Video

Netflix will launch in the Netherlands in late 2013, as its international expansion slows

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 04:01:12 +0000

Netflix revealed the next target of its ongoing international expansion Tuesday night: The streaming service will launch in the Netherlands in late 2013, making it the seventh European country to get access to Netflix’s service. However, the launch is also decidedly smaller than previous international expansions.

Netflix didn’t give any details about catalog size or pricing of the service, but instead pointed out that Dutch consumers will have access to “Hollywood, local and global TV series and films,” including Netflix originals like House of Cards and the newest season of Arrested Development.

Picking the Netherlands as the next target for international expansion should appease Netlix investors, some of whom have been concerned about the costs associated with the company’s international ambitions. After crossing the border to Canada in 2010, Netflix made a big splash with an expansion into almost all of Latin America and the Carribean in 2011.

Last year, the company doubled down on international markets by expanding to the UK, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. Netflix now has a total of seven million subscribers outside of the U.S., but some markets have proven more difficult than others. Latin America, in particular, has been challenging, to the point where analysts have asked Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on the company’s most recent earnings call whether he’d consider pulling out of some of the countries.

Hastings answer was no; but Netflix has long tried to address those concerns by tieing any international expansion to global profitability. The company has also said that it intends to expand into only one additional market in 2013, which means that people in markets like Germany, France or Spain have to wait until at least 2014 before they’ll get access to Netflix.

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Netflix and Amazon step up battle for kids’ eyeballs over summer vacation

Laura Hazard Owen — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 19:28:27 +0000

Netflix and Amazon would prefer your kids stay out of the sun this summer, thanks. Rather, both companies sent out announcements pimping their family offerings Tuesday that indirectly referred to the ways their product is superior to their competitor’s.

First up, Amazon announced it’s added “more than a thousand books, games, educational apps, movies and TV shows to Kindle FreeTime Unlimited,” its monthly subscription streaming offering for kids. Not surprisingly, Amazon didn’t provide subscriber numbers — though Kindle VP Peter Larsen said “the vast majority of our customers who take advantage of our one month free trial of FreeTime Unlimited choose to subscribe and enjoy our content library built just for kids.”

Of course, Amazon’s announcement refers to the Viacom shows that it grabbed exclusive rights to after Netflix lost them: “Among the content on FreeTime Unlimited are “exclusive Nick Jr. favorites from Viacom such as Dora The Explorer, Go, Diego, Go!, Blue’s Clues and The Backyardigans.”

Then Netflix announced that it’s launched a separate section of its site called Netflix Families, which “helps parents with the daunting task of entertaining kids this summer.” The site offers family recommendations in different categories (“family movie night,” etc.) as well as videos from parents about how they are “embracing the ease and flexibility of Netflix.” And Netflix notes that “Netflix works on almost any device with a broadband, WiFi or mobile data connection” — while Kindle FreeTime Unlimited is only available for the Kindle Fire.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock / jwblinn

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Now that’s a chathead: Rounds adds co-browsing to its mobile video chat apps

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 15:00:37 +0000

Rounds, the Tel Aviv-based video chat startup, added the ability to browse websites while you’re chatting with each other to its iPhone and Android app Tuesday. Rounds was able to add the shared browsing feature thanks to a cooperation with Channel.me, a Dutch startup that specializes in these kind of co-browsing experiences.

Check out a video of the app and the new feature below:

I’ve been pretty skeptical in the past of startups who are trying to leave their mark in the video chat space. It just seems increasingly difficult to compete with big players like Skype and Google Hangouts, as well as a handful of companies like ooVoo that have a grip on the teen market.

But every now and then, a feature comes along that could actually make a difference — and co-browsing on mobile devices could just be that kind of feature.

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Yet another YouTube funding: Bedrocket invests in Shira Lazar’s What’s Trending

Janko Roettgers — Tue, 18 Jun 2013 13:00:54 +0000

Shira Lazar’s What’s Trending, the daily pop culture live show on YouTube,has raised funding from Bedrocket Entertainment, the digital entertainment company headed by TV veteran Brian Bedol and co-founded by Huffington Post co-founder Ken Lerer. The amount of funding wasn’t disclosed, but we’ve heard that it’s a seven-figure number.

What’s Trending wants to use the new cash infusion to scale its production and invest in ad sales and multi-platform distribution. The funding comes as a kind of validation that What’s Trending’s YouTube strategy is working. What’s Trending originally launched in 2011 as a web format for CBS, but severed ties with the network soon after and briefly tried its luck as a weekly pop culture show online, only to turn into a daily YouTube format a year ago.

The funding announcement comes just a day after news broke that Fullscreen Networks has raised an undisclosed amount from the Chernin Group, Comcast Ventures and WPP, and adds to a number of funding announcements for YouTube-based businesses in recent months. Which goes to show that — despite all the recent talk to the contrary — at least investors still think there’s money in producing content for YouTube.

Speaking of which: Bedrocket’s Lerer came to our recent paidContent Live conference to share his thoughts about investing in digital media. Check out the video below:

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Time Warner Cable: No, we don’t throttle YouTube — it’s all about peering

Janko Roettgers — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 18:22:46 +0000

It’s official: Time Warner Cable doesn’t slow down your YouTube videos. The cable provider published a blog post late last week (hat tip to DSLReports), telling its customers that stuttering YouTube videos are “normal for broadband users at any internet service provider, at least some of the time.” The post went on to explain that the occasional buffering is just a result of “the way the internet works.”

Time Warner Cable felt compelled to publish the post after a number of customers had mused in recent months that the ISP was behind the sub-par performance of their YouTube videos. The supposedly damning evidence? Users had discovered that blocking a few IP numbers vastly improved their experience.

Time Warner Cable’s blog post doesn’t go into the IP number blocking, but explains the core of the problem this way:

“The internet is not as simple as one wire connecting a website’s servers to a customer’s home. Traffic originates in countless places, heading toward billions of end-user destinations. Each network that carries web traffic is itself a collection of a number of complicated technological and business relationships. As traffic flows from one area of the internet to another, it passes through this network of technologies, agreements and protocols and culminates in each particular user experience.”

In other words: It’s all about peering, and where in the network content is cached — which, as Time Warner Cable suggests, is as much about business as it is about technology. Case in point: Netflix has been trying to get ISPs to join its own Open Connect content delivery network and install its OpenConnect caching servers on ISPs’ networks.

The video service is arguing that this would greatly improve customers’ streaming experience while keeping down costs for ISPs, and Netflix is even willing to install and maintain these machines for free. However, getting U.S. ISPs to join has proven difficult. Not only are companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast operating their own TV services, which makes them Netflix competitors, but they also want Netflix, Google and others to pay for distributing so much traffic on their networks.

Netflix has started to take this peering fight to the court of public opinion. The company is publishing a monthly ISP speed index, and launched a new Super HD video quality level that is only available to customers of ISPs that have joined Open Connect. Time Warner Cable has responded to this by alleging that Netflix is discriminating against its customers – a charge that Netflix unsurprisingly denies.

Google has thus far kept quiet in this peering fight. But the fact that its users resort to blocking IP numbers to get better quality levels on certain ISPs, as well as Time Warner Cable’s new denial, makes it clear that even for YouTube users, the peering wars are far from over.

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock user Swetlana Wall

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Netflix signs big, exclusive deal for original DreamWorks shows

Laura Hazard Owen — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 12:38:00 +0000

Netflix and DreamWorks announced a multi-year deal for original shows based on DreamWorks properties like Shrek, Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, the companies announced Monday. Netflix says it’s “the largest deal for original first-run content in Netflix history” and “the first time DreamWorks Animation’s beloved characters will be introduced into the television market as a branded collection of shows.”

The shows will begin running in 2014, and though Netflix didn’t release more specifics on content, it seems clear that most of them will be aimed at kids. That means the DreamWorks deal could help replace the Viacom shows like Dora the Explorer and SpongeBob SquarePants that Netflix recently gave up (and Amazon then grabbed).

This isn’t the first deal that Netflix and DreamWorks have made: The two first signed a deal in 2011 and then, this past February, announced an original kids’ show that will air in December.

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Boxee confirms it’s looking for more funding, or a possible sale

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:25:20 +0000

Boxee is trying to raise more money, a company spokesperson confirmed via email Thursday. The confirmation came after a report from AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka that the company was looking to raise $30 million. “We are doing another found of financing,” Boxee’s spokesperson told me, without elaborating further. Boxee has previously raised around $27 million over three rounds.

However, it looks like there’s a plan B: Kafka reported that the company may also be looking for an exit by trying to sell itself to cable or telco providers. Boxee’s new Cloud DVR product could help a TV provider to potentially replace their legacy set-top boxes with newer technology, and offer their subscribers unlimited cloud storage for their DVR recordings. Asked about this possibility, I was told that the company is “looking at all options.”

Check my unboxing video of the Boxee Cloud DVR below:

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Where to watch Bonnaroo live online

Janko Roettgers — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 15:00:15 +0000

Summer time is festival time, and this week, tens of thousands of music fans are flocking to Manchester, Tenn., for the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival. Can’t be there, but still want to join in on the fun? You can, thanks to extensive livestreaming from Ustream.

The live streaming platform will not only broadcast the appearances of around 40 bands and artists from multiple stages, but also add footage from fans who are roaming the festival grounds with their mobile devices. Live streaming will start Friday, June 14 and continue throughout Sunday, June 16.

Some of the acts that are going to be live streamed include Grizzly Bear, Paul McCartney, Mumford & Sons, Nas and The National. Check the official Bonnaroo site for the complete lineup of the live-stream as well as the festival’s schedule.

Live streams can be viewed on Ustream.tv/bonnaroo as well as through Ustream’s iOS and Android apps.

Image courtesy of Flickr user humbert15.

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How big cable uses its muscles to prevent online competition

Janko Roettgers — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 19:12:33 +0000

Rumors that Apple may launch a full-fledged TV set to finally take on the TV business have been around for years. So why hasn’t Apple launched such a product yet? One reason could be that cable companies don’t want it to.

Bloomberg reported Wednesday that Time Warner Cable has been using its negotiating muscles to keep TV networks from licensing content to Apple and others. An industry insider who declined to be named confirmed this account in a conversation with GigaOM, saying that the company has been aggressively pushing for these kinds of clauses in its recent contract negotiations.

At the center of the dispute are so-called virtual cable operators — companies that operate pay TV services without having any physical infrastructure of their own. Instead of using their own satellites, cables or phone networks to get TV signals to the consumers, virtual operators would simply stream their programming over the internet.

There have been reports that Apple was considering a plan to launch such a virtual operator in the past, and other companies have looked into launching these kinds of businesses as well. One of the more notable efforts is Intel’s forthcoming TV service, which the company wants to launch before the end of the year.

To compete with traditional cable, these operators would have to be able to offer much of the same programming. And that’s something that cable companies apparently want to prevent. Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research first reported Tuesday that at least one or more of the existing operators had added clauses to their contacts with TV networks that would prevent the networks from licensing their content to companies who don’t control their own infrastructure.

Bloomberg was able to get Times Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt on the record about contracts featuring these provisions:

“We may well have ones that have that prohibition.”

It’s worth pointing out that cable companies wouldn’t be able to keep all kinds of programming inaccessible with these kinds of provisions. NBC and Comcast are specifically barred from these tactics as part of their merger conditions, as Greenwald points out. However, other TV networks don’t have these kinds of restrictions, and some may be inclined to follow the demands of cable companies in order to protect their growing retransmission fee revenue stream.

In the past two years, we have seen a number of disputes arise between networks and operators about the amount of money operators have to pay to carry certain channels. In the end, most of these disputes ended with networks having the upper hand because operators simply couldn’t afford to lose key programming. But it’s possible that barring competitors like Apple and Intel from access to the same content is one of the benefits that networks now have to throw in to sweeten those deals.

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Comcast CEO promises more binge-viewing, faster platforms

Jeff John Roberts — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 17:28:50 +0000

The cable industry is adapting just fine to the changing habits of TV viewers and to the arrival of ultra-fast competitors like Google Fiber, according to Comcast CEO Brian Roberts.

Speaking on Tuesday at the Cable Show in Washington, Roberts shared his thoughts on the future of the TV industry and showed off new Comcast kit intended to provide a faster, more-connected experience. The technology included cloud service X2, which allows subscribers to customize their experience to a greater degree than previous services, showing recently watched shows, favorite apps and other types of personalized content. Roberts also showed off a 3-gigabit/sec connection capable of gulping down a movie near-instantly (see our take here).

Addressing the current cable viewing experience, Roberts acknowledged that cross-screen consumption through Comcast’s TV Everywhere is far from integrated.

“Guilty as charged that we haven’t made it as easy as it needs to be. We need to make a tablet so it automatically knows it’s you and you don’t need to authenticate,” he said, adding that Facebook would be another sign-in option.

Roberts also acknowledged people’s propensity for “binge-viewing,” which has taken off in response to offerings by Netflix and other non-traditional TV providers. In response, he said Comcast would be repeating its “Watchathon” experiment — where customers can binge on hundreds of episodes of popular shows like The Walking Dead — at least every 90 days.

The Roberts talk was part of an industry event so needless to say, there were no questions about cord-cutting, disruptors like Aereo or breaking up the cable bundle.

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