Call it what you want – content delivery, video aggregation, audience segmentation, brand networks, blah, blah, blah.  Tons of people have given it a go, but ask any of them about what they do and if it’s working, and only a handful are able to give you a clearly defined answer.

I came across an interview of Andrew Robertson, CEO at global branding agency BBDO, where he consistently refers to what they do as “The Work” and I think it’s a fantastic concept.  By defining your efforts simply and clearly stating your focus, you will help your audience understand who you are, what you do and the value you bring.

At 1CAST our “Work” is all about making digital more personal.  We define this as a user-driven, professionally delivered video news service, built around discovery – where the content follows the user rather than waiting to be found.  We call it micro-casting.

We believe that moving from search to discoverability is a natural process and one that is more closely aligned with our needs in this increasingly time constrained world.  Yet this begs the obvious question, “is there value or worth in what we do?”  And I would argue an astounding YES!

Time is a precious commodity and it can be argued that it has a higher intrinsic value than money.  For 1CAST, one of the best measures of the “worth” of our “work” is looking at how users are willing to pay with their time to access their own personalized news through our platform.

Not surprisingly, our user engagement numbers at 1CAST are off the charts for our desktop experience, our recent iTV initiatives on Boxee and especially on our mobile applications for iPhone and Android.  We believe this points to something very special about what we’ve accomplished with our micro-casting concept.  Some have called it a paradigm shift; others have called it cracking the code.

We just call it doing our “Work”.

Anthony Bontrager

Hi Everyone,

After nearly a year, 1CAST has successfully emerged from beta, bringing with it a completely re-designed user interface, new content and distribution partnerships, a bit of relief from our extremely talented development team, and heightened sense of purpose towards driving the most engaging video news experience across the three screen environment to our viewers.

Since our launch yesterday we’ve seen all of our metrics – from visits to unique viewers to streams per visit increase; but most important of all is the time spent viewing content, which continues to grow.  Already 1CAST has one of the most engaged audiences across the web and mobile spaces.  This trend continues and demonstrates the value of our micro-casting environment as a means for viewers to control what, how, when and where they get their video news.

Rest assured we are by no means finished.  Our team is already working on the next platform update, integrating our next set of content partners and a host of other initiatives that are sure to bring more value to our viewers and business partners alike.

So stay tuned!

On behalf of the 1CAST team, I want to extend a big THANK YOU to our content partners, distribution partners, advertisers, investors and most importantly our viewers.  Each of you has contributed to 1CAST’s ongoing success for which we are very grateful.

Now time to get back to work.

Anthony

“To everything (turn, turn, turn),
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)”
– The Byrds

Allow me to go old school for a minute with The Byrds reference. Back in the 60’s, “mobile” was a VW van that actually worked, and “video” meant lazy afternoons watching Gilligan’s Island, The Avengers and the original Star Trek on a state-of-the art 13″ Zenith (with no remote control, of course).

Flash-forward 40+ years to the summer of 2009 and in many ways things haven’t changed. We’re still in love-maybe more in love- with the images, storylines and personalities that we watch everyday.  What’s radically different today isn’t what we watch, but how we watch. The way consumers are getting their video is changing, and that change will impact not only viewers, but content programmers and advertisers as well.

If the Roger McGuinn from 1965 stepped into a time machine to 2009, he’d still see kids on summer vacation watching their favorite shows.  Except in 2009, they are watching video through different kinds of screens-in their living rooms, on their desks, and in their hands.  We still connect with on-screen personalities much like the 60’s when Walter Cronkite, Chet Hutley or David Brinkley shaped our view of the world.  Except now we have greater control over when we want to bring Bill O’Reilly, Katie Couric and Anderson Cooper, and a myriad of niche influencers onto our screens.

Technology has empowered consumers to become programmers who dictate what they watch, where they watch, and when they watch.  Our ability to obtain compelling information, on multiple topics and across multiple platforms continues to grow at a dizzying rate.  Just look at the iPhone’s penetration into the American mainstream.  A few weeks ago Apple announced it sold 1 million iPhone 3GS’s… in just 3 days.  Earlier in April the iPhone App Store surpassed 1 billion downloads in just 9 months, thanks to the tens of millions of iPhones in the hands of consumers around the world.

It’s not a stretch to assume the iPhone played a big part in the 52.2% growth in the U.S. mobile video audience that Nielsen reported earlier this year.  Nielsen also discovered that in the first quarter of 2009, mobile video users watched videos on their handheld devices on average longer than on their computer screens. That’s evolution at work.

So what does this mean to content owners and advertisers?

For content owners it could mean a unique opportunity to experiment with different offerings – new programming themes, short-form vs. long-tail, etc.  Content producers should create, distribute, test and refine the programming to suit consumers.  Audiences today demand quality and relevancy to their interests.

Advertisers should continue to experiment with new approaches to deliver targeted messages to more specific audiences.  Understand where your target audience is going to find video content.  If approached correctly, the right messaging at the right time could increase both your brand affinity and the ROI of your ad buy.

Hmm.  With all of this opportunity in front of us, who has time to relax this summer?

Anthony Bontrager

While I’m a fan of Ayn Rand’s works, borrowing the title of one of her books as the theme for this blog is in many ways an anathema to modern day political correctness. 

And yet, when it comes to media consumption, specifically online video, we’re all guilty of a bit of selfishness.  We want media delivered on our terms, to our devices and at times that are convenient for us.  We rely on terms like uniqueness, relevancy, targeted and in-context to avoid the ugliness of the word “selfishness.”

But let’s call it like it is shall we?  Selfishness is the natural reflex to decades of having to deal with the one size fits all mentality of traditional media.  Today’s environment though has changed dramatically, with more content available than ever before and on more mediums than we can possibly watch in the span of a day. 

So doesn’t it stand to reason that being a bit selfish and picking the content or information that is important to us and watching it how, when and where we want is now the expected norm?  And as a corollary, by allowing me to revel in my media-centric selfishness am I not giving programmers, advertisers and others in the value-chain a better glimpse into who I am, how I think and what I’m interested in?  Doesn’t that lead to increased value?

I would argue yes to all three.  My selfishness means that if programmers want to reach me, they need to make their content more widely available and in different consumable formats so I can choose what I want.  By doing so they get the benefit of learning more about their viewers, which can lead to greater programming diversity – both in terms of content choice and distribution.  Advertisers benefit as well as they can segment viewers more effectively thereby increasing the relevancy, and arguably the ROI of the ad placement.  Finally, consumers’ benefit by having a wealth of content at their disposal that can be packaged to suit their needs.

So is selfishness really a bad thing after all? 

Anthony Bontrager