For the dinner event that I am moderating tonight, talking to video in the enterprise and hosted by Ignite Technologies, what questions or topics do you think we should discuss? While I am not creating a huge list of points as I want to keep the topic open and free-flowing, here are the few I am interested in discussing:

• how is the enterprise market learning from what is taking place with video outside of the enterprise industry?
• what are the biggest headaches you face when it comes to implementing the entire ecosystem that makes up enterprise video?
• how much convincing of management is still needed when it comes to
  getting budget to buy and deploy enterprise video products and services
  and what are some of the best ways you prove internally the value that
  video provides?
• how do you evaluate products and services in the market and what factors do you use to decide what solutions you purchase?

Are there any questions that you would add to the list or any topics you’d like me to bring up so that you can hear the attendees take on the subject?

Last month, 24/7 Real Media nicely invited me to a private dinner they held in NYC with about a dozen executives to talk about "Video: The New 3.0" The attendees were from MLB, NBC, NBA, ESPN, Verizon FiOS, WallStrip.com and others.

It was probably one of the most useful and productive gatherings I have been at in a long while. While many industry conferences do a good job of arranging networking events, this dinner allowed us to be in a small setting, with no distractions and enabled us to discuss various web video topics for a few hours.

I liked the setting so much and felt it was so productive, that I am now going to be helping to organize these dinner events on a monthly basis, focused around very specific subjects. The next dinner is being held tonight, hosted by Ignite Technologies, and is talking to video in the enterprise. It has a great group of enterprise executives attending from Bloomberg, Microsoft, Vanguard, Citigroup, Honeywell, Lehman Brothers, Canon and others.

So here is my offer. If you are a vendor that wants to organize or participate in one of these dinners and you want to get together a group of executives to get their take and feedback on the market, I will help you organize it free of charge. I will help devise a topic, moderate the discussion and open up my rolodex and allow you to pick who you want to invite, be it customers, analysts or the media. All the vendor has to do is pick up the cost of the dinner.

These dinners are a great way for vendors to hear directly from customers in the industry and make new introductions from companies they may not normally be able to easily get in front of. They are a great way to hear what is taking place in the market and hear how the market is evolving – from real customers.

So if you want more details or want to discuss further, please contact me. Also, if you want to attend one of these dinners or suggest a topic or vertical to discuss, I’d love to hear from you.

I’m always checking on relevant domain names that may be available and was surprised to find that the domain OnlineVideo.net had been for sale for quite some time and that no one purchased it. Seems really odd to me considering how hot the market is.

Seizing the opportunity, StreamingMedia.com purchased the domain as over time, I suspect the industry will move away from the Streaming Media term to something more content focused. We have already seen rich-media go by the wayside as well as digital media which is not used as much any more since it is too generic. I think that Online Video or IP Video will be the terms that really stick over the coming years. (See my earlier post entitled: Streaming, Online Video, Internet TV, Video On The Net: How Do We Describe The Industry?)

On a side note, if you are interested in the domain name www.streamingmediavideos.com let me know as I am thinning out my domain name collection.

When I look around at a lot of other industry verticals out there, be it online advertising, mobile, security etc… I see a lot of community in the industry. I see a lot of people spending time to help educate the entire community. But when it comes to the streaming or online video industry, I see very little of this.

A great example of my point is that for years now, StreamingMedia.com has publicized that we accept written articles from anyone in the industry that want to talk about what they are seeing, what they think of a trend or what the future will hold when it comes to many aspects of this business or technology. Yet, trying to get people to send us a 750 word article for the website is nearly impossible.

Every week, at least a couple people always ask me, how do I get more publicity in the industry for myself or my company? It’s easy – and it’s free. Write a 750 word article on a topic of interest to you and send it to us. Why is that so hard? I have great conversations with people on the phone, in person at shows, during meetings etc… and many of them talk about different points of view on a wide assortment of subjects, yet I can’t get them to put those words down on paper?

From day one when I took over StreamingMedia.com I have said in open letters to the industry that we are a resource for you to use. It is our job to help the industry grow, to help educate the market and to help you grow your business. But how are we expected to do that without editorial help from the very industry we are promoting? We can only publish so many articles written by us or by our freelance writers. You are on the front lines of this market just like we are. We need your input, your knowledge and your thoughts. Yes, we get a lot of that at the shows but those only happen twice a year in the U.S.

Many times the excuse I get from people is they don’t have the time. How long does it really take you to write a 750 word article? Seriously. It does not have to be perfect, we will edit it. And if you want more visibility like you keep asking for, why then aren’t you utilizing the StreamingMedia.com site to get it?

A great example is that one of the few articles that was sent to us was from Rich Mavrogeanes at VBrick. He wrote an article discussing his thoughts on why he felt MPEG-4 is not dead. In less than two years, Rich’s article has gotten 35,973 reads! That’s not a typo. Not only did Rich get e-mails from readers of his article which allowed him to expose them to his company, he also was seen as a thought leader on the site about MPEG. And along with his article, we also published his photo, his company name and title and a link to his bio. How much more exposure can you ask for!?!

We have been promoting for over two years that we need editorial from the community and in that time, we have literally gotten 3-4 articles. I could understand if someone didn’t want to do the work if there was no value in return, but what do you think getting in front of 35,000+ readers is worth? I’d find it hard for anyone to justify that spending an hour to write an article is not worth the exposure you get in return.

I’m happy to discuss with anyone a topic they have in mind, help direct
them on the focus of the article or even give you topic ideas. So, who wants to be seen as a thought leader in our industry? We’re here to help make it happen, but we can’t do it alone.

Yes, some may see this as shameless self promotion, but for some of you, or some of your customers, it may be useful. My publisher Focal Press has been kind enough to offer anyone who reads my blog to get a copy of my newest book at a discount.

The book, entitled "Streaming and Digital Media: Understanding the Business and Technology" is one of the books in the NAB Executive Technology Briefings series.

I always felt that authors should stand behind their books more than they do, so I will make this commitment. If anyone who buys the book with the discount link feels they did not learn anything from it or that reading it wasted their time, I will personally provide a full refund if the book is returned to me. I don’t want anyone keeping anything they feel does not help them so I’ll take it back and refund your money. Yes, I know that is odd for an author to do, and some will say I am crazy to do it, but I think more authors should stand behind their work.

Also, anyone who posts a review of the book on Amazon will get a free copy of the next edition of the book when it comes out. This goes for bad reviews of the book as well, as all reviews are welcomed.

ZeroPaid.com, a website that tracks news in the file sharing and P2P community did a write up yesterday on a deal that BitTorrent announced with YuMe Networks. The joint agreement calls for BitTorrent to use the new YuMe advertising network to insert advertising within videos available for download from the BitTorrent network.

Some industry observers are saying that this will have a big impact on content models as to date, all downloaded content is either free or only monetized via pay per view. This idea has me confused as does portions of this announcement and as anyone who knows me will tell you, I am always skeptical when a press release says its product or service is "game-changing", "First-Ever", "taking online video advertising to another level," and "never before been available".

For starters, how are the ads being inserted? Once I download a video, can the ad be updated or changed? And part of the big draw of the new ad network in YuMe’s eyes is that they say they can track “view-throughs” rather than “click-throughs”. But if I download a video, and then take it with me on a plane on my MacBook, and have no connection to the Internet, how is YuMe tracking anything?

YuMe is quoted as saying, "What we’re saying is that video streaming is a fundamentally different thing. You need to do it cross-platform and you should be able to take a video ad, associate it with a set of content and demographics and allow the advertiser to associate that regardless of where the content is being watched — be it the Web, a mobile phone or a BitTorrent download — and aggregate the reporting all across that."

I disagree. It’s no different than the ad model that the content owners are trying to get to work when it comes to streaming videos online. The fact that YuMe will insert an ad into a downloaded video as opposed to one that streams really does not change the monetization. In order for a major media content owner to give away the content as opposed to a pay per view model, how many eyeballs and downloads are they going to need to get before the advertising model will work?

We are a long way off from the point of where major content owners are going to give away their content because they have been able to monetize it via advertising. Yes, the potential exists, but not anytime soon until some of the major business and technical hurdles get solved.

A new book is slated to come out in my book series entitled "Hands-On Guide to Creating Flash Advertising", to be written by Jason Fincanon.
We are currently looking for case studies to include in the book and are open to suggestions from vendors and content providers.

If you have a case study or know of a company we should talk to about doing a case study, please contact me. The book will be going to print this summer.