Yesterday Joostannounced that it has fired its CEO and will focus on the crowded White Label player market. This segment is the most lucrative space to be in an online video market in which costs are high and consumers are loathe to pay. But as Yahoo!’s ditching of Maven on the same day shows, a high profile client list isn’t enough.
To succeed companies focused on this model must really behave like agencies, focused on delivering exceptional service and high measurable ROI for clients while keeping their costs low, a tricky thing when measurable success means more eyeballs and the CPMs for online video in most cases aren’t sufficient to cover the distribution costs let alone the cost of player development. (Unless, that is, you’re willing to use Silverlight in which case Microsoft has some money for you).
So for Joost to succeed they need to be able to do at least one of several things very well:
1. Provide a best-in-class player interface; Joost’s key selling point throughout its history (aside from P2P which flopped) has been its design, like it or hate it they have always been leaders in creating an innovative player interface, but it has come at a cost. Joost will need to be able to create innovative user experiences at low cost and be nimble enough to keep adapting to changes in technology with less staff.
2. Strengthen relationships with major partners; Joost has received funding and support from some major media companies and done content deals, mostly small with a slew of others. Joost needs these companies as partners if they are going to succeed. A major deal with one top tier media company could be enough to keep the company running, better yet they could get bought.
3. Control distribution costs; Without being able to do this no online video player solution will be able to offer worthwhile value to its partners. An innovative player solution isn’t enough, that’s what killed Maven. It needs to be low-cost
4. Provide value to advertisers; If consumers aren’t going to pay for content they’re going to need to watch ads, the player must be designed to deliver maximum value for advertisers without putting off users.
To name just a few, the list of competitors in the white label online video market now includes Brightcove, PermissionTV, Kaltura, KickApps, Castfire, The Feedroom, Magnify, Ooyala and Fliqz All of these companies must focus on becoming best-in-class in at least one of these key areas to differentiate themselves and be successful.
Good enough for Stephanie Clifford at the NY Times (@stephcliff), good enough for us! Enjoy the parody, Madison Ave Blues, while I tweet away at the OMMA Publish conference. They should play this video on the screen between panels.
I had the pleasure of meeting Kevin Nalty, aka Nalts, of WillVideoForFood.com, one of my favorite blogs about online video. And as it turned out, he likes us too!
Over a post conference drink, he shared his blog post, declaring me the winner of the “best Tweets from the OMMA Video conference” award. Woohoo!!
Thanks for the tongue-in-cheek (I hope) comments from Tom Cunniff, regarding my question to the OMMA Video panel this afternoon about online ad revenue.
I offered the panel the proverbial bat to hit any part of the video ecosystem over the head with, to point the finger, to place blame for the lack of online video ad revenue. They only had to choose which part. While none of the panelists took me up on the offer, Tom Cunniff did.
That protests in Iran following last week’s disputed election prompted the State Department to reach out to Twitter to keep the lines of communication open is a no small endorsement of the medium’s power, slights about monetization be damned.
An ongoing cyberbattle is being waged by Iranian hackers. The Iran Republic News Agency website is currently down, and the battle is not just limited to government and mainstream media outlets. An Iran Election Cyberwarfare Guide for Beginners has been circulating and the blog BoingBoing which recently reposted it was hit with a DDoS attack hours ago.
But while text based communication keeps the Iranian public in touch with the outside world in a time where the State is interfering with Satellite and phone communication and denying access to international journalists where is the use of live video by citizens? YouTube has no shortage of material but it is so easy to capture live using services like Qik why aren’t we seeing more live citizen journalism?
