Price Spurs Demand for Triple-Play’s

Bear Stearns Finds Consumers View Services As Commodities By Linda Moss -- Multichannel News, 3/6/2008 2:53:00 PM

Price is the key factor driving demand for video, broadband and voice services, according to consumer research conducted by Bear Stearns.

“Our survey finds that users continue to view these services as ‘commodity-like’ with price the primary driver of demand,” the Wall Street firm said in a report by analyst Spencer Wang.

For its 2008 Communications Survey, Bear Stearns surveyed nearly 1,000 consumers.

“Consistent with our prior work, our survey finds that across all three products categories, price is the top factor affecting demand,” Wang wrote. “This implies that consumers view communication services as fairly ‘commodity-like,’ and that as competition rises, pricing power may wane. However, we still expect rational pricing given the oligopoly structure of the industry, although average revenue per user growth will likely slow going forward with more competition.”

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MySpace Founder Brad Greenspan Launches LiveVideo.com, A New Proprietary Web

3.0 Community Platform Designed to Protect, Grow, Extend, and Celebrate Original Online Content Creation by Empowering Users With New Technology to Create Instant Online Live Shows That are Integrated With Real Time Interactivity

LiveUniverse, Inc., one of the largest online entertainment networks of video, music, and social networking websites has launched LiveVideo.com. The platform is MySpace Founder Brad Greenspan's latest creation. And as Chairman/CEO of LiveUniverse, he is leading the charge into a new age of social networking with LiveVideo.com. LiveVideo.com, an advanced on demand interactive broadcasting platform, provides instant global reach and messaging to any user with a web cam. LiveVideo.com represents the next generation of online interaction.

LiveVideo.com, which officially launches today, is the first fully interactive, global, live streaming platform. It allows users to connect with others around the world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365-days a year. Using the LiveShow technology, LiveVideo.com users can create and broadcast live content alone or in conjunction with friends, colleagues and/or newly acquainted users. Distinctive LiveShow interactive features such as LiveTextChat, LiveCoHost and LivePolls empower real time community and social interaction and provide users with unlimited real-time feedback and interaction. In addition, the advanced LiveShow platform allows advanced videographers to broadcast on their channel with multiple cameras to create professional broadcast-quality shows.

Tripr.TV - First Video Portal to Pay Travelers for Their Holiday Movies.

As the first worldwide video portal, Tripr.TV (www.tripr.tv) is launching a service in which travelers can easily publish video reviews of hotels. Filmmakers receive a commission when the video results in a booking of the filmed hotel.

Now everyone can easily publish and share videos via Tripr.TV. As soon as other travelers place a booking after watching a video review, the publisher of the film will receive one third of the commission fee. The customary commission rate in the hotel industry varies between 5 and 15 percent per reservation.

The videos are published on the Tripr.TV website as well as on other websites, which will increase the exposure and the income of the published film. Tripr.TV creates a unique virtual marketplace for video content in the travel industry.

Jan Kooman, founder of Tripr.TV: "We are basically a kind of YouTube for the travel industry. Everyone can publish their own videos. Hotels are marked with a flag on Google Maps so you can easily spot in which area a hotel is situated. Because videos are created by the travelers themselves, you will get a good impression of the hotel before making a booking. Moving images are much more realistic than the often outdated pictures of hotels."

WealthClasses TV Introduces Online Videos to Help People Learn Financial Literacy and Self-Improvement on Demand

WealthClasses TV, an online learning company, has officially launched its video-on-demand subscription service offering unlimited access to a wide selection of self-improvement, personal development and financial education videos and audios.

WealthClasses TV offers people the convenience of watching, listening, and learning at their own pace. The information is made available to members to refer to as needed. This repository of knowledge does not require any shelf space and is available to subscribers 24/7.

The programs have been carefully selected to serve both beginners as well as professionals who may be seeking more advanced content. The subjects range from personal development, success & motivation, entrepreneurship, financial literacy, Internet marketing, leadership, sales, and real estate investing.

WealthClasses TV productions is constantly creating high-quality video and audio programming at its TV studio in San Ramon, California. Subscribers will find the website updated regularly with the latest selections to keep them up to date on things that can make a profound difference in their lives.

Verizon presents NFL from new angle

American football aficionados who receive video and broadband services from Verizon may be interested to know that the company has introduced a new service, aimed at enhancing their viewing experience.

NFL Network Game Extra will provide virtual control room facilities, which will allow the viewer to control the camera angles they view the action from when they watch live online broadcasts on Thursdays and Saturdays. Other features provided with the new service include the ability to access game statistics and video highlights on demand, plus a chat function.

Bill Heilig, vice president of consumer broadband product development at Verizon, believes the new service will result in "the best NFL experience this year" for viewers. They will be able to "expand their already rich television viewing through a highly interactive, online experience that gives them unprecedented control over what they see and hear on the field", he claims.

Experimental Electronica Music Videos are a Next-Generation Variety Show

As an international distributor of electronic musical instruments during the 1990s, Geoff Farr frequently spent long nights in European hotel rooms watching the only
television programs that required no translation: short experimental videos backed with electronic music scores. Farr says German television was an especially rich medium for an American insomniac interested in creative new videos.

"I watched endless hours of shows like 'Flomotion' and 'Man vs Machine,' Farr says. "There was another program called 'Space Night' that ran photos from NASA archives, accompanied by some really interesting electronic music artists. The shows were really compelling ... I couldn't rip my eyes away from the screen."

Farr surmised that others would find the offerings equally entertaining, and attempted to secure United States licensing rights for the programming. After it became apparent that such rights would be prohibitively expensive, he decided to create his own compilations of original experimental videos, and called the shows i Promise 2 Be You.

Farr enlisted the aid of musician and film editor Bill Black, with whom he had collaborated on an earlier video production that had been selected as a finalist in the 2002 Sundance Online Film Festival. Farr began to envision and assemble what would eventually become 10 half-hour programs on the i Promise 2 Be You Web site (http://www.ipromise2beyou.com).

Online videos 'could contain malware'

A recent security report has warned that online videos could be disguising viruses and malware which could infect one's computer.

Research from the Georgia Tech Information Security Center found that hackers are finding new means of disguising damaging software and that putting it in online videos is becoming a favored method. Criminals are also using text-based messages and PDF files to disguise viruses, the security report stated.

Chris Rouland, the chief technology officer for IBM's internet security systems unit and a part of the group that drafted the report, commented: "Just as we see an evolution in messaging, we also see an evolution in threats. "As companies have gotten better blocking e-mails, we see people move to more creative techniques."

Media players are simply "the next logical step" for cyber criminals to take to infect victims' PCs, he added. Meanwhile, MessageLabs Intelligence recently reported that the month of September saw a substantial rise in the number of phishing attacks.