Vindication

It seems that the latest buzzword is 'longform'. After years of being told that it would never work, apparently it's all the rage. Brightcove have 'reworked their platform' for long form and YouTube is rumoured to be going in the same direction.

In reality, there's little technical difference between long and short form. Sure, the picture quality needs to be somewhat better to retain attention, and the full screen experience helps, but anyone can do that now.

The reality is that most internet video companies saw their revenues coming from pointy clicky land - i.e. in short bursts based on page views and pre-rolls. The reality is that with a sophisticated ad platform, such as the one Narrowstep has had for the past five years, you can serve more and more targeted ads.

There is a natural conflict here from a generation of webmasters brought up on the mantra that clicks are good and the reality for internet TV that staying on the same 'page' for a long time is far more lucrative.

Comments

Anonymous said…
The problem is NRWS had great technology but nobody wanted it. Sales in 2008 for narrowcasting were $5MM v $4MM in 2008 but McCourt and his cronies spent a fortune to just get $1MM in sales and now are selling to Onstream. Laughable joke, a blot on McCourt's resume, took that stock from over $1 to $0.05.