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Beachfront Builder Platform Announced to Help Proliferate Mobile Video Apps
While the quantity and quality of mobile apps keeps expanding, there's one corner of the ecosystem that has
lagged: high-quality video apps. Once you get beyond apps like HBO Go, Netflix, WatchESPN, Hulu Plus, Xfinity and a handful of others, the choice and quality drops off pretty quickly. That's because great video apps are expensive to build and to maintain, especially since the number of mobile device platforms keeps multiplying.
This is the problem that Beachfront Media, which has built the video aggregator MeFeedia, is trying to solve with a new mobile video app development platform it announced called Beachfront Builder, which launches in private beta next Thursday. With Beachfront Builder, content providers are able to quickly build video apps for iOS, Android and Kindle Fire, with others coming soon.Categories: Devices, Mobile Video, Startups
Topics: Beachfront Builder, MeFeedia
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HTML5 Playback Now Up to 69% of Online/Mobile Video
MeFeedia released its latest analysis of HTML5 playback adoption, finding that 69% of H.264 (the dominant video format) video is now available for HTML5 playback. As the chart below shows, that's roughly 7x the level it was in Jan. '10, although adoption appears to be slowing a bit since Feb. '11 (see chart below). Separately, MeFeedia found that WebM, Google's open source format accounts for less than 2% of video, though that will increase as YouTube converts its videos to WebM
Categories: Technology
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63% of Online Video Now Available in HTML5
MeFeedia released some interesting research this week, reporting that the universe of online video it indexes (30 million videos at 30,000 sites), shows the percentage of video that is HTML5 compatible is now up to 63%. The key HTML5-compatible formats are H.264, WebM and Ogg. Video formats were already a confusing terrain before Google jumped into the mix by acquiring On2 Technologies and open-sourcing its VP8 codec as WebM. Then, earlier this year it announced that its Chrome browser would drop support of H.264, in favor of WebM. Meanwhile, the iPad, which doesn't support Flash has sold 15 million units in the past year, putting even more pressure on content developers to work outside of Flash. The 63% figure, up from 10% a year earlier, suggests that is indeed happening.Categories: Encoding
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CES Takeaway #3: Mobility is Video's Next Frontier
(Note: Each day this week I'm writing about one key takeaway from last week's CES 2011. Also, next Wednesday, January 19th, The Diffusion Group's Colin Dixon and I will be hosting a complimentary webinar, "Demystifying CES 2011," in which we'll discuss key CES highlights and answer participants' questions.)
One of the clear trends that emerges from the video-related product announcements at CES 2011, and in the months leading up to it, is that mobility is video's next frontier.
Just as online video adoption grew out of massive online Internet use, mobile video consumption is going to ride the tremendous wave of mobile Internet use. And by many accounts mobile Internet usage is on the cusp of a massive expansion. The analyst Mary Meeker believes that by 2014 there will be more mobile Internet users globally (about 1.6 billion) than desktop Internet users. In just the past year, the number of Americans who have used the Internet from their mobile phones has increased from 32% to 40%, with those reporting they accessed the 'net several times a day from a mobile phone jumping from 24% to 43%, according to Pew.
Unquestionably the big growth in mobile Internet use has been facilitated by the explosion of video-friendly smartphones and tablets. Indeed CES could have almost been renamed "Tablet-Fest 2011" as numerous tablets were introduced, all seeking to imitate the iPad's huge success. In 2011, IDC predicts 330 million smartphones and 42 million tablets will be sold worldwide. In the U.S., Nielsen estimates that by the end of 2011, smartphones will have a greater market share than feature phones. Certainly Verizon's iPhone announcement yesterday is another smartphone accelerant, with Verizon loyalists finally gaining access to the iconic device. A recent study from MeFeedia underscored Apple's role in driving mobile video adoption: 43% of mobile video usage was from iPhones and iPads, with Android bringing in 21%. In addition to the proliferation of devices, the rollout of speedy 4G networks will make mobile video consumption easier and more pleasing to viewers.
Categories: Mobile Video
Topics: Android, CES, IDC, iPhone, MeFeedia, Nielsen, Pew, Verizon, YouTube
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MeFeedia Unveils HTML5 Analytics for All Player
Search engine MeFeedia is announcing this morning a new real-time analytics suite for HTML5 video viewed using the company's All Player.
Content providers using All Player will be able to track a variety of data for video consumed across all devices supporting HTML5 - iPads, iPhones, Android phones and the web. They can view data by summary, recent, popular, devices, videos and channels to monitor an individual or group of videos' performance. Data can also be exported for offline analysis and viewing. The type of data tracked includes view-through rates, time watched, impressions and the viewing device.
As with the All Player itself, the analytics package is free.
The analytics release follows MeFeedia announcing support for HTML5 advertising just before the iPad's recent launch. MeFeedia CEO Frank Sinton explained to me yesterday that though it's still early for HTML5, the company is committed to building out further HTML5 features for the All Player.
For those not familiar with All Player, which MeFeedia launched last June, it's targeted primarily to small and mid-sized content providers who want to improve their ad monetization. All Player's value prop is that it has integrated with key video ad networks, so that once an All Player content provider is approved, it can add or improve monetization immediately. Content providers can use All Player stand alone or in conjunction with their OVP.
All Player has moved MeFeedia from being solely a video search engine to also being a monetization partner. Frank explained that numerous providers now partner with MeFeedia, in some cases simply syndicating a feed of their content, which MeFeedia offers and monetizes through All Player, in turn sending a revenue share back to the content provider. Frank says MeFeedia is fully ad supported and is now profitable. As HTML5 emerges, adding complexity in the short-term to content providers' work flow, tools like All Player look even more important.
What do you think? Post a comment now (no sign-in required).Categories: Advertising, Analytics
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Mefeedia Quietly Grows to Video Search/Navigation Prominence
Another update from the chaotic video search and navigation space; Mefeedia, which has been flown below the radar, has quietly grown to 5 million unique visitors per month since its re-launch in January, 2007. I spoke to CEO/founder Frank Sinton yesterday to learn more.
Frank explained that Mefeedia hasn't focused on having the largest video index (its index contains around 12
million videos, compared to blinkx's and Truveo's 120 million+). Instead it has emphasized higher-quality, ongoing "shows," which it makes available as feeds to its users - hence the name Mefeedia. The company search from 15,000+ video sources.Frank believes that the company's secret sauce to maintaining quality is its proprietary video crawler, which is modeled on Google's PageRank system. Mefeedia's algorithm looks at social ranking factors including embedding patterns, links and usage to build the index. This contrasts with others' approaches which look inside the video itself and/or search metadata.
Frank thinks that with 50K-100K new videos uploaded each day, Mefeedia's approach is more scalable. My take is that Mefeedia is cleverly playing on the 80-20 rule - far more users will be interested in premium, well-known or well-organized content, rather than random YouTube clips. In fact, Frank said that fully a third of Mefeedia searches are "navigational," i.e. using specific terms like "Family Guy" rather than general terms like "Golf."
Meanwhile, another clever approach Mefeedia uses to maintain the quality bar and also engage users is enabling them to curate "channels" of interest within the site. This involves a user/enthusiast sifting through various feeds to assemble one master feed, which other users can subscribe to. There are hundreds of these channels, naturally ranging from the expected to the very Long Tail.
Like all search and navigation sites Mefeedia is free and ad-supported. Frank sees four types of ad implementations: keyword ads around search results (currently from AdSense), related sponsors for specific channels (e.g. Kraft for cooking channels), banners on the site, and pre-rolls. In this last category, Frank said that the company is starting to do biz dev deals with content providers whose video would get additional prominence in exchange for Mefeedia gaining the right to sell certain ad inventory.
Mefeedia's progress since its re-launch from its roots as a Vlog directory is impressive, especially considering it's a 5 person shop which has raised only $250K in angel funding. Having proved its appeal to users, Mefeedia's next challenge is to prove it can monetize its traffic.
PS - While we're on the topic of video search, blinkx pinged me to let me know that today they've launched their "blinkx Remote" beta which is a handy UI for quickly finding TV shows. You can see it here.
What do you think? Post a comment.
Categories: Video Search
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