Contentinople - R. Scott Raynovich - Mossberg, Meatballs & Video

Written by R. Scott Raynovich - Light Reading

Wednesday, April 2. 2008 at 05:30 PM EDT Post a comment

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WASHINGTON -- Imagine a spirited discussion about the future of online video, some avant-garde Finnish art, vodka, meatballs, and then a skin-scorching authentic Finnish sauna. Or, as our hosts said it, sowwwna.

As Paris Hilton would say, it was hot. Literally. That's what Beet.tv's founder Andy Plesser lined up yesterday in gathering a group of online video professionals here at the Finnish Embassy.

The keynote speaker was the Wall Street Journal columnist Walt Mossberg.

For the record, Mr. Mossberg opted out of hitting the sauna. But he did knock around plenty of views about video and the Internet.

The Producer, the Critic, and the Ambassador

Andy Plesser, Exec Producer, Beet.tv; Walt Mossberg, columnist, WSJ; Pekka Lintu, ambassador of Finland to the U.S.

"What we are witnessing is [that the Web] is becoming a video delivery [service] in a big way," said Mossberg, adding that if the U.S. wants to enable a Web video explosion it needs to stop slipping behind in broadband. He called for a new national policy to develop and invest in broadband infrastructure.

"The biggest obstacle is that we suck at broadband," said Mossberg. He even took a couple of shots at the cable companies, calling their bandwidth claims misleading. He also said that certain types of consumer devices have failed to make it easier to integrate Web video with their flat-panel TVs.

"The attempts to make a box [that connects the computer to the TV] have not been widely accepted," said Mossberg. He called the issue of streaming versus downloads "phony," as folks will get their video by whatever means is most convenient to them, and he pointed out that people certainly don't have any problems carrying around video in an iPod.

The beet.tv interview of Mossberg is available here:

When the Web was mostly a text medium, it disintermediated and hurt newspapers and magazines, he said. Meaning: As the Web moves to video, broadcasters and traditional video distribution businesses need to watch their backs.

The other participants in the roundtable included leading online media and technology execs like Matt Rutherford, Web strategist for Charlie Rose Inc.; Stokes Young, director of video, MSNBC; Christopher Ma, VP, the Washington Post Company; Brendan Greely, multimedia editor, the Economist; Sandy Malcolm, executive producer, CNN.com Video; and Howcast's CEO and COO, Jason Liebman and Daniel Blackman, respectively.

How to Build a Howcast

Jason Liebman, CEO of Howcast; and Daniel Blackman, COO of Howcast.

Jason Liebman, CEO and co-founder of Howcast; and Daniel Blackman, co-founder and COO of Howcast.

Here are some other observations based on what the panelists discussed:

Monetitzation is difficult. Nearly everybody in the online video business pointed out that while there is a lot of excitement and use of online video, monetizing online video is still a huge challenge.
Bandwidth and production costs are still high. One video producer for a major national brand, whom I won't name, mentioned that a typical online video product might cost several thousands of dollars a month to produce yet bring in only several hundred in revenue!
Syndication is growing. Many media companies, instead of defending their brand and holding captive video on their destination sites, are moving to online syndication, particularly through embedded video. The message appears to be: Embed where you can, because the cost of not doing it is higher than missing out on the potential viral marketing effect.