Mogulus, the live internet broadcasting platform, announced today a new pro service. The company, that provides superior feature set to ustream and blogtv, revealed a new feature set, including HD streaming, optional ad free service, private channels, white label player. Pricing starts at $350 per month, which includes 25GB storage and bandwidth. Also, all free channels will have ads now.

It is a logical step for the company targeted more professional live broadcasters then their competition. Also, charging per bandwidth brings some business sense to the live broadcasting market.

Please note that this post was updated on the 26th of November. Updates are marked in Italic bold font.

BlogTV, the live streaming pioneer, is facing both opportunities and challenges.

BlogTV's CEO, Guy Eliav, defined and executed a brilliant strategy to increase traffic. In a targeted marketing activity, he managed to convince some of the brightest stars in YouTube to start live broadcasting in his network.

This activity and others enabled the company to grow its audience considerably, as the graph above clearly shows. It seems that under Guy's leadership, the efforts bear fruits. They also claim to get in some cases $10-$12 CPM for ads in some of their star broadcasters.

Financial Challenges Ahead

BlogTV is a subsidiary of Tapuz, a publicly traded Israeli portal. The company went through several changes recently. Guy Eliav, who served as Tapuz's CEO, became full time CEO of BlogTV. Dan Chen, who was responsible for Tapuz money making cellular activities, was appointed as Tapuz CEO, and additional key positions were filled with new people, such as Ilan Zinman as VP of Marketing and Itay Nagler who was promoted from Flix (Tapuz's UGC video site) to the chief content editor of the site.

Tapuz is financing BlogTV's operation since its first day. As a public company, we have unique opportunity to see the operating costs of BlogTV.

In their latest report (Hebrew) the company claim that BlogTV lost more than 5M NIS, which is about $1.4M, in the first nine months of 2008.

BlogTV significantly changes Tapuz's operation results, as it brings it to a loss of approx. $153K in the first quarter of 2008, last 3 months, instead of operational profit of $252K. However, in later quarters Tapuz managed to reduce the effect of BlogTV expenses. In recent interviews and discussions with the company, Dan Chen explicitly said that Tapuz will stop supporting BlogTV as it is a financial burden. Tapuz stock lost 68% of its value since January 2008.

As a part of this move, Tapuz appointed Shai Schiller as BlogTV chairman. Shai was Emblaze's CEO, and a chairman of Parrot Media and Axis Mobile. He was recruited to BlogTV in order to help the company raise the required funds to continue operation after Tapuz will stop supporting the company. According to Tapuz's financial reports, Shai's incentive program is based on a successful financial round. Prominent VC also confirmed that the company is in a financial round.

Dan Chen later on calrified that they will not be able to support BlogTV as they do today, but not have intentions of closing the company. He also stated that he believe in the product and company, and certain that Shai Schiller will continue supporting it in the future.

And the business model?

However, it is not only nickels and dimes that are a challenge for Guy and his team. BlogTV focuses its efforts in live streaming of user generated content. Unlike ustream.tv and Mogulus, which invested in superior platforms and stronger content focus, BlogTV is aiming at being the YouTube of live broadcasting, a questionable model in my opinion. As stated in previous post, YouTube failed to monetize their UGC content, and now using it as a way to attract viewers to professionally produced content. BlogTV doesn't have any pro content what so ever. BlogTV's focus on UGC still pose a major challenge to the monetization of their content.

BlogTV CEO believes that their content has better monetization ratio than others, as it is legal, thus raising its monetization factor. This claim still does not mitigate advertisers' reluctancy to affiliate their content with poorly produced video.

It is yet to be seen what will be the future of BlogTV. In any case, live streaming is still an interesting niche to follow.

BoinxTV, a software video mixer with high end features, is about to be released in November 11th. The product, by the award winning company Boinx, is pushing the envelope in semi-pro video productions and live events.

The product enables users to mix up to three sources (pre-recorded media, or live cameras), add transitions, lower thirds, overlays, logos, and live elements to the video feed and record it as a quicktime file or upload it to Apple's podcast producer.

When you launch the software, you can chose a show template - news, hi-tech, sports, or blank template.

Based on your choice, a complex and unintuitive interface is opened, that allows you to define which overlays should be used, titles, lower thirds, transitions and logos.

Though filled with options and out of the box graphics, it took me a while to learn how to operate this tool. Having said that, it is still much simpler (and cheaper) then learning After Effects or other post production tools.

This application is very appealing to churches, local football teams, schools, and other communities looking for a cheap and easy to use tool that will give their video production a bit of a boost. The same goes for video podcasters. However, it has some major disadvantages:

1. It doesn't support live broadcasting - unlike CamTwist, BoinxTV is only for recording media, not live broadcasting. This is a major disadvantage as its live mixing abilities are impressive, and could make the life of blogtv and ustream broadcasters much simpler, and improve their production value.

2. The interface is not easy to use at all. it took me a while to get the UI concept - even though Boinx make some amazing apps.

3. Many of its features can be found in free alternative, though online, such as Mogulus.

4. And on a personal note, I don't really like applications which promise too much before they are able to deliver it. They do make post production easier, for a very specific segment of users, but this is still not a substitute for post production applications such as After Effects. Therefore, their notion of "Say Goodbye to Post Production" is a little overdoing it in my opinion.

You can follow the application's twitter account, watch an interview with the company, and read more about the application here.

]]> http://pravdam.com/2008/10/14/boinxtv-offering-low-cost-alternative-for-high-end-post-production-tools/feed/ 5 http://pravdam.com/2008/04/21/kathryn-velvel-jones-is-at-it-again-and-how-not-to-do-internet-video/ http://pravdam.com/2008/04/21/kathryn-velvel-jones-is-at-it-again-and-how-not-to-do-internet-video/#comments Mon, 21 Apr 2008 07:51:58 +0000 Kfir Pravda http://pravdam.wordpress.com/2008/04/21/kathryn-velvel-jones-is-at-it-again-and-how-not-to-shoot-web-video/

I haven't written lately due to professional and personal reasons (good ones, details are coming soon) but I wanted to give you all a heads up about two cool must see videos:

Kathryn Jones from 35, and her great husband Guiesseppe, are doing a new live show called "The Jabbo and Crabbo Show". It is all about creators (bands, artists, videographers),and how to use the web and technology to distribute your content for free. It is done live, which means you can chat and talk with the host and other viewers, this time on Blogtv's platform. Check out the trailer:

Bill Cammack is always bitching around about the low quality of internet videos. As an Emmy winner, he knows what he is talking about, but I challenged him to do something about today's web video quality.

The result is here:

[blip.tv ?posts_id=830251&dest=-1]

Stay tuned! subscribe to my RSS feed or email list

In a previous post I compared the feature set of some of the key live video platforms such as BlogTV. In this post I'd like to explore together with you, how can videobloggers leverage live platforms. By saying videobloggers, I am referring to creators who are making episodic content, that is produced professionally or semi professionally.

What is so special about live shows? I believe there are 4 main characteristics that make live vlogging unique:

1. Real time interaction - unlike blogging, where readers and bloggers interact a-synchronously, in live video platforms, one can chat with the broadcaster and others directly. this option opens a wide range of creative abilities.

2. Coverage of time critical events - sport and political events are great examples of media that losses it value as time goes by. If you don't watch a football game live, knowing the score at the end of the game reduces your emotional reaction to the game itself. So, live coverage adds value to the media,

3. Expansion of the experience to those who couldn't attend it

4. Capturing the energy of a live event.

So how could vloggers utilize this technology in order to augment their regular shows?

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. If you are vlogging about music, it's a no brainer - shot a live gig, or interview the artist for a live Q&A session. This subject matter is the one that can benefit the most from this technology.

2. The same goes for politics. Q&A with a candidate, and streaming of a live debate with viewers comments are two simple ways to leverage this technology and enrich an already existing vlog

3. Live broadcasting can reduce production costs, especially of talk shows. I was looking into this topic in the past, and found that you can reuse live materials to create an edited version of your show. This way you can benefit in two levels: first, you are having a live talk show, that interacts with the viewers. Second, you reduce shooting time, as now you have the material for the edited version. Jonny is doing a great job in this field.

4. In a dramatic show, creators can do a special event of a live episode. Kathryn did a whole show like that, and I am certain that Andrew Lipson have a lot to contribute to this. However, even if one episode is done live and the rest is pre-recorded, producers can create an event around it, generating buzz from the fact that the episode is unfolded live and viewers can interact with the actors.

What are your thoughts? How can vloggers leverage this medium to enhance viewership of their shows?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_LQU2-GOXY]

They are glad to be alive too

BlogTV launched toady their new homepage with the following sections:

1. Improved subscription process  - with email and twitter alerts, and future SMS integration. Though this feature was already in earlier in previous versions, now users can easily subscribe to new shows from almost any page at the site

2. "Upcoming" section - the most interesting feature is the new Upcoming part of the site. Sources in the company see this part as key to success of their site.This section will show in the feature shows users might like based on their preferences, their friends preferences and editors choice.

3. Featured shows section - handpicked by the editor, this section will help to promote new shows.

Company sources  believe that these features will create what they refer to as the first live Internet TV listing, and improve their position in the market.

It is interesting to see that BlogTV see content discovery as key to their success. Time will tell if this is another battle in the feature war against Ustream and operator11, or a knockout from BlogTV side. Somehow it seems to me that switching costs are so low in this market, that only brand and strong community tools can create a real differentiation in this market.

UPDATE - the company also launched a new Facebook application. The most interesting feature there in my opinion is the ability to see if any of your contacts are now live, and the ability to notify your friends easily on your show. See Techcrunch post for more details.

If you read this blog regularly, you know by now that I am interested in content discovery methods for shows, blogs and music.

Tomorrow we will celebrate for the fifth BlogDay. The event, initiated and managed by Nir Ofir (yep, the same guy from blogTV), will help readers find new gems in the blogsphere.

Here is a short interview with Nir about the concept, and how he promoted it with zero marketing budget:

When did it all start?

BlogDay started in 2005 as an idea I had while attending Israel's first blog conference in Tel Aviv.

How did it start?

I realized that the more blogs out there, the less each blogger tries to engage new blogs and bloggers and I thought that they need more chances to meet and discover other blogs and bloggers.

How many blogs were discovered through this event

I don't have the exact numbers but I think that between 35,000 to 45,000 new blogs were introduced during each BlogDay but the buzz around it before and after generated about this amount of blog posts.

How did you create awareness to this effort without marketing budget?

I think that the 2 biggest parts of it are to create a really simple concept that everyone can understand and relate to and to have viral attributes as part of the concept which is telling the bloggers that you are recommending on about BlogDay. Most of the awareness wasn't created by me but by blogDay "Ambassadors" that adopted the idea and spread it to their local blogospheres.

What people should do in order to be a part of the effort?

It's very simple:

1. Find 5 new Blogs that you find interesting

2. Notify the 5 bloggers that you are recommending them as part of BlogDay 2007

3. Write a short description of the Blogs and place a link to the recommended Blogs

4. Post the BlogDay Post (on August 31st) and Add the BlogDay tag using this link: http://technorati.com/tag/BlogDay2007 and a link to the BlogDay web site at http://www.blogday.org

Don't know about you, but I am looking forward to find new blogs out there!

Want to know more? Subscribe to my RSS feed or email list.

Technorati Tags: blogday, nir ofir, blogtv

The Facebook Internet TV group is gaining ground - and through it I was notified about this neat industry event -VlogEurope 2007.

The event, taking place at Heidelberg, Germany, at 1st and 2nd of September, will focus on creative side of vlogging, and less on business aspects of the community.

I've talked with Jeffery Tailor, one of the organizers, about the event and the participants:

This year, we're looking at the state of videoblogging in our own countries to compare and contrast how video expression on the net is developing locally.... Demographics run from 20 year-old guys from Denmark to 40-something women from Italy. We're all over the place, and it's clear that everyone is welcome.

I am looking forward to hear about the results of this specific discussion. The European market developed differently than the American market. It will be great to hear what vloggers think about it.

Unfortunately, I won't be able to be there in person, but I am certain it will an interesting event. I hope Jeffery and the guys will broadcast the event live - this is exactly how BlogTV can help the community grow.

When I asked Om Malik in a joint panel at Blogference if he has plans to go into podcasting and Internet Video shows, he said that he was thinking about this direction. Less than a month later, Om published his first show, in cooperation with Revision3. The show covers Internet trends and analysis, topics he analyze in his blog.

Contrary to what I thought, the initial aim of this product is not to get more advertising dollars. In a recent conversation, Om stated that he viewed video as a medium that surpass the limits of blogging - while posts has to be short and precise, online video enabled him to do long form interviews. Another angle I found interesting is that Om saw this medium as a mean to let viewers analyze the information given on their own, based on raw interviews.

And, as always, beyond the regular business concepts and needs, Om just stated that "it is fun" - I can't agree more.

I wonder if we will see a lot of professional bloggers adding original video to their media offering. Video production requires different type of planning and production, it is more time consuming than blogging, and in today's market, doesn't necessarily brings more viewers than textual blogs. This would change if video production companies will tailor their service to fit bloggers, by reducing the planning and production overhead from the bloggers themselves. Script is especially crucial here - not necessarily a strong blogger's capability.

In any case, if I was BlogTV or Ustream I wouldn't hold my breath - when I've mentioned the option of having live sessions, he simply said that his schedule is too full for that. This is another proof that live broadcasting is not as appealing as pre-recorded content, an issue I've raised in a previous post.

Good luck Om!

GigaOm Killed The Radio Star?

I've written a lot lately on products that enable users to broadcast themselves live over the interment. These products are mature enough to be used by almost everyone, and hype is building up in this field, slowly but surely.

But what is the real potential of this segment? Are we looking at companies that will become the next YouTube, or at a niche market segment with limited growth potential?

The difference between live broadcasting and edited content is a major one. While edited content allows creators to correct their mistakes, add visuals to their content and create an overall better experience for users, live broadcasting requires special kind of creators - ones who can immediately respond to their audience, talk fluently on a specific topic and interact on the fly with viewers and co-hosts.

Therefore, I don't believe we will see as much traffic and content in live sites as in the YouTubes of the world. Add the fact that live content usually does not contain copyright infringing material, and you get a content arena with original content only, most of it by unknown creators.

What kind of usage pattern will increase the economic value of this medium? In my opinion we should not look at this medium as a stand alone technology, but as another tool in new media creators' tool box. I've started a discussion about different ways to use this medium here. Companies that will tailor their products to the specific needs of their customers, rather then leave the platform as a general purpose site, can increase both usage and loyalty.

Another way of increasing the economical value of this medium is by helping Indie creators use it as a part of covering live events - just like any other news organization. Technology provider that will embrace Indie content creators, and enable them to cover events of their interest, will create a new kind of media arena - independent and alternative live coverage of niche events. Companies can encourage users to use their platform by providing them with specialized equipment such as wireless cams, to cover high profile events. Creativity, like in other area, is the key here.

There is no single answer to the question I've raised in the headline of this post. However, one thing is certain - plain feature wars are not the answer for creating economic value in this emerging market.