Today Akimbo™ Systems today announced that its Internet video-on-demand service will be available next week in beta release for Windows XP and Vista-based PCs. Consumers will be able to download at Akimbo to access thousands of videos for viewing on their PCs.

See our conversation with Jim Funk, Co-Founder & Vice President of Marketing taped last week in our Industry Announcements section

I spoke with Sibley Verbeck, CEO of The Electric Sheep Company at the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference last week in New York City, Sibley spoke to the following topics:

I spoke with Jerry Paffendorf, Resident Futurist of The Electric Sheep Company at the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference last week in New York City, Jerry spoke to the following topics:

Defining his role as a Futurist and the work at Electric Sheep

Machinima as a democratizing movement and what are the challenges content creators face

Digital Rights and content creation

User Creation using Machinima is set to grow as better tools emerge

the 3-D web as a UI for navigating.

Upcoming software tools coming from Electric Sheep and Life Blogging project ~ Virtual worlds are the perfect platform for life blogging, which will allow people to share content about themselves and sites with other users.

Interview with John C. Martin ll - Director of Product Marketing at Reallusion

I spoke with John C. Martin ll of Reallusion at the Virtual Worlds 2007 Conference last week in New York City about their product iClone, a tool for creating Machinima films and virtual avatars – an upcoming demo video will follow.

To watch the interview with John, please go to ourInterview Section.

For more information about Machinima, visit:
Machinima.com
Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences

As mentioned in the Wall Street Journal on the 23rd (subscription required) NBC and News Corp have entered into a joint venture to one-up YouTube, making network television programming and movies available to the public. Using the syndication approach of spreading content across at least four major sites, AOL, MSN, MySpace and Yahoo! these companies hope to capture some of the 1 billion streams that YouTube saw in a single month in January of 2007 for example.

New Corp President, Peter Chernin said in a statement

“This is a game changer for Internet Video, We’ll have access to just about the entire U.S. Internet audience at launch”

As posted in yesterday’s news cycle, Hearst Publications is moving on-line using the Maven platform to syndicate content across their branded sites. Todd Boes, Vice President of Product Management from Maven Networks replied to the following questions.

Yesterday the FCC made it easier for Telecom companies such as Verizon to enter the local markets for video delivery; hopefully this will mean I can get FIOS sooner then later.

In its ruling, the Commission indicated the current franchise process constituted an

“unreasonable barrier to entry that impedes the achievement of the interrelated federal goals of enhanced cable competition and accelerated broadband deployment.”

Among the findings were that local municipalities engaged in:
- Drawn-out local negotiations with no time limits and unreasonable build-out requirements.

An open question is the commission indicated it did not “sufficient information” with decisions made at the state level, with the ruling affecting only those made by county or municipal franchise authorities.

Also, The Commission adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on November 3, 2005 to seek public comment on these issues

In his dissenting statement, Commissioner Jonathan S. Adelstein indicated the FCC "rushed through the ruling with little consultation with the Congress and that the FCC is a regulatory agency and not a legislative body. “ In my years working on Capital Hill, I learned enough to know that today's Order is legislation disguised as regulation” He also indicated he thought the courts would likely reverse such an action.

As reported in Online Media Daily, Hearst is planning to launch 12 online video sites for its magazine brands in the next three months. Titles mentioned will include Cosmopolitan, Esquire and Good Housekeeping and will include behind-the-scenes footage.

According to Chuck Cordray, vice president and general manager for Hearst Magazines Digital Media, they plan to use Maven as their player platform.

"We chose Maven because we like the flexibility of customizing their player from a look-and-feel perspective," Cordray said. "We may or may not avail ourselves of the syndication portion of the product."

Today I attended the Pacific Crest Digital Media & Entertainment Forum at the Palace Hotel in New York City.

Representatives from Akamai, Macrovision, Sonic Solutions, Sprint Nextel, Revision3, Qualcomm and others spoke to the overall business issues and trends in on-line and mobile entertainment space for both music and video.

There were several sessions that addressed DRM. The consensus was the music and film industries must have some form of right management in place if consumers are going to have choices in how they obtain media; this is light of Steve Jobs recent comments.

On the video side, the domestic and International Broadband landscape was addresses from a technology and legislation perspective in addition to sales, for example; Electronic sell-through is going to blossom in the next two too three years.

Stay tuned for an interview I had with Jay Adelson, CEO of Revision3, which should be online in the coming one too two weeks after my holiday.

Back in the mid Nineties, at one of the largest financial firms on the street our team was charged with rolling out Streaming Media worldwide to the firm. It was the Go, Go Nineties and among other Internet deals, the company did the Broadcast.com IPO, whose founder Mark Cuban netted about 1.5Bil when Yahoo! later bought the company, so don’t complain about the YouTube deal Mark! Of course the roof fell in which must have come as quite a shock to the Queen of the Internet (not Pamela Anderson, if you did a Google search) as well as the rest of us, it was a wild time with equally wild stories.

It brings to mind the expression about history repeating itself which I was reminded of when I read Tony Perkins recent article where he warned of the potential crash for companies, like Brightcove.

Mirco Pasqualini has created an interesting UI for his Flash based player, which he calls personalized WebTV. Called a Streamcast Player it allows site developers to integrate various feeds using an RSS play list of streamed and live video content, managing adverts, parental controls and other options. According to him, it will work over fixed as well as mobile device platforms. Currently, the player is free for site use, I have used the on-line demo however, have not downloaded to test it further.

Below are some supplied screens of the player. You can navigate through the deck by clicking on the right side of each image, or left side to go back.

While the StreamCast Player is a fine example of what the technology can accomplish, what is less clear is the business model for this or any other customizes player. The company, Personal Screen Media comes to mind. They have an interesting player with implicate product placement of items within the frame, where to purchase products in addition to actor back-stories, etc.. However, have they licensed it to any companies, is it in use? If not then it is simply fine technology in search of a home...and we all know the housing market is flat.

I am sorry to hear that Randall Bennett and the staff at DV Guru have decided to close shop, no specific reason was given for going dark. The site lists its contributor’s future plans. The site has added a positive voice to the community, with knowledge and intelligently written articles covering a broad range of production issues.

As Pvt. Vasquez said in the movie Aliens “Vaya Con Dios”

According to a GoFish press release, User generated sharing site GoFish will acquire Bolt Media as part of a stock swap.

GoFish Corporation (OTCBB: GOFH), the leading publicly-traded online video company where millions of people come to watch, upload and share videos, today announced it has agreed to acquire Bolt, Inc. (aka Bolt Media) in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at up to $30 million. The combined company will develop an online video network for the creation, distribution and monetization of made-for-Internet programming that is ideally suited for advertisers targeting the 18-34 year-old demographic.

However, the New York Times cited in their article that the sale has as much to do with the need to raise case since Bolts settlement with Universal Music Group for allowing some of its users to upload videos, which contain Universals' music.

To pay for the settlement, which will combine cash, stock and advertising credits, Bolt has agreed to sell itself to GoFish, a smaller rival, for as much as $30 million in GoFish stock.

Not withstanding the legal motivation for the deal, I think there will be more of these acquisitions as second tier type YouTube sites seek differentiation and profitability. To use the phrase, Don't try to boil the ocean, I think these on-line sites would do well to partner with companies like Akimbo, TiVo and others to broaden their reach into the living rooms of America, Perhaps there they will find the road to profitability.

As reported in the New York Times today, Amazon and TiVo have partnered to make Amazon content available over TiVo devices. The venture aims to improve on the Unbox, which Amazon rolled out last year to less then stellar reviews. The services will not work over satellite or cable TV systems, which use set-top boxes running TiVo software.

According to the article, "Videos rented from the site must be watched within 30 days, and once a video starts playing it must be watched within 24 hours".

On another note, 2007 is going to be the year companies like Akimbo, Apple, NeuLion, Sling, TiVo and others who currentltly offer IP too TV solutions, or soon in the case of Apple, who will flight for market share. The goal as I see it will be to sign up as much diverse content from small to larger producers as possible while collaborating with delivery players and peripheral companies. In my recent interview with Jim Funk, Co-founder and VP of Marketing for Akimbo, Jim indicated their plan to offer DVD burning via a partnership with Roxio and a deal with SanDisk. “Device Manufacturers and Service operators are going to be announcing their Internet video initiatives and will stake out their position this year” according to Jim.

I think the time is at hand for small content producers to be making the rounds with companies like Akimbo who are active in courting Indie producers. The living room is the battleground for conversion towards changing peoples viewing habits from the current bland fare offered by the entrenched media conglomerates too rich content from the likes The Burg and Alive in Baghdad, I'd like to order my media content the way I order my food, À la carte and don't forget the fortune cookie!

Remember the artist formally known as Prince? Well as of January 16th The Venice Project became Joost. If you recall, TVP (The Venice Project) promises a new UI and more intuitive mediphore to watch TV content over ITV.
Using screen icons to drive other on-screen guides, the user can enter a “channel chat section” presumably to talk with other like-minded Jossties.

Currently, the application (beta) by invitation works under pc and Mac, this via Bootcamp, but not under Parallels. The site also indicates a Linux version is in the works.

To view screen shots of the UI click on the image below, you can more forward or backwards in the slide deck.

As reported by Chris Tew at WebTVWire, the BBC has thrown open its library doors to the public. Namely, programming that goes back as far as 1937 can be searched for and hopefully at some point viewed.

Using their newly named iPlayer users will be able to view programs from the previous seven days and store them on a PC for 30 days. What BBC has done is ratchet up the stakes and put the ball squarely in the court of U.S. networks. Since the BBC does not have to be concerned about advertiser based funding it gives them a significant competitive advantage over the "free networks" here in the States.

According to Ashley Highfield, their forward thinking Director of New Media & Technology,

“At any time, you'll be able to download any programme from the eight BBC channels and then watch it on your PC and, we hope, move it across to your TV set or down to your mobile phone, to watch it when you want”. He went on to say that the BBC was "Unlocking our archive is one of the biggest challenges we face and, potentially, one of the richest gifts we can give to the nation”.

Beyond iPlayer, BBC2.0 seeks to make the entire web video experience more meaningful for viewers as well as production personnel. According to BBC's Chief Technology Officer John Varney, says:

"Over the next few years the BBC will revolutionize the way production teams view, share and prepare content. Our vision is to have a fully open, accessible and interoperable network to enable production teams to gain access and share assets across the whole of the Corporation."

I believe these efforts along with IP too TV technologies such as Akimbo and others will have a disruptive effect on what personal media will come to mean to the public and what users will demand from media outlets.

Levi Shapiro was at the NATPE conference in Las Vegas recently and spoke with leaders in the IPTV field. The enclosed article will appear in an upcoming edition ofVideo Age International and IPTV Evangelist has the preview release.

Marcel Fenez is a twenty-year resident of Hong Kong and a devoted fan of IPTV. “PCCW captured 700,000 subscribers in three years because they offer more choice, on-demand movies and are the only source for English Premier League. Even Ipod didn’t capture that much market share in its first year”. Along with panelists from Telefonica, Microsoft, Thomson and Belgacom, Fenez discussed successful IPTV models from around the world. Whether in Hong Kong, France or Belgium, these learning are can be instructive for the future of IPTV in the US.

According to Bart Becks, who was responsible for an IPTV rollout in Belgium, there are three basic ingredients for IPTV to compete with cable. First, the technology has to be invisible to the customer. “It needs a very easy interface, with only one button to push, said Becks”. Panelist Benoit Joly of Thomson agreed, saying it must be “granny proof”. Second, IPTV needs to offer everything that cable offers, otherwise people will be reluctant to make the switch. “At a certain period, one of the Big 4 broadcast networks was not available, which hurt our take-up. To convince people to cancel their cable subscription, you have to offer same thing available everywhere else.” Finally, there needs to be some form of exclusive content. “In Belgium”, said Becks, “we bought exclusive rights to live football. This helped to increase churn from our competitors.”

IPTV involves television services over closed, managed network, usually owned by the service provider, which is typically the telephone company. IPTV is inherently hi-speed, and two-way. This creates the opportunity for personalized, dynamic ad insertion. In addition, viewers can see miniaturized screens while watching other programming. Now you literally see “what’s on” TV while without missing your show.

Culturally, IPTV has had an impact on the way Spanish viewers watch sports. Antonio Otero, VP Innovation at Telefonica VP Networks, talks about soccer viewing habits. “Twenty percent of Telefonica subscribers buy soccer match each month. Previously, people went to the local bar but now they are watching soccer matches at home.”

From the point of view of local stations, the greater bandwidth allows broader distribution for their content to a wider geographical audience. Becks cites a local television station in Belgium with a library of short-form travel related clips. These evergreen episodes reside in VOD and are being viewed by a broader potential audience.

Particularly, when there are fewer eyeballs, personalized advertising increases the value to brand owners. The capability, while not yet deployed, is to measure audience at the level of the zip code. What the panel did not explore was what type of advertising format, placement, and experience would be appropriate in a personalized advertising environment. Becks acknowledges, “We will need to use different metrics, rather than GRPs. IPTV can bring below the line advertising to mainstream media.” In short, this may make IPTV’s smaller long-tail audiences more appealing to advertisers as a micro-segment with the right ad for the right viewer at right time.

The key learning for IPTV in the US may be access to exclusive sports programming. Becks believes that “successful roll-outs have to have something exclusive, like only having the NBA available on AT&T. Costs a hell of a lot of money but its what they need to do to be in the game.”

Cable companies have learned that their customers want bundles. This year we will see AT&T and Verizon bundling video and television services in order to compete with the bundles offered by the cable companies. The true winner of this battle will be the consumer, who will have more choice and a richer viewing experience.

Today is the second day for the Future TV show here in New York City. Among the many speakers is Frank Chindamo of Fun Little Movies, who we interviewed last summer.

Some of news from Frank and FLM includes

-He has started teaching a new class at USC, “Mobile and Internet Viral Screenwriting and Production.”

-This month Fun Little Movies has also signed its 30th distribution deal. They are now all over the world: US, South America, Europe, the Middle East, Israel, South Africa, India, Australia, NZ, and the Far East, including several deals in China. We’re also all over the Internet, soon to be seen on Revver, RooTV, and Veoh Networks, to name a few.

-They have also signed a distribution deal with ComedyNet.com, for great stand up comedy from NY, and that brings our library to over 1,000 films.

Today's Business Week has an article, which suggests that, YouTube is moving in the direction of revenue sharing model that “could” offer content creators the ability to generate cash. How that will look is still up for grabs and the article quoted Chad Hurley that such a program would go into effect.

“A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the plans Jan. 29, saying, "We are actively exploring a variety of ways to help the community to monetize content.” An announcement could come in a matter of months”.

Of course, unless you have created a Mentos ad or similar fare serious content creators are going to be hard pressed to generate sustained revenue from my perspective, this due to several factors.

-Difficulty in generating sufficient buzz against the hundreds of thousands of other content

-The life cycle for content is getting shorter by the day; this requires content creators to be churning out new content on a weekly basis, this may be fine for stupid videos however, serious content creators have a longer cycle time, which also requires more capital outlay.

While sites like Metacafe claim some producers have earned ten thousand dollars in a few months, this is likely the exception and could be hard to maintain over the long term, also are these serious projects?

The notion that Google is going to place ad content against “thousands of independently produced videos uploaded to its site” is no different then what Revver, Brightcove and other sites are already doing and will require people and not automated systems to check for proper copyright ownership.

Sure YouTube is the 800-pound gorilla and its viewership has captivated advertisers however, will that alone be sufficient to induce what companies are willing to pay in CPM rates?

At the end of the day, if ITV is about offering viewers compelling and diverse content as alternative to the processed food the media establishment has been churning out for years, Indie producers will need an established revenue stream where their content has maximum reach. Right now, I would place my money on companies like Akimbo and NeuLion for the short term.

Time will tell.