Diary of an online video consumer - day 1

Since I am working on a project about online video, I decided to really test-drive online video this Christmas break. So I abandoned broadcast TV and turned on the TV on the web. I will post my findings here regularly.

My little experiment coincides with the testing of the Dell Latitude D430, an ultra-portable laptop (12.1 inch screen, weighs around 1.5 kg). The reason I mention this is because one of the arguments often used against online video in favor of the old TV is the “lean back-lean forward” user experience. Television is watched sitting on the couch leaning back, i.e. relaxing; online video is watched leaning forward, i.e. being quite active. While I do think that as a metaphor the distinction is very valid, when you take this literally the gap between the two becomes smaller with an ultra-protable notebook like the one I am testing these days. I have watched online video sitting at the table, lounging on my couch, lying in my bed.

 Enough about the ergonomics. Let’s turn to the real stuff: what have I seen until now? Well, I started out with some catch-up TV, series, documentaries and talkshows I missed on regular TV lately. In The Netherlands the public broadcasters have a fantastic portal for this on which they publish their own proprietary content untill one month after the original broadcast on TV. 

I also took a more serious look at Joost and Babelgum. Both are P2P, legal, videoportals/-players/-broadcasters/-enablers. Well any way, you can watch professionaly produced content in a dedicated player which you have to download and install first. Everyone has their eyes especially on Joost since the guys behind this new venture are the founders of Skype, Niklas Zenstrom and Janus Friis, and they were able to get some serious money behind them (last investment round US$45 million). What’s more they struck some remarkable content-deals with CBS, Viacom, NBA, National Geographic, Warner Bros. TV, and many more. But… most of these channels are only available in the US. That leaves me with Ministry of Sound TV (Ibiza clubbing, dance music videos, intervies with DJ’s), Stuff TV (gadgets, gadgets, gadgets), Aardman Animations (Wallace and Gromit, Chicken Run), Comedy Central, Ripe TV (not even going to explain this one).

All in all I am stuck with British lads TV with some music and clay puppets. Not exactly my cup of tea, but what does it say about the chances for Joost?  

First of all the player is fantastic, although it requires you to have a fast processor, state-of-the art videocard and enough free memory (here are all the requirements). Secondly, the Joost guys managed to recruit some of the best people out there and they are well-funded. Thirdly, P2P is a  solution to server-based video and partly solves the bandwidth problem. And lastly, they did strike some good content-deals, but not in Europe. And I can totally understand this: they first try to build a success in the US which is much easier since you do no not need to deal with localization, translations, and the best content providers are at hand. So I would bet on Joost becoming an important online video provider, at least in the US. Europe is a different story and that’s where Babelgum might come in.

More about Babelgum, but also about Hulu.com, Seesmic, Kyte, and many more on the next episode