Consumers are demanding their entertainment on a variety of platforms, and everywhere you look it seems like everything is streaming. But is that sustainable? There is not only the issue of monetization, but there’s bandwidth too. Can we all stream our favorite shows and music? And can companies make enough money to keep producing the content?

Is Streaming Video Sustainable?

Shay David, chief revenue officer and co-founder of Kaltura, Inc.--an online video management platform for companies such as ABC, Disney, and HBO--says streaming video is "absolutely" a sustainable method of content delivery.

"Not only is it sustainable, but I think it's going to replace many other forms of delivering entertainment; I think the economics are there," says David.
In fact, two trends have converged in recent years to make that happen, according to David. "One is that the cost of delivery was dropping and the other is the audiences are pretty confident in consuming their media as a streaming solution ... I would say 2011 was the first year that the economics of those two met in a way that streaming can actually be sustainable economically. From there on, it becomes a question of creating value added services," he says.

According to a CNNMoney article ("Netflix Tops Apple in Online Video Sales"), the online video business more than doubled in 2011 to $992 million in sales, and IHS iSuppli expects that figure to double again in 2012.

Rich Hull, who advises many of the nation's largest media and entertainment companies on content strategy, finance, and distribution, and who is a former film and TV producer as well as an EContent columnist, also firmly believes in the sustainability of streaming video. "It's not only sustainable [but] it's the first choice for content consumption of anyone under 20. Ignore it at your own peril," he cautions.

David adds that he believes streaming video will become the dominant form of delivery for scripted entertainment "in the coming two years for sure."
According to David, "You look at the US broadcast industry, and depending on how you measure it, it's a $60-80 billion dollar industry." He continues, "I think that over the next decade you are going to start seeing half of that money if not more moved towards delivery over IP-Different forms of subscription ... different forms of delivery on mobile devices. It doesn't necessarily need to be streaming per se. We have seen different models on mobile, for example, of apps that bundle the content and the app in one."

Manny Puentes, CTO at Lijit Networks, Inc.--which says it provides online advertising services, audience analytics, and reader engagement tools to more than 125,000 sites on the "independent web"--also believes streaming video is "totally sustainable." He adds, "The new infrastructures around cloud computing, distribution channels and technology innovations to compress data make it not only sustainable but easier to create and deploy faster and cheaper than ever before. Streaming video is the next television."   

Multiple Platforms Are Key

"Any particular streaming platform represents pennies compared to the dollars of traditional distribution," says Hull. "But money gets made in streaming by making your content available on as many platforms as possible at the same time. It's a different mindset for content owners-consumers want everything anywhere."

So who is doing a particularly good job at making their content available on multiple platforms? "The studios. Content owners will license their content to any platform willing to protect it and pay for it," says Hull.

Puentes pointed to a few media companies that are "phenomenal" at making their content available on as many platforms as possible. "YouTube and Hulu are great examples of this. You can find their streaming video on virtually any smartphone device, for Windows, on Mac, and via cellphone providers. In the online advertising space, video distribution on as many platforms as possible is in the roadmap," he says.

Of course, subscriptions can also be a moneymaker. Jennifer McClain, senior product manager of streaming for Compuware Corp.'s Application Performance Management, says the consumer market is willing to pay for access to streaming content--but they have some expectations. "Fewer users are driven to access content illegally as long as the premium content they pay for--or that is paid for through advertising dollars--is delivered to them without significant re-buffering or other performance issues. Advertisers will become more willing to spend money on online streaming platforms as long as those platforms perform well and retain satisfied users," she observes.

McClain "absolutely" believes streaming video is sustainable. However, its sustainability is "dependent on a satisfactory user experience, primarily driven by performance," she says.

"Offering the ability for users to access premium content from many devices and locations is certainly a consumer market demand, and users are very willing to experience advertising as long as the delivery of streaming content performs well," adds McClain, who has more than 10 years of experience in the IT industry, with specialization in the performance of streaming media.

Maintaining Monetization

While Hull believes streaming video will continue to be profitable, he says that "the monetization landscape looks different than we've traditionally been used to." He adds, "In the past, for instance, DVD represented one of just a handful of the giant revenue buckets that made up almost all of a film's revenue. But now, instead of having just a handful of sources that make all the money, we have a much greater number of small revenue buckets.

"Today we see a much more fragmented marketplace, but when taken in the aggregate, [streaming video will] ultimately overpower the revenues from more traditional distribution. And by the way, traditional distribution isn't going anywhere (theatrical, DVD, television, etc.), but it'll just represent one of the many fragmented sources for monetizing content," he continues.

David also feels that streaming video will fare well in the future. "The more audience they can grow the better they make money; if you have good content you can build an audience--there's no question you can make money," he states. "The economics are there ... for the last two years, it's there--the market is there."
In fact, according to David, "most publishers today have more interest from advertisers wanting to monetize video than they can actually have stream. A lot of people are literally returning checks to advertisers ... making money is absolutely not the problem."

Puentes feels that video offers an "extremely rich channel" for advertisers, and it becomes more appealing as technology advances. "Margins may be smaller as streaming video becomes more efficient but the volume will increase making up for lost margins," he says. "Considering the rapid pace of technology for streaming video, I predict that advertisers will soon start to consider streaming video as a distribution channel with time slots in a video."

McClain observes that streaming video needs to "retain satisfied users who are willing to pay for high-performing content or view advertising that pays the overhead of delivering high-performance content."   

Consumers Crave More Choice

A recent survey of more than 15,000 Consumer Reports subscribers found that 81% of those who have used a streaming video service in the last month used Netflix, according to a July 26, 2012, PCMag.com article ("Netflix Most Popular, Not Most Satisfying Streaming Video Service").

Yet, despite its popularity, Netflix isn't exactly scoring high marks with consumers in every area. According to the survey, the biggest problem consumers have with Netflix's streaming service is its limited selection of movies, specifically new releases, says the article.

"The real reason the catalogue is limited is because the content producers are slow in licensing it to Netflix," says Tolu Akinola, founder of StreamThing, a service that notifies people when their favorite movies or shows are available on Netflix's streaming service.

While Akinola believes Netflix is "trying their darnedest" to increase their catalogue, the limited selection "is the biggest threat to Netflix and the reason for all the volatility in their stock price. They have to figure this out and soon, hence my prediction that content and distribution will merge at some point unless they are able to achieve total market dominance (much like Apple did with iTunes) in which case they can negotiate with the studios on a more equal footing."
Hull also believes Netflix should expand its offerings if it wants to increase its subscription base. "Netflix has really not focused on smaller studio movies, independent films, or niches, and consequently, consumers are frustrated. For instance, Hispanics are the fastest growing demo in the US and Netflix's domestic Spanish-language offering is very thin. More Hispanics would love to subscribe to Netflix, but Netflix will first need to offer them more content choices," he adds.

Other all-you-can-watch streaming services such as Amazon Prime and Hulu Plus face the same limited selection issues as Netflix, says the PCMag.com piece. In fact, less than 1 in 5 survey respondents said they were "highly satisfied" with the titles available on these services, according to the article.

Netflix alternatives such as VUDU, iTunes, and Amazon Instant Video all scored higher in terms of user satisfaction rate, according to the article.

Though not everyone is satisfied with their Netflix experience, the company recently surpassed Apple to become the top service in terms of online video market share on a revenue basis, as a result of Netflix's increased focus on its unlimited streaming service, according to the CNNMoney article.

In 2011, Netflix had a 44% market share, while Apple-whose iTunes store does not offer a subscription service-saw its share dip to 32.3% of the market (down significantly from 60.8% the previous year), according to CNN. Microsoft, VUDU, and Sony round out the top five list, but each has just single-digit percentage shares of the market's revenue, says the article.

Bandwidth Budget?

So, as consumers continue to consume streaming video, will bandwidth become an issue?

David says no. "There's a lot of dark fiber still; we still are not consuming all the fiber that was put in the ground in the big boom of a few years ago," he observes. "There's still a lot of excess capacity and if you look at what people like Google are doing with their Kansas City fiber infrastructure now-I don't think the infrastructure is going to be a problem."

Google's Kansas City, Mo., initiative is expected to launch this fall and now includes Google Fiber TV-a TV service with its own, fully searchable interface that mixes DVR results with Netflix and YouTube. Customers of the service, which will have ultra-high-speed web connections, will no longer need to wait for videos to buffer or websites to load.

Ultimately, Hull feels that "the bandwidth market must evolve to meet consumers' desire for streaming content, and not the other way around. Any bandwidth provider that tries to bottleneck content consumption to save bandwidth will be out of business in five years."

According to McClain, "The key to handling any bandwidth constraints is offering adaptive streaming that automatically adjusts to an end-user's available bandwidth," she says. "This allows content to be streamed over broadband and mobile networks to an expanding user-base, while adjusting efficiently to any network congestion and providing an optimal end-user experience ... this is all about monitoring and optimizing the performance of streaming content delivery."

Puentes observes that bandwidth is "always a concern," but as CPUs are continually evolving and memory and hardware are getting faster and cheaper, bandwidth expands with it. "Technology to stream videos is advancing just as fast as technologies to handle bandwidth so we are constantly having to come up with ways to solve the bandwidth problem. So, even though bandwidth issues are not new and they aren't going away, it's not a deal-breaker for the future of streaming video-it's just a hurdle."

The way things are currently going, it seems like nothing is going to be a deal-breaker in the relationship between consumers and streaming video.

CNNMoney

Compuware Corp.

Kaltura, Inc.

Lijit Networks, Inc.

PCMag.com

StreamThing

There is little doubt that we are living in a new age of journalism. The internet has clearly put pressure on traditional publications. Stories are published faster. There is less fact-checking and editorial oversight. Virtually anyone with even a hint of technical savvy can publish to the web. Many of the more traditional rules of journalism have gone by the wayside, and while much of this change is positive, that doesn't mean all of the old rules don't still apply. Some should remain guiding lights, regardless of the medium, but too often lately we have seen modern journalism steer off course.

Rule 1: Don't take money from sources to write favorably about them. That's the type of conflict of interest anyone can understand. Last August, as part of an ongoing patent trial, a federal judge issued an order to Google and Oracle to release a list of journalists whom they were paying to write favorably about the companies. At least one blogger was hired by Oracle to write positive articles. This goes beyond conflict of interest. It's downright dishonest. You don't pretend to be writing unbiased pieces while you're taking money from one of the parties involved.

Rule 2: Sources don't get to review your stories before publishing. To do so would provide an outlet for sources to alter the stories to show them in a more favorable light. If you're a good journalist, you take notes and probably record the interview. You can certainly contact a source and ask follow-up questions after the initial interview to get clarification, but you must never let a source review and alter a story. When a source speaks on the record, she has to live with what she said (unless it's for the purpose of correcting something she knows to be wrong).

Yet it was revealed in July that a Washington Post reporter (who clearly should have known better) working on an article involving a controversial standardized testing program on college campuses had run drafts of a story by his sources on multiple occasions-even going so far as to let them alter drafts. Journalists everywhere were justifiably aghast.

Rule 3: Check your facts! In the internet age, the echo chamber can spread false or misleading information so quickly-by a variety of sources-that it seems real, even when it's patently false. To prove how easy it is to spread misinformation, in August a company called Day4 created what looked like an authentic 3D drawing of an unusual screw. Day4 then "leaked" the drawing on reddit and hinted that Apple was going to use the screw to prevent customers from opening Apple products in future iterations of its products. It would have been a great story if it were true.

By the next day, the story had been picked up by a number of Apple rumor blogs and eventually even by more mainstream technology press-all based on a silly drawing with absolutely no facts to back it up. While it was possible for stories to develop based on a number of bad sources in the pre-internet days, it tended to take many years. The Apple screw rumor took just 12 hours to hit a website, and then another 12 or so to spread far and wide. We know journalists should know better, but we also know the pressure to get a story live before the competition is intense.

When I was coming of age as a journalist, I learned the rules in a college journalism program from ex-pros who instilled in me standard operating guidelines. Today, the democratization of publishing allows anyone to publish. This is great in many ways, but it also means nonpros who were never taught the basics of journalism are operating without a playbook. Of course, even some who were taught the rules-such as that Washington Post reporter--still play fast and loose with them. It's not just an internet problem.

Regardless, these rules were established over time to protect the credibility of the writer and the publication. In spite of dramatic changes in how we distribute the news-publishing on a website or using a printing press, writing as a lone blogger or as part of large media conglomerate--some rules should always still apply. 

If the success of apps like Instagram has taught us anything, it's that the ability to take a high quality photo with your phone and instantly upload it to the internet just isn't enough anymore. No, mobile phone photographers - and tablet users too - want to be able to add filters and alter those photos before posting them. According to the New York Times, Twitter is figuring that out as well, and will be offering photo filters to users in the near future. As Nick Bilton points out:

"Flickr, which was once the go-to photo-sharing site on the Web, has since seen an exodus of people who have opted for Facebook or Instagram. Twitter has proved to be very popular among advertisers who want to reach people on smartphones, where the company's audience tends to flock."

No firm date for a release was given.

(www.twitter.com)

Springer Science+Business Media has reached an agreement to acquire Mekentosj BV and Lifve Ltd. which includes the software tool Papers. Papers is a reference manager which allows researchers to organize, use, share and cite research literature more effectively.

Papers centralizes search, downloads, and organizing references and documents in one tool. The literature can be cited in the word processing software of choice, and can be shared with colleagues. Papers is available for Mac, Windows and iOS.

The current Papers employees, including the founder, Alexander Griekspoor, will continue to run Papers as a unit within Springer.

(www.springer.com)

Kenshoo, a provider of premium digital marketing software, announced it has raised $12 million in a late stage financing round led by Tenaya Capital. All existing Kenshoo investors, including Sequoia Capital, Sequoia Growth Fund, and Arts Alliance participated in this latest round.

Kenshoo will use the funding to support ongoing double and triple digit annual growth rates within its search marketing and social media business units as well as further penetrate key geographic markets. Kenshoo plants to more aggressively create new opportunities for brands and agencies to address the entire purchase funnel while driving revenue across channels and devices.

Meanwhile, Kenshoo Social is one of only two companies in the world recently designated as a Facebook Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer with access to the Facebook Exchange. Now serving more than one billion Facebook ads each day, this offering complements the intent-driven nature of search to help marketers capture customers throughout the purchase cycle and close the loop on cross-channel reporting and attribution through the Kenshoo Universal Platform.

(www.kenshoo.com, www.tenayacapital.com, www.sequoiacap.com, www.artsalliance.co.uk)

SOA Software,a provider of Enterprise API Management and SOA Governance solutions announced the launch of the First Enterprise API Platform, to help enterprises reach new channels and gain business advantage, throughout all stages of the API lifecycle. The SOA Software Enterprise API Platform addresses enterprise requirements across the entire API lifecycle, with planning, development, runtime, and community management capabilities.

The Enterprise API Platform is available as an on-premise software solution, as-a-service, via an Open developer community as-a-service, or using a combination of any of these options. For example, a customer could choose to run the lifecycle management components of the solution as on-premises software, use the commercial PaaS offering to host and manage their APIs, and federate with the Open developer community to publish their public APIs to an established group of App developers.

(www.soa.com)

Mzinga, a provider of enterprise social software solutions and services serving the learning, marketing and customer experience markets, announced the release of OmniSocial Engaged. OmniSocial Engaged is a flexible social business platform that helps enterprises connect with target audiences on a deeper level to drive website traffic, amplify customer and buyer loyalty, and increase customer satisfaction.

OmniSocial Engaged can be branded, configured, and deployed to match customers' unique business needs in creating a seamless social ecosystem -- either as a private or public site, or as integrated applications within existing web environments or as a custom social solution through Developer APIs.

(www.mzinga.com)

Curata, Inc., a content curation company that enables marketers and publishers to find, organize, and share content, announced that a mobile app is available in the iTunes store for iPhone and iPad users, and the Android Market for Android users. The app enables Curata users to curate on-the-go. Curata expects the mobile app to expedite the curation process as busy marketers are now able to review and sift through content on a mobile device.

Corporate use of mobile devices continues to surge, and B2B marketers must have access to crucial tools when they need them, regardless of location. Curata's content curation software gives time back to busy marketers by enabling them to curate third-party content from multiple sources, as well as tag and categorize the content for easy organization.

(www.curata.com)

North Plains announced it has launched a rebrand of its company, including a new mission and visual identity. North Plains has redefined its mission to help its customers --  including marketers, content creators and publishers -- to unleash the power of their visual media in order to better communicate with target audiences. North Plains unveiled a fresher, more agile brand and visual identity that focuses on empowering customers to better leverage the influx of visual content created.

As part of the rebrand, North Plains has developed a new website to help customers stay connected. North Plains' customers now have the necessary product, services, and case study information easily accessible on the site. In addition, North Plains has also developed a new logo to reflect its dedication to empowering customers to leverage the constellation of visual content and connect with their key audiences.

North Plains' products, Telescope and Xinet, address customers' needs to create, manage, and distribute visual content. The Xinet solution offers file-based management of work-in-progress (WIP) of visual content for agencies and publishers. TeleScope provides management for access, use, and distribution of visual content across an enterprise organization and its extended partners.

(www.northplains.com)