As seen on today's webisode of Wine Library TV Gary Vaynerchuk reviews his top five $50 bottles of wine. Gary not only has a nose for fine wine but how to use this great new medium of Internet TV to reach a devoted audience...

Gary is an Evangelist in his own right as he educates people about wine without the old boy style of exclusivity in an engaging style, Gary, I also grew up a Jets fan.

IPTV Evangelist is proud to have Wine Library TV as sponsor for its TOP 50 most influential people of Internet TV, submit your vote for who you think belongs on the list.

Who are the most influential movers and shakers of the emerging field of Internet Television?

Which individuals have created innovative technologies; lobbied for industry or regulatory change; created a killer on-line community or been the most visible personalities who are making IPTV a white-hot field for growth?

Follow the link to the TOP 50 section of the site and cast you vote!

Participants are entered into a drawing to win a case of wine. Sponsored by Wine Library TV

Is the company spread to thin? According to an internal memo published in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) by SVP, Brad Garlinghouse, the answer would be yes. Garlinghouse believes the company has lost leadership and focus and needs to cut duplicate positions from its workforce.

The article also mentioned the possible retirement of Chairman and CEO, Terry Semel. From my perspective, he has not delivered in substantively moving the company into a leadership position within IPTV and Social Networking.

If you can get your hands on the article, do so. It is an honest and clear message to management that not all is well and has not been for some time. Yahoo! has all the elements to be in leadership positions within several sectors. It is my hope there will be fundamental change throughout the company but that this memo will not result in mass firing of the rank and file who by and large are the core asset of the company. It is management that has created this peanut butter mess and they should be the ones held accountable.

Mr. Garlinghouse, your goals are laudable, the question is does Yahoo! know what it wants to be when it grows up and is the company willing to be bold and take risk?

Article in Yahoo! News

With the news Amanda Congdon has signed a deal with HBO to develop comedy programming, my main interest is, what does "multiplatform" mean specific to Internet Television verses HBO as a traditional cable channel?

• Will it be an on-line content of teasers to drive traffic to HBO?
• Will it be something like the Yahoo! Vision platform of 2000, which, had live feeds into an on-line platform? This could be an interested multiplatform use of select HBO content feed live, or On-demand. Perhaps different content segments could appear on-line as part of a story arc, while other parts of the same story might appear on cable? Since on-line is also about creating community, you could drive traffic bi-directionally as well as provide user-generated content for her show.

I am most interested to learn their meaning of what Amanda will look like multiplatform...

Amanda on HBO

Adrian spoke with Brian Conley from Alive In Baghdad

• Alive In Baghdad is about connecting with people to better understand the Iraqi people
• The people on the ground who produce content
• How does the Mainstream press view Alive In Baghdad
• Alive In Baghdad is doing something the Mainstream Media is not doing
• Do your reporters come into contact with US forces and what are the consequences?
• What's next, Brian is looking to new projects
• What does it mean to win a Vloggie?
We are viewer funded

IPTV Evangelists' Adrian Smith along with DP, Brian Relph were out amongst a sea of MiniDV cameras capturing the event. The electronic news media was supposed to be there but save for a local crew, it was left up the community to cover the event. After all, it is not going to be CBS or NBC with nano-second attention spans and shallow coverage that champions the growth of Internet TV, it will people like the winners.

2006 Vloggie Awards

Saturday night in San Francisco at the Swedish American Hall theater was host to the first ever Vloggie awards, recognizing the accomplishments of video bloggers. Brian Conley and Alive In Baghdad was the big winner.

Brian Conley, Winner of Best Vlog - Alive In Baghdad

Andrew Baron - Rocketboom

Douglas Sarine, Kent Nichols - Ask A Ninja

Winners Circle

Mr. or Ms. Vloggie to you!

Brian Conley with a $2,000 check from Intel

Well deserved Daniel...

Among the topics discussed:

• NeuLion is positioned against the cable and satellite providers to enable consumers access to an array of content and interactvity not found with traditional set top boxes. Also, people can travel with the NeuLion box and access content anywhere they have Internet access.
• NeuLion is positioned mainly for the home market and as such does not currently have a convergent media solution for hand-off to mobile devices.
• NeuLion seeks relationships with small content producers, affinity groups, expatriate groups, faith-based groups as well as larger media outlets. They have had conversations with Atom Films for example and this should be an interesting area to watch.
• NeuLion is seeking to leverage web-based search capabilities to aid in search, this via a playlist of content.

Adrian Smith has joined IPTV Evangelist as a contributing video producer, he is based in San Francisco.

Mr. Smith began his career in London working in the theater as an actor, writer and director. Following on from his theater work, Adrian developed projects for the BBC and became more involved with documentary filmmaking (including segments for the BBCs acclaimed Panorama series).

In 2000 Mr. Smith joined Yahoo! Inc. to champion the use of video in distance-learning modules and to create unique training and learning products. Mr. Smith continued his career at Yahoo! by becoming Senior Producer of Media Production for the Yahoo! marketing department where he produces work for Yahoo! advertising and marketing campaigns. Projects also include a series of Yahoo! funded documentaries on the consumer and social impact of the internet and related technologies.

You can read more about Mr. Smith's background in the About Us section

Brightcove has launched their portal site in addition to announcing their economic revenue share model for content creators, affiliates, advertisers and partners.

Content creators have two options, a free model where they determine what ad pre-roll into your content, or a paid model at $49/month with no adverts. Those who have been using their commercial preview will have until the end of 2006 to determine which model works best for them.

As a content creator, I have one main concern about the free service, namely what type of content might pre-roll or otherwise be "embedded" the term they use with my content? While this may be extreme, if for example I am a content creator of an organic food show, how do I know that Frito-Lay or other highly processed food manufactures ads might appear in context to my content? Are they going to match content with "appropriate" ad specific spots?

In their FAQ, they indicate they sell to a variety of national and niche advertisers. To their credit, they exclude pornography, alcohol, tobacco and online gambling advertising. What about political or religious ads?

In addition and I gather to appeal to non-technical types, Brightcove has created a tool called Publishpod, which they promote as a way to "customize, build, publish and syndicate and Internet TV channel in just a few minutes"

The all-important Rev share model is straightforward; Brightcove will give rights holders 50% of the revenue from ad sales. In addition, if your content is carried by an affiliate, Brightcove pays the affiliate 20%; Brightcove then splits the remaining 80% in half, or 40% going to you the rights holder.

Content holders are paid monthly, what they indicated is "approximately one month after the minimum payment threshold of $20 has been achieved".

For content holders who wish to offer paid downloads of their content the model is as follows. Brightcove shares 70% of the purchase revenue. They indicate they will cover delivery, support (undefined) and credit card transactions (this is an important point for small content creators who do not want the expense and hassle of setting up a merchant account) The rights holder set the price from $0.99 and up.

For rentals, content holders can set 1, 3, 7, or 30 day terms with a $0.99 minimum rate.

If your content is carried by an affiliate, Brightcove will first pay the affiliate 20% of the ad revenue and then share 50% of the remaining revenue with you. Of course, one could strike a deal with Revver directly, either in addition to or in lieu of Brightcove.

Certainly, Brightcove is among a short list of players who have created a robust publishing platform for more professional content creation and have worked hard to address all parts of the puzzle. Time will tell how successful their reach is in attracting content holders, making it profitable for them against their paid model and if advertisers will see positive ROI in the experience.

At the end of the day, they are a channel (with a nice production front-end) and as a content holder, I will certainly consider them as one of several outlets across both fixed and mobile platforms. Content creators should focus on a variety of platforms to address their content distribution needs. I can envision the need for a sort of CTO position, call that person a CIPTVO or Chief IPTV Technology Officer, a person who is charged with developing a comprehensive and holistic strategy that best suits their company's needs specific to IPTV distribution. Of course, I am available :-)