NBC seeks to profit from the video sharing market
NBC Universal has created a new video syndication service, NBBC (National Broadband Company). It allows website owners to add video to their sites by embedding a customizable NBBC player. Besides NBC, in this venture are Access Hollywood, Break.com, CSTV, About.com, SNL, Forbes, WashingtonPost, A&E and CNET, to name a few. Commercials will be inserted before each video segment, and the revenue will be split among the program's creator (30 %), the web site owner (20%) and NBBC (50%).
This idea came out after NBC noticed that a sketch from Saturday Night Live, Lazy Sunday, became a hit across the Internet. Some people recorded that segment and uploaded it to YouTube and to MySpace. The president of NBC explained at a news conference this week: "YouTube made a lot of money off it. In the future, when we have a Lazy Sunday clip, NBBC will make a lot of money on it." (...) "If we really want to compete with big aggregators like Yahoo and Google, we need our video in as many places as possible," added.
Keeping distance from YouTube's user-generated clips
Google has partnered with Viacom and plans to distribute video content with commercials to other sites. AOL will do the same. And many start-up companies with video syndication strategies, like Brightcove, Roo, Revver and Broadband Enterprises, will play in the same field.
NBBC says that they want to work only with established producers, and is not going to allow the programs it distributes (initially, under seven minutes clips) to be inserted on personal blogs or Web pages, although it might work will high-traffic blogs. They want to keep distance from programs created and uploaded by users -YouTube style, which is the hottest trend in online video. It will be interesting to see how this plays out
Spain's ruling political party PSOE launches its own broadband TV channel
Spain's ruling political party PSOE launched this week its own broadband channel, Psoetv.es . For this project, PSOE hired Narrowstep Inc., a London based Internet TV company, which has a proprietary technology called telvOS. Narrowstep Inc. partnered with a Spanish tech company, Vivocom, for PSOE's IPTV channel. They will try to deliver more channels in Spain.
Steve Beaumont, CEO of Narrowstep Inc., said: "The Internet is a natural platform for broadcast and we're going to see an increasing number of IPTV channels across a range of sectors. Consumers are increasingly demanding choice, flexibility and interactivity from their media, and IPTV offers all these things." Vivocom Managing Director Raul Cruz-Linacero added: "It is the natural evolution of Internet users to demand quality video and interactivity in one package. Broadcasters and organizations who are not seriously investigating and implementing IPTV will have major gaps in their communications."
One of the first political party broadband channel
Narrowstep's telOS system provides the backbone for IPTV for 90+ channels, representing market interests groups from ranging from entertainment, tourism, gaming, sports, and local broadcasters who want to expand their market and remove geographical boundaries to broadcasting.
PSOE's video site is one of the first broadband channels dedicated to a political party. The contents of the channel show a professional editing and graphics. The stories are clearly biased, focused into socialist people. (Read this news story in Spanish)
Lonelygirl15 the YouTube phenomenon makes a real appearance
The Internet, or better YouTube, phenomenon Lonelygirl15, also known as Bree, appeared on MTV and NBC. "It's been insane. I've had so much attention given to me that I didn't expect", said on MTV (see video), in an appearance in front of a background with Revver logos (by the way, a YouTube competitor). Jessica Rose, Bree, is a New Zealand-born 19-year old actress struggling to make her way in Hollywood.
She has been presented herself, hiding her real identity, as a rebellious and naive teenage girl who confessed her intimate thoughts, as well as her fights with her conservative religious parents. To the two young filmmakers behind these video clips, the lovely Bree "is the epicenter of a new form of collaborative online entertainment." Unlike most video bloggers, Bree, or Lonelygirl15, has more than 2 million viewers. Lonelygirl15, with its two-three minutes clips, filmed in the past three and a half months in a apartment just using a $150 webcam, has become the second most-subscribed-to channel on YouTube.
The creators thought that fostering the illusion that Bree was real would increase fan support and her huge community dedicated to lonelygirl15. Now she has her home page at LonelyGirl15.com and their creators hope to transform the site into a lucrative franchise or even into a movie project.
Television commercials get a new life on the Internet
Traditional television commercials are finding new life on the web. Sites like YouTube and Google, or specialized ones as AdvertisementAve.com and Adcritic.com, are collecting and archiving those commercials. Some marketers have decide to keep online their own ads, allowing them too to download into handhelds. Take for example Volkswagen, DHL, MasterCard, or Bud Light. It is a way to get much mileage out for the commercials, at a time when consumers use their TiVo or DVR to fast-forward through ads.
