Steve Ballmer Microsoft CEO believes that only IP-delivered media will survive.

“In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down. There will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network.”

“If we want TV to be more interactive, you’ll deliver over an IP network,” he said to Washington Post.

He reveals that he watches this favorite TV program, “Lost”, on the Internet, despite it comes with the four 20 seconds of ads. He does not DVR it or buy it from iTunes.


Narrowstep sold for $19 Million

Onstream Media Corp, a Florida-based digital media communications and applications company, has bought Narrowstep, a UK-born provider of Internet TV and IPTV services, in a deal worth up to $19 million.

Onstream will immediately execute a restructuring plan designed to significantly reduce or eliminate substantial costs related to Narrowstep’s facility leases and other costs. Then Onstream will be able to offer a single platform.

Narrowstep’s customers include ITV, Fox International, Outdoor Channel and Torque TV. For 2007, Narrowstep posted $6 million in sales and a net loss of $7.1 million.


TiVo’s way to compete to DVRs

Another expansion of TiVo’s feature set. TiVo will soon allow subscriber to automatically record the recommendation of the Chicago Tribune’s TV critic. This service will be available only to the roughly 100,000 TiVo subscribers in the region surrounding Chicago.

Doing so, TiVo continues to seek to differentiate their product relative to what they’re calling generic DVRs that cable or satellite customers receive from service providers.

In March, the company introduced downloads from YouTube and other Internet video.

Now TiVo is in talks about similar partnerships of Chicago Tribune with other print media outlets. The service, if extended to other markets, could create new relevance for local television critics, whose numbers have shrunk in recent years as papers cut expenses.


Wal-Mart launches free classifieds

Wal-mart.com has quietly launched a free classified service, powered by Oodle.com. The service has about 30 million items. The company says something it may sound silly.

They say that their big-name can attract newspapers around one technology and one classified portal. Are they taking on Craiglist?

Video advertising will be the principal disruptor of Internet advertising, as its revenue grows from $0.5 billion in 2007 to $3.8 billion in 2012 at a compound annual growth rate of 49.4 %.

Overall Internet advertising revenue will double from $25.5 billion in 2007 to $51.1 billion in 2012. During the forecast period, Internet advertising will grow about eight times as fast as advertising at large.

According to a study by IDC, the Internet will go from the number 5 medium all the way to number 2 medium in just 5 years, says the report, making it bigger than newspapers, bigger than cable TV, bigger even than broadcast TV, and second only to direct marketing.

IDC concludes that “what will help drive this trend is that consumers are stating to realize that, as opposed to TV, Internet video lets them watch what they want, when they want, and increasingly, where they want.”


Online video captures share of TV screen time

It is clear that online video is capturing share of TV screen time. A recent study shows that among people who download and/or watch video online, the percentage of video viewed on TV viewed has dropped from 75 to 70 percent over the last year. Video on a computer has climbed from 11 to 19 percent. Among 18-24 years old, 27 percent of their viewing is on a computer. Director at Ipsos MediaCT says: “These share gains in non-traditional video channels are not simply and isolated, generation-driven effect, but rather a large macro-trend in the way consumers want their video content delivered.”


Video viewed on demand will increase to 45% in 2012 from 20 % in 2008

Consumption of video content is expected to rise 25 % to five hours per day by 2013, compared with the four hours now watched in 2008, according to Forrester Research. The increase will be drive by consumers watching programming of all grades via computers, mobile phones, portable media players and even digital photo frames. Obviously, there will be more advertising inventory coming from this extra hour of video.

The thing is that video displays are available in the living room, of course, but also at gas stations and in taxicabs, to name just a few places. And content is being produced by everyone, from professional Hollywood studios to amateurs transferring shots from their mobile phones. Forrester calls the phenomenon “OmniVideo”, and it expects it to continue to be driven by high-speed Internet connections, consumers’ ability to store mega files of video and data, and cheap displays screens.

Forrester forecasts that the percent of video viewed on demand will increase to 45% in 2012 from 20 % in 2008. The percent of video delivered via the Internet climbs to 35 % in 2013 from 10 % in 2008.

The percent of video consumed on mobile or portable devices increase to 15 % in 2013 compared with 8 % in 2008. The amount of “personal” video –i.e. created by oneself or one’s peers- is predicted to increase to 10 % in 2013 from 2 % in 2008.

Now 39 % of viewers watch some type of video on either a desktop or laptop computer.

Forrester doesn’t think that TV networks would be hurt by an increase in video consumption, since consumers and advertisers still want high-end video content, which YouTube does not specialize in. YouTube is a niche and it fills certain gaps in people’s lives, but it doesn’t become dominant. TV networks are likely to fare better than cable providers, who will see audiences migrate to other means of video distribution.


Video classified site combines the power of YouTube and Craigslist

Video classified site RealPeopleRealStuff.com has been named as the second most-viewed of all business ideas on Springwise.com, a website which scans for the most promising new business ventures, ideas and concepts.

RealPeopleRealStuff, which launched on May 1, 2007, combines the popularity of online video with practicality of classified ads, allowing both consumers and businesses to create and post their own video commercial, selling real estate, cars, products, and services.

One of the site creators explains that they combine the power of YouTube and Craigslist.

A new handful of online video-ad formats –called bugs, tickers and skin- are becoming the favorites among marketers. They are added to formats like preroll, midroll and postroll (ads that appear before, during and after a video).

The skin format --in which the ad appears in a graphic surrounding the window where the video plays-; see it working in Heavy.com- is getting a spread after CBSSports.com has adopted. Bug –logos that appear in text or graphics on or next to the video-, and tickers –horizontal bars that usually run on the bottom of the video—are getting also a good response.

Last month, the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a trade group that represents more than 375 publishers, released standards for various types of online-video ads.

Ad executives still are trying to figure how much to pay for and ad bug or an ad skin, and how to gauge their effectiveness. They agree that it is unlikely a single video-ad format will be the winner. Rather, several are likely to predominate.

Heavy said skins are one of the most-effective forms of online-video ads. It claims that click-through rates average 1.68%, compared with the fraction of a percentage see on most banner ads. InSkin Media is also a big supporter of skin ads.

The technology also can include a video-search function, which could carry videos from multiple publishers, and a section to display related videos. Heavy said these features encourage viewers to watch more videos, which would mean a bigger audience a publisher can sell to advertisers.


IP traffic growing at a annual rate of 46 percent

Cisco Systems is projecting that IP traffic will increase at a combined annual growth rate of 46 percent from 2007 to 2012, nearly doubling every two years. This will result in an annual bandwidth demand on the world’s IP networks of approximately 522 exabytes2, or more than a zettabyte. This increase is due mainly to the use of video and social networking and collaboration applications.

In 2012, Internet video traffic alone will be 400 times the traffic carried by the U.S. Internet backbone in 2000.

Video on demand, IPTV, peer-to-peer (P2P) video, and Internet video are forecast to account for nearly 90 percent of all consumers IP traffic in 2012.


People become less patient when they go online and demand design simplicity to reach a site quickly

Web users always want simplicity, since they don’t show much patience for distractions. They are looking for very specific pieces of information, and they “always been ruthless and selfish and now are even more so,” Web usability expert Jakob Nielsen says.

Reason why of websites should be simply is because people want to reach a site quickly, complete a task and leave.


Joost, having a tough time, goes to an online video web

Remember all the hype surrounding Joost in 2006 and 2007 (they raised $46 million)? Well, now Joost.com, which requires a downloadable application, is having a tough time. High-quality content is everywhere without downloading an app (not only Hulu.com, Veoh or AOL TV). How getting back in the game? Now Joost is planning to launch a browser version and focus on broadening and differentiating itself with indie content, music videos and comedy channels.

Its CEO Mike Volpi explains “the world has migrated from an exclusive model of content distribution to non-exclusive model”. That is true, Joost made a big mistake. Now, TV networks are happy to distribute their content via conventional Web sites, as widely as possible.


Brightcove improves its back-end user interface

Many people praise Brightcove’s players, but its back-end user interface confusing. Now they are building a new version, called Brightcove 3, among other reasons because of the new competitors out there. For example, the Cambridge-based video hosting Delve Networks is releasing a completely rebuild version of its service.

It seems that Brightcove 3 doesn’t require publishers to skip around between tabs to address different part of the set up process (as Delve Networks is doing). An iTunes-looking control panel takes advantage of drag-n-drop and batch editing capabilities, which should streamline the addition and editing of videos.