Alec Saunders SquawkBox

Tomorrow’s blogger panel promises to be a good event, with participation from Jeff Pulver, Brough Turner, Andy Abramson, and Dan York.  Amazingly, there will probably be fewer than 1/3 of the bloggers attending the show, up on the stage.  Martin Geddes, Russell Shaw, Ted Wallingford, and Jim Courteny are here also.  RocketBoom’s Andrew Baron was busy watching Jeff Pulver’s keynote today as well.

So, here’s an open invitation to all bloggers, and wannabe bloggers.  Help us out on the blogger panel.  Make sure you come, and come prepared with tough questions.  Be opinionated.  Let us know what you’re thinking about!

Poking around the blogs this morning, I came across Martin Geddes’ piece on user centric VoIP – applications and customer focused applications of VoIP.  At the end, he makes a reference to the upcoming Voice 2.0 conference in Ottawa, which he and I are both involved in.  I recommend, if you’re interested in participating, that you jump on over to the site and take advantage of the early bird specials that end this week. 

Andy has already started to separate the rumours from the facts.  In VON-Rumours to Reality he reports on some of the news he’s hearing about.  He also writes about the dinner we had last night, including the fabulous wine list.  For those curious, the icewine I brought was a 2004 Vidal from up and coming icewine maker Royal Demaria. 

What’s web 2.0 about, asks Ted Leonsis.  Well, it’s about consumers.  The web has put the steering wheel in the hands of consumers, and nobody is giving it up.  And that’s going to cause some disruption amongst traditional media companies.

One of his big epiphanies this summer was the idea of “marketing to algorithms”.  The example he used was how his car told him, this summer, that he needed new tires.  He immediately bought them, having seen tens of thousands of tire commercials, without even thinking.  The algorithm told him he needed to buy.

The other thing he talked about was how his son, and some of their buddies, over the summer created an NHL Draft Picks blog, by aggregating content from all the team web sites. On draft day, they had over 100K unique visitors, more than any print media site.

The long tail is real!

He talks about the trend from expert driven to the wisdom of crowds.  Examples: WikiPedia, the AOL shared spam filter, Digg and others.

Video is making the internet better.  Now you have the choice to watch what you want, when you want.  He talks about how Katie Couric’s newscast on CBS is now simulcast on the the internet.

We get a quick view of a new search engine being developed by AOL which includes video.  Not only does it return text results, but also video.  We see a search on Madonna showing a panel to the right with a collection of videos.

He talks about the shift in business model.  AOL is banking heavily on video, and video with an advertising model.  They’re sold out of their video advertising inventory, and they’re getting cable industry CPMs (ad rates).

He shows the new AOL video portal, with a UI like an EPG.  Promises that there will be RSS feeds available too, which gives the ability for the blogosphere to syndicate it, and generate checques as well.

In2TV is a project to digitize all kinds of old content.  It’s the itunes of of video.  They want to give consumers the ability to take the content, syndicate it, excerpt it, put it on their own sites, and generate a revenue stream from advertising back to the content owner.

We also see samples of TMZ (a user generated Hollywood gossip site), and Sessions (original performances by music artists).  Ted also tells about their consumer created video content portal called Uncut Video which will launch in October.  Ted does magic tricks with a twenty dollar bill!

He turns to a sneak peek of AOL Video, a television video portal designed by AOL and Intel’s Viiv platform.  It will be announced next week.

Today they’re launching a multi-person endeavor with reality TV producer Mark Burnett.  At AOL.COM you can go to GoldRush and find clues for $2 million in gold, hidden around the country.  Ted views this as the internet changing television. They’re using the internet to drive traffic to the television. Clever.  Clues will be hidden in television, the web, music CDs… it’s a promotional opportunity for all the TW-AOL properties, with an irrestible prize.

He gets philosophical at the end, listing his seven Web 2.0 virtues, and concludes that AOL is about relationships, community, self expression — AOL is about self actualization.

It was a slick presentation. Leonsis is a compelling pitchman too.  What I found most interesting was the blending back and forth between TW’s traditional properties, and today’s internet generation.  If AOL can successfully execute this, they will leverage both their constituencies in a manner which Yahoo, Google, or Microsoft cannot. 

Jeff has started by welcoming all of the delegates from both the voice community, and the new delegates from the video community.

He has started by talking about a little history.  Voice is an application, he says, but we’ve known that for 10 years. We get a little history vis a vis the VON coalition, and the reaction that the industry had in the mid 90’s.  The incumbents tried to shut down internet telephony, and regulate VoIP as if it were telco service.  Jeff’s point is that as VoIP disrupted the telephony industry, video on the net is about to disrupt the entertainment industry, and we should expect a similar reaction.

Jeff talks about a few more areas where innovation is happening at the edge.  In fact, he talks about Telio and Vonage as arbitrage plays at the edge, which is an interesting idea.  Notionally, the services provided by these companies are an arbitrage play for local service.

Jeff’s contention:  Like voice, video is also an application.  TV over IP is not the same as IPTV.  IPTV is solely about empowering incumbent telco’s to compete with cable.  TV over IP is about user content creation.  As the tools improve, the quality will also prove, Jeff contends.  Absolutely!  It reminds me very much of the comments made yesterday by AOL’s Ragui Kamel at the IM panel. 

The same energy that has gone into voice, is now evident in video. 

What has held video back has been two gaps — a skills gap, and an access to technology gap.  Until recently, video editing and content creation required highly sophisticated and expensive equipment.  Moore’s law is bringing those tools to the masses.

He shows us the ViVidas streaming hi-def trailier for Ghost Rider.  High definition video, projected on a massive screen.  It looks pretty good.  There were a few buffering problems I could see, but Jeff’s point is that video is real, and it’s coming to the network.  I would have to concur.  I’ve seen the standard definition version of this video, and it plays flawlessly.  Perhaps high definition is a stretch today, but it’s definitely true that you can play standard definition video.

Jeff’s point:  you don’t need a studio, you don’t need producers.  You can do video yourself. 

What about the concession stands?  The people who sell popcorn, for instance.  New revenue streams are possible from contextually driven advertising, Jeff contends.

Never one to shy away from the regulatory issues, Jeff issues a clarion call to the industry.  He warns that regulators will try to regulate video, and calls on the industry to move ahead.  “Don’t let the threat of regulation get in the way.  We have to fight,” says Jeff.

Perhaps the most intriguing part of the speech was the switch, momentarily, to Second Life, where the whole speech is being broadcast live to avatars in the conference center on Pulveria, Jeff’s Second Life island.

Vintage Pulver.  A mix of vision, a few windmills to be tilted at, and a few preconceived notions poked hard.