New Video Frontiers: Taking It Beyond the PC

Who survived the dot-com bust? Aggregators such as Amazon and eBay did. And with no shortage of old-school and new-entrant aggregators providing content for the masses, we should anticipate a similar trend in video. Long tail content may survive inside the wrapper of a YouTube-like delivery mechanism, but aggregation will be important, just as quality content will remain key.

Another advantage of mass market, deep-pockets content is the common experience it creates for the viewers, both while watching a broadcast in front of the TV and while discussing it among social circles the day after it airs. While the water cooler might be more virtual now, conversations about recent broadcasts are still a critical part of our social makeup, whether they occur in person or on web-based social networking sites. Broadcast TV as we know it will never go away even though viewing devices and business models will be revolutionized.

One evolving content area is the customizing of content for the screen and to the lifestyle and usage habits of the screen owners. For example, broadcast, long-form content is not very popular on mobile devices. Similarly, PC video content is not necessarily something people want to see on their TVs, and it is starting to morph into a hybrid of long- and short-form video with more interactivity and new ad models. Although the current demographic for much online and mobile content is 12–34-year-olds, older audiences may be pulled in. And the current audience will age, suggesting that providing the right content for the right device will be a moving target challenge.

In 2008, a couple of key things were discovered about online content for the PC. One principle is that web broadcasts of a certain type of content have yet to take eyeballs from the TV. In fact, it is believed that Olympic content delivered on the web led people to turn on the TV to watch. It also proved that people may watch the full event on TV but then go online to rewatch their favorite moments or see interviews with the winners.

Another lesson is that consumers are willing to watch online content concurrently with broadcast content, but they have newly raised expectations. Mio Babic, CEO of iStreamPlanet, a company that provides managed webcasting services and SaaS-based media applications, says that despite customer acceptance of multiple-screen and sometimes simultaneous viewing, quality is still a major concern.

"In the past, we were able to say, ‘It does on the web, so we don’t need to worry about quality,’" Babic says. "But now, people expect perfect quality and an enhanced experience, such as multiple viewing angles."

Another interesting trend is that people are starting to watch PC-based versions of events, especially sports, that are longer than those they watched on TV. This is largely because consumers are used to spending longer amounts of time in front of their always-on PCs.

Another area innovating around content is mobile. Both free services (e.g., mywaves) and paid services (e.g., MobiTV) exist. With free services, content can be subsidized by ads or by carriers, which realize the value of additional minutes and the ability to decrease subscriber turn by offering video services. According to Susan Cashen, VP of marketing for mywaves, users of her service are spending 20 minutes per visit and finding mobile video content to be quite compelling.

"People are connected to their phone constantly; in Europe and the U.S., it’s about business, and in India and in other developing nations, it’s just cheaper than broadband, so it’s natural for people to spend time looking at content on their phone," she says. But the content these users seek is far from traditional. "Users are not looking for full-length content, they are seeking out short content—quick blurbs about things important to their [demographic], which is primarily males 18–34 years old: celebrity clips, music videos, silly comedy clips, sports highlights, animation, and other content typically considered appealing to this demographic."

As for female viewers, they’re just not watching mobile video yet, although that may change over the next 12 months as more content tailored to their interests becomes available and is marketed to them.