+ 2008 Political Season Opens

Today I’ve been looking through some old posts and articles about Rocketboom’s relationship to John Edwards. This follows an active discussion on Dave Winer’s friendfeed. This was a regular talking point to the press and we have also disclosed this before on Rocketboom. Once again the famous question arises: Is Rocketboom journalism?

Nicco Mele from an earlier Dembot post on politics.

With regards to politics, no way in hell. Rocketboom is very biased. Hear that McCain? You are not going to get any fair coverage on Rocketboom. If McCain wins the election, America will be doomed.

What I did disclose is that my interest in politics is not to report on politicians (there is a lot of that already), but to allow them to report themselves. To enable them to use the technology to get out their message. After this devastating blow from the news that John Edwards had an affair and chose to run and hide, my distaste for politics returns. 

+ SONY PICTURES ACQUIRES EXCLUSIVE WORLDWIDE CROSS PLATFORM DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS TO ROCKETBOOM

THE AUDIENCE

When Rocketboom first got started at the end of 2004, and especially during the years of 2005 and 2006, every-time we put a video up online, people were amazed just by the act. “Hey! Come check this out!”, a 9-to-5er would shout out across the office and soon several people were huddling around a monitor saying things like “Wow, check out those kids with a video camera out on the street in New York. They are filming a rock and putting it up online, can you believe it??”

It didn’t take much to appease the audience back then. You didn’t need much, you just needed to show up. Being at the right place at the right time had so much to do with Rocketboom’s early success. At first sight, Rocketboom wasn’t about the content for most people, it stood as a symbol for the democratization of media and the almost instant realization that disruption and major change in the world was inevitable.

The excitement and power of this independent spirit is exactly the fire that fueled me personally and continues to fuel me today. I do think its part of the quintessential essence of the Rocketboom brand and many others out there.

However, that is only one part of the story and one part is often not enough. People may have been distracted, but they really did care about the content. A rock was enough to look at in the begging but there needed to be more and this has always been our greatest challenge: How do we get the content to be better?

And the world has changed since way back when. The Numa Numa kid is still a good smirk but its just not funny anymore. Neither is the 100th Leave Britney Alone parody that you cracked up at last year (granted, this is still pretty funny) - and as you may suspect, the hyperbole surrounding the free ability to podcast, videoblog and in general publish and distribute video to the world with the touch of a button is an old story now. It’s not a miracle or something. Can you even remember what the internet was like before video? 

THE MARKET

Once the show had grown large enough, we set out to find a marketplace and there was nothing. Then we ran out of money. So we experimented.  Over time we got a pretty well rounded set of experiences on the internal ad sales front - eBay auctions for ad space, creating ads ourselves, sponsorship programs, non-exclusive sales agents, inserting pre-made ads, major ad sales directly with advertisers, ad sales via traditional media-buyers, even anti-ad sales.

While related, ad sales is a very different business than content production. It was fun to play, and it’s extremely supportive, but distracting to the primary mission of Rocketboom and our team’s talents. Every moment we spent on ads was a moment lost on the content. We wanted to interface with ads in some way, but  why not leave this job up to people who have a passion for it? There are MANY people out there thinking about this already.

We then tried plugging into a 3rd party option. We tried start-up ad companies like Federated Media and blip.tv and refused to go exclusive with anyone for a long term without some kind of guarantee. And no one was ready because no one could sell out our inventory across all of our platforms (e.g. our own video formats plus videos on You-Tube and TiVo, etc.). It tends to require managing multiple accounts and methods and no one has been able to handle selling ads across all of our platforms except us. :( For a good enough deal that is :)

THE COURTS

If you ever stop over for a chat, remind me to show you a video I still have on my Nokia N-95 walking into the Supreme Court in New York to save the future of Rocketboom. 

From Newteevee:

“Note: We have not yet found record of a lawsuit in which Congdon is named as a primary plaintiff, but documents from 2007 indicate that she filed motion in a New York court to be recognized as co-owner of Rocketboom and was denied.”

Having been completely and utterly stuck for almost two years by the courts without being able to accept any investment offers or other equitable partnerships to grow Rocketboom at all, we have since been frozen like ice… and without any additional resources to grow. 

THE NETWORKS

Meanwhile… others did obtain investment, leveraging their hit shows into networks. Revision3 which was spawned from the major Digg hit Diggnation has raised around $10 Million dollars and Next New Networks which spawned from the early itunes cartoon hit, Frederator, has already done $23M in investment. While these networks have provided immense value for the growing transitioning space, they are all controlled now by venture capitalists which tend to have as their primary objective, a sale. This is not to undermine the importance of the content and the mission of each of the new networks, nor does this in anyway, I hope, kill the spirit for the people there including the VC’s themselves. I’ve been studying them all closely and often write about them here. 

Robert Sociable for example, who probably thinks I’m his worst critic (even though he is a great inspiration to me) leveraged his experience videoblogging for Microsoft’s Channel-9 to start up Podtech. Did Podtech burn thorough too much too soon? Ad revenue has been spotty for most companies over the last few years and many start-ups anticipated that they would be able to justify high CPM ad revenue right away, on a large scale, with many hit shows, and a cherry on top. Podtech recently sold for used parts and the Scobleizer left to start yet another new network, Fastcompanay.tv. 

Aside from the hit shows which have spawned the networks, most of the other shows on these networks have not lived up to their predecessors, content-wise, and new shows are often canceled soon after they are launched. This may be an indication of content quality more-so than a pre-profit phase of a nascent marketplace.

FREEDOM

Upon becoming free to make a move, we signed up with Creative Artists, and engaged in months of talks about possible partnerships with traditional Hollywood companies as well as an amazing amount of non-media oriented businesses moving into the media space, and eventually got a very good sense of what Rocketboom is worth, what our options were and what we wanted to do to move forward.

Relevant to Rocketboom’s business, there are “kinds” of companies that could provide a strategic partnership for Rocketboom like Google, Ebay and Microsoft, for instance, which dominate in tech online, or companies like CBS, ABC and Disney, which are known for TV Broadcast and Film, or even companies like Apple and Intel which produce electronics that receive our distribution.

We were compelled by Sony because they are a complete package. They have so much experience in all of these special areas. With regards to infrastructure and support, they are industry leaders in TV and Film, electronics, gaming, music, the list goes on all the way to the advertising infrastructure that is already well established. 

In other-words, instead of gaining capital to burn while continuing to build or seek an advertising solution, we now have one of the most prominent advertising solutions out there, along with increased distribution, a road map for expansion and a guarantee that I believe is an unprecedented deal for this space.

I owe this partnership to the vision and understanding of Michael Arrieta at Sony Pictures. Ive heard a lot of plans from a lot of companies and I believe Mike’s vision to distribute Superman quality video online across multiple platforms is brilliant. The future he has in mind for Crackle, and the way Rocketboom will soon be integrated into the PS3, PSP, Bravia i-Link and their syndicated network of 3rd party distributors - all the while leaving the distribution that we have intact - is a future with the resources - finally! - to improve our content and expand upon it.

Having run out of money twice this year while risking everything to make this the best distribution and advertising deal ever, for here we stand still independent and in control of our business and our editorial, I want to thank Joanne, Kenyatta, Elspeth, Jamie, Sarah, Liz and all of our editors for making it through you are the reason why Rocketboom made it here.

And finally thanks to everyone who has watched and everyone who has ever offered us support or been inspired by what we are doing - even if it was sucking really bad - we’ll be here for you!

 [end with cheesy news music and then out]

SONY PICTURES TELEVISION ACQUIRES EXCLUSIVE WORLDWIDE CROSS PLATFORM DISTRIBUTION RIGHTS TO ROCKETBOOM.COM - full release

Discussion:
Rocketboom Inks Seven-Figure Distribution Deal With Sony - TechCrunch
Tom / TomsTechBlog.com:   The Mathematics Of An Internet Phenomenon Ben Homer / Online Video Watch:   Rocketboom Gets Big Dollar Distribution Deal From Sony Andy Merrett / The Blog Herald:   Sony Pictures Television gets exclusive distribution rights to Rocketboom
Comments On Twitter 
www.rocketboom.com

+ AT&T Small Business Support is Hell!

I’ve had to deal with customer service reps on utilities for my whole life and its like going to jail almost every time. Its become a way of life so I dont feel the pain anymore. However I just want to say AT&T, your small business customer service is the worst I have ever seen without a doubt. I mean rock bottom hell in the depths of hell. I have never felt hate in my life but I can imagine it’s caused by you. Regardless of the “wonderful technology” you bring, the amount of bad karma you have going as a company must be so high, even Cheech and Chong would be amazed. Today, after 2 dead-ends by other reps, we finally got to a line manager who was likely hired as a sophist who admitted to improperly destroying all of the voice mail but wouldn’t “admit” to it, if you know what I mean? I’m especially tired of the amount of time I’ve wasted on it. Everytime I feel completely hopeless like this is what it takes to have an iPhone and all I can do is speak to the wind with a lost blog post. Now I’m locked into a 2 year contract to deal with their Hell. If you are listening, AT&T, give me a call. Everytime I see your logo, I just think of fire:

There is a lot of related discussion of AT&T going on over on Techmeme, here are some links:

AT&T: ‘We’re all about wireless’  — DALLAS — Wonder why the smoking-hot 3G Apple iPhone only costs $199, less than half the price of the original?  Because AT&T slashed their support staff in half. Just kidding. Here’s a two-word hint: Randall Stephenson.  — Stephenson, who became AT&T’s (T) chairman and CEO a year ago, championed the idea of paying Apple for the customer support but decided eventually to make the customers pay. Ha, ha, just kidding about that too but I can imagine what it would be like.

Discussion: Insanely Great Mac, TechCrunchIT, Apple iPhone Apps, Epicenter, The iPhone Blog, Silicon Alley Insider, InformationWeek, mocoNews.net, Engadget, Macsimum News andFierceWireless RELATED: MG Siegler / 

VentureBeat: AT&T iPhone deal extended to 2010.  Did Apple mortgage its future for a subsidy? Or did ATT&T morgage it’s future on a new menu selection which has no option for an operator?

Discussion: VoIP & Gadgets Blog and TECH.BLORGE.com Don Reisinger / The Digital Home: Apple extends contract with AT&T, forgets about youSomebody had to take the heat for AT&T.

Discussion: Electronista, Robert Seidman and MacRumors

+ Video FIle Format Evolution on Rocketboom

Jamie was doing some site upgrades and sent over this list to reminisce:

• MPEG4 Quicktime in Oct 2004
  
• WMV in Nov 2004
  
• 3gp in May 2005
  
• MPEG2 for TiVo in Dec 2005
  
• MP4 for PSP in Feb 2006
  
• WMV-hi res in Feb 2006
  
• iHD in July 2007
  
• Flash in Sept 2007
  
• 3gp small  Feb 2008
  

Interesting how late the Flash intergaration was. When RB started in 2004, flash was being used by the MSM sites but it was not working at all for most people. It took forever to buffer and browser plugins often did not sync-up. Meanwhile the size was usually about 80 x 240.

Real player was kind of the go-to name but was clunky, buggy and also considered by many to be very aggressive malware. 

We just added a new file last week that we upload each day which is a private 1080i master compressed with H.264 at a whopping 10,000 kb/sec.

+ DIY Gary Vaynerchuk E-Mail Filter

Have you ever emailed Gary Vaynerchuk? We exchange a fair amount of emails and every time I email him, I get this auto-responder back:

Hey, here’s a link that will explain everything!

http://tv.winelibrary.com/garyvs-inbox

Thank you
Gary Vaynerchuk 

It turns out that link has never explained anything and I asked him to remove me from his diss-list, but I just kept getting them. 

So back in June, I decided to take matters into my own hands to resolve the issue and came up with a method that works quite nicely. So I thought would share my experiences here with others who may suffer from the same problem.

For a good way to manage your email with Gary V., just create a filter in your mail program to let Gary know how you would feel about seeing his auto emails (I say “would” as in past-tense because soon you wont be seeing them any more).

Below, you can see I have used Apple Mail to set up a complex filter that engages in a series of consecutive causal events. First and foremost the email must be clearly distinguished from other emails that may cary the same identity. I immediately noticed a pattern in the subject line: “Thanks for the email click the link”. 

Once the offensive, cold and brute email was identified, I called up another action to get the email immediately into the trash before considering another step. If all else fails, at least I have the peace of mind to know that the terrible and brash circumstance is now over.

While most people would probably not prefer this next step, I chose to hear the sound of a blow, just so I know.

Then I set up my mail filter to return an email back to Gary which I consider to be somewhat of a good samaritan type of measure so that Gary can truely understand the significance of his email auto-responder.



Kenyatta on the other hand has gone totally nuts:


Gary, if you’re watching this…. from yatta on Vimeo.

*Update:

Gary’s Out Of Office Reply from Rex Sorgatz on Vimeo. 

**Update2:

Yo Gary V, if you’re watching this video…from Drew O.

+ Dr. Horrible - Hollywood's First Title?

In giving an overview of festivities last week at the San Diego Comic-con, Joshua Cohen over at Tilzy.TV pointed out the good news that Dr. Horrible has scheduled a sequel. Still trying to get to the bottom of the history of the people behind this (I’m kinda out of the loop here because this is coming out of a Hollywood traditon), I’ve found most people know Josh Whedon of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I saw this once before and have to say it was really cheesy but I think that’s why people like it so much?

Anyway, even without knowing all of this, the other day I sent out a tweet asking people to tweet me back with their favorite new shows and several people responded with Dr. Horrible. I went right over to check it out and it was REALLY AWESOME, a rare gem in the ruff.

After just 5 seconds including the introduction, and by the time I saw the main character laughing, it was clear that this group was on to something that would really work and I think it did.

When I was reading Josh’s Tilzy.TV post, I found he articulated an historical moment:

“Marshall Herskovitz’s Quaterlife was supposed to be the internet’s first blockbuster, but then people watched the show and things didn’t exactly go as planned. Now, thanks to Whedon’s talent, connections, financial resources, and obsessive fan base, it looks like Dr. Horrible will claim the title. Those same attributes will also lead to more hits from Whedon and inspire Old Hollywood elites in similar positions to give the web a serious look.”

(*noticing also that Techcrunch is reporting today that Dr. Horrible is the first group on Hulu to allow international embeds. Ive written several times before about how much it hurts everyone to be so nationalistic).

+ Embedding is not Aiding and Abetting

I found a story on Webpronews today about a couple of sites that are being sued for copyright infringement by way of embedding. Just like we all expect free air to breathe, we take it as a fundamental right of the web, based on the technical definition of what the web is, to be able to use the technology to create links. Embedding is the same as linking. If I provide a link to illegal content, like an awesome Beatles song that anyone can listen to for free right here, its up to the host server at the link’s destination to remove that content (in this case, YouTube), not mine. I am not hosting it. Im just pointing to it. If they remove it, it will render my link instantly useless. The same goes for embedding. The moment YouTube removes the video, this embed will become empty:

+ Tube Mogul Top 40 List Updated

Major shake-up on the TubeMogul 40 list. Rocketboom drops 4 points, remains ahead of Warner Brother, PBS, Sony Pictures and MTV. Fred takes top spot. Beet.tv makes a showing. Uptake is in the house. CBS falls off the list. 

Rank/User

1 Fred
2 Next New Networks
3 Howcast
4 Beet TV
5 Big Pictures UK
6 Chris Pirillo
7 Ford Models
8 The Uptake
9 Media Zone
10 Free Press
11 New Media Strategies
12 BMW Web TV
13 Buzz Is Media
14 Freemantle Media
15 Ripped Abs Fast
16 Drop Kick MonKey
17 National Lampoon
18 RocketBoom
19 VirtualNet
20 Unruly Media
21 Voce Communications
22 iJustine
23 Somagirls.tv
24 Sony Pictures
25 RDF Media Group
26 Beach Walks With Rox
27 MMA-Core
28 Average Betty
29 Psyche Truth
30 Mahalo Daily
31 PBS
32 JumpOff.tv
33 Rhett and Link
34 EMI Music
35 Watch Mojo
36 MTV
37 Nuclear Blast Records
38 Cynopsis
39 Way To Blue
40 Warner Brothers

+ CPMs for Online Video Lookin Good

Look ma, a new report is circulating which suggests there is good money to be made in online video. The conclusion is that CPM’s for video are high. For the noobs, CPM means cost per thousand - how much money an advertiser pays for every 1000 views, for instance. According to the report the average $’s range from $40 per thousand on pro long-form content, to $20 for short-form pro content, down to $17 for UGC. 

Thus, if you have a million views per week, and sell ads for a $20CPM, for instance, that’s $20k per week and about $1,000,000 per year.

If you can then grow your audience size to 2M per week, without a lot of additional resources, thats obviously twice as much, or $2M/year for that one set of views.

These CPM’s are similar to what is sold on TV in the U.S. A $25 CPM for a TV show is okay. The only problem of course is the amount of money it takes to produce a TV show cuts into the profit margins when compared.

The original epiphany that I had personally when I thought of Rocketboom, was exactly this simple formula. If TV shows are getting a CPM worth $25 then a lot of online video will be greater than $25 because the advertising can be targeted, searched, tracked and played on demand.

A production that costs almost nothing to make, reaching hundreds of thousands or millions of people can thus lead to a massive profit margin. Accordingly, TV Week refers to web tv as a silver lining.

+ Podtech Sells for $500k on $7M Investment, Investors Buy New Pair of Sox

Venturebeat has the scoop.

Why do Video networks fail again? My original post on Podtech from almost exactly a year ago on why it didnt seem as though Podtech would be making it:

http://www.dembot.net/013977.html

In short, they first came out of the stables thinking that building a studio ad network would be a no brainer and spent over $7M building out shows and an ad sales department. Not only were they too soon and up against too much compeition on the ad sales side, they didnt have anyone in the network who could identify what good content was.

+ The New Video Editor

Remember when it used to cost $25,000 for a 3-5 page html website for your business? And now it costs about $25? The same thing is happening in video editing. 

Even as recently as five years ago, most people without extraordinary resources or time could not be involved in video due to the expensive processing speeds, software and other hardware required to get started. Of course that’s all changed and the barrier to entry is really low.

After editing almost all of the first year of Rocketboom myself, I knew that editing was the first creative job I had to get out of. For me personally, it wasn’t what I was meant to do. I still do do it from time to time but it takes me a really long time and it’s pretty draining. I still use iMovie when I can. [Aside: Blush]

One thing that is important to know about creative artists is that the time they spend “on” or in creative mode, can easily lead to twice the exhaustion of most other work which is typically linear and not “mentally intense”. Editing is a very creative job and requires allot of focus for a long period of time, especially due to the complexity of options and the amount of steps it takes to try an option at every moment.

What I immediately found a few years ago was that most editors who were fast with Final Cut and had a few years of work experience were asking $250/hour but would settle for $150/hour because they were “inbetween gigs”. This is really another world and we’ve never been able to pay those rates. I knew it would take most editors 3 to 4 hours at least, that would be over $1000 a day, sometimes $2000 or more on complicated episodes.

After working with over literally dozens of editors now, having tried to work with dozens more, it’s extremely difficult to find a creative editor. Pretty much anyone can do the edit, but not very many people can be really creative.

Nevertheless, there are so many people now that edit because it’s accessible to have an editing system (i.e. a laptop and final cut pro) that the drop in pay for editors has gone way done. Way down.  Editors are still out there charging $250/hr but they are competing with editors who will work for $25/hr [NY/LA]

This is bitter and sweet. Of course it really sucks for the professional editors who have spent their lifetimes editing because their value has gone down. While some pro editors enjoy earnings well beyond any figures I’ve mentioned here, there are only just a few of them in work. 

On the other hand it’s sweet because this means that more people have access to the medium to utilize it for all kinds of positive purposes and essentially there are more people working with video in the world.

So being a master at Final Cut Pro is allot like being a master at programming in HTML. That’s really great that you can do it, but not all that outstanding or rare. The editors who are the most creative and always pushing the boundaries may earn the highest value.

With regards to video startups, opportunities for editors to become a part of the company are becoming more and more common where the incentive is based more on stock options than actual project royalties or work-for-hire fees only.

Interesting consequences of a growing and changing new media work force.

+ More Videoblogging

That is, more blogging about video to come. I’ve been so busy writing for Rocketboom, and also microblogging with Twitter and Friendfeed, blogging has taken the brunt. Unfortunately, from where I left off long ago, the independent spirit of the independent online video medium is losing it’s way. The environment has changed drastically over the last couple of years. The word “vlog” is as dead as doornail. Most independents are not making it with $. Madison avenue is in turmoil. So many people who try to create content are not creating a spark in audiences. International work is almost ignored in the US. Some of greatest content on YouTube will never be seen, the indie networks are not offering enough for most of the artists and work force they employ and awesome new content offerings are far and few between.

I’ve stood by no less guilty, silent. In many ways, tethered. No more, I have so much to say, I’m going to get it all out here. I’ll do my best to remain focused on the important topics, give you my critical opinion, and I’m going to try my best to be much more prolific. 

As I have recently said, Rocketboom just got over our biggest hump ever. We have had an amazing time experimenting with adverting and alternative methods of generating revenue and as of a couple of weeks ago, we engaged in an incredibly awesome relationship that assures our sustainability and gives us a chance to grow. I’m SO READY to get the details of this news out to you and start talking about it because I believe its an unprecedented deal for a business like Rocketboom and stands to open up a lot of discussion.

Until then and after, I have plenty to elaborate on here with the above statements and plenty more… this weblog to be revived, coming now to a feed near you.

+ Friendfeed's User base now about Half that of Twitter's

I have almost exactly half the followers on FF as I do on Twitter too.

For people who still only use Twitter and may feel overwhelmed or too exhausted to try a new platform, yesterday I left a Tweet with a good “introductory” example (just one) of how the experience can be much richer on FF:

http://twitter.com/andrewbaron/statuses/850845463

Imagine that instead of your announcement being a single Tweet, like the one above with nothing else attached to it, your announcement can take this form on the page:

http://friendfeed.com/e/0f84df8a-1548-4cc2-a1d6-86ee6b6daeaf/Comet-Between-Fireworks-and-Lightning/

+ The Year The Election was Won Online?

Will the internet have an effect on the US presidential election of 2008?

The 2004 election saw a major change with the internet involved. For the first time ever, micro-donations made a difference and got noticed. The conversation online was rampant. People were screaming. I was so overly optimistic, I spent most of my time looking out to the rest of the world online knowing that people around the Earth who could not vote, could still influence voters.

But unfortunately, it wasnt JibJab, blogs, Howard Dean or anyone else online that decided the election in 2004, it was the TV commercials in rural America that played the greatest influence. And all that was required to win the most TV commercials was winning the most money.

The people who actually went out to vote were the people in small towns who didint know what a blog was and mostly didnt spend time online - they were not connected.

At the time, a survey estimated that 44% of US households were well connected whereas today, four years later, the number has grown only 13% to 57% [via]. The majority of these people are in the smaller towns.

While playing a large role, I’m inclined to believe that Sillicon Valley did not elect Obama, but that Obama truly represents the goodness and change that we all need so much after eight full years of intense damage by the worst president in the history of the world. The primary election was likely won by Democrats in all walks of life, but this has little to do with the greater Republican fight. 

Now its time to win the election and it’s the people in the small towns that matter the most.

For the last several elections, an overwhelming majority of all cities in the US with a population over 500,000 voted Democrat and almost all that were under 500,000 voted Republican [via].

The 2008 Election will be different but will it be different enough? Broadband pentration has slowed in reaching the smaller towns. Perhaps the youngest of the generations in the small towns are connecting, but perhaps they are too young to vote, and those that are older enough, may not actually make it out to the polls.

In otherwords, just because it seems obvious that the Democrats should win, it’s not going to be easy.