Want to know the most important new media jargon you should write down and remember from today? According to Shelly Palmer it’s “peer-assisted mesh networks.†Palmer officially entered the term
into the industry’s lexicon this morning while introducing his second panel of the morning: “Next Year’s Shakeout.†The panel featured a half dozen new and emerging online video players, but
Palmer implied that they and a dozen others like BitTorrent, Joost and Veoh are nothing but the first wave of hundreds of new players that will emerge over the next year. And according to Palmer, one
of them may be you. At least that’s what he suggested the new peer-assisted mesh network – or PAMN – infrastructure will enable. “The elevator pitch is it allows you to be a network form
your computer directly serving video to millions of people without fuss or muss,†he explained, adding, “How different will it be when six months form now everybody can drag and drop a fileâ€
from their computer desktop and immediately serve it to the Internet. The answer, of course, is very different. One thing that won’t be different, is that people will want to watch video. How and
what they watch will change, and will fall into one of three categories that consumers, not the industry, have defined. 1 – Video snacking 2 – Download To Own 3 – A third,
as-yet-unnamed middle ground that Palmer calls either “Television Internet,†or “Internet Television.†It’s basically using computer-connected devices to watch TV as we know it. As big as
the implications are for media businesses, Palmer added that they are not likely to have a profound impact on their business models. That’s because there only are three business models for media:
“I pay.†“You pay.†“Somebody else pays.†Advertising, of course, falls into the “somebody else pays†category. The problem, is online users don’t like watching ads online.
Let me start by saying "this is what we do" at localbroadcast.tv. Whether we are the ones that make TVi or iTV go or not, there's no question that it will go. With an advertising model. With iTV, every PC screen becomes a television. That means the total market size could grow by 10,20 maybe 50%.
Let's personalize it. Would you watch streamed TV? You get up at 6:30 to read your email, in the background is local news/weather/traffic. You are eating lunch at your desk, you watch news or a talk show at the office.
Your daughter is watching CW on the television set, you go upstairs to the den to watch PBS on your PC.
New viewers in new dayparts means more advertising inventory. Inventory with usage and demo stats that will make advertisers salivate.
Yes iTV will be big (and we really hope it's because of us) and it will get big on advertising.
I'm not sure it's fair to characterize consumers as opposed to Internet ads. To date, consumers haven't had to watch Internet ads and, given our cultural bias against advertising, it's hardly surprising that consumers would like to maintain the status quo -- after all, who wants to pay for something that's currently free. But somebody has to pay and consumer have consistently shown in surveys that between them paying cold hard cash or putting up with commercials, they'll choose the latter. As evidence look at the subscription rates for the various traditional pay cable systems.