GigaOM » ZillionTV

Vid-Biz: YouTube, ZillionTV, Brightcove

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:30:06 +0000

YouTube to Kill IE6 Support on March 13; Google has given a specific kill date for old browser support, meaning that some future features on YouTube won’t work in older browsers. (Ars Technica)

Qwest Plows Millions Into ZillionTV; telco has invested $10 million in startup ZillionTV in return for exclusive rights to offer the IP-delivered video-on-demand service in the telco’s footprint. (Multichannel News)

Water-Cooler Effect: Internet Can Be TV’s Friend; Blogs and social Web sites like Facebook and Twitter enable an online water-cooler conversation, encouraging people to split their time between the computer screen and the big-screen TV. (NY Times)

WGAW Signs 33rd Online Content Company; Emmy-nominated production company Big Fantastic (Prom Queen, Sorority Forever) has signed on as a signatory to the Writer’s Guild of America, West. (press release)

The TV Numbers Game; Vizio is now the best-selling LCD brand in the United States, but Samsung sells more LCD and plasma sets together than anyone else. (NY Times)

Brightcove Announces Major Customer Wins & Partnerships in Spain; the online video platform signed major new Spanish customers Tuenti, Grupo Vocento, Sony Music Spain, Conde Nast Digital Spain, Grupo V, GEC, GX Magazine and TQMadrid. (press release)

Vid-Biz: YouTube, NBC Universal, Project Canvas

Ryan Lawler — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:53:53 +0000

Is YouTube Looking at a Subscription Model?; Google vice president of content partnerships David Eun said some full-length shows would not be available to YouTube under its current advertising model (Reuters), and Sky reportedly backed out of talks to put its shows on the video site because it would not allow Google to broadcast its content for free. (Telegraph)

NBC Universal to Take Major Loss on Winter Olympics; GE CEO Jeff Immelt said that NBC will lose an estimated $200 million on the February Olympics. (MediaPost)

Channel 4 and Talk Talk join Project Canvas; six partners will now seek expressions of interest from other companies to become partners in the joint venture. (ProjectCanvas.info)

‘Mood-Based’ Video Discovery Service Jinni Raises $1.6 Million; the service makes recommendations based on semantic cues in the words users search for, as well as the choices they select over time. (paidContent)

Telco TV Subscribers Expected to Double by 2011; according to ABI Research, there will be more than 730 million global pay TV subscribers by the end of 2011. (IPTV Watch)

Movie Gallery Hires Financial Adviser; the movie-rental chain is using a 30-day grace period to renegotiate with lenders and landlords after not filing financial reports required by the lenders. (Video Business)

FBI Makes Arrest in Wolverine Upload Case; if convicted, Gilberto Sanchez could face up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine or twice the gross gain or gross loss attributable to the offense. (CNET)

ZillionTV Adds MLB; the ZillionTV Service will have archived games of the week, classic games, and FastCast video recaps, all offered as ad-supported programs. (emailed release)

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Vid-Biz: ZillionTV, FoxPop, Netflix

Chris Albrecht — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:02:32 +0000

ZillionTV Signs Paramount; new films will be available via electronic sell-through, while catalog titles will be available for free with ads. (emailed release)

Fox Adds Second Screen for DVD Interactivity; “FoxPop” will debut on Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian and via a downloadable app; facts about the movie will appear on a laptop or iPhone in sync with and about the movie. (The Hollywood Reporter)

Netflix on the PS3 = Sucky; experience of loading and moving through streamed films are slow, reports one user. (Business Insider)

Microsoft Taking a Multi-Screen Approach to Ads and Games; company putting ads on its Xbox LIVE platform as well as dynamically delivering ads (including video) to breaks built into games. (MediaWeek)

Chase Sponsoring Oprah/CNN Webcast; 90-minute webcast with author Uwem Akpan happening tonight at 9 p.m. (Broadcasting & Cable)

NCR and MOD Systems Begin Technical Trial; kiosks let you download movies to an SD card (see our previous coverage). (emailed release)

Tudou Looks to Mobile, Despite Lagging Chinese 3G; TechCrunch has long wrte-up about the company’s strategy. (TechCrunch)

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ZillionTV Swaps Out its CEO

Chris Albrecht — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:30:19 +0000

Over-the-top video delivery startup ZillionTV has made Jack Lawrence its new CEO, replacing Mitch Berman, who will become executive chairman. The company emailed the following statement to us this afternoon:

“As of this week, Jack Lawrence is CEO of ZillionTV committed to day-to-day operations and fundraising and Mitch Berman, Executive Chairman, will continue to focus on building the ZillionTV service through content, CSP and advertising partnerships.”

During a phone interview, Berman said the move was “completely my decision” and that the need to be out raising funds pulled him away from building a content library and building relationships. Berman wouldn’t comment on where Lawrence came from and the company did not send us Lawrence’s CV in time for this article.

It’s been a rocky October for Zillion. Berman today confirmed that ZillionTV did indeed lay off 30 percent of its workforce earlier this month. Berman said the cuts were in mostly in engineering because they no longer needed to build the technology.

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Report: ZillionTV Lays Off One-Third of Its Staff

Chris Albrecht — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:15:09 +0000

ZillionTV, the would-be set-top box/video service provider, has reportedly laid off one-third of the company. Brandon Wirtz, who says he’s a former employee of Zillion, broke the news on his blog last week, and in a statement emailed to Multichannel News, Zillion confirmed that it had “realigned its resources.”

Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Zillion’s plan to enter the set-top market was initially to sell its service through ISPs. It would charge consumers a one-time activation fee of $100 and offer content both through a free, ad-supported model and a pay-per view model.

But red flags went up over the company last month when Zillion announced that it was delaying its commercial launch until the second half of 2010 instead of this year. Additionally, the company concluded that its initial strategy of relying solely on telco partnerships wouldn’t give its advertising partners enough reach, so it said it was adding direct-to-consumer sales in regions where it didn’t have an ISP partner.

Zillion certainly had the right partners in place to make a go of the set-top space. It was backed by Hollywood studios like Disney and Warner Bros. as well as Visa. The company had raised $18.4 million as well as an undisclosed round earlier this year, and according to Multichannel News had 100 employees.

But we didn’t have high hopes for Zillion to begin with. The set-top space is crowded with big players including Microsoft, Amazon, and Netflix — all names that people are familiar with and already trust. Plus, relying on ISPs meant potentially cutting into ISP TV offerings, a notion they probably weren’t thrilled about.

Zillion’s troubles make us think of Sezmi, another set-top player new in town and looking to score. Sezmi also delayed its initial launch. Last we heard, it’s supposed to hit the market this fall.

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ZillionTV Going Direct to Consumers

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:08:50 +0000

ZillionTV announced today that it is expanding its distribution strategy with plans to sell directly to consumers, and has delayed the commercial launch until the second half of 2010 from its initially anticipated debut by the end of this year.

Zillion CEO Mitch Berman told us by phone that the company still plans on using telcos and other ISPs as the primary means of distribution for the service, but in areas not covered by such partnerships, it will sell its set-top box and service direct and will eventually ape the Netflix model by getting on as many net-connected consumer devices such as Blu-ray players and broadband TVs. The company expects to see products with ZillionTV embedded inside them by the end of next year.

Though the over-the-top video space is becoming increasingly crowded, with the likes of Netflix, Amazon and Vudu all making their way to your TV set, Zillion is pushing ahead undaunted. The company has 60 content partners and is backed by Warner Bros., Sony, Twentieth Century Fox, NBC Universal, and Visa. Zillion differentiates itself by charging a one-time $100 activation fee to access its content either through rental, purchase or for free with advertising.

The company concluded that its initial strategy of relying solely on telco partnerships would not give its advertising partners, which includes MillerCoors, enough reach.

Zillion expects to go into direct consumer trials by the end of this year. Based in Sunnyvale, Calif., Zillion had raised $18.4 million by the end of 2008, and completed an undisclosed Series B round earlier this year.

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IPTV Market Snapshot

Steve Hawley — Fri, 08 May 2009 11:32:44 +0000

After a slow start, IPTV, or Internet Protocol Television, has become established as a legitimate pay TV alternative to satellite and cable. Now that several IPTV operators have each attracted more than 2 million subscribers, IPTV has begun to attract the attention of media companies and advertisers that are keen to bring content to any screen that happens to be in the consumer’s hand. And therein lies the rub.

Have we begun a period of fragmentation in which no single service provider owns the subscriber, or, just the opposite: Have technology advances made it possible for individual service providers to serve every screen via a unified service platform? Early indications are that both situations are likely to occur, as the largest operators deploy convergence and personalization tools, while consumers capture what’s missing via the Internet.

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Vid-Biz: Kutcher, Streaming Costs, Limelight

Chris Albrecht — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 16:56:36 +0000

Kutcher Bringing Punk’d-esque Show to Ustream; star’s Katalyst Media will live-stream people getting tricked and embarrassed. (TechCrunch)

What Does it Cost to Stream Video? In light of metered broadband discussions, Saul Hansell at the NYT breaks down the local network and bandwidth costs associated with delivering video. (Bits Blog) Elsewhere, Dan Rayburn has tracked down some of Level 3′s customers, including Netflix, FOX, Yahoo and others. (The Business of Online Video)

Limelight Expands into Mobile; beta of the CDN’s mobile video service was used for March Madness iPhone app and reportedly being used for Major League Baseball’s iPhone app. (Contentinople)

Qik Integrates Facebook Connect; new features include the ability to instantly upload live-streamed videos to the social network. (Qik Blog)

ZillionTV Chooses Verimatrix for Content Security; VOD startup deploys Verimatrix’s encryption and authentication platform. (Multichannel News) Zillion also chose Inlet for encoding. (release)

A Digital TV Feature You Can’t Get; under ATSC guidelines, digital TV sets have the ability to offer dual streams of audio for broadcasts, but no manufacturer has included the decoding equipment to enable it. (Gadgetwise)

BBC iPlayer to Turn on HD; streams and downloads of some programs like Doctor Who and Dragon’s Den to stream in high-definition. (BBC)

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Vid-Biz: Piracy, ZillionTV, YouTube

Chris Albrecht — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:14:20 +0000

Sweden Sees Online Traffic Dip After New Piracy Law; report says traffic fell from 120Gbs to 80Gbps on the day the strict new law went into effect. (BBC)

MillerCoors and ZillionTV Partner for Ads; agreement will let the beer company target its advertising based on geography, demographics and consumer preferences. (TVWeek)

YouTube Breaks Make Workers More Productive? New Australian study shows that web surfing for fun at work can boost productivity by 9 percent. (Wired)

Goodmail Adds StreamingVideo to Email Service; CertifiedVideo lets users of the company’s encrypted email service stream video within messages. (CNET)

Jake Zim Joins 20th Century Fox; Zim leaves the Safran Digital Group to become the Vice President of Digital Marketing. (JakeZim.com)

Charlene Li: “Metrics for Online Video is a Curse;” social media expert says the ability to determine actual vs. potential audience works against web video. (Beet.TV)

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ZillionTV’s Set-Top Plan: Mix Ads, Paid Content, T-Commerce

Chris Albrecht — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 14:00:35 +0000

To borrow from Morrissey — stop me oh-ho-ho stop me, stop me if you think that you’ve heard this one before. A new startup wants to deliver premium content to your big screen TV over the Internet! ZillionTV formally took the wraps off its new TV set-top box/premium content delivery service today, promising to do just that. But is this well-connected startup scrappy enough to survive the cutthroat world of set-top boxes?

It’s a tune we’re all familiar with by now, but the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Zillion does set itself apart in a few ways. First, as Zillion will tell you, it is not a set-top box company — it’s a service company. To Zillion, set-top boxes are a necessary stop-gap measure to get content to the TV via the Internet. As more TV sets become connected to the Internet, the service will migrate to a boxless solution.

Until that point, Zillion, like its set-top competitor Sezmi, will sell its boxes through ISPs and not through big box retailers. The “box” actually doesn’t look like much of a box. It’s long, sleek and slender. It sports the typical connections (RCA jacks, USB, HDMI) and uses a motion-sensing remote control (built using Hillcrest Labs technology). As is the fashion now, the Zillion will stream all of its content. Because the company is working with ISPs, it says its video streams will be more reliable than those of its competitors. Zillion says it has agreements with 16 ISPs that service 10 million homes.

Zillion currently has 15,000 titles in its content library, which isn’t too shabby considering Netflix, which has been streaming for well over a year, has just 12,000 titles. Of course it doesn’t hurt that major Hollywood studios like Warner Bros., Sony, Twentieth Century Fox and NBC Universal are all equity partners in the site.

The company has another big partner in Visa, which participated in Zillion’s reported $4.01 million Series A round raised in December of 2007 along with Sierra Ventures and Concept Ventures. Having Visa should come in handy as Zillion plans to truly differentiate itself by generating revenue through a mixture of a la carte content purchase/rental transactions, T-commerce and advertising.

But Zillion is up against big-name heavyweights. Netflix is establishing a nice beachhead with its streaming service by getting it onto a broad array of devices. Amazon is making VOD moves, adding its service to the $99 Roku. And of course you can’t count out Apple and its “hobby,” the Apple TV. But the biggest impediment seems to be the incumbent MSOs. Comcast, Time Warner, AT&T, and Verizon all offer ISP and video services, and the cable companies are angling to move into online video delivery.

Plus, Zillion may have pedigree backing from major Hollywood studios, but that’s no guarantee of success. Do either Movielink or CinemaNow ring any bells?

Faced with odds like that, you’d think ZillionTV would run to the somber embrace of Morrissey, but Zillion believes now is the time to strike because the entire video industry is in a state of flux. More people are starting to get comfortable with the notion of getting their video outside of a traditional cable or other multi-service operator — and the market has no clear-cut winner yet. Tune in during the fourth quarter of this year, when ZillionTV becomes commercially available.

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