nettime-nl: Re: portals, traffic en browsers

["Ronald van Raay" <Ronald.van.Raay@ingram.nl> (by way of Marja Oosterman <marja@nopapers.nl>)]

Streams of Consciousness
by Joe Nickell

4:00 a.m.  8.Oct.98.PDT
Online video and music broadcasters are beginning to argue that the Web's
original killer app -- unfettered
hyperlinking -- is hurting their business.

The trouble is, viewers can pull up videos and songs, the Clinton testimony
 or a U2 single by bookmarking the
stream's URL in their media-player software. By going to the stream
directly, readers bypass the ads on the online
broadcaster's site, robbing them of business.

"Linking without permission is stealing. Period, end of story," asserted
Mark Cuban, CEO of broadcast.com, one of
the biggest online broadcasters. "It's like tapping your neighbor's cable
box."

In a modern-day variation of the time-worn request, "Don't touch that
dial," several leading streaming-media
content sites are insisting that, in order to view or listen to their
content, users must first visit their Web pages.
Sometimes those pages feature nothing more than a banner ad alongside a
link to the streamed content.

According to Cuban, any other means of dipping into his company's streams
is tantamount to theft.

Go to broadcast.com's main site with your browser. Click through the sports
 section to get to the University of
Kentucky football link. Notice that big ad on top of the video links? If
you bookmark one of those links in your
RealPlayer or Windows Media Player, you can watch those recorded games over
 and over again without seeing
another broadcast.com ad. You're also be running afoul of broadcast.com's
Terms and Conditions.

"Linking directly to the media file without any reference to the site or
link to the site is such a rip-off," agreed
Marc Weitz, technical officer of Compucast. "You're forcing me as a content
 provider to pay for the through-put
without any of the benefits of my advertisers or sponsors getting to that
viewership."

Analysts say as long as streaming media is supported by traditional banner
ads, content providers will have to try
to force users through a Web-based doorway to their content.

"Linking directly to streaming video on the Web can be a real problem,"
said Seema Williams, an analyst in the
entertainment and content group at Forrester Research. "It costs a lot to
serve that video, and for companies
serving that resource, missing out on their revenue streams is a pretty
critical problem."

Most believe the problem will eventually be moot, once advertising is
inserted directly into the streams. The
industry is beginning to embrace the Synchronized Multimedia Integration
Language, which lets Web designers mix
text and streaming media in a way that's currently impractical with plug-in
 players.

Nonetheless, in-stream or "interstitial" ads currently make up less than 10
 percent of the overall ad inventory of
most streaming-media providers, according to market researcher Jupiter
Communications.

"The fact of the matter is media buyers are just getting the idea of how to
 sell the Internet in terms of banner
ads," said Scott Ehrlich, executive producer and senior vice president of
Fox News. "You have to do that for a
while before you're looking at inserting ads" into the streamed media
itself.

What's more, online broadcasters are having a tough time forcing their
business philosophy onto hardcore
netizens, whose most basic belief is that information is meant to be linked
 and cross-linked. That's the point of
the Web, after all.

"Unfortunately, some people have set up their business models to be
incompatible with the philosophy of the Net,
which is freely linked," said Thomas Edwards, president of The Sync. "I
feel bad for them, but I can't feel too
bad."

Edwards said his company, which creates original streamed content for the
Web, sells mostly banner ads, but
ultimately recognizes that in-stream ads represent the only hope for
profitability.

"If you're coming to a medium to make money, you can't expect that medium
to change itself to fit your model,"
said Joey Manley, director of Free Speech Internet Television. "If they've
got a model that requires these kind of
restrictions on links, then their model is fundamentally broken, and
they're not really interested in being on the
World Wide Web. It's the media maker who is comfortable in a distributed
environment who is going to succeed."

Related Wired Links:

Web Ads Invade PC Apps
5.Oct.98

RealNetworks Video Steps Up
28.Sep.98

Clinton Video to Flood Net
18.Sep.98

AtHome: Broadband Ads Are Boss
8.Sep.98



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