But these organizations are in the US and when it comes to Europe things can get A LOT worse. European internet law is significantly behind that of the US and in my view there is an inherent misunderstanding and lack of clarification of what is legal and what isn’t.

when it comes to Europe things can get A LOT worse

Germany has harsh internet laws

Germany itself has a very bad reputation for passing harsh sentences. For example, a German court once ruled that you have to check for illegal content on all the sites that you are linking to or you will be held liable. Another example is when a Munich court ruled that any German site linking to AlloMp3 would be breaking the law!

a Munich court ruled that any German site linking to AlloMp3 would be breaking the law!

Lack of DMCA and Safe Harbor in Europe

In the US there is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) which means if you link to a website in good faith but it contains illegal copyrighted content and the content owner asks you to remove that link, and you do so, you are protected by law against legal action. Same applies with YouTube videos; if Fox ask YouTube to take down some TV clips and YouTube does so, YouTube should be okay under the DMCA.

Europe however has no such thing. This puts sites like YouTube in a very difficult position. No solid law has yet been formed making court cases in Europe a tougher battle that YouTube and others have feared.

GEMA Targets MySpace and YouTube

Now GEMA, one of the strongest collective licensing organizations in Europe, has its eyes set on YouTube and MySpace. GEMA has recently had a number of wins in its favor forcing a number of websites into licensing deals. This has only made GEMA’s position against YouTube and MySpace stronger in Europe.

GEMA has its eyes set on YouTube and MySpace

So the plot continues to thicken as YouTube and MySpace are about to face the music in another court battle that could send the internet in a very restrictive direction. NewsCorp (the mother of MySpace), and Google (the newly appointed mother of YouTube), will be using their big pockets and expert lawyers to fight this one with all the brawn they can muster.

Companies using Microsoft’s IPTV Platform

• AT&T
• U-Verse TV
• BT
• BT Vision
• DT
• T-Online Germany
• T-Home
• Magyar Telecom
• Slovak Telecom
• Swisscom
• Bluewin TV
• T-Online France
• Club Internet
• Beijing Telecom
• Bell Canada
• TDC (Denmark)
• Telecom Italia
• T-Online Spain
• Ya.com
• Wind (Italy)
• Verizon
• FiOS TV
• (Foundation Hybrid)

Trial Customers

• BellSouth
• Reliance Communications
• Singtel
• Telkom South Africa

The on-demand iPlayer service (sounds like something from Apple) will allow viewers to watch their favorite programs from the previous 7 days and store them on a PC for 30 days. It sounds kind of like an automated DVR service.

iPlayer will allow viewers to watch their favorite programs from the previous 7 days and store them on a PC for 30 days

The BBC is the first traditional TV station in the world to offer all their TV shows on demand and over the internet (well as far as I know). The reason other stations have not done this is because they are supported by advertising and they just simply aren’t comfortable stepping away from a comfortable revenue model. The BBC however just cares about ratings and not how many adverts get viewed.

The BBC is the first traditional TV station in the world to offer all its TV shows on demand and over the internet

UK Media regulator Offcom warned that the BBC iPlayer service could damage the competition, reduce DVD sales and have negative effects on ensuring quality content for the long-term. However, in the long run improving the end-users experience is more important than making content owners adjust to a new distribution and revenue model.

Channel 4, another British TV station launched its own Internet TV service called 4oD (Channel 4 on Demand). Having tried it I can say it was extremely poor and actually charged you to watch many of the programs. It would be cheaper and easier to just record them on a DVR and watch them for free later, and skip the adverts too.

The BBC has got it right here and I hope this will encourage others TV networks to keep pace and offer their content in a similar way. The whole idea has been provisionally approved by the BBC Trust, with a final decision to be made before May 2, 2007 after public consultation.

Big thumbs up to the BBC!

[Via Yahoo News]

“I’m stunned how people aren’t seeing that with TV, in five years from now, people will laugh at what we’ve had.”

Bill Gates recently appeared on the Daily Show on Comedy Central (video below) and continued to stress that current TV is nothing compared to what the internet will offer.

Microsoft is already well placed in the TV industry offering IPTV middleware, the Xbox Live Marketplace for video downloads to the Xbox 360, and Media Center PCs.

The most exciting development in the works is IPTV on the Xbox 360 which is probably what Bill Gates is actually warming us up for here (without directly mentioning it). But IPTV on the Xbox 360 will actually be very similar to a cable or satellite subscription service and not something that will connect you with the world of internet television.

It will however harness on the capabilities of internet protocol and probably bring community features, video on demand etc. From what Bill Gates said on the Daily Show you will be able to go directly to the content you want, probably using some sort of tagging function. For example, if you had recorded the Olympics you could go directly to the swimming event by searching for the tag swimming.

But let’s be fair how often are keyword tags in videos going to be useful in everyday viewing? As Jon Stewart said on The Daily Show, “TV is passive”.

More TV Content, Higher Quality, More Freedom.

What people really want from a TV service is:

• Content
• Content
• Content
• To be able to choose when to watch it
• To be able to choose where to watch it
• Improved quality of content.

TiVo took the industry by storm because it allowed people to more easily choose when they watch a TV show. Media extenders such as the new Apple TV are getting very popular because they let people choose where they watch TV (within their house), same with the Slingbox. HDTV is also kicking off because it improves the quality of content.

Someone entering the TV market needs to either:

1. Give people more freedom over when and when they watch the TV and video they have access to already (e.g TiVo, Apple TV, Slingbox) or,
2. Provide content in higher quality (e.g HDNet) or,
3. Provide more content (Satellite and Cable).

Microsoft won’t be able to get enough video content

TV Networks are already locked in tight agreements with content owners and it is well recognized that new companies entering the TV market will have a very tough time getting content.

A recent study from Accenture shows that Telecommunication companies that offer broadband and are trying to leverage themselves as an IPTV provider, are extremely worried about acquiring content, in fact that is their biggest fear.

It is for this reason that Microsoft will not become a TV network. Instead it will continue as a providor of middleware software for IPTV services. In fact the Xbox IPTV service only works with a third party IPTV providor that uses the Microsoft IPTV platform. So its not Microsoft TV, its someone other company using Microsoft technology to deliver it to your TV set with an option of using the Xbox 360 as a DVR.

Bill Gates on The Daily Show

The video below shows Bill Gates talking about the release of Vista, and also talking about the Future of TV near the end of the video.

Now we are also beginning to see the growth of video search engines that index video from a variety of sources. These video search engines are lagging behind the major video sharing sites, but will these search engines ever catch them up?

graph courtesy of alexa

YouTube.com

The leading website for sharing and watching online video clips. The company was recently sold for $1.77 billion to Google. It now ranks as the 4th busiest site on the internet and receives an estimated 20 million unique users per month, but it could be over 30 million by now. YouTube was officially launched in December 2005 and has seen huge growth since the middle of 2006.

Metacafe.com

Metacafe is much like YouTube and is a website for sharing and watching online video clips. Metacafe has about 17 million unique users each month and is ranked as the 132nd busiest site on the net. It was founded in July 2003 and has experienced a similar growth spurt as YouTube.

SearchforVideo.com

SearchForVideo.com is a video clip search engine indexing videos and associated metadata from around the web. It was launched in August 2005 and is now the 11,631st busiest site on the internet and has undergone significant growth since the middle of 2006, approximately 1 year after the original burst of interest in online video sites. This growth has occurred with very little promotion or press attention. I estimate that SearchForVideo.com has 1 million unique visitors a month.

SearchVideo.com

SearchVideo.com is much like SearchForVideo.com and is a video clip search engine indexing videos and associated metadata from around the web. It is ranked as the 18,581st busiest site in Alexa with an estimated 0.7 million unique visitors a month despite very little promotion or news coverage.

Blinkx.com

Blinkx is a video search engine that was launched in 2004 and differs from other video search engines in that it uses speech recognition and visual analysis to process spidered video rather than relying on metadata alone. Blinkx has seen steady growth (although not as dramatic as competitors) since its launch. It is now ranked as the 7,300th busiest site on the net. I’d make a rudimentary guess that this equated to anything up to 2 million unique visitors a month.

Video Search Engines

These examples are by no means comprehensive and there are plenty more video search engines out there. Even Google Video looks to be shifting from a closed system to an open video search engine.

The question is will these video search engine manage to attract the mass amount of users that sites like YouTube, MetaCafe and DailyMotion have, or will web surfers stay loyal to their chosen video sharing community?

I recently caught up with Greg Davies who manages ChewTV on a day to day basis and gave him my 15 Questions.

Before I jump in with the interview here are some interesting facts about ChewTV:

• ChewTV aims to create a more familiar TV environment by having its TV station change its content throughout the day, for example having kids videos in the morning.
• All the TV content on ChewTV is produced by youngsters.
• ChewTV helps fund and support youth based video productions.
• Chew TV is from the UK but is open to receiving and supporting projects on a larger scale.
• Chew TV launched in November in 2006.

And here’s the interview with Greg Davies from ChewTV.com

1. Sum up the goal of ChewTV

Chew TV’s ambitions stretch way beyond simply hosting content. We aim to create an interface between young people and the powers that be, making their opinions count, getting their voices heard, generating critical thinking and debate and helping them to be involved in making change within and beyond the media world. 

 2. Where did you come up with the name ChewTV?

Chew TV is youth led. In one of the first meetings about it in a school in Cornwall one of the pupils suggested the name ‘Choo’. This was misheard as ’Chew’. We liked it as it suggests that we are providing something to ’chew over’ and that we would like young people to ‘chew over’ what they receive from the mainstream media.

3. Are you a non-profit company - if you aren’t how do you intend to make
money?

Yes we are non-profit. Although we do intend to make the Channel sustainable through advertising.

4. Chew TV will be commissioning 10 projects to create video for the web
channel. Can you tell us more about this and what’s the interest been like
so far?

We are providing bursaries for film projects to create content for Chew TV. We are looking for original ideas that will spark debate, create reactions and challenge what people see in the mainstream media. We’ve had loads of interest so far with some really strong proposals coming through. We’ve had a fair few innovative and amazing ideas. I wish we could fund them all.

5. Other than supporting youngsters with cash and equipment to produce
videos and the ChewTV website to showcase their work, how else do you
intend to help youngsters into the video production industry?

Well its not just video production that we’re concentrating on. Its the media industry as a whole especially New Media, Film/TV, Animation and journalism. We have young people working on all aspects of Chew TV giving them experience in all sorts of things from marketing to web design and of course anything to do with production/broadcast. We aim to create networking opportunities for young people to get in touch with not only practitioners, artists and potential employers/commissioners but with other young people so that they can learn from each other. We will also be providing mentors and aim to act as a hub for communicating new ideas. We will also be holding numerous screening and networking events to provide cultural activities and support/improve local art scenes.

6. Chew TV receives very little traffic, does this concern you and what are your ideas for further promotion?

Very little traffic compared to Google or You Tube! But not compared to other youth led sites. Some examples of community/youth led broadband TV have little to no traffic and create content that is very weak. Its early days and we haven’t fully launched yet. We will start promoting more heavily when we full launch the site in Feb/March this year. As for promotion ideas - that would be telling! Wait until you see what I’ve got up my sleeve!

7. I’ve noticed your site lacks some important promotional aspects, for example its completely written in flash so the search engines are unable to index written text on your website, and there is not way to directly link to and share individual videos? Was this intentional or something you plan to fix?

As I mentioned earlier we haven’t fully launched yet. We wanted to give people a feel for the content and look of the site at this stage. We are concentrating on functionality and interactivity in Phase 2.

8. Tell me a little more about the sister site you have planned for even
younger children.

It will be much the same as Chew TV except targeted at a younger audience. Working more on projects with schools and taking a more light hearted approach. But until then all ages are welcome at Chew TV.

9. Do you receive full rights to the videos submitted to you? If not would you encourage youngsters to submit their video elsewhere to places such as YouTube for more exposure?

The filmmakers will retain the rights to their films. For the reason that we don’t want to limit how they use the material, the more exposure they get, the better. We don’t want to compete with other video sites, we embrace them.

10. You’ve told me that Creative Parnerships, South West Screen, TwoFour, Arts Council England and Cornwall Film are your sponsors, but does your relationship with these organizations go any further?

Don’t forget Hi8us! And they’re not our sponsors they are partners so they’re all involved on every level of Chew TV.

11. What’s your favorite video on ChewTV.com?

It has to be ‘Little Dog Turple’. This is a beautifully crafted animation with a charming, if dark storyline and an enchanting aesthetic.

12. What’s your history in Web TV and video production?

My history in Web TV starts here. However I have crewed on various feature documentaries including the ‘14 days’ series by Mad Brit Films. I have worked in TV/video production in the South West of England. My work has also appeared in the ‘D&AD New Blood’ show and ‘Welsh Artist of the Year 2006′. And all this before I graduated with First Class Honours in Media Arts at the University Of Plymouth. This is my first job since graduating. It fits in with the Chew TV ethos to give a chance to someone young like me. This isn’t really important though as Chew TV is not about me.

13. I don’t know if you’re aware but a lot of cool products have been coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and MacWorld this week over in the states. Are there any interesting new video related products that have caught your eye?

I was very impressed by the $100 draw string powered laptop. Could help spread Chew TV to the 3rd World! Exciting stuff.

14. Do you watch TV and video online? If so where?

Actually before I got the Chew TV job I didn’t have a telly so online TV was my only option. YouTube and Google video of course but for news the BBC website and Reuters TV. Also 3Btv and mix and match stuff from various channels usually using sites like wwitv.com as a starting point.

15. What direction do you think the TV industry is going and what role do you think the internet will play in this?

Well there’s a lot you can say about that. I think that as time goes by the boundaries between Television and the internet will blur. The way that people, especially young people consume media is changing. This is reflected in ITV’s decision to pull the plug on their children’s shows. More commercial stations will follow especially since the ban on junk food advertising. Young people use the internet more and more to not only receive media but to create content themselves. This will change the face of broadcasting.

Channel 4 and Trouble are already producing shows that use UGC from the internet attempting to mimic the success of You Tube and such. Big developments have taken place with what MTV are doing and mobile technology has made big improvements recently. This is a very exciting time and will hopefully give more power to the viewer/user. Reaching large audiences doesn’t solely rely on huge budgets and celebrities as much as it used to.

Big Thanks to Greg for the interview!

The Wi-FiTV chairman, Alex Kanakaris, insults MySpace and YouTube calling them "DeadSpace" and "WhatTube". What a clever guy!

Unless you’ve been living with some millipedes under a rock then you will have noticed that the large amount of Internet TV channel directory sites appearing around the internet. These websites list a large number of already existing internet TV channels available to watch.

One such website is Wi-FiTV which has recently released a press release stating it is:

• The first live TV with a live chat box for members to discuss programs they are watching
• The first free online video parties for members in up to 25 different locations
• The first live TV channels placed in Country and Category pages with live breaking news and weather
• The first social networking web site with free phone calls to and from members anywhere in the world
• The first online TV channels for sale on a national level

Visiting Wi-FiTV you will probably be thinking it is not the best site in the world with a poor design which makes it hard to navigate or look through the channels. You will probably also be annoyed that you have to sign up to watch the channels whereas anywhere else you do not have to do this.

you have to sign up to watch the channels

When you do get to watch a channel you may be further annoyed by the lack of control you have over playing each channel, no pause, rewind, or stop controls without left clicking the screen, a novice user might not realize to do this.

That aside Wi-Fi TV’s press release made it sound like it was doing some very interesting and unique things. The founder and CEO Alex Kanakaris can be seen in this video describing the changes.

Analysis of Wi-FiTV’s new offerings:

The first live TV with a live chat box for members to discuss programs they are watching

This is pretty cool, being able to chat to people while watching TV is a great idea and as far as I know Wi-FiTV is the first to do it with these sorts of internet channels. YouTube however has recently rolled out public testing of the same thing but for video clips. Of course anyone who has friends doesn’t need this sort of thing.

Unfortunately it is not implemented in a clever way and is simply a chat box underneath the channel, with no-one in the chat room. There are no social networking features for making friends or anything like that.

Wi-FiTV - The first free online video parties for members in up to 25 different locations?

I’m assuming this is video conferencing and I don’t think Wi-FiTV is the first to do this. It’s kind of unrelated to internet TV anyway and can be done with vSkype and other software anyway.

Wi-FiTV - The first live TV channels placed in Country and Category pages with live breaking news and weather?

All WiFiTV has done is put news and weather feeds next to a category list. This hardly warrants mention in a press release. Any respect for this company is instantly lost.

Any respect for this company is instantly lost.

Wi-FiTV - The first social networking web site with free phone calls to and from members anywhere in the world?

A social networking website? I wouldn’t really call Wi-FiTV a social networking site just because you can text-chat to other members while watching TV. It lacks a lot of functionality you’d expect from sites like MySpace, Digg or YouTube.

Free Phone Calls: When it comes to offering free phone calls it’s a separate service which from what I can see is not integrated with Wi-FiTV at all other than being branded VoIP software. It actually looks like its run through another company called adcalls.

Either way what the hell has making phone calls for free got to do with TV in this situation.

Wi-FiTV - The first online TV channels for sale on a national level?

Ummm can’t I produce TV channels with many other companies and have them broadcasted worldwide. Has this company heard of BrightCove or NarrowStep? Wi-FiTV are just making things up and lying.

Wi-FiTV are just making things up

How arrogant is Wi-FiTV?

To answer this question here is a quick word from the Wi-FiTV Chairman Alex Kanakaris.

"MySpace may be dead space and YouTube may be What Tube by the time our brand of Social Internet TV(TM) is fully implemented".

Well it’s a little childish to be calling potential competitors names. MySpace = Dead Space! YouTube = What Tube! How can a CEO who addresses the competition which is worth billions of pounds be taken seriously.

Is Wi-FiTV part of an MLM Scheme?

When searching Google for some information on Wi-FiTV I found an interesting forum post that was asking people to sell Wi-FiTV channels to other people and earn commission. From the information on the website it smells a bit like a borderline MLM scheme to me, although it probably fits as legal.

Here is a quote from the forum. "Once you sponsor a sales rep, and they go out and sell a TV channel for $25,000, your rep will make a $5000 commission (paid weekly) and you will make a $2500 override for sponsoring that sales rep (paid weekly). You only get paid for PERSONALLY SPONSORED sales reps. This is not MLM. "

What is really interesting is that in another forum post it was asking for actual MLM marketers to buy a channel, saying that they needed an additional outlet for their sale pitch.

"Who wants to buy a Wi-FiTV channel? Are you currently working in an MLM orgainzation? Let me open your mind. Any MLM organization NEEDS to get their message out! What better way could their possibly be to do that than having your organization with it’s own TV channel on Wi-FiTV!"

Conclusion

Wi-FiTV is really pretending to be something it isn’t. It’s not a social networking site it’s just a simple aggregator of pre-existing internet TV channels with a very simple text chat underneath each channel and a separate VoIP service.

Combine this with the fact that the company is possibly involved in an borderline MLM scheme selling the technology for an internet TV station at inflated prices then this is a company I’d recommend staying away from.

Note: This article represents my own views, opinions, and intepretations of Wi-FiTV.com

Yahoo! and TiVo

Yahoo! already has a strong partnership with TiVo with a number of Yahoo! services such as Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! photos available through the TiVo box.

Also Yahoo! partnered with TiVo to allow its Yahoo! TV Guide to work with TiVo allowing remote scheduling through the Yahoo TV guide website. Because of this already inherent relationship with TiVo it has been said before that TiVo would make a good takeover candidate for Yahoo! to really bring it into the living room.

Yahoo!’s PC PVR software

However this seems not to be so likely now considering Yahoo! is concentrating on creating its own PC DVR solution. It previously acquired Meedio which was a company that had its own PV DVR software. A week later Yahoo! released Yahoo! Go TV which was built on the Meedio platform. The Yahoo! DVR software integrated many other Yahoo! video services such as Yahoo! News and LaunchCast music videos.

At the moment Yahoo! is changing from Yahoo! Go TV to a new similar service called My Channel which appears to have a new user interface and possibly completely new software behind it. At this point in time you can’t even get to the old Yahoo! Go TV website.

Yahoo! and Online Video

It is also worthwhile pointing out that Yahoo! was leading the online video market (in terms of number of views) back in July last year. Whether this is still that case is unknown but the company still has a huge chunk of the market with the Yahoo! video search engine, LaunchCast music videos, and Yahoo! News videos which will no doubt be integrated into the new Yahoo! My Channel DVR software.

Yahoo! was also previously teamed up with Al Gore’s Web TV channel, Current TV, but this partnership recently ended — WatchMojo speculates why.

Yahoo! and Akimbo Deal

The latest attempt for Yahoo! to squeeze through the living room door is a deal with Akimbo, a company that provides an internet video on demand solution that can be used with Microsoft Media Center PCs and with the RCA Akimbo living room set top box.

The deal will allow Akimbo users to browse a regularly updated selection of Yahoo!’s popular videos, then watch the clips on their TV screens, without an extra charge. This greatly expands Akimbo which has a lack of free content and effectively brings a YouTube type service to the TV.

It also helps Yahoo! get in the living room although Akimbo themselves are not doing to well in that department, although a recent deal with AT&T will help them out a little bit.

Yahoo! Compared to Microsoft

Compared to Microsoft however Yahoo! looks dead in the water with Microsoft boasting an IPTV middleware platform, Media Center PCs, media extenders, the soapbox video sharing site, the Xbox 360 with video downloads with IPTV on the way and far more deals and partnerships with big TV related companies.

Here’s a video from this week’s Consumer Electronics Showcase about the Xbox 360 Internet TV service.

Also see Web TV Hub

The guide also features some places which will soon allow you to earn money from delivering your videos online and also some places that allow you to sell DVDs without having to first order a certain number of DVDs, stash them in your garage, and fulfill orders yourself.

The top three places to sell your videos online according to Scott are:

1. Atom Films,
2. Revver and
3. Turn Here

This guide is an extract from Scott’s book "The Future of Web Video" which I have recently bought and will be making my way through very soon.