I think the time will come when enough people will figure out how easy it is to watch content from the web on their large screen TV's. If the content is high quality (say shot in HD with high production values) I don't see anything stopping there being an "HBO of online video". Of course no one in their right mind would pay to watch content on their laptop, so the only real way to "monetize" now is with ads.
Right now is just like the beginning of TV (ie-not much choice in content; all subsidized by ads)--but soon we will evolve towards the subscription model as a natural progression, just as cable did for TV. Instead of 500 channels, there will be 10's of thousands. I really hope things turn out this way, otherwise I've been wasting ALOT of my time over the past year;) PS-Glad to see the very underappreciated term "fuckface" used--especially in this context! Matt Feldman http:/www.neovids.tv [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- In [email protected], "Bill Cammack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > This is actually a good point. There's going to come a time where the > dynamic changes, similar to what happened with television. > > Television used to be free. Your buy-in was the television itself and > MAYBE an extra antenna to get better reception. The television > reception was via "the airwaves". > > Now, there's cable television, which people pay for. Not only the > specialty channels, but the regular broadcast channels as well. WHY > pay for television? More channels and perfect reception, instead of > ghosting and fuzz. "Free for everyone" became "pay for better or > stick to worse". > > Now that MSM, as we all knew was going to happen, has jumped on the > bandwagon of video distribution via internet, there's going to have to > be a similar turning point. There will have to be a split between > "free content with less quality" and "paid content with more > quality"... quality being perhaps encoding bit rate or length of > program, like google video had ages ago. > > If you have quality, niche programming, you can get people to > subscribe if you have benefits for their doing so, like in the cases > where you can see the program LIVE on the paid internet site, without > commercial interruption, or wait several days for the same exact > program to come on cable television... WITH added commercials and > cheesy announcers that subtract from your immersion into the program. > > Sites like Joost and Hulu can be easily reconfigured to have free and > paid areas, just like even cable television has pay-per-view channels. > > -- > Bill Cammack > http://BillCammack.com > > > > --- In [email protected], "Jay dedman" <jay.dedman@> wrote: > > > > Here's an interesting opinion piece in the NY times: > > http://tinyurl.com/3clb4z > > > > "INTERNET idealists like me have long had an easy answer for creative > > types � like the striking screenwriters in Hollywood � who feel > > threatened by the unremunerative nature of our new Eden: stop whining > > and figure out how to join the party! > > That's the line I spouted when I was part of the birthing celebrations > > for the Web. I even wrote a manifesto titled "Piracy Is Your Friend." > > But I was wrong. We were all wrong. " > > > > he's not really saying anything hugely new, but interesting that it's > > being discussed. > > will people expect web video to be free and subsidized by ads? > > or can independents make a direct relationship with the community like > > musicians are starting to do? > > > > and of course we, personal videobloggers, will continue to roll on. > > http://nablopomo.ning.com/group/videobloggers > > > > Jay > > > > -- > > http://jaydedman.com > > 917 371 6790 > > Video: http://ryanishungry.com > > Twitter: http://twitter.com/jaydedman > > Photos: http://flickr.com/photos/jaydedman/ > > RSS: http://tinyurl.com/yqgdt9 > > >
