Topic: Video
Netflix will explore mobile-specific cuts of its original series – The Verge (Mar 16, 2017)
Like the recent choose-your-ending report, this is something Netflix is merely experimenting with rather than something it’s going to be releasing imminently. But one of the advantages of commissioning and owning original content is the freedom to do interesting things with it, including chopping it up in different ways for mobile devices. I’m not quite sure how this would work in practice – in general, it’s pretty tough to take content created for one format and make it as compelling in smaller chunks or edited down, and Netflix will likely be best served by creating content specifically for mobile, but we’ll see. It has in the past (and even recently) said that it doesn’t create content with specific screens in mind, but that mindset seems to be changing subtly.
via The Verge
Snapchat Discover publishers face tough challenge as platform chases TV – Digiday (Mar 15, 2017)
The Snapchat as TV thing is getting a little hackneyed, but it works because it’s increasingly true – it appears Snapchat is increasingly prioritizing video over other content in its Discover tab, and perhaps especially original video created for the platform. That could push other content (and its publishers) further down the listing of Stories within Discover, or could potentially demote all non-video content into a different area entirely. That’s not terrible news for those content partners who major in video, but would obviously be much worse for those who focus on articles and the like. My guess is that those already get much less viewership than the video stories given the setting and the audience, but it is going to push Snapchat to become much more video-oriented overall.
via Digiday
Netflix Tries to Outdo Theaters With Films a Studio Can Envy – Bloomberg (Mar 14, 2017)
Netflix is seriously ramping up its original content investment, something it’s been talking about for some time. And recent flops notwithstanding, it’s had some really good content over the past couple of years. Now it’s shifting its focus to commissioning and acquiring more and bigger budget movies, and plans to release around 30 in 2017 including some starring big names like Will Smith, Brad Pitt, and Tilda Swinton. That number is impressive – none of the major traditional studios or distributors had more than 24 movies in market in 2016 and Disney, for example, will have only eight movies on its slate in 2017. Now, Netflix’s productions are generally smaller budget affairs – it’s acquired movies at Sundance and other film festivals, where the average acquisition price has risen from $2 to $5 million over the past few years but it’s also commissioning some bigger budget films, though nothing in the multi-hundred million range just yet. But this is yet another way for Netflix to set itself apart from Amazon, HBO, and other big names in the subscription video business. As of right now, Netflix has 119 originals slated for future release listed on its website, and 28 of those are films, so its main focus is still on series (each of which will obviously provide far greater total viewing time than a single feature), but movies are going to be increasingly important going forward as part of that mix.
via Bloomberg
Facebook’s livestreaming strategy looks a lot like Twitter’s livestreaming strategy – Recode (Mar 14, 2017)
In my Techpinions Insiders post last week, I wrote about Facebook and Twitter’s respective live video strategies, and argued that this is one area where Twitter might actually be executing on the better strategy, namely focusing on existing high quality live video rather than trying to force user-generated content. This piece today confirms the conclusion of my piece in which I said Facebook should probably be doing more of this kind of thing. However, I also said that it was still unclear how well Twitter was monetizing the video it was licensing, given that most of the ads had already been sold by the original owners. The other challenge, as this piece makes clear, is that the video owners willing to partner with Twitter in this way are mostly those either with small audiences they’re keen to grow, or whose distribution isn’t the primary way they monetize, which tends to mean it isn’t the best or most exciting live content available. Meanwhile, the most compelling live video – major sports – remains largely off limits to online-only broadcasters. That’s not to say Facebook couldn’t bid for NFL rights as Twitter did last year, but those Thursday night games are such a tiny slice of the overall sports schedule in the US that it’s hard to see how it could be a central plank of an overall live video strategy.
via Recode
Uptime is a goofy video sharing app from Google’s Area 120 startup incubator – The Verge (Mar 13, 2017)
Google was once famous for the 20% time it gave its employees to work on passion projects, but then word started to spread that this wasn’t really happening anymore. And then last year Google announced the creation of an incubator for employees’ projects, which seemed to be trying to resurrect the spirit of 20% time if not the details. The first app from that incubator just launched, and it’s a co-watching app for YouTube videos. On the one hand, there’s an obvious fit with an existing product at Google, which is a good thing, and on the other it’s not clear why the YouTube team didn’t build this. I’m not sure what value is added by having this be a separate app that doesn’t carry any Google branding (even in the App Store, it’s listed as being offered by Area 120, the name of Google’s incubator). If the main purpose of Area 120 is to keep entrepreneurial employees onboard, then perhaps this will serve its purpose, but on the evidence of this first app, I’m not sure it’s going to lead to anything all that compelling. Having tested the app briefly, the overwhelming impression I was left with was that it was incredibly privacy-invasive – it kept prompting or reminding me that everything I was doing would be shared with friends and/or publicly available.
via The Verge
After escaping net neutrality probe, Verizon expands data cap exemptions – Ars Technica (Mar 11, 2017)
Given the new administration’s openness to zero rating and its stated intentions to pare back net neutrality regulations, it shouldn’t be at all surprising that Verizon is now exempting its Fios video traffic from data caps on Verizon Wireless smartphones. AT&T has used zero rating of its various TV services as a hook for customers for some time now, and although Verizon has done the same with its Go90 service, that has tiny user numbers and likely had very little impact on customer acquisition. Zero rating Fios creates a much bigger incentive – it has 4.7 million TV subscribers, of whom perhaps a third might be Verizon Wireless customers already. Video really feels like the big battleground in wireless at this point, with AT&T and Verizon now favoring their own video services, while T-Mobile uses its BingeOn program to zero rate all video. Sprint is the only provider without a meaningful equivalent at this point, and instead focuses on its overall unlimited data approach.
via Ars Technica
Hulu Live TV Service Won’t Have Viacom Networks – Variety (Mar 10, 2017)
As I mentioned in the context of the YouTube TV launch announcement a couple of weeks ago, every one of these streaming pay TV services has to make a set of sacrifices from the traditional TV lineup in order to hit the target $35-40 price point. In the case of Hulu’s service, it looks like Viacom’s channels will be among those sacrificed, which is in keeping with both the end of Hulu’s recent video on demand deal with Viacom and with Sony’s dropping of the Viacom channels a while ago, as well as their absence from YouTube’s service. DirecTV Now and Sling both continue to carry at least some Viacom channels, but those channels have become less and less popular over recent years as flagships MTV and Comedy Central have faded in cultural relevance. There’s something of a revival going on at MTV at the moment under Viacom’s new leadership, but these are still probably the easiest set of major channels for a new service to live without. Based on what I’ve seen so far of Hulu’s service, it looks like being one of the more compelling offerings to launch, particularly if it bundles in the traditional Hulu VoD service.
via Variety
‘Power Rangers’ Streaming Free on Twitch in 17-Day Marathon – Variety (Mar 10, 2017)
Another reminder that Amazon has a much broader future in mind for Twitch than just gaming videos – it’s paying out of pocket to stream the Power Rangers TV series in a free marathon over the course of 17 days. Its investments in TV content for Twitch have mostly been very small (and often somewhat obscure) in relation to its original content and other investments for Prime Video, but they seem to be building steam. And as this piece points out, Power Rangers is probably a better fit for the core Twitch audience than old Bob Ross or Julia Child shows.
via Variety
Marvel’s ‘Iron Fist’ critics rating: 0% on Rotten Tomatoes – Business Insider (Mar 9, 2017)
Netflix’s original content has always been a mixed bag – on the one hand, shows like House of Cards won awards (and also won Netflix lots of customers), but on the other there was Marco Polo, which critics panned (it has a 24% score on Rotten Tomatoes) but audiences enjoyed anyway (the corresponding audience score is 93%). Given that Netflix doesn’t release any kind of viewing data, it’s emphasized positive critical response as a validation of its original content, but it’s also defended shows like Marco Polo as being popular with real people even if critics didn’t like them. This new show has done even worse than Marco Polo with critics, but there’s a decent chance audiences will lap that up too. The fact is that any content production is a gamble, and given that Netflix doesn’t use Amazon’s pilot model to select new shows, that gamble is that much larger, especially with a big budget, Marvel-branded show. Only Netflix knows what its internal calculus on what makes a show a success or a failure looks like, but I’m guessing a one-off critical panning won’t do too much damage to its original content strategy. If it starts to become a pattern, however, that would be more worrisome.
via Business Insider
Netflix lets you literally choose your own adventure – Axios (Mar 6, 2017)
The headline here should be in future, not present, tense – Netflix is only experimenting with this idea for now, not rolling it out to users on its service. For one thing, content has to be created with this objective explicitly in mind, and it will take time to create that content, as well as to create the user interfaces to enable the interactivity which currently doesn’t exist in Netflix. But this does highlight how a digital native platform like Netflix can do things traditional TV companies simply can’t. Whether or not that ends up being compelling for users will depend a lot on the content – I can see this being a novelty at best in the early running until it shows up on some really top notch shows or movies.
via Axios
In Rush to Live Video, Facebook Moved Fast and Broke Things – WSJ (Mar 6, 2017)
There’s some really good reporting here, and it reinforces my sense that Facebook’s live video push hasn’t panned out the way it would have wanted despite its massive investment. I continue to believe that mass market live video has very limited appeal, largely because most of us don’t spend most of our time in situations which are worthy of (or appropriate for) broadcasting to our hundreds of friends. Yes, there are occasions when user-generated live video is uniquely placed to offer something no other medium can, but those are rare and not the basis for a widely used mainstream product. It’s still intriguing to me to see Facebook push so hard for individuals to share and consume amateur video, while Twitter has balanced its Periscope investment with a focus on high quality professional live video, including sports – easily the most compelling form of live content around for most users. This is one area where Twitter’s strategy feels smarter than Facebook’s, and it’s therefore not that surprising that Facebook seems to be experimenting more with live sports video as well.
via WSJ
23% of US Adults Stream Netflix Daily – Leichtman Research Group (Mar 6, 2017)
There are lots of interesting numbers in this Leichtman Research Group survey, and I just picked one of them for the headline here: that very nearly a quarter of US adults use Netflix every single day. That’s pretty remarkable off the back of under 50 million paid subscriptions in the US. Also worth noting: the vast majority of Netflix viewers (81%) watch Netflix on a TV (by implication, at least sometimes) – this isn’t just people watching on phones and computers, meaning it’s a much more direct substitute for traditional TV viewing. More US households now have Netflix (54%) than have a DVR (53%) for the first time. And there’s lots more here too – the reality is that viewing habits are shifting dramatically, while the underlying spending on pay TV still hasn’t shifted at all, and that’s because many households still feel that traditional pay TV offers either decent value or the only way to get the content they have to have, even if they’re also paying for Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, or something else. Somewhere in the next couple of years, that reaches a tipping point – no market has ever gone for too long with a dramatic mismatch between usage and spending – but it doesn’t feel like we’re there yet.
Apple looking to buy TV shows and studios – Business Insider (Mar 3, 2017)
There’s not much in this report to suggest that Apple is actually interested in buying a studio, and indeed Imagine strongly refuted reports to that effect recently after those reports surfaced. Reports that Apple wants to acquire TV shows, on the other hand, are a lot more plausible – it’s already bought or commissioned a couple for Apple Music, and I could see it doing more of this, especially if it’s finally getting serious about building its own subscription TV service. The comments in here about the confusion over who’s leading the negotiations are a bit more worrying – if they’re true. Eddy Cue obviously does oversee the overall effort here as head of Apple’s content business, but he might well delegate some of the actual negotiations to other team members, and Jimmy Iovine in particular is known to have good relationships in the content industry. Recent reports about the change of leadership over Apple TV hardware suggested that Pete Distad was going to be taking the lead on these negotiations, and his name isn’t even mentioned, so there do seem to be a lot of people involved here. Hopefully Apple is clearer on this than some of those it’s approached seem to be.
via Business Insider
Twitter Adds Top Commentary Tab to Live Video Experience – Mashable (Mar 1, 2017)
It looks like Twitter debuted a new Top Commentary tab in its live video screen last night for President Trump’s address to Congress. This should have been there from the beginning – the uncurated selection of tweets that has been shown against most live video since it launched on Twitter has been an unusable mess, and this new tab is a huge improvement. For the first time, this actually demonstrates the value of a curated stream of top tweets for a real-time event, something most active users of Twitter likely already grasp, but new users tuning in for a live video event don’t. Showing them the value – and power – of watching a well selected stream of tweets in real time is critical to converting them to active users of the platform. But of course Twitter should be doing this kind of real-time curation constantly for major topics across the site, especially given that it appears the feature is algorithm-driven, which means it’s much more scalable than something curated by human beings.
via Mashable
YouTube Bets It Can Convince Youngs to Pay for TV – Bloomberg (Feb 28, 2017)
It looks like Bloomberg got a pre-brief on the YouTube TV announcement this afternoon, and has posted its article just as YouTube’s event gets underway. The service is called YouTube TV, it’s $35 per month, and the headline is that it includes all four major broadcast networks, but not several big cable networks (no Viacom, Discovery, AMC, A&E, or Turner networks including CNN, TBS, and TNT). From what I’m seeing on Twitter as the event unfolds, it looks like the service will only launch in local markets where the broadcasters have affiliates, which means people like me (I live in Utah) are out of luck. As I predicted a couple of years ago in the context of a potential Apple TV service, local and sports are the big challenges, and YouTube hasn’t really cracked this on a national basis yet. The US TV market continues to be incredibly resistant to real disruption – every over the top streaming alternative to traditional pay TV is handicapped in at least one way, and often several. YouTube TV will offer cloud-based DVR as a differentiator, but the missing cable networks are a big downer. This is basically a four-way deal with the big broadcasters and their cable affiliates, but it means if you want any of the other networks you’re still going to have to buy Sling, DirecTV Now, Sony Playstation Vue, or whatever else comes down the pike later this year. There’s a certain irony to the fact that, though these services are nominally disruptive, they actually offer even less choice individually in many cases than the pay TV services they’re aiming to replace. These companies are each so determined to reach a $35 price point that they’re making decisions on behalf of customers about what should be included, and in all cases they’re excluding some channels a lot of consumers are going to want. We’re still a long way from being able to choose a bundle of channels that makes sense to us, rather than having to buy a bundle someone else configured for business reasons.
via Bloomberg
How YouTube Serves As The Content Engine Of The Internet’s Dark Side – BuzzFeed (Feb 27, 2017)
Though Facebook bears the brunt of criticism among the tech industry’s largest players for its role in spreading and/or failing to stem the spread of fake news, it’s worth noting that others play their roles too. Though Google search has been mentioned quite a bit, YouTube hasn’t been mentioned nearly as much, and yet this article argues there’s tons of fake news video content on YouTube, which goes essentially un-policed by the site. YouTube itself responds that it only curates legitimate news sources for its official channels, but of course many of the creators of this fake news content are making money off that content through YouTube’s ad model. Since Google shut down its ad platform on third party sites which focused on fake news, it’s arguable that it should apply the same policy here too, something it so far doesn’t seem willing to do.
via BuzzFeed
Twitch will start selling games and giving its streamers a cut – The Verge (Feb 27, 2017)
Amazon’s Twitch acquisition was one of the most interesting it’s made, and one of the few big ones it’s made which weren’t in the e-commerce space. Since the acquisition, it’s pursued two separate tracks with Twitch, one focused on the core gamer space it’s always served, and the second broadening its reach and appeal beyond gaming and becoming something of a YouTube clone. This announcement belongs in that first strand, though it also ties in the online sales angle by putting a buy button next to video game video encouraging viewers to buy the game being played in the video. This is a unique take on the ad revenue sharing model YouTube popularized, and could be pretty lucrative for at least some channel owners over time. It’s also a great way to provide very relevant advertising around a video platform, something that’s often tough to do beyond broad demographic profiling.
via The Verge
Comcast is integrating YouTube into its set-top box — just like it did with Netflix – Recode (Feb 27, 2017)
Comcast’s Netflix integration seems to have gone well – both companies have talked about it on recent earnings calls, and although Netflix has downplayed the significance of the partnership from a user growth perspective, it’s really Comcast that benefits the most from this integration. That’s because this is basically just a way to keep people on the Comcast set top box instead of jumping to a different box to watch Netflix, and it’s very much the same strategy that applies with YouTube here. Keep people on your box, in your interface, and you at least have the opportunity of showing them more of the programming you bring to them (and for which they pay over $80 on average per month). Do that, and there’s a greater chance that they stick with your product (and your bundle) rather than canceling it or scaling it back. Keep them in your recommendations interface, and they may even in some cases become less aware of where the content is coming from, further cementing your role as the primary video provider.
via Recode
Facebook is starting to put ads in the middle of its videos – Recode (Feb 23, 2017)
This was reported as being on the way back in January, but now it’s official and expanding. That means Facebook is finally going to start trying to make some real money from all the video it’s been trying to get natively onto its platform, hopefully justifying all the effort it’s put into its video push over the last couple of years. For users, of course, that means you’re going to start seeing ads in yet more places on Facebook, though only on longer videos (ads can’t run until the 20 second mark on recorded videos or the 4 minute mark on live videos). Given that the vast majority of videos I see on Facebook are under a minute, I don’t imagine I’m going to be seeing that many. But that’s also why Facebook has been tweaking its algorithm to help promote longer videos. And of course all these ads can potentially go into the videos Facebook will show on its TV app.
via Recode
Pirate Soccer Streams Thrive on Facebook – El Pais (Feb 21, 2017)
There have been a couple of stories recently about Facebook finding ways to detect and either crack down on or monetize pirated music on the platform, but this analysis from Spanish newspaper El Pais demonstrates that music is far from the only thing being pirated regularly on Facebook. It appears that there are massively popular streams – the article cites a recent game between Barcelona and Real Madrid where one stream alone had 700,000 viewers – which go largely unchecked on Facebook. The key to their success is that users follow Pages which post links to streams hosted by other entities – because the aggregators themselves never infringe on any copyright, they can build big audiences and merely direct them at whatever streams are available. As Facebook gets ever more serious about video on the platform, it’s going to have to get better at detecting infringing live streams in real time, especially if it wants to win the trust of traditional broadcasters.
via El Pais (in Spanish)