The Praized Blog

“The paid video download market in its current evolutionary state will soon become extinct, despite the fast growth and the millions being spent today. Television and cable networks will shift the bulk of paid downloading to ad-supported streams where they have control of ads and effective audience measurement. The movie studios, whose content only makes up a fraction of today’s paid downloads, will put their weight behind subscription models that imitate premium cable channel services.”

Forrester Research Principal Analyst James McQuivey in their newest report “Paid Video Downloads Give Way To Ad Models”

(via TechCrunch)

The rumors of a joint venture to counter the perceived Google-YouTube threat, dubbed “Clown Co.” by Google executives, are now confirmed, although the name of the new company is not yet available. In a press release, Peter Chernin (COO News Corp.) and Jeff Zucker (CEO NBC Universal) are announcing “launch the largest Internet video distribution network ever assembled with the most sought-after content from television and film.” Content from at least a dozen TV networks and two major film studios is promised. Initial distribution partners include AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo.

Chernin says they will have access to “the entire U.S. audience” at launch. The service is promised for this summer, with “thousands of hours” of full length televisions shows and movies, as well as shorter clips. Users will have unlimited and free access to content on the site. At launch, full episodes and clips from current hit shows, including Heroes, 24, House, My Name Is Earl, Saturday Night Live, Friday Night Lights, The Riches, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, The Tonight Show, Prison Break, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader and Top Chef, plus hits from the studios’ vast television libraries, will be available free, on an ad-supported basis, within a rich consumer experience featuring personalized video playlists, mashups, online communities and video search. Plus, the extensive programming lineup will include fan favorite films like Borat, Little Miss Sunshine, Devil Wears Prada, The Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremacy with bonus materials and movie trailers. Post-launch, plans will be considered for acquiring additional content as well as producing and licensing original programming for the new site’s audience.

What it means: Wow! Google seems to be heading to the same penalty box Microsoft sat in for most of the later portion of 1990’s. Remember when Netscape created the “Everyone But Microsoft” league? It sure sounds like TV & movie creators are heading in the same direction by saying “Everyone But Google”. If the thing flies, expect other TV networks and movie companies to join the group. You can also expect a renewed onslaught of copyright lawsuits against YouTube. As TechCrunch asks, I wonder if there will be a delay between the broadcast and the Web posting of a TV show. I also hope they don’t block viewers from other countries via IP detection!

Oscar winner “West Bank Story,” a short film directed by Ari Sandel of Los Angeles, was the first film profiled on MySpace Film. “West Bank Story” won the Oscar for best live-action short film Sunday during the Academy Awards in Los Angeles.

Sandal created “West Bank Story” while earning his master’s degree in film production at the University of Southern California, MySpace said. The short film is a musical comedy about David, an Israeli soldier, and Fatima, a Palestinian fast food cashier, who fall in love while their families fight each other for business at their falafel stands in the West Bank.

MySpace said it chose Sandel and “West Bank Story” to be the first featured filmmaker and film on the site a year ago. MySpace said more than 50,000 filmmakers now use MySpace to raise awareness and promote their films through MySpace Film. Two Oscar-nominated documentaries were also recently featured on MySpace Film, “Iraq in Fragments” and “Jesus Camp.”

Via United Press International.

What it means: while everyone is talking about YouTube, MySpace might be emerging as a promotion platform for emerging video artist.

Meta-Praized is a collection of links & stories we’ve “dugg” on Digg.com in the last few weeks. By clicking on that link, you can always follow what’s currently on our mind:

• “Google plans street advertising presence” via Engadget
• “Google Talk to Interoperate with AIM This Year” via the Google Operating System blog
• “Microsoft Hits 100 Million IE7 Installs” via BetaNews
• “Privately, Hollywood admits DRM isn’t about piracy” via Ars Technica
• “Small Town News Station Heads to YouTube” via SplashCast Media
• “MTV to buy RateMyProfessors.com” in News.com
• “Asterisk: The Future of Telephony” via linux.inet.hr
• “Google (Google Checkout) breaks ceasefire with eBay” via Valleywag
• “Big Media’s Crush on Social Networking” in the New York Times
• “Google Inc. is currently in negotiations to purchase Adscape Media (videogame advertising)” in CNN Money
• “Traffic to newspaper blogs soars” via MarketWatch

You often hear about how the adult industry is an early adopter of new technologies and new business models but you rarely can read serious business articles that talk about how it could influence traditional media. I’ve recently read an interesting one in Revenue Magazine.

Here’s an excerpt:

“In the adult world, the profits are in the video content, and affiliates lure and hook customers by showing image galleries (often thumbnails) of naked people, and then directing them to the publishers who sell unlimited access accounts. Collins (Shawn Collins, co-founder of the Affiliate Summit conference) says video, audio or print media companies could greatly expand their conversions by using affiliates to distribute free samples of their content.

For example, the television networks or movie sellers could distribute clips from their sitcoms or films to affiliates to pique consumer interest, which enables customers to realize the value of the content, according to Collins. Media companies have yet to exploit the power of distributing content through affiliates, Collins says, and were slow to team up with video search engines such as YouTube.com to increase their exposure.

This strategy of partnering with large search engines and requiring users to register is the opposite of the niche marketing that has been critical to the adult industry’s success. Video search engine sites have too much content to successfully promote niches (such as British comedy or period-piece dramas) that would convert well as independent affiliate sites.

“Showing teaser videos and allowing them to be distributed virally” could boost the sales of online video, Collins says. Online music stores should allow affiliates to host and play select songs for free, and Amazon should share its technology for previewing a few pages of a book with affiliates. Reuter’s news is one of the video services that allow affiliates to display its content, but the company keeps all of the revenue from its pre-roll ads, which takes away the incentive from affiliates.”

What it means: excellent insights on how to build a network of affiliate sites to promote traditional media content online. This clearly fits with the Verticalization trend I identified earlier this year. I wonder if there’s not a revenue model there for affiliate TV stations?

Meta-Praized is a collection of links & stories we’ve “dugg” on Digg.com in the last 7 days. Feel free to add us as a friend: PraizedDotCom .

• “How Much Privacy?” (re: ComScore MediaMetrix) in Forbes Magazine
• “Fox, Viacom, CBS and NBC discuss YouTube rival” via Reuters
• Google adds new layers to Google Earth via TechCrunch
• BidNearBy.com: a cool eBay, Craiglist and Google Maps mash-up via ProgrammableWeb.com
• “Google’s Click Fraud Rate is Less than 2%” via Marketing Pilgrim
• “Google Base Has a New Interface” via the Google Operating System blog
• Google adds “+ box” to show Google Maps in regular search results via Search Engine Journal
• “LiveDeal.com Adds Yellow Pages to its Online Local Marketplace” via PrNewswire
• ” Consumers Prefer Movie Rentals To Downloads By A Wide Margin” via TechWeb
• Yahoo’s business case for acquiring Facebook.com pops-up on the Web via TechCrunch
• Skype reorg, eBay people now in place via GigaOM

Meta-Praized is a collection of links & stories we’ve dugg on Digg.com in the last 7 days. Feel free to add us as a friend: PraizedDotCom .

• “Police track reckless driver on YouTube” via the Associated Press on Yahoo News
• “MySpace.com Now Featuring Google Search” via Search Engine Journal
• AdGridWork, the “First Free Targeted Ad Network” on their corporate Web site
• “Million Dollar Homepage Becomes Multi-Million Dollar Homepage (Pixelotto)” via TechCrunch
• “The Vanishing Click-Fraud Case” via Business Week
• “Have Camera Phone? Yahoo and Reuters Want You to Work for Their News Service” via the New York Times
• “Jaman - A New Global Movie Download Service” via NewTeeVee.com
• “James Kim found deceased” via Cnet’s News.com
• “James Kim Saga Tracked by Millions; MSNBC sets Record: 1 Million Page Views” via San Francisco Chronicle
• “Wall Street Journal Gets Face-Lift: Smaller, Tighter, More Colorful” via MediaPost
• “Kazaa Founder Takes On Network TV (The Venice Project)” via USA Today

Harry adds: About the Venice Project, two thoughts: 1) it’s about video + ads… hey! didn’t Google just buy YouTube?, 2) lots of very large ISPs are cableco’s with cash cow TV distribution businesses… no, they won’t block the Venice Project packets, but they will cripple them. It’s called packet shaping.

Meta-Praized is a collection of links & stories we’ve dugg on Digg.com in the last 7 days. Feel free to add us as a friend: PraizedDotCom .

• “Seeking Executive to Tame the Digital Future” in the New York Times
• “What does ‘Web 2.0’ mean to the world of Public Relations?” in CMSWire.com
• “Do Google and YouTube have ethical responsibility for their video services?” in ArsTechnica
• “VirtualCity delivers the real thing” in the Globe & Mail
• “Experts rate Wikipedia’s accuracy higher than non-experts” via Ars Technica
• “To Web Fans, Peter Jackson Is the One True Director” in the New York Times
• “Sex and Social Networking Sells: Fake User Profiles in Marketing Campaigns” in Read/WriteWeb
• Google shuts down the Google Answers service via the Google blog
• “Report: Pentagon investigates YouTube video of U.S. troops” via News.com
• “CBS attributes ratings boost to YouTube” via the Chicago Tribune
• “A New Twist: Voting for News You Trust” in NewAssignment.net
• “Real-Time map showing available parking spaces in Santa Monica” via the actual site
• Yahoo! TV gets a redesign via TechCrunch

United Talent Agency in the New York Times: “One of Hollywood’s top five talent agencies has created an online unit devoted to scouting out up-and-coming creators of Internet content — particularly video — and finding work for them in Web-based advertising and entertainment, as well as in the older media.”

What it means: traditional media still makes or breaks creative careers

MySpace and TBS in MediaPost’s Online Media Daily: “ In the Stand-Up or Sit Down Comedy Challenge, aspiring comics will compete for a $50,000 prize by submitting performance videos for MySpace users to rate. The top five finalists will then be invited to appear in a one-hour special hosted by comedian George Lopez and filmed at The Comedy Festival in Las Vegas. The show will be broadcast on TBS on Nov. 17.”

What it means: great use of a “multi-media” strategy (and also see above)

Social network fatigue in the Wall Street Journal: “Ms. Thompson belongs to a fringe of Internet users now renouncing MySpace and other social-networking sites — not in spite of their popularity, but because of it. That highlights a dilemma facing NewsCorp’s MySpace and Facebook Inc.: While it takes a critical mass of users to make these sites work, having too many users alienates some, especially when they attract an ever-growing cacophony of advertising and in some cases, spam.”

What it means: beware of rising privacy issues in social networks.

Thanks to the folks at Revolver3, I was able to attend day 3 of the Digimart conference, whose objective it is to “foster discussion and debate as innovative distribution strategies and new devices radically transform the business of film”.Peter Buckingham, Head of Distribution & Exhibition at the UK Film Council had what I think is a brilliant idea to re-energize the movie theater industry under assault by illegal (and legal) movie downloading, poor consumer experience (sticky floors, intrusive ads, people talking and ringing cell phones) and its “Hollywoodization”: Consumer-programmed movie theatres.It involves the creation of a virtual local “cineclub”, a Web site where people would come and vote for which movies they want to see next month at the local theatre. Obviously, it requires movies to become digital instead of film and it requires theaters to have the equipment needed to show digital movies, but it’s just a question of time before that happens.

What it means: local and social Web applications do not mean the end of the real world. In this scenario, those applications would actually help theatre operators fill more seats and make more money while building a loyal consumer base that would go back to the movies more often that today.