YouTube Goes Long

YouTube has recently formatted all of its video's into wide screen (granting side bars for 4:3 aspect videos... aka most videos) when viewed on YouTube's site. With the flurry of recent changes to the YouTube overall goals this change is not a huge surprise, however the timing of it is.

The recent cooperation with MGM for delivering full length films obviously pits itself against primary competitor Hulu, MGM has stated that we can expected for hits such as the Bond franchise to steer clear of these sites while DVD sales are still doing well.

In short, this basically means that we can expect to be offered poop on a platter (C list films) until the model of digital distribution no longer poses a real "threat" to physical media and that the advertising revenue is there to support such delivery.
However in my own personal opinion, delivering hit movies on YouTube at their "high quality" setting, but not HD and offering affiliate based links to purchasing their physical media through the major sources could prove as an amazing way of natural promotion for already hit titles.

New Live Brand: Kumo?

Microsoft loves online services. So much so that it just can't seem to figure out what the hell to call any of them! This with be the second rebranding experience that users will have to endure of rumors hold true of them renaming their Live Search as "Kumo".
While marketers for ages have used the trick of "rebranding" to help shake past stigma about a particular product/service or to reignite interest amongst users through a retro appeal, this Kumo rename just feels to groundless.

Let's take a look at the landscape for Microsoft right now. Vista = terrible rap, so I get why they are calling the next iteration Windows 7 when, in all reality, it is more like Vista 2nd Edition. However changing the brand of their search engine just doesn't seem like it would have the effectiveness that Microsoft is looking to use in order to break the market share stagnation that has overshadowed them. The real key to their success, especially if they are choosing to rebrand is not simply just a new name. It really needs to be the whole new product that a separate brand name leads you to assume.

They need to fix their results to react to users who are used to working with Google, so that when you use terms more suited for the Google brain, it makes for an easy transition of users to the new services.

The second major thing to drive market share is to upgrade the level of standardization and ease of use to their Live! Search Cash Back program that users have when setting up a free Hotmail account. This model of rewarding users for choosing particular retailers for a product is the sugar for our new advertising kool-aid. Once this can become a mindless task for users to save money by going through certain routines, you then have clients instead of just visitors.

The Open Source IPTV?

With heavyweights like Hulu slugging it out for online advertising dollars in the joint venture between NBC and Fox the quest for the ultimate consumer video portal is still on.
A lot of noise noise been made about the open source interface known as
Boxee which offers a mashup of all the big names (sans drm options) as well as local media including NAS support and nearly every codec under the sun. They are offering invite based rollouts each monday; however with the pent up demand for their product the wait list is gasping for air. So if you are looking for a clean interface on your mac, pc, Linux box or Apple TV head on over to Boxee to give it a whirl.

Boxee

Why Purely Digital Content is Stammering Around

If anybody plans on succeeding as a content provider with increasing customer demands, they are going to have to offer centralized content storage with a Sync between all the devices in that customers portfolio with varying qualities to match each offering. This would not only give the customer what they want (without the need to break the DRM that exists on much of today's most desirable content) but it would also help keep that customer for life in regards to buying your hardware if it links with your content management system better than anybody else. (a la Apple thus far)

What is seriously lacking, and why nobody has really taken off in the digital download space (HD video especially)is that consumers don't really have a central store to keep their content and be able to access it across all of their devices in a resolution that is fitting for each one.

For example, as a consumer I should be able to purchase a media "license" as to which I decided the highest quality variable when purchased (influenced by price) and should be able to stream the highest quality to my HDTV, a standard res to my desktop/laptop environment, as well as a lower resolution to my mobile/ipod device.

I should be able to select what types of media are physically on each device, as well as at least have the option of streaming content when I am on my own local network, if not stream my media over the web through something like Mobile Me. A great application of this would be if I am on a business trip and I would like to watch some fresh content that has downloaded to my home media server, I should be able to stream that via a web interface of some kind on my laptop given it has a fast enough connection.
This digital ownership of licenses would give way for license upgrades that would make for a much lower total cost of ownership for consumers and speed adoption rates when higher and higher quality options present themselves.

As it is right now, a customer who bought a new title on DVD for $20, the DVD player for $100 is now faced with the next medium of Blu-ray with media fetching $35, and players going for well over $200.

Imagine if you were able to consolidate this cost into a media server/Time Capsule type device and then manage your digital content lifestyle from one jumping point. Something like Time Capsule really presents itself as a candidate as if offer Draft N wireless (fast enough for higher resolution media), connected to the internet, and has expandable storage through high capacity external hard drives.

The problem here really lies with no content owner (Sony pictures etc.) wanting to give up control over their licensing rights and letting any single provider develop such a solution to completely deliver on customer needs. While Apple does dance around a Monopoly with their iTunes/iPod ecosystem, the reality is that it has WORKED for consumers, and that is why it has done so well. It is something reliable, and they have offered legal ways to upgrade your audio for those who purchased media through them before the higher fidelity was available, instead of forcing a straight rebuy for all of their customer base.

This type of solution is the ultimate successor to the physical medium (vhs, dvd, bluray...) and is what will ultimately be necessary in the coming age of digital downloads. If you have any additional thoughts, please feel free to voice them in the comments as I love hearing feedback from all of you!

Advertising Paradigm Video

Windows Live! Mail Receives a Facelift

Some users are reporting an updated interface for their hotmail accounts which Microsoft touts as not only being cleaner, but providing up to a 70% quicker experience for those still using Redmond's free offering (as opposed to GMail). This parallels the move for more cloud services offered my Microsoft as they appear to capitalize on strategic business units (SBU's)to actually innovate and justify each product offering they have.
Combine this with their Windows Azure, upcoming Windows 7 and its tight integration with web services and Microsoft might actually have a fighting chance to regain the slippage in market share that they have recently endured in both platform and in the search space.

Mobile Me: 50% Off!

Love it or hate it, it's hard to argue with a good deal (in comparison anyways). Right now through Amazon (although shipped by a 3rd party) you can pick up a 1 year subscription to Mobile Me for only $49.99, while some of you may be yawning right now this indicates a significant discount over retail, and even bests the price Apple offers when bundled with a new Mac (usually $69.99 bundle price, $99.99 retail)

Check it out below if you are interested in picking up the real deal (assuming you are on the trial period) or are just looking to renew as I am your current account!

Mobile Me on the cheap!

Affiliate Dream Tool?

Google's seemingly random additions to their GMail offering have blessed us with a new feature that will be useful for techs and affiliates alike, as well as any help desk type situation. Their "canned responses" bring to the table something that is kind of a duh! feature.
It offers the ability to paste in common responses which will be excellent for help desk activities that come across the same and/or similar issues for their client base. Affiliate marketers will probably be the ones in practice who use this feature the most seeing as you can have automated responses based on keywords etc. So this basically offers a clean auto responder that will be hugely effective when you direct users to put specific titles in the e-mail headline.
I personally find the most amusing point of this feature is how polarized it appears when compared to the GMail goggles that are supposed to make it harder for people to send out those canned responses and/or late night drunken confession :)