StationCreator: The Future Of TV…

April 10, 2012 by Leave a Comment
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I was just introduced to an exciting new company called StationCreator. StationCreator is focused on creating the framework needed for the virtual aggregation, scheduling, and play back of web based video content. They have put together a brief overview of the framework they provide:

I have been working with StationCreator for about two weeks now and am very impressed by what they have accomplished in this first release of the product/service (in fact, it’s still in beta, making it all the more impressive)

To get the feel for what working with StationCreator is like, I put together a basic channel focused on Web Video Production. It is built up from web videos that I have watched in this area. The videos are all scheduled to play at specific times in a sequence – a perfect ‘lean back’ model familiar to everyone comfortable with today’s traditional television experience:

The internet is clearly going to become the dominant means of distributing media over the next decade – maybe even faster. Though it is still in beta, StationCreator is ahead of the curve in this regard, and is definitely a company to watch.

I plan to follow this post up with a more detailed video, covering a typical production workflow supported by StationCreator and touching on some of the key markets that could benefit from it. This is a powerful product that is coming to market at just the right time – I’m really glad they’ve given me an early look…

More to come, so stay tuned…

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A Fond Farewell To Wallstrip…

January 8, 2009 by Leave a Comment
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Unfortunately, it seems to be official now…

CBS, which acquired Wallstrip about two years ago, has decided to sunset the quirky, inventive financial news show.

wallstrip-juliealexandria

As one of the angel investors in Wallstrip, I got to know many of the people that were involved in the show personally. They are an incredibly talented, energetic, and creative bunch. To have something like this happen must be difficult for them. They raised the bar on what could be achieved in a daily web video program, and challenged people’s expectation of what a financial news show should be.

From the start, Wallstrip was different…

It launched with the goal of creating something truly social – not just a web video program. It explored the concept of combining a daily financial show, a wicked sense of humor, and involvement from multiple ‘A-list’ financial bloggers to try and create a new type of financial community on the web. It wasn’t targeted at the typical “investor demographic”. It appealed to a younger audience that was just starting to plan for their future. An audience that would never have thought of tuning in to CNBC or Fox Business for advice.

The exact demographic that forms the backbone of the social web…

Though it became difficult over time for Wallstrip to keep their core bloggers actively involved, and no clear community development strategy ever emerged, the social dimension originally envisioned for the show always seemed to be there just waiting to break out. I had hoped that CBS was looking to acquire Wallstrip specifically to develop this media community concept, and to then to apply it to their other web initiatives.

It’s clear now that wasn’t the case.

CBS just couldn’t see beyond their immediate goal of commercializing the media component, and ended up walking away from the real strategic value the Wallstrip acquisition represented – the foundation of a financially anchored web community.

They wasted a golden opportunity…

I wish everyone that was a part of the Wallstrip team the best of luck. You created something that everyone involved should be proud of. Thanks for a great run!

I can’t wait to see what you all decide to do next…

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New Companion Site: "The DIGITALedge.TV"…

August 7, 2008 by 1 Comment
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I am in the process of redoing parts of this blog…

To get started, I decided to focus on better ways to deal with video. Creating video based content for The DIGITALedge is important to me, but the current format of this blog does a poor job of organizing and presenting it. I wanted a better way to showcase the video content I produce. I was looking to create an experience that grouped videos into series, and hopefully built more community around particular shows. I felt that the best way to achieve that was to create a video-only companion site to this blog…

Introducing The DIGITALedge.TV…

When new videos are produced for The DIGITALedge.TV, they will continue to appear as posts in this blog as well. Like regular posts, they will appear individually and fade into the archives over time. Over on The DIGITALedge.TV, however, they will be more visible for far longer, and grouped in a way that will make them easier to watch.

Like so many things, this new site is a work-in-progress. It will no doubt evolve over time, and if there are any issues that come up, I will work to get them fixed as quickly as possible.

I welcome any and all feedback.

Enjoy!…

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Moblogic.TV…

January 28, 2008 by 1 Comment
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My friends – recently of Wallstrip fame – have a new gig…

Lindsey, Adam, and Mark, have decided to pour their considerable talents into a new video venture – Moblogic.TV. For lack of a better way of describing it, Moblogic takes the irreverence Wallstrip displayed in it’s coverage of companies and markets, and applies it to just about everything else on the web.

Take a look at their early teaser to get a glimpse of what might be coming:

I expect a lot from these folks – they are an incredible group both individually and as a team. The show should be starting up soon, so keep an eye out for it. Better yet, head over to their site to sign up to receive an email alert when it launches.

If history is any indication, this should be good…

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Rocketboom & Blip.tv: Going Beyond Online Video…

September 27, 2007 by 1 Comment
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Blip.tv has added a new channel to their roster: Rocketboom…

rocketboomlogo.jpgRocketboom has signed on to become part of the blip.tv network of shows. Blip.tv, a fast rising video destination site, has reached an agreement with Rocketboom to host all of their videos and to provide advertising for the show – with an innovative and important twist.

I got a chance to speak the other day with Dina Kaplan, one of the founders of blip.tv and a media industry veteran, to get some perspective on the Rocketboom deal and to better understand where blip.tv fits in the developing web video landscape.

blipfounders-caption.jpgIt was clear from our discussion that signing Rocketboom was more than just a business deal to Dina and the other founders of blip.tv. She credits Rocketboom with being one their key motivations for starting the company. The success of the show was a catalyst for her “epiphany’ on how the web could change the rules for producing and distributing video content. Rocketboom was the first daily video show to gain an audience on the web. Its quirky production and short format programs helped to define the genre and establish the web as a viable channel for the medium.

Though the deal with Rocketboom is an important step by itself for blip.tv, it is also the launch point for something that may prove far more significant for web video in the long run. Concurrent with this deal, blip.tv is introducing a new format for delivering advertisements.

Mid-clip overlay ads…

Most ad support in web videos takes the form of pre-roll ads – short video clips that run before the actual content clip plays. You can’t skip them, and they make you wait to watch what you clicked to see. By contrast, mid-clip overlay ads simply pop-up over the lower third of the screen without forcing you to wait or interrupting the video that’s playing.
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As you can see from the picture, these mid-clip overlays are not really intrusive. We are even seeing these types of ads on traditional TV now. The overlays delivered by blip.tv usually stay on the screen for about 10-15 seconds and then disappear on their own. The technology for these overlay ads is based on features found in Apple’s Quicktime. According to Dina, blip.tv needed to work with Apple prior to launching with Rocketboom to include the capability to interact with these overlays. This extension currently allows users to just click on the small ‘x’ in the corner of the overlay if they want to close the ad. I expect that this interactive capability will be put to additional uses in the future.

While there are multiple sites claiming to be “first’ in delivering overlay based advertisements – YouTube and Brightcove among them – blip.tv appears to be the first to offer this capability in a non-Flash based environment. And this has one incredibly powerful implication.

Blip.tv can help untether overlay ads from the web…

Adobe’s Flash format is really bound to the web, but Apple’s Quicktime isn’t. In fact, it’s the technology behind Apple’s iTunes service. And when it comes to media players, it’s clear we live in an iPod dominated world. Combine that with the fact that every iPod Apple sells today – save the screenless Shuffle – is capable of playing video, and it’s likely that the demand for ‘off-line’ video will continue to grow quickly. These offline video consumers will become an increasingly important component of the web video demographic, and an attractive market for advertisers as well.

Blip.tv, unlike their Flash based peers, will be able to help content producers monetize this segment of the market without having to fall back on more intrusive pre-roll ads. Programs syndicated by blip.tv over Apple’s iTunes will have this ad overlay capability available right in the downloaded video. And this will bring a non-intrusive form of advertising off the web and into the pockets of millions of people.

It’s something that can really extend the value of an ad for a sponsor…

From the consumer’s side, it may also give studios a way to offer their premium content on iTunes without charging for it directly. Increasing the amount of programming people can freely download, sync, and watch is an important step in bringing this model of consuming video to the mainstream market. But progress here has been slowed by concerns over how to monetize this content in a way that’s viable for producers while still being palatable to consumers.

This may be a solution…

I asked Dina about any plans blip.tv’s may have to serve up overlay ads through iTunes dynamically. This would let them insert a different user specific ad at the point a user downloads a show instead of just inserting a single general ad at the time the show is encoded. While Quicktime is capable of handling this dynamic insertion on a technical level, blip.tv does not appear to have any active initiative to leverage it. They are currently focused on working with partners to build up an inventory of ads that can be leveraged by this new format, extending its use beyond the current show sponsorship model they announced as part of the Rocketboom deal.

I hope dynamic ad insertion is an area that blip.tv will consider implementing. Beyond offering the ability to match ads to individual users, it creates a naturally growing inventory of ad slots for Blip.tv to monetize both through ad rotation and by mining historical show inventory.

bliptvlogo.jpgBlip.tv is focused on becoming something more than just a web video hosting service. They are looking to become a media portal – combining a growing stable of web targeted, professionally produced programming with an ad serving infrastructure that can make it a viable alternative – both for producers and viewers – to traditional television. They are content to leave the ‘viral video’ market to sites like YouTube – that’s not a space they’re interested in developing. Instead, blip.tv wants to become the flag-bearer for the next generation of television quality programming developed specifically for the web.

From the looks of it, they’re well on their way to that goal…

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Quarterlife: Is It The Start Of A Trend?…

September 17, 2007 by Leave a Comment
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There’s a new drama coming out this fall focusing on bloggers and blogging…

Its a fictional series is called Quarterlife. The producers describe the show as being about “a group of twentysomethings coming of age in the digital generation”. It certainly seems like a lot of the other youth oriented programing we see on TV today. And it would be except for one thing.

Quarterlife isn’t on TV. It will be showing on MySpace instead…

quarterlife.jpgThe series was created by Marshall Herskovitz and Edward Zwick. These folks are industry veterans with very strong resumes in both television and movies. Among a long list of credits, the pair have produced the movies “legends of the Fall” and “Blood Diamond”, and youth focused dramas “My So Called Life” and “Thirtysomething” for television. The producers had originally made this as pilot for ABC in 2005, but it was pulled after one episode. Their decision to relaunch this show on the web is significant, and points to a potentially unique demographic that the web may have compared to traditional TV. If successful here, Quarterlife could validate the web as a legitimate channel for launching professionally produced, commercial video. Being a drama in a sea of news-like web video productions should also help it stand out as well.

Beyond the show itself, there will be another dimension to this launch that is specifically web focused – an parallel social network at Quarterlife.com that the producers describe as:

…a social network about what it means to be creative, to pursue a passion, to make a difference in the world — or just to find a place in it.

According to a press release, one of the other goals of the ‘social network’ will be to encourage viewer participation in a way that lets them influence the story line.

A key part of quarterlife is the interaction between the show and the website. Members of the quarterlife community will be invited to participate in the ongoing creation of the series through writing and video submissions.

It may work for that, but if they have ambitions beyond that (ie – to become a new “MySpace”), my take is it will be a bust – people don’t want to join yet one more community, and try to get their friends to follow along. As for the program itself, it’s hard to know how it will play out. It’s not exactly my type of show, but it does seem very well produced. I’m sure a lot of people in the traditional arena are keeping an eye on what type of numbers this show will generate.

A preview of the show is available here:

Quarterlife Trailer

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Quarterlife will be ‘aired’ as a series of 36 eight-minute episodes, which is a great length for web video, and a good first step in demonstrating an understand of the web as a video medium.

It premieres on MySpace November 11th…

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A Viable HD Web Experience…

August 30, 2007 by
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Akamai powers the visual web…

They are the leading provider of edge based content caching for the efficient distribution of high bandwidth media. To make this work, Akamai have built a content distribution network with ‘edge servers’ that live at the data centers of most major ISPs.

akamaiservers.jpg
Clients of Akamai leverage these servers to efficiently deliver different types of media without having to build out their own infrastructure and – more importantly – without having to worry about any of the network latency issues (delays) centralized delivery across the web entails.

Akamai will deliver media to a user from the cache server closest to them – usually right at the ISP they are linked to. And if the closest cache server doesn’t happen to have something a user is asking for, it will pull it at high speed from it’s nearest cache neighbor that does.

This ‘low latency’ approach becomes critical for delivering content like video.

Video files are big and require significant bandwidth. And they could even require a ‘faster than real time’ delivery for progressive downloads that need to support a viewing experience without delays or interuptions. Akamai plays a big role in making that happen today. If you’ve ever downloaded a video off of iTunes, or watched one of the movie previews offered there, you’ve gotten it from an Akamai server.

Earlier this week, Akamai made a significant announcement.

They’re now tuning their network to support high def video…

There are some real technical hurdles with delivering HD video over the web, but they are probably less daunting than the issues that were challenging basic video delivery over the web less than a decade ago.

But for Akamai, this is more than simply a technology play. They seem to be intent on becoming the disruptive agent in the traditional vs IP based content delivery space:

“We are also committed to the long-term objective of building an ecosystem linking content owners, network providers and video platform players to ensure a superior HD web experience wherever last-mile infrastructure permits.”

This is clearly aimed at giving users a viable choice in video delivery beyond cable and satellite providers. And unlike even Verizon’s FIOS delivered IP video service, it makes it possible for independent content producers to reach their desired audience without having to negoiate with a middle man to ‘carry their programming’. And it can all be delivered without compromise – viewers will have a full HD experience worthy of their investment in their HD displays.

A big challenge in delivering HD video will ultimately come from the ‘last mile’ providers Akamai makes reference to in the quote above. Broadband service in this country trails that of other places in the world (especially the Pacific Rim) in both penetration and performance. And that will continue to place us at a disadvantage when it comes to adopting new and innovative services in this country.

This is something we’ll need to address.

DSL is simply too slow for this type of content, and the only real alternative is from cable companies or Verizon’s FIOS – both likely to be hurt by any significant shift to a more open video delivery model. I don’t see them going out of their way to help Akamai on this one.

And this comes back to us needing to address something else.

Net Neutrality…

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A Video On How To Vote…

August 24, 2007 by Leave a Comment
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Connecticut will be using a new optical voting machine this election…

To help with the transition from the previous lever based mechanical systems, Connecticut Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz posted an instructional video on how to use the new system. One version is available for download to an iPod, and a second version is available on YouTube:

The details on access to these videos comes by way of a PDF formatted press release found on the web site of the Secretary of the State.

To watch the video, you will need high speed access to the web, have either Adobe Fash or Acrobat installed, find the press release with the links to the videos, and either load it to an iPod or watch it on YouTube.

Easy – right?…

Unfortunately, I think the demographic that will most likely have trouble with the new optical voting system will be equally challenged with accessing this help video. The whole process is skewed to a youth audience that probably doesn’t need the voting help to start with.

What Connecticut didn’t do was simply embed the video on an obvious page on their state site (like I was able to do here) with an easy link to Flash for those that don’t have it installed. They could reach a lot more people that way, and hopefully better serve the public good. That said, a copy of the video will be playing at each polling place as well. Its unfortunate, but about 25% of American households are still not connected to the internet, and about half of those are via dialup.

Any use of technology for technology’s sake is a waste, and only serves to exacerbate the already fractious digital divide that exists in our society. I support and applaud the expanded use of the web by our government, but it needs to happen in a way that’s mindful of the needs of all the people they serve. It shouldn’t be focused on just one specific part of the electorate.

Perhaps its time for a national effort to provide access to both the training and technology necessary to bring everyone online. It’s hard to envision the US preserving its status as a leading economic and cultural force in this world without making a better effort in this regard. Like basic literacy a century ago, digital literacy is a key component of an open, educated, and free society. It should be important to everyone on both a personal and national level.

And seeing people potentially disenfranchised through digital illiteracy is just one example of why this matters…

NOTE: A correction was made to this post noting that the video will be available for viewing at polling places as well as on the web.

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Flash Support Coming To iPhone…

July 5, 2007 by Leave a Comment
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Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg posts a weekly technology Q&A called Mossberg’s Mailbox. In this week’s edition, which is all about the iPhone – Walt is asked a question about problems with the iPhone playing web video. The answer he provides is encouraging:

At launch, the iPhone version of the Safari browser is missing some plug-ins needed for playing common types of Web videos. The most important of these is the plug-in for Adobe’s Flash technology. Apple says it plans to add that plug-in through an early software update, which I am guessing will occur within the next couple of months. However, a separate program included on the iPhone can play a limited selection of videos from YouTube, and the phone can play videos you purchase from Apple’s iTunes store, and certain videos you create yourself.

My hope is that in-line flash files are supported the same way inline Quicktime files are today. If you click on a file to play it back, it automatically launches full screen, giving you a nearly identical experience to locally stored video or video playback from the YouTube application.

Can’t wait for the update. I’m sure they’ll be a lot of goodness in it…

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Thinking Beyond The Web…

May 18, 2007 by Leave a Comment
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Google is starting to stitch the pieces together…

Google’s switch to what they call “Universal Search” – a consolidated display of results from web sites, blogs, news sources, images and video – is more than just a new interface for search results. It’s a way for Google to consolidate investments they have already made under a unified strategy, and squeeze out competitors in the process. It lets them bring equal visibility to every aspect of their business, adding leverage to them in the process.

I especially expect to see YouTube geting a bigger play here. Google will likely use it’s ‘insider position’ there to create a deeper, richer video index that it can leverage in its own search advertising model. The web is moveing from being textual to being visual, and the ability to discover video content effectively will become critical.

A better integration of YouTube into Google could make it harder for Microsoft to compete in the video space with SoapBox. If they work to make their video efforts more visible on Google, it makes Google search more powerful. If they don’t, it makes YouTube more powerful. Soapbox is boxed in.

Either way, Google wins…

As a part of this strategy, developing AdSense is important. YouTube will likely become a foundational piece to producing a video version of AdSense. As Google brings more types of content to the “front page”, giving people a richer way to monitize that content will become increasingly important. And a more powerful version of AdSense will be key.

This would give Google the ability to deliver video advertising as part of video content, as well as within web pages – and to stitch the two together more effectively. Done well, it can create a strong pull from the Keyword Search side to the AdSense side.

Clearly, there is still a lot left for Google to accomplish in their core web search business.

But I don’t think Google will stop there…

I believe this “Universal Search” consolidation will ultimately extend to the desktop. It will blur the line between where your computer ends and the web begins. At a basic level, it would give you a cross-asset view of what you have on your desktop, and combine it with what is available on the web.

And that would certainly be useful.

But the real power will come when you can search across multiple desktops!…

Searching could then show you everything you care about – what’s on the web, what you have locally on your system, and what other people have on their systems that they are willing to share with you. I am not talking about just a simple “Napster” model here. I see this incorporating the sharing model used by Google Docs & Spreadsheets into Google Desktop Search, and wrapping it all together under a “Universal Search”.

This capability would tap into veins of content that are sitting underutilized on peoples drives. It would bring a permissioned social framework around it that could greatly increase its value. And it would be a huge social framework that Google could monetize – a “social network” that could potentially dwarf the MySpace‘s of the world.

Google could effectively create a vast “new web” at the edge of the traditional web…

“Universal Search” is Google’s way of realigning themselves for this next stage of their growth. In isolation, it doesn’t appear to be much. But when considered as part of a bigger strategy, I believe it can be a powerful multiplier for their business.

I have heard a lot of stock pundits saying that Google has been a one trick pony – search – and that it’s trick is over. They see it as a company with a great growth story, but that now has nowhere left to go – not too unlike Alexander The Great:

“When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

While I’m not one to guess the markets, I am certain of one thing.

Google isn’t weeping yet…

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