I'm Baaack! The Return of Klessblog

I'm happy to announce that after a long hiatus, Klessblog is back! 

It's been years since I've published on this blog, and I've been wanting to do so for some time. So much has changed over the last two years and in the many years since I was active on this blog. Online video is now everywhere, streaming is a household word, and Zoom is the most common way we meet with each other these days. 

There's no going back to the way things were before Covid. Our lives have changed in so many ways and the distance between who we are now and who we were then, and how we live our lives in the world today, with our faces covered by masks most of the time, is the new normal we've adapted to during the pandemic. 

Business models have evolved, new markets have emerged and every one of us have learned so much along the way that our old lives seem a distant memory. Offices full of workers packed and stacked in high-rises in the dense cityscape are all but empty, with the remote workforce now in non-stop Zoom and Teams meetings, instant messages, screen sharing, muting, unmuting, virtual backgrounds are all part of our everyday work lives. 

Many of us had to shelter-in-place for months on end and continue to maintain social distance from each other, and as time went by so many businesses both big and small, restaurants, bars, music and entertainment venues closed up their doors, workers were furloughed, supply chains disrupted and our economy and mental health took a downward spiral. But many of us took up new hobbies and art forms, worked on projects that we had long put on hold, started new business ventures, and innovated in ways we we never had before. As movie theaters closed, online video subscription services we called OTT (over-the-top) television, now just streaming services, are ubiquitous and available as apps on our all our various devices and Smart TVs. 

With all the changes in our lives, the most serious impact of Covid has been on our healthcare system which has been staggering for our medical professionals. In one of the most politicized public health issues in generations with over 900,000 lives lost from the virus, an ambivalent America struggles with an uncertain future. We've called our healthcare workers heroes time and time again to be there to save the day, but the truth is they are not asking for praise... but for just kindness, masks and vaccines. so they can sustain themselves and keep up their fight against the deadly coronavirus. 

I've spent the last two years of my 32 years as a healthcare technology professional innovating in new ways to support the many physicians, nurses, staff and leadership whom I worked with everyday. In this new way of working, my team and I pivoted from producing live in-person events to 100% virtual events. We're no longer setting up extensive AV systems in hotel ballrooms with lights, cameras and the action we all knew so well,  and now simply log on to Zoom and Vmix and broadcast to any platform. And for many of us videoconferencing and  streaming isn't new at all.

I'm hoping to find more time to share what I've learned over the last several years in the online video and meeting space, new technology solutions and innovative ways my team and I have adapted our production environment and workflows today. My thanks to you all for still reading this blog and I wish you all well. 

It's good to be back and look for more posts here soon!

Klessblog's Top 10 of 2013 (Part 2)

Well, the hangover has finally worn off and with the new year in full swing, I can continue this top 10 Klessblog countdown. I picked this top 10 list based on my best experiences of 2013. The last four covered the first part of the year and these top six will bring things up to date. It was a busy year for everyone, with some upheaval,  lots of change and a lot of things stayed the same.

Online video growth continues to skyrocket, as we've seen more brands shift their advertising dollars into online video, a new wave of short-form video creators arose from people are uploading their Vines and Instagram videos, the majority of marketers are jumping into the waters of online video en masse to tell their stories and sell their brands. According to comScore's most recent data of online video rankings, 188.2 million Americans, watched 52.4 billion online videos in December 2013, and video ad views totaled 35.2 billion. That's means 86.9% of Americans who accessed the Internet last month watched online videos, and the average video duration was 4.2 minutes. The average video ads viewed were 15 seconds and they accounted for 40.2% of all the videos viewed and about 5.7% of all the minutes spent viewing online video.

In addition, according to Pew Research, the percent of online American adult who have either created their own original content for viewing or download has doubled from 14% in 2009 to 31% in 2013, with many hoping their videos will go viral. Additionally, the number of adults who watch or download videos has grown almost 10% since in 2009, from 69% to 78% today, with the growth fueled mainly by rapid increase in the use of mobile devices and the growing popularity of social media sites.

But this isn't news to those of us who've been following these trends over the years. We all knew online video would grow and prosper. I could go on and cite countless sources that covered the trends, but again, I refer you to all the great sources I listed in my last post, on the side bar of this blog, including ReelSEO, Beet.TV, Fierce Online Video, OnlineVideo.net, Dan Rayburn's The Business Of Online Video, StreamingMedia.com, VideoNuze, and many more.

I started this blog in November 2007, to join the voices of the streaming media community as a way to share my knowledge, ideas and analysis of the online video industry. As I said in my 100th blog post and my 600th blog post,  I'm grateful for the support of my family, friends, followers, readers, supporters, community members, colleagues, and to the many of you who have contributed to this blog by sharing your time with me to meet and be interviewed by me, sent me press releases and kept me up to date on the latest news and information. I look forward to an even bigger year in 2014 and look back one more time to wrap up Klessblog's Top 10 of 2013.


6. My Google+ Hangout with Neil Davidson on, "The Core of a Successful Corporate Video"

As I said in my from July 1st,  had the pleasure of joining Neil Davidson, Founder and CEO at MyWebPresenters, in a Google+ Hangout to discuss, "The Core of a Successful Corporate Video". I had a great conversation with Neil and you can see the topics we discussed were focused on what are the commonalities that all of the good corporate videos share (hint: tell a story!), how should a business go about fitting a video production into their marketing strategy (hint: start with a good story and shoot video with what you have, either a prosumer camcorder or mobile phone, and try to get good video and audio quality), which businesses are leading the way in using video as a marketing tool (Zappos), what was the biggest video failure and what did I learn from the experience (always have a back up plan), and what are other opportunities for corporate video in 2013 (shoot live action video and don't rely motion graphics with a witty voice over to tell your story). My thanks again, to Neil Davidson for the great conversation. Watch our Google+ Hangout video here.


5. The Strategic Video Awards and Content Marketing Awards

Over the past four years, I've had both the privilege and honor of being as a judge for the Strategic Video Awards, a video competition "created for everyone who uses video to communicate for corporations, associations, non-profits, public institutions, colleges and universities, PR firms and ad agencies, and custom publishers. The Strategic Video Awards differ from other programs in that we judge the effectiveness of the message versus the technical aspects of the video." The Strategic Video Awards entries range from Flip-cam videos to highly-produced corporate documentaries, lighthearted executive vlogs and serious video news programs. Each year the entires get better and better and the 2013 winners will be announced this month. You can view entries from 2010-2012 on the Strategic Video Awards YouTube Channel and watch my favorite entry from 2010, Nationwide - The Musical, which was also the Grand Prize Winner.

Prior to judging this year's Strategic Video Awards, I was asked to be a judge for the Content Marketing Marketing Awards, presented by the Content Marketing Institute and sponsored by McMurry/TMG. According to Content Marketing founder Joe Pulizzi, "content marketing has gone from hot buzzword to a needed universal strategy for enterprise marketers. The Content Marketing Awards are a combination of two esteemed awards programs, the Magnum Opus Awards, honoring the very best in content projects, and CMI’s Orange Awards, honoring the best people and agencies in the business." Open to all companies, organizations, and institutions, this year's Content Marketing Awards had over 800 entries from all the best content marketers in the business in print, digital, publications, strategy, social media, mobile and of course, video.

My category was "Best Topic Specific Video" which had over 40 entries with a variety of styles and techniques. After viewing all the entries the ones that really stood out for me were real stories with real people shot as live action video productions. Many marketers rely just on animated, motion graphics and voice-overs which end up looking like boring animated Infographics that just leave viewers uninspired. So my advise is to actually shoot video to tell your story. See the winners of the 2013 Content Marketing Awards here. Thanks to Program Chairman David Murray and also Benjamine Knight from McMurry/TMG who did an incredible job organizing the competitions.


4. Streaming Media Magazine articles Part 1 and Part 2, "Best Practices for Live Events"

Thanks to the encouragement of my friend and Streaming Media Magazine, StreamingMedia.com, and OnlineVideo.net editor Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, I wrote a two-part article for Streaming Media Magazine titled, "No Second Chances: Get Live Events Right the First Time".  Earlier in the year, Eric asked me to write a 2500 to 3000-word overview of production, lighting, audio, stage, talent, capture, and delivery, and by the time I completed my first draft I was well over 5000 words. So Eric suggested I turn it into a two part article for the June/July and August/September 2013 issues. The first part looked at the five core elements of a successful live event in the enterprise setting. It's a culmination of key learnings from years of producing live events and offers battle-tested advice to ensure live enterprise events come off without a hitch. The second installment looked at different ways to make the overall webcast experience engaging for your online audience using a variety of different video production techniques interactive tools.

Thanks again to Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen for the opportunity to write for Streaming Media Magazine, and contributions from Nick Balletta, Harvey Louie, Donn Kanagaki, Casey Wilms, Harvey Woo, Steve Dung and to the many people who I have worked with over the years to help me learn what works best for live events, and what doesn't work so well.


3. The 2013 ReelSEO/Liveclicker Video Summit

In July 2013, my good friend and online video superstar Mark Robertson, founder of  ReelSEO, joined forces with Liveclicker to co-host the first ever video marketing summit, held in tandem with Liveclicker's annual Video Commerce Summit. The sold-out event was Liveclicker's 5th annual and an inaugural event for ReelSEO and drew a cross section of over 300 retailers, brands, and agencies attending either summit. Over the last few years, I've interviewed attendees and speakers at the Liveclicker Video Commerce Summit, and I was there again this catching interviews but this year the tables were turned, when Tim Schmoyer asked me to share a video marketing tip for his weekly ReelSEO Creator's tips. The event was largest and only annual event devoted to all things video marketing and video commerce and it was a huge success and according to @JuliePerry, it's game on for #vsummit in 2014, so stay tuned for more awesomeness! A big thanks to Mark Robertson, Jen Fahey, Justin Foster and Dave Holland for putting on a great show and to Kevin Edwards for the video production support!


2. Online Video Conversations

I've been producing and posting short video interviews with online video publishers, producers, entrepreneurs, industry executives and innovators on this blog over the last number of years. But in November of 2013, I launched Onlinevideoconversations.com, as a new home to my many online video conversations. Over the years, I've shot my videos using the Flip Camera, Kodak Zi8, Canon Vixia FH30, with variety of microphones and edited them with Windows Movie Maker, iMovie and Final Cut 7. But just last month, I took the plunge and bought a new MacBook Pro and Final Cut Pro X (which takes some getting used to after years of editing in Final Cut 7) and I'm settling into a workflow. I already have a handful of new videos there, including Mike Folgner, SnappyTV, Tom Morgan of Net2TV and AJ McGowan, Unicorn Media (now Brightcove), and I'll be be cross-posting the videos there and here on this blog with more in-depth coverage. Look for more online video conversations soon and throughout the year.


1. Don't be Afraid to Let Them See You Dance!

I sometimes joke that when I write my memoirs, it will be titled, "Don't Be Afraid to Let Them See You Dance", which is my metaphor for believing in yourself without worrying about being embarrassed. I work with so many people at so many levels on a daily basis and it's always come easy for me, because I'm such a people person and I have honed my communication and customer services skills for the last 20 years. My daughter once asked me, how do I meet new people all the time and not be awkward. I told her that even if you're nervous, you can't worry about it and you have to work right through it and be yourself. Even though you may dance like Elaine from Senfield, don't be afraid to let them see you dance. So, thanks to my good friend and ever-faithful video director Dominic "Baby Dom" Bonavolonta, I'm now the star of my own Gangnam Style JibJab music video and you can see me in my natural habitat, working and having fun and of course, dancing... (or not!)



Thanks again to all my loyal readers, followers and supporters. Many thanks as well to Kris Drey at Vidcompare for the years of advertising and all the best to him in this ever-changing industry. As we move into a new year, we'll see continued growth and experimentation as standards and distribution models mature. I know I'll be busy as ever and even more so at both my day job and my own business venture with new clients, new challenges and always new adventures.

My best to everyone all in the new year!


(Editor's note: Sorry for the delay, but the year got away from me. Stay tuned for much more to come)

Klessblog's Top 10 of 2013 (Part I)

So, another year goes by in the blink of an eye and as we head into the new year, it's always time for reflection. I've seen many tech bloggers list the same top stories of 2013, with the general consensus that it wasn't a real big year of innovation and disruption as it's been in previous years. But obvious trends like adoption of mobile computing continued to rise, along with software subscription models, social media apps like Instagram and Vine, which sucked my data plan. Social media darling Twitter proved that its IPO was much more successful than Facebook. Online video viewing turned into binge watching, thanks to Netflix releasing full seasons all at once. Actor Kevin Spacey, star of the popular Netflix original series House of Cards, even went on record to urge studios to studios to revamp their distribution models. Video standards moved further to HEVC as the broadcast industry began rolling out 4K video solutions. There were plenty of MA's in the industry and leadership changes within many companies. Read up on all the news in any of the feeds I have on the side bar of this blog, including ReelSEO, Beet.TV, Fierce Online Video, Lost Remote, NewTeeVee, OnlineVideo.net, Dan Rayburn's The Business Of Online Video, StreamingMedia.com, VideoNuze, Web TV Wire, Tubefilter News, Nalt's Will Video for Food blog, MediaPost Video Insider, Vidcompare and the variety of Scoop.it feeds.

With all the movement in the online video and the technology space, many things changed but some remained constant. I actually lost track of things in a few months back due to my busy schedule and my blog entries dwindled to only a handful this year. But I have been busy and I thought I'd use this end-of-the-year post as a retrospective of Klessblog's Top 10 of 2013.

10. OTTCON March 19-20, 2013 - for the third year in a row I had the opportunity to attend and interview industry leaders at this annual Over-the-Top TV conference where top decision-makers and executives from the PayTV, Content Production, Distributions and Consumer Electronics and Technology ecosystems gather annually.
Special thanks to conference organizer and chairman Greg Fawson, President and Principal Analyst of X Media Research, Inc., for his support and collaboration over the last few years in working with me on recording the interviews. Look for those videos to be published on this blog soon.

Hear what are the innovators and industry leaders saying out the industry?  View interviews from OTTCON and get insights not found in the sessions or keynotes. (Here) OTTCONversations is produced by Larry Kless, President and Founder of Online Video Publishing [dot] com.


9. SnappyTV - Share clips from Kless Blog Live Interviews

I had the opportunity to learn about how cool SnappyTV is from my interview earlier this year with Mike Folgner, CEO of SnappyTV. SnappyTV offers a cloud-based suite of tools to create and share instant video highlights with friends and followers on Facebook and Twitter. Folgner created this animated GIF from the interview with the SnappyTV tools and commented that, "I said a lot of words, this is what I felt like in the interview."


8. Leveraging Women's Business Capabilities in Challenging Business Times - May 2, 2013
It's not often in my day job that I get the opportunity to work with an Academy Award®-winning actor, but this year I added Geena Davis to my list of clients. This event was sponsored by Kaiser Permanente in association with Deloitte and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and discussed how girls and women are reflected in media and the challenges facing women in the workplace. It was inspiring to meet Geena Davis and hear her speak at this event and she complimented that our sound was the best she had at any of her events. My thanks to my client and friend Jeanne Hughes for her partnership along with Elizabeth Sullivan in Event Marketing.

  Watch the video here: http://goo.gl/WXn0m
  Listen to the audio podcast here: http://goo.gl/d8auV


7. The Mass of Ordination and Installation of Most Reverend Michael C. Barber, SJ as Fifth Bishop of Oakland - May 25, 2013
In the same week I worked with Geena Davis, I was honored to be in the service of God, to produce several live webcasts for the Diocese of Oakland for the Episcopal Ordination and installation of the Most Reverend Michael Barber, SJ as the 5th Bishop of Oakland at the Cathedral of Christ the Light. This marked my biggest production for my side business, Online Video Publishing [dot] com, and I thank my clients Mike Brown and Jan Potts, my creative partners Pete Brown of PBA Media, Steve Dung of Visions Plus and Harvey Woo of Professional Sound Productions and my project manager Rachel Vaughn and all our crew who worked long hours to make the event an incredible success.

  Watch the Ustream webcast here: Part 1, Episcopal Ordination Mass
  Watch the indexed  video version here: Ordination and Installation, Bishop Barber — Oakland Diocese

_________________________________________________________________________

The countdown continues tomorrow with Part II of Klessblog's Top 10 of 2013 on this blog.

Until then, Happy New Years!!

Calling All Online Video Bloggers!

For those of you who have followed this blog you've probably noticed that things have slowed here bit over the last year, due in part to my busy work schedule. But while things have slowed down here on Klessblog, it's been picking up on my other site, Online Video Publishing [dot] com, with a number of new posts by guest bloggers. I've been running Online Video Publishing [dot] com, as a companion site to my blog, and over the last few years it's become a resource for sharing strategies, best practices, news, tips and how to's for online video publishers.

So why am I spending time on my other site instead of producing new content here on this blog? Well, as a matter of fact, all the most recent articles on Online Video Publishing [dot] com have been written by guest authors. So, I've written this post as an open invitation to any guest blogger who would like to contribute an article or series to Online Video Publishing [dot] com.

The articles on the site are all focused on video publishing for multi-screen platforms. In the most recent post, Peter Smith provides some practical tips on How to start your own Videography Business. He says, one of the first things you have to consider when thinking about starting your own videography business, "is whether or not you are suited to owning your own business. As difficult as it may be to hear the truth is not everyone is capable of being in business for themselves. It takes discipline and dedication and owning a decent video camera does not automatically qualify you to be in business." Read more here.

In another guest post, Apple's Thunderbolt Display Port Dismays the AV Industry, Lorin Nelson, SF Bay Area-based Technical Panic Alleviation Technician, describes the current dismay within the AV industry resulting from HDCP encryption in Thunderbolt mini-DVI ports, and what current solutions are available. He sums up the challenges within the article in his sub-title, "AV Industry Challenges Brave Mac Techs Who Are Confined to Speaking In Terms of Re-Branding, With Little Success Given the Fact that They Are Unaware of Specs, Really want to Help, but Are Rendered Helpless by the Apple Core Design Team." Read more here.

Also, Joe Kukura, a writer for the RealPlayer video technology blog contributed an article on how music legend and recording artist, Neil Young rocks online music with a new high resolution audio format. Apparently, Neil Young had been working with the late Steve Jobs to bring this new HD audio format to future iPods and was quoted as saying, “Steve Jobs was a pioneer of digital music, but when he went home, he listened to vinyl. And you've gotta believe that if he'd lived long enough, he would eventually have done what I'm trying to do.” Read more here.

In addition to individual writers, video companies are also welcome to provide content, like UK-based Vidify, who shares 5 ways online video can increase your business revenue. The article points out that, "Video has been proven to be an effective tool in increasing conversion rates online. You should note however that a bad video is going to do just the opposite. When you decide that it is time to join the major brands in online video, ensure that you are providing your website visitors with a professionally produced video that explains your business message and presents you as an expert in your field." Read more here.

The posting guidelines for Online Video Publishing [dot] com are that articles be video topic related, and can be news, informational, analysis, observational, opinion, how to, production tips, best practices and can be any length. Articles can include videos, graphics, embed codes and can be in html format. Author and company will receive mention and backlinks within the post. Sponsored posts are also accepted, but posts that are just promotional, pure marketing, direct sales pitches or press releases are not accepted. 

If you're interested, please feel free to submit any article or series, contact me at klessblog@gmail.com if have you any questions.

Stay Tuned... For More Online Video Conversations

Who hasn't noticed how fast the year has gone by so far? The first quarter of 2012 came an went before you could blink an eye, click on a link or even write a new blog post. I won't bore you all with the usual banter about why I haven't been updating things here on Klessblog. I did though want to provide a quick update to let you all know what's coming up on this blog. There have been a number of interesting developments within the online video space over the last few months, and I've been able to catch up with a number of industry executives to hear about how their companies are innovating in the ever-changing online video and mobile space.

Just last month, I attended the 3rd annual Over-the-Top TV Conference, at it's new venue in the Santa Clara convention center in Silicon Valley, and the interest in that event was indicative of the growing innovation within the the OTT space. The conversations at the conference were not just about set top boxes and the last mile of the network that leads to the living room, but discussions have shifted to how companies can adapt to new business models within the multi-screen environment. Everyone I spoke with agreed that while online video has reached a mature state for delivery over the web and mobile devices. But still, the overall industry of content delivery to any device, anywhere, anytime is still in it's infancy and there's a lot of debate as to how long this initial cycle of growth of growth will take.

I interviewed a number of speakers and exhibitors at OTT Con 2012 to get their insight on some of the issues within the OTT space, which I'll be posting here on the blog in the coming weeks. Here's a quick snapshot of some those upcoming online video conversations.

• Anthony Wood, Founder and CEO, Roku
• Sam Blackman, CEO and co-founder, Elemental Technologies
• Sean Knapp, CTO and co-founder, Ooyala
• John Gildred, CTO, SyncTV
• Andrew Kippen, Vice President of Marketing, Boxee
• David Dembitz, CEO Vidillion, Inc.

I also recently met with Stephane Roulland, CEO of DaCast, again at his San Francisco offices to get an update on his self-service, live streaming platform. I first met with Roulland a year ago when his company first launched its "Pay-in-Play" pay-per-view enabled player and live streaming on Facebook.

Look for these interviews along with several others I've previously mentioned coming soon.

As always, I want to thank you all for supporting me here on this blog. Stay tuned for more upcoming Klessblog content and more online video news and information.

Online Video in 2011: A Look Back - Part 4 (Conclusion)

I didn't plan to make this a four part series, but I guess 2011 was just one of those years that needed a little more attention. I think we would agree that it was an amazing year of progress, innovation along with many triumphs and failures. Either way you look at it, everything we did throughout the year moved us further along into the new year, and that brings about the new cycle, and the energy to put out new products, services and business models. When looking back on the 2011, what did we learn? What were the big stories and trends that caught on? It's pretty obvious that online video, mobile video, tablets, connected and smart devices, social media apps, video advertising and marketing were big, and of course, YouTube's domination of the online video market, will be even bigger in 2012.

And what will be the footnotes to remember online video in 2011?
Probably the biggest news of the year was the sad and untimely death of Steve Jobs. In an article on ReelSEO, I noted that Steve Jobs was a pioneer in bringing digital media to the masses with the launch of the Macintosh, which focused on making it easier to do create, curate and distribute our content. He helped grow video on the desktop from a postage stamp size video to a full HD video that can be produced entirely on a mobile device. Apple revolutionized the professional video editing industry and proved that thinking differently about how the computer could be designed – from the aesthetic design of the hardware and user interface, to the easy to use software tools – helped spawn a new generation of independent video producers that could compete with the Hollywood studios and big publishers.

Other notable news in 2011 focused on; more cord cutting, cloud computing, mobile video, numerous funding announcements, mergers and acquisitions and global online video spend was said to hit $3.5B in 2011. Ustream raised another $6M, Roku raised another $8M, Jivox raised $8.5M, Taboola raised $9M, Innovid raised $9.5M, YuMe raised $12M from Samsung, Thought Equity raised $25M, Qwilt raised $25M, Brightroll raised $30M, Tremor Video raised $37M, CNN bought Zite for approx $20M, 24/7 Real Media acquired Panache for undisclosed sum, Microsoft bought VideoSurf for $70M, Cisco bought BNI Video for $99M, Adobe bought Auditude for over $100M, Akamai bought Contenda for $268M, Google bought Admeld $400M and Motorola for $12.5B, Time Warner bought cable operator Insight for $3B and AT&T failed in its bid to acquire T-Mobile, Vudu came to the iPad, Hulu expanded to Japan and Netflix expanded into Latin America, Amazon experienced major network outages, AOL restructured again, Zediva shut down it's DVD streaming business, Adap.tv relaunched its buy-side service, Fox pulled its shows from the web, Ooyala won ESPN as a customer; got social with Facebook integration and raised an undisclosed funding round from Motorola Mobility, Vimeo got into the OVP business with Vimeo Pro, Brightcove filed for a $50 million IPO, MobiTV and Synacor each filed for a $75M IPO, KIT digital released its new social TV platform, Google+ Hangouts arrived in YouTube.

ReelSEO launched its weekly online video series The Reel Web, Justin.tv spun off Socialcam to simplify mobile video sharing, Apple pulled Final Cut Pro Studio out of the dead pool in response to Final Cut X's poor reception, Netflix and Starz went their separate ways, social TV and multi-screen experiences started to emerge, Hulu, Netflix and Yahoo! all got into the original web content business, foul-mouthed CEO Carol Bartz was ousted from Yahoo!, Zixi announced its cloud-based streaming service, Netflix's tried to break off its DVD business as Qwikster but backtracked after serious market uproar, WeVideo introduced its cloud-based video editing platform, SpotXchange announced full real-time bidding capability, Apple released the iPhone 4S, Verizon and Microsoft inked a deal to bring OTT content to the Xbox, Rimage acquired Qumu, Microsoft completed its $8.5 billion acquisition of Skype, Sesame Street's YouTube channel got hacked to show porn,  online video ads reached 50% of the U.S. population, Netflix's stock dropped 40% in one day after losing 800,000 subscribers and was downgraded by S&P.

Skytide introduced analytics for Federated CDNs, Amazon Kindle debuted to rave reviews, Livestream upgraded its platform to live events platform, YouTube took a swipe at cable by launching over 100 channels with celebrity partners, SeeSaw shut down, LG ad YuMe partnered on connected TV ad platform, Encoding.com teamed up with Roku on channel creation, Zencoder and Highwinds partnered on HTTP video streaming, Kaltura partnered with Gogo for online video in flight, Mixpo introduced Frameworks for interactive online video ads, Zediva was forced to shut down its DVD streaming service, the Boxee box got a live TV tuner, Adobe abandoned Flash on mobile and TV (see below), CDN pricing dropped 20%, tablets rose above desktops for 30% longer online video viewing, Netflix made up for past mistakes by resurrecting Arrested Development, MPEG DASH emerged as a possible online video standard, YouTube did major channel-centric redesign of the site, Dailymotion expanded its cloud video delivery service, Twitvid launched its new social video network, and finally for the first time the Super Bowl would be streamed live over the Internet.

While that wasn't all the big news of 2011, it's what caught my my attention and set the stage for 2012. So now, let's get back to what happened here at Klessblog...

In August, where I attended the 2011 Liveclicker Video Commerce Summit in San Francisco. I recorded a number of interviews with speakers at the two-day event for Liveclicker's VideoRetailer.org blog. Andy Stack, YouTube Product Manager, outlined the 5 things he has learned about successful online video campaigns in his experience at YouTube. Kenna Hurd, Video Content & Product Manager of PETCO, talked about the top initiatives of PETCO’s video strategy, specific examples of where the company is seeing success with video. Melissa Salas, Marketing Director of Buy.com and Co-host of BuyTV, shared some of the lessons she has learned about video commerce since she started hosting BuyTV in 2006. My good friend Mark Robertson, Founder and CEO of ReelSEO.com, gave his take on why retailers should explore beyond the product video. Justin Foster, Co-founder and VP of Market Development at Liveclicker, shared his thoughts on the emerging video commerce trends and predictions.

After that event, I followed up with a few posts of my own on this blog and on ReelSEO.com expanding on what Jen Fahey wrote on VideoRetailer.org.

Mark Robertson says online video is the swiss army knife of online marketing,  and social video can help eCommerce retailers move from conversions to conversations with their customers. In his keynote at the Video Commerce Summit Mark provided a high level overview of how social media has changed search, the state of V-Commerce and what tactics and tools eCommerce marketers can harness to move beyond product videos. Mark says that SEO has evolved over the last 10 years, and now social media engagement enhances SEO rankings, a lot. Universal video search is becoming less effective for e-commerce transactional queries, and that marketers’ must embrace social video throughout the customer life cycle and produce video that lends itself to social.

Online video is massive in its reach and scale with 6.9 billion videos watched in the U.S. in July and August of 2011, and has quickly grown into a major component of what people do online or how they consume information and entertainment. Andy Stack, Product Manager at YouTube says, online video is a valuable tool to drive brands, and is transforming the way consumers engage and conduct commerce. The use of online video in e-commerce is an opportunity you can’t afford to miss or not fully understand. His main message to the brands and retailers at the Liveclicker Video Summit, is to create content, not commercials. Stack says that it's important for retailers to develop a content strategy and not necessarily an advertising strategy, and sponsor content that matters to your community and spend money to promote content that's tested and works. As the world’s largest focus group, online video lets you know if the creative or videos that you are running on TV and elsewhere are making an impact when people choose to consume your brand and spread the word. Retailers can use video like a sand box to experiment and use the variety of tools available from YouTube to find the right mix, then rinse and repeat.

In October, I caught up with Marc Scarpa, veteran director and executive producer of live interactive media events, who had just launched the first of it's kind social TV network with Comcast Xfinity On Demand, called VidBlogger Nation, that brings popular local YouTube talent into the living room of millions. VidBlogger Nation is shot on location by local video bloggers in 10 key markets in the U.S. The episodes are short 3-5 minute narrative shorts by unique voices from across the country who share colorful stories of people, places and things in their city from a first-person perspective. Scarpa was in San Francisco where he met with several of his local VidBloggers, including Zennie Abraham (Zennie62), who joined Scarpa in the interview. See Zennie's article here: Comcast VidBlogger Nation New Video TV Network | City Brights: Zennie Abraham | an SFGate.com blog. Scarpa says that the overall goal of VidBlogger Nation is to have a new forum for very talented people, like Zennie and his fellow VidBloggers, who have a voice and help them extend beyond the web into a new market, and a traditional broadcast environment like Comcast provides access to 60 million homes.

That same week, I attended the TVNext Con 2011 conference in San Jose that brought together hundreds of media, technology and entertainment companies to explore the future of TV, video and multi-platform entertainment services and platforms. Experts agree that nearly every facet of the TV experience and TV business models will be impacted over the next 5 years. One of the main drivers is that more consumers are using IP devices to supplement linear TV viewing, and that by 2015 the average U.S. resident will have 7 connected devices. We're starting to see the decline of the stand-alone set top box with the rise of game consoles as the number one hub for digital entertainment and OTT content, and connected TVs and innovations just announced last week at CES like the Roku Streaming stick that makes a regular TV a smart TV. And don't forget Apple's highly anticipated iTV that is predicted to be the big game changer, due out later this year. We'll also continue to see big deals in the content industry as studios and networks create sustainable business models that don't cannibalize their existing services. I interviewed a handful of people at that event as well, including Joan FitzGerald, VP at comScore, Inc and Tim Street, VP of Mobile Video at mDialog, (to be featured soon on this blog), and Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3 and Matt Smith, VP of Internet Television at Envivio, (see below).

I followed up with an interview with Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and Founder of blinkx, who I met earlier in the at OTTcon. Chandratillake founded blinkx in 2004 and has helped pioneer video search on the Internet. He describes blinkx as "the world's largest and most advanced video search engine" and unlike other search engines that focus on text web, titles and metadata, blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and visual analysis to find and qualify online video. Chandratillake noted that the the online video and OTT space has come of age after so many years of video on the Internet. What's different, he says, is the momentum at which the idea is gaining. More and more of us are watching Internet video on our television sets or contemplating the purchase of a connected device to watch OTT video.


In November, I went to Streaming Media West in November to discuss Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise, wearing my day job hat as a webcast producer for Kaiser Permanente, as I did years earlier when I first spoke at Streaming Media West. I shared some of the best practices that I had previously blogged about here, that address the technical and logistical challenges for webcasting, and how to put the right team and the right technology in place for a successful virtual event. The panel focused on best practices from enterprise corporations have adopted and implemented for live video across their organization.


With all the growth, it's also been stagnant, in regards to the ongoing video format wars, spurred on by Apple's exclusion of Flash on its popular iDevices and negative press it received from Steve Jobs' Thoughts on Flash. While HTML5 and H.264 encoded video have been gaining momentum as an emerging standard for online and mobile video, publishers have had to deal with the lack of a standardization, which has caused a great deal complexity and fragmentation. So we were all surprised with Adobe's  announcement that it would abandon future development of Flash Player for mobile devices following the next release 11.1, and will be more aggressively contribute to HTML5 innovation with key players, including Google, Apple, Microsoft and RIM. Adobe will continue to support its current Flash development. Adobe had developed Flash Player to run on Google's Android and other non-Apple mobile platforms, but its official statement from its blog post said,"HTML5 is the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms."

The news broke during Streaming Media West, and while Adobe was at the conference in full force, it was tight lipped about why it decided to withdraw Flash from the mobile market. I caught up with Jan Ozer, Video Producer, Writer, Publisher of StreamingLearningCenter.com and author of Video Compression for Flash, Apple Devices and HTML5, to get his perspective on the implications of the announcement for the online video industry, mobile developers and consumers.

Ozer told me Adobe made this move for several reasons. 1) They were fighting against the current, at least with Apple, and then with Microsoft's recent announcement about their tablet oriented operating system, and couldn't fight this. 2) Adobe wasn't getting then support it needed from Google and other vendors to make Flash work effectively on mobile platforms. 3)  As computers get more powerful people are building applications that require more power and faster CPUs to run smoothly, and Flash-enabled tablets and phones simply don't have the power to run smoothly and deliver a quality experience. Ozer says, this doesn't mean that Flash on the desktop is going away anytime soon, and that it will actually create a tale of two websites, with a web version that is completely immersive Flash experience, and the other more simple and targeted for mobile devices.

It was more than a year ago when I met Merton, the Piano Chat Improv Guy and I finally published his interview in December. The improvisational piano player, became an Internet sensation when he first appeared on Chatroulette playing piano and serenading the strangers he'd meet on the video chat website. His videos have attracted over 25,000,000 views on YouTube and he has performed in London, Montréal. I caught up with him at NewTeeVee Live where he spoke about his experience as a web celebrity and how he planned to further develop and evolve his improvisational social and musical style. Merton says that he's played piano and done improvisational music for a long time, but Chatroulette gave him the mass exposure to freestyle in real-time with random strangers and become a viral video phenomenon. He now has a live, interactive, webcam show that airs weekly on Wednesdays at 10:00 PM ET called The Merton Show.


I caught up with Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3, at the TV Next Con 2011 where he talked about the changing video landscape and the great unbundling of services. Louderback says that we're in the end game of the of the great unbundling of video services, as next generation television channels shift from traditional models to IPTV video networks. Louderback says that within the next few years most of the video we consume will be delivered over an open IP network, ending the long monopoly of proprietary services delivered through cable, satellite and broadcast streams. But even though our favorite shows will be delivered mostly on-demand, we'll still have bundles of services - but it will just be offered in new ways.

One of the biggest stories of 2011 is, what will the future of television look like as service providers, consumer electronics manufacturers and content aggregators all jockey for the prime position in your living room. According to Todd Weaver, CEO of ivi, OTT has been an emerging market for some time and that market has been stifled by a number of issues, and today, those issues primarily relate to content. I caught up Weaver earlier this year at OTT Con in San Jose to get his perspective on what the PayTV operator and online video experience will look like in the OTT era. Weaver says, one fear that content owners are grappling with is the "cannibalization" of their existing cable TV subscriptions with their Internet subscriptions. As more content moves online, Weaver says, content owners will to figure out the pricing models and OTT providers are going to have to either educate or cooperate with content owners to set and adjust prices to help settle out the disturbance in that area. Weaver's company, ivi, has been embroiled in a lawsuit with broadcasters seeking to stop it from rebroadcasting their content online. Earlier this year in February, a New York federal judge ruled that ivi was infringing on broadcasters copyrights by not paying retransmission fees and ordered ivi to shut down.

To round out my online video conversations for 2011, I caught up with veteran webcasting executive Nick Balletta, CEO of Talkpoint to talk about the latest enterprise video trends. He shared the latest real world data his company had collected over the last two years, that showed a significant growth in both the adoption and expansion of video within enterprise communications. A year earlier, I had spoke with Balletta at Streaming Media East, where he told me that webcasting for enterprise communications may finally be reaching a tipping point. Talkpoint supports some 15,000 annual webcasts and it's data shows that the number viewers is growing along with the number of individual webcasts. So, what's driving the growth? Balletta says, media players are now built into operating systems, broadband is pervasive, computers are faster and people are comfortable watching video on their computers, and overall, watching video online has gotten much easier to do than in the early days. A few anecdotes Balletta shared were, self-service video webcasting is on the rise, Flash viewership is on the rise, and the battle for video standards creates opportunity. Balletta also says that social media and enterprise webcasting don't mix. He says right now all the agencies are making money helping corporations with social media, but in a couple of years it's going be the lawyers cleaning up on the mess created by social media.

In my final online video conversation, I got an education in Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming 101 from Matt Smith, VP of Internet Television Strategy & Solutions at Envivio. As the demand to deliver content to consumers on multiple screens continues to grow at a rapid pace, companies adapt their methods and means to meet the demand consumers want for any content on any device, anytime and anywhere. This is both exciting and worrisome for service providers and content owners – but new trends and tactics like adaptive bit rate (ABR) streaming is changing it all and making it easier to deliver content. ABR streaming is a new and dynamic approach. Smith says that with ABR, you're essentially creating similar number of streams, but in a different part of the network. You get significant scale gains and you should plan to deliver to every possible screen. The workflow not for every organization and where channel count is low, "old" models work, but ABR is emerging as a new standard for content delivery.

This concludes my look back into online video in 2011. With 2012 now in full swing and a lot of news already in the making, I have no doubt that it will be another amazing year for the online video industry. I want to thank you all for your continued support, and my best to everyone in the new year!

Editor's note: This concludes Online Video in 2011: A Look Back. Stay tuned for more Online Video conversations in 2012.

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