A Real Tsunami Warning
With ATT’s Ralph de la Vega making the stunning announcement last week that 3% of its smart phone users accounted for 40% of its network capacity while pointing a finger at video makes a very compelling story for video optimization. The iPhone has enabled and enamored so many users to access video that adoption will only grow and grow. His announcement is equivalent to a seismograph shaking its little needle off the paper.
The long awaited video tsunami is pulling the water away from the beach now. And it’s all going to come crashing back. De la Vega hinted of usage-based charging or ‘other’ incentives to motivate users to throttle back. There will be a backlash on ATT. Subscribers will get sensitive about dropped calls, QoS, and monitor their bills closely. This will lead to a rash of customer service calls for credits, justifications, explanations. Many will jump ship to Verizon. Handset makers and content providers are going to complain that uptake is slowed, etc. (That’s another story all together regarding ‘over-the-top’ plays).
But the savvy operator will take note and gird up for this onslaught before it reaches them. As iPhone and Android devices take off worldwide, the operators that remember their Boy Scout motto, ‘Be Prepared’, are going to protect themselves with bandwidth optimization facilities such as Dilithium’s DVO. DVO provides the operator the ability to control, throttle, and reduce the impact that video puts on the network. This is just the beginning.
Read More Here:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/12/09/technology/AP-US-TEC-ATT-Data-Usage.html?_r=1&hpw
Give me Advertainment!
Given that my previous blog was about Video Director/Producer having such a rosy future due to online video demand, I started thinking and watching. My light’s just gone on that there’s a whole new-to-me-at-least genre combining advertisement and entertainment. Sort of like, if you enjoy your work then it isn’t really work, right? If you liked the video is it really advertising or advertainment?
Ok, service providers, give me a ‘Cool Advert’ channel and give me ‘Video Push’ so I can share the joy with my friends. Operators and VAS players should have no problem finding good, professionally produced content to drive this channel at dirt cheap cost. And, while at it, make that multiple channels focused on gender, hobbies or what have you.
Here’s my fav of the week. Thank you Harley-Davidson for combining noise, action, photography and the beauty (Marisa Miller) on the beast (HD’s V-Rod Muscle) Enjoy.
Video Producer/Director makes Top 10 Hot Jobs List
The Video Space Blog doesn’t always have to focus (pun intended) on video facts, figures or technology geekdom. But today, I tripped across a surprising assessment of the US job market – it’s in fact-n-figure form, but not what you‘d expect.
Out of 750 jobs reviewed, The Daily Beast (www.thedailybeast.com) has decided that Video Producer and Director is the #3 Top Job in America for job and wage growth! They based it on analysis of 3 years of the Bureau of Labor Statistics so it must be infallible. They’re talking PAID jobs over 45k USD, not your fav homeboy with a Flip camera, but PAID professional work. They go on to say that the demand is driven by our thirst for on-line video.
Given that tidbit, Video Value Added Services should have no problem finding good, professionally produced content to drive their apps. Hmmm, I thought outside the news and sports categories most professional online video content was repurposed broadcast material. But after some thought, there is an ton of advertisement videos made for the web. Ok, service providers, give me a ‘Cool Advert’ channel with Video Push.
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Video Director:
Video Conviction
I’m blasted daily with mega-numbers for the kazillion apps downloaded and new, improved ways to deliver TV to every screen on the planet. But, I want to focus on a niche, Emergency Video.
Grab your mobile, close your eyes and tune in to that ‘feel-good, give-back’ little voice in your head. It’s coming from your 3G video-enabled handset. Alas, it’s faint, but there. Your handset longs to be a hero if only for a day. That shiny red rectangle would much rather be risking it all in the grimy hands of an emergency first-responder than buried in your purse or hanging off a bulging size 44 belt. It dreams of being thrust right up front, streaming life-saving footage (do we still use that term) to medics and police. So small with such a noble cause.
Yes, I’m shouting out that video has purpose! Humanitarian purpose when pointed at the right thing… and backed up by infrastructure that puts technology to ‘good’ use. None of that silly UGC for me and my handset.
There are projects under discussion to bring real-time mobile video into 999/911 response centers. Put video in 911 systems and E-911 operators can service a much wider array of people in distress. The injured, deaf mutes or victims in unfolding criminal events can’t always afford or manage to utter a peep but they may can use video!
Look what’s going on over at Google’s Project 10100 with Emergency Video ( http://sites.google.com/site/emergencyvideo/). The idea is to get video in emergency response centers. (Google’s project 10100 home: http://www.project10tothe100.com )
Video medicine is growing, putting mobile video in the paramedics hands giving the emergency room a better, faster, preview of what’s on the scene.
Emergency Video is coming. It all depends on getting a critical mass of mobile video handsets out there. Then government will step up and plug in.
Government Value Added Services application? Sure, they already do it in law enforcement and surveillance but Emergency Video catches people at their most sensitive and sometimes final moments hanging between life and death. That could spark a little debate over privacy. But, it’s going to be a mute point when it serves humankind – and precedent is set since its already in law enforcement vehicles. Or how about rights for the disabled? Will human rights groups pick up the charge for putting video in the emergency centers like they did for equal access?
While Emergency Video can never be called a KILLER app (intentional cheap shot) in this industry, it can catch one. That’s a ‘video conviction’.