Pravda on Media, Technology, and Rebel Filmmaking

Sitting on the couch at blip.tv’s offices in Manhattan, chatting with Dina Kaplan, the company’s COO and Mike Hudak, CEO, I realized that one thing that Dina said was the true story behind this small company - that probably their content and distribution is the biggest and most unnoticed threat to TV networks.

Blip.tv is a video distribution and monetization platform. it offers distribution services to its customers, such an embedable player, distribution to main video sites, twitter notifications, and cross posting to blogs. The company also cut sponsorship deals for its customers with brands, as well as using basic advertisement technology to provide CPM/CPC of deals.

Their uniqueness is in their business strategy - focusing on independent producers of online shows:

- Independent producers are in most cases the ones who are not linked to major TV networks, the guys who just go out there with their own money (or, in some cases, investment money) and produce their own shows.

- Shows are not the dog on skateboard videos you see on YouTube, but an episodic content, just like regular TV shows.

Blip is hosting different kinds of shows, such as cooking shows, drama, comedy, technology and news.

Here’s an example of such a show, Political Lunch:

So, what’s the big news?

Well, couple of weeks ago, Mike and Dina showed me one cool thing - their integration with Sony Bravia. Sony Bravia has an Ethernet socket. And what I saw at blip’s offices is their content on a large screen TV with blip’s menu and interface.

Though Internet and TV integration is not a huge news, blip’s move into this area is significant.

Till now, independent creators had to face two challenges:

- The limited user experience web video offers

- How to promote their shows without the huge marketing budgets the networks have.

Now, blip’s player is no longer confined to the limitations of web video viewing experience. If users can just as easily see Political Lunch or The Closer, the competitive landscape is fundamentally different that the traditional separation of Internet video and TV experience. And again - the key here is that the content we are talking about is not the regular UGC low end content, but well produced shows, that are not a part of the TV industry.

In this new deal, blip.tv challenges the TV networks as they are providing new kind of content, from a new kind of creators, but on the same display vehicle - TV. By breaking the walls around web video user experience, and increasing the exposure to independently created shows, blip.tv are on a heads on attack on TV networks. Sure, they don’t have the money the big guys have - TV advertisement models and price range are much more profitable than what blip.tv and other online video communities can get today. However, like every innovation, things might take time, but they are definitely changing the landscape in a fundamental way.

It is yet to be seen if blip.tv will be around 3 years from now. I believe that they will be successful and snatched by one of gorillas in this market.

However their success or failure will not only indicate if they are good business people. It would be a clear sign for things to come in the market niche of independent content creators.

Image via Wikipedia

- ZDnet published a great article about Mozilla and social media marketing

- Jeremiah Owyang asks if A list bloggers are really bloggers

- And here’s list of online video position titles

Surprisingly enough, my call for action against US networks, asking them to allow me to pay for downloading their content from my country, didn’t result in a Million Man March to Washington.

So, I chose the other path - hacking the system

Part One - Breaking The System

I am using iTunes a lot. Though I can’t use my  credit card to purchase content, I found a simple way to use iTunes:

a. Find an American address (could be a hotel or any other establishment) and use its address for your iTunes account.

b. Buy iTunes gift cards in Amazon or an Apple store if you are visiting the US.

c. Redeem the card in iTunes - and you are on!

Part Two - Enjoying The Experience (While Spending Money…)

Now, this is cool. A true VOD experience on my computer, with class A content that I love to watch. And the biggest plus - no uncertainties.

You see, one of the things I hate most in downloading P2P content is that I don’t really know what I am getting at the end of day - is it really the movie I wanted to see? Is it in high quality? And when will I be able to see it? With iTunes I know exactly what I am getting. Episodes are downloaded fairly quickly, so I can decide that I want to watch a specific show, and half an hour later start watching it. Not perfect, but better than P2P experience. Also, I easily find shows iTunes store, so I am not wasting time. I bought $50 worth content in two months. Not bad isn’t it? The only annoying point is that rented movies are viewable for 24hrs - which is very lame. I am working long hours, so is my significant other, and we tend to watch films at night, sometimes falling asleep in-front of the computer. Therefore, we sometimes see movies over several days. This limitation is extremely annoying - and I hope Apple will change it soon.

Part Three - The Moral Dilemma

Then I fell in-love with Californication. After downloading the pilot and couple of season 1’s episodes fI became a fan. When I told my friend about it, he looked at me as if I am a loony - ” Why don’t you download it for free?” well, I said, I like the speed and simplicity of iTunes. “Ok, so I would download for you, and you could watch it whenever you want”.

So, this is the essence of the whole story isn’t it? iTunes’ value proposition is providing legal content, ease of use, and certainty in content quality. Would I pay for this service, when a free alternative exist?

I can speak only for myself - and say that yes, iTunes service is worthwhile paying for, even if I can download content illegally with almost no chance of legal action against me. It is a fact that in two months I paid iTunes more than I paid to my cable or satellite provider in two years. This is because iTunes is providing me the content i want to see in lower rate, and smarter business model, than my local VOD provider.

TV networks are shooting themselves in the leg by not allowing me to buy their content in a simpler way. They are losing money because of that. I can understand why they are doing that - but I can’t agree with their views.

Guys - let me pay you - at the end of the day you will make more money and happier customers.

And for the cable operators and VOD providers, here is a tip - price your service in comparison to iTunes, and not other VOD packages. This is the future - and if you won’t wake up - you would not be a part of it.

Image via Wikipedia

- Veoh raises $30M from Intel and Adobe

- ABC.com stats are out in the open

- Scott Kirsner, fellow contributer to the workbook project, discusses web video financing

- Cyril Zimmerman shares some EU video CPM

Have a great day!

 

Image via Wikipedia

- Jeff Pulver gives advice to college graduates

-Cult of Mac has new details about the new iPhone - or not…

- blip.tv hosts some of Revision3’s shows

- MacVideo has an amazing interview with Walter Murch, The Godfather editor, about Final Cut and Avid

Have a great day!

If you see an interesting story that I should refer to, please email me

Recommended Reading

Avid’s product manager, started to blog, a move towards transparency from a company that is facing many challenges in the market place. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.

LA Times has a great piece about Michael Eisner’s new web series, Foreign Body (a prequel to Robin Cook’s book) and the company behind it. Here are more details about Eisner’s philosophy

Futurescape has an interesting post about interactivity in online video and its effect on the creative process.

Jeff Pulver thinks I’m wrong.

New In My Feedreader

Jamima Kiss’ blog at the Guardian

Have a great week!

Twitter is a widely known application in the social media circles. Everybody is talking about it, and many use it. However, this application has a lot of potential in the corporate landscape.

What the hell is it?

It is an online service that allows you to follow short messages (up to 140 characters) of a group of people, vie the web, email, IM or text. Each user can subscribe to status messages of other users. The result is a notification stream as seen below:

The service also allows users to connect directly in private (what’s called Direct Message) or refer to one another publicly (by the usage of @).

Why people use it?

Oh, there are several use cases for this application. Some use it to keep in touch with their friends. Some use it s a professional tool, for information gathering and creating a conversation with a community. Some use it as a notification service for their podcasts listeners or blog readers about new material. And some just use it as an open chat platform.

Ah, ok, so it is another geek thing. Do you use it?

Yes, you can follow me here. And yes, many geeks use it, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t useful for your company. All the A bloggers are using it, so it is a great tool to learn what’s hot in the blogsphere and beyond.

Ok, so let’s say you are right - why are you talking about Corporate Twitter?

Knowledge management, collaboration and internal communication are major challenges for companies today. Now, think about the following scenario - a development team has a twitter for all the developers. Instead of IMing questions to each other, or emailing status reports, they can tweet them to the whole group and get responses through that system. Because the messages are short, users are writing very efficiently, so the noise is low.

Are you nuts??? Putting corporate information on an open platform? Just from thinking about it the guys from SEC will arrest me!

You are right, so here is a simple solution for you - the guys from WordPress created Prologue, a template that works just like twitter. so you can create such a site internally, based on WordPress, without internet access

Cool - how much does it cost?

Nothing. Buy a server, install wordpress, add that theme, and you are good to go.

Wow - geeks sometimes do cool things. Thanks!

I am not a geek.

Yes you are. You use Twitter. Anyway, What’s friendfeed?

That’s another story. We will talk about it in future posts.

Thanks!

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In the last several years, I’ve participated and moderated numerous panels. Some of them were about exciting new technologies, some about business models, and some covered in-depth technological issues.

Doing a great panel, as moderator or a panelist, is always a challenge. In many cases the audience is not that interested in the topic. In others, they have heard a lot about the theme. Therefore, if you would like to do a panel that audience would remember, you should invest some time and effort in building and navigating it properly.

There are many panel’s styles, and I’d like to share with you my own “lessons learned”. Even if you don’t read all the tips — here are the basic concepts:

Think Entertainment. Many look at panels as a mean to convey information. This is absolutely true. But panels should convey information in an entertaining way.

Think conversation — not presentation — try to involve the audience in the panel, and assume that even if you have experts on board, the audience can challenge them in ways you never would have thought about. Here are some tips on how to achieve that:

1. Bring controversial panelists, with different views. Then, bash them one against the other — yes, I know it sounds harsh :). The idea is simple — if all your speakers agree with one another, no one would care. That is the safest path to make your session an email download event (when the audience read their emails instead of listen). Good panel starts with the right people on stage. Without it — it is very hard to get things going.

2. Ask the questions that everyone are thinking about but it seems that they aren’t polite to ask — last VON I was moderating a panel about video and social media . All the panelists were talking about how amazing the online video revelation is, and how it changes the way people create and consume media. No one raised the issue that with content democratization — most of online video is poorly directed and boring. But you see, many of the people in the audience thought about it. As a moderator, I’ve asked a simple question — isn’t all that Internet video just bad content? By doing so, the panel was more interesting, controversial, and answered the audience needs.

3. Slides are a big no no — panels are discussions, not a group presentations. Presentations usually stop a lively conversation, therefore they are the enemy. If your panelists insist — say no again, with a smile. If the panelist cannot protect his views without a presentation — then the problem is not the panel, but the panelists. They will hate you. But after a good panel, they will thank you, believe me.

4. Challenge the audience — ask the audience questions about themselves and their views on the topic at hand. For example, if you are in a social media panel, ask the audience who is using Twitter, Facebook etc. What worked best for me was asking questions in the beginning of the panel, and then in several points in the middle. The audience becomes a part of the conversation, and not a passive player.

5. Don’t over practice—it is important to do a preparation call before the panel, to get to know the people involved, and nail the key issues at stake. However, it is important to keep the panel fresh, so don’t review all the points thoroughly. As a moderator, always keep one question in your sleeve. Remember - it is supposed to be fun for everyone, audience included.

6. Keep PR speak out of the game — yes, companies are using panels to spread their views on the world. Like everything in life, it is not the what, but the how. So, when a panelist start to talk in PR language, what he/she really does, is destroying the conversation. If one of your panelists is doing that — wait until he/she finishes to talk — and say” we thank the PR guy from XYZ for his insightful press release”. The audience would laugh, and the panelists get the message.

What is Your panel advice?