John Edwards, CEO of Move Networks, which powers streaming for ABC.com, FOX.com and ESPN360.com, told us today people are spending more than an hour per session watching content Move provides. He also said that the company has crossed the 34 million viewer mark. This is an increase from the 50-minute average viewing time and 20 million viewers Move announced in November.
All TV (except sports) is moving to on-demand, right? You can’t successfully have hundreds of thousands of people accessing the same online video at the same time, right? You can’t hold an interactive video event online that’s open to the public, right?
Oprah says otherwise. That’s right, Oprah.
Very quietly Oprah’s been hosting an online, interactive class called A New Earth on Oprah.com for the last three weeks. What makes the initiative remarkable is that she’s using Skype video to do it. Not only can online visitors watch Oprah talk with guest/co-host Eckhart Tolle every Monday at 9:00 ET, they can also ask questions in a video split screen. (see above) Limelight is the content delivery network (CDN) partner for the series and Move Networks is handling the video player and encoding. The scale of the experiment is unprecedented.
John Edwards, CEO of streaming content technology provider Move Networks, says that his company is close to finalizing a Series C round of venture capital that will be more than the $34 million that has been previously rumored.
“There was a leak out that said we raised $34 million,” said Edwards in an interview with Contentinople yesterday. “That number is low.”
Move is clearly onto something. It is growing like a weed out there in the Utah desert, going from 40 employees to 140 employees in one year. It’s wrapped up some big media deals, including providing streaming video technology for Fox, ABC, Discovery Channel, and Oprah.com.
“At the MIX conference this afternoon, Perkins Miller of NBC demoed the Silverlight powered video platform for NBCOlympics.com. Duncan Riley liveblogging for TechCrunch called it “kickass,” and it deservedly got the largest ovation of the day.”
Tony Perkins (who founded Red Herring Magazine and now heads AlwaysOn) gave a great keynote…Perkins also talked about the effect technology is having on the entertainment industry, and also showed an HD clip of “Lost” using broadband streaming technology from Move Networks… Full Article…
ESPN360.com’s presentation of the Feb. 20 Phoenix Suns vs. Los Angeles Lakers basketball game was the debut of a new application, from Move Networks, that presents a high-definition stream matched to the speed of the viewer’s Internet service provider. Full Article…
It’s anecdotal evidence only, but I think a big indication of this trend is that my wife has been watching episodes of “Lost,” in HD, on the ABC site. My wife is typically not an early adopter of technology, she usually waits until it’s more mainstream. I was a bit shocked to come home one night and find Lost streaming across a 19″ flat-screen computer monitor in crisp, clear glory. In simple terms, the quality of the picture was better than you got on a traditional TV set just five years ago. Full Article…
Move Networks, which hosts ABC’s ABC News Now, began coverage early in the day with Now’s scaled-down version of the mainstream broadcast ABC News, complete with former on-air anchor Sam Donaldson. The quality of the stream was extremely good, even at close to full screen, and Move/ABC followed a trend that other news organizations were offering: access to premium service free for the day. Full Article…
