Category: Video

Is human curation the next cool thing?

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Rumors are the Apple is looking to do this for Beats music. I think it would help me find stuff to listen to.

Roku is having some luck with it:

One hint of how that might work is Roku’s Roku Recommends barker channel. Roku’s search engine is well regarded for its ability to search for content across all 2,000-plus apps on the Roku platform. But in mid-December the set-top box maker launched the human-curated Roku Recommends channel to help surface content consumers didn’t know to search for. According to Roku VP of programming Doug Craig, the channel is now among the most popular with Roku users.

This was taken from here :: http://concurrentmedia.com/2015/03/06/supply-side-content-discovery/

It’s cool to have bots and big data but maybe nothing beats human taste?

Netflix launches in Australia & New Zealand on March 24

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http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/03/netflix-australian-launch-date-revealed-march-24/

We knew it was coming but now we know when. Will be interested to see if this finally buries Quickflix and how Stan will get going.

I guess we will start to see if having regional TV and newer Hollywood movies will help combat the sheer scale and tech of Netflix.

Will get this worked into the list :: http://www.nokpis.com/ott-asia/ 

Watching the Aussie market and thinking about SVOD

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In our little part of the world the most advanced video advertising market and the market with lots of OTT competition is generally considered to be Australia and New Zealand.

For example :: http://www.nokpis.com/2015/03/02/quickflix-is-starting-to-fall-apart/

Some of the players :: http://www.nokpis.com/ott-asia/#australia – guessing more are coming as well.

So it is interesting to read an article like this :: http://mumbrella.com.au/svod-catalyst-tv-evolution-278126

For example this is a very good point:

Subscription video services have a monetization model devoid of creativity.
They rely on subscriptions and subscriptions alone to bring in the mullah. It makes it easy to balance the books and has the potential to be quite lucrative in a market like the US where there is a whopping 115 million households that will potentially buy the product.
In comparison, Australia will only have nine million households to market to by 2016.
This means that the maximum revenue potential for the entire SVOD market is roughly $1.1b (based on a $10p/m subscription) in Australia.

But I think this also points to the fact that a large regional player looking at ANZ region as just a piece of the puzzle probably doesn’t care too much about the economics. To me the guys that have to worry about these numbers are the one or two country services. Like Quickflix for example which is already hurdling towards going out of business.

This is the good part though:

I am glad that the TV industry is getting scared.
This invasion of innovation and technology will hopefully spur the industry to evolve.
The SVOD infrastructure seems like the perfect foundation for a new ad funded model that blends the programmatic, targeting and measurement benefits of digital advertising with traditional television.
With a web-augmented and data fueled TV and ad experience the TV industry could have something financially viable on their hands. They could give people the tailored and on-demand content that they desire.
They could banish the Nielsen family and create a robust and reliable TV measurement model.
They could continue to sell us that precious ad space.
If the networks use this opportunity to evolve, the arrival of SVOD services could be the best thing to happen to Australian TV since Kerri-Anne Kennerley.

There is room for some innovation. There is either subscription model or freemium or just free with ads. There are lots of other ideas but generally what happens is the folks that own the content don’t allow the OTT services or the OTT aggregators room to innovate. They are stuck doing the same old thing and having to kowtow to the owners of the content. To me the lack of innovation around the OTT space has to be blamed on the content owners who frown on doing things like download or experimentation around social or payment models. That leaves the content owners needing to be the ones to come up with something cool. Maybe they can use TV to do that or try to take advantage of the what OTT can offer by coming up with something truly innovative.

I am not really holding my breath waiting for it to happen though.

New YouTube kids app

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Just search in the Google or Apple Store for it – YouTube kids.
 
 My daughter was up and rolling with it within a minute – she is two.
 
 We found some content to not load – could be a geo issue thing since it’s not globally released and I use my USA based accounts.
 
 The interface is awesome and their are parental controls which allow you to turn off things like search. The sounds effects are fun – I think both my kids will like the effects. I do think my seven year old will easily get past the parental settings control though. They should allow the parents to create a password for them.
 
 I didn’t log in so I guess it works without an account and even has some privacy adjustments. You can turn off search and then there is just the curated and featured content which is nice but I am assuming even with search on one cannot find non kids content? Need to play with it more.
 
 Best part about it though? There is a timer so you can have it auto shutoff. Need to play with that as well.
 
 Slick stuff.
 
 I just wish they would offer a download feature for when we are not online.
 
 
 

The OTT tsunami has arrived

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

My OTT Asia tracking page :: http://www.nokpis.com/ott-asia/

Obviously I write this from the perspective of someone working in the OTT space but of course confined to a specific content niche – Indian video globally available to anyone who wants it. Fortunately it means that I have experience with building a global OTT platform given spuul has customers dotted around the globe.

If you are in developed regions you probably have had the choice of some sort of regional or global OTT network for years. Netflix is clearly the big one to contend with and it is very interesting to read their latest view of the market and their place in it :: http://ir.netflix.com/long-term-view.cfm .

I love how their business plan and goals for the product are clearly explained. It is also interesting how they directly discuss the competition. I think Netflix knows it will take serious money to stay on top since as the content leaders bifurcate and run their own services – Netflix will have to continue to ramp their original content to make up the gaps.

When it comes to developed markets I think Netflix is unstoppable but I always watch for HBO to do something but the problem is HBO is not a tech leader and this is their Achilles heel in competing with Netflix. However when it comes to content and marketing – HBO is a force to be reckoned with.

The emerging markets though are a totally different story with the excess of regional content to be mopped up and the strength of the telcos to be reckoned with.

I can only really discuss Asia with the caveat that I will leave China, Korea and Japan out of it since they are unique markets. Netflix already as their sights set on Japan and China has enough of it’s own players to contend with.

If one looks at the ANZ region it will be a market to watch the evolution play out since quickflix is on the way down while Stan takes a shot it before Netflix comes to town. Stan does have a chance given they will have a lot of local TV content bottled up but maybe that is not enough to combat Netflix technology and their huge swath of original content.

The rest of Asia though appears to be up for grabs. India may or may not look like China with local incumbents winning but given English as a dominant language, the local market may be open to large international players. I think apart from niche players, spuul for example, India will likely have Amazon and Netflix giving it a go. It also seems that the large local telcos will try to own the market as well as regional players like the newly formed HOOQ. India is big enough to support all this competition – it is after all the next China. In general the south Asian market will be lead by and grouped in with India.

Southeast Asia though is almost another region in and of itself. Already each country is home to some country based players but my take is that they will not survive a regional play since the economics of a regional player will allow for larger catalogs and better technology. HOOQ appears to be the first to really go after this market but they will not be the last.

I reckon that there are lots of players sitting on the sidelines waiting to dip their toes in due to the market size and the complexities that will allow for specific innovation in payments, tech and telco partnerships that could easily allow a competitor to sprint past another. I have no way of validating this list apart from my own gut and the rumor mill but this is my guess for other companies that will either start or partner to create another SEA OTT service – Astro, Starhub, and Catcha Group come to mind but just look at any media company or telco not yet in the game or partnering with someone as a possible entrant.

The potential market with the growth of mobile and Internet is just too big to ignore. Problem is that this market doesn’t look like the developed markets so freemium models, telco payments and multi language support will prevail. Not exactly a good fit for Netflix or Amazon.

Of course apart from Asia there is also the Middle East and Africa to think about. In theory one could argue there is the total set of emergent markets for an OTT player to try and win over with the right mix of Hollywood content, global TV content, regional TV and movie content all buttoned up with a focus on mobile, payments and tech that rivals piracy and YouTube. What many forget is the main competitor in all these markets is piracy – not incumbent services.

I have been patiently waiting for the deep pocketed Rakuten to take their Waiku.tv property and the tech and audience behind Viki to build a more focused emerging markets premium video play but doesn’t look like it is in the cards. Or maybe with Razmig exiting Viki, he is actually working on just this?

It’s 2015 – the next 3-5 years in the OTT space is going to be pretty insane.

I am sure consumers are in for a lot to benefits as the competition slugs it out.

Online Video post from A16z blog

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

http://a16z.com/2015/01/22/online-video/

This read is a doozy. Pretty much agree with all of it and it will be interesting to see some of the predictions play out.

— There will be new business models for video beyond traditional advertising. The reality is that without the scale of a YouTube or Facebook, platforms will have to find more creative ways to make money, whether it’s through subscriptions, micropayments, exclusive previews, community benefits, or other methods.

Full agree on this one. Tough to build a big ad business unless you are huge and in regions where monetization is very advanced. YouTube has massive scale but I know lots of other players with big scale and it still isn’t enough for the ad play. I think micro TX are very interesting and models like daily subs with telco billing.

— The age of platforms not taking care of makers may come to an end. YouTube “stars” generate tons of views for YouTube, but those views don’t translate into meaningful earnings for most of them. As the size of the entire pie grows bigger, there needs to be a piece for everyone. In most media businesses, rents typically acrue to the creators. And this is critical to the long-term success of any two-sided marketplace that connects providers and consumers.

This one also interesting and I think YouTube super stars are making bank but you have to be big again to really make it. I am keen to see how vessel does and what other production companies or talent management will do but yet many of them rely on YouTube for their stars.

None of this addresses what happens to the video landscape once new or newly popularized mediums (such as podcasts, animations, mashups) or entirely new platforms — VR, AR, and so on — become more popular and create new forms of content that live in different ways next to video.

Personally I do see the next thing for video. I have ideas but still work with the type of media that is quite traditional and still finds things like downloading a movie to be really pushing it. So a whole new format or medium? I can’t wrap my head around that but I am sure it will happen eventually.

What we do know is that online video is far from done… so it will be interesting to see what even a little competition will do here.

I guess he means things like vessel for example and I am sure others but for the moment I don’t see a lot of innovation but stuff is always evolving. Just not sure I see where the next thing is coming from.

Amazon Instant Video

~ michael_msft ~ 4 Comments

Given the sale yesterday in Amazon Prime, I figured I would get it so that I had access to their movies and their music service. Of course the free delivery thing won’t help me much but figured for 70 odd bucks a year I have lots of new video and audio content. I assume that both product are not as good as Netflix or Spotify and so far that is turning out to be true. Of course Amazon cares more about the overall model than the individual products which means basically that Netflix and Spotify crush it if you just compare the products, which generally is always the case when there is a pure play company versus a conglomerate approach.

What surprises me though is how bad the video app. Given all of their resources one would assume they could make a better app.

As to the VPN issue the app won’t play anything unless I VPN. It also won’t do anything on data – I must be on wifi which I thought odd.

Once you VPN in you must stay VPN’d or it stops working. This is where I have always known that Netflix does really try to GEO block anything cause with Netflix I can disconnect the VPN once the video starts streaming. With Amazon if I disconnect the VPN I get an error immediately. Contrast this with the music app where it appears no VPN is needed at all.

However the video app itself is so buggy. I only use it with Airplay so I can watch on my TV, Amazon is not on the Apple TV FYI, but it consistently would just stop working. If I got notification on my phone the Airplay would stop. Many times the TV would keep running the video without sound and the app would keep playing the video with sound but at different locations. For sure Airplay is not the bug free experience it used to be but on the Spuul app and on Netflix I never see these issues. Once the app goes awry I found I can’t get anything Airplay related working till I bounce the app. Normally if severe Airplay issue you have to bounce the Apple TV.

Content wise there is some interesting stuff. Movies on it that are not on Netflix, TV shows that are also not on Netlfix and of course all the Amazon content which I have yet to look at yet.

All in all a decent value for the money and I assume even more so if I could use the free shipping but it’s silly to me they put out such buggy apps. Silly.