Zach Posner : The world of Digital Media » Web Video

Reaction to USA victory

Zach — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 14:19:41 +0000

Created by a college student, enjoy.

Wow.

Zach — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 01:17:29 +0000

Interesting Social Media Video.

More TED… Impact of Social Media

Zach — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 05:24:23 +0000

Clay Shirky gives some examples of Social Media and user interaction.

Where J.J. Abrams goes for Inspiration…

Zach — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:54:19 +0000

In the spirit of a huge opening weekend, many may wonder where J.J. Abrams gets his creative ideas from, check out this video from T.E.D. in March of 2007, where JJ talks about his “mystery box”.

Ad Supported Internet Video on your TV – Round 1.5

Zach — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:00:05 +0000

This is a quick follow up to my earlier post on Ad Supported Internet (web) Video on your TV, where I brought up the concept that if users stream web video to their TV, you take the interactivity out of the Ad unit and so goes the value to the advertiser for using the web as a more powerful vehicle to spend their ad dollars.

Now it looks as if the big wigs are responding to the problem and the reason that NBC has been resisting is simple, “because it hasn’t figured out how to make money off Web video yet — and needs you to keep watching TV on your TV.” Check out an interesting piece from Silicon Alley Insider that goes into more detail.

The shift back to get web content on the TV continues….

Shared characteristics of successful ad supported Internet companies

Zach — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 06:17:07 +0000

Below is a draft of a few characteristics that successful advertising supported Internet Companies embody. This is just a simple table – and a start to taking a birds eye view approach for what makes the great companies tick. Thoughts are welcome.

Advertising Supported Internet Industry Overview

Purpose	Connecting with Friends	Consuming Content
Success is Driven By:	- Controlled platforms (you control who you are friends with)	- Current Fads
	- The size of each users network (the bigger the better - to connect, you must be on the platform)	- Respecting Super-Users
	- Users generate their own content (self service platforms)	- Multiple content providers (self service platform)

Sample Companies:	- Facebook / MySpace	- Google / Wikipedia (close to being ad supported))
	- AOL IM / Skype	- Pandora / Digg
	- YouTube / PhotoBucket / Twitter (email / embed functionality)	- YouTube / PhotoBucket / Twitter (destination site)

Thanks to Scott, Adam & Evan for thoughts.

Ad Supported Internet Video on your TV – Round 1

Zach — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 05:22:43 +0000

A few weeks back I started to temporarily (b/c I cannot seem to find a splitter that will allow for simultaneous viewing on my monitor and TV) hook up my mac mini to my TV to test out a new service called Boxee. From what I have seen Boxee is the easiest way to display Ad Supported Internet Video on your TV (assuming that you do not have an Xbox – as I have heard they do a great job). There is no special set top box, just a simple downloadable app that from a mac can be navigated through the remote control (and if you are a PC user, last week they released a windows version). Boxee essentially acts as an aggregator for Internet video services like Hulu, and is used in a similar fashion to Video on Demand – automatically formating the content for a full screen experience and ignoring quality of picture, I would take it over VOD (think about the amount of free ad-supported programming that you it opens you up to).

An unintended side effect is that it takes the ads that are found in and around content and takes the interactive experience away. Most users would not know the difference between watching a TV show via CBS’s Internet offering through Boxee vs. watching it on CBS (with the exception of much shorter and a fewer quantity of commercials), so the user recognizes it as a TV experience, not the Internet experience, where advertisers flock to for the inter-connectivity.

Its a few years off, but it will be interesting to see how the TV experience evolves, as built in wi-fi on TV’s becomes common place (as LG recently announced) will they come with keyboard / mice, and will Boxee become the aggregator of your Internet Video for your TV? With all of the players in the set top box space fighting to figure out who will win the download / streaming of paid content to the television set, I look forward to seeing more entrants focusing on the ad-supported space which is behind the recent surge in online video and will only continue to grow, especially as advertisers shift their budgets to online video.

Here is a quick overview of Boxee:

I titled this post Round 1, as I am sure that there are several more to come!

24 hours into the Storm

Zach — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 02:17:01 +0000

I picked up a Storm last night and while waiting for the associate at Best Buy to activate (it was sold out everywhere else) a few concepts where going through my head:

Verizon’s phones stink – which was probably 90% of what caused people to line up around the block for them. To think that Verizon passed on the iPhone.
What an amazing job the carriers have done inching up the phone bill. All in, it appears that an unlimited plan on Verizon with data for a blackberry will be >$150.
On that same note, think about what has happened to your cable bill in the past few years: First it was premium services (HBO, etc.), then PPV, then digital boxes, then VOD and now HD boxes and fees

Initial thoughts on the Storm – awesome from a screen, multi media and UI perspective, keypad sucks, I want to know who prefers a touchscreen keypad. I look forward to getting more use out of a phone than my old BB at shouldbesimple.com.

and since the title of this post uses 24 in it, a friendly reminder – Jack is back tomorrow night on Fox!

Remember the Whassup commercials?

Zach — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:03:08 +0000

The Whassup campaign was 8 years ago!