POSTS TAGGED : Video

iWant the iPhone Pro!

845655-media_httpwwwjamescogancomimagesiphoneprojpg_IbkyymDzaIpxmjJMy primary reason for not owning an iPhone has to do with the fact that I really enjoy my Nokia N95 which I’ve used for about 18 months now. The N95 doesn’t have the sexy touch-screen interface that the iPhone has, but in many ways, and I’d argue in the ways that matter most, the N95 is still a better phone than the current iPhone 3G.

When I took the plunge a year and a half ago and bought an unlocked N95 from Finland, I did it with the hopes that it would replace my video camera, my still camera and my phone, and put it all in a light-weight, pocket-sized package. I have two young kids that are growing up too fast, and the ability to capture DVD-quality video and 5-megapixel photos on-the-go was paramount in my decision to buy the N95. The N95 did not disappoint. It’s an excellent all-in-one multimedia device. But it’s no iPhone.

The one achilles heel of the current iPhone are its poor optics. The 3G camera is the same 2-megapixel version that shipped with the original iPhone, and it still does not record video. I’m sure some 3rd-party developer will release an App to get it to record video at some point, but at 2-megapixel quality, it won’t be that usable.

So that leads me to the ‘iPhone Pro’. When is it coming, Steve? Oh, you know its coming. Let’s not forget that Apple is steeped in movie making software. This is a company that pioneered the .MOV QuickTime video codec. This is a company that produces Hollywood studio-quality editing software in Final Cut Pro, and has further leveraged their editing prowess to create iMovie for Joe Consumer. Don’t you think we’re going to see iMovie Mobile on the iPhone?

Sooner or later, Steve Jobs is going to walk on stage at the Moscone Center and he’s going to unveil the iPhone of all iPhones. An iPhone that isn’t just going to continue to revolutionize the cellular handset industry, but an iPhone that makes every digital still and video camera manufacturer quiver with fear. Everything from 8+ megapixels, 30-frame-per-second video, zoom, autofocus, image stabilizer etc., and combine all of this with the ability to edit and compose your photos and videos with Apps like Aperture Mobile and iMovie Mobile. Steve Jobs may even bring Steven Spielberg on stage to help demo it and suggest that we are eventually going to witness full-length feature films edited and shot entirely on an iPhone. Heck, we can’t even be that far off from an iPhone HD.

So when is the iPhone Pro coming? I have no idea, but when it does, you can be sure I’ll be buying my first iPhone.

UGV gets a bad rap

User-generated video (UGV) gets a bad rap. Here are three reasons why user-generated video is king…845654-media_httpwwwjamescogancomimagesugvjpg_ytDEEivsxAbpAmo

#1 – UGV: Many people continue to make broad-sweeping generalizations about user-generated videos as though they are all equal. That’s a big mistake because UGV is the deepest and widest bucket of online video content, and it also garners the most attention. UGV cuts across every demographic line, has many tiers of varying production values and quality, and hits on every topic or category imaginable. While many big-brand advertisers don’t want their brands next to all UGV, I believe many big-brand advertisers want their brands next to some of it. That is a technology problem, and like all technology problems, nobody should sweat them because eventually they always get solved.

In fact, as UGV continues to evolve and mature, more of it will begin to look a lot more like semi-professional and professional video content. While talent is not universal, it is incredibly widespread, and as the tools to create high-quality video continue to proliferate, get better and cheaper, the volume of ‘better quality’ UGV will continue to rise.

#2 – Attention, attention, attention: UGV tallied 22 billion views in 2007, up 70% over 2006. Where there is mass attention, there inevitably are ways to monetize it. If urinals can have ads, so too will some of the lowest forms of UGV. Technology and time will solve this. Similar to blog content, which when it first began to gather momentum had the same knock against it. In the early days of blogging, many pundits thought nobody would make money from it because advertisers wouldn’t want their ads next to some random person’s diatribes. Technology solved that problem and will do so for UGV. Ironically, it’s unscripted video blogging that scares mainstream media execs more than any other form of online video. Why? Because people love watching it, and mainstream media can’t do it.

#3 – 3rd Party advertising blinders: If you’re constantly thinking about 3rd-party advertising when it comes to monetizing online video, you are not seeing the big picture, or the future of online video. As an addendum to point #2, attention can and will always be monetizable and YouTube as well as many other online video distributors will eventually make a good portion of revenues indirectly from the attention that UGV garners. This revenue won’t come from serving 3rd-party ads. Gotta think outside the box a little, but soon you will begin to see some very interesting monetization strategies play out in the online video space that have absolutely nothing to do with serving 3rd-party ads.

It’s far too easy to get caught in the moment of ‘now’ when it comes to online video. These are early days still. What seems difficult to monetize today, may be the cash cow of tomorrow. Stay tuned, and don’t get caught in the echo chamber when it comes to UGV.

image cred abbyladybug

Where’s The Beef in Online Video?

We are still very much in the nascent stages of online video, that much we know. While the online video space is still very immature, three tiers of online video have clearly emerged. Which one tier will be the most profitable? Which tier will yield the most traction? Which tier will fade? Which tier will ultimately win? In this post, I will attempt to break down the online video space and describe some of the pros, cons and outlook for each sector.Let’s start with a diagram. Hamburger, anyone?

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There are 3 distinct tiers of online video as I see it. I’ve divided up the online video space into Professional Video, Semi-Professional Video and User-Generated Video.

Professional Video
Professional video has been the slowest tier to ‘legitimately’ form. Broadcasters and studios have been dipping toes in the online video water, but nobody seems to be getting completely immersed in it, yet. The vast majority of Professional video is still offline being broadcasted exclusively on television, in movie theaters, lying dormant in studio archives or distributed on physical media like DVDs. Much like the diagram shows, professional video is not the most dense tier by any means, but it is the most puffy and glossy of the three. As of today, the top half of the bun has not come close to finish baking. Professional video is still making a very slow migration to the web with vast repositories of professional video not yet being repurposed and repackaged for the web. Eventually, a tsunami of professional video will make its way to the web and will do so in two forms – original made-for-web professional video programming, and repackaged offline professional video. When I say ‘repackaged’, think along the lines of what Charlie Rose is now doing. He’s now slicing and dicing his vast array of interview footage into 600+ two-minute bite-sized video clips for online consumption. This is just one example, but over time many broadcasters and studios will dig into their massive archives of programming and begin the chore of repackaging their content to satisfy the insatiable appetite for online short-form video consumption. Made-for-web professional video will be the last component of this tier to gain momentum. We are likely still years away from seeing broadcasters/studios sink substantial money into original web video. The monetization of online video is currently far too immature to support the high costs of professional video production. I would argue that this will someday signal the end of television’s reign in the advertising spectrum. When major studios start creating original video programming for the web, you can be sure that the monetization of online video will have truly come of age.

Semi-Professional Video
Semi-professional video creators are one step above User-Generated video creators because they typically have more skills, more time and are prepared to spend some money to produce online video. A good example of Semi-Professional video are the ‘How To’ videos that can be seen on many video sharing sites these days. Guides to cities, biographies and some amateur episodic productions like Lonelygirl15 are also examples of Semi-Professional online video. Semi-Professional video will be the least dense tier of the online video spectrum as it can not compete with User-Generated video on volume, and over time Professional video’s ongoing migration to the web will dwarf the Semi-Professional tier. In many ways, Semi-Professional is filling a short-term ‘quality’ gap in the online video spectrum. Much of User-Generated video is considered ‘lower quality’ and Professional video is still sitting offline waiting for the monetization of online video to mature so it can justify a Professional-level investment. Hence the reason why ‘lower cost’ Semi-Professional video is gaining traction and eyeballs right now.

In many ways, Semi-Professional video is keeping the seat warm for Professional video and due to the present-day lack of ‘high quality’ online video, it is Semi-Professional video that is enjoying a siesta of popularity and demand.As the online video space matures, Semi-Professional video will be the most difficult tier to defend. The ‘quality’ gap I mentioned above will eventually be met by larger-budgeted Professional video that will be produced or repackaged for the web. Semi-Professional video will also begin to feel encroached upon by User-Generated video. As time marches forward User-Generated video will begin to look more and more like Semi-Pro. We know this because the software to make and produce consumer video is getting better and cheaper with each passing month, and while production/acting talent is not universal, it is incredibly widespread. Now you can begin to understand why the Semi-Pro tier is caught in the middle of a sandwich and will eventually feel squeezed from the two larger halves of the bun. Also, because it is the least dense and diverse of the three tiers, it will likely be the most prone to commoditization. If there are 250 Semi-Pro YouTube videos today on the sites, sounds and history of Chicago – how many will there be next year? In three years?

User-Generated Video
Far and away the most dense of all three video tiers, no other tier can compete with User-Generated video on volume – both in terms of production and viewership. But despite being the crowned-king of online video, it has become incredibly fashionable to slam User-Generated video and that is largely due to the assumption that this tier will be the most difficult to monetize. Critics of User-Generated video are quick to point out that advertisers are leery to put their brands next to random content offerings that are raw, have low production value or in its worst form, may be offensive.What User-Generated video has over Pro and Semi-Pro is not just volume. User-Generated video offers immediacy and access in ways that the other tiers can not compete with. Media consumers today clearly value immediacy and access over quality and accuracy. We know this because we’ve seen blogs take a chunk out of mainstream media for those exact reasons.

Online video viewers are constantly looking for community and for the ‘next big or new thing’ whatever that may be. It is the undeniable hunger for the unpolished, fresh and undiscovered that will continue to drive the growth and popularity of this tier long into the future.Can User-Generated video be monetized? That is the million-dollar question. This reminds me a lot of the trajectory of blogs and blog content. Many people were quick to slam blogs in 2003’ish because they believed that monetizing blogs was not doable. Who wanted ads next to some random person’s online diary or opinionated diatribe? Over time, as blog content began to fragment and separate into definable niches, niche content networks formed, ad networks formed and advertising technology matured to enable the monetization of blogs. In my view, it is both fallacy and short-sighted to say that advertisers dislike User-Generated video.

More than any other tier of online video – it is impromptu, unscripted video blog content (ie, UGC) that scares broadcast media executives the most. Why? Because UGC gets the most online viewers, and broadcast media is not equipped to compete in this area. Advertisers may not want their brands next to ‘all’ User-Generated video, but I firmly believe that many advertisers would love their brand next to some of it. That folks, is called a technology problem. One of the most important lessons I have learned in my 10+ years as a web entrepreneur is that you don’t sweat technology problems. Inevitably, they all get solved. Essentially, all advertisers want attention and eyeballs, and in time, advertisers will be given the necessary controls and assurances they need to begin capitalizing on the huge traction that User-Generated video offers.

True Video Search Looms As The Ultimate Game-Changing Wild-Card
For all intents and purposes, video search does not exist today. Sure, you can search for videos on YouTube, Google, Video.ca etc. but you are not searching the video itself. The video search of today is really a text-based search of the Title, Description or Tags that surround the videos.The video search of tomorrow, or next year or in ‘X’ years may not be a text-based search at all. Eventually, a true video search will search the actual ‘frame data’ of a video. What do I mean by this? Let’s suppose you are looking for a video of a ‘pink elephant’. Either by typing in the words ‘pink elephant’ or by providing a ‘base image’ the video search of the future will search the actual visual frame-by-frame data of videos. So a 5-minute animated video of a pink elephant which does not have the actual words ‘pink elephant’ anywhere in the Title, Description or Tags could some day be the #1 search result for ‘pink elephant’ simply because it contains 9000 video frames of a pink elephant.What impact would a true video search have on the online video spectrum? The easy answer is, density wins. All of those seemingly unmonetizable, undiscovered User-Generated videos are actually incredibly rich repositories of frame data waiting to be properly indexed and searched.

IAB Finalizes Standards For Video Advertising

One of the bigger perceived stumbling blocks to monetizing online video was the lack of industry-wide standards. Pre-roll, post-roll, no-roll, overlay, how long, how short etc… With text ads and especially display ads (banners etc.) the standardization of specific unit formats helped propel the growth of those ad delivery mechanisms. I am now happy to report that as of today, the Internet Advertising Bureau has finally settled on some standard units for online video advertising.

While this won’t immediately lead to a rush of ad dollars for online video distributors or creators, it should begin to set the table for consistent adoption and growth going forward. Bottom line, this is an important milestone and very good news for everyone involved in the online video industry.You can download the full IAB Digital Video Ad Format Guidelines and Best Practices document here: PDF File (496k).There are still hurdles that need to be overcome. The whole cost-per-impression (CPM) vs. engagement debate is ongoing. Most people agree that CPM is not the best metric for online video. But how will we track, measure and monetize different levels of engagement? This will take more time, industry debate and experimentation to shake out, but the introduction of standard ad units by the IAB is a big step in the right direction. For more on the CPM vs. engagement debate, watch Yahoo!’s Rebecca Paoletti discuss the issue in more depth:

Where do you find inspiration?

Inspiration can come from just about anywhere provided your eyes, ears and mind are open to it. Where do you go, what do you do to get inspiration for your work? The internet is certainly a great place to go looking for inspiration. Whether it is a blog post, a graphic treatment, a video or an entire web site experience, the internet is a massive potpourri of creativity waiting to be discovered and be inspired by. However, it’s also easy to get lost in the abyss of the virtual world, and the physical world can get ignored or pushed to the periphery. Going for a walk (urban or nature), listening, touching and smelling our environment can often provide the impetus for a new creative path or a creative solution to a business problem.

The advertising industry whose lifeblood depends on the constant flow of creative ideas can occasionally be a great reservoir for inspiration. Here is an old (in web time) favourite video from 2004-05’ish. It’s a video done by the founder and producer of the creative agency – Belief. One of the best points made in this video is when they say that ‘design is an artform, not a job – it’s really a lifestyle’. The same can be said for being an entrepreneur – it’s not just a job (how many entrepreneurs work 9 to 5?) it’s most definitely a lifestyle where your passion, creativity, risk tolerance and acumen are tested daily and like the video mentions, you need to immerse yourself in your work, constantly be living with it and everywhere you go, everything you see, be influenced by it.

Test your beliefs, what is important to you, what do you believe so firmly in that you can’t wait to make it happen. Again, while this video is about advertising, many of the broad points they make can apply to just about any industry or profession. The video is called ‘Pollinate – Chain Reaction’ and it’s all about creativity, inspiration and how to find it.

Will hardware save Blockbuster’s business?

In a follow-up to my previous post that touched on the major transformation from ‘store to web’ for big-box retailer Circuit City and their sagging offline sales, comes news today of a $1 Billion offer for Circuit City by Blockbuster. Much in the same way that Microsoft missed the boat on search which opened the door for Google, Blockbuster has similarly missed the boat on online video rentals and they’ve been chasing Netflix ever since.

Blockbuster
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Netflix
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Will merging with Circuit City save Blockbuster’s business / brand? Blockbuster appears to be moving toward a ‘hardware-based’ strategy that would likely see them launch a set-top content delivery box ie, think Apple TV. This strategy would explain the interest in merging with an electronics retailer.

“The combination of Blockbuster and Circuit City will result in an $18 billion retail enterprise uniquely positioned for the convergence of media content and electronic devices,” wrote Blockbuster’s Keyes this morning. “We would seek to differentiate products in both Blockbuster and Circuit City stores by offering exclusive content and content-enabled devices. Both companies would benefit from complementary products, marketing, management strengths, technology and distribution and the resulting synergies would significantly improve consolidated financial performance.”

In Canada, the online video rental business is suffering from a lack of competition and choice for consumers. It’s not a mature business yet by any means and over time that will change as new players, partnerships and brands enter the Canadian online video rental market.

via betanews

Internet as a video-centric medium

When Walt Mossberg speaks or writes, a lot of people listen and read. So when Walt Mossberg says the internet is fast transforming from a text-centric medium to a video-centric medium, it carries some serious weight and echoes genuine consumer behavior. Walt was recently asked to speak about the rise of online video at a Beet.tv power event at the Embassy of Finland in Washington, DC and had some strong opinions (no surprise there) about the current state of video delivery on the web, and where it is headed. To put the emergence of video in some perspective, chew on this – in December 2007 there were more videos streamed online than searches performed. Yes, you read that correctly. Video overtook search in December ’07 in U.S. volume. While revenues derived from online video are paltry today in comparison to search revenues, many see the writing on the wall – video advertising will eventually usurp television advertising and could overtake search advertising at some point as well.

Eisner predicted that within five years the internet will be as important content-wise as cable or satellite – Michael Eisner; ‘The Time Is Right’; Internet Content To Equal TV In 5 Years

Walt goes on to suggest that the broadcast business ie, television networks, Hollywood studios etc. are where the newspaper and magazine industry were 5 years ago. In other words, offline video creators, producers and distributors need to get serious about web video or watch their influence and revenues erode at an accelerated pace going forward.

TED 1, YouTube 0 – Robin Williams rescues conference

Imagine you are organizing a conference and in the middle of a panel discussion there is a technical glitch that stops the proceedings. Stressful, to say the least. Now imagine if that panel included the likes of Sergey Brin from Google, Queen Noor of Jordan, Watergate-buster Carl Bernstein, Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert and Ugandan journalist Andrew Mwenda, and furthermore, imagine if the entire audience was jammed with people just as digerati and influential as the aforementioned panelists. Yikes!

That’s exactly what happened last night at the annual TED Conference in Monterey California. In the middle of that panel discussion which was being recorded by the BBC, a technical glitch reared its ugly head and stopped the panel in its tracks. Some say silence is golden, but in the case of a conference with a live audience – it is deadly. But then something crazy happened. Like a dream come true for the conference organizers, a famous comedian by the name of Robin Williams stands up from the audience crowd and starts doing an improv comedy act. The audience is in stitches of laughter for 10 minutes while the organizers work out their ‘issue’. Technical glitch? What technical glitch?As crazy as this story sounds, I think this aspect of the story is even crazier. Where is the video clip evidence of this? I know the TED Conference is somewhat secretive, but c’mon! An audience full of technology leaders and tech-savvy people with their multimedia handsets and iPhones and not one, I repeat, not one video clip of this has been uploaded to YouTube. Shocking!!

TED 1, YouTube 0

This just in…online video is a big deal.

You’re going to be shocked when you hear this – online video sharing is a big deal. According to a new study by Pew Internet, 74% of people who have broadband at work and home watch and download online video. On the sharing angle – 57% of those who watch videos online share video links, and 75% say they receive links from others. The YouTube-Google sale may be a bit stale-dated at this point, but I’m wondering if all of this talk about a $10 billion Facebook valuation is making that $1.7 billion transaction look like a bargain? You can download the (.PDF) report here.