Broadband Jungle Blog

Brightcove, broadband factory

Some of the viral sites like YouTube and now Grouper may have been getting all the attention, but in my book another company is leaving the real imprint: Almost every time a commercial player launches, one company seems to be pulling the strings behind the scenes: Brightcove, brainchild of former Macromedia CTO and Flash pioneer Jeremy Allaire.

With a fierce determination to break down the barriers between television and the Internet, Allaire founded Brightcove in 2004. When last fall’s broadband revolution hit, the start-up had the applications package in place to professionally run and manage multi-channel broadband players. The Cambridge, MA company has since launched probably more broadband players than anyone else in the business.

In spite of being limited to uploads from PC’s only (a Mac version is in the works), close to 5000 users have signed up with Brightcove’s free (!) commercial preview that enables almost anyone to program and run a professional Internet TV platform with surprisingly little headache.

The informative BC Guide boasts of players for high rollers like the Discovery Channel Beyond, Bravo’s Outzone, Sony Musicbox, The New York Times and Sky Sports.

What’s even more interesting, though, is the eclectic list of the remaining 4900 niche channel providers who discovered Brightcove’s services: The Horse TV Channel, Deval Patrick TV—gubernatorial candidate for Massachusetts, travel service Kayak’s edgy comedy spots, and MomMe TV, a community site for moms to name just a few.

Brightcove seems to be determined to rule the broadband world one day, their services already include hosting your media on their servers, selling and running ads for a revenue share, syndicating channels through aggregators like AOL (a strategic investor in the company) and selling videos through custom digital video stores for all mobile devices.

Couldn’t be easier. So, to all non-profits, manufacturers, retail chains, web businesses, networks and anyone with a property that bears any resemblance to a brand: Now is the time to follow Brightcove’s motto and ‘liberate your video.’ Launch that spankin’ new channel while it’s still for free – according to the Brightcove sales team, the free preview will be available at least until the end of the year and will afterwards definitely remain affordable for niche programmers.

Niche is the whole idea behind ‘long tail economy’ conversion scenarios, and the people at Brightcove totally get that and how profitable it will be one fine day. It’s all about giving power to the content owners (and maybe a little bit of choice to the viewers).

‘rich’ broadband advertising

Salut, c’est Chloé! With the help of fresh-faced & very alluring Chloé, Neutrogena France enticed teenage girls to exchange beauty tips and post videos on a blog site dubbed Visibly Pretty.

Chloé got the ball rolling with 4 straightforward clips shot web-cam-style that are running simultaneously on the homepage. The campaign hit a nerve – girls immediately responded by posting countless stills and comments and submitted more than 1,500 videos to the site, turning it into a forum to foster diverse ideas of beauty and self-esteem.

Washington Mutual expanded their print campaign featuring stodgy bankers at the competition into a micro-site called: Trapped Banker. Forever stuck in bankers’ hell behind a red rope, this group of old-school Wall Street types with cranky attitude is condemned to answer questions with the help of rich (and very entertaining) media.

Specialized Bicycles are no strangers to cool interactive web environments packed with entertaining and essential information. They’ve just added a micro-site called Specialized Ride-in-Movies where they screen pretty edgy web films from a world where bikes routinely outperform any car, as seen in the short ‘Outlaw In Lycra.’

In an effort to confront stagnant sales and fire up its image, Ford Motor Company has been on an internal and external mission to re-invent itself. Their extremely professional and authentic looking documentary-style web series Bold Moves takes this message way outside the realm of corporate messages and straight into cyberspace.

Apparently fearless about letting the public peek in on how conflicted the company’s current course is, Bold Moves doesn’t shy away from big questions such as fossil fuels, developing alternatives and takes viewers to board and strategy meetings. Ford has so far posted 9 episodes containing candid interviews with top executives, custom car icon Carroll Shelby and successfully reveals how hard and complex it might be to steer a vehicle of that magnitude into the future.

geriatric1927 and Team Hoyt – YouTube with a heart

An unlikely star is born among the ranks of teenage YouTube vloggers – Peter, a mild-mannered British widower in his late seventies with a love for the blues, motorcycles and the tongue-in-cheek user name ‘geriatric1927.’ Confessing his ‘addiction’ to ‘all the fascinating videos’ on the broadcast-yourself-site he just went ahead and tried one himself.

He named his first post 'geriatric gripes and grumbles,' and after he managed to upload it successfully (2 attempts), 9 clips followed in the last 7 days, turning him into a particularly prolific commentator.

Introducing each entry comfortably seated in front of the same colorful wallpaper and picture frames with a reassuring ‘Good evening, YouTubers,’ Peter has since turned towards sharing his life’s experiences with a worldwide audience in the form of a ‘telling it all’ memoir that’s currently at ‘Part 4: Marriage and Early Struggles.’

If you don’t have a grandfather anymore – I recommend you make Peter your friend and subscribe to his soothing narrations. You’re not alone: His just became the most subscribed channel this month and the most viewed channel of all these 100 Million clips served today.

CAN is a breathtaking montage of impressions from the athletic triumphs in the life of Team Hoyt. Dick and Rick Hoyt are a father-and-son team from Massachusetts who together compete in marathons, triathlons, climb mountains and once trekked 3,735 miles across America.

It’s even more remarkable considering that Rick can't walk or talk but communicates with the help of a computer using the slight head-movements that he can manage.
An article by David Tereshchuk on the Team Hoyt website describes in detail how they operate together:

“For the past twenty five years or more Dick, who is 65, has pushed and pulled his son across the country and over hundreds of finish lines. When Dick runs, Rick is in a wheelchair that Dick is pushing. When Dick cycles, Rick is in the seat-pod from his wheelchair, attached to the front of the bike. When Dick swims, Rick is in a small but heavy, firmly stabilized boat being pulled by Dick.”

Subway and the lost TV pilots

No idea why the Going to Work for Subway pitch from agency.com ruffles so many feathers in the advertising community – aren’t we all putting ourselves out there hustling for jobs? From a programming point of view I actually quite like it. ‘Subway’ is funny in a very dry kind of way, fairly well-produced given the shoestring budget they most certainly had, plus it does get the message across to Subway: These guys really are after your account!

For an agency to use youTube and iFilm as viral platforms to get a potential client’s (and everyone else’s) attention is unique and probably a first. The piece seems in the vein of The Accountants webisodes spun off from The Office or clips on the Daily Show but it easily holds its own. Can it be that we recognize too much of ourselves in this mockumentary and can’t forgive when shows stop being ‘reality’ TV and start resembling real life?

Relying on the broadband tubes to give a guerilla project that extra push isn’t entirely new, though: Nobody’s Watching, the spirited sitcom about two Ohio guys’ love of good old sitcoms had been passed on by the WB in 2005 but eventually got picked up by NBC after the pilot was leaked to youTube and gained momentum there.

Using this blueprint, the cancelled Fox Television pilot The Adventures of Big Handsome Guy and His Little Friend recently made it into the digital hands of slubber.com and break.com. Fox has threatened with cease-and-desist letters but the creators seem happy since the miraculous appearance is drawing eyeballs and doing them some good.

According to break.com’s Keith Richman, around 250,000 unique visitors clocked in to watch part 1 of the pilot in their entirety, quite unusual for a viral site specializing in short form programming. Since the show is still under option, maybe somebody somewhere at Fox is looking at the numbers and reconsidering a pick-up?

summer movies

Lots of web-exclusive bonus footage made it onto the various summer blockbuster sites, here are three that definitely walked the extra mile:

Nacho Libre, this summer’s first comedy hit, boasts an entire series of clips called ‘Jack Black’s Nacho Libre Confessionals.’ Filmed during production in Mexico it’s obvious that they got Black’s full cooperation – the pieces revolve around him and are produced like a diary that’s very much in tune with with the comedian’s particular blend of humor. Look for ‘Waxed Jack’ for insights into the extent to which this actor is willing to prepare for a role.

My Super Ex-Girlfriend took a different route by creating a micro-site that’s generously dispensing valuable relationship advice. Or are they break-up tips? Be My Ex is spoofing educational films, complete with a free video course that includes lesson videos and case studies, all under the watchful eye of a Dr. Thorhammer, ‘social behavioral expert’ at the renowned ‘Be My Ex Institute’.

This summer’s prize for motion picture broadband promotion, however, needs to go to Snakes on a Plane – and it all happened initially possibly without the studio’s participation. Storylines, clips and trailers (accidentally?) leaked to fan sites while the movie was still in production and excited fans flooded the Internet with fake trailers, ‘lost’ scenes and online forum opinion pieces.

When director David R.Ellis briefly considered changing the hideous title to ‘Pacific Air 121’ the outcry echoed from hear to China. The filmmakers decided to embrace what was brewing in front of their eyes and in an unprecedented move accepted the fans as co-creators: After taking in hundreds of Snake-themed videos on YouTube alone, they decided to toughen up the storyline for some re-shoots and allowed fans to select the title track by Cobra Starship for the soundtrack via the website.

Snake-enthusiasts generated an avalanche of products that New Line is marketing through Café Press by paying licensing fees to the fan-designers. 250,000 fans almost brought down the official site this week when they used a feature that allowed visitors to send customized phone messages from Snake’s star Samuel L.Jackson.

In its boldest move, the studio decided to pass on press screenings but instead is hosting ‘fan appreciation’ showings on August 17 to build momentum the day before its release.

Snake charmers? No – just your regular broadband jungle.