Realitypod.tv

2008 was a very interesting year as we saw the take up of online video viewing rocket to the point where we have seen a new bunch of investors in town trying to understand and monetize this space. We see the potential and we see the joy that it brings to millions of people as they watch, online, on mobile and now online on TV, thanks to slingbox and other competitors in this space.

One of the tricks is to understand video content beyond the PC or MAC and see where else video can be watched. Is it the car? is it at the bus stop? At the back of seats on buses? We are starting to see screens everywhere on the London underground, although these are mainly advertisers promoting products, but I’m convinced that to get the customers more engaged we will see screens in the trains. Now there’s a thought for a captive audience.

Whilst online video advertising is slow to take up, they have many ways to present it via overlays, opt-ins, prerolls, and product placements. This presents four different revenue streams for the broadcaster and to the brands wanting to advertise. Just remember this market is still very much in its infancy and both investors and creative companies will be coming into the market to help monazite or dare I say it “revolutionize” this space.

The broadcasters still have the content that consumers want to watch, content owners such as the bbc, itv and channel 4 don’t really care where you watch the content, but they know the tradition way we watch content is not via traditional broadcast transmission.

This presents us with a massive growth opportunity, not just from an advertising standpoint, but from the whole value chain that this business needs in order to be enjoyed. I’m taking about, cabling, fibre optics, broadband, content creation, encoding and scheduling, player solutions and screens. As we become more creative in the approach for placing screens everywhere, so does the revenues. I think Investors know this and as online bandwidth hungry content viewers increase, so does the value chain…

Signing off!

Realitypod.tv