SxSW movies with storyline driven by audience

This year’s  SxSW offered some brilliant new media start up demos, a wonderful film premiere that used the audience wearing sensors which changed the path of the movie – some very big brands watching this new happening and new music.  More attendees than ever and the first technology summit.

Walled Gardens are coming to free content online

The latest round of content acquisition by the major cable companies will shortly end the era of free content online in my opinion.  Walls will soon be created and a toll booth will be constructed to make consumers pay for much of the online content that has previously been offered for free.  The new business model of pay per view will emerge in 2010 – well that’s my prediction.  Having worked in interactive TV since 2000, we had a model that offered viewers choice and suggestions based on profile information as well as making some content less expensive or free if the viewer agreed to watch advertisements.  It made sense then and it looks to me as though the major cable guys are gearing to own any of the current online video sites that will still be around in the coming years and set themselves up as the gate-keepers for video content on the TV and online.  The set top box makes the TV smart and there are huge opportunities for new applications and services for both online and TV.  I for one am looking forward to intelligent TV!

Online video grew at 24% and Forrester forecasts 11% growth in interactive marketing in 2009

Hulu is growing at a phenomenal rate but is still only 4% of the online video  marketplace.  The biggest site, YouTube, owns over 58% of the market and continues to grow at 36% but the comapny is still trying to work out the business model.  Overall online video usage grew by 24% to an average 9.5 billion streams a month with 35 to 49 year olds watching the most video online every month.

The latest Forrester research reported an 11% growth in interactive marketing for 2009 taking the spending to $25.6 billion.  Interactive marketing includes search, email, social media and mobile marketing dollars and although mobile shows some 70% growth, the size of mobile advertising is still very small – forecast to reach only $391 million this year (and this is larger than some other leading research companies have forecast).   The interactive marketing growth was seen as a result of marketers seeking lower cost and more accountable channels.