TiVo came along and is helping kill the idea of a TV time slot. The growth of on demand online video has been helping finish the job. Cozmo.Tv wants to create a TV 2.0 by changing the way you consume online video from a random walk to personalized content. Next week at Always On, they will officially announce the new embeddable video widget they’ve been working on for the past couple of months. The widget functions like an online TV, streaming channels of personalized video content based on the initial preferences set by the widget publisher and the preferences of the viewer. Publishers seed their widget with the initial channels by adding explicit RSS feeds to video sites or keyword searches run on Cozmo’s video index. Basing channels off of feeds means that a widget can be set up and forgotten, adding content to its channels as new shows appear in the feed. At launch the indexed sites will include videos from YouTube and Blip.tv, but will expand to include Google Video, MySpace, Brightcove, and Break.com. Eventually publishers will also be able to seed their widget with relevant channels by having Cozmo analyze their personal blog or profile page (where most widgets will be installed). The one below is pulling CBS’s YouTube clips along with some others, including a channel of videos you’d find by searching YouTube for kittens. http://cozmo.tv/playerWidget.swf On the viewers end, you can surf over channels or shows and rate them. When you’re signed in, Cozmo tracks how you rate shows and then will suggest the shows on that channel rated highly by other viewers similar to you in voting history and demographic. Cozmo wants to eventually move beyond viral video sites after scaling up the service. They are logging 25,000 uniques to their site each month, but want the upcoming widget to be their main form of distribution. The widget is designed to be a self contained version of Cozmo’s entire offering, allowing users to sign up for accounts, rip the code for the current player, or create their own. The hope is that after building up a network of these widget players, they’ll serve as a direct distribution parter for content creators. Creators and affiliates who distribute the content will get revenue shares of contextual banner and interstitial video ads served on the player. Readers interested in customized online video channels should check out SplashCast’s → Read More
Downloadable television, first made popular by Tivo and its competitors, is compelling stuff. As consumers become accustomed to watching a show whenever they choose, pausing at will and fast tracking through commercials, tuning in to a station at a scheduled broadcast time seems quaint at best. Today, 7% of U.S. households have a digital video recorder, or DVR and most cable companies offer a DVR as an option. File trading networks, such as bittorent, are also extremely popular (if sometimes illegal) choices for consumers wanting access to time-shifted television content. While DVRs are great, content producers and distributors are less than thrilled by the loss in revenue from all those skipped commercials. Also, DVR’d shows cannot be easily transferred to mobile devices or otherwise viewed away from their home television. Some consumers want more flexibility and options. Enter downloadable television, spearheaded by iTunes. On October 12 2005, Apple introduced iTunes 6.0 which added support for purchasing and viewing of video content from the iTunes Music Store. iTunes initially offered a selection of several thousand music videos and five TV shows, including most notably ABC’s Lost and Desperate Housewives, as well as the collection from past seasons. New shows are available 24 hours after the initial broadcast. Since that time, the collection has expanded with NBC Universal, USA Network, Sci-Fi Channel shows, and Viacom, in addition to further Disney-owned networks’ shows. iTunes also gives the ability to view Apple’s large collection of movie trailers. Format for purchased Videos is 128 kbit/s Protected MPEG-4 video. By January 2006, iTunes offered over 40 television shows for download, including, most recently, additions from Nickelodeon, Comedy Central and MTV with episodes of such shows as the Daily Show, Spongebob Squarepants, South Park, and Punk’d. Showtime added some content in February. The networks, though, are hoping that iTunes will not be the only way people watch TV on their computers. CBS, Fox and ABC are all experimenting with their own direct downloads or streaming. ABC ABC is offering streaming versions of a number of its hit shows to viewers within the U.S. for no charge: Lost, Desperate Housewives, Alias, and Commander in Chief. The shows are viewable in 400×700 Flash format. On the plus side, ABC’s offering is browser and platform agnostic, and are free. On the minus side, and these are big ones, you must be online to view the show. You can’t take these → Read More
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