The drawing for the free VUDU set top box is now closed. Christopher Bruss from Los Angeles, CA was selected as the winner using a random number picker website. Thanks to all who entered. I will have more product giveaways next month.
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A day before the Streaming Media Europe show kicks off on October 16th, four workshop sessions are offered to give attendees some hands-on training with different technologies and products in the industry. We are currently looking for two workshop instructors for the subjects of ‘Comparing Video Formats and Encoding Tools" and "Webcasting Essentials".
These 3-hour sessions require instructors to lead the attendees through real-world examples of the technology in action and provide them with the tips, tricks and education they need to master the subjects listed below. We’re looking to pay two instructors who have experience with the topics, are based in Europe and have prior experience teaching a small group of industry professionals. Instructors who work in the industry, from a vendor organization are welcomed to submit proposals for review.
If you are interested, please contact Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, conference chairman for the Europe show and provide him with details of your expertise on the subject, all of your contact details, and a brief outline of the topics you would cover in the 3-hour session on the subjects below. Do NOT just send him an e-mail saying, "I’ll do it". Act as if you are applying for a job and are giving your qualifications. Any questions or further details, please contact Eric directly.
Workshop 1: Comparing Video Formats and Encoding Tools
This updated workshop is a crash course to help you evaluate and select the right delivery format for your content. Independent streaming media consultant Dale Sorenson will deliver direct comparisons of the latest streaming media formats and codecs, including Flash, QuickTime/MPEG-4, RealMedia, and Windows Media, and objectively evaluate and quantify the pros and cons of each format. A comparison of encoding applications will also be discussed to help you choose the tools to get the best-quality results for your content.
Workshop 2: Webcasting Essentials
Work through the five phases of a webcast—planning, production, encoding, authoring, and distribution. To add to your real experience, the workshop itself is treated as a webcast, with the goal to webcast live from the workshop. This workshop covers production techniques and encoding hardware and software including the Windows Media Encoder and RealProducer. Workshop attendees are encouraged to participate in the webcast production to get the full "live" rush.
A quick reminder that tonight is the NY Video 2.0 Meetup at Webster Hall in NYC. Come see screen clips and discuss what’s working, what’s broke and where the industry is headed with Internet TV. Over 500 have people have already RSVP so if you want to go, better RSVP fast. Come hear a town hall discussion led by a panel of Internet TV innovators.
Visit the NY Video 2.0 Meetup website for all the details.
StreamingMedia.com is excited to announce that it is launching a special European edition of our print publication called Streaming Media Magazine. If you live in the UK or Europe, now is your chance to sign up for a free subscription, with its first issue to be published in September of this year. Editorial stories for this issue will include coverage of the content delivery market in Europe and the UK; a crash course in Flash video; webcasting with Windows Media; producing content for mobile devices and a preview of this year’s Streaming Media Europe show, to be held in London, 16-17 October.
Subscribe before July 31st and you’ll also be entered to win Apple’s new 3G iPhone!
In an article I wrote for GigaOm.com yesterday entitled "Content Offerings Only Reach a Few Million TVs", I broke down of the number of non-PC related products like the Xbox 360, Roku, PS3, TiVo Series 3 and VUDU devices that are really capable of getting movies and other online video content. For my sales estimate of the Netflix player by Roku, I estimated that to date, Roku had sold 10,000 units.
Since publication of the article, I've now learned that the accurate number of units sold is closer to 100,000. While it surprised me the number was that high, it does seem possible, as that would equal about 1% of Netflix's 8.2 million customers. Considering the price point ($99) and the fact that the product's marketing is very focused, to a targeted audience, Roku's penetration rate would be higher than the average product that has only been on the market for eight weeks. Plus, once you have the Roku box, the content is free.
At this rate, it will not take too long for the Roku box to outsell Apple TV. Apple TV has been on sale for 20 months now and based on published reports, has sold a bit less than 400,000 units. Roku has sold nearly a quarter of that in only 2 months time. And with the promise of the Roku player being capable of getting more than just Netflix content down the road, this little device has some real potential to make a real impact in the market.
While online video technology has been around for fourteen years, many companies and customers are new to the technology and are just learning about the benefits. Like most of us looking to educate ourselves about a subject, we use Google. And in Google, nearly every word you type in pertaining to our industry brings up a definition by Wikipedia as the first link. While some may think that is a good thing, the problem is that much of the information on those Wikipedia pages is just flat out wrong.
The biggest problem is that too many of the pages on Wikipedia that have to do with our industry start off by saying "This article does not cite any references or sources". Then what good is it? Seriously, how is someone suppose to know if the information it contains is accurate or is just being published because the person who wrote it has an a hidden agenda? A great example is typing the word CDN into Google. A few months ago, the Wikipedia page for CDN had text that said Akamai, Limelight, EdgeCast and Itivia were the largest CDNs. That’s not accurate. Yet, looking at the person who edited that Wikipedia page gives you no details about who they are and who they work for. If anyone can go in and edit a Wikipedia page to make the info reflect what is in their best interest, what good is that doing for those new to our industry when that info is inaccurate? Today it says the largest CDNs are Akamai, Limelight and CDNetworks. But look again in another month or so and I’m sure someone will have edited it again to have it reflect what they want it to say.
Taking a look at the Wikipedia page for the term webcast, there are so many references to the technology that are just plain wrong. For instance it says "The term webcasting is usually reserved for referring to non-interactive linear streams". That’s not right. Webcasts can and often do have a lot of interactivity. It also goes on to say that "However, webcasting does not bear much, if any, relationship to the idea of web conferencing which is designed for many-to-many interaction". This is what makes me really mad. The whole idea behind webcasting is that it allows for a one to many broadcast. Opposite of this is web conferencing which only allows for a one to few broadcast. Wikipedia’s page can’t even get the basic underlying definition of the technology correct.
The webcasting page also goes on to credit people by name who founded the term webcasting, did the first webcast, did the largest webcast etc…all while not providing any sources to back it up. And a few months ago when I looked at the page, different names than the ones who are listed now were supposedly the ones who invented webcasting. And back to the Wikipedia CDN page, a few months ago, there were over 20 CDNs listed. Today, many have been taken off the list and only 11 are listed. Who gets to decide what companies are listed or not? And when it comes to some of the data that is mentioned, nearly all of the references in the notes section date back more than 4 years.
And if you want to know the history of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player, don’t rely on Wikipedia’s page. While they have a whole section on the "history" of the player, apparently whoever wrote it has no idea the player used to be called NetShow or that much of the underlying technology for the player came from Microsoft’s $75 million acquisition of VXtreme and their $5 million investment in VDOnet Corp. And don’t even get me started on Wikipedia’s page for the term streaming media or this post will never end. The bottom line, none of this is good for our industry. Fourteen years later, we need accurate info on the market and we need those who are new to the technology to be able to come up to speed as quickly as possible, with the right information.
I am asking all vendors, suppliers, bloggers and those in this industry not to use any links to Wikipedia from your website, training materials, articles etc… In my eyes, Wikipedia is the most overrated brand on the web today. Where is the value in any information when it is not fact checked, contains little or no sources and can be altered by anyone for their hidden agenda. Boycott Wikipedia. Don’t use it.
Note: Some many ask, why don’t I stop complaining and actually fix all of these errors myself? In many cases I have tried and either my edits don’t show up or they do but are then taken down by someone else a short time later.
While the news and media tend to focus mostly on consumer facing content because it is cool and sexy, the enterprise market continues to have very strong growth and demand for IP based video products and services. Webcasting platforms, capture cards, hardware encoders and content management systems, amongst others products, are still being bought and deployed across all enterprise-focused verticals. The nice thing about any vendor selling into the enterprise market is that they don’t have to show customers how to monetize their content. Enterprise companies understand the value of the video ecosystem and know that using video for communications, marketing, and general business practices is just another business tool at their disposal.
I talk to a lot of enterprise companies each week and get to hear first hand how much video they are using, the products and services being deployed and what challenges they face when deploying video inside their network. If I had to estimate, about 10-15% of the readers to StreamingMedia.com are from the enterprise vertical, which I classify as Fortune 1000 companies who are not trying to monetize content. The one problem with the enterprise market is that historically, these companies are very quiet about giving out details on what they are doing, whom they use and the volume and growth they are seeing. I get a lot of details from them but rarely am able to share numbers and data, and in many cases, can’t even use the company name. But rest assured, even with the economy being what it is today, they are still spending money for many of the products and services in the video ecosystem.
Whenever possible, StreamingMedia.com features case studies on some of these video deployments and we have a whole section on the site dedicated just to enterprise video. In the coming weeks, when we move our discussion lists over to an in-house web-based system, I will also be working hard to launch and build a new enterprise focused video discussion list. There is a lot taking place in the enterprise video market and we need a good forum to discuss what is taking place.
Speaking of enterprise video solutions, yesterday, video platform provider Qumu, formerly Media Publisher, announced it has raised $10.7 million in a series C round. To date, Qumu has raised just over $18 million since 2005. While Qumu is private and does not give out any details on revenue, I estimate they will do around $10 million for 2008. And last week, webcasting services company ON24 announced it had raised $8 million, bringing their total money raised to date to just over $46 million.
Amongst vendors who are selling into the enterprise market, the two biggest trends I am seeing them focus on is the entire ecosystem problem (capture, encode, manage, publish, deliver) and offering their web based platforms via software as a service (SaaS). Without a doubt, the hardest challenge for enterprise customers is the ecosystem since they tend to manage 100% of the workflow internally across their network. Vendors know this and have been working to solve this problem for some time. But the offering of their web based platforms on a SaaS model is pretty new. It is an interesting approach as many enterprise companies already buy other software services this way and typically it enables the customer to deploy and test the offering without having to spend a lot of money upfront.
I think it is too early to know if selling web based webcasting platforms via SaaS will be successful, but to date, companies who have been offering this to the market for a short time have said that they have started to see some traction from the model. Will be interesting to re-visit this topic a year from now and judge whether this new trend is really evolving with customers.
