Interviews with Digital Media Thought Leaders
The Future of Internet Video
Podcast Audio | Posted by Phil Leigh on July 22, 2008
If you would like to learn what a prominent television producer thinks is the future of Internet video, this interview is for you.
Our guest today is Steve Rosenbaum who is the Founder of Magnify.net. Earlier he was the creator of MTV News: Unfiltered. He has also produced prime time television for A&E, Animal Planet, Court TV, The History Channel, BBC, TLC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC. His current company provides a platform that empowers groups of people who share common interests to gather, filter, organize, discuss and share video in a community context on the Internet.Steve emphasizes three key points about the future of Internet video.
First, he believes that the medium is on the threshold of accepting long-form programs. Specifically he feels that professionally produced shows with run lengths similar to those on TV and at the movies will increasing become popular on the Internet. However, he also believes that it will be important that they be viewable on television screens. He notes that products like Roku (Netflix) and Apple TV are making this increasingly likely.
Second, he advises Internet video producers to make it easy to post their videos on a multitude of websites because they should want their videos to be available at those locations where the viewers are already trafficking. Not only do you want them to be available at YouTube, and Veoh, but also make it easy for people with pages at MySpace, FaceBook, or their own blogs, to be able to post your video there as well.
Third, he feels that most every niche will develop its own video stars. Experts in wine, surfing, snow skiing, or any hobby, will ultimately have their own shows and they will be available at places where people with similar interests congregate on the Web.
Phil’s Take: I find Steve’s observations to be insightful. The biggest missing piece is an easy way to get Internet video to the television. But that is something that is likely to happen gradually while we’re all busy working on getting familiar with the new possibilities of Internet video, production, distribution, and advertising. We’ll wake up one day and find that some of us are getting our shows on the big screen.
Categories: Podcast Audio
Tags: digital-media, Future-of-Television, Future-of-Video, Internet-video, Magnify.net, podcasting
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I really liked this interview Phil and Steve. I also like the idea of Magnify.net and how it fits into new media.
I particularly liked the point that in the future there will be many online “MTV-like” entities that produce highly creative, entertaining, and engaging content.
Also the idea that there will be professionals of all kinds around all types of narrow interests (like what Gary Vaynerchuk is doing for the wine community) is something to watch out for.
We have a long way to go in what should be a very exciting and promosing journey for web video.
Thanks, Jerry.
You may also want to read about Steve’s experience in unlocking the Apple TV over at Always On.
I will be doing a show about my experience with TiVo software to get video files from my PC played via TiVo on my television.