Hulu Expands

Hulu has rolled out its first international service in Japan just a few weeks after first announcing its plans to launch in the heart of Asia. But Japanese consumers are being asked to pay through the nose for the subscription service. And all before any Japanese broadcasters are even on board.

Hulu was expected to expand to Europe first but after having no luck in persuading U.K. broadcasters to supply content the company backed out. Japan and Australia were then targeted, and the former has been the first to debut. The latter still hasn’t been officially announced.

Content Vs. Price

Hulu in Japan is an entirely subscription-based affair, with the service costing ¥1,480 per month (around $19.19 U.S.). This is considerably more than the $7.99 charged in the U.S. for Hulu Plus, although it does mean adverts aren’t necessary.

For that price, Hulu Japanese viewers get a lot of American content from the likes of NBC, ABC, Fox, and Disney, and even CBS, which doesn’t offer content through the U.S. version. Movies such as Pirates of the Caribbean and Men In Black are available thanks to Sony Pictures and Warner Bros.

Content Vs. Sale

Strangely, Hulu has launched in Japan without any Japanese content. This is thought to be on the way, assuming the relevant deals can be forged between the company and Japanese broadcasters, but it does seem an odd omission at this stage of proceedings.

I can only assume the launch was somewhat rushed through in order to make Hulu more attractive to bidders looking to acquire the company. After all, the sale is still on, and the board are currently mulling over the offers on the table from the likes of Google, Yahoo, and Amazon.

Conclusions

It’s good to see Hulu Japan launching. Japanese consumers now have a premium online video streaming service to use, and the rest of the world can be more confident that Hulu will make it to other countries in the not-too-distant future too. Assuming the new owners have international expansion in mind.

Socialcam Startup

In the spring of 2011 Justin.tv launched a mobile sharing app that was designed to do for video what Instagram has done for photos. That being allowing smartphone users to share them with others across a range of platforms, social networks, and websites easily.

In the six months since the app made its debut it has become a major player in the market alongside the likes of BlipSnip, Viddy, and Vlix. So much so that Socialcam is being spun off from Justin.tv to be its own, independent entity housed in Founders Den in San Francisco.

Justin.tv co-founder and current CEO will be going with it and taking a small band of select engineers with him. Justin.tv will retain a stake in the new company, with additional funding and backers now being actively sought.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes

Seibel is being replaced as CEO of Justin.tv by CTO Emmet Shear, who is charged with pushing TwitchTV (a live streaming video games portal launched in June) onto even greater things than it has already achieved.

I can only imagine TwitchTV will eventually be spun off into its own company as well. After all, 8 million viewers watching 1 billion minutes of video every month would suggest there’s a future for this endeavor. Which leaves me to question whether the original Justin.tv is being hung out to dry?

So What About Justin.tv?

Justin.tv is one of a number of live streaming video companies which offer people the chance to effectively broadcast online as if they owned their own TV station. But it’s a market that seems to have reached a certain point and remained there, slowly flatlining.

While it’s still a popular destination, there is clearly some effort by the Justin.tv execs to move into other territories rather than risk losing momentum to the point at which they do a Joost. Because no one wants that kind of memorial.

[Via TechCrunch]

Movieclips

I first covered Movieclips almost two years ago when it first launched in the U.S. with a healthy 12,000 clips. There were a few issues, such as a clunky user interface and slow loading-times, but ultimately the site showed a lot of promise.

Much has happened since then. First off, the number of clips has risen to 20,000. The site has also been improved beyond reproach and the ways and means of searching for the clip you want to see via the added meta-data have been expanded.

Unfortunately Disney is still not on board, which means Movieclips is still missing content from one of the major studios. Still, six out of seven isn’t bad. There’s also the little matter of a new round of funding worth $7 million and some even bigger news…

Movieclips On YouTube

Movieclips has landed a partnership deal with YouTube which brings its content to the Google-owned site. The hope is to provide for movies what Vevo does for music videos and Machinima does for gaming videos.

Movieclips now has an official page on YouTube and also features on the site’s Movies page. The clips are seen as an enticement to people to rent full films. Kind of like a try before you buy deal.

Movieclips has plans to expand from this point forward, both in terms of the number of clips available, and the range of content. We’re talking trailers, interviews with movie stars, and behind-the-scenes footage being added for good measure.

Conclusions

This deal is good for all parties. Movieclips gets exposure most companies would kill for, YouTube gets a premium new content-provider, and the movie studios get to control the clips being uploaded on the Web. And all three make money from sharing the revenue from adverts.

Oh, and we, as movie lovers, get to see high quality clips of the most memorable scenes from our favorite films for free. What’s not to love?

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Movie Piracy

Move piracy has been a problem for Hollywood for years, ever since home video became a dominant force and you could buy a hooky copy of the latest releases on street corners and in markets all over the world. These days DVDs have made it even easier, with people happy to sell you a copy of the latest blockbuster filmed by someone on their smartphone.

And then there is the Web, the latest villain the movie industry can blame for all its ills. Then again it does have the law on its side. Seemingly even when a company feels it is operating within the bounds of a legal loophole.

Zediva Shoots Blanks

Zediva is, for all intents and purposes, a DVD rental company. The difference is that rather than physically pass on a DVD for a customer to watch, Zediva plays it at its facility and let the customer watch over the Internet. Think of it as a DVD player with a really long cable attached to it and a customer sitting at the other end.

Zediva considered this as utilizing a loophole in copyright laws and believed itself to be immune. But the Hollywood studios disagreed and sued the company in April over the infringement of its public performance rights.

Last week saw a federal judge side with Hollywood, granting a preliminary injunction against the company. Zediva has already promised to appeal against the decision, but with a 1991 case involving a hotel streaming movies to individual rooms against it, the chances of the company succeeding seem remote.

Conclusions

As a layman this feels a little unfair. Zediva has bought a copy of the DVD, and the customer has paid for the privilege of renting it out. Does the fact they’re watching it over a long distance rather than in their front room mean it’s any less legitimate than Blockbuster or Redbox? It would appear so.

[Via CNET]

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SeeSaw’s Checkered History

SeeSaw has something of a checkered history, starting out as a BBC-led venture called Project Kangaroo before Arqiva stepped in and bought the service lock, stock, and barrel for $12 million.

The service itself, which offered content from a range of British broadcasters and production companies, looked and felt great, and worked really well. However, its name never entered the mainstream and it consequently faltered badly.

In June Arqiva announced it was shutting SeeSaw in a few weeks due to a lack of funding, viewers, and content but interested parties starting circling and one has now taken the bait.

SeeSaw Sells

A consortium of investors led by Criterion Capital Partners has acquired SeeSaw. The U.S.-based private equity firm has already bought failing social networking site Bebo, and clearly sees a future for both companies.

Other investors include former BBC executive Michael Jackson, who will become chairman, and former Walt Disney executive Dan Adler. Arqiva is retaining a stake in the business.

Most key members of staff will retain their positions, most of the 28 employees will retain their jobs, and SeeSaw is expected to remain based in London. However, the line-up of investors suggests an international future could be on the cards.

An International Future?

Were Criterion and the other investors to turn the venture into a profitable one in the U.K. then they could turn their attention to the U.S. In the week that music streaming service Spotify has launched across the pond perhaps the same future is being eyed for SeeSaw. It would give Hulu some competition, and its new owners (whoever that ends up being) something to think about.

[Via The Guardian]

The Social Network…

When The Social Network, the movie directed by David Fincher and starring Jesse Eisenberg which tells a fictionalized account of how Facebook came to be founded, was released there were a spate of fake movie trailers made. The showed what a movie detailing the launching of other tech startups, such as YouTube, eBay, and Yahoo! might look like.

However, it turns out no one was actually interested in the movie and television rights to these stories, and it’s actually Justin.tv which has been targeted. Yes, that’s Justin.tv, the live video streaming company which allows everyone to become the star of their own television network.

Justin.tv: The Movie

A group led by RicheProductions has acquired the movie and television rights to Justin.tv, although what it’s actually going to do with them is as yet unclear. Even its latest launch, TwitchTV, is included in the deal.

Peter Riche said:

“We are thrilled to be in business with Justin.tv and the entrepreneurial spirit the founders and the company represent. We look forward to exploring the many creative possibilities in film, television and across all media outlets.”

TechCrunch suggests the movie could tell the story of how the company was founded and how the four people involved are still involved and still good friends. In other words, the complete opposite of Facebook and The Social Network.

I assume the rights go deeper than just the founding of the company, which suggests a television show based on some of the bigger characters present on Justin.tv and how they’re using the site to build their online personas.

Conclusions

This is an interesting concept to say the least. Justin.tv wouldn’t have been my first choice for the next startup to get its own movie, but then I’m not a Hollywood producer with an eye for what makes a good story. If I was I think I’d have gone for YouTube, but that’s just me.

[Via Deadline]

Space – The Final Frontier

Humanity has long had a fascination with space, but it was only just over 40 years ago that we first ventured out there and landed on the moon. Thanks to technological advances space is now much closer as a destination than it ever has been before.

Unlike Richard Branson’s ambitious plans to fly everyone into space on a commercial basis, UrtheCast is bringing space and a view of Earth to you in your home. Thanks to the power of streaming video.

UrtheCast (EarthCast)

UrtheCast is a Canadian company which is embarking on an ambitious effort to take streaming video to space by installing two high-definition camera with immensely powerful zoom lenses on to the International Space Station (ISS).

Viewers watching online will be able to pause, rewind, and zoom in on specific locations, so long as the ISS passes over those locations.

The service is being sold as “a blend between Google Earth and YouTube,” which is very simplistic way of describing that it features live, real-time video footage of Earth.

UrtheCast is a truly terrible name, evidenced by the fact we need to explain how to pronounce it. I can see what play on words they were going for, but it’s not great.

Still, I guess the name won’t matter so long as the service is good. And not so overpriced as to make it an option only for people with more money than sense. Because I’m guessing this won’t be free.

Conclusions

I love the idea of this, and suspect many other will as well. But do I love it enough to pay money for the service, and sit in front of a computer watching the world literally go by? Probably not. If it was ad-supported, on the other hand…

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[Via PopSci]

SeeSaw Shuts

SeeSaw is shutting, with owner Arqiva announcing as much with a short message posted on Friday (May 27). It read:

“As it will soon be ‘goodbye’ from Seesaw, we’d like to take this opportunity to say a big ‘thanks’ for all your support, custom and loyalty over the last 16 months. We’re a small team but we hope we’ve made a big difference and that you’ve had fun watching TV with us.”

Arqiva set SeeSaw in motion from the ashes of Project Kangaroo, purchasing the infrastructure from the BBC and its partners for around £8 million.

Often referred to as the British Hulu (because the real British Hulu failed to materialize) SeeSaw has only made it to the 16-month mark before being shuttered. Which has to be seen as a warning to other companies seeking to launch similar services.

Lack Of Support

While Seesaw did have some similarities to Hulu – designed as a one-stop shop for online video content from a range of broadcasters being the main one – it never secured current content in the way Hulu did. While some Channel 4 programming was cross-posted to both, the BBC and Five only really offered archive content, with current content generally limited to the networks’ own on-demand services.

I have used SeeSaw from time to time over the past 15 months, especially for past seasons of shows I’ve got into recently. Only the day before Arqiva announced it was shutting up shop I began watching the first season of Stewart Lee’s Comedy Vehicle on SeeSaw after catching the second season on BBC2.

There was nothing inherently wrong with SeeSaw as a service apart from the fact that (I’m assuming) not enough people were using it and not enough money was being generated to make it worth continuing. Although there were premium options there was nothing like Hulu Plus, and not really the content to support anything as ambitious.

Conclusions

I consider the demise of SeeSaw as a saddening if not slightly predictable one. Archive content is all fine and well but people generally want to watch brand new content. And the TV networks would rather control the way that is watched online themselves. Which suggests there is no place for this kind of service.

VYou

I’ll be honest, I’d never heard of VYou until recently, but when a startup manages to raise $3 million in Series A funding it’s a sign that you really should check out the site. And I’m very glad I did because there is a lot of promise there.

In essence VYou is a social networking platform which revolves around video. Once you create an account you can build an online persona through posting videos and respond to those posted by others.

You can also follow the various celebrities and brands which have already seen fit to take advantage of the opportunities VYou affords them. This includes the likes of Deepak Chopra, Moby, The Daily Beast, and Simon and Schuster.

Funding/Future

As revealed by TechCrunch, VYou has acquired Series A funding to the tune of $3 million from RRE Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, High Peaks Ventures, Broadway Video Ventures, Kevin Wall, David Tisch, and Rick Webb.

Company founder Steve Spurgat stated that the money will be spent on hiring a lot of new engineers on the tech side and to improve the product with some key features. Both of which are essential if VYou is going to transcend from its current position on the sidelines and become a serious player.

The signs are good that it will achieve this, as it’s operating in a niche which has the potential to grow into a phenomenon. Social networking is a huge part of the Web now, and the online video sector needs to take advantage while the iron is hot.

Conclusions

VYou looks to be worthy of its initial investment, and I have no doubts there will be more to come. What is also inevitable is that the site will now see competition popping up all over the place as others try to muscle in. As long as the best rises to the top that isn’t a bad thing.

Clicker

Clicker came out of beta around 18 months ago and offered a new way of finding online video programming. At its heart a search engine built and maintained specially for online video, Clicker allows users to find and view content that is available to watch online. At least from legitimate sources such as Hulu, Amazon, and iTunes.

At the time we profiled the site a year ago, Clicker searched 1,200 sources to find 600,000 episodes from 10,000 shows, but I’m sure all those numbers have gone up since then.

Clicker managed to raise $19 million in funding and built traffic levels up to around 3 million uniques every month. And now it has been bought by U.S. television giant CBS.

CBS Acquires Clicker, Takes Lanzone

CBS has acquired Clicker, adding it to the impressive range of online properties CBS now owns. The man who sold Clicker, CEO Jim Lanzone, has been given a executive role at CBS, so this looks like it was as much a talent grab as anything else.

Leslie Moonves, President and CEO of CBS Corporation, said:

“In just over a year, Jim has created one of the leading navigation and discovery tools for video programming on the Internet. Clicker’s products and proprietary technologies add firepower to our existing portfolio of entertainment properties, and if we can help grow Clicker to its full potential in the years ahead, the strategic value could be tremendous.”

It’s clear from that that CBS hasn’t bought Clicker just to kill it, and instead plans to nurture it. My guess is that Clicker and TV.com will be combined at some stage, especially as the latter has the domain name to die for in this sector.

The price CBS paid for Clicker hasn’t been revealed but is expected to have been somewhere in the region of $50 million to $100 million. Which is really nothing more than loose change for the television network. So it has to be considered a good deal.

[Via TechCrunch]