As I had written about in an earlier post, Rafat at PaidContent.org interviewed Rob Glaser about the new RealPlayer that allows anyone to save and download videos on the web that aren’t protected by DRM. In a follow up to Rafat’s interview, he posted on his site some additional questions that Rob answered and posted to Real’s blog.

While many of the answers to the questions were vague or didn’t really answer the question, I have to agree with Rafat that others should take the example Real has set and answer questions from the media in an open forum on their own blog. It’s going to drive a lot more traffic to your site, multiple bloggers like me are now posting about the blog and linking to it and ir probably took Rob all of 5 minutes to answer a few questions.

There are a few round-table speaking spots open for the Streaming Media Europe
show, taking place October 4-5, at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London that I am looking to fill.
First priority will be given to those speakers and companies based in Europe. Vendors welcomed. E-mail me if interested. Open panels are:

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Streaming Video Content To Mobile: What Works Technically and Commercially
Much hype around Mobile TV, but is it really working in streaming video content to mobiles? Which content genres work commercially?  How can one reach consumers without being on the operator portal? Understand the genres that work on mobile; understand that there is an ecosystem of players to help them mobilise content IP.

Beyond Pre-Roll: What’s Next for Online Video Advertising?
As video advertising evolves in the coming months and years, technologies and business models will naturally extend beyond those in practice today. Sponsorships in the form of product placement and brand ‘overlays’, pre-roll teasers that encourage post-roll clicks and other creative techniques, more effective use of in-banner video, creation of standards and best practices, identifying key performance metrics, establishing content syndication models, affiliate marketplaces and other distribution and monetisation strategies – these are just a few of the challenges and opportunities that face the online advertising industry.

Friday, October 5, 2007

From the Web to your TV: New Media Delivery Revolution
AppleTV, TiVo, Slingbox and a host of other hardware and software products are starting to deliver new media content from the Web to TVs. Learn what latest devices are being used to deliver consumer content and find out how content creators big and small are utilising these new tools. Also discussed will be how online content is being treated differently from traditional broadcast content and what potential business models are being created for the monetisation of consumer content.

Delivering on the Three Screen Video Experience
Digital entertainment offers the opportunity to engage consumers on a multitude of devices, creating new opportunities to market, sell, boost ratings and increase customer loyalty. Speed to market and the quality of the service delivered often define success. This session will discuss how content creators can best prepare today to take advantage of the opportunities created by the rapid growth of new media audiences. Learn which business models are most likely to work and why a cross-platform approach to the business of new media is essential.

This morning, Microsoft announced that it had updated its IPTV software platform, providing several new capabilities and renamed the product Mediaroom. The new capabilities include music and photo sharing, picture-in-picture capabilities, digital terrestrial television support and mostly importantly, an application development toolkit. Opening up the platform is a crucial step for Microsoft as it now allows developers access to a once closed system and gives them an opportunity to develop new applications for Mediaroom.

Microsoft’s press release states that "more than 18 of the world’s leading service providers have selected the Microsoft Mediaroom platform for their digital TV offerings, and commercial deployments are currently underway with 10 providers."

At the time of this posting, both the www.microsoftmediaroom.com and www.microsoft.com/TV websites were not working and giving directory listing errors.

While we’re on the subject of IPTV, I think there is a lot of confusion as to what an IPTV service offering is and how that ties into streaming media technology and the online video industry. I hear the term IPTV and Internet TV used in the same manner but it’s important to remember that IPTV is a closed network, the Internet is not. The two are very different technologies and distribution platforms.

In more funding news this week, Veoh and Kyte.tv both announced investment deals.

Veoh raised $26 million in a series C funding led by Goldman Sachs and existing shareholders Spark Capital and Shelter Capital Partners. For Veoh, this gives them a combined total of just over $41 million raised to date, by far the largest of any of the user generated video sharing sites. That’s a lot of money for a site that shares videos and I know I speak for many in the industry when I say that I can’t wait to see how they will monetize this type of content and show investors a return on their money.

Kyte.tv, a new company on my radar which launched its website in May, said on Tuesday it had received funding from the investment arm of Nokia. Kyte.tv which aims to take the video sharing model on the Internet over to the handset, did not disclose the size of the investment. Kyte also lists as investors Swisscom and Niklas Zannstrom, who started Web phone service Skype.

I’ve covered the topic of patent litigation in the past as it pertains to the online video industry and from recent announcements, it shows no sign of slowing down. Acacia’s not the only company aggressively pursuing these hot patents
as potential revenue generators, and target companies need a sound
response strategy should Acacia or any other firm come looking for
licensing fees.

Last week, Nokia filed a counter-infringement lawsuit against Qualcomm accusing them of infringing on six patents in Nokia’s MediaFlo mobile TV service amongst other things.

In May, Streamcast Networks was seeking an injunction against Joost and also last month, Media Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com issued cease and desist letters to Microsoft, Apple, Adobe and RealNetworks over technology that controls access to copyrighted material.

Tracking all of the litigation taking place that pertains to video over IP continues to be very important and staying on top what is taking place is crucial if you are involved in video. It is important that you and your customers are aware of how this is and will continue to affect the online video industry. Suppliers and vendors in the IP video industry as well as content creators need to have the background information to make eductaed business decisions. With that in mind, myself and the Analysis Group wrote a featured article for the Streaming Media sourcebook that covers this topic.

The article, entitled, "Digital Media Patents for Profit", can be read on StreamingMedia.com and gives an overview of what all companies should be aware of.

While most people assume that the cost of bandwidth is continuing to decline, the cost of delivering video over a content delivery network has gone up slightly this year. The big price drop in bandwidth has been on the network side of the business as opposed to the delivery side. Since most CDNs still charge on a per GB delivered model, that pricing has been pretty stable over the past 12 months and in the last 6 months, we’ve seen a price increase of between $0.02 – $0.03 per GB delivered.

The reason for this is primarily that CDN providers are no longer selling on price alone. They are selling on customer service, SLA, geographic reach, customized reporting and additional value ad services like content management and the like. And on the flip side, customers are now buying services based on these factors as opposed to just who gives the lowest pricing, which is the way they should all be buying.

Based on the pricing I have seen in the market which comes directly from customers contracts and RFPs that are sent to me weekly, asking for feedback, below is a breakdown range on the latest pricing trends for delivering audio and video content, across CDNs like Akamai, CacheLogic, Internap, Limelight Networks, Mirror Image, NaviSite and VeriSign.

• 1TB: High, $2.00GB, Low $1.50GB
• 5TB: High, $1.60GB, Low $0.95GB
• 10TB: High, $1.20GB, Low $0.89GB
• 25TB: High, $0.95GB, Low $0.75GB
• 50TB: High, $0.65, Low, $0.45GB
• 100TB: High, $0.29, Low, $0.19
• Above 100TB: It’s all over the map

While delivery pricing will always vary based on many factors, the most important of which is the customers needs, the above pricing is the going rate today for delivery on all of the major CDNs. While I have seen that pricing rise slightly, I don’t see the trend continuing for the rest of the year. I think the slight rise we have seen for the per GB delivered pricing model will pretty much flatten out the rest of the year.

For more details on pricing, you can watch my presentation from the Streaming Media East show in May entitled "HOW TO: Costs for Outsourced Hosting And Video Delivery" and can read my article from February entitled "How to Shop for Video Hosting: Five Questions To Ask".

I am actively looking for keynote presenters for the Streaming Media Europe show, taking place October 4-5, at the Copthorne Tara Hotel in London. Keynote presenters should be from a company that is based in Europe that is currently using online video in some way that can talk to the adoption, deployment and success that they have seen from the technology and how it has helped their business. They can be from the media and entertainment, enterprise, broadcast or government verticals.

At this time, I am not accepting any vendors or suppliers for these presentation spots however I am interested in hearing from any vendor who may have a customer that would fit into the requirement. You can send me e-mail or call me at 917-523-4562 with any suggestions.