DLD09 live

1. Video value: Schmiegelow, Allaire

   Tags: dld· dld09  -  1 comment

   

   Double coverage on this issue, Andrea will cover Adam Valkin, Jason Glickman and Arne Rees, I'll cover Jeremy Allaire and Axel Schmiegelow.

   (CPM is mentioned often: the cost per thousand impressions. Google adwords has an explanation for CPM. Further down that currency is questioned.)

   Axel Schmiegelow introduces Sevenload which is a German video portal who have an user generated content but also an editor team to create environment around certain topics. They create attractive channels with a social layer with user proiles. They try to make more money in ads than they pay to the content providers. He says in a nutshell they try to be leaders in monetizations with a cpm of 50 EUR.

   Here goes an amusing conversation in between moderator David Kirkpatrick and Axel Schmiegelow.

   Kirkpatrick "So what is your actual cpm?"
   Schmiegelow "Ad sales pricing is complicated, we make 50 EUR cpm"
   K: "50 EUR you really get that?!"
   S: "As I said, it's complicated."
   K: "I did not ask what you say you make but what you actually make. Come on, cut the marketing speak!"
   S: "We still make 4 times of what is normal."
   K: "Normal being what?"
   S: "If you have on average a cpm of 5 EUR..."
   K: "So you're making 20."
   S: "That's right."
   K: "Ok, thank you."

   Jeremy Allaire introdces Brightcove which is "a software company for online video, with applications for producers, advertisers, and website creators and for people who build video websites. The mindshare is from media business: music, tv, news, print."

   Some of the biggest online video providers that work with Brighhtcove are newspaper companies who compete now with tv channels. Their production costs are low, they have less need of infrastructure like tv companies. Says Allaire: "Online video has actually growth, so all media companies go in there now. Many advertisers are still waiting until they have a quality that can compete with television."

   Allaire: "The snackable content, disposable content will continue to grow massively, while traditional news entertainment media has a bigger step to go, to the point where video channels online are being used like RSS".

   Allaire: "Finding video should not be more difficult than anything else. Everything will be indexed, I don't think the problem is discoverablity".

   The CNN / Facebook collaboration is mentioned where live video and chatting about the Obama inauguration was taking place within Facebook. But this idea is not deepened any further.

   TV - internet connection
   Next topic are home entertainment devices, the problem with these still is how to connect them to online video. TV interacting with the web is still problematic: Many formats, different standards, different usage patterns.

   Allaire: "All devices have their own approach: Xbox, Playstation, settop boxes, Panasonic, they all hope to find their own, but they need open formats and open standards like web browser emulation. like we see in mobile market. THEN we will see a significant growth.
   Microsoft, Adobe are both candidates to build a software stack other companies could build on."

   Schmiegelow: "Sevenload will be embedded in home entertainment devices, significant traffic already comes from the Wii. But it's still not clear how to connect best to a tv, moreover web videos still need too much time to load."

   Allaire: Brightcove now starts to connect iPhones with a web interface and certain mp4 formats

   Marketing and advertising

   Allaire: "Online video marketing still is not done well by advertisers. A campaign here and there, some times not- a lousy job. Given the economic environment - nobody can afford to leave a penny on a table - this needs to be better, e.g. with targeted advertising over different platforms"

   Schmiegelow: "Advertising in general does not work. "As long as we have a display mentality we will change this. CPM is a bad currency, anyway! We need to be more relevant, we need environments and ad formats that convert. Conversion rate is way more important."

   Allaire: "Prerolls are a powerful vehicle, for a film to connect emotionally you need some 15 seconds. Flash as an interactive platform allows for some very rich and interactiv things. Really creative and immersive could be done here, that is up to the advertisers."

   Schmiegelow: "It's about the social, nothing is more important than your friends. Advertising industry has not understood that at all, it's award driven, not about social interaction".

   Marketing money and the crisis
   Kirkpatrick "How badly is it going to slow given that advertising has just gone off a cliff?"
   How fast is that going to go? Are you worried?"
   Allaire: "I actually expect a growth, we will add more customers who probably spend less each but still we are in the right place of the industry"

   Watch the video of DLD's Video value session:
   

   

   Thomas Praus
   Where is the online video market going? CPM, Conversion, connection the internet to the tv, mobile devices. A lot is still to be discussed and developed.

   January 27, 2009
   09:24 AM