The 2007 Streaming Media Conference definitely took a change this year. The yearly battle cry of the large networks not understanding why this is a great medium to now they are actually streaming their content on the web . The focus this year was on business models for advertisements to new ways to deliver content.
Content delivery has been an issue in the past but with the recent decreases in CDN costs has enabled just about anybody to take advantage of this medium. P2P will even further lower the costs despite what the speaker at Akamai claimed at the Streaming Media conference.
Advertisement will be the backbone to start paying for this media. Developments from Flash players to CPM’s are being discussed at length. The key is understanding that traditional business rules do not apply to this media and should not be used. These traditional ways are setting back the true growth of online video. It is up to online developers to keep developing better ways for advertisement to be put in place.
One of the mistakes being made is the insertion of pre roll ads. I don’t think I have talked to one person who enjoyed sitting through a 15 second ad spot to view a 30 second clip. More important is how this discourages users from clicking on another clip and who can blame them.
It is important to note that users understand, enjoy and know how important advertisement is because it keeps the content free. What has shown some early signs of success are overlays. When done properly, this provides a good experience for the user and the advertiser. What hasn’t been created are rules as to how much real estate is acceptable. I have seen as much as 50% of the screen covered which completely took away from the experience.
One the CPM front for video, the best model so far has been the viewer minute cost. This is a good model for the advertiser as well as the content creator. This model only charges the advertiser when a user watches the content. The better the content you have the more users that will engage with it.
This year there will be a number of new concepts for advertisement. I will even be trying new ways to get advertisers more exposure with our product and will let you know how these practices are working.
Once some basic advertisement business rules are in place, there will be an explosion in online video advertisement and more quality video .
The 2007 Streaming Media Conference definitely took a change this year. The yearly battle cry of the large networks not understanding why this is a great medium to now they are actually streaming their content on the web . The focus this year was on business models for advertisements to new ways to deliver content. 
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