Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Fine Brothers Make Political Satire a Political Statement with Anti Prop 8 Web Series

Prop 8: The Web Series is created by Benny and Rafi Fine and challenges Prop 8 the ruling that banned some 18,000 same-sex marriages in California. The series shows what would happen if other rights were taken away from you just like rights were taken away from same sex couples in California recently. The series has had a successful run thus far. It was written up in Variety and Tubefilter when it launched and the first two episodes have been viewed nearly 75,000 times the brothers’ YouTube channel, as well as on CollegeHumor, FunnyOrDie, DailyMotion, MySpace and other sites.

Even still, many sites are shying away from the content due to polarized atmosphere caused by the issue. “As you can imagine, despite personal opinions some of the companies did not want the controversial and possible backlash the series can create, and in a weakened economy, it’s hard to find folks willing to spend money at all in web video currently, let alone for a political message,” said the Fine Brothers. "We created the show out of our own pocket and are using our web celebrity and fanbase to raise awareness for equal rights in our style of comedy. We plan to continue to be involved in the movement until marriage rights are legal for all couples, same sex or otherwise, in California, and the rest of the country."



The third episode of their show "Prop 8: The Web Series" has just been released, this time showcasing in their usual absurdist style what would happen if a proposition was passed to bring back Slavery.

"Prop 8: The Web Series" - Episode 3 - Slavery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-OCbNfCTnI

The Fine Brothers say they'll produce more videos through the time a decision is made on the case by California Supreme Court. “We hope the ruling ends the issue specifically of Prop. 8, at which time we will refocus our efforts to providing content related to federally legalizing same-sex marriage,” they said. “We also hope to get in touch with the leaders of the cause locally, and help them produce official content if they saw us fit to do so.”

Related:

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Tilzy.tv Introduces The Onfronts - A New Marketplace to Bring Together Advertisers and Content Creators

Following up on the success of the first Annual Streamy Awards which honored the best and brightest original web series and the explosion of web television programming over the last year, Tilzy.TV, the leading publication in the digital entertainment revolution, has introduced The Onfronts. With support from Blip.tv, Tilzy will be hosting the first annual Onfront NYC on June 9, 2009 in downtown Manhattan at the Tribeca Cinemas - home of the Tribeca Film Festival - to bring advertisers and leading content creators together to share experiences and showcase upcoming projects.

According to Tilzy, "In the past year, online entertainment has demonstrated its value as a highly engaging commercial medium with devoted communities, strong metrics, and unprecedented interactivity. The market for ad buying on this dynamic new medium has just begun to take shape. That’s why we created The Onfronts. We’ve barely announced Onfront NYC, and we’re ecstatic to have Atom, Fox, Next New Networks, My Damn Channel, DECA, For Your Imagination, Generate, EQAL, Take180, and Revision3 already on board. We’re also grateful to CJP Digital for their early support of our vision. If you’re a content company that should present at Onfront NYC, let us know."

Tilzy and Tubefilter have been leading the charge to get content creators engaged with advertisers and through their organizing efforts web television meet ups are forming in LA, New York, Toronto and other cities.

Back in January, Jamison Tilsner wrote an in depth article, How Do Web Video Creators Talk to Advertisers? | Tilzy.TV, which detailed the state of online video advertising. He spoke with many industry professionals innovating in this area who shared their thoughts on how online video content creators could communicate value to advertisers. According to Jamison a standard metric for online video advertising will likely emerge and that, "Advertisers don’t necessarily understand what they’re buying when they delve into online video. That’s partially a function of the newness of the medium, but I think it is also related to a lack of cohesive language and industry standards. Idea-sharing and agreement on standards will help to grow the pie for everyone."

Over the past few months since he wrote his article the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced a number of guidelines such as Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) and Digital Video Player-Ad Interface Definition (VPAID) that will help simplify the display of advertising from ad severs and the buying and selling of digital video media.

"Digital video is one of the most critical growth areas for interactive advertising because it provides marketers with the power of sight sound and motion," says IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg. "The standards that the IAB has created have played a key role in paving the way for a greater breadth of marketers across vertical industries to tap its power and I have no doubt that we are only at the very beginning."

Even in this down economy the opportunities for online video publishers and web television content creators continues to grow as new distribution channels and advertising markets open up. It's encouraging to see the innovation culminate with the creation of The Onfronts and a big kudos to Tilzy.tv and Blip.tv for taking a leadership role in this area.

Related:

Monday, April 20, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit to Debut at Streaming Media West, November 18-19

OVPSlogo_FINAL 1 Last week StreamingMedia.com announced new two-day conference, the Online Video Platform Summit, that will take place in conjunction with the Streaming Media West show, in San Jose, from November 18-19th. Streaming Media magazine and StreamingMedia.com recently hosted an Online Video Roundtable webinar that brought together leading online video platform providers to present their solutions and another roundtable is scheduled next week focusing on Enterprise Video. Much like these events, says Dan Rayburn, "this new event is designed to help organizations of all types, not just those for whom video is their core business. Designed for video publishers of all types and sizes, whether small businesses looking to publish content for the first time, independent entertainment content creators, large media organizations, or anywhere in between, the Online Video Platform Summit will provide hands on demonstrations of some the latest online video platforms. For the summit, we're also looking for ways we can incorporate other organizations to help bring awareness to the event, give them co-branding and exposure and have them help lead some of the sessions."

Topics covered will include the following:

  • User experience
  • Customization and branding
  • Monetization
  • Advertising platform integration
  • Syndication
  • The needs of B2B vs. B2C customers
  • Integration with set-top boxes and mobile devices
  • Metrics and analysis
  • ROI

The call for speakers for both Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit is now open and the deadline for submitting speaking requests for both shows is May 31st.

Contact Online Video Platform Summit director Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen if you have any questions about this exciting new event.

Also, see Jan Ozer's article on Streamingmedia.com, Choosing an Online Video Platform, for an in depth evaluation on choosing a service to host video our own site, using a UGC site, or deploying on a fee-based, SaaS (software-as-a-service) approach.

Related:

Saturday, April 18, 2009

A Conversation with Peter Csathy, CEO and President of Soreson Media - Part III, Sorenson Expands and More on the Future of Online Video

This is the third of a three part interview I conducted with Peter Csathy, CEO and President of Sorenson Media which took place last month shortly after Sorenson Media announced significant expansion into San Diego. In this interview Peter describes how in the midst of the current economic downturn his industry-leading digital media solutions company will open significant employment opportunities in both San Diego, which will now serve as the central hub for the company’s business operations and its existing Salt Lake City, Utah, location as it expands services and accelerates its growth in the burgeoning online video market. Sorenson Media is actively looking to significantly expand its current San Diego office location to accommodate anticipated growth. The staff is expected to triple in size within one year.

For more information about employment opportunities at Sorenson Media in both the San Diego and Salt Lake City offices, visit: http://www.sorensonmedia.com/jobs/.

Larry Kless: So this announcement is less than a week old. And what can you say about it? How did it come about, the expansion in San Diego and then also in Salt Lake? It seems you're pretty new to your position there. Has it been about a month?

Peter Csathy: Yeah. I just completed my first month. So I'm a grizzled veteran already. Well, obviously, we have this core talented team that has done great things. And so as we look to expand, which we will be doing, taking our base of what we do today and expanding it significantly. And more details of that, as I think we talked about last time, will be forthcoming in the not too distant future. But, obviously, we have to expand the team. The company hired me to aggressively expand the company in terms of build its business beyond what it is already today, and we've been profitable for years already. And to do that, of course, we need more developers. We need more on the sales side, on the marketing side. So across the board talent. And when you look at what we do, digital media, certainly Southern California is more in the heart of digital media. And so it's a natural expansion for us from a talent pool perspective but also from being near many of our important customers. And so from a geographic and just easy to serve them, there's a whole host of reasons why we're doing that. But the great thing is that it's going to be in both office locations. What we announced, of course, is the expansion. And we expect to triple our size in the San Diego office in the next year. And so that's where we are.

LK: And those positions are -- I looked over them -- from your blog, I saw that they're primarily engineering, marketing, sales and developers.

Peter Csathy: Yes. It's pretty much across the board. So we need good people across the board to augment the team that we already have today. It's a nice story in that here it is in these crazy, crazy times and everybody's doom and glooming, understandably because it's crazy out there. But we're in expansion mode.

LK: That is a great story. And so from your perspective, do you see that as a giving back to the community there? Digging in to the local talent pool? How's it been since the announcement just in terms of the reception from the community as a whole and then also just applicants?

Peter Csathy: Well, I think it's exciting. It is a nice bit of good news amid all of the doom that's out there. And so certainly we've got a lot of press in all of the biggest publications down here in San Diego. So the San Diego Union Tribune ran a story about it over the weekend. The San Diego Business Journal, a major story. So across the board, it's being received very well for that reason. And then in terms of just applicants which is critical too, we're getting a slew of applications coming in across the board as you can imagine.

We're getting talent kind of across the board in Southern California, but also we're getting a lot of in and around the Utah area as well. I haven't seen all of the resumes, but I've seen certainly a number of them. And speaking of San Diego alone, there are a lot from in and around the San Diego region. So you have Orange County. You have L.A.. You have San Diego itself proper. And they're a lot of seasoned folks. There's a lot of talent out there.

LK: How much are you going to play into making any decisions about hiring?

Peter Csathy: Well, I take a pretty active role in a number of things. Certainly, we're officially small still. Every hire, essentially, we want to have consensus because these are critical players for the team as we build this company. And so we're looking for all kinds of things. We want not only the raw talent, but you want the passion that we all have and the sense of team, really being team-oriented. And also very self-sufficient, self-starters. By the way, and all of that sounds like obvious things, but it's not easy to find.

LK: I would think so. Well, it is really a great story because, like you said, in such economic times, you don't hear about expansion. You hear about startups getting funding for a variety of different online video or having some sort of Facebook widget or this or that. But for a company like yours to aggressively expand in those areas --

Peter Csathy: And what enables us to do that, and this is a very important and interesting piece of the story for this company, is that we're not a startup. We've been around for a long time. We're a profitable business. We've been profitable for a number of years. And so we have a very healthy balance sheet. We have a very strong balance sheet. So we're a rock solid, financially strong company. And that's very unique. I shouldn't say very unique. There are some other companies out there. But it's quite unique in and around our space. It gives us the ability to now we're aggressively growing so we can do this and it's not a shot in the dark.

LK: So what's the timetable to get these positions filled and kind of move on this yet to be said expansion?

Peter Csathy: Well, what I've alluded to is going to see the light of day sooner rather than later. And I can't get more specific than that, as much as I'd like to. In terms of the hiring, you saw all the job reqs that we talked about online right now. And as soon as we have the talent, we're ready to lock-n-load. It's a top priority to this company. We want to close them. And so we're interviewing, as you could imagine, rapidly. And we need to get people in here.

LK: And then will this be phased? Is this like the first phase? Because you said you're going to triple your size.

Peter Csathy: Yes. In the San Diego office, we're looking to triple that within a year. That's the plan. And so sure, the wave that we see right now, this is what we're hiring for now. And then you go from there. I think that you'll find many of the things that we're doing interesting. There's a lot of stuff in the works. And this isn't just promising things that never come to light. There are a lot of things that are in the works as we speak.

LK: Excellent. And what have you seen since we last talked? I've checked out your blog. We've had -- just switch gears -- South by Southwest took place. Cisco announced more of their world domination plans. Just off your blog, you noted about IMDB, their plans to stream every single movie.

Peter Csathy: Yes. And that was announced at South by Southwest. Look, I think that what they're announcing, as I said in my blog, it's audacious. It's ambitious. It's beyond ambitious. Is it going to happen? Who knows if it's going to happen? But I love the fact that they're looking big. IMDB is almost this quiet company that is -- I don't know how they are from a financial standpoint, but they're a well-respected company. So that's interesting. I thought Cisco's getting further into the consumer space with the Flip, the Flip video cam, I thought that was an interesting purchase. I don't know. To me, $590 million, that was quite shocking to me. I mean that's very interesting. I don’t know what the valuation is based on. But that's a spicy meatball. I mean that's as much as News Corp paid for MySpace.

LK: And they had only raised 67 million total for their whole life of their company.

Peter Csathy: It's a nice return for the V.C.'s involved. So it's interesting to me; $590 million, I know I was talking about that before. But that's quite a price tag. What's huge is about it is that I guess for me, you're looking at the price tag and, as I said, it's what they paid for MySpace.

LK: What do you think is next just overall with online video? We previously talked about challenges, where things are going, but just in the short-term, just from where you're sitting, CEO and President of Sorenson Media.

Peter Csathy: Where does it go next? Online video, the experience itself is meant for businesses who serve it up and consumers or individuals. But it's already a significant part of people's lives. I think it's something like 2.5 hours for the average internet user who watches video. It's something like 2.5 hours of video on a monthly basis now. That's still so early. And what I see next is there are certain things like going from the capture phase of video to then getting into the workflow of encoding it, publishing, hosting, all of that. All of that is still too complex. And it has to be much easier. And that's what you'll see a lot of focus on, I think, ease of use. As well as the quality, of course. HD quality is something we've been focused on here at the company. And then consumers, it's just more and more viewing of video. More and more comfort. And it'll just become even more ubiquitous today. And then for companies of all sizes, it's all going that day whether it's selling through video. So meaning that you have products you can sell and you can showcase then the video in a way that you can't otherwise do things or community around products and you can do that with video, too. And so it's just a deeper immersion into people's lives and then easier to use. So it's intuitive whether it's from the capture and also just from the experiencing of it.

LK: You're so right about that too because right now YouTube, they're the market leader in terms of being the destination site with 100 million views in the US alone last month. But Hulu is approaching. And there's other sites, TV.com and the wild success of the NCAAs. I don't know if you're a college basketball guy, but it's pretty incredible to see the sports industry take this step finally into online delivery and that live experience. It's been just in the last couple of years, each one of the major players has entered the field and offered this blended approach to the multi-screen approach.

Peter Csathy: Well, sure. And the NCAA is a great example of how deeply immersive this experience is and how it's become everyday. It's not just early adaptors now. It's become very mainstream.

LK: They could watch it on the phone. They could get it online.

Peter Csathy: Look at it from the content provider's perspective. I know there's a lot of talk all the time, again, of doom and gloom about what all these new technologies mean for content providers and how they can monetize and what it's taking away. And it's ruining their existing business models. But think about the ultimate opportunity. Once people get their arms around how to monetize effectively, now it's getting content in the hands of viewers when they want it, how they want it, wherever they want it. So now there's many more immersive ways to get your content in front of people who value it. And when the choices are unlimited like that, ultimately you're going to be able to monetize it more significantly. So I think that's for the content providers, too. You've got to be very bullish long-term.

End of part three of interview series.

For more from Peter Csathy:

Check out his blog: Digital Media Update

March 25, 2009 — Streaming Media Podcast Episode #24: Sorenson Media
Jan Ozer speaks with Peter Csathy, the new president of Sorenson Media, about the company's plans for expansion and new updates to Sorenson Squeeze coming in Q2.

Listen now mp3 logo

Company Description
Sorenson Media (http://www.sorensonmedia.com/) is the global leader in video compression technology. The company's innovative encoding applications and award-winning video delivery solutions enable users to quickly and affordably deliver quality digital video files over the Internet. Sorenson Media's video streaming technology is used on more than 800 million computers worldwide. Sorenson Squeeze has garnered many major industry awards, including Macworld Best of Show and Video Systems 2004 Vanguard Award, and the firm's compression codecs are licensed by a host of Fortune 500 companies.

Friday, April 17, 2009

A Conversation with Peter Csathy, CEO and President of Soreson Media - Part II

This part two of my interview with Peter Csathy, CEO and President of Sorenson Media. I spoke with Peter last month two weeks into his new job. In part two he talks about his career, managing virtual teams and what's like in the day in the life of Peter Csathy.

Larry Kless: Now, I was reading; it says that you started as an entertainment lawyer. Is that right?

Peter Csathy: Yeah. An entertainment intellectual property media lawyer way back in the day. Now you're taking me way back.

LK: Way back to where it all began. At what point did you get into the video space?

Peter Csathy: Well, so from the very beginnings, I started off as a lawyer but doing media work. So motion picture music work. And then early in the '90s, I transitioned into in-house to first New Line Cinema, then Savoy, then Universal Studios. So I was in and around the movie space and media space for years and years and gravitated from lawyering to being a business guy. So a business negotiator and then ultimately operations. And then I made the move to the internet world, digital media world in very early 2000 and no looking back since. And this is my fourth company.

LK: How many days now has it been you've been in your position?

Peter Csathy: This is the end of my second week. I was just announced on Monday, but I had a week before. And it's interesting. I feel like I've been here because I know the business well, as you can see from my background. I've been in the digital media world for a long, long time. Too many gray hairs now. Maybe not as much hair as I used to. But so I've run enough companies where I feel very -- I think I have a good sense for what works and what doesn't work. I've made mistakes. I think I know how to avoid those mistakes again because that's what you learn with experience. And as long as you have a great team and a great proposition and foundation to work from, you can do great things together. And we're a passionate group of people. As you can tell, I'm pretty passionate. I'm a big believer. Look, I love what I do. And I wouldn't get into this unless I believe with every core of my being that this thing is going to be big, big, big. And so that's why I'm up-and-running. Up-and-running I think very well because my team helped me in that regard. And we're moving. We're moving forward very aggressively.

LK: And in terms of your position now with Sorenson, did it come together pretty quick? ." Did you start the New Year with the transition or did it come up a lot sooner?

Peter Csathy: Well, I don’t want to get into specifics of timing too much, but it was a natural progression from the very beginning when I learned about the opportunity. I only sold the company in November. We closed the deal in November. And I started in February, so things moved pretty quickly.

LK: And a day in the life of Peter Csathy, what's your day look like?

Peter Csathy: This is kind of a typical day in the life. I have two little kids: six and nine. So what I do is -- I never used to be this way back in the day, but I'm an early morning riser now. So I get up at 5:00 in the morning, and I sit down, have my coffee. I bang out a lot of work in the morning before I hear the pitter-patter of little feet coming down the steps. Have breakfast with my family. Then begin the official workday, although I started before that. And then, for me, it's critical to be home with my family for dinner. Help the kids. Put them to bed. And then I'm back on. And knock it out and kind of do it again. And then what's very important for me, I also try to work in at least three or four days a week of workouts.

That's kind of typical. But then that's the non-travel days. But I have teams in both cities. So, of course, I'm traveling, too. And then there's business development. And there's conferences. So it's that kind of world. But I've been doing it for a long time. So, again, it feels very comfortable.

LK: You must in your position just to manage virtual teams use a fair amount of virtual tools, you know, videoconferencing.

Peter Csathy: You know my last company was known as being the best in class with video chat and videoconferencing. And one of my first pronouncements to my teams were, "Okay. Everybody webcams. Immediately." Because we have teams in Salt Lake, and we have teams in San Diego. And the best way, apart from traveling, for getting to know each other and for collaboration is to see each other and do it. And so you may have heard that noise in the background, that ringing noise. That was actually somebody calling me on my video chat application, one of my team members from Salt Lake. So we constantly do that. So it's part of the culture already. And it was such a critical part of the culture in my last company.

LK: That's great. I use Skype. I use TokBox. I use Oovoo. I use a lot of different tools. And I was contacted by a grandfather in Florida just the other day who was reading my blog where I talked about the upgrade to Skype 4.0. And I had my mom upgrade it. And it kind of messed up her settings. And I walked her through it and fixed it. And then I put those learnings up on the blog. So the funny thing is is that just yesterday, I was Google chatting with this grandpa from Gmail because he just wanted to make sure it worked before he tried to talk to his son and grandkids.

Peter Csathy: This is what I suggest; my former company won all of the awards. Four times PC Magazine Editor's Choice. Walt Mossberg was a big fan. So you've got to check out Sigthspeed. It beats all of those other ones hands-down when it comes to video. And the state of the art is really Sightspeed.com/dellvideochat. So that's the one I would urge you to do yours. And check it out. So it's www.sightspeed.com/dellvideochat, all one word. Try that one. I think you'll be quite impressed.

LK: I'll do it. Thanks for the tip. I'd ask you one more question. In terms of some of your proudest achievements, what would you say from a career perspective?

Peter Csathy: Okay. So I'm putting aside family because --

LK: Of course.

Peter Csathy: -- I'm a huge family guy. But apart from that, the biggest achievement for me, Sightspeed was the most satisfying experience. I'm very proud of a number of things. I'm very proud of the team that we assembled there. I'm very proud of the moral that we had and the overall company culture. It was extremely positive. I've never seen such a positive work environment before. And we had a team of about 30 people. We did a lot with a little because we were up against the big guys, and yet, we did win all of the awards. And then ultimately, I'm very proud of the crowning achievement which was having this very successful sale of the company during the market meltdown times because that's almost unheard of and virtually impossible. And the beautiful thing about it is that it was a very positive result for investors and all employees within the company. And so the Sightspeed experience brought it all together.

LK: That's great. I appreciate you sharing some of your personal background and the fact that you're a family guy. I am as well. And that's where it comes from.

End of part two. Stay tuned for part three.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Digital Media Veteran Takes The Reins of Sorenson Media - A Conversation with Peter Csathy, President and CEO of Sorenson Media, Inc. - Part I

Last month, Peter D. Csathy was named President & CEO of Sorenson Media, Inc., the global leader for encoding and compression applications which launched in 1995. A 20-year digital media/technology industry veteran, Csathy has an extensive resume with an unbroken track record of company successes that began following his graduation from Harvard Law School. But those who know him say that he's a down to earth guy and family man with Midwestern values and a remarkable business sense. Most recently he served as CEO of Internet video company SightSpeed, Inc., and engineered the company’s successful acquisition by Logitech, Inc. in late 2008 in the midst the current economic melt-down. Prior to Sightspeed he served as president and COO of digital music leader Musicmatch, Inc., which Yahoo! acquired in 2004. Before that he was COO of eNow (Relegence Inc.) which was acquired by AOL and a long-time media/digital media executive for Universal Studios, New Line Cinema and others. Peter lives in San Diego with his family, is a diehard Minnesota Vikings fan (no matter how difficult that is at times) and is a passionate believer in the power of music. He maintains a personal blog, Digital Media Update, which he updates daily and calls it a "myriad of media and technology musings by Peter Csathy." You can see his full profile here.

I had the opportunity to speak with Peter the following week after his appointment as CEO and the company. At that time he eluded to a number of big announcements outside of Sorenson Media's traditional market sector but couldn't comment on the specifics. But within the last month his new company already has made a number of announcements including their significant expansion into San Diego bringing big employment opportunities in both their San Diego and Salt Lake City offices, the bundling of Sorenson Squeeze 5 with Avid's Editing Software, the use of Sorenson Spark video technology in the new touch screen the Verizon Hub home phone system, and showcasing Sorenson Squeeze 5 and the Sorenson Spark Developers Kit at the NAB Show in Las Vegas, April 20-23, 2009.

I'm pleased to present the first part of this interview with Peter in which he talks about his new job, his short and long term goals and the challenges and opportunities for his company and the online video industry.

Larry Kless: How did the position come about for you?

Peter Csathy: Well, I've been in digital media technology space for a long time, you see. And we had just completed the sale of Sightspeed to Logitech which was a great result for all. And I'm particularly proud because it's a great result for the company, my investors, my employees. And it happened during this crazy economic meltdown. So it was a wonderful thing, a great result, a great home in Logitech. And the transition was happening for the last couple of months. And I'm a company builder. That's what I've been doing. So I'm fortunate that I've had a number of opportunities come my way. Sorenson Media was one of them. And given my background and just given my deep passion for video and my belief that we're in the very early innings of this whole video opportunity, that's how it presented itself. And that's why I decided to go with this team.

First of all, the market opportunity is vast. We're early. Second, Sorenson already had this established name of credibility, of high-quality products, best in breed. And we've been a profitable company, which is very rare, of course. And we have a nice clear direction of where we're going to take things. And then finally, of course, we have the team. And I'm a believer in the team that we have. And we're growing both in Salt Lake and in San Diego. We're hiring. We're expanding because the opportunity's so big and the company's doing well. So for all of those reasons, for me, it was a no-brainer.

LK: Was there any other leadership changes at Sorenson aside from yourself as president and CEO?

Peter Csathy: No, I have the same team, but we're growing. We're expanding the team, as I said, both on the Salt Lake City side and the San Diego side. And so we're hiring and kind of across the board actually.

LK: You know how everybody's looking at President Obama and saying, "Okay. One hundred days, what is he going to do?" Did you have a 100-day plan yourself?

Peter Csathy: Well, I'm a pretty off-and-running kind of guy. I believe in setting the vision, the tone, the objective early on as long as I know enough about the company and about the opportunity to do so. I was able to, I think, hit the ground running with this company. So there are absolute things that we have set in place that weren't in place before that I think can be very exciting for this company. So I don't have a technical 100-day plan, but I certainly have a plan that has been implemented or is being implemented that first and foremost, we've already determined our priorities. And now it's a question of execution in a very focused manner. So that's what we're doing.

LK: Is there any specifics on the objectives that you could share?

Peter Csathy: Well, I can tell you this that we have an exciting opportunity beyond what the company's been focused on today. So we will always focus on being the best in class and most innovative when it comes to the compression and encoding and Squeeze and Squish. And our current slate of products, you can bet that in the near term, there will be a very compelling expansion of the overall opportunity for Sorenson that is going to make the company even more exciting. And, unfortunately, that's all I can say to that.

LK: I understand. When should we expect to see some of these changes or some of this new innovation? In the calendar year?

Peter Csathy: I can tell you that it's not a long term. It's going to be sooner than people think.

LK: What do you think the biggest challenge is so far facing your company?

Peter Csathy: Well, the biggest challenge I think for any company is that there are opportunities everywhere. And you can't spread yourself too thin. You have to really focus. You have to choose your battles. You have to focus and be more right than wrong. And so the biggest challenge for any company is to have that kind of focus. Rather than trying to do everything, you pick the most compelling opportunities. You focus on them. And you really make those take off.

LK: What would you say are some of the biggest challenges just facing our industry right now, online video, streaming in general?

Peter Csathy: I think that the biggest challenge in terms of even accelerating a pace further is that things aren't as easy as they need to be. And I think reaching a wider audience more quickly with the power of what could be done because video's everywhere, as I said, and it's growing by leaps and bounds. But getting the message across to an even wider swath of the small and medium sized business, videographers, even on the enterprise side. The enterprise side is pretty focused on the, but the SMBs, which is a huge opportunity and then on the consumer, a huge opportunity. And the biggest challenge is to make it high-quality, which we can do. Simple or easy to use. And things are too complex out there. So ease of use. And then in terms of a cost-effective solution. When I look at the competitive landscape, that's where I see the big holes. And that's where Sorenson can really come in and fit in. And I think our unique proposition above and beyond all of those kinds of things is that Sorenson is a trusted name.

As I said, we've been profitable, and we've been profitable for a long time. And the company's been around a long time. And we partner with the best, you know, Avid, Apple, others. And so we're a very rock solid company that will be there. And others in and around the space are startups, not proven. And it's not a great time to be a startup.

LK: Well, that was actually a question that I was going to ask you a little later, but I guess I'd ask if you'd have any advice for some of these startups in these kind of volatile, dire economic times?

Peter Csathy: Well, so in our particular space, that is a substantial differentiator from most of the competition. And so for customers, when they're looking at possible solutions, if you're entrusting your video, your precious possession of videos, then you better be working the stage to be around. That's one thing. But when it comes to just generally for entrepreneurs, well, it's crazy out there. It's very difficult to raise capital, obviously. So what you need to have is beyond the obvious of having a compelling composition, you have to have a very focused plan, focused business model. And for those who already have funding, it is not the time to be deficit spending. It is the time to be very lean and mean and get to cash flow break even essentially because funding is not going to come.

LK: You've mentioned that we're in the early innings of the online video game. Each month the video views continue to grow -- comScore said just in January YouTube hit more than 100 million. More people are moving to online video. Any general comments on the growth you see?

Peter Csathy: Oh, yeah. So first of all, as massive as those numbers are today, it is early. It's early. Video is already pervasive, but it's going to be so much more pervasive on a mobile phone, everywhere you are. It's all going to be internet-driven, video-on-demand. And so it's a question of just like text content initially, the internet, it's getting it all encoded and having as broad of a supply, as broad of a library of videos and then it will be just like a Google search. You'll be searching for what you want, when you want, where you want it. And so for those who are essentially arms dealers, like us, we're in a very good position because it is so early. Are videos recession-proof? As you can see by those numbers that you said, the consumers and businesses alike -- first of all, the consumers, they'll consume more and more. People like video. It's compelling. And now that it's so easy to use on whatever device you're on, not as much on the TV yet, but it will be there very soon. It's already there, but it's particularly early there in terms of getting it into the living room.

But for the consumer, video's only going to grow, continue to grow massively. Just massively. As far as the businesses, similarly, from the enterprise side, monetizing your video assets, and again that's why we're positioned really well, but also for the SMBs, when you're talking about, "Okay. How do you make more money? How do you generate more revenues? How do you optimize?" Well, the best way to sell frequently is through video. Showcasing a product. Showcasing of services. And that's something that video can do unlike anything else in terms of from a marketing/advertising perspective. So as you can tell, I'm beyond bullish on the overall opportunity.

LK: Absolutely. And there's been a real move, I think, for small and medium-sized businesses in more localization to provide video as getting rid of the banner ad and using video instead.

Peter Csathy: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.

LK: So one question which you answered was just how healthy Sorenson Media is, you mentioned you're profitable and have been profitable.

Peter Csathy: Yes. The company is extremely healthy. It's one of the great assets of the company is that we have been profitable and profitable for a long, long time. And the company, as I said, has been around. So that's a significant differentiator from others who have kind of come and gone. And I saw that game play out before in other markets. So especially in these crazy times, that's absolutely critical.

LK: And then in terms of just the space itself, from your position, clearly looking at competition and strategic partnerships, and you had mentioned stay tuned for some announcements, it sounds like you're talking about expanding into other areas, potential partnerships and strategic partnerships there. What about the competition? Do you get that question asked a lot about On2, your direct competitor?

Peter Csathy: Well, I'm not going to name specific competitors, but certainly there are a number of parties in and around our space. And all of the things that I indicated why we are uniquely positioned and best positioned is that we are profitable. And you can look at the competition and who else can say that? Certainly, we've been around for a long time. We have a business that's a proven business with a best in class product. We're known as being the innovators when it comes to the core products that we have today. And we have partnered with some of the best and brightest. And we have for a long time. Obviously, Macromedia way back when which has become Adobe. Apple as well.

We really empowered or enabled video of the internet from the very beginning. So we're the pioneers. And we have a very interesting business model. So when you look at from a partnership perspective, why us? Well, all of those reasons I just said. Because partners need to make sure that the company's going to be around; that's critical. We're best in class. We're built to partner. And if you look at my background, partnership is essentially in my DNA is the way I see it because for 20 plus years, I've been very partnership-driven. And that's how we built my last companies. That's how we built the company before that. And then throughout my career before that, it was very partnership-driven. And we can uniquely offer partners of all kinds, such as the Avids of the world, a world class solution that is something that they need and their customers need.

End of part one. Stay tuned for part two.

About Sorenson Media, Inc.
Sorenson Media (http://www.sorensonmedia.com ), the global leader for encoding and compression applications, provides hardware and software solutions that enable users to easily and affordably compress, manage and deliver quality video over the Internet and to CDs, DVDs, mobile devices and other formats. The company also produces quality tools for publishing and managing user-generated content. From the time it was launched in 1995, Sorenson Media has been at the forefront of seminal trends, products and technology that have dramatically improved the Internet experience for developers and users alike. The Sorenson name has become synonymous with quality, innovation, ease-of-use and cost-effectiveness in video compression and encoding. Beginning in early 2007, Sorenson Media entered the realm of user-generated content with the release of easy-to-use Web applications and editing and management tools for the development of customizable video sharing sites.

Related Sorenson Media Press Releases:

Monday, April 13, 2009

Upcoming on Klessblog, Interviews with Online Video Entrepreneurs

What I love about writing this blog is that I get to meet new people and learn all about their companies, the products and services they offer and their technology innovations that help shape the online video industry. The people I've met are online video executives and industry thought leaders who run well-funded and established companies or start-ups. Whether they are the CEO, SVP, VP or chief marketing officer, each are entrepreneurs who have their own unique vision to monetize online video.

If blogging was my full-time job I could probably publish content daily but since it's not I usually fall behind on getting the interviews published in a timely manner. As a result I have a number of blog posts in progress and I thought I'd take a moment to let you all know what's upcoming on this blog.
  • Adap.tv - VP of Marketing Dakota Sullivan talks about the upgraded OneSource 2.0 ad management platform
  • Channels.com - CEO Sean Doherty discusses his RSS video site which launched last September '08
  • Kodak - CMO Jeffrey Hazlett describes Kodak's support of web television through their sponsorship of the Streamy Awards
  • Ooyala - CEO Bismarck Lepe and CTO Sean Knapp talk about Ooyala's value proposition and VaaS (Video as a Service) and a demo by Alec Holub Technical Lead of Ooyala's interactive video
  • Sorenson Media - CEO Peter Csathy talks about his new job and his plans for the global leader in video encoding and compression applications
  • The Feedroom - Matt DeLoca, SVP of Sales discusses the rapid adoption they are seeing at the corporate level for online video advertising and communications and updates The Feedroom's web site and business focus
  • TubeMogul - Mark Rotblat, VP of Business Development talks about TubeMogul Inplay, online video analytics and distribution
  • WonderHowTo - a conversation with CEO Stephen Chao about his how-to video site
I'm also working on an analysis of the recent Streaming Media Online Video Roundtable that featured Brightcove, Kaltura, Ooyala and VMIX and a report on the Web Video Leadership Forum Breakfast I attended earlier this month in San Francisco. Look for these blog posts in the coming weeks.

Many thanks, and stay tuned.

Streaming Media Webinar on 4/30/09: Enterprise Video Roundtable with The Feedroom, Kontiki, Qumu and Streamlogics

Following last months webinar, Online Video Roundtable, Streaming Media magazine and StreamingMedia.com is hosting another webinar focusing this time on Enterprise Video, on April 30 at 2:00 PM ET/11AM PT. In this live web event, executives from leading enterprise video and webcast solutions will provide overviews of what they offer in terms of content creation, management, and distribution and uncover cost-effective tips and techniques. The announcement and company profile are below. Register now!


Business leaders have never been more challenged to effectively communicate critical information to all employees. As a result, the time has never been better to deploy video communications, and there are numerous offerings available to help you manage all or part of the enterprise video workflow.In this exclusive live web event, executives from leading enterprise video and webcast solutions will provide overviews of what they offer in terms of content creation, management, and distribution. They'll also offer insights into enterprise video best practices, such as which types are best suited for video-including employee-generated content-as well as IT integration challenges and technical issues. You'll also have the opportunity to ask questions that specifically address your own unique concerns.

Participation in this event is limited, so sign up today.


Eric Schumacher- Rasmussen
Editor-In-Chief Streaming Media
PRESENTERS


Matt DeLoca
SVP Sales
The FeedRoom
Eric Armstrong
President
Kontiki
Ray Hood
CEO
Qumu, Inc.
Dave Gascoine
CTO
Streamlogics, Inc.

Here are the company profiles with two courtesy of Crunchbase.


Kontiki Company Information | Kontiki
The Kontiki Delivery Management System uses patented technology to enable the delivery of high quality video and other rich media securely and efficiently at very large scale. Built on an award-winning content delivery and management platform, Kontiki is used by several members of the Fortune 500 for its massive scalability and network efficiency. With millions of clients installed worldwide, Kontiki has been used to securely publish, protect, deliver, and track digital media content to employees within the enterprise and to consumers over the Internet since 2000. Kontiki is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with regional sales offices in Denver, Dulles, and London. Originally founded in 2000 in Silicon Valley, Kontiki was acquired by VeriSign in 2006 and re-launched as an independent company in 2008.

Streamlogics is a leading global provider of webcasting applications and services to more than 500 enterprises, government agencies and associations. For almost a decade, Streamlogics has been a trusted provider of integrated webcasting and media portal solutions for businesses throughout North America and Europe. Streamlogics' service offerings include webcasting , web conferencing , portal development and streaming media hosting. Since its inception, our organization has successfully provisioned thousands of online presentations and has established a solid reputation for delivering unparalleled service levels and product excellence. Founded in 1999, Streamlogics is majority-owned by the senior management team. The head office and international broadcast operations facility is located in Toronto, Canada supported by regional sales offices in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Nashville Tennessee.

Friday, April 10, 2009

Video Needs to Replace the Static Banner Ad, Says Mixpo CEO Anupam Gupta

Static display ads are generally ignored by the video consumer and have become increasingly ineffective with very low click-through rates. Online advertisers and brand marketers have been working on ways to make the advertising experience more meaningful for the viewer beyond the click. An approach that is both innovative and proven successful is online video advertising. Video ads are a way for viewers to engage with the ad and get the full brand’s message through sight and sound. As an ad unit they offer value to the advertiser and control to the user experience on how they interact with the ad. In a recent Beet.TV video interview, comScore’s co-founder and chairman Gian Fulgoni said that online video advertising is driving lifts in performance of 40 percent and higher in terms of buying a product or service. In speaking with Daisy Whitney, Fulgoni added, “The reason advertising works well on TV is it has sight, sound and motion, and you have that in online video. It’s easier to communicate a message and easier to persuade people.”

Mixpo, the Seattle-based online video advertising technology company is finding similarly strong results with advertisers through its video advertising technology platform deployed with local media publishers – where they have run online video banner ad campaigns for thousands of advertisers – including Comcast Spotlight, NBC Local and Tribune, among others.

Mixpo’s Chief Marketing Officer Glenn Pingul, recently began compiling results based on campaigns to demonstrate the effectiveness of online video advertising. To date he’s pulled together half dozen case studies spanning campaigns involving advertisers in the arts and entertainment, automotive, travel and sports categories. He posted the data on Mixpo blog here: Serious about Business: Capturing the value of VideoAds

Through this sampling, Mixpo found the engagement rate of VideoAds averaged three to six times (plus) the average click-through-rate; 65 to 80 percent of the VideoAds watched regardless of length and almost half of viewers watched the entire video; and adding actions, such as promotions, lifted engagement rates exponentially – just repurposing video is not the magic formula. Right now, these results do not name specific advertisers. However, Mixpo is working on that and will have further results revealing advertisers in the near term.

I spoke with Anupam Gupta, CEO of Mixpo, following Mixpo's OnMedia 100 Award and $4 million follow-on investment on how his company is innovating in the online advertising space. It's interesting to note that this interview predates the Beet.TV comScore interview as well as Glenn Pingul's recent findings of much higher engagement rates than what Mr. Gupta states in the interview.

VideoAd by Mixpo
Larry Kless: Big news with the funding and the OnMedia 100 Award, what's your expansion strategy with the funding?

Anupam Gupta: As you know, we've been building out our platform over the last 18 to 24 months. So the initial part of the funding, when we initially engaged our investors was all about product development and validation. Refine what we're doing based on really good solid customer feedback and that's the philosophy we've taken from the beginning. You're beginning to see the fruits of that labor in the sense that the platform is very solid it delivers what it's meant to and we've deployed it in different publisher partners like you've seen. So now it's really part of our expansion and expansion to me means a couple of things. It means obviously all the business metrics that we care about, more customers, more revenue but more importantly it also means continuing to deliver on the promise that we are working on and that promise is all about that video ads can be a very effective form of online advertising.

So in that, I think we're at the very beginning of all the things we want to do and everything we do approaches it from a platform perspective and not really an agency perspective. And what I mean by that is because we're a technology company we've built the core things in our platform that allows our partners to show that video ads are more effective to the advertisers to establish that trust relationship and also to make money.

So to boil that down, it's sales and marketing expansion very much on our partnership strategy as well as continuing to innovate on the product side.

LK: How about coming from the the OnMedia conference, any resounding themes? Key learnings?

Anupam Gupta: I wouldn't necessarily say that there one big learning and don't know that you have to have anything. The. one thing I would say is that the conference was expanding the networking opportunities for us for sure because it's a different ecosystem. A lot of it is New York brand agency oriented and we just operate in a different ecosystem so far but we do see opportunities to expand based on there's a lot of cool innovation that's going to come out pretty shortly. So I think from that perspective it was good to understand a slightly different facet of online marketing and I'm sure we're going to have a lot more conversations in that ecosystem moving forward.

LK: It seems too that marketing is picking up and you're getting your message out. You've had quite a bit of coverage by Mark Robertson on Reel SEO, but I saw your Crunchbase profile and it seemed to be a little light in the company profile and I imagine that's part of the marketing effort to get your message and to build your brand. (Note: Crunchbase profile has been updated with more company information)

Anupam Gupta: I think that's right on, you know the thing that I would say is that we've taken very much a B2B approach so we are not going directly after advertisers. We are working publishers and other partner who already have advertiser relationships. An even if I boiled it down, There's a couple of sub-segments of the local media industry we;re going after. Cable, that's we're are relationship with Comcast comes in. Public TV, we have a couple partners in that category, newspapers and radio. So those are the sub-segments we're going after and I think from a true marketing perspective what we find is that it's really reaching the influentials and the decision makers in those segments and obviously if you have proof points around what others are doing with you and how that's driving tangible results. So in some ways I think our marketing approach is a little bit different than if you were going directly after advertisers like a few others in the space.

LK: In terms of replacing the static banner or as Bambi Francisco at Vator.tv wrote "Mixpo is out to kill the banner ad" what do you see obstacles around the adoption of videos replacing the banner ad and getting a bigger footprint this year?

Anupam Gupta: Let me start out on why I think that's gong to happen first and then come back to it.

The way we look at it for our platform is that we're trying to make it extremely affordable and expand the base of advertisers who can leverage all this richness of interactivity that we've built into the platform and that does not necessarily require big creative fees or production or agency relationships. That's what we're really doing today.

If you take the national level and you look at what's happening between display and the percentage of display that's already turned to rich media, and when you're in the form of rich media it's a lot more engaging but if you look at that, and I don't have the exact numbers but I think it's 16-20% maybe more. So it's driven a lot of penetration already and the reason for that is because those ad units just tend to perform better and engage your viewers in a much better way, and it's just a more interactive experience. So it also comes with a kind of bit of cost. Now in our platform you don't necessarily have those kind of costs because there's lots of different ways of putting creative together.

So I think applying the same analogy to the space of advertisers that they are going after, one would think that penetration of display ads which is just a big big market at the local level it's going to give us the same kind of numbers, or maybe more. Now the thing that I think about video as an advertising format for local advertisers is important is because local advertisers don't necessarily have an established brand that they've been spending millions and millions of dollars on marketing, unlike the brand advertisers, and therefore gives them an opportunity in a very authentic informative way to get the message out and drive some response.

So based on those two factors I think that it has a lot of room for growth and I think we're at just the very beginning.

Now coming back to your question about obstacles I think the natural one there is around sophistication of the advertisers around content. Those are just friction points that have to be managed not that they can't be managed. I think what we have adopted as a strategy that says we're going to work with partners who are already have a highly trusted relationship with these advertisers. They're already talking to these advertisers they are already providing advertising solutions and if we provide them with a way to enhance what they're doing then you get over those obstacles of reaching those advertisers as well as servicing those advertisers. That's just the hard process that we've taken to get over those obstacles but they are real obstacles.

About Mixpo
Mixpo is an online video advertising technology company based in Seattle. The company's comprehensive VideoAd platform enables any advertiser, from small to large, to run actionable online video advertising and locally promote their business. Mixpo's VideoAd platform is available through partnerships with local media publishers, including Comcast Spotlight, NBC Local Media, and Tribune. Mixpo enables publishers to seamlessly integrate VideoAds into their online solutions for local advertising, demonstrate effectiveness to advertisers, and increase revenue. Mixpo also enables national agencies and advertisers to dynamically create and target VideoAds to drive more cost-effective local marketing and promotions. Mixpo was founded in 2005 and has raised $6.5 million from Seattle-based Madrona Venture Group, the Working Opportunity Fund (managed by GrowthWorks Capital, Ltd.), Yaletown Venture Partners, SpringBank TechVentures, and private investors.

About Anupam Gupta
Anupam is the CEO of Mixpo, where he is responsible for the vision, business and product strategy, and building the team for flawless execution. His passion is developing and growing scalable online services, based on a strong appreciation and understanding of customer needs. He has a strong background in technology and online services. He holds an MBA from Cornell University and an undergraduate engineering degree in computer science from Birla Institute of Technology & Science, India.

Related:

Thursday, April 9, 2009

I'm a Streaming Media All-Star! Presenting The 2009 Streaming Media All-Stars

For the past two years Streamingmedia.com has been recognizing the online video community through its annual list of Streaming Media All-Stars. As Streaming Media editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen writes, "This year's Streaming Media All-Stars represent the diversity of the online video industry today, from the entertainment industry to education and the enterprise, and from hard-core technologists to conceptual visionaries. But one thing ties them all together: A passion for online video that goes beyond merely advancing their own personal and professional agendas to pushing the entire industry forward. They're all superstars, but they're all team players, too."

I am incredibly honored and humbled to be on this years list of Streaming Media All-Stars and I thank Eric, Joel Unickow, Dan Rayburn and everyone at Streamingmedia.com for the great work that they do to support, educate and promote the streaming media and online video industry. I also congratulate my fellow All-Stars and thank you my faithful readers, industry colleagues and friends and while it goes without saying, I must thank my family for their love and support.

While the economy is the worst it's been in generations that hasn't stopped the innovation and creativity in the online video space. Views continue to rise, new streaming formats, more robust analytics and advertising standards evolve, our content can be now viewed in the living room and on mobile devices and independent producers can now play in the same space as the big Hollywood studios. We are truly in a renaissance time.

So without further ado, here's Eric's article from today, see his full post for stats on each of this years All-Stars.

The 2009 Streaming Media All-Stars
Our annual team of the most innovative, influential, and important players in the online video arena.
by Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen
April 9, 2009

Last year’s Major League Baseball All-Star Game was one for the ages, a 4-hour, 50-minute affair during the final season at the old Yankee Stadium. Last year’s Streaming Media All-Star Team was one for the ages, too: 25 of the most important people in the history of the industry, going back to the 1990s when online video was more promise than reality. Since it was the inaugural All-Star Team, we looked back as much as we looked forward, choosing people whose impact was historic as much as it was current. (You can find last year’s team here.)

Some of the members of this year’s team have been in the game since the beginning too, but we also decided to emphasize industry leaders whose impact was felt most notably in the last year or two, the people who are pushing online video forward today. Once again, though, we selected the team members based not only on their personal successes, which speak for themselves, but also for their commitment to streaming media at large, whether in advancing it via technical innovation and business strategies or via their efforts to help the entire industry through education and evangelism in ways that go beyond an “inside baseball” approach.

Some have made their name in the media and entertainment field, while others have innovated in the worlds of enterprise video and education. But all of them share a commitment to helping online video realize its vast potential.

Here’s this year’s team:
  • Jeremy Allaire, Chairman and CEO, Brightcove
  • Ron Berryman, SVP, GM, Digital Publishing Group, Fox Interactive Media
  • Larry Bouthillier, Media Technology Architect, Harvard University
  • Ezra Davidson, in memoriam
  • John Edwards, CEO, Move Networks
  • Rob Green, Board Member and Managing Director, Abacast
  • Reed Hastings, Founder, Chairman, and CEO, Netflix
  • Eric Hards, Lead Multimedia Engineer, Lockheed-Martin
  • Mike Hudack, Co-Founder and CEO, blip.tv
  • Jason Kilar, CEO, Hulu
  • Larry Kless, Founder and President, Online Video Publishing
  • Jim Louderback, CEO, Revision3
  • Tara Maitra, VP and GM, Content Services and Ad Sales, TiVo
  • Justin Shaffer, Founder, Hot Potato Media, Inc.
  • Dave Stoner, President, CEO, and Director, ViewCast
  • Andrew Swart, VP, Content Markets, Level 3 Communications• Kevin Towes, Product Manager, Flash Media Server, Adobe Systems
Here's my stats:
Larry Kless, Founder and President, Online Video Publishing

Other job title:
• Production Manager of Videoconferencing, Multimedia Communications, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc.

Previous job titles:
• Supervisor, Broadcast Production, National Video Communications at Kaiser Permanente Information Technology
• Lead, Broadcast Production, National Video Communications at Kaiser Permanente IT
• Teleconferencing Specialist/Producer at Kaiser Foundation Health Plan
Proudest achievements:
  • Launching Online Video Publishing in 2008, as a consulting resource for sharing strategies and best practices for online video publishers
  • Promoting streaming media and online video through my blog, other online publications and at Streaming Media West
  • Having a fulfilling career of nearly 20 years in the enterprise video communications and event production industry
  • Winning two Telly Awards in producing and directing medical education and training e-Learning programs
  • Overseeing the design and creation of a state-of-the-art broadcast videoconferencing facility at my employers corporate headquarters
  • Still having a copy of the first issues of Wired and Streaming Media magazines
Next big thing:
  • I'm working on my business plan for Online Video Publishing to involve sponsors and guest authors.
  • I'm developing ideas for new sessions at the next Streaming Media West conference.
  • I'm working on an ongoing series of entrepreneur interviews for Vator News
Biggest trend in online video:
  • Internet connected TVs, Full HD video on digital still cameras, adaptive streaming, customized players and more robust viewing statistics
  • Consumers are cutting the cord and dumping cable for free content on the web
  • An emergence of independent web studios and destination sites that produce and distribute original branded entertainment (For Your Imagination, 60 Frames, Next New Networks, Strike TV, EQAL)
  • Independent online video publishers are joining established ad supported syndication networks for wider distribution to maximize their revenue streams.
  • Hybrid forms of distribution from companies like Netflix, Hulu and TV.com and open source platforms like Boxee has given rise to a subscription-based video as a service model for the office, living room and mobile viewers.
Biggest challenge facing the industry:
  • In the face of our worst economic downturn in generations, the biggest challenge facing the industry is communicating the value proposition of streaming media to consumers, advertisers and investors.
  • The lack of online video standards across the three screens and standard metrics and nomenclature to accurately capture and report user engagement
  • Competing with Google

Also, if you haven't yet registered for Streaming Media East - Register NOW and save $100 ( deadline is April 17 .) Also, the Hilton New York (Streaming Media East's official conference hotel) has AGAIN lowered their rates. Attending Streaming Media East has become even more affordable! Book today!

Now in its 12th year, the Streaming Media East show is the number-one place to come see, learn, and discuss what is taking place with all forms of online video business models and technology. Content owners, viral video creators, online marketers, enterprise corporations, broadcast professionals, ad agencies, educators and others all come to Streaming Media East to see and hear the latest online video technology but, more importantly, to discuss the business models that are coming of age.