Comcast-owned ThePlatform is arguably the top Online Video Platform (OVP) provider, and almost certainly is within the TV industry.  They unseated encumbent Brightcove over the last year by launching Hulu.com, CBS.com, TV.com, and a slew of other broadcast and cable TV networks. They announced even more TV programmer customers today (most of whom are owned by Comcast) as well as Rogers, Canada's largest cable operator.  ThePlatform also powers online video for Comcast's largest competitors: Time Warner Cable, Cox, and CableVision.

Today, thePlatform made a major announcement that brings TV Everywhere a HUGE step closer to reality.

ThePlatform is launching a cable Authentication & Authorization component to its white-label video publishing product that will enable programmer web sites (HBO.com, Showtime.com, NBC.com, etc) to publish their premium TV shows on their sites, requiring the user to authenticate himself as a cable subscriber with access to that channel (ie, you can only watch HBO shows online if you pay for HBO through your cable provider).  Enforcing this authentication ensures everyone in the media supply chain gets credit for that view, and money is transferred accordingly.  To that end: an integration with Nielsen to directly track views would be a killer strategic move by thePlatform! 

This solution also has the following compelling side benefits for the MSO's and TV Programmers:

• Keeping cable subscribers happy and hooked (cable companies fear that free online TV services like Hulu may result in cable subscribers canceling their pay TV services).
• Upselling subscriptions: if I'm a Comcast subscriber but don't pay for the HBO cable package, I may be compelled to sign up now if it means I can watch all HBO shows whenever I want, online (or on my HD TV via Boxee or the like).
• Upselling content: if I am not an HBO subscriber but want to watch just a single HBO show, now there is a mechanism to buy shows a la cart.  This is the model that Disney currently loves.

Here's a nice diagram of how this new component works:

ThePlatform is initially providing this technology only to TV Programmers for their sites (broadcast networks and cable channels).  That's a great first step, though I believe the killer app will be making this capability available to any web site, not just NBC.com or HBO.com, etc. I wrote about this just yesterday.

Regarding the rest of thePlatform's competition in the OVP space...  DigitalSmiths, despite its strong TV Everywhere positioning campaign last month, hasn't released any technology yet that addresses the initiative's largest challenges: authentication and authoriziation.  Meanwhile, Ooyala and Brightcove appear to be sitting on the TV Everywhere sidelines.

With over 300M consumer accounts and adding 5M new accounts EACH DAY, Facebook will likely reach the 1 BILLION in 2010. It is therefore safe to assume that the vast majority of Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, and Dish subscribers will have a Facebook account.

Without any doubt, Facebook has now become the "identity gatekeeper" of the web. Facebook is the defacto openID provider.

As such, there ought to be an easy way to leverage Facebook to solve TV Everywhere's authentication challenge.

Imagine if we could link our cable / satellite accounts to our Facebook accounts. A couple clicks using Facebook Connect on the cable provider's web site is all it would take. Once a link is established between DirecTV and Facebook, for example, DirecTV could provide Facebook with that user's content access rights (such as: user has rights to HBO content but not Showtime).

Here's a back-of-the-napkin use case of how it might play out:

• Let's say I am a basic Comcast cable subscriber and have a Facebook account.
• I sign into Comcast.net with my Comcast-assigned username and password. I am prompted to click on a FB Connect link and then the "Authorize" button. Comcast sends my cable TV account info to Facebook, which Facebook stores as part of my Facebook profile.
• I then go to Yahoo and select the latest Simpsons episode to watch. Yahoo's TV Everywhere "enabled" video player (see explanation below) prompts me to sign in via Facebook Connect. I click "approve" and Facebook sends the video player my Comcast profile, which tells the video player what I'm eligible to watch. The player stores my cable profile info via a cookie and begins streaming the episode. When I try to watch a HBO content, the video player knows to block the stream.
• The above example could take place on ANY website that uses a TV Everywhere "enabled" video player. This could simply be a "chromeless" Flash-based player with Facebook Connect implemented and logic to interpret content provisioning based on cable account profiles.
• Using Facebook Connect for authentication, any site would be able to present TV Everywhere content and (almost) every cable subscriber would be able to participate after only a few "I Authorize" clicks.

OK, I know the above may be overly simplified, but hopefully you get the gist.

The big question here is whether the MSO's would be willing to share any customer account information with Facebook. To make TV Everywhere work easily for consumers, I believe they will need to share.

You can now sign up for Comcast's TV Everywhere ("On Demand Online") trial on their web site.  See screenshot from Comcast.net below:

HOWEVER, you must dig out your comcast.net username and password issued to you when you first signed up for the cable service.  Ugh.  If you don't use that email address as your personal email, then chances are you've long forgotten it. 

So you click the "Forgot your Comcast.net email address?" link.  You get get this page:

Double Ugh.  Not very helpful.  At all.

This is surprising and a bit concerning.  Getting the Authentication piece is arguably the most critical consumer-facing element of TV Everywhere.  The cable companies MUST NAIL IT.