Broadband Developments

I ran into this blog called Hmmconvenient. The unknown blogger is direct and very accurate in his analysis.  This blog is worth reading if you’re into online video and media.  I just added it to my list of reads.  Whoever you are keep blogging.  Good stuff

Here is the post on Barries to Video consumption.

The root of a successful digital video platform play is embracing an event where there is a known, well visible, barrier to consumption. With MLB, it is time of games and the frequency with which games occur. Olympics, while not a large success, many of the live feeds that were available were not being broadcast on television (however, it is worth noting that online got the “less desirable” events). Contrast this to the NBC/NFL Sunday Night Football player, where there is relatively no barrier to viewing the game as it is available via. the local NBC Affiliate. Based on these examples a barrier to consumption can include:

- Time of day that an event occurs
- Lack of availability within the traditional channel
- Notion of “premium” value
- Concurrency (e.g, multiple events within a genre taking place at or near the same time)
- Exclusivity

Each of these is an area where a well defined business can solve a problem for the consumer. Another way to look at this dilemma is Joost. Joost ultimately failed in their “1.0″ download based model not because of a bad user experience, but due to lack of content and an understanding by consumers of what total value the product offered them. As Joost recasts itself on the web, they are still ignoring the fundamentals that lead to failure on their first try… instead they felt it was a “platform” or “download” issue (which other success stories would negate). P2P as a buzzword for delivery does not solve a single problem for the consumer, in other words, Joost fails to address or overcome any barriers to consumption. Hulu on the other hand, continues to push to overcome exclusivity, quality, and other barriers that directly impact the consumer.

Fox Interactive also seems to understand their consumer; NewTeeVee reports that their SVP of Mobile says Live has been a success on mobile. Not really a surprising result; based on our definitions above Live content allows a user to have access to the content, in real time, when they want it. This is a quantifiable value add to a viewer and therefore has a high propensity to be succesful. Fox Interactive gets additional credit for realizing it is not enough just to put a live stream online, it must be in the channel where it solves a problem for the consumer (especially since, much like NBC, Fox Broadcast content has low barriers to consumption).