Adap.tv Announces an Industry First: AdAge has a good write up where they say “For years, online advertisers have used online ad exchanges to buy display advertising. But now exchanges are also coming to the more complex and fractured world of online video. Adap.tv, a 3-year-old Silicon Valley video ad-serving company, has opened the doors on the first online video ad exchange, and is expected to announce as much Tuesday [2/16]; Gannet, Demand Media and dozens of local TV stations are trying it out, as well as Publicis Groupe’s Vivaki and Omnicom Group’s OMG Digital.” The article talks about how this near real time system is so revolutionary compared to how regular TV ads are done, months or seasons in advance. Kudos to Adapt.tv!

Justin.tv Part of Fund Raising in the UK: UK personality Tim Shaw is live on Justin.tv closed up in a box. He refers to it as Man in Box and he’s in there for 30 days unless using Google maps and clues, Brits find him before that. There’s a prize if you find him, and funds raised will go to Help for Heros (a UK organization that raises money for wounded soldiers). An interesting cross between reality tv on the web, helping veterans and .tv. Thanks Justin.tv!

Watch live video from Man In Box on Justin.tv
Cisco’s Predictions on Mobile Video: Cisco recently released one of their reports that tries to predict traffic into the future. They had a number of things about video that I thought were interesting:

• Almost 66 percent of the world’s mobile data traffic will be video by 2014.
• Mobile video will grow at a CAGR of 131 percent between 2009 and 2014.
• Mobile video has the highest growth rate of any application category measured within the Cisco VNI Forecast at this time.
• Video will be responsible for the majority of the traffic growth between 2009 and 2014.
• Overall mobile data traffic is expected to grow to 3.6 exabytes per month by 2014, and over 2.3 of those are due to mobile video traffic.

ComScore Shows There’s Lots of Room for Video Sites: Yes, YouTube gets the majority of the traffic at 26% of time spent, but the next 24 spots only add an additional 22% according to a recent report from ComScore. That leaves over half of all time spent — 52% is in the tail. If you use videos watched as the metric, the second company on that list is already into low single digits (Hulu at 3%); and by the time you get to the 9th position on that list, you’re below single digits (CBS Interactive at .9%). So this story of video on the web is just beginning with lots of changes and growth to come. Great for .tv. Stay tuned.

Half of NetFlix’s Customers Stream to their TV: The Diffusion Group issued a press release on a report they recently did which says 1/2 – yes that’s 50% – of their large base is using the “Watch Instantly” option on their TVs. No, this isn’t the lone college student streaming to their laptop (though they do have that demographic too). This refers to someone who bothered to buy a box to make it easy, or hack a way to get the stream from the Internet onto a TV (full disclosure, I’m one of the box variety). What does this say for the over the top option for video on the web in the near future?

“The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”
From Requiem for a Nun by William Faulkner

Though it’s just beginning, I suspect this blog will be more about the future than it will be about the past. However, when I saw this posting on my friend’s Facebook page (thanks Mike). I thought there were some interesting similarities to today’s pontifications and ponderings. This site from the American Historical Association has snippets of what people debated about television in the 1940s.

• It talks about movie studios being fearful of putting their good movies on TV, as people might stop going to movie theaters (substitute TV, for online, and how much different is the question now)?
• There’s a whole section on the FCC and spectrum. We might have finally given up the ghost on that one after 60 years with the switch to digital; but the debate still continues if you count wireless broadband in the mix to get video via the Internet;
• There’s a whole debate on standards; do we have the right ones to go forward (OK, in 1945 it might not have been Blu-ray verses HD-DVD, or HTML5…but you get the picture…pun intended); and
• There’s a section about advertising’s place in the new medium and what role subscriptions play (free verses paid is NOT a new dilemma).

So, in summary, everything old is new again. In the next 60 years (yikes…that’s 2070) how will our grandchildren look back at our debates and discussions about video in the dawn of the 21st century? And, how much will be a slight twist of today’s debates.

Photo via Library of Virginia: http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_virginia/

As we know, the Super Bowl is really all about the ads, and this year, .tv made 4 different appearances – 3 were with Flo.tv and one a public service announcement from CBSCares.tv.

Flo.tv is a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm: a multi-billion dollar wireless company that’s brought you the technology behind Verizon’s mobile services and many of the other newer high speed mobile services you’re starting to see in the marketplace. Their package of technology, content and partners allows viewers to see their favorite shows while on the go. One of their tag lines on their site is “Now TV goes where you go”. They had two humorous ads that showed how you’d use their service (one a hen-pecked guy shopping with his girlfriend and one a mini-van full of screaming kids that calm down when presented with Flo.tv’s content). Their third ad tied in cleverly with the half time act. It’s a remake of The Who’s My Generation by Will.i.am played over major news and cultural video clips from over the years. The tag line on this is “Don’t miss a moment”. Perfect for a personalized mobile TV device. And perfect for .tv. Also, if you download the single, the proceeds go to to Haiti Relief.

The CBSCares video is evidently a Super Bowl tradition with .tv. It got a great reaction from the small crowd that I was watching the commercials…oh I mean the game…with. It’s a quiet ad featuring Mark Sanchez, quarterback for the New York Jets, talking about how heart attack symptoms present differently in women than men and encourages women to pay attention.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Interestingly, both Flo and CBS also have .com sites as well as their .tv sites. We here at VeriSign have nicknamed that “double dot”. More about that in a future post; but I think it represents some very interesting opportunities for .tv and is a sign the web and its many uses might be growing up.

And last, I’d like to give a shout out to Bruce Marler, Everything.tv and King.net for also posting about the .tv appearance on the big day.

OK, this post is just for fun. Part of the charm of online video is seeing that silly clip that gets passed around via your friends. Especially for those of you outside of the immediate snow area, here’s one that’s timely for us in the Baltimore/DC area. I went to high school in Erie, PA…where they get real snow, not like here. However, 27 inches,  which is what we got in my neighborhood (with over 38 inches nearby in MD) counts as real snow even in the great white north. Enjoy the video.

P.S. I saw on the news last night that one couple getting married yesterday in the blizzard used www.ustream.tv to have their wedding and broadcast it to all their guest that couldn’t make it due to the snow. Seems not only did they get their guests, but over 800 people signed in to see the couple take their vows. What a great use for streaming video and .tv!

OK, my excuse for not posting these sooner is lame, but true — I’ve been very busy. That said, I didn’t want to miss some great things happening in the .tv and online video world of late.

Muzu.tv Signs Lucrative New Deals –Thanks to www.everything.tv for pointing out this announcement on Muzu.tv. They announced a number of deals to distribute their music videos with AOL, Bebo, and the Telegraph Media Group. among others. The Irish based company says it’s traffic is “growing at 20-30 per cent month on month” and “is serving more than 14 million music related videos in the UK every month.” Music videos are a hot category and go great with .tv

Justin.tv Makes it Easier To Go Live — Last week www.justin.tv rolled out a new version of its broadcasting tools. Cnet is quoting that ” a simple change has led to a 700 percent increase in the number of people who make it from clicking the “broadcast” button on Justin.tv’s front page to actually beginning a live stream.” Those are impressive stats.

Ustream.tv Gets Money to Go East — They announced $20MM in initial funding with an option for $55MM more. That’s real money. What do they plan to do with that? Tech Crunch says “money will be used to expand on the other side of the world, particularly Japan (obvious, given the SoftBank involvement), China, Korea, and India. Mobile video is particularly hot in some of the Asian countries”. At the $75MM mark, the smart money is saying Ustream.tv is worth $230MM.

Vator.tv Splash — This past Thursday Vator.tv launched their event for early stage start ups to pitch their companies to over 300 investors, founders and members of the press. The 10 finalist are listed here. It’s an interesting group with a number of the companies involved in online video. Congratulations to Vator.tv

Online Video to Become Mainstream in 2010 — Speaking of VCs, our friends at Beet.tv interviewed Ross Levinsohn, former digital chief at News Corp and now a venture capitalist at Fuse Capital. Seems his company gets a pretty wide view of whats coming next, looking at over 500 companies a year. When asked what trends he saw, he was bullish on online video — saying it will become mainstream in 2010 — even admitting some already say it is that.