A few weeks ago, we wrote that while a recent panel discussion of the iPhone NPR app was focused on the ability to access any NPR station despite its over-the-air local broadcast range constraints (geographic independence), the primary value proposition of the NPR app is the ability to access any program despite its scheduled air time constraints (temporal independence).  Put another way, this app represents the ‘tivo-ization’ of NPR.

In fact, the intrinsic ability to time-shift content is arguably the primary value proposition of any internet media platform.

Some recent coverage of Apple’s forthcoming Apple TV subscription model misses this point entirely, though…

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Not that I want to harp much longer on my apparent screaming media fascination but hey, the past week has provided ample sound bites to back up my tongue-in-cheek theory.

You remember? South Carolina Republican House rep Joe Wilson hackles the US president during a major public speech, tennis-great Serena Williams looses it on the court, and rapper-extraordinaire Kanye West opts to rudely interrupt a major video awards show snatching the micro in the middle of a peer’s acceptance speech.

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Come to think of it, here’s a couple additional thoughts on my previous screaming media missive.

Both a recent Variety and Utne Reader article got me thinking again about this post-Walter Conkrite, post-Don Hewitt era of 24-hour noise channels.

In a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way, I believe my screaming media concept is indeed a deserving (albeit absolutely made up) label, as “yell TV” continues to spread far beyond its original cable roots.

First off there’s satellite TV of course, plus, increasingly, telecom-powered “broadband” IPTV. Other ways TV programming is being delivered to you and me these days includes an ever-growing number of mobile video services, media receivers, gaming consoles and Internet-connected TVs.

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Last week Glenn screamed at me again. So did Ed. An hour later Bill yelled at both me and his guests. What could I have possibly done to deserve this kind of treatment?

I know we’ve never really been friends per se, but these guys have been over to my house quite frequently. For years actually. When they are at your house, I suppose they are yelling at you, too?

Cynicism aside, the more television I watch these days the harder it gets to circumvent loud-noise anchors and their talking heads literally screaming out their parts.

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When you find back-to-back Hulu and Verizon Hub commercials rolling across your TV screen, (as I recently did in New York), you know for traditional media delivery, the times, they are a-changin’.

Turns out, the TV spot for Hulu and Verizon Hub each mark a first for their respective parent company; pitching products previously not marketed on live television.
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Speculating here about Disney’s recent (quasi-) presence on YouTube, we concluded that:

• YouTube was expanding beyond its core business of UGC (user-generated content) hosting into premium licensed content – and is willing to be just an aggregator to do it.
• Disney was finally ‘dipping its toe into video stream syndication via YouTube before placing its bet on hulu.
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Last week on a panel discussion in New York, ABC’s Albert Cheng described how his network was syndicating its content on YouTube – to paraphrase Mr. Cheng, “we supply them with meta data for our shows, but the actual ABC streams themselves still originate from our servers at ABC.”
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Time are tough – maybe you’ve heard, it’s been in all the papers.  Oh wait, there aren’t any more papers – but we’re going to guess that one way or the other, you’ve had more than your share of macro-economic doom and gloom over the past few months anyway.  So we’re starting a new series of posts – think of them as occasional signs of (internet video-related) corporate hope amidst all the (over-leveraged under-regulated financial services) corporate rubble…

• The BBC, having seen a 152% increase in UK usage of their successful iPlayer streaming application over the past 12 months, has just increased their online budget for the next three years by almost 25%.
• The stock of mail-order DVD rental leader (and online pioneer) Netflix is up over 30% over the past 6 months.
• CBS has announced 2.8 million first-day unique users of its Silverlight-powered NCAA Men’s Tournament (March Madness) streams – at 56% increase over last year’s first day numbers.
• Pure Digital Technologies, the privately-funded startup responsible for the easy-to-use “Flip” personal internet video camcorder, is purchased by Cisco for $590 mil.

Hang in there – more good news to come…

I’m looking over some recent numbers from nielsen online and I’m struck by something: while hulu may indeed be a big fish, long-form internet video is still a pretty small pond.  Consider:

Of the four major broadcast networks, hulu partners Fox and NBC saw the largest month-over-month increases in October 2008:  Fox was up 165%, while NBC (helped by Tina Fey’s triumphant if temporary return to SNL as America’s favorite eye-winking, Russia-seeing hockey mom) saw a whopping 312% increase (by contrast, ABC was up 105% and internet video laggard CBS was only up 38%.)

312 % and 165 % increases over the course of one month? Let’s celebrate – professionally produced long-form video has finally come into its own, right?

Wrong.

From that same Nielsen report, here’s another statistic: during October, YouTube had almost 82 million unique visitors to hulu’s 6.3 million – that’s a factor of fifteen (even with Tina Fey’s Palin sketches driving users to hulu).

A direct comparison between the two by total streams delivered would skew unfairly towards YouTube due to the shorter running time of the average user-generated video – but what the heck, let’s do it anyway, just for fun…  because the difference between those Nielsen numbers is even more stark than you might imagine: YouTube delivered almost 38 times the total number of streams delivered by hulu.

That’s thirty eight times more streams from YouTube than hulu.

Granted, hulu is one well-executed website.  Yet clearly, long-form premium video over the internet still has a long way to go.  What’s the takeaway here?  In my opinion, the answer is somewhat obvious: people don’t want to sit alone in front of their computers for a half hour or more at a time to view long-form video – in other words, the effectiveness of the personal computer as a video-viewing device is inversely proportional to the program length of the video being viewed.

The numbers in this report clearly put Hulu and YouTube in stark contrast against one another in terms of actual usage.  However, it would be a mistake to fail to take into account the fundamental differences between the short form/long-tail (user generated) and long form/short-tail (professionally produced) video viewing experiences – or the fact that we don’t have a truly compelling lean-back device for delivering long-form internet video viewing just yet.  Therefore, it would be a mistake to infer from reports such as this that internet video will remain primarily a short-form UGC medium.

For long-form premium video over the internet, it’s going to take a new generation of device that offers content directly from the couch before we can make any such comparisons.   The user interface on these devices will not be a web-browser, instead it will be simpler and optimized for lean-back media. Companies such as boxee (at left) and Yahoo/Intel are working on just such user interfaces. While I’ve already written a bit on the Yahoo initiative here, Boxee is more recent development. Right now it’s just a Windows/Mac application that aggregates disparate video sources (including Hulu) into a cohesive whole. While that’s pretty cool in itself, what makes Boxee really interesting is that the company plans to bring dedicated set-top Boxee hardware to the market within the next year or so – and in ther meantime, the software can be installed on the Apple TV device today. As I’ve said before, I think the prospect of Boxee on – well, a box – changes everything.

We shall see – but in the meantime, a quick reality check is in order: while well-suited to workplace video snacking, the computer and web browser are inappropriate (and ultimately intermediate) solutions for viewing long-form video – no matter how well-implemented a given website (such as Hulu) happens to be.

There it was. Noticeably forlorn between marketing for Dr. Zizmor skin treatments, ConEdison, and the Apex Technical School, a singular display ad for web darling cnet.com – of all places on New York’s subway, the C train from 186th street to Euclid Ave.

What struck me was the seeming lack of context. I have not seen any other c|net ads anywhere since. Not on the subway or outside.

So what’s the genesis of this oddly-placed ad?

Maybe it was CBS’ recent “digital” c|net acquisition that auto-triggered the new parent’s media agency to spend traditional “analog” ad money on what’s essentially a web-only property.

The big picture: To this day, long held dynamics between brand marketers, agencies, and media outlets continue to dictate where budget flows, and how much.

To that end, despite the significant increase in online ad sales (folk, these Lehman Bros. stats clearly are pre market melt down), brand marketers and their media agencies still are much more comfortable buying traditional marketing spots.

This is where the big budgets go, and with that, buyers’ year-end bonuses.

Hence my assumption: Once c|net became “analog”-owned – swoops – “analog” ad money was automatically allocated for, of all places, what seems to have been a single subway car in New York.

To me anyway, it seems as unusual a choice as somewhat misplaced – as I doubt the subway ad in  question will meaningfully spike “click-thru” for cnet.com.

Not to mention the rather “bland” poster design.

But hey.  Another morning on the subway in New York.

UPDATE

With my recent c|net display ad find, I have started paying more attention to seemingly misplaced ad buying decisions inside hybrid analog / digital media companies.

This one’s with McGraw-Hill’s Business Week magazine and their Technology & You podcast series of which I am a long-held fan.

Tuns out, what started with Intel and Audi branded audio pre-rolls, I am now greeted by, of all things, a pitch for Clinique skin products for men.

How did Steve Wildstrom’s decidedly (great) geeky discussion over the ins and outs of tech topics from Android phones and flash memory, to WiFi vs. WiMAX grab the attention of an ad buyer tasked to sell facial creams?

I want to assume that somehow this checked out as a targeted ad buy; that somehow this all made sense as part of a greater marketing mix.

In the meantime, this day and age, I wonder whether beauty cream products sold during a technology podcast are as smart as giving me diaper ads during The Simpsons or The King of Queens.

I am just not the desired target group.

This day and age, there are better, more targeted technologies to connect me with the right ad.

Why not try it?