Preview: Current.TV gets a new look

Hey Rizzn-ites,

Yeah, you wouldn't think I'd actually be a member of the Current.TV website, what with my creeping disdain for almost all things Al Gore (which, incidentally, is one of the many things that makes me averse to Apple products - he's on their board of directors).

But believe it or not, I actually think (and have thought for quite a while) that Current.TV was a fairly decent business model, and one likely to succeed in this transition period between New Media and Old Media. So, like a good little video content producer, some time a couple years ago, I signed up for an account. Unfortunately (for Current.TV, any way), they require that all submitted content be exclusive to Current - I wanted to have distribution rights over my content. I never actually submitted anything past their first refusal (based on my distribution demands).

All that to say, I got an email from Mr. Gore's folks saying that they have created a "brand spankin' new private beta" for me to preview. Here's what Mr. Gore's email told me to expect:

• Explore cool stuff from the Web submitted by people like you
• Add things of your own and share them with your friends
• Watch and influence the full line-up of programming from Current TV
• Join the conversation ... with your keyboard or your webcam!

I remember last time I was there, most of the content was some good lookin' Google stuff, I think some Yahoo shorts, and a bunch of conspiracy nuts talkin' about how 9/11 was an inside job, and how we're all going to die from global warming.

At least the content has shifted a bit. No longer is Mr. Gore's baby a bastion of leftist thinking. The two second tier feature videos upon logging in are a couple of dudes railing against the "hoax of global warming." The number one feature is a video about how Charlize Theron is now "officially the number one sexy babe of the universe."

Hello, democratized video. You are here, and you are teh sex.

In all honesty, the quality and content of the site has radically changed. It's the design sense of Veoh applied to the political community of YouTube. You feel highbrow browsing around, until you actually click play. Then you realize you're playing in the kiddie pool in terms of intellectual content.

The question on your mind is likely the real question on my mind, when I got to the site: do they still pay for content? This is what the producer FAQ says:

We will still pay for full-length pods, V-CAMs and Current Promos:

Pod prices will be negotiated on a per-piece basis.

V-CAM submissions are paid a flat rate of $1000 per V-CAM chosen for Current TV. If your V-CAM does air on Current and the sponsor of your V-CAM wants to show it in other places beyond Current TV, you'll get anywhere between $5,000 and $50,000, depending on where they show it:

• Internet (other web sites besides): $5,000
• Cable or satellite television (other than Current TV or any cable or satellite television network owned or controlled by Current TV): $10,000
• Network television: $15,000
• Any other medium (theatrical trailer, public billboard, sporting event jumbotron, etc.: $20,000

Promos are purchased for a flat rate of $250 per promo.

If you're a serial content producer, and your stuff is a notch above your typical YouTube fare, I'd suggest creating some exclusive content for Current. Couldn't hurt. Let me know how successful you are in terms of getting played, though. Keep in mind this is a company run by Al Gore's people, so while they may allow content on the website from the right wingers, if you don't fit into the socialism-for-America camp on anything political you produce, don't expect to get put on TV.

/rizzn

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Video Syndication Done Right: PNME Edition

I've been pondering what I think is the most important thing to come out of the Podcast and New Media Expo last weekend. Unfortunately I missed the Kent Nichols keynote, but I did catch the Louderback and Wallstrip keynotes. They were very informative, and it was very heartening to hear that the A-Listers and those that have sold their podcast for literally millions have gone through a lot of the same things us strugglers and stragglers have gone through... building an audience one member at a time, ad representation issues and such.

There were a few meetings and announcements that, I think, I are going to shape the future of podcasting and new media for a while to come.

First of all, Wizzard Media announced an important partnership, which we discussed yesterday on the show (Episode 143). As soon as the T's are dotted and the I's are crossed, downloads from the Wizzard network are going to be certified by Nielson. Yeah, the folks that do the TV ratings and stuff. What does this mean? Well, I may be overestimating the importance of this, but an old media institution attaching themselves to new media in this way, I think, is a very important step in upgrading the marketability and credibility of the medium of podcasting as a whole. I wouldn't be surprised to see podcasters represented at the next NABC.

But am I not supposed to be Podango propaganda boy? What's going on with them? A whole lot, actually. Thanks to a close working relationship with Podango, I can say I know of a whole lot of stuff coming down the pike - quite exciting stuff - that they're working on. But what they've announced at the PNME this weekend is exciting stuff as well. Not only did they talk a lot about the Gigavox Audio Lite acquisition, but working with Kiptronic on certifying and monetizing video downloads. Kiptronic has a strong relationship with Wizzard Media by way of the LibSyn acquisition. The certifications of Wizzard downloads, I'm fairly certain, will extend to Kiptronic statistics since they're on a working relationship and theoretically have an understanding on what constitutes a download and all that (there's more confusion on that concept than you'd think could be possible in the industry at large).

Then, there's UStream. UStream didn't have any mind-blowing announcements, but there were several relationships forged by Brad and the UStream folks (and Mason) that I think have some serious implications for the future. What UStream did accomplish at the PNME was raising awareness about their platform with the general pod-o-sphere and another company that I think is important in terms of actually accomplishing something in the development of video content.

TubeMogul was another offering that I think warrants a great deal of attention as well. TubeMogul had been reviewed elsewhere on the web before, but I never got around to checking them out. They are a service that (for free!) takes your video shot for YouTube or Revver (or pick your favorite video platform flavor) and uploads it to about 20 different video sharing sites. Remember when I was talking about this essential piece of promoting a video last week? I'll say it again - it's important, especially for the less well known video producers.

Keeping in mind that article, and all the ways that I detail are important to get your name and content out there, what's the next logical proposal for these three companies, all of whom connected with one another at PNME, to do?

They need to hook together their backends/APIs.

Here's the flow, how I see it:
You're broadcasting your show live via UStream, interacting with your audience, doing your thing, whatever it may be. You hit the record on server button at the start of your podcast.

That FLV is then tagged, described, and titled after the broadcast via current UStream process of things. You then have two additional buttons available to you after you hit the submit button:

1. Publish to your podcast feed. This converts the file properly, and sends it over to your feed at Podango with all the proper metadata and is then optimised in the various ways that Podango optimises a video file:
• Monetized by Kiptronic technology
• Formatted for the various types of technologies that read a video file (iPod, set-top box, computer).
• SEO'ed with the Podango transcription service
• In so automatically submitting, taking literally hours off of render times at the local machine.
  
• Downloaded by your audience!
2. Publish to TubeMogul. This sends the FLV file over to TubeMogul, when then takes all the relevant metadata you entered at UStream, and submits it to over 20 video hosting services. This allows you to:
• Further monetize your content via Revver downloads.
• Further monetize your content via YouTube downloads.
• Carpetbomb the video viewing world with your content.
• Eliminate a day or two of downloading, converting, and uploading your content every where.
3. Podango to Tubemogul. This is also something I see as beneficial and imperative. Not everyone that creates video content (in fact most people fall into this category) can do so live, so having a hook from the Podango backend directly into TubeMogul is similarly beneficial.

Will this be an easy project? Probably not. As of this time, only Podango has an open API to work with the platform, but all three companies are well aware of one another, I've spoken to two of the three companies about the idea in both public and private (and they have caught the flame of my vision on this, I think), and I'm about to open dialog in the third point of the triangle today.

Will this be available next week? Most certainly not. Will it be available in the very near future? I think almost certainly so. I'm currently lobbying to make it happen as best I can with everyone involved (taking into account that all three companies are startups with at least somewhat limited budgets).

The net result will be almost completely full featured set of tools and monetization avenue that will put the indy broadcaster nearly on par with the big boys. It will then be up to you folks to make the good content.

/rizzn

Questions? Comments? Wanna throw some VC at this idea? Use the comment form below or email me.

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Podango + GigaVox: An Interview with Lee Gibbons

Lee actually told me about this a couple weeks ago. I had thought they were saving this for the Podcast Media Expo, but Mike Arrington seems to have gotten a scoop:

Podcast network and hosting service Podango is beefing up its service with the purchase of podcast publishing software from GigaVox Media. The content-management system, called GigaVox Audio Lite, allows podcasters to automagically manage the different parts that make up an audio or video podcast, including ads, intros, promotions, and other program material.

Podango, which is based in Bountiful, Utah, hosts 1,300 podcasters across 250 different stations, including Mommycast, Duct Tape Marketing, and the Apple Phone Show (which Podango produces itself). Later this week, it will launch Girls Gone Geek, which CEO Lee Gibbons describes as a “cross between the View and Motorcycle Maintenance.” Something tells me it’s going to do okay. All told, says Gibbons, Podango-hosted shows are downloaded two million times per month, which is up from a mere 20,000 downloads six months ago. He is shooting for 10 million downloads a month by next March. And you thought podcasts were dead.

I had a discussion today with Lee, which can be heard on today's podcast (episode 137), that touched on not only a lot of what new things are offered to Podango producers through this acquisition, but what he sees in the world of audio podcasting in the near future.

I know a lot of our audience is very interested in learning what's new in the world of video production and monetization, and it's important to note that what Podango can do for audio podcasters can also be offered to video podcasters to a large extent, which is why 137 is a very important episode for those types of folks.


Short Interview


Long Interview

We only had time for about 10 minutes of the interview for the show, but if you are interested in more of what Lee Gibbons had to say, I've made available the full 20 minute interview here in the blog posting.

Download the short interview here.

Download the long interview here.

Subscribe to the feed to listen to Episode 137.

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Monetizing Online Video: The Investigation Continues

Your monumental response! It's flattering and helpful all at once!

I really wanna take a second to express appreciation for all of you who wrote in on the last post about video monetization. I'm far from done with my research, but I have a whole load of links and companies to investigate now. I've also had an opportunity to speak with heads and representatives of a lot of the top ad monetization groups out there. I'll disclose a bit of what I've found, but I'm saving the bulk of what I'm coming across for a special episode of RizWords and a very special blog post here on this site.

I spoke with a fellow named Chris over at Brightcove (the company currently serving up video for the site) on the ad monetization opportunities with his organisation. As it turns out, BrightCove's much lauded monetization program performs way below my expectations. Let's chat about my expectations for a second, and then we'll get into what the internet ad world is shaping up to be.

I must admit that when it comes to video content, it's not my original home. My new media experience starts out in the text space (blogging), then moving into streaming audio, then to podcasting, and then to video. I'm not a neophyte to the industry, though, by any means. Last year, I produced the successful video podcasts NewsCube (with J. Douglas Barker) and RunTime with Luke and Laney over on the PoddedMeat Network. We had a good run with those shows, and at our peak viewership reached around 60,000 folks per episode.

The problem was, at the time, there were no real avenues for easy monetization. This is chief amongst the reasons I've gone back to audio podcast production with Art this year. In the audio space, the industry average you should get in monetization is around $30 CPM. In reality, your mileage may vary between $10 CPM up to as high as $60 CPM. Given the much greater power of videos to convert to sales and exposure, I would say that doubling those CPM's should not be outside the realm of possibility.

Now there is. Back then: too bleeding edge. Now: not so much. A cursory web search pulls up around 10 or 15 companies that monetize video content, and a deeper search through industry blogs turn up about 5 or 6 more.

My initial research, though, which is what you're reading through this tripe to find out about, focused on the two biggest names in video monetization: Revver and BrightCove. BrightCove is broadly lauded around the blogosphere as one of the most advanced video sharing players that offers monetization, which is what attracted me to it in the beginning. It's ability to create channels and autoplaying embedded videos, not to mention the detailed reporting features, are what attracted me to it in the first place. Indeed, all of those features definitely live up to the hype.

However, after speaking with their ad department (a notoriously difficult department to get a hold of), I was somewhat less pleased with the options available to me. Here's what I found:

• If your ad traffic is less than 10,000 title plays per month, your content should be monetized by CPC.
• If your ad traffic is greater than 10,000 title plays per month, your content is monetized at $8.00 CPM with Pre-Roll and Post-Roll ads.
• Stats are calculated once a quarter, and payment is recieved within 30 days of stats calculation.

Understandably, these statistics disappointed me. And episode of RunTime from last year was at least a five-person operation, and involved about 13 hours of pre, actual, and post production a week. At our peak traffic level we'd be receiving around $480 per episode. Granted, that's real dollars, but for the amount of work and people involved, per person take home would be in the neighborhood of $100. I'm not sure about you, but I can't live off $100 a week.

So, I turned my lonely eyes to Revver. They promise, in their press releases, around a $30 CPM. I've contacted the company a few times to get more information, and in so doing was less than successful. Finally, I uploaded an clip of Iris and I singing Love Shack at some karaoke night a few months ago in an attempt to manually test their monetization. It didn't make it past their censors, even though all ASCAP fees had been paid by the karaoke purveyor, they weren't comfortable putting it up on the site. But, I did get a response from a real human being, and I'm using that open line of dialog to work my way up the chain of command till I get to speak to someone in charge of monetization.

That's where I'm at currently with those two, but I do have about 20 other companies I'll be posting a review of next week, so stay tuned for that. Thanks for all your help, folks!

If you have any other input on the matter, send me an email. Elsewise, I'll see you on the big episode 100 tomorrow on RizWords!

/rizzn

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