The Streaming Media West conference and exhibition in LA is only six weeks away and the final program is nearly done. We've got an excellent lineup of speakers and I have a few spots left to fill. If you are interested in any of the speaking positions, please send me an email with FULL DETAILS, don't just send me an email that says "I want it." Here is what's open:

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010
Mobile Video Syndication: App Stores and Smartphones
(One open panelist spot. Looking for content owner or device manufacturer.)
For content creators looking to monetize their video across mobile devices, the market can be pretty confusing. How do content creators reach the widest possible audience across so many different devices and mobile platforms like Android, Apple, Symbian, RIM, and Palm? Are dedicated video apps the answer or simply a way for companies like Apple to remain in control? This session will outline some of the differences between the different mobile platforms, what it costs to develop for them and how can content creators can reach consumers on their smartphones.

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Cutting The Cord On TV: Will Online Video Really Lead To Cable's Demise?
(One moderator spot open. If interested, make sure you send me details on your knowledge of the subject.)
From Hulu to Netflix, streaming video is having a powerful impact on the traditional television industry. But are consumers really cutting the cord and bypassing cable operators in favor of online video? With the broadcast networks facing some of the same threats as the newspaper industry, will services like TV Everywhere and over-the-top (OTT) content be the industry's savior? These topics and more will be addressed by this panel of content heavyweights.

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Monetization And Video Advertising Formats
(One moderator spot open. If interested, make sure you send me details on your knowledge of the subject.)
For all the buzz about online video advertising, most content owners have yet to be able to turn their online video from cost center to profit center. Still, strong signals suggest that video monetization is around the corner, provided content owners don't pull back in today's tight economy. What will it take to reach that tipping point, and what direct cost and revenue impact will it have on content owners? With all the different ads formats on the web today, which ones have the greatest ability to help content owners monetize content and why?

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
HTML5 And Web Video Standards
(Moderator and panelist spots open. Looking for someone to really lead this session.)
As video becomes increasingly important on the web, content providers, browser developers, and end users can no longer afford to have the primary video delivery mechanisms locked up in standards that cannot be adapted to new environments. This is especially true for emerging trends such as mobile video and cross-device video technologies. HTML5 Video might be the answer, and we'll discuss what it is, the challenges it's facing, and how it affects other formats such as Flash and Silverlight, as well as how leading platforms and web giants such as Google, Mozilla, and Apple are supporting it.

Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010
Cost Savings From Enterprise Streaming: How The Conversation Has Changed
(Multiple panelist spots open. Looking for Fortune 500 customers.)
Years of conclusive statistics show that streaming can offset travel costs, outsourced services and production costs, and the opportunity costs of removing employees from the office for meetings. But once you've proved the ROI and gotten your program going, the question becomes "How do we know this is working?" This session will feature firsthand examples from Fortune 500 organizations that are employing metrics to prove cost savings and employee engagement of using streaming to support core communications, training, and educational programs.

Whenever I use the word commoditization to describe a technology or service in the online video industry, it tends to upset some people, especially vendors. I routinely get emails from executives telling me that I'm not helping them or the industry by using that term and they want to argue with me that many of the services I talk about are not commoditized. I think many vendors don't truly understand what the word commoditized really means or the positive impact that commoditization has on their business and on the industry.

The definition of commoditized is, "a good or service widely available and interchangeable with one provided by another company" or "a good or service easy to obtain by making it as uniform, plentiful and affordable as possible." This is exactly what has happened with online video in today's market. All pieces of the video ecosystem are affordable, don't require a huge capital investment and have become very easy to obtain, with dozens of vendors offering very similar services.

No one can debate the fact that today, the underlying technology of online video including storage, encoding and delivery are completely commoditized. Services like YouTube are free to the masses and even someone like my Mom can very quickly and very easily shoot, upload, encode and distribute a video clip. The actual technology behind that process is commoditized and this is a good thing for everyone. Services like YouTube have made vendors jobs easier by educating their customers and allowing many of them to become familiar with the basic technologies and terminologies that drive our industry.

Thanks to services like YouTube, vendors can spend their time showcasing the features and functionality of a platform, rather than having to explain to a content owner the process of getting video online or how to embed a video player. This is a good thing for everyone, including vendors and is one of the main catalysts of growth for our industry. Whenever I use the term commoditized I'm also using it to describe the basic fundamental building blocks that all of these video application run on top of. Encoding is completely commoditized but that's not to say that the quality of encoding is the same amongst all of the different services in the market. Online video platforms are commoditized but it's the scalability and functionality of these platforms that makes them unique. Delivering video on the web is absolutely commoditized, but it's things like the performance and reach of the network that makes the service offering unique.

No single individual including myself decides what technology or services are commoditized in our industry. The market and customers decide what they think is unique and worth paying more money for and what isn't. Last year we saw pricing for video delivery services across CDNs drop on average between 35-40%. The reason for this is that content owners decided that the differences amongst many of the vendors, specific to video delivery, were very similar. Many CDN vendors want to disagree with this notion but the fact is, every CDN is focusing on services they call "value add". They are spending more of their time and effort to show customers the differences in their services, the value they provide and the reason why a customer should pay more for that service. This is a good thing!

In a truly capitalist society, the ability to commoditize anything is seen as a benefit to all, and opens up resources that can be put to better use to further innovate in the industry. That's exactly what we are seeing today. Online video platform vendors are no longer talking about how they encode video or how they embed the player, they have moved on to valued services like the integration with ad networks and the necessary analytics that are required for the service. Content delivery networks no longer talk about simply delivering content in mass volume, they are talking about being able to deliver the right content, to the right user, on the right device for a customized experience. All of this is possible due to the fact that the underlying technologies and services are commoditized.

Far too many are quick to think of the word commoditized as bad or one that gives a black eye to our market. The fact is, it's the commoditization of the service that allows vendors to show how the quality, scalability, performance, reach and functionality of their offering is different in the market. Without the commoditization of much of the technology in our industry, none of that would be possible. Used in the proper context, the word commoditization is something vendors should embrace and be able to talk about in a positive light, instead of being so quick to simply think of it as dirty word in this industry.

Today at 2pm ET I'll be moderating another StreamingMedia.com webinar on the topic of Encoding Best Practices and Strategies. High-quality, efficient encoding and transcoding is crucial to the success of any online video initiative. But there are so many issues to consider — format, codec, bitrate, aspect ratio, and more — that the whole subject can be more than a little intimidating. Come learn the latest tips, tricks, and technologies from Sorenson Media, Microsoft, Internap and Discover Video for making your video look the best it can.

Topics to be covered include:

• Choosing video and audio formats
• Optimizing bitrate for bandwidth
• Transcoding content for multiple device delivery: PC, mobile, and TV
• Encoding and transcoding best practices
• Industry-leading transcoding technologies

So, register today and be sure to bring your list of questions. We'll answer as many as we can live, but rest assured that each and every questions will be answered.

Earlier today, in a conversation with YouTube, a company spokesperson confirmed that YouTube's live streaming service, which they have been testing for the past two days, will only be available to content partners when the service rolls out "in the coming months". The service will not be available to non-content partners and average YouTube users. The company did not detail how many partners will have access to the service or how a content owner meets their partner criteria. YouTube's decision not to open up the live streaming service to everyone probably comes as no surprise as it's clear that YouTube wants to help premium content owners monetize their live streams.

The company also confirmed that the live streaming is taking place across YouTube's network with no support from any third party CDN and that the technology has been, "built from the ground up by YouTube engineers". While it's really too early to know exactly what the service will look like when it launches, from what I could tell of the testing over the past two days, the streams are being delivered via HTTP and encoded for 640×360 at 1500Kbps. It will be interesting to see what kind of ad options YouTube offers with the live streaming service since pre-roll and overlays tend to be the wrong kind of ad formats for live streams.

I recently upgraded to a Blackberry and one interesting thing I have noticed is that many vendors who are actively promoting mobile services in the market haven't made their own websites accessible to mobile devices. Is that their way of saying mobile is more hype than reality if even they haven't made their website viewable on a mobile device? I don't need to call out any companies by name but all you have to do is type in the URL of some of the largest vendors offering different kinds of mobile services and most times you will get a page that asks you to download the Flash player or their standard website not optimized for a mobile browser.

It's possible that some of these vendors do in fact have mobile sites but that their home page is not setup to sniff what browser of OS you are coming from, which defeats the purpose of having a mobile site to begin with. I really think that any vendor who is offering mobile services in the market has to have their own website accessible by mobile devices in order to be taken seriously.

While there are a lot of video based hardware devices in the market all competing for the living room, today, none of them have the three essential components needed to be declared the winner. To truly have a shot at owning the living room, you need the content consumers want, the software platform to control the content and an install base of devices capable of reaching a large enough audience. Today, so much of what we hear about regarding these broadband enabled devices is the hardware, but that's the least important part. With Internet connected functionality being built into nearly every device associated with the TV, stand-alone boxes are not the path for long-term success. The path to the living room is not a hardware play.

When Apple announced the new Apple TV, some predicted that Apple would ship a lot of the units since they retail for just $99 a pop. But all the Apple TV does is cripple the web experience. You can only access the web through apps and many devices made by Apple restrict the way in which we interact with our content. Because Apple wants to control not only the iTunes software but also the hardware, Apple is preventing themselves from ever controlling the living room. We know the hardware is becoming less important. Roku's box is cheaper than Apple TV and offers support for USB and 1080p. So this is not about Apple having better hardware with Apple TV because they don't. It's about who has the best content and the best platform to manage it.

Apple is setting themselves up for failure in the living room all due to the fact that they feel they have to control everything in the video ecosystem. But just imagine if Apple cared less about the hardware and was more open with their iTunes platform. If Apple licensed iTunes to every TV and Blu-ray manufacturer and these devices all shipped with iTunes built in, Apple would immediately have the largest install base of anyone overnight. iTunes would become the dominant platform in the living room and could go uncontested if Apple added browser functionality to iTunes.

We know this model works as we can look at Netflix's success in approaching the market in that way. Netflix does not make any kind of hardware and is not trying to control the video playback device. They want to and will work with nearly every CE manufacturer to get the Netflix platform on as many devices as possible and at the end of this year, expect to have an install base of 100M devices. How many devices is iTunes on in the living room? The answer is very few as they only have the Apple TV.

Of course folks who love Apple are going to point to how many iPhones or iPods have been sold and the install base that iTunes has on them, but that has nothing to do with the living room and the task of getting Internet delivered video to the TV screen. One could argue, and I would agree with them, that today Microsoft and their Xbox 360 console is the winner so far. Outside of a set top box, it has the largest install base of any device connected to the TV, has a platform to go with it and has quite a lot of content available via Zune Video. And with ESPN and other forms of content coming to the device shortly, Microsoft is clearly focusing more of their efforts on the platform and the content as opposed to the hardware.

The market for the living room is completely fragmented right now with nearly every vendor falling under the hardware category, platform category or content category. Very few are working on all three. Hulu is a content play, yet they have no install base in the living room and are only now starting to work on that. Hulu has been hard at work on two of the three requirements to dominate the living room, but is missing the eyeballs. Netflix on the other hand has the platform, the device penetration and is hard at work on improving the content.

Then you have all the hardware players in the market including Roku, TiVo, WD TV Live, Popbox, Sony Netbox and all of the broadband enabled TVs and Blu-ray players. Aside from Roku who is spending a lot of time focusing on the Roku platform and brining new content channels to the device, most of the others are all a hardware play. Of course TiVo has been working on all three for some time, but unfortunately has not shown much success. If there is one thing TiVo has proven in the market it's that the value is not the hardware, but rather the software and application layer. TiVo still has the best software hands down, yet does not have much in regards to the content side of the business nor that big of an install base.

On the platform side of the business, companies like Sonic Solutions are trying to become the dominant platform for devices, but still has a small device install base. Like others, they also have no control over the content side of the business and have to hope that content owners not only adopt their platform but also work with CE manufactures to get on more devices. Then you have platform providers like Yahoo!, VUDU (now Walmart), Blockbuster, Rovi and others who are all struggling to find their identity in the living room.

I like Apple devices, I've only used a Mac my whole life. But Apple makes some really dumb mistakes in the market at times simply due to their ego and this is one of those occasions. If Apple opened up iTunes to non-Apple devices, they would be dominating the market. And if they did that, and had the kind of device footprint Netflix will have by the end of this year, it would be a lot easier for Apple to get the studios to agree to allow them to add new business models like monthly subscriptions for video. 

The competition to get consumers attention in the living room is wide open and with Google TV, Boxee and others all gearing up to launch their offerings, Apple's iTunes platform and Apple TV device are only going to fall further behind in the race to control the connected living room.

While there are lots of online video platforms (OVP) in the industry, just like in the CDN space, only a couple of vendors control the vast majority of the market share. The primary reason for this is that it takes companies burning through a ton of cash before any OVP can achieve the scale they need in their business to generate enough revenue to be cash flow positive. With Ooyala’s latest round of funding in the amount of $22M, the company has now raised $42M in just over three years. Ooyala’s biggest competitor and market share leader Brightcove has also had to raise a lot of money over the years and their total funding has been $99M to date.

While not every OVP provider needs to be in the top two or two in the industry based on revenue, I think many folks downplay exactly how difficult it is to get into the OVP or CDN business. I constantly hear people say that they can just put out a bunch of boxes on the Internet and become a CDN. The reality is, it’s not the hardware that makes the CDN, it’s the software that runs it and the services that run over it. In the same light I’ve heard some say that they could build their own OVP to the same feature or scale as a Brightcove or Ooyala and it would only take them 12-18 months. Of course if that was true, then many content owners would be making the investment to build their own OVP, but they aren’t. Just like you don’t see any content owners aside from a few major players like Apple and Microsoft building out their own CDNs.

There is a lot of talk in the industry about how OVPs and CDNs are commoditized. I use that word all the time except that I’m not talking about the service, I’m talking technology. Video components like encoding, storage and delivery are completely commoditized but it’s the services and applications built on top of these technologies that isn’t. Today cars are a commodity yet there is a difference in how they perform. OVPs and CDNs are no different. It’s that scalability, performance, reach and functionality that truly sets them apart.

While I keep hearing people talking about the OVPs and CDNs as if one vendor has to beat out
another, the important thing to remember is that the market can sustain
more than one major player. If you look at the CDN space, a handful of
vendors controls most of the market. In the OVP space, the same is true.
In fact, in just about every vertical in this industry, only a handful
of vendors tend to own 75% of the market they focus on. Some need more
capital than others to get to scale depending on their offering, but no
OVP can expect to ever do tens of millions of revenue a year without first having to invest at least that much into the business.