Online Video in 2011: A Look Back - Part 2

In just the first two months of 2011 the online video industry erupted in a serious wave of mergers and acquisitions, funding announcements, new product releases and massive growth. The year began with a deluge of news about the growing trend in cord cutting, connected TVs and tablets. Codec wars erupted with Microsoft joining the fight and MPEG-LA calling for patent claims on the VP8 video codec, Netflix's dominance in the market and subscriber bandwidth consumption grew forcing ISPs to cap services, Amazon announced its video streaming service, smartphone sales surpassed PCs for the first time, Steve Jobs went on medical leave at Apple, Larry Page replaced Eric Schmidt at Google, real-time bidding emerged as the hottest new online video advertising sector, Comcast completed its takeover of NBC Universal, Time Warner acquired Navsite, Tremor Media acquired Transpera, and in the online video platform space Encoding.com released Vid.ly and Sorenson Media launched Squeeze 7 to help publishers make sense of of video encoding chaos, while other OVPs provided solutions and education around publishing video for HTML5.

In early March, I caught up with Scott Puopolo, Vice President and Global Head of Cisco's Internet Business Solutions Group (IBSG), at the OTTCON where he presented Cisco's predictions on what the future of television might look like in 20 years from the study, The Future of Television: Sweeping Change at Breakneck Speed. According to Puopolo "The concept of consumer, controlled, increased, immersive, interactive experience is going to be the future of television and the consumption of our content is going to be ubiquitous. We'll be able to access it anywhere, anytime, from any device in any format."

Consolidation within the online video space continued its serious trend in March 2011, with CBS announcing that it had acquired Clicker.com, the "Internet TV Guide to What's on Online" and hired Jim Lanzone as its new President of CBS Interactive, to head up CBS Interactive's worldwide operations and roster of Internet properties, including CNET.com, TV.com, CBS.com, CBSSports.com, CBSNews.com and Gamespot.com.

After months of rumors and speculation Google officially announced that it had acquired Internet TV platform Next New Networks in its first content deal to strengthen and grow out YouTube's platform to support its Partner Program of over 15,000 partners worldwide. Many YouTube partners had been making over $1,000 a month and hundreds of partners making six figures a year, but YouTube said that's not enough so it would taking it to the next level with YouTube Next. YouTube said that" Next New Networks will be a laboratory for experimentation and innovation" and the team will be working with a wide variety of content partners and emerging talent to help them be more successful.

With so much news about cord cutting, I spoke with my friends at Skytide, an Oakland, California-based company specializing in performance analytics for CDNs and digital media providers, to get an inside perspective on what is cord cutting, the term commonly used to describe the trend of consumers who cancel their cable and satellite television subscriptions and "cut the cord" in favor of receiving their television programming from Over-the-Top Television (OTT) solutions available through the Internet. While this is a growing trend fueled in part from the wide availability of content from Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and millions of other video sites, there is an existential crisis facing the telcos (telephone companies) and cable companies, also known as MSOs (Multiple System Operators), that could threaten the continued growth of the next generation television industry. Skytide's Roy Peterkofsky provided a detailed background of the situation in this online video conversation.

One of the questions that has been under debate within the online video industry is, what constitutes a video view? Is it considered a view just when the stream is called up and served to the viewer, even though only a portion of the video is viewed? Does the entire video need to be viewed to be counted? After several years of inconsistencies, the online video industry has not yet adopted a standard definition for a view. So to get some insight on this subject I spoke with David Burch, Director of Marketing at TubeMogul, Inc. According to Burch, while the industry standard is to count a view once someone clicks play and the streams starts, there still is a lot of misconception among media buyers on constitutes a view.

Also in March, another big acquisition within the online video space was announced with Polycom's acquisition of Accordent Technologies for approximately $50 million. Polycom is well known in the enterprise video industry as a leading provider of unified communications solutions in telepresence, videoconferencing, voice and streaming products. Accordent has specialized in video capture, content management, and delivery solutions more than 1200 organizations in the enterprise, public and government sector, including 150 of Fortune 500 companies. Unlike other major companies within the space that have been on buying sprees over the last few years, this was Polycom's first acquisition since 2007. I spoke with Mike Newman, co-founder and CEO of Accordent, the day after the acquisition announcement about the synergy between the companies and how Accordent will be integrated into Polycom.

One of the Internet's best kept secrets is that the most popular and ubiquitous media players, the JW Players, were created by an unassuming Dutch internet entrepreneur named, Jeroen "JW" Wijering.  Jeroen is Chief Digital Architect of LongTail Video, and his media players have generated millions of downloads since their launch in 2005. He helped changed the face of the online video industry with his open source JW Player which can be found on tens of millions of websites. Even YouTube ran on the JW Player for the first 18 months of its existence. Jeroen is considered a rock star within the online video industry and also the subject of a new full-length documentary titled, WHO IS JW? Through interviews with his parents, colleagues, university teachers and voices from the online video space, the documentary uncovers the secrets behind the success of one of Holland’s most viewed and yet least-known export products, to answer the question, “Who is Jeroen Wijering?”

In April, I celebrated a milestone with my 600th blog post. I started this blog in 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. This blog has helped me develop my voice and define my brand, and become my main channel of conversation. But more than anything it's helped me connect with so many amazing people in communities all over the world.
As I approached my 600th post I thought a lot about what I should say and how best to reflect on own experiences and the massive changes within the online video, technology and social media landscape. I decided that I really to say thanks to all my friends, followers, readers, subscribers, community members, colleagues, people who I've interviewed, PR people who've kept me up to date on the latest news and really to everyone who has helped contribute, support, read my posts, comment, retweet, watch video and share something.

The online video platform market has exploded in the last few years, with dozens of new vendors offering solutions. Different platforms offer different features and target different kinds of content and customers, and with more than 100 online video platforms on the market to choose from. "An OVP provider is typically a SaaS (software as a service) solution providing end-to-end tools to manage, publish and measure online video content for both on-demand and live delivery. Typical components of an OVP provider include video hosting, encoding, custom players, syndication, analytics, as well as interactivity and monetization through a variety of online advertising options typically 3rd-party ad-servers/networks. Most OVPPs offer scalable product packages for both self-serve SMB publishers up to large media companies." (from VidCompare)

I posted a series of videos from the 2010 Online Video Platform Summit, that I co-chaired with Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen which was 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. How to Choose the Right Online Video Platform for Your Business features a panel of online video platform users comprised of a cross-section of independent entertainers, business, and education who discussed their decision-making process and the features they looked for to help them advance their goals speak and best fit their needs.

But What About the Content? Curation, Aggregation, and Creation examines the growing field of video curation and aggregation services, as well as offer pointers for getting your own content made quickly and inexpensively. According to panelist Steve Rosenbaum, an evangelist on the power of curation who recently released his new book, "Curation Nation: How to Win in a World Where Consumers are Creators", we are drowning in data and curation is the only way to remain competitive in the future. Rosenbaum says that information overload has led to publishers to shift from being an authority, to curating a conversation.

You can have the most compelling content in the world, but if people aren't aware of it and can't find it easily, it won't make any difference. From search engine optimization to social media marketing, there are myriad strategies for getting your content in front of as many people as possible. If You Publish It, Will They Come?, assembled some of the brightest minds in online video search and discovery, social media optimization and entertainment to examine the art and science of getting your videos seen.

Businesses that sell product online can benefit greatly with an online video marketing plan. Studies show that video is more effective than any other medium for building brand recognition and generating sales. New Strategies for Marketing and E-Commerce was moderated by Justin Foster, Founder of the non-profit Video Commerce Consortium, who was joined by a panel of retailers that are each using their own innovative strategy with video and social media to create brand awareness and loyalty, and to increase sales conversion rates.

Delivering Content to Mobile Devices features three industry experts in the field of mobile video delivery who discuss why you need to care about things like HTML5, Adobe Flash Mobile, and other video format-and standards-related topics, as well as provide an overview of how online video platforms can help you publish once and deliver everywhere. Online Video by the Numbers: Analytics, Reporting, and Metrics features an all-star panel of experts that examines what is the important data you should be collecting and how to use that data to improve the effectiveness of your video and increase your ROI.

The Online Video Platform Showcase: STREAMOTOR by IMAVEX, KickApps features presentations by Ron Yekutiel, Chairman, CEO of Kaltura, Kevin Yahl, President of ClickstreamTV, AJ McGowan, CTO of Unicorn Media, and Edgardo Nazario, VP of Products for Video Platform Solutions of Limelight Networks. While each of these providers have similar offerings, they all differentiate themselves by their video publishing platforms, analytics and monetization features, scalability, integration, pricing, strategy and market presence.

Finally, Brightcove CEO Jeremy Allaire, presented his Keynote: The New Video Landscape: Multi-platform Distribution, Monetization, and Fragmentation, which he discussed the broad themes involved in the complex and fragmented landscape for online video publishing, and the strategies organizations need to have in place to achieve success with their video initiatives. Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen provided a great summary of Allaire's keynote in his post, Brightcove: “Everyone is an Online Video Publisher” on OnlineVideo.net, which highlights Allaire's view of the changing face of video and content monetization, as more and more publishers look to expand their video initiatives to all three screens.

Sometimes products come along that just simply hit the mark. Whether it's based on filling a business or consumer need, or for its ease of use, innovative simplicity or aesthetic quality, these products have helped shape that industry. They've also spawned competition within its market which has given us more choices and better products. But that particular product, while it may not be the first, will be remembered as the one that defines that market space.

Such can be said for Flip Video camera, that met its unfortunate demise in April 2011 – which I covered on ReelSEO.com.

Just as Cisco surprised everyone with it's $590 million purchase of Pure Digital, the makers of the world's most popular pocket video camera, just 2 years earlier – the networking giant stunned the masses with its announcement, that as part of its consumer business restructuring plan, it would be shutting down the Flip Video business unit and kill the popular consumer device and 500 Cisco employees unfortunately would also be trimmed from their ranks.

The announcement was met with mixed feelings throughout the Internet, with many eulogizing the consumer device that revolutionized the camcorder industry and became an easy to use tool for online video publishing. Many have pointed out that the rise of HD recording capabilities in the iPhone 4 and the Droid have eroded then Flip's market share and triggered its decline. One the big drawbacks of the Flip has been the inability to capture good quality sound. The lack of a microphone input jack really limited it to being more of a "one trick pony" consumer device unlike its competitor Kodak's Zi8 which includes a mic input jack, 1080p recording and HDMI connections.

But the Flip challenged the industry and pushed smart phone makers like Apple, Samsung, HTC and others to make devices with HD video recording capability which many have said was part of its decline. That may be true to some degree, but it really comes down to the fact that Cisco failed at the consumer market because at its core it's really a B2B company and not a B2C company. More evidence of Cisco's retreat from the consumer market came earlier this week when it quietly pulled the plug on its consumer home Telepresence system, Umi.

Editor's note: This ends Part 2 of Online Video in 2011: A Look Back. Stay tuned for Part 3.

Polycom's Acquisition of Accordent Brings New Synergy to the Enterprise Video Marketplace

This past week saw another big acquisition within the online video space with the announcement that Polycom had acquired Accordent Technologies for approximately $50 million. Polycom is based in Pleasanton, California and is well known in the enterprise video industry as a leading provider of unified communications solutions in telepresence, videoconferencing, voice and streaming products. Accordent is based in El Segundo, California and is a company of 52 employees which grew to $9 million in revenues in 2010.

Unlike other major companies within the space that have been on buying sprees over the last few years, this was Polycom's first acquisition since 2007.  As Polycom President and CEO Andy Miller noted in a letter to customers the synergy between the two companies is "a perfect fit with Polycom's market-leading Unified Communications (UC) solutions" and will complement Polycom's existing offerings in Telepresence, video and audio conferencing. He noted that within the UC spectrum it's been a challenge for many companies on how to capture, manage, and distribute internal events, training, and corporate communication.

Since 1999, Accordent has specialized in video capture, content management, and delivery solutions more than 1200 organizations in the enterprise, public and government sector, including 150 of Fortune 500 companies. Accordent's Media Management system was named "Best Enterprise Video Platform" by the readers of Streaming Media Magazine, one of the "Hot Online Video Companies to Watch in 2011" by Streaming Media EVP and industry analyst Dan Rayburn and Accordent was named "Best Online Video Company" by FierceOnlineVideo. Accordent's video content management and delivery solutions will now make it easier for Polycom customers easily to integrate meeting, training and event capture into existing and new deployments.

Dan Rayburn noted it's a nice payout for Accordent which was 5 times its revenue for 2010:

"For Polycom to pay 5x revenue in today's market is a clear sign of just how strategic Accordent's technology will be to the company and also an indication of how well Accordent was doing in the industry."

On the Forrester blog, Henry Dewing called the acquisition, "A Marriage Of Real And Archived Video", and that the two companies share, "a common focus on unified communications and collaboration (UC&C), a tight relationship with Microsoft, and a deep understanding of the adoption of video in the market."



Steve Vonder Haar of Interactive Media Strategies commented that the deal "Marks Beginning of 'Business Video M&A Era'" and the term unified communications will become even more widely used as business customers seek one-stop shops for business communications.

Vonder Harr said:

"The deal allows Polycom to tell prospective customers a more comprehensive video communications story than ever before. With $1.2 billion in 2010 revenues, Polycom certainly is no business video shrimp. However, its successful product line was relatively one-dimensional, excelling at enabling live video communications in and between corporate conference rooms. he Accordent deal definitively and decisively helps Polycom build a bridge to other branches of the business video market space. Specifically, Accordent instantly makes Polycom relevant in providing platforms that manage on-demand content and make it possible to distribute content – both live and on-demand – to corporate desktops."

According to data from market research firm Wainhouse Research, the acquisition expands Polycom's total available market by $500 million and, for this video management segment, this market is projected to generate a compounded annual growth rate of 32% through 2014 to $1.2 billion. Polycom's biggest competitor in the space is Cisco, which in October 2009 acquired Olso, Norway-based videoconferencing vendor Tandberg.

Click photo to launch the video

The CEOs of both companies, Andy Miller and Mike Newman recorded a short video in which they discuss the key benefits of the acquisition for their companies, customers and unified communications market. They also created a FAQ document for customers.

I spoke with Mike Newman, co-founder and CEO of Accordent, the day after the acquisition announcement about the synergy between the companies and how Accordent will be integrated into Polycom.

The following is a transcript of our conversation.

Larry Kless: Congratulations on the big news!

Mike Newman: Yesterday was a lot of fun because we got to break the celebratory news to our respective teams. I think from what I've seen the news was very well received in the market and very well received by our customers. So I think yesterday was pretty much very productive, almost in an exclusively communications oriented way and today the rubber's hitting the road. Going out to customers and remembering there is an end of quarter that's approaching quickly.

LK: It's seems like a great fit and a lot of synergy between the two companies. How do you define that?

MN: It was extremely important to us to preserve the strategic value that we see ourselves providing in the marketplace, and I think in our conversations with Polycom from the outset, it was clear they are transforming; they're evolving; they're very aggressive about the unified communications space; they're capable of moving very quickly, and it was exciting to even think about what would be possible if we combined our offerings. I can tell you in every way possible, they have preserved everything good about Accordent. They've put us in a strategic role in the organization, everything from naming the division, "Video Content Management and Delivery", and recognizing that those are really key pillars in a strong unified communications strategy; and then really going to market with what really is an exceptional sales force and allowing our sales, our sales engineering implementations to really supplement and help them in a way that's very productive. So, like I said, today's business. Our sales teams are busy and it's fantastic to see.

LK: So how then does the acquisition change Accordent in terms of workforce, lock stock and barrel, and absorb all technology?

MN: We're really proud with the way that we've been respected through this process, as an organization that had very good chemistry; had a very good sense of the market and the market's requirements, and both executed in product development and sales very well. So, they've taken a hands off approach, in so far as saying, "We don't want to tinker with what is working", and really I have to say in a remarkable way welcomed us into their family with open arms. So again, preserving a role for every person on day one and preserving an important role. It was just fantastic for me to be able to stand in front of my company and say that, and know that – as had been demonstrated in every step of the process – that they valued us as an organization and what contribution we could make jointly going to market.

LK: From a market perspective, it was really refreshing to see this and not just another Cisco acquisition.

MN: I'll tell you and I think people often see the acquirer as having all the leverage, but this was a situation where we had choices. We were accessing the marketplace and as always, you can't pull it out of your DNA if you're committed to execution and we could not be happier. I just think the story is so strong and it's not a story that's just exclusively Polycom buying Accordent, it's a story about going to market as joint entity but also having the open armed approach to partnerships; to relationships with companies like Microsoft and Riverbed, and Bluecoat, very best-of-breed participants in this ecosystem. So it really wasn't just a product synergy, it was philosophical as well.

LK: It really has the makings of a powerhouse in the market with both companies being so strong in your respective spaces.

MN: This comes from neither company over thinking it. I think we were both listening to our customers and listening to what they were demanding and what their vision was for what a unified communications offering should be; and that made it pretty easy. At the end of the day, at least for us we looked at how that mapped to what customers were requesting and whether or not we'd be able to fulfill. Because you never want to go out to the market with any form of bad news and to enable our sales forces to avoid having to do that; to in fact go to market with great news and very focused news and being able to respond to the demands that they've been hearing is just a great feeling.

LK: Accordent's offerings seem to really complement Polycom's offerings in terms of meeting capture and content delivery. Was there any cross-over in the offerings or is this an entirely new division for Polycom?

MN: I learned a word in this process which I should have already known, but the word is rationalize. In Europe, they use the word "made redundant". Nothing had to be rationalized, there was zero overlap and in fact, it was quite remarkable as we mapped our respective products how easy it would be to start to integrate them because they literally were contiguous. They came right up to the edge of overlap but did not, and so what you have is a pretty thorough understanding of what should come next in the story and now we're able to provide it; and that's a reciprocal benefit. Because certainly, I was starting to envision probably 12 months ago that it was going to start to get dangerous to be a boutique unless you had very strong partnerships and/or were absorbed into something broader.

LK: Will the Accordent name and brand be completely absorbed by Polycom?

MN: Absolutely, we're aggressive about rebranding the products under the Polycom umbrella. We're aggressive about rebranding the company and we're a very tight knit group here and as much as we love being Accordent, we're already very very proud of being part of Polycom and that has almost everything to do with not just their achievements to date, but with the class with which they welcomed us into their family. The commitment is genuine, it's intense and literally in a matter of hours our people were at ease and focused on what they should be focused on, which is execution.

LK: How then will it look like for the business itself and how are the leadership roles blending?

MN: You'll start to infer a theme from my responses, and it's a really nice theme, and everything is staying intact. We keep our headquarters in El Segundo, California, in fact we're in the process of renewing the lease on it. Everyone is with the company and our roles are almost identical. I think we're going to obviously migrate over to Polycom's processes. So we'll have a greater deal of efficiencies there, because you know how it is essentially with a start-up where you cut corners. So, I think Mike's engineering operation (Mike Lorenz, Accordent's long-time CTO) is left completely intact and there's a great deal of deference to what they've been able to do; and I can tell you sales are in for the ride of their life. So they are ready and where I see demand coming from already is just remarkable. They just pounced on it and I'm so thankful we're not twiddling our thumbs getting our burdened with assimilation and we're figuring it out on good faith without missing a beat in the market.

LK: Where do you see this initial surge in demand coming from?

MN: I really believe time is of the essence. Now is the time along this paradigm of pent up demand that's being acted upon; demand that's already been executed against and being expanded. Large organizations, in particular regardless of the vertical, regardless of the geography are investing in unified communications. As you know from our traditional space in streaming, demand is just becoming rampant. So, I think we see it in all directions and it's really a process now of prioritizing; being organized and satisfying demand as quickly as possible. Certainly we have a sizable install based but it pales in comparison to to what we're already being exposed to with Polycom; and I do think in a very very short time we are going to be selling at full speed worldwide.

LK: What do you see as obstacles for growth of the unified communications market overall?

MN: This is a great thing for an entrepreneur to say, which is, the potential obstacles are in our control now. The market is maturing rapidly. I think even if the solutions were disconnected and there were loose partnerships; I think the demand is so strong that the investments are going to be made. They advantage we will have is that we will have a seamless story; we will have a single source for everything from the product suite to the support, to the services and so forth. So really, we see and we're thankful for this responsibility for just the burden of executing; and bringing not only the products to market but the messaging and the education; and doing that in a way where we can capture the demand that's out there.

So, I lived through 9 years of where we thought were were executing pretty darn good, but the market wasn't maturing; and you sit there going, "There's not that much you can do", you can't convince a multi-national corporation to do something they just don't want to do but now it's pull and we just have to make sure that we're navigating effectively to the right spots within organizations with the right solutions and the right messaging and i think we've given ourselves a great chance at doing that.

LK: It's great story too, with the acquisition price of $50 million for Accordent, but the opportunities that can come from the synergy between your two companies seems to the bigger story.

MN: I think the message it sends that is so positive I think for everybody involved is, this is strategic. The message it sends is that Polycom is absolutely committed to being the leader in this space and is willing to make the investments on behalf of its customers. I think for the players across the entire streaming landscape, obviously it doesn't relieve them of the burden of execution, but it reinforces that the reason they got into the space in the first place is valid. There is that market out there, there is that demand; no one's going to hand it to you on a silver platter but it's certainly worth getting out of bed for and trying to capture.

I'm so thrilled to not to really be bogged down with internally facing things. I've loved two parts of my job since inception; focusing on strategy and focusing on selling. They are not only freeing me up to focus on those two things, literally exclusively, but really the rest of the organization. As you know, there can be inefficiencies in start-ups and small companies and certainly imperfections in processes, and things that distract you from doing what you love to do and what you should be pretty good at doing. I will tell you, the greatest feeling I've had during this entire process is just being unencumbered and just really being able to focus on execution and that actually is going to magnify, as I get a better sense of the resources that are available to us and a way to leverage those resources. I think next week is going to be incredible and the week after that's going to be better.

Related:

• Polycom Announces Acquisition of Accordent Technologies - Company - Polycom
• Letter from Andy Miller
• Polycom Acquires Accordent Technologies For $50M, Company Gets Buyout Of 5x Revenue | The Business Of Online Video
• Polycom Acquires Accordent — A Marriage Of Real And Archived Video | Forrester Blogs
• Polycom Acquisition of Accordent Marks Beginning of 'Business Video M&A Era'
• Larry Kless' Weblog: Cisco to Acquire Tandberg for $3 Billion in a Bid to Own the Videoconferencing Space
• Larry Kless' Weblog: Online Video Platform Summit: Measuring Success

About Polycom
Polycom, Inc. (Nasdaq: PLCM) is a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions built on open standards. Polycom powers smarter conversations, transforming lives and businesses worldwide. Please visit www.polycom.com for more information or connect with Polycom on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

About Accordent Technologies, Inc.
ccordent Technologies provides Enterprise Video Management solutions that enable organizations to inform, train and engage audiences online. The Accordent Enterprise Video Management platform addresses the complete content lifecycle of all video assets regardless of source or format – from the point of Enterprise Video Capture, to viewer Portal Services, to administrative Video Content Management, to Rich Media Delivery and content expiration across disparate networks. Accordent is an award-winning company serving the Fortune 500 and leading educational, government and healthcare organizations. Learn more about Accordent at www.accordent.com and follow Accordent (Accordent_Tech) on Twitter.

YouTube for the Enterprise

It seems that every Corporate Communications department is trying to figure out how to integrate Web 2.0 into their organization. At the Streaming Media West conference earlier this month, there were the many discussions on the subject of social media and participation. In fact, the first panel presentation of the conference was aptly titled, "YouTube for the Enterprise." The session description stated that, "A new breed of user-friendly video centric sites and video software has helped to make video as much a part of our online experience as music and photos. More and more, we're seeing enterprise companies invest in equipment that provides their employees with new ways to communicate using video, or even to create their own content. Whether companies are leveraging web video to conduct employee trainings, bring together geographically disparate employees, or enhance corporate communications, the technology fosters easy and effective collaboration that is critical to achieving and maintaining a competitive edge. Come hear how this shift is spurring a new model of business communication across the enterprise, both internally and externally."

The Speakers included Rod Bacon, Founder, Media Publisher (Moderator); Chris Knowlton, Sr. Lead Program Manager, Microsoft; Gladys Alegre-Kimura, Product Marketing Manager, Polycom Corporation; and John Bowen, Director, Covington Associates LLC.

You can download their Powerpoint slides here

The session was recorded and should be available for viewing within the next week on Scribemedia.org. I'll post that link once it's available but if you want to read on I've included my notes from the session.

YouTube for the Enterprise
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 - Track A: (A101) 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM

YouTube is more of an evolution of video communications. Content is king.

The Enterprise Video Eco System

• Enterprise video
• Studio web cast
• Training
• Videoconferencing – capture and stream
• Signage – syndicated content
• Enterprise portals
• Storage/Database
• Network distribution

Where is it coming from?

• Studio broadcast
• Virtual training room authoring
• Conference room streaming
• User generated

How should we define the concepts of YouTube content?

• Within Microsoft, handheld video camera interviews of MS engineers, answering questions from sales and customers. Get the message out without creating a Powerpoint slideshow or going into the studio. Short format, rough cut, UGC (User Generated Content).
• Polycom's approach - Creating content with the ability to search, create comments, collaborative aspects of YouTube. You can create a dialog around any message.
• Anyone is a creator, most important content rises to the top, collaborative nature, linking relevancy automatically. Voice of the individual, searching what you like.

How do we relate that to the enterprise?

• We can create relevant content to educate ourselves. Power of the individual. It pulls from all the aspect of enterprise video. You can pull snippets from longer videos.
  

What is UGC?

• User Generated Content - short form content (2-10 minutes), produced using low budget gear, lower production quality, rough cut feel "authentic and personal", little or no editing, fun easy to watch, plays immediately
  

What is YouTube?

• Social interactions around video, tagging, ratings, sharing, able to leave comments, easy to use (content transcoded), fun, engaging content

Is “YouTube type of video” appropriate and relevant for the Enterprise?

• Yes, once it’s out there, how do you find it? Send an email with a URL. It’s something that can be enabled from an operations standpoint. It can work well for large size geographically dispersed locations.
• People get value from YouTube content. Social networking allows people to connect, find content quickly, and create community quickly. Flow of information tends to be slow in Enterprise and YouTube video can suggest ways to speed up communication around sales, marketing, R&D, training. Reduction of barriers and collective video can help put power in the hands of users. Enterprises have control for a reason and where to insert control and where do you allow flexibility.
• Social networking aspect in Polycom has been traditionally via conferencing and this mode has been difficult to get people informed and trained in a timely manner. YouTube video gives people that ability to reach and grab the content that they want when they want it.
  

Social interaction Social Networking 2.0 or UGC? Which is more important?

• Both. Why strip individual of either.

It can be a danger, how do you regulate communication? (e.g. Justen Deal, "Send All" email message to Kaiser Permanente employees)

• You have to take a hard look at it from a compliance and legal standpoint.
• At Microsoft, more focus on getting people the information they need when they need it.
• At Polycom, Videoconferencing technology can be leveraged and can be the source of UGC. Either as a conference or using the system to pre-record content.
  

Unique requirements? What are the pieces we need to manage content? Should we enable or kill the concept?

• Wall Street Journal article on CEOs said that top execs are more insulated and communication flow can be filtered, and UGC can help break down the wall to get closer to the source. Dow is using it to attract get younger generation. Other companies are using for outreach to new employees.
• UGC is about "Democratization of Media" and corporations are traditionally not wired that way. There needs to governance and management of UGC to better align with org structure and goals. Distribution of content is key - to the right audience and internal vs. external.
• We need to look at how it adds value and create a measurement tool to track it. Then content needs to be tagged take make it more meaningful. People can link directly to the point of the video and hear right from the speaker to hear the context, tone and tenor how it’s said and in what context.

Provocative Statements

• "YouTube is fun to use and that can be leveraged over existing Enterprise video. People are happy to use it..." (The tribal knowledge piece.) - Rod Boothby, of Innovation Creators, A YouTube Business Model in the Enterprise
• “Video as Social Software” for Enterprise 2.0 more than just hype and the value of social software is shaping up to be a multi-billion dollar market opportunity." - Jay Cross, of Internet Time Group LLC, Big money in Enterprise 2.0
  
• Social networking becomes a destination.
• Flash had a huge impact on the success of YouTube. Cross platform and ubiquity of Flash were major enablers. Ease of use and instant access, one touch and it plays.

What about corporate side of business for marketing and advertising?

• Anything that’s sanctioned can be used. Blurring the line when YouTube is used for both internal and external communications.

What about best practices?

• Microsoft Channel 9 for external posting of internal UGC. Establish guidelines for external portal. For channels distribution you can create a UCG channel through collaboration with partners. Look at all aspects of communication. In Polycom, using UGC to market channels to communicate to 600+ channels across the enterprise. Organizations need central channel management to manage internal and external UGC content. Right now, Polycom is not posting to YouTube.
• Microsoft Channel 9, how they created guidelines and how to police? A select group posts content and there’s an editorial group with stated guidelines.

Move from toy box to tool box
Streaming Media West was very inspiring for me this year. I came out of it wanting to move forward and several fronts. This panel discussion really hit close to home since I work in a corporate multimedia department. So on the very next day after the conference, I got back to the office and I helped my CFO create her own UGC video message to her staff. I'll share that story in an upcoming post.