Broadband industry are seeing an exciting potential in P2P to enhance users’ video experiences. P2P’s big advantage is that it allows users themselves to become servers of content to other users, once they have installed client software on their computers. In doing so, these clients may send files to users requesting contents that they have already stored. Then the load for delivering content is shifted from central servers to the nodes or users on the P2P network. Files can be delivered for either download or streaming.
And with Joost’s launch upon us, BitTorrent going mainstream, Akamai buying Red Swoosh and other initiatives underway, many players see it as an important, if not essential, way to deliver large quantities of video, especially live streams, in an economic manner.
Potential is big, but two important obstacles lie ahead: consumers’ willingness to become P2P nodes (especially in this era of spyware, malware, viruses) and ISPs restrain in blocking P2P traffic.
To date, broadband ISPs have used traffic shaping technology to identify and limit traffic. Virtually all ISPs offer asymmetric Internet access, meaning that the amount of bandwidth offered in the upstream path is only a fraction of that provisioned for the downstream path. However, limiting users’ access to services like Joost and BitTorrent could fuel protests. Let’s see what happens.
CNN frees up Pipeline
CNN is dropping the subscription model from its Pipeline service ($25 annual fee). Giving Pipeline for free (beginning July1), CNN acknowledges that it’s too tough to get users for news online, and starts to pursue the ad market. Pipeline features as many as four live streams of news as well as archived video.
Its CPM is in the $25-40 range, according to some insiders. Only 3 cable TV networks of 75 are using a subscription. Those three are Golf Channel, CourtTV, Weather Channel.
New York Times seeking $30M in annual revenue from video
One of the main samples of newspapers morphing themselves from print-only outlets to multi-platform contents providers is the New York Times. Martin Niesenholtz, the longtime SVP Digital Operations for the New York Times Company disclosed at the Streaming Media East conference (celebrated in New York this month, in where IBLNEWS was present) some key stats.
The NYT has 20 people dedicated to video who create around 100 new video pieces per month. The newspaper serves 5M streams/month, up 3x from a year ago. The executive shared that the Times needs to provide 60M stream per month, or 12X today’s rate, to generate $30M in annual revenue from video.
He assumed $60 CPMs, which is too high. Importantly, he’s targeting to generate 5X the viewership of Times video via 3rd party distributors (so pretty strong endorsement of the syndication model).
Another video blog sold to a big fish
Wallstrip.com, a successful comedy video blog about the stock market, with over 10,000 viewers, has been bought by CBS for undisclosed sum. Wallstrip will retain a separate identity, and CBS Interactive unit will join them to develop Internet programs and information that can be sent to mobile phones and other devices.
Wallstrip.com’s content is distributed through channels like YouTube, Google Finance and Apple’s iTunes store. Its three-minute show features Lindsay Campbell, a fetching 29-year-old actor, as host.
The creator of WallStrip is Howard Lindzon, a small-time hedge fund manager, who enlisted a group of 10 financial and venture-capital bloggers to contribute to the site, and raised more than $500,000 in angel funding to create a slate of shows.
Many predict that 2007 will be the year money starts flowing to top indie video creators. This trend was pioneered by Rocketboom and Ask a Ninja, which draw hundreds of thousands of viewers.
American spend half of its spare time online
U.S. broadband users spend an hour and 40 minutes (48% of their spare time) online in a typical weekday, and more than a half of that is spent accessing activities related to entertainment and communication, according to a Media Screen study.
The manager director of the study says: "Currently, the proportion of advertising resources devoted to the Internet (about seven percent according to ZenithOptimedia) is nominal relative to the value it generates... among fans... consumers, on a typical weekday, spend more than 40% of their time consuming media online..."
