The monetization of online video is a huge topic of conversation in the blogosphere as the preferred communication medium within the intertubes is video rather than text. What happens when you post a video on the web that registers 3 million hits in two months? You would think that would translate into big bucks. But the bandwidth required to transmit all of those video views can get pricey. How pricey? Well, rumor has it that Nick Denton received a $118, 000 bill from broadband provider Panther for the Tom Cruise Scientology video that has registered 3 million hits on his Gawker blog. He apparently talked it down to $10, 000, but the point is that maybe monetization shouldn’t be the problem to be solved in the world of online video. Maybe, before online video is a business model with high profit potential, we need to get the cost of data transmission down. Food for thought.
According to this morning’s New York Times, the United States is lagging pretty badly when it comes to broadband penetration. Sweden, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Belgium and even Britain now have levels of broadband penetration greater than both the United States and Japan. The European Commission says that the European Union added 19 million broadband lines in 2007, which works out to about 50, 000 households per day! If the commission succeeds in diminishing the influence of the state-run telecommunications monopolies in some Eastern European countries, we will likely see the US fall even further behind as it would result in nearly half of EU countries at least on par with the US in broadband usage.
It’ll be interesting to see what effect this will ultimately have on the dynamic of the world economy. If the US lags too far behind in broadband usage, the new media economy could be centralized on another continent altogether, and be the first time the US didn’t dominate a particular industry since the Industrial Revolution.
A Visual Interpretation Of Evil In The West
March 17, 2008
Another cool visual depiction of historical info. A animated mockumentary of the presence of evil in Western Civilization since Ancient Greece.
War Interpreted Through Food: Food Fight By Stefan Nadelman
March 16, 2008
Information visualization is a fascinating branch of new media that deals with graphical representations of data that allows for interpretations that wouldn’t otherwise be seen. Growing in popularity, I expect I’ll experiment with this in the coming months. Check out this video interpretation, called Food Fight, of all the American-centric wars since World War I as played out by food stuffs. Yes, that’s right, food stuffs. Just in case your knowledge of military history isn’t too great (I fall into this category), here’s a cheat sheet that’ll show you what food stuffs represent what country.
Food Fight is written by Stefan Nadelman of Tourist Pictures.
Interesting New Media Links…
March 2, 2008
For some reason, I saved this rather than published it earlier today, but here it is anyways…
Got the Sunday blahs? Here are a few interesting things for you to check out today.
- Learn how to focus on storytelling to succeed in new media
- Take a free course from MIT
- Learn how to write a business plan-from an investor’s perspective
- Play around with some 3D animation software
- Read a free book by Cory Doctorow, creator of Boing Boing
There you go, a good mix of new media to keep you busy until you go back to work tomorrow… or possibly the next day.
Lack Of Intimacy To Kill Traditional TV?
March 1, 2008
Is online video offer a more intimate connection with viewers than traditional television? Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision 3, home to the huge successes such as DiggNation thinks so:
“When you watch TV, you’re seven feet away and sitting back. But when you watch on your iPod or your laptop, it’s only inches away or you’re holding it in your hands. I wonder whether the intimacy of our handheld devices and computers creates more of a sense of intimacy and sharedness and companionship than just sitting back and watching TV.”
Interesting concept to ponder. I pulled the quote from an excellent article in the Guardian about the recent online video show trend.
I used to maintain another blog called Moving Into The Conceptual Age, started as a way to supplement my business administration studies at a local college in my hometown of Winnipeg. Really though, it was inspired by author Dan Pink’s bestseller, “A Whole New Mind“, a book that delved into the future world of work and the skills that’ll be needed to be truly successful. It’s an excellent book and I recommend it to anyone of working age, and even those still in school. It may help you make some choices that’ll greatly enrich your career options down the line. Anyway, I imported all the posts from the old blog to here this morning. There’s some neat stuff in there including an interview I conducted with Dan Pink as well as one with innovative retail entrepreneur Eric Reynolds.
Europe’s P2P-Next Consortium Revolutionizing Internet TV
February 20, 2008
The popularity of internet video continues to grow, with Google’s YouTube accounting for a whopping 10% of all internet traffic. Internet service providers are struggling to provide the necessary bandwidth to support our incessant video viewing and downloading, and some ISP’s such as Comcast are even looking at controlling traffic by interfering with file sharing or limiting downloads. ABI Research figures it will cost service providers $24 billion by 2012 just to keep up with the bandwidth demands brought on by the advent of digital media. But while American internet service providers anger customers by placing limits on their internet usage, a European Union-funded P2P research project called P2P-Next is looking to revolutionize the delivery of online video. In Europe anyway.
Video delivery has been a serious problem for ISP’s the past couple of years, especially when it comes to streaming actual television content. The infrastructure of the internet is not set up to enable simultaneous streaming to hundreds or even thousands of homes at one time. One potential solution to the problem is multicasting, where a data stream such as a television episode is distributed to a series of local servers which then re-stream the content to local users. Currently though, most IP routers don’t support multicasting nor is their a financial incentive for ISP’s to use it. P2P-Next realizes that internet TV requires new business models to succeed and has pinpointed P2P platforms as the most cost-effective and efficient way to broadcast television content to viewers.
The idea of using P2P as the means of distributing internet television content on the internet has caught on in Europe, with the European Union funding P2P-Next with a 19 million Euro grant to develop a next-generation P2P content delivery platform over the next 4 years. The project is a collaboration of 21 different institutions from 12 different countries and will eventually result in an open-source P2P platform that will deliver internet TV to any device. Given that linear broadcasting and the traditional home theater is giving way to more mobility and interaction, P2P-Next will integrate social networking features into the platform, allowing users to create communities built around their favorite content for example.
P2P file-sharer Tribler, the biggest partner in the massive endeavor, says that no central servers will be need to support the distribution platform which will feature BitTorrent backwards compatibility. Within the year, P2P playlists will be available that will function as RSS feeds do for text data currently, Wiki-style moderation will have users make sure only the best content is available from the platform and a reputation system that can have spammers permanently removed from the service.
How P2P-Next will address the issue of bandwidth glut is unclear although the consortium says this will be a technical issue they address as they develop their revolutionary new business model. And it seems their timing is right as P2P blog TorrentFreak reports that at any one time 50% of BitTorrent downloads are popular television show episodes. Popular shows such as “Lost” see up to 10 million downloads for each episode, approaching the number of actual viewers that tune in via their living rooms.
What Does Jason Calacanis Say About Nexxgen Media?
February 17, 2008
Now that Nexxgen Media is an official company, the planning phase starts, and that means I need to figure out where to start. Right now, being a “new media experiment” rather than an organization with an official structure and long-term plan, I’m looking at planning a flexible path for year 1. I expect there to be plenty of crossroads and that’s exactly what I’m looking for. Contrary to what the experts say about focusing on revenues, expenses and profits, I’m only interested in following opportunities and seeing where these opportunities lead in terms of revenues, expenses, and ultimately profits. But how will I move an “experiment” masquerading as a business forward and what kind of feedback can I expect from those I pitch my idea too? Serial entrepreneur Jason Calcanis, founder of the human-powered search engine Mahalo, gave me some ideas via Startup Handbook: How to identify and deal with the slow masses, knowledgeable skeptics, and savvy dreamers.
As Calacanis would know well, every founder with an innovative idea or business model faces convincing the “pitchees” that an impossibly ridiculous idea is in fact completely logical and brilliant. In the course of year 1, Calacanis says all founders can expect to encounter three different types of “pitchees”: the slow masses, the knowledgeable skeptics, and the savvy dreamers.
70% of those founders can expect to meet would be categorized into the slow masses. Because the slow masses account for the majority of people in society, don’t expect them to be innovative or understand innovation until it is very near mainstream or mainstream. Calacanis says that the slow masses typically work three levels below those that are innovative, so most likely they have run-of-the-mill jobs, nothing particularly interesting. This group doesn’t tend toward the entrepreneurial and tends to think innovation is last year’s trends. Your grandmother will probably land squarely in the slow masses.
20% of those a founder can expect to encounter in year 1’s “striving to make others understand” populate a group Calacanis calls the knowledgeable skeptics. You can expect that the knowledgeable skeptics will understand the fundamentals of your brilliantly innovative idea, but their lack of vision will have them convinced it’ll never work. Hence the label knowledgeable skeptic. Of course, since you are working with an innovative idea that somehow must eventually appeal to enough people to be successful, you may very well fail. The knowledgeable skeptics may have the entrepreneurial gene, but they won’t tend to be outstanding. Think the “mom and pop” types. Calacanis says that their skepticism often stems from their low self-esteem and image issues, but their very skepticism is an advantage for you. Listen to this group as they poke all kinds of holes in your plan, because holes you never noticed before may be the ones you need to fill to be a success.
The final 10% are the savvy dreamers. This is my favorite group because I’m a dreamer myself, though it’s much too early to say if I’m savvy or not. The savvy dreamers tend to be those that are the most successful, but their tendency toward risk means as a group their failure rate is probably the highest of the three groups. The other groups credit the savvy dreamer’s success to luck, probably partially true, but this group’s vision means they will actually see your idea as the brilliant one it is. No challenge or obstacle is insurmountable to the savvy dreamer. Calacanis says that from this group, it’s important to involve people in your young business. They create a positive, electric atmosphere and are filled with all kinds of interesting ideas that may play an important part in moving your startup forward. While it may be tempting to spend all your time with the savvy dreamers, it’s important you don’t.
Like everything else in life, savvy dreamers are optimal in moderation. They need to be balanced by the steadiness of the slow masses, and the logic and reasoning of the skeptics. Thanks Jason, you’ve taught the founder of Nexxgen Media his first official lesson. But since Nexxgen Media is in its planning stages, I’m looking for the savvy new media dreamers out there. Email me!
Nexxgen Media Officially Granted Sole Proprietorship Status, Watch Out New Media World
February 17, 2008
While I intend to keep Nexxgen Media as flexible and open as possible, especially in its early stages, when its structure is optimal, every company needs direction. Just this week, Nexxgen Media was officially granted registered sole proprietorship-status by the Manitoba Provincial Government and Canada Revenue Agency, so I’m free to move ahead with planning for Nexxgen. Currently Nexxgen’s only assets are GPS Obsessed, a blog covering GPS technology, and the domain names purchased for the company. Keeping things simple, the first thing I need to do is get an official website up and running. Right now, this blog serves as the unofficial website and a filter for any ideas that may run through my head, but an official website is in the works. GPS Obsessed started a couple months back and is slowly getting off the ground, but with me being the sole employee of Nexxgen Media at this time, the daily maintenance of the blog is a challenge and must be balanced with the demands of two other jobs that are paying the bills for my wife and I at the moment. If all goes well, the blog will be optimized well enough to do fairly well come fourth quarter of 2008 and if it does I’m planning on hiring a full-time writer for the site at which point I’ll launch another.
Because Nexxgen Media is a “new media experiment”, it will of course feature an online video component, and by summer of this year I hope to have the groundwork laid for an online technology show that will feature a twist from the current offerings. Of course, as things developed, you’ll be privy to anything and everything via this blog.
This blog serves as a bit of a personal site as well and because I have varied interests ranging from ultramarathoning to genomics, you’ll serve the occasional out-of-place article related to my personal interests. Oh and by the way, if I do draw up a loose short-term business plan for Nexxgen Media in the next couple of months, I’ll make it completely accessible here as well.
