Online videos want more of your time
The attention span of online video watchers continues to expand, as viewers have come to expect more than clips of kids and dogs doing the dumbest things on YouTube.
The mainstreaming of TV on computers via Hulu and a few other outlets has acclimated many people to watching premium content at traditional lengths, such as those of sitcoms and feature films. Producers of online video programming are taking advantage of the added time.
“A few years ago, three minutes ‘watching’ your computer felt like a novelty; now, it’s as familiar as your television set,” one web producer tells the New York Times.
The Monday media section of the Times examines the shift, which is news to pretty much no one with an interest in streaming video. Still, the story “Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips” pulls together some interesting quotes and observations.
Here are some of the highlights of the Times’ story on online video lengths:
- “People are getting more comfortable, for better or for worse, bringing a computer to bed with them,” says Dina Kaplan, the co-founder of Blip.tv. … “On the Web, producers have this delicious freedom to produce content as long as it should be. They’re starting to take advantage of that.”
- Tom Konkle of the Web series “Safety Geeks” says the tradition of short Web videos reflected limits in Internet speed and server space. The online video experience has grown along with advances in computers and bandwidth capabilities.
- “More than anything else, the longer viewing spans may speak to the maturation of the medium itself,” the Times reported, noting that early kinetoscopes were about 30 seconds long, reflecting both the technology limits and expectations of audience’s attention spans.
- Jon Gibs, a vice president for analytics for Nielsen, said online video “(historically) has been very much a clip-based experience online. We believe we are moving into a transition period where more of that viewership is going toward long-form video.”
I’d add that the documented increase in video durations also reflect that the streaming audience is filling with teens and preteens who grew up with online video — and are far more likely to appreciate and consume longform entertainment on computers than older viewers accustomed to big-screen TVs.
That audience behavior — of convenience over presentation — brings to mind younger listeners’ widespread acceptance of inferior but highly portable audio formats such as MP3.
In addition to the longer durations, total time spent viewing online video has seen a significant jump in the past year.
Boxee thinks outside cable TV
The New York Times today profiles Boxee, a company whose software allows users to cherry-pick video content from various online outlets and watch on a regular or high-def TV monitor.
The New York company “is treading over the carefully negotiated business arrangements of much larger companies and garnering accolades from tech-heads for doing what the big guys have failed to do,” the Times said.
The Boxee software is free, and works on Macs and the Apple TV box. A PC version is in “private alpha,” the company web site says (how’s that for a switch, Mac fans).
Boxee had one of the hottest booths at this month’s CES, the Times reported. Boxee’s blog said the company was approached at the consumer electronics show by “several device makers” interested in embedding the software in existing or future products.
One cable executive said the service was intriguing, but its business prospects were not so hot:
“There is a lot about Boxee that doesn’t work, like the business model, which is really nonexistent right now,” the unidentified cable exec said.
He probably should be hoping things stay that way. One of the biggest complaints, among the many about cable TV service, is its bundling of networks and stations, which effectively forces consumers to pay for channels they never watch.
Boxee admits its technology is not exactly user friendly at this point: “Boxee is not optimized for the Apple TV hardware, Netflix doesn’t work on it, etc.” (Although the user profile asks for Netflix account info.)
An Apple computer or one running on Linux does have to be connected to the TV unless an Apple TV device is attached. Boxee also can be used just on, say, a Mac computer.
A Boxee poll of its web site visitors found the Joost online video application was the one they most wanted to see incorporated into the software.
The web site includes a social media set-up that has links to your presence on the usual suspects. Your first “friend” will Boxee’s creator and CEO, Avner Ronen, 33, pictured.
LG Blu-ray beams up CinemaNow, YouTube
Getting a jump on CES, Blu-ray player maker LG said it has reached content deals with CinemaNow and YouTube.
The online video sources will join Netflix movies on LG disc players to be released in the first half of the year. Netflix already provides movies through LG’s network BD300 player (pictured).
CinemaNow brings premium (pay per view) content from most major studios and TV networks. YouTube, of course, offers a sea of user-generated content, how-to vids, vintage clips and curios. Netflix’s streaming content includes a lot of catalog fare at no additional cost to subscribers.
Netflix and CinemaNow already provide high-definition movies and TV shows; YouTube has been experimenting with HD for almost a year and recently went to wider screen sizes to accommodate the content.
LG’s move makes sense, as consumers continue to seek good reasons to upgrade to Blu-rays over DVDs. The high-definition format pleases videophiles and others who don’t mind sinking bucks into home entertainment, but the lower-cost DVDs continue to meet the needs of most consumers, market research shows.
The added functionality also would lower consumer resistance to yet another black box in the viewing room.
Samsung also has bundled the Netflix streaming video channel with a pair of Blu-ray units.
Similar moves by, say, Sony or Panasonic would open a new front in the home electronics wars, although many Blu-ray manufacturers seem to have their hands full trying to ensure the format’s discs work in their players.
Consumer confusion would be another sticking point for the combo Blu-ray and streaming video players.
“With these new alliances, LG continues its innovation leadership by allowing consumers easy access to multiple entertainment options in one device,” said Tim Alessi of LG Electronics USA, faithfully delivering your canned quote of the day.
CinemaNow recently was bought by Sonic Solutions. It has focused on delivering content via consumer electronics via deals with TiVo, DivX, ARCHOS, Dell, EchoStar Communications, Hewlett-Packard, Macrovision, Microsoft, Samsung and Technicolor.
Macs get Netflix streaming movies
Netflix’s streaming movie and TV service Watch Instantly has spent the past year irritating the red envelope crowd for not being compatible with Macs or Firefox.
Meanwhile, the Mac community founded more reasons to hate Microsoft when its Silverlight media player became the “official” Olympics online media delivery system, leaving Apple users to the leftovers on broadcast TV.
Here comes a break in the case: Silverlight now is streaming Watch Instantly movies to Macs — assuming they’re the newer-generation Intel-based machines. This move comes courtesy of the recent release of Silverlight 2 and Play Ready DRM, a digital rights management technology that allows the app to protect copyrighted content on any browser.
Mac users, of course, aren’t entirely thrilled because they would be downloading a Microsoft plug-in onto their computers. A non-Apple DRM with unknown potential issues isn’t exactly welcome, either.
Still, somewhere between here and the end of the year, Netflix expects to deliver its streaming content to subscribers with the Intel Macs. Some subscribers reportedly have the upgrade now. Both Safari and Firefox browsers can handle the job.
Netflix’s product unit chief Neil Hunt provided this bit of canned quotery in the Watch Instantly press release:
“Silverlight with Play Ready offers a powerful and secure toolkit for delivery of dynamic streaming, which offers faster start-up, and higher quality video, adapted in real time to users’ connection speeds, Members who enjoy watching movies and TV episodes … that can be instantly streamed at Netflix will be thrilled with this next generation improvement of access and quality, on a broader range of platforms, including Intel Macs and Firefox.”
Meanwhile, Samung agreed to provide Netflix movie streaming via some of its recent players, the BD-P2500 and P2550. Terrific. Now if Samsung can just get its players such as the notorious BD-P1200 to play major studio Blu-rays. Like, say, the highly anticipated new James Bond releases like “Dr. No.”
This means delivery options for Watch Instantly include some LG Blu-ray players, the Roku black box and, coming soon, the new Xbox 360 media delivery system.
Update: Jason Snell of Macworld.com reviews the Watch Instantly stream on a Mac, noting that the quality and quantity of the movies and TV shows has improved since the Starz deal. “Still, where Instant Watching shines is in its collection of documentaries, classic movies, and TV series.”
Also, Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider weighed in. Bottom line: “The movie and TV streaming service from Netflix is “a good start and worth checking out if you’re a Netflix subscriber with a Mac.”
‘South Park’ video streaming all its junk
“South Park” dwellers don’t have to go dumpster diving for streaming videos as of right now.
southparkstudios.com has launched with full-length episodes and clips from the cranky ani show’s 12 seasons.
“South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone said of their new home: “We got really sick of having to download our own show illegally all the time so we gave ourselves a legal alternative.”
As of this afternoon, all but the most recent of 169 episodes in the “South Park” library are up there.
The rollout scheme goes like this: New episodes will go up “as soon as possible” after they debut on Comedy Central and remain on the site for a week. Then it’s off to limbo. A month later, they’re back and in the archives.
So as of right now, you’ll have to be patiently wait a day for “Major Boobage.” Who wouldn’t. Headed for the netherworld soon is “Britney’s New Look” (embedded below, for a few days).
The site also offers those with no lives the “South Park” Avatar Generator, with which they can become one of the show’s twisted kids. Of course I did it. “They can pick from millions of combinations to create their perfect self portrait in the ‘South Park’ world. To date 35,000 Avatars have been created,” your MTV Networks press release said.
The generator worked fine, and the result (left) looked a bit like me only not barnacled enough.
Looks like another heh-heh public beta, open to the entire plant: “The site which rolled out a beta version last Wednesday has already received over three million page views, over two million video plays, and more than a million streams of full episodes,” the SP flackery noted.
Perhaps this “beta” will give them time to work on the s-l-o-w loading times.
The site seeks to go global, which should cheer the demented in Britain, Australia and the like. Here’s Ane Garefino of South Park Digital Studios:
“One goal in moving forward is to make every episode of ‘South Park’ available world-wide. Currently, full episodes are not available in the UK, Australia and a few other foreign territories but we’re not far off from making that happen. We have some contractual issues to sift through but we’re getting there.”
In other news of young superweathy men and their creations, Digg founders Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson are sending their own web-only “Diggnation” show to the slightly annoying Blip.tv, along with a few other series from their revision3.com
“More than a dozen Revision3-produced shows will be made available,” your press release raved. “Taking advantage of the open nature of blip.tv’s platform, Revision3 will make each show accessible in multiple formats ranging from Flash to Quicktime to DivX to 3gp for cell phones.” The shows also go out via the Blip distribution network.
Revision3 also has been encouraging viewers to get with the Miro open-source video player, a desktop ap good for Macs and PCs.
The shows already get a good ride around the Net but Blip provides some ad bucks and a decent platform.