Time Warner’s new found love for online video is a laudable attempt by the media giant to cash in on the hot new thing. But scratch the surface, and you find an online video equivalent of Frankenstein. Each division doing its own thing, with its own partner. And this is all within this week. Here is a quick rundown:
1. CNN, (that belongs to Time Warner), is working with Blip.TV, which has licensed its software to CNN for getting video news submissions from amateurs.
2. AOL has a deal and an investment in Brightcove.
3. AOL has its own internal video efforts. Remember they also bought Truveo, which I guess is part of the new video search service, which allows them to sell videos including content from competitors. AOL also has UnCut video which is like CNN Exchange.
4. Turner, a division of Time Warner, has invested in Revver.
5. Time Warner has also invested in Veoh.
6. Sports Illustrated, a magazine owned by Time Inc., the one that puts Time in the TW is working with Yahoo to do a video thing.
Now if that isn’t a bumbling strategy then what is! Why isn’t CNN using Brightcove? Or for that matter some version of UnCut Video. Why isn’t SI working with AOL. What the hell is the strategy here? When will they start selling The Sopranos and Entourage and all other HBO goodness? Okay, time to stop, and let you join in!
PS: Anyone willing to make a graphic of the frankenstein that is Time Warner’ online video strategy.
Disclosure: I am a former Time Warner employee, and currently write a column for Business 2.0, a magazine that is part of Time Inc., a division of Time Warner.
“Now if that isn’t a bumbling strategy then what is!”
Microsoft’s media strategy!
Ba-dum-bum-DA!
Synergies! Ha!
This is simply a continuation of how Time Warner operates in ALL markets.
This is a company that owned multiple ISPs, nationwide backbones, an empire of content, and a hostage market of some 20 million dial up subscribers and ad eyeballs, and couldn’t figure out how to migrate them toward broadband…nor how to maintain AOL as a mega-on-line presence.
They’re still trying to figure that out. (Hey! Free video!? Hey! Free webmail?!)
The brain stutters, the arms flail independently.
They could have one Video Management System (VMS) and embed players throughout their sites to pull from the same database. Ads and content all in one place distributed across multiple publishers.
Easy and efficient.
David Bailey
CEO
theauragroup.com
Time Warner is decentralized, so each branch functions independantly. Sort of like the US intelligence service..
it’s kind of funny to see a megacorp get criticized for NOT imposing top-down technology decisions on all its operating units.
why not let 1000 flowers bloom? or at least a few — it’s a bit early to pick winners in video, isn’t it?
Nicholas, I agree with idea of not trying to pick a winner on the technology side, but why be so schizophrenic on the content side. If you are going to have multiple parteners, each needs access to the same content. I think this is what David is getting at.
Use the Brightcove Player across all webbased TW properties and Brightcove technology for IPTV and Mobile delivery.