Revver - online video sharing network reviewed

Revver

1) the financial model & terms of payment
50/50 split with Revver (40% of gross)

*a unique feature of Revver gives 20 percent of the revenue from videos you've shared (on, say, your Revver page or a personal blog) even if they're not yours; the remaining 80 percent is split evenly between the video's creator and Revver.

*as Revver embraces endroll rather than preroll, viewers do need to view the entirety of your clip whereas with other networks it is sometimes measured on streams initiated.

*You cannot opt out of advertising.

2) rights required

- Online via the revver site and affiliate/distribution sites (ie anyone who embeds the player);
- Broadcast via cable, satellite, digital television, video, laser disc, DVD, CD Rom and motion picture where over the air, wireless or in - hard copy distribution.
- Mobile and other handheld devices

3) standard of producer (ie is the content filtered/unfiltered)
A person does review content for suitability – there doesn’t appear to be a ‘taste’ or ‘judgment’ filter/criteria.

4) level of active promotion of content
(ie what is the network offering your individual show/program for your involvement)
None promised – but there are ‘featured collections’, featured producers and featured sites on the Revver landing page.

5) professional development opportunities
None promised.

6) reach of the network/site (how many users, streams, uniques etc)
TBA

7) term of engagement, and termination
Term ongoing unless ended by producer/Revver, terminable at will.

8) representations and warranties required
Full responsibility for content

9) Usability
What are the file formats/size restrictions, and general ease of use in upload

10) transparency of service
(with respect to metrics and web analytics made available to producer)

QUICK ROUNDUP

File size/length limits - 100MB/Any length
Storage limit per user - Unlimited
Acceptable file types and formats for upload - QuickTime, MPEG, .mpg, .mp4, .wmv, .asf, .avi (including DivX), .3gp, .3g2
Site converts files to: - QuickTime and Flash 8, resized to 480 by 360 pixels; 3:2 and 16:9 resolutions also accepted, but letterboxed
Video sharing options (social networking) - Embedded video code (Flash and QuickTime, with and without JavaScript); page/profile permalink; one-click email, IM, social networking links; RSS feed, customizable Revver embedded video link widget
Support for upload via cell phone - No
Ability to make videos private - No
High-definition support - No
Online video editing capabilities - No
Supports playlist creation - Yes
Supports customizable user channel/profile page - Yes

Online Video Monetization – portals, networks and aggregators reviewed for the net video producer

For an online content producer, there are a growing number of portal sites, online video networks and content aggregators who are in the business of monetization of video on the net.

Most adhere to an advertising based model, and range from paying a flat out CPM, to advertising revenue share, to nothing at all. Over the next week, we will be doing a round-up of some of the best (and worst) propositions for the independent online video producer, and see how they all stack up against each other with regard to the following:

1) the financial model & terms of payment
(terms of the offer)
2) rights required
3) standard of producer (ie is the content filtered/unfiltered)
4) level of active promotion of content
(ie what is the network offering your individual show/program for your involvement)
5) professional development opportunities
6) reach of the network/site (how many users, streams, uniques etc)
7) term of engagement, and termination
8) representations and warranties required
9) Usability
What are the file formats/size restrictions, and general ease of use in upload
10) transparency of service
(with respect to metrics and web analytics made available to producer)

The networks and portals that will go under the radar include: Blip.tv, revver, brightcove, veoh, joost and babelgum among others. If there are any that you're particularly interested in, post a comment and let me know.

mobiDOCS: Confessions in a Digital Age. Ten filmmakers. Two continents. BLT4WIRELESS.

mobiDOCS: Confessions in a Digital Age. Ten filmmakers. Two continents. BLT4WIRELESS.

will the real 'new media' please stand up?

Because if I have to go to one more panel discussion where a bunch of the most powerful media figures sit there scratching their head as they decry the lack of direction and useful prediction in the online and cross platform space, I am going to chew my arm off.

Seriously.

Like last Friday, I'm at the New York Television Festival panel discussion for Network Building on the Web. And it's amazing - sitting up there is what I believe to be one of the greatest media minds of our time, Fred Siebert. Currently of Next New Networks, he's sharp-witted and sharp tongued, at once needing to be heard and deliciously irreverent. And yes, even he admits that we are all still in the 'testing phase'. Beside him is Simon Asaad, one of the founding fathers of heavy.com - another startup that I believe to be among the most savvy in the whole 'monetize through advertising and build a self sustaining model' game. Whilst he does not admit to being similarly baffled (there is a heartening variety of smugness deployed by the Australian, as he sits up there proclaiming with wonder that his coolness filter is still 'the kind of stuff that personally cracks me up'), it is clear that a few false moves and his venture, too, could still come toppling down.

ON Networks - in support of....

I watch a heckuva lot of online video in a day, and I have to say that most of it - I'm talking at least 80-90% of it - really should self destruct in 30 seconds like the piece of paper Inspector Gadget's mission was written on (remember Chief Quimby? Hunh).

So when I stumbled across the ON Networks portal, I was pretty slow to watch the shows they represent. Once bitten, twice shy and I was justifiably skeptical.

But then pleasantly, pleasantly surprised. And again. And again.

ON Networks houses about 25 original shows, in various lengths ranging from about 3mins up to 10 mins (ten minutes, you say? Well yeah, it is on the looooong side, but the show in question is a really vibrant string of musical interludes called 'Dinner with the Band', and the minutes do fly by...)

Among my favorites are Proper Ollie (where a foppish Brit propounds on such important modern issues as cellphone etiquette as he sips tea):

Backpack Picnic (the 'let's kill science' erm... killed me)

and Searchin' USA (a funny show about the quirky things we search for on the internet)


Check it. Seriously. And tell me whatcha reckon. It seems like a pretty viable alternative to the plethora of destination sites that keep cropping up, and the quality control on their shows is high. Compared even to a babelgum or joost it rates pretty well (at least you don't have to download an entire application to your desktop and then keep updating it - duh!), and is definitely a time saving alternative to daily doses of black20 or any other number of limited release programming by small providers who lack the scale and the infrastructure to keep increasing appetites afloat...

the other players in the space worthy of note are heavy and next new networks - both of whom have a pretty different approach to content and to merchandising. But more of that later.

myspace tv - afterworld

When I heard about the 130 part series 'Afterworld' to be shown concurrently on a destination site and on myspace tv, I immediately rushed to check it. I believe the future of online video - at least in as much as it will compete with more traditional forms of longer programming - lies in episodic bites that keep you coming back for more. Imagine something as catchy as entourage, with the emotional investment made possible only with the amazing writing and execution of a show like the Sopranos, or Six Feet Under? Even something with as many obvious flaws as NBC's heroes, if bottled into online form and with the same amount of technically flawed but nevertheless effective story hooks, could possibly do the trick.

So a cataclysmic show about survival after the end of the world? YES! You scream. Hell yes.

Or not.

I mean, to be fair, it's watchable. Clicking on the play button and what follows does not directly make me want to kill myself, or bill the misguided producer/creators for wasted seconds of my precious life.

But the derivative writing (where the story is told in retrospect for some bizarre reason), the forcibly emotive voice over, and the stiff graphics with occasional movement of machinima esque bodily parts all culminate into not much doing. The fact that there was a typo on the Japanese Hiroshima survivor's name didn't help.

And do we really need to hear

'my name is Russel Shoemaker. I sold technology to the world. Back when there was technology, and people to sell it to...'

as a preface to each show?

It's like, we get it. We understand the premise, we know who you are, can we please move on and quit wasting valuable time that could be spent watching some guy on youtube castrate himself with a can opener? The next viral video, man...

I'm at episode 11 so with an open mind let the count down begin.

Peace.

Digital Distribution - the new wild west

The future of cinema and distribution of long form content is far from clear.

feels now more like a land grab over rapidly decreasing and devalued real estate.

Studios are thinking about how to extend the brand, with all of the majors launching their own interactive and new media arms. FIM, CBS Interactive, NBC Digital spring immediately to mind, as well as the mysterious News Corp/NBC joint initiative, the yet to be named (newsite?) digital distribution monster machine.


will the advertising model work? pre roll, bost roll, banner ad, or the cool slidey things that they do on heavy.com (who I think by the way are among the best at making the advertising thing, well, tolerable)

or is branded content the way to go? Let's face it, some of those filmy short ads these days are better than the best short content.

examples abound. Check out my playlist on youtube for some of my faves.... or, if you want to go to the blog that I think caps it perfectly in terms of advertising, check out yves' latest thoughts on right-half chow

A new kind of audience participation

So this is touted as being for armchair fans everywhere... and for WOMEN everywhere. (OK so now I'm gonna get stoned by those of the femme species that LOVE sitting through games with the girls or with their man... apologies to you, just speaking for me, and for me, sitting through some live sports matches is a unique kind of death craving experience).

BT have just announced a new technology developed to remove the middle man, so to speak, and to allow audience reaction and physiology guide the selection of 'highlights'. The researchers are David Chatting, Matt Brotherton and Li-Qun Xu and together with research centre head Richard Jacobs, they have developed a new technology that thinks like a football fan and picks out the best bits of a game, and then presents the user with an edited highlights package.

"The computer has no idea about footballs, goal posts, lines etc. It picks out all these events by listening to the crowd and seeing how often the camera angle is changed. And it has absolutely no understanding of the offside rule.

"If you've ever been in another room while a match is on you'll get an idea how it works. You hear the volume rise with the crowd and you know something interesting has happened."

jeremy from loosewire suggests this app probably won't work for tennis, chess or cricket. Maybe the way forward would be to encourage a new kind of rowdiness - certainly to cricket, which barely ever transcends stultifying tedium and you'd think that the sheer surprise that anything was happening on the field would be enough to rouse a response.

But what I'm really wondering is - can the technology be applied to jelly wrestling? How cool would that be.

techgirl peacing out, getting down and asking the real questions. Yeah baby.

Dotsub is a kind of cool subtitling tool as featured lately on rocketboom. Takers, anyone?

Whilst definitely handy, the challenge of content providers still remains to provide local, regional and in some cases dubbed content. Because, I suppose, for the most part we prefer to hear than to read...

rip, mix and burn

- the problems with copyright and the user empowered new media beast

I am at a concert or, say, a comedy performance by my favorite comic, steven wright. I raise my cellphone to the air to record five seconds of the show and then mms it to one of my girfriends so she can see what I'm up to. She loves it, and posts it to youtube, making sure to send it out to all of her friends. Her friends are all over the place - in the US, the UK, Europe, Australia and Asia. They in turn embed it into their myspace or bebo or friendster page or whatever, some sending it out as a bulletin too to god knows where. I think at least one of my friends in school planned to be an astronaut, so perhaps we enter the realm of space law too. A couple of people edit the clip into their own video mash creations, posting either on youtube or something like splashcast. Maybe it makes the headline show of their new internet channel, or whatever.

So from all of that - exactly how many laws have I breached and how many times to I deserve to be sued?

and more importantly, what will steven think of it? I'm assuming his work doesn't fall anywhere into the creative commons...

Video gaming - the new frontier.

Recently I was approached by a NY law firm to quote on clearances and licensing for buildings/architecture and signs within a video game. I have been doing clearances for a film currently shooting out of New York, and that combined with my interest in gaming made me a likely candidate for the task.

What struck me first was that the lawyer I was dealing with had little to no understanding of gaming to begin with - which as technology and AI within the online world continues to evolve is going to become an increasing problem for legal professionals (not to mention those that rely on their advice).

He didn't know if the game was meant to be single or multiplayer, whether it was to be played online and therefore constantly evolving, or not. I wasn't just being pedantic - all of these factors impact hugely on the clearance issues at hand. For instance, if the game is to be played 'in world', and the user is, in a sense, tailoring his or her own experience, you can't just clear a sign or the copyright on an architectural work (building) for background. For all I know, a player might take it upon themselves to stand in front of the structure throughout their whole gaming experience, making it fully featured. (If that were at all feasible, that is, without being instantly killed). But still...

So I began the impossible task on quoting on the infinite. The first hurdle, of course, is that his client wanted the game to be modelled on New York City. I asked him with a chuckle if there was to be any flying involved. He balked at this, 'Excuse me?' I proceeded to explain that probably, the censors might have a bit of a problem with a realistic video game that was based around flying in and around NYC vis a vis September 11 and the war on terror.