There are 3 types of online video

I read with interest today some research conducted by Simply Media (www.simplymedia.tv) and Work Research which is obviously pertinent to our common goals. It states that there are only really 3 types of online broadcast media, Snippets (5 secs to 5 minutes), Boutique (2mins to 5mins) and Catch-up (longer form from 5mins to feature length).

It talks about the differences in content requirements for each audience (snippets being throw-away or entertainment, boutique being subject-focused and therefore 'important' and catch-up being pure entertainment by choice). It is good to see this documented, although this is something in the industry we all know, it is basically saying, 'make content which is relevant to your audience and their needs' - o.k. then!

I refer to this as we are working on a cross-platform strategy for a potential client and they have programming content already. The knee-jerk reaction for most brands is to change the format of this (quicktime. H.264, mobile ready resolution etc etc...) and deploy. This is easy, but it doesn't get the most out of the opportunity. To really activate the audience (something we talk about a lot here at etv) we must determine where and when the user will be accessing this content.

In the digital world I come from this also holds true, giving a different 'pace' to users in terms of accessing content is important - that is, for an audience that is browsing for a quick entertainment fix then make it easy for them to find this, for an audience who wants to be educated and has the time to do this, make the access to the content logical, and make the content comprehensive. It is important to note that the differing pace of access to content can exist on the same site, but we should also ensure that the end content is matched to the route in which it is accessed.

I guess this is where this research falls short, it is great in talking about broadcast content, but we need to go deeper into UI and platform to really ensure the user is getting what they want.

please see the whole research article at: http://www.ignoreatyourperil.tv/index.php

Blogs within blogs!

Usually I would spend some time reviewing the new Brightcove player for you all, but the chaps at Techcrunch (www.techcrunch.com) have done such a nice job you might as well go there:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/10/12/brightcove-3-leaked-screenshots/

Brightcove is only one of a number of 'player' solutions; indeed here at etv we have our own, but obviously we are not looking to compete with the SAAS companies who do this for a living. In fact our player is designed to provide a nice, simple solution where these other systems are overkill.

Other ones I have been looking at recently include:

Mio, by Nativ (http://nativ.tv/)
Miomni by Ether Digital (http://www.miomni.com)
Narrowstep (http://www.narrowstep.com/)

these are all 'kind of' the same, but interestingly they all stop with the link between the web TV world (which they cope with quite well) and the traditional broadcast platforms (which they don't service at all). I have been having a chat to the guys here and we can't actually see a platform which provides TV for both the web and broadcast platforms (Sky and iTV for example)... you can do it, but you need a number of different pieces of software and this obviously adds complexity and risk. If anyone knows of one I would be happy to hear about it!