Jake Ward has written a dynamite retrospective looking at the key developments across Europe in the last year; you can find it on the StreamingMediaGlobal.com site. In addition to talking about how the fortunes of the iPlayer in the U.K. offer a microcosm of the trends and challenges facing catch-up and IPTV across Europe, he also looks at the mobile landscape, particularly the troubles facing DVB-H.

The article also appears in the 2009 Streaming Media Industry Sourcebook, due out in February. For your free copy and a subscription to Streaming Media magazine, click here.

We got such a positive response to the inaugural issue of the European Edition of Streaming Media magazine that we’re going quarterly in 2009, beginning with the 2009 Streaming Media Industry Sourcebook, which will publish in February. It’s our biggest issue of the year, and it includes comprehensive year-in-review articles looking at the most notable developments in 2008, as well as a look forward at what’s likely to come in 2009. It also includes case studies and a slew of how-to and buyer’s guide features, including the following:

• Choosing a Camcorder
• Selecting the Right Nonlinear Video Editor
• Picking a Content Delivery Provider
• The 2009 Video Encoder Shoot-Out
• How to Add Closed Captions to Online Video
• How to Generate Automatic Speech Transcripts in Flash Video
• Making Sense of the H.264 Licensing Labyrinth
• The Live Mobile Video Landscape

Also featured are a roster of case studies from each of the major verticals: entertainment, education, enterprise, government, and advertising. You can subscribe to the magazine here, and if you’re interested in advertising, contact Sjoerd Vogt at sjoerd.vogt (at) in4m.com.

Here’s a video that gives an even better sense of what the Sourcebook is all about.

More from Streaming Media Europe Conference Development Director Katherine Allen on the FutureMedia 2008 conference held in London last week:

Social networking features, such as friends’ recommendations, will play a major part in the development of the BBC’s iPlayer, according to Anthony Rose, Controller of the BBC’s Vision and Online Media Group as he kicked off day 2 of the FutureMedia conference in London. “Last year the BBC chose what you watch; this year you decide what you watch; and next year your friends will choose what you watch” commented Rose, speaking just hours after iPlayer started simulcasting all the BBC’s channels and launched iPlayer Labs. As ever, though, iPlayer controversy wasn’t far away, as Telegraph TV’s Guy Ruddle argued forcefully that the publically-funded BBC should open up the iPlayer platform to content from other providers.

Patrick Walker, Google/You Tube’s director of video partnerships revealed that YouTube’s “click-to-buy” feature, which enables quick access to digital downloads or DVD purchase and launched in the US in October, will be rolled out in the UK in the “next few months”. The recently launched Monty Python channel has been one of the first beneficiaries, according to Walker, launching its click to buy link just last week and seeing Python DVD sales reach Amazon’s top 5.

A panel discussion on the impact of the credit crunch on digital media brought delegates back to earth, although there were seeds of hope even here. The consensus was that marketing spend would continue to migrate online. “If you’ve got to choose a media sector to be in, this is the best one, unequivocably” noted Simon Nicholls, MD of Ingenious Corporate Finance.

FutureMedia 2008 is going on in London this week (last day is Friday), and they’ve got a terrific roster of speakers from the broadcast industry who are addressing the challenges and opportunities presented by online video distribution. Streaming Media Europe Conference Development Director Katherine Allen is attending the conference, and she shares these reflections:

Broadcast entertainment is facing a “perfect storm” created by the convergence of the global economic crisis and a dramatic change in audience behaviour as consumers move online, according to  Jon Gisby, Channel 4’s Director of New Media and Technology, speaking today at the FutureMedia conference in London. In Gisby’s view, to keep pace with this change, the broadcast commissioning model must evolve to embrace true multi-platform ‘360 degree’ content. Channel 4 are putting their money where their mouth is with their digital fund 4iP, which aims to develop a new generation of talent through multi-platform projects - rather than from the starting point of TV content. Gisby declined to comment in detail on Project Kangaroo while the Competition Commission enquiry is ongoing, but did state there would be no connection between Kangaroo and the recently announced Channel 4 cutbacks.

Matt Locke, Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor expanded on the theme of multi-platform programming in an all-digital, all-the-time world. “I get very annoyed when people talk about platforms”, he commented. “I’m  commissioning editor for attention.” According to Red Bee’s Jonathan Wilson, “we have to move away from the TV versus online debate”. Instead, he argued, content owners need to evolve “from sheepdogs to sherpas”, taking on the role of trusted guide leading content consumers from one platform to another.  

With the global economic crisis still on the top of everyone’s minds, it’s a good time to take a look at one of the best-attended panels from last month’s Streaming Media Europe. James Enck moderated a discussion among a panel of financiers—Alain-Gabriel Courtines from Intel Capital, Taavet Hinrikus from Ambient Sound Investments, and Frederic Court from Advent Venture Partners—about what 2009 holds in store for venture capital and merger & acquisition activity in the online video space.

Videos from all of the breakout sessions at this year’s Streaming Media Europe are now available here. Unfortunately, we’re not able to present videos of the keynote sessions, but if you take a look at the player, you’ll see that all 18 sessions are now online for viewing; you can also embed links to individual session videos on your own sites if you wish. I’ll be highlighting and discussing individual session videos in future posts.

Also, speaker presentations from the sessions and several of the pre-conference workshops are now available on the Streaming Media Europe programme page. If a particular presentation you’re looking for isn’t there, please let me know, and I’ll do my best to track it down.

Thanks to Stream UK and Global-MIX, we’ll be webcasting the closing session from Streaming Media Europe live from London at 16:15 GMT/4:15 p.m. EDT. The session, “What the Future Holds,” will feature Jake Ward from Broadview moderating and Mark Little from Ovum Research, and Dan Cryan from Screen Digest, two of the leading analysts of online video trends. 

They’ll be looking at what we should expect over the next few years in terms of technological advances, business challenges and opportunities, and audience demographics. Click here for the Windows Media webcast at 16:15 GMT/4:15 p.m. EDT.

That was one of the messages from Claude London, director of digital media for the BBC Worldwide, in his opening keynote at Streaming Media Europe Thursday morning; and he showed statistics to support his claim that online delivery of television shows doesn’t decrease broadcast viewership. Streaming Media contributing editor Tim Siglin writes more about London’s talk as well as other sessions from the first day of the show here. 

We’ll have more reports later today — plus, we hope to bring you the closing session, “What the Future Holds for Online Video” live at 11 a.m. ET. Watch this space for a link.

Dailymotion first achieved success as a platform for citizens and independent journalists during the Paris riots of 2005, but it has gone past its roots in user-generated content to become one of the leading publishers of professionally produced independent video content in Europe. Creative director Digby Lewis, who will be keynoting at Streaming Media Europe on 17 October, spoke with Eileen Broch recently about the company’s development and future plans.

First, a little bit about your background. How did your work with Google and DoubleClick prepare you for what you’re doing at Dailymotion?

I joined Dailymotion after six years working in television and online media. Before that, I worked in the print publishing sector as a writer and editor for newspapers and magazines. I’ve always worked on the editorial side of things, and Dailymotion provided an excellent opportunity to put my experience to use in an exciting, developing medium. It’s also interesting, having been a content creator before, to be able to see things from the other side and act as a curator in this role.

How does a site like Dailymotion distinguish itself from YouTube? What’s its value proposition for users? What about for advertisers?

Firstly, the most noticeable aspect for the user is the video quality. Dailymotion has led the field in high-quality streaming video and we were the first major player to introduce HD video streaming this year. Professional content creators want users to have the best possible playback experience and Dailymotion delivers that.

Secondly, we have very strong links with the independent film sector, from students right the way through to Oscar-winning directors like Michel Gondry. Our Motionmaker programme is all about giving talented young professionals the tools and visibility they need to succeed in the industry. 

We then act as curators to programme the best of our contributors’ work-both Official Partner and Motionmakers-on our local homepages and channels. So when someone goes to the Dailymotion homepage, they should notice a significant difference in the quality of video content available on the platform.

All of this is attractive to advertisers-Motionmaker and Official Content provides a safe environment for brands. We have developed a number of products, display and instream, to maximize the opportunities for advertisers.

What advertising strategies do you predict will be most successful moving forward: typical text/banner ads, video ads, or perhaps branding and placement campaigns that blur the line between “advertising” and “content”?

We offer advertisers a suite of products and branding opportunities because we recognize that clients have different needs and business models. The key thing is to be as dynamic as possible. Display advertising provides a great starting point. In-stream is still finding its feet, but done well, can be far less intrusive a user experience than the standard pre-roll format which we have seen to date.

Original sponsored or branded content is clearly another very exciting arena for platforms like Dailymotion to work alongside advertisers. Once again, the key thing for us is to maintain our core values of quality content, so a project has to be just right for us to develop it beyond the concept stage.

Brands are also keen to engage with our Motionmaker community, and we have run successful campaigns in France which have harnessed our own “production team” if you like, and we hope to replicate this in the UK.

Do you have a geographic breakdown on viewers and users in terms of Europe vs. elsewhere?

Dailymotion is now the 50th largest website globally and the world’s second largest video entertainment website with 38.8 million monthly uniques. Our home territory, France, is still our most dominant user-base, making up about a quarter of that total audience. Our next biggest community is North America, with around 6 million uniques. Belgium, UK, Italy, Spain and Germany are our other principal European territories, ranging from 1.5 million to 600,000.

How much of your emphasis is on professionally produced content as opposed to user-generated?

Dailymotion started life as a platform for user-generated content and during the Paris riots of 2005 because synonymous with citizen journalism and editorial independence from mainstream broadcasters. While UGC continues to make up a large portion of the videos uploaded to Dailymotion, the landscape for streaming video has changed remarkably in the last 12 months and we believe that users are now hungry for professionally produced, quality video content. We are constantly signing Official Content partnerships-broadcasters, production companies, film and gaming studios, record labels, you name it. What’s exciting is that these partnerships are not about pushing TV content online, but creating web-specific content with professional quality production standards. As a former TV producer/director, that’s very pleasing to see on the site.

What sort of traction is your HD content getting, and how important do you think HD content will be to Dailymotion’s future success?

Dailymotion pioneered high-definition streaming video on a mass scale and it works well both for our users and content providers. These days, everyone from home-movie enthusiasts to super-indies can shoot in HD, so if you can provide a means to distribute this online it has to be a real bonus. As technology moves forwards and current data transfer limitations are overcome, high def streaming video will become the norm.

Will delivery to mobile devices figure into Dailymotion’s roadmap? And what about getting Dailymotion content onto TV screens? In the long run, can companies like Dailymotion compete against traditional broadcasters without a presence on the television screen?

While our website remains core to the business, we want people to be able to access Dailymotion videos wherever and whenever they choose. We’ve just announced a partnership with Orange World, which will launch in France over the coming weeks, soon followed by other European regions including the UK. We have also partnered with IPTV platform Channel Neuf in France to show Motionmaker videos. We don’t consider traditional broadcasters as direct competitors, in fact I think they are more concerned with reaching the digital audience than we are trying to reach the highly fragmented cable or satellite audience.

Finally, a big-picture kind of question. As you look forward, what kinds of online video initiatives do you see as being most successful in the next year or two? What are current video sites doing right, and what do they need to be doing differently?

Longtail UGC will become much less appealing to the online audience as we move towards an era of greater quality content-both in terms of production values and playback. But interactivity will also remain crucial to the user experience, so how do you develop those aspects further? Original sponsored series, as we have seen on a few of the major social networking sites, can be a fantastic fusion of sponsorship, entertainment and user interactivity (although the product placement can still be clunky and the scripting/acting a bit dire, so I would expect the standards to be raised here).

Dailymotion is also working to take its online communities offline-we have a monthly screening of Motionmaker films in Paris called ‘La Séance’ and looking at venues to do the same kind of thing in the UK. We are also partnering with major film festivals in Europe and the US to strengthen this bond between our Motionmakers and the independent film industry.

On Friday, 17 October, we’re lucky to have Alec Hendry, director of digital media operations and development for MTV Networks UK & Ireland, join us as a keynote speaker. We had a chance to sit down and talk with Alec a big about some of MTV’s successes—and challenges—in the realm of online and mobile content.

Q: Please explain your role and focus at MTV Networks.
A: As director of digital media operations and development for MTV Networks  U.K. and Ireland, I sit within the digital media group, and look across all of the different platforms that consumers interact with us on, including online/websites, mobile services, interactive TV and also broadcast TV where we’re working with SMS and interactive TV technologies.

Q: How does streaming media and online (and/or mobile) video fit into MTV Networks’ focus and emphasis?
A: Our aim is to provide as much content as possible across all of the platforms we’re currently working with.  Broadcast television is obviously one of our main outlets, but we’re also across the web and on mobile networks, and all of our research is showing that our core audience (16-24 year olds in U.K./IE) is on all of these different platforms, continuously moving between all of them, and using all of them at the same time.  So we try to ensure that we’re everywhere our consumers are-whether on our own property or others’, such as various social networks including Bebo or MySpace, and that our content is available on those sites to drive people back to TV, back to our own website (MTV.co.uk), and back to our mobile services.

Q: How would you characterise or describe the split across all of your platforms mentioned above- websites, mobile services, interactive TV and broadcast TV?

A: I don’t have direct figures as to the split between each of these, but sometimes we have the same audience across all four of these platforms, and on other occasions (or for other events and content), we have different audiences on different platforms. 

Certainly at the moment we’re seeing that the web is one of our strongest platforms right along with broadcast television, and that the web is one of the primary digital opportunities for us. 

And since we’ve been doing video on mobile handsets for quite a while (at least 3 years now), we’re seeing more and more mobile consumption as handsets improve over time.  We first launched mobile video content in the U.K. with 3UK when it launched its first 3G video content.  At that time we first started offering MTV video on demand downloads and streaming content, and now we’ve expanded to offering live mobile TV channels on most U.K. operators.  We’re seeing that we’re consistently in the top 10 mobile channels, normally coming only second to sports and news, so we’re obviously very pleased about this.

 
Q: What would you describe as the biggest challenge facing MTV Networks in terms of its online /mobile video initiatives?

A: I would answer that by saying I don’t think we have as challenges as we do opportunities. For example, how do we better engage with the audience wherever they are?  Media is a crowded marketplace, but our brand is very strong, our audience knows us well, they trust our content (both on the music and on the entertainment side), so we are able to serve a breadth of content as a trusted editor to bring the best and most relevant content to our audience.  We also pride ourselves on the high quality of content available online, including a wide range of content repurposed from our TV channels, but also made-for-mobile content, extra content produced strictly for online series and the like.

Q: What does MTVN see as the future of monetising (or building sustainable future for) online or mobile video?
A: For us, monetisation has always been a mixture of sources.  We have some ad-funded content, with pre-roll and post-roll advertising, and then we also have branded sponsorships.  We are also able to use online video as a driver to traditional TV broadcasts and advertisers there, so our in-house advertising agency is able to offer complete packages (broadcast television + online/web + mobile) to advertisers as part of their sponsorships, and so our efforts are definitely paying for themselves.

Q: Can you give us an overview of the MTV Overdrive initiative?
A: Our MTV Overdrive product launched in 2006, which was the first time we brought all of our video into an aggregated place that people could come to access.  To enable this, we built internal workflows to manage the digital archive and the custom-built content, e.g. our MTV News team has a daily news package which we were able to make available.  So again, we have end-to-end workflow processes to produce content cross-platform and then we don’t have to worry about the technicality behind the delivery process [to different platforms].  It’s a managed process end-to-end of a huge archive of online content now.

The MTV Overdrive platform was a great starting point for us to show some of our video content, and as that’s evolved we’re seeing the demand for video (especially in the U.K.) as extraordinarily high and we’re very pleased with the results there.  Now we’re in a process where we’re moving some of that video content so that it’s not just in the MTV Overdrive area, but rather phased out so that the video content is wherever it’s relevant, such as MTV News video clips on the MTV News site and so on.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about your experiences with streaming the 2007 MTV Europe Music Awards? 
A: Last year for the first time we were able to stream in high-quality Flash format, and to do this we used one of the very first commercially available hardware products that supported Flash video streaming, the ViewCast Niagara Pro Encoder, provided to us by Garland Partners Limited.  As it happens, we met and engaged with Garland Partners Limited as a result of their exhibitor space at Streaming Media Europe 2007.  They were previewing the ViewCast hardware, and that’s when we established contact and engaged with them for the MTV Europe Music Awards show to take place a few weeks later.

In any event, the ViewCast Niagara Pro Encoder allowed us to take the broadcast feed from our Camden (London) studios receiving the show feed from Munich and then live stream that in high quality Flash format.  At the time, that was really the only commercial product to deliver high quality video/audio over a sustained period of time (such as the 3+ hour long Music Awards show). 

Additionally, our team was able to produce inserts to use during the ad breaks, and we were able to send footage back from Munich (such as Wyclef Jean interviewing stars backstage) to drop into the ad breaks.