Read this
article recently.
I have printed it below as well.
Bill over at
DISC-ontent has, for as long as I have been reading him, been discussing new methods of delivery and what impact they will have. I agree with what he says. New ways will be found, and I have been saying to my friends and family for years, once most of the world has access to broadband, it is going to be huge, not just for movies and TV, but it will impact many areas of our lives. Blogs, email have already altered so many things. That time is coming very fast(not including the developing nations) and we are getting a taste of things to come.
One example is this idea of thinking global, act local.
When I was in the process of buying that restaurant, one idea I was going to put in place was the following. Setup a broadband hotspot....(wow, so original Dave),..just wait. The next phase was a computer with webcam setup somewhere quiet, and contact a similar restaurant/bar in the US or England. Have them setup computer and webcam. You can now tell your mate in that part of the world, go into that pub, and we'll have a drink together. Yes, video conferencing, but on a personal level, and accessible in a public place.
Now, take this one step further. Thousands of restaurants and bars throughout the world linked via say a website, touchscreen at the bar, with plasma, you click on the link of the bar you want and hey presto, maybe even conference with a few friends. Global drinks with friends, real time in comfort. yes, there would be background noise, so you might have it in quiet place in bar. Whatever, those little problems can be overcome, the technology and infrastructure are here now. Just needs someone to do it.
Think how popular the independant film festivals are nowadays. What happens when Yahoo, with their reach through the search engine, decides to run a film festival, hell for all I know they are already doing that, and which everyone with a computerm and broadband, can view AND vote for? I reckon there is one word to cover it ....HUGE.
Food for thought. buurp.
cheers
Dave.
story below if you don't want to click the link.
Terry Semel, the former movie studio chief who now leads Yahoo Inc., is back in show business. His Web portal has filmed a pilot for a reality series called "Wow House" that will be broadcast online within the next few months.
The program, which follows two families as they refurbish their homes with $10,000 in new electronics, is the most concrete example yet of Yahoo's Hollywood ambitions. It's just an early step, analysts said, in Yahoo's ultimate goal: creating television of the future.
Semel is betting that online video's popularity is about to take off. Internet users would flock to Yahoo to watch shows on their computers or other Internet connected devices, creating a potentially lucrative opportunity to sell advertising.
No longer would show times be dictated by television networks. With online video, Yahoo's millions of users could stream or download programs whenever they want from a range of channels.
"You can go to news, to finance to sports -- almost one-stop shopping for your entertainment needs," said Ira Kurgan, chief business officer for Yahoo's media group.
The idea isn't new. Music videos, Victoria's Secret fashion shows and the C-SPAN public affairs channel have been available online for years, including on Yahoo.
What's different now is the convenience. A proliferation of high-speed connections has made downloading or streaming video much faster, opening the door to a wider audience.
Semel will probably address Yahoo's video strategy in a speech Friday at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Until now, he has spoken mostly in broad terms about his company's plans.
Yahoo, in Sunnyvale, is up against a host of others in its Web television dreams. Rival Internet companies are all starting online video initiatives.
Noticeably distant in the competition is Google Inc., in Mountain View. Although a juggernaut in search, the company was late to online video and started offering streaming only six months ago.
"Wow House," Yahoo's new show, will be broadcast in an area for technology coverage that the company is carving out on its Web site. Families participating in the show compete to outfit their homes with the latest electronics, such as theater systems, high-definition televisions and stereos. The family that wins, as voted by viewers, will keep the merchandise.
The pilot cost around $100,000 to produce, far less than the millions it usually costs for a scripted, star-studded show such as "Desperate Housewives." Revenue will come from advertising and, potentially, companies paying to place their products on the show.
Video is also a component of other Yahoo initiatives, including a war correspondent, an adventure writer, a weekly NFL football wrap-up show and exclusive rock music performances.
Kurgan said more original programming is coming. Most, he said, will be in short form, in bites of only a few minutes, which makes them quick to download and more digestible for people who are multi-tasking.
Don't expect Yahoo to morph into another major Hollywood studio that creates 60-minute dramas, at least for now. And forget about big budgets.
"The audience isn't expecting the helicopter shot and a mass of special effects," Kurgan said. "It's an opportunity for good writers to show what they can do."
Television, cable companies and small production companies are expected to contribute some shows in partnerships with Yahoo. Videos created by users will round out the selection.
For years, Internet industry executives have predicted the coming of Web television. But the reality never lived up to the hype.
To get to this point, Yahoo has made some notable stumbles, including the $5.7 billion acquisition of Broadcast.com, a video streaming service that failed to catch on. FinanceVision, a business news program hatched during the dot-com boom, was canceled.
More recently, in 2003, Yahoo started a subscription-only streaming video service called Yahoo Platinum. It was shuttered a few months later.
At the time, relatively few Internet users had broadband connections, a situation that has been reversed, with high-speed connections in nearly 60 percent of households. Quality shows were also in short supply because entertainment companies were unwilling to make them available.
Yahoo executives admit to being too early. Meanwhile, they have continued to focus on entertainment (albeit in a more modest way), a strategy that may bode well in this latest renaissance in online video, according to analysts.
Simply streaming video online isn't enough, analysts said. Chat, sharing and interactive advertising need to be incorporated into the picture to make the experience more compelling than simply watching traditional television.
"We have all been waiting for someone to figure out how to do video online," said Andrei Jezierski, an analyst with i2 Partners, a research firm specializing in the Internet and media industries, said. "People say, 'It's going to be like an interactive video game.'
"But when you ask to see the experience, you can't," he said. "These guys at Yahoo seem as able as anyone to crack the problem."
Internet executives are newly excited about online video partly because of the potential for advertising. Spending on video ads is expected to nearly triple to $640 million in 2007, according to eMarketer, a research firm.
The business could get bigger if it becomes common for televisions to be connected to the Internet, as many analysts predict. If that happens, online ads and commercials could become one and the same.
Semel's hiring nearly five years ago foreshadowed Yahoo's embrace of Hollywood. One of his contributions has been to fill Yahoo's ranks with other Hollywood veterans, most notably Lloyd Braun, a former head of ABC television.
Braun, who engineered the blockbuster television series "Lost," among others, oversees Yahoo's sprawling media group, which is based in Santa Monica, to be near the major studios. His team has landed some notable deals lately.
In December, Yahoo broadcast shock jock Howard Stern celebrating his departure from FM radio to Sirius satellite radio. Viewers watched 4.4 million video streams on the day of the event, 214,000 of them at one time, a record for live Webcasts on the site, according to Yahoo.
Last week, Yahoo scored another coup by joining with CBS to stream some reruns of the network's prime-time comedies, "Two and a Half Men," staring Charlie Sheen, and "How I Met Your Mother." The programs, shown without commercials, will be available in Yahoo's television area until Monday afternoon.
"We are going to put our content in every form on every device," said Larry Kramer, who leads CBS' online arm. "We're testing them all."
Television network executives are torn about making shows available to the likes of Yahoo. Are the portals friends, enemies or something in between?
Network executives would prefer to have users go to their own Web sites, where they can offer more bells and whistles like games and splashy graphics and don't have to share advertising revenue. But Yahoo's has far more traffic.
"That's the dilemma we have with the portals," Kramer said. "I want a younger and bigger audience, but I don't have an instant messenger or e-mail to build as much of an audience on my own Web sites."
So far, the networks have been cautious. Until recently, most avoided putting entire shows online because of piracy, complex ownership rights and a fear of cannibalizing television viewers.
For them, online revenues today are minuscule compared with those of television. Plus, putting shows on the Web could hurt future syndication deals.
An obvious way to make money is online pay-per-view, which has gained some traction through the new iTunes video downloading service by Apple Computer Inc. It now sells some ABC and NBC hits for $1.99 an episode. But the business is still in its infancy.
Television has been more comfortable going halfway with Yahoo. The portal has struck deals to host the official Web sites for "Entertainment Tonight" and "The Apprentice" reality show, where visitors can get video outtakes and short clips -- not entire shows -- plus games and blogs.
Kramer says that it will be a long time before television goes full throttle on the Web. But even then, he doubts hat his company will put all of its shows online.
For now, Robert Hayes, senior vice president of new media for Showtime Networks Inc., the cable channel, doesn't consider Yahoo to be a rival along the lines of traditional television networks. Indeed, he made a landmark deal to stream the pilot episode of the now canceled comedy series "Fat Actress," staring Kirstie Alley, on Yahoo for five days.
Viewers could also watch the show online simultaneously with its television broadcast premiere.
But he's unsure about Yahoo's threat over the long run.
The evolution of online television has been extremely fast, he said, even just during the last 90 days.
"Right now, we don't see Yahoo as a rival, Hayes said. "In the future, that may change."
Source: Yahoo, Chronicle Research
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