At the risk of encouraging disparaging remarks on my choice of subjects, I think we all suffer from “video is next Internet wave” fatigue two sites have “launched” recently that deserve some attention. Hulu NBC and Fox’s collaboration, which due to territorial restraints I can only watch on Youtube, and Blinkbox ( co-founded by an old colleague Adrian Letts). Both encourage the consumer to engage with the content
Hulu’ s ambitions are pretty obvious to leverage their owners rights. What is interesting is that they have adopted a distributed model which is somewhat contrary to big media companies instincts. It is the right model to both maximise and protect their assets.
Blinkbox takes a slightly different approach. Blinkbox is building a vertical around films and TV. It is playing the low acquisition cost multiple revenue streams (e.g. advertising, affiliate, download to own, rent … ) model with a social media model for stickiness. As one of the co-founders Michael Comish said;
“I see us as sort of a cross between iTunes and Facebook,” said Comish. “We offer social networking and e-retailing elements, which in the end are becoming blurred anyway.”
I think it goes without saying Hulu will be successful they have the content and pockets to make it so. Quite what success means remains moot. Blinkbox presages the way Internet companies will wrap multiple revenue streams around rights. Will it work ? I hope so.
