Looks like they’re finally catching on…

Some highly anticipated Web sites are being modeled on making the experience of watching video online more like watching television. These sites rely on software that enlarges the interface so that it fills your computer screen X from edge to edge.

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“The early stages of video content on the Internet was a lot of user-generated stuff, stuff like my grandmother and her cat,” said Joost chief executive officer Mike Volpi. “What we’re trying to do is evolve that experience into something that the viewer doesn’t view just out of interest, but actually builds an affinity with that particular programming content.”

[...snip...]

The Internet and television are increasingly being portrayed as on a collision course, the two destined to fuse within 10-20 years when TV could become just another form of high-speed data. But those visions remain relatively far in the future. Online video is still in its infancy, Shapiro said.

What revelations!

1. People prefer high-resolution, high quality video rather than tiny, blurry, postage stamp sized videos.

2. People prefer big-budget, high-production-value content rather than home videos.

3. Computers are just as capable of playing video in a TV-like fashion.

Sounds like they took a time machine into the future! What fucking year is it again? Where are our rocketpacks?

TV will have its peak in 2008 as the elections will force politicians to spend billions on advertising (not to mention the Olympics):

Wall Street analysts predict television stations alone could bring in a record $2 billion to $3 billion from the 2008 election cycle, up from $1.6 billion in 2006 and $900 million in 2004.

“Broadcast, cable is still more powerful than ‘Net advertising at this point,” Trippi added. “You’re going to see more broadcast and cable advertising eating up a large part of the message budget.”

2009 will be an interesting year indeed…

In a major victory for open standards, and fast downloads, Adobe is now adopting the h.264 video codec into the latest version of flash:

Adobe today announced the latest version of its near ubiquitous Web video software, Adobe Flash Player 9. It’s codenamed Moviestar, because it includes H.264 standard video support V the same standard deployed in Blu-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players. In other words, the quality of video has been substantially improved from the previous version of Flash Player 9.

You might be wondering why this is a big deal, but it means that any industry standard tool can be used to generate/play flash videos and that they will look much better and download quicker.

Now if only they could figure out how to manage the bloat that keeps flash from running efficiently…

Adweek notes (with some irony) that gaming has been far more popular than online video for quite a while:

More than one third, or 34 percent of users in the U.S. play games on the Internet at least once per week. That number bests the two most hyped online activities of the past few years, as 29 percent of users watch videos on a weekly basis and just 19 percent visit social networking sites that often, found Parks.

Casual online games are a ‘Killer App’ for advertisers online because people spend so much time playing them. The longer they play, the more ads they will see. Videos are certainly popular but the short clip lengths make it difficult to embed adverts. Ironically, the study cited time spent on social networking sites as competing against gaming but some of the most popular sections of social networking sites are the gaming areas. Just take a look at some of the most popular Facebook apps if you don’t believe us.

Perhaps then, its not surprising that MTV just announced a half-billion dollar online gaming initiative:

MTV Networks plans to invest well over $500 million in video games, seeing the red-hot entertainment category as a major pillar of growth in its goal to reach consumers wherever they spend time.

The two-year investment is part of a global strategy to incorporate games development at the inception of all new programming plans and not as an afterthought, executives say.

Some critics point out that while gaming has the edge today, growth in video watching will eclipse gaming in the future. These critics are missing out on one secret: people are not interested in a majority passive experience in front of their computers. The Internet enables interactivity and games are the ultimate form of interactive entertainment.

Video may rule the livingroom but games dominate on the computer.

An amusing piece in the WSJ pits Sab Kanaujia, vice president for digital product strategy at NBC Universal, against Steven Starr, co-founder and chairman of Revver. Sab uses statistics to drive his point home:

Forecasts claiming that the new media will swallow traditional TV are grossly overblown. Today, almost half of the total media consumption in the U.S. is on TV—47% of 68 hours/week/user (Source: Veronis-Suhler 2006). Rest is split between radio, recorded music, print, Internet, mobile, etc. Future trends also point to the dominance of TV (48% of users’ media time in 2010).

Our outlook on TV isn’t nearly as optimistic as Mr. Kanaujia’s but his point that no one is making enough money online right now to leave their day jobs is certainly ringing true.