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In this on-line publication, we share our analysis, opinions and direction on the interactive television news and views that we believe will be of interest and use to our friends associated directly or indirectly with independent telephone companies. For more information as to the various ways Viodi works with independent telephone companies, please go to http://www.viodi.com/alliance/
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Viodi View Newsletter - January 31st, 2007
Click here to learn about Viodi's Local Content Workshops
By Ken Pyle, ken.pyle at viodi.com, Managing Editor, Viodi View
- More Efficient Local Content Production - A Way Back Machine
- ViodiTV Corrections
- Akimbo – Unique Alternative or Augmentation to IPTV
- Municipal Wireless Lessons Learned, New WiMax Players & Much More
- Europe - the Biggest Telecom Market?
- Cold Weather = More VOD Buys?
- Popular On-Demand Content - Not What I would Expect
- A New VOD Solution for Small HFC Operators
- Directories and Interactive Advertising
- Localism Helps Needy in Orange County
- A Whirlwind Tour of NATPE – Can You Watch Me Now
- Club Viodi Updates
- The Korner – An Untold Story
“In the end, it’s all about the story and
connecting on an emotional basis with the viewer.” I am paraphrasing
speakers I hear at conferences all of the time, but this is the first
rule in content, whether it is something intended for local, national
or international audiences. The story will trump technology and, even
the quality of the delivery mechanism, every time. Those entities that
bring the compelling stories and content to their customers will be the
leaders.
More
Efficient Local Content Production - A Way Back Machine
| One of the tools that greatly helped us bring our stories from the recent OPASTCO Winter Convention was a Focus Enhancements Direct Digital Recorder. The beauty of a Direct Digital Recorder is that it makes a film crew much more efficient and allows content the transfer of content from camera to viewer to occur much more quickly than the traditional tape methods. Click here to read our review of Focus Enhancement’s FS-4Pro HD Direct Digital recorder. |  |
ViodiTV @ OPASTCO Corrections
In the last issue, we had several linkage errors to ViodiTV, as well as several typos. The postings from each day are as follows: day 3, day 2 and day 1. To go to a specific post, click on one of the following links; John Rose of OPASTCO, Doug Wenzlaff of Solarus, Larry Thompson of Vantage Point Solutions, OPASTCO U, IPTV Peer Perspectives Overview, Mike Deller of Comporium, Dennis Couture of Nortel Networks, Phil Erli of Ringgold Telephone, Robert Primosch of Wilkinson, Barker and Knauer, LLP, Lynn Pike of BTC Broadband, George Henny of FiberCloud, Dave Duncan of Iowa Telecommunications Association and Anika Enos of Gila River Telecom.
| ViodiTV will be covering next week’s NTCA Annual Meeting in Orlando. This promises to be another exciting week and I look forward to interesting interviews from a variety of people. As you will note, we have made quite a few changes on the ViodiTV web site, including the addition of comments and a rating system for each of the posted videos. Please use both, as we are interested in getting feedback as to how we are doing. |
|
Akimbo – Unique Alternative or Augmentation to IPTV
| As mentioned in the previous issue of the Viodi View, Akimbo was at the center of several discussions at OPASTCO’s Winter Conference. Roger Bindl provides an excellent overview of this service that he says could be, “a unique alternative or augmentation of a telco’s existing video or broadband service.” This video is an update from what he did in 2005 and with a focus on the independent telco audience. Click here to view |  |
Municipal Wireless Lessons Learned, New WiMax Players & Much More
Alan Weissberger provides an exclusive report from the WCAI Symposium which took place in San Jose, CA a couple of weeks ago. As always, he has some very keen insights and take-aways from this broadband wireless conference. There are some good gems in this report, including an update from Google on their municipal wireless network in Mountain View, CA, an ambitious Sacramento regional municipal wireless network (which will be 60% rural and 40% urban), a look at the U.S. carriers likely to deploy WiMAX, and an Intel executive's demonstration of a personal mobile Internet device. Click here to read Weissberger's full report.
Europe - the Biggest Telecom Market?
According to a report from TIA, that is the case. To find out which region is number two, click here and read Alan J. Weissberger’s report regarding a recent TIA webinar he attended.
ViewNow issued a press release the other day that stated that, “the number of activations its carrier subscribers achieved through the first three weeks of January was 40 percent higher than activations for the entire month of December.” ViewNow attributed this increase partly to the cold January weather. This confirms to the widely held belief by many of my independent telco friends that VOD in the rural areas is actually more valuable than urban locales because of things like weather and windshield time (how long it takes to drive to the video store – if there is one).
Popular On-Demand Content - Not What I would Expect
What content will be popular? This used to be a super-critical question in a linear world, where bandwidth was scarce. It is still important to get a good answer to this question, as now, in an on-demand world, the challenge is presenting the right content at the right time to the right person. One piece of content that I thought would be niche in the U.S was Karaoke. I was wrong. At the OPASTCO Winter Convention, John Smith of TVN said that Karaoke content is consistently in the top five in terms of on demand views across all affiliates.
A New VOD Solution for Small HFC Operators
Comcast Media Center and C-COR announced their VOD in a box solution yesterday for small operators. It promises 1,000 hours of content, a complete VOD server/back-office solution and its target is operators with less than 25,000 digital subscribers. Today, it is an HFC solution only, with initial support for Motorola set-tops and eventual support for Scientific Atlanta set-tops. Operators still have to sign agreements with individual programmers and the injection of local content is on their roadmap. CED has a more comprehensive summary which can be found here.
Directories and Interactive Advertising
SureWest announced they are selling their phone directory business for $106.5 million in cash. This business includes both their phone book directory as well as their relationship with the Sacramento Bee to provide search advertising. At first glance, this might seem counterintuitive, but Karlynn Oberg of SureWest explains that, “there is a significant difference between yellow page advertising and other types of advertising, be it print, television, etc. So there really is no correlation between our Directory product and any advertising space we might try to sell relative to our video product.”
Other telcos have told me this as well. Additionally, a recent Price Waterhouse Coopers study suggests that revenue from online advertising is greater than the sum of directory and outdoor advertising. The $100+ million in net proceeds will help SureWest continue to build out their infrastructure in the greater Sacramento area, which will give them an even stronger online advertising base.
Localism Helps Needy in Orange County
| I felt fortunate to share a dinner last summer with Duffy Leone and his wife. Duffy is Executive VP and GM of Cox Orange County and he and his group get the importance of local. Cox of Orange County recently held a golf tournament featuring local celebrities that raised more than $60,000 for Orange County’s neediest residents. Due to their location, they have the advantage of having local former pro-athlete celebrities, such as Vince Ferragamo and Deacon Jones, who have a level of national prominence as well. |  |
A Whirlwind Tour of NATPE – Can You Watch Me Now
One day is definitely not enough time to spend at the National Association of Television Programming Executives (NATPE). Although the focus of this show is on content, it really is becoming another meeting place for formerly disparate industries. As Bethany Gorfine, President and CEO of federal hill communications stated to me,
“What has changed [about NATPE] is that the sessions are much more relevant for my business. Now, I am negotiating rights across technologies [wireless, VOD, etc.] as well as across territories.”
The session that featured Rachelle Zoffer, Director of Interactive TV for Verizon, is evidence of the increasing influence of technology and telecom at this “content” show. It was one of the more interesting discussions, as her comments indicate that Verizon will continue to be aggressive in terms of bringing new services (e.g. YouTube to TV) to the customer. Verizon is clearly charting a path that is independent of Microsoft, in terms of set-top middleware, and that will center on OCAP as a platform for developing interactive applications. This could get very interesting when they eventually migrate to an IPTV system to serve the millions of high rise, multi-dwelling units in their territory. |
Here are some of the articles that Club Viodi members saw during the past few weeks. Club Viodi is an exclusive site for independent telcos to discuss all things video, especially those local in nature.
- Inexpensive Stock Music
- Content Syndication & NATPE
- User Generated Content to the TV
- VOD Update from NATPE or Everything is Local
- No Brainer Content from NATPE (see DVIDS Web Site)
| Paul McKellips is great at weaving a story and painting a picture. He is one of those rare people blessed with superior intelligence,excellent communication skills and a seemingly limitless font of creativity. As the co-founder of Viodi, I was lucky enough to work with him closely for a number of years and was always impressed with his magic. If Paul had chosen differently, he would be a high-level executive at a telecom company or entertainment company right now. |
Paul has had so many careers – from selling phone directory advertising to producing movies to running for LA city council to developing interactive video applications to acting. His latest role is probably the most significant of his career, as well as the most dangerous. He has been in Iraq working for the Department of Agriculture reporting good news from Iraq. Yes, there is good news. As Paul says in his letter explaining his trip back to Iraq,
“Someone needs to report where American taxpayer dollars are being spent and how our men and women in uniform are making a positive difference in Iraq. Regardless of your politics (or mine) I believe we owe it to our troops to tell the entire story of what's going on in Iraq.”
In this missive, he tells of how USAID, American military and coalition partners have helped the new Iraqi government restore wetlands at the confluence of the historically significant, Tigris and Euphrates rivers in southern Iraq.
Click here to listen to and read the rest of the story……
Like the DVIDs content, Paul’s content is yours for the taking, if you want to add it to your web site or television channel.
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The Video Business Case for Independent Telcos – The Report
Viodi’s report, Video Business Case provides results to a survey of independent telcos and their business case for video. Most of the telcos that responded to the survey have figured out a way to deploy video services. This survey provides insight from the independent telcos as well as several of their Engineering firms.
