program their own personal network."
At Launch In2TV’s six original channels will be:- LOL TV (comedies such as Welcome Back Kotter & Perfect Strangers)
- Dramarama (Falcon Crest, Sisters & Eight Is Enough)
- Toontopia (animated shows like Beetlejuice & Pinky and the Brain)
- Heroes and Horrors (Wonder Woman, Lois & Clark & Babylon 5)
- Rush (action shows such as La Femme Nikita, Kung Fu & The Fugitive)
- Vintage (Growing Pains, F-Troop and Maverick)
In2TV will be supported by advertising: AOL says that it will offer instream broadband advertising and site sponsorships with banner ads. However, the company says that :15 and :30 second spots will take up no more than one to two minutes within each episode and viewers will not be able to fast-forward through commercials. This strategy allows Time Warner to bring more content online faster. That, in turn, means more eyeballs, which in turn drive ad revenues and additional content. AOL now and Google, Yahoo and others soon to follow, it’s easy to see where this is going. Will my children’s offspring ever know the difference between a television and a computer?
