• by July 6, 2005

Earlier, today's Email Insider, "A State of Mind" written by Bill McCloskey, was mistakenly sent out under the name of Just an Online Minute. Here is today's actual Minute, "Leveraging Live 8" written by Tobi Elkin. We regret the error.

On-demand Web video. Is there a market for it?

This weekend's global Live 8 concert event was a success for AOL in terms of streaming live video on the Web and perhaps more importantly, the ability to make it available on an evergreen on-demand basis.

Yesterday's Minute nailed it, stating, "Time will tell whether Live 8 will define the Web's place in the media world. But for now, it's as close to a pivotal moment the online world has seen."

Accessing the concert today through AOL.com, just four days after the event, one enters a treasure trove of exquisite live performances, behind-the-scenes footage, photo highlights, blogs, artist bios, and more. The performances themselves are passionate and exciting, the production value and video quality among the highest we have ever seen on the Web, and the playback experience is bug-free. AOL did a good job with the design/layout, user interface, voiceovers, text, instructions, and disclaimers that accompanied the programming.

We also noticed the elegant incorporation of Microsoft's Windows XP ads playing as pre-roll to most of the performances. We know that Bill Gates' foundation is deeply involved in Africa, so it makes sense that Microsoft would sponsor the Live 8 event and run ads on AOL.com. The creative, we might add, is among the best we've ever seen from Micro; it's relevant and resonant. Hats off to McCann-Erickson for rendering brilliant creative executions on the Web.

Now if Live 8 isn't an invitation for advertisers to associate their brands with on-demand Web video, we don't know what is. And we wonder whether advertisers who scratched their heads and hesitated to jump on the Live 8 bandwagon are rethinking the proposition and heading for the on-demand waters. After all, there's a lot more life in those performances. The number of people who access the video in the weeks and months to come is expected to exceed the number who accessed it live, in real-time. Let's see who's game...

The Minute hopes that the message conveyed by Live 8 reverberates well beyond AOL's on-demand archive - of course this is the goal of the event's organizers and participants.