Digital Video - April 2008 - (Page 27) CLOSE-UP WEB VIDEO’S NEXT WAVE? PHILIP HODGETTS SHAKES UP THE STATUS QUO WITH OPEN TELEVISION NETWORK. BY DAVID E. WILLIAMS T here’s something unassuming about having a digital studio’s nerve center based in the corner of a washing machine repair shop, but that’s the way Philip Hodgetts rolls. It was here that he produced and hosted the weekly tech talk radio-style show Digital Production Buzz — available at www.digitalproductionbuzz.com — and I first met the Aussie emigre. However, Hodgetts has since hung up his hat with the Buzz to concentrate on his software company Intelligent Assistance, his consulting firm Big Brains For Rent and his latest launch, Open Television Network (OTN; www.opentvnetwork.com). Powered by klickTab software, OTN is a digital media distribution and management site open to content creators and viewers interested in their wares, serving as a global trading post for niche audio, video and PDF programming via an RSS feed that can be loaded into iTunes, Miro or compatible RSS aggregators. Customers can then enjoy their purchase though a variety of players, including iPods, AppleTV, or their home theater system (using other applications). OTN’s ease of use for both content vendors and customers was a primary concern for Hodgetts, who foresees a post-YouTube Web that will allow digital assets to be easily found and fairly monetized. DV: In a nutshell, how do you describe the Open Television Network concept? Philip Hodgetts: It’s another entry into digital distribution. Some would say we’re late getting into that game, but I have problems with most of the existing offerings out there. What we’re trying to do is create an unmediated marketplace between content owners and those who want that content. Pretty much every other system has somebody sitting there as a gatekeeper between the content and the consumer. They decide what gets on the system, and if you just have a few pieces of content, you can’t get any traction with them. We want to democratize distribution the same way that production has been democratized over the past decade. Tell me about the software that drives OTN. We’re really using off-the-shelf technology. The RSS software we’re using is the same thing that drives most podcasts. In fact, our initial goal was to sell podcasts, but we soon found www.dv.com that there was a need for a centralized repository or marketplace into which anybody could submit their assets. And it can be filtered out however the customer desires. If all they want is family friendly content, that’s all they will get. Using OTN, you can subscribe to feeds based on an actor, a director, subject matter — whatever criteria matters to you. I also see this as an alternative to the advertising-supported model that most every other content provider uses. There are two problems with it. First, are there enough advertisers to go around? Second, are there advertisers who will work into the niches? I think the answer to both is no. Blip.tv, which I admire and is one of the best distributors out there, is working to get ad support for their top 50 podcasts. Well, they have 5,000. Our model is different. We believe that if you have something interesting, put it out there and let people pay a small, fair price for it. What does that come to? It’s going to be close to a penny a minute per viewer, which parallels the revenues generated by media traditional sources. What’s been the greatest technical challenge of building OTN? Designing a way to do commerce within an RSS feed, but, to be honest, that got solved in an afternoon! We also had to design a metadata management system that would give us enough flexibility. I find that most people do not categorize their content with fine enough detail. So we spent a lot of time on how to handle metadata, tags and categorization to allow customers to quickly and easily find and buy what they want. You can have a great product, but if people can’t find it, or even know that it does exist, then it basically doesn’t. The Internet didn’t come to exist until we got our first browsers so we could easily find things. Open Television Network is all about helping people find the content they want and then help them further define their personal programming, just as they might with TiVo or Netflix. It gives you the power to program your own media world, whether you’re a content provider or consumer. DV dv april 2008 PHOTO BY JON SILBERG 27 http://www.digitalproductionbuzz.com http://www.opentvnetwork.com http://www.dv.com
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