New Personal YouTube Channel
I now have a place to put videos about videos, most specifically the web television industry.
Topics will include marketing, distribution, advertising and sponsorships, the IAWTV, and the like. I hope you’ll check it out and subscribe. I expect you’ll see more than a few familiar faces being interviewed before too long.
-Jeff
Happy to announce that I have been appointed Chair of the International Academy of Web Television’s Communications Committee, with Slebisodes founder Patrick Bardwell as Vice-Chair.
Very much looking forward to the challenges and opportunities ahead.
Netflix To Enter Original Programming With Mega Deal For David Fincher-Kevin Spacey Series ‘House Of Cards’ – Deadline.com
Video streaming juggernaut Netflix is becoming an original programming player. In what is probably the biggest gamble in its 14-year history, I hear Netflix has outbid several major cable networks, including HBO and AMC, for Media Rights Capital’s drama series House of Cards, executive produced and directed by David Fincher and exec produced by and starring Kevin Spacey.
Negotiations are still going on, but I hear Netflix landed the drama project by offering a staggering commitment of two seasons, or 26 episodes. Given that the price tag for a high-end drama is in the $4 million-$6 million an episode range and that a launch of a big original series commands tens of millions of dollars for promotion, the deal is believed to be worth more than $100 million and could change the way people consume TV shows.
via kthread
Netflix is playing with a Queen while everyone else timidly moves Pawns across the board. ReelSEO’s take on this is here: http://www.reelseo.com/mastered-distribution-netflix-produce-content/
What's in a Name? Only the Future Growth of Our Industry
An excerpt from an otherwise useful blog post:
By serialization in video blogging, we can be talking about doing video that’s published or produced in regular installments (series), typically chronologically, like in a novel or television drama. AKA – a web video show, video series, webisode, episodic video blogging, etc…
The Advantages of Online Video Web Series
Further proof that even a professional blogger from a site that covers the video industry (ReelSEO) doesn’t know what to call this… “Web Television” gets its own share of griping (rightfully so, unless we really do just want to make TV on the web), but “Online Video Web Series” is not a name that sticks in the minds of our audience. We seriously need to come up with one easy to remember, keyword friendly name for web shows and start using it unilaterally across the industry.
We need a standards committee, STAT!
(How to Approach a Web Video Series as a Marketing Strategy found via Larry Kless, http://klessblog.com)
15 Ideas the IAWTV Should Consider to Help Protect Independent Web Series
Disclaimers:
The following is entirely my own and is in no way intended to reflect the thoughts or opinions of my employer, our shows, or their sponsors.
I am not a member of the IAWTV. Full disclosure: My application was submitted after the deadline for this year’s Streamy voting and has neither been officially confirmed nor denied. That said, if the IAWTV wants me, you guys know where to find me.
To the IAWTV and the Web Television Community,
On the eve of the International Association of Web Television’s biggest and, arguably, most important meeting, recent events have led to a desire to take a close look at the organization and its function in our industry. The motivation to evaluate, regroup, refocus and (potentially) restructure the IAWTV and its relationship with the community is, in my opinion, perfectly timed.
While we all recognize that there are pressing issues to address moving forward, this is not a commentary about the Streamy Awards. As an industry made up of a loose collection of independent creators, we are at this time wholly under-funded, disorganized, lacking in representation, and as a whole more than a bit naïve. I, like others, believe that the IAWTV can be more than an awards show. As the single largest organized body of web television creators, it has to be.
Below are fifteen suggestions of ways that the IAWTV can expand its focus, protect our collective interests, and harness the power that we, as the founders of the future of entertainment delivery, represent.
COMMUNICATION (Objectives 1-3)
1. Community Forums
For an industry built on telling stories to a global audience, the lack of a centralized place of discussion that transcends geographical limitations is shameful. We cannot easily pool our vast collective knowledge, or share our concerns and ideas with the broader community. Creating an online forum for community discussion that is open to both IAWTV members and (at least partly) to non-member creators is both vital and really, really easy.
2. Mentorship Programs
We should establish a way for our experienced creators to provide tutelage to new creators, to help give their shows a better chance of succeeding and to keep others from continually repeating mistakes we have already made and learned from.
3. Education/Public Awareness
Everyone knows what a TV show is. Paul Scheer’s controversial video at the Streamys at least illustrates how far we have to go in educating the general public what a web series is. The formation of an advocacy group or committee whose task it is to reach out to companies, industry groups, and the general public and educate them on who we are and what we do is imperative to industry growth and increasing the opportunities for our community.
INFRASTRUCTURE (Objectives 4-6)
4. Statistics and Analytics
We don’t have any idea what the size of our industry is. We don’t know how many shows there are, or how large our audience is. Without these statistics, we lack our most powerful weapon for negotiating our fair share of the dollars being invested in advertising on the web. We should be working with the broadband distribution networks, Google, comScore, Tubemogul, Tubefilter’s upcoming Filterbase, and others to provide definitive analytics to measure our industry.
5. Standards & Practices
A group or committee should be formed to achieve a consensus and make recommendations to members, independent creators, and others on several issues that have thus far been haphazardly determined. What is a view? What are we making; web series, video podcasts, vlogs, web tv? What keywords should our shows be using?
6. Historical Archives
Already, six years or more of history is in danger of being lost. The birth and development of the web television industry is being documented but no archive exists to centralize and protect that documentation. A collection of the images, articles, interviews, and maybe even episodes of our shows needs to be collected and curated to protect the history of this unique period in entertainment.
REPRESENTATION (Objectives 7-9)
7. Industry Negotiations
The IAWTV should be positioned to represent the common interests of its membership in negotiations with organizations, unions, and industries. If advertisers, or the DGA, broadband providers, or some other organization or company is making decisions that affect our future, who represents us in the discussions? If a union is examining the structure of a New Media contract and wants our input, who do they call? There are critical decisions being made about our future that will continue with or without us. Let’s get someone at the table who has our wellbeing in mind and, with the membership and our collective hundreds of millions of views behind them, has been given the power to make themselves heard.
8. Government Lobbying
Issues like net neutrality and improvements to a national broadband infrastructure have an immeasurable impact on our industry. The IAWTV should appoint representatives whose job it is to let state, local, and federal governments know which issues are important to us and what our stand on those issues is.
9. Technology Research and Patent Development
We should be reaching out to tech companies and working with them to foster new innovations and guide developments in ways that help us create our content and reach our audiences. MPEG-LA licensing, Flash encoding and portability, HTML5 adoption in browsers, and the development and adoption of open-source codecs like Ogg Theora and VP8 are just a sampling of areas where adding our input is important. New, emerging technologies can be developed with our needs in mind, and perhaps we may even eventually assist in the discovery of new technologies (long term goal) which can be patented and lead to income for the IAWTV in the form of licensing fees for those patents.
SERVICES (Objectives 10-12)
10. Discounts via Collective Bargaining Agreements
The IAWTV may, on behalf of the membership it represents, negotiate lower prices for its members on such things as equipment rentals, equipment purchases, production and post-production services, location fees, travel and lodging expenses, and other opportunities where group discounts may be obtained.
11. Mediation
The IAWTV may develop processes for impartial mediation and conflict resolution in cases where disagreements occur between members.
12. Legal and Professional Referrals
A list of entertainment lawyers and accountants who are willing to offer consultation to IAWTV members could be organized and distributed, and a FAQ of common answers maintained, to allow members in need of those services access to trusted professionals.
FINANCING (Objectives 13-15)
13. Fundraising
To support a broader focus, the organization of a committee of volunteers whose mission it is to seek out donations, grants, and endowments on behalf of the IAWTV is necessary to provide the resources required to maintain operations and hire specialized employees.
14. Cross-marketing and Promotions
The IAWTV should seek to leverage its member’s shows in ways that spread awareness to established and future audiences. A viewer that may be watching one of our shows is not likely to be aware of the others. The web television brand should be leveraged in ways that increase industry awareness and combine disparate audiences to create not just fans of a single show, but of web television in general. Products that market a collection of shows (a poster with multiple shows on it, a Mercury Men style set of glasses each with different web series on them, a deck of playing cards with 52 different shows and URLs on them are just a few examples) should be designed and marketed to promote the industry.
15. Brand Sponsorship Agreements
Finding a brand or sponsor for one show is difficult at best. The IAWTV could seek to attach brands, sponsors, and advertisers collectively to multiple shows, thereby increasing the audience reach and ROI for the brand while generating crucial funding for our shows.
As the IAWTV prepares to meet in Los Angeles tomorrow, I humbly present these suggestions for your consideration in the discussion of how the organization can move forward.
The question can (and should) be asked “who will do all these things”? We will. We have to. Within the IAWTV are some of the smartest, most inventive, hardest working people I have ever known. As an industry, even in our infant state, we have proven time and time again that we can get shit done. We can build something. We have enjoyed the freedom to create in a way that is unprecedented in the history of entertainment, and we understand that freedom is never free. It must be fought for, and guarded fiercely, so that future creators can enjoy the same (or better) ability to reach a global audience that we have now.
The IAWTV has the means and the membership to guide this ragtag group of independent professionals and creators into the future of what is inevitably a multi-billion dollar industry. Web television undeniably has a place in the future of entertainment. We have come this far with the sweat of hard work and the determination to be a part of that future. What we need now is the organization and vision, through the IAWTV, to secure our standing in the future we have built.
Personally, I’m ready. If you want me, you guys know how to find me. Best wishes for a successful meeting tomorrow, and congratulations to all of us for making it this far. Here’s to the future.
Jeff Koenig
Broadcast Assassin
