Boxee announced today that will be implementing a purchase system for a la cart video streaming by the end of Q2.

Story: http://bit.ly/72Keel

This is a great development!

First, it demonstrates that Boxee is serious about protecting the business models of the content providers. This is necessary, of course, for Boxee's survival as well. My guess is Fred Wilson doesn't plan to fund this project forever.

Second, it again demonstrates that content providers HAVE OPTIONS for streaming their content in a revenue-generating way outside of TV Everywhere, despite what the anti-TV Everywhere fear mongers want you to believe.

Third, it will hopefully clean up Boxee's "rogue" image within the industry.

Fourth, it acknowledges that streaming content must be paid, at least in part, by those who receive the most value from it: the consumer.

Fifth, it will (hopefully) provide a great example of how to make a la cart paid streaming painless for consumers through (again, hopefully) awesome UX design.

And Sixth, it *might* attract more content to Boxee. But I still think it's going to be really hard for "bad boy" Boxee to attract the likes of CBS, ABC, HBO, etc (and certainly not NBC) for political reasons.

NBC will make 1,000 hours of live and recorded Olympic coverage available online... but only for those who pay for cable, satellite, or mobile TV. They are working in partnership with all the major MSO's: Comcast, TWC, DirecTV, Dish, AT&T, Verizon, etc....

This is a new flavor of TV Everywhere, one pushed by a content programmer (NBC) rather than an MSO (such as Comcast or Time Warner Cable).

Story:

http://www.mediabuyerplanner.com/entry/47676/nbcu-offers-1000-hours-of-streaming-olympics-coverage-to-those-who-pay-for-/

To access Comcast's newly released TV Everywhere product, called Xfinity, Comcast customers must be both Broadband and Cable subscribers.  I am.  But subscribers are also required to use their Comcast-issued email address to login.  I was issued mine 4 years ago.  Never used it.  No record of it.  To recover it, the only options are to call customer support or chat online with a rep.  After 2 hours waiting for both, I gave up.  No other way to initiate Xfinity.

How could Comcast launch such an important product, one that needed to be as attentive-to-detail and user-centric as Hulu... with such a poor initial user experience?  Hopefully my experience is unique. Maybe I'm of the few Comcast subscribers who doesn't use the comcast.net email address. I wish this were the case, but I doubt it.  I also doubt that I am the only frustrated Comcast customer tonight.

It makes me sad, because cable subscribers deserve a great TV Everywhere user experience.  They pay for it.

I hope that after I am able to login to Xfinity, the experience becomes awesome.  I will let you know.

UPDATE (3 hours later): Comcast customer support rep via web chat gave me my email address and reset my password.  Now I am off to the races. Note that it took me about 4 hours start-to-finish to get started with Xfinity.

I guess Comcast's original name "OnDemand Online" (or ODOL, as they called it internally) felt too big company-ish. But I'm not yet sold on Xfinity -- feels a bit forced.

This new name / brand is specifically for it's TV Everywhere service on Fancast.com. On other sites, like CBS.com, it will be named something different. TV Everywhere branding is going to be decided by the site publisher, apparently, which makes sense to me.

Story: http://paidcontent.org/article/419-comcast-naming-its-tv-everywhere-service-xfinity/

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.

One step at a time, I understand.  But I believe it's critical that TV Everywhere becomes an "open" premium video distribution platform available for any web publisher, on any web site. 

Consumers will demand the freedom to watch Entourage in their preferred environment, be it Hulu.com, Facebook, Boxee, etc... not just on Fancast.com or HBO.com.  That is the promise of TV Everywhere.  Universal authentication will make this a technical possibility. It is ultimately the right thing to do and will benefit the entire media ecosystem, starting with the paying customer.

Clearly Comcast, Time Warner, and the other MSO's need to weigh the benefit of providing their subscribers a good experience (in the form of choice) versus the economic benefit of locking their users to their own sites (or programmer sites, such as HBO.com, CBS.com, Showtime.com, etc). 

The MSO's have a reputation for opting for the economic benefit over the user experience benefit, which has really hurt their brand image.

Creating a "win" for the user should be the top priority for Comcast and Time Warner.  Remember, TV Everywhere was born out of a defensive move to stem cable cord cutting.

I understand that we are just in the first inning of TV Everywhere, and these are the necessary first steps.  However, I would like to hear Comcast and Time Warner talk about the longer-term vision for where this is all going.

Here is Comcast's Amy Banse articulating their near-term TV Everywhere (OnDemand On Line) rollout:

The Old Way: consumers pay for distribution of content (cable, newspapers, ISP's, etc).

The New Way: consumers pay for the content, regardless of how it's distributed (TV Everywhere).

TV Everywhere's core value proposition for consumers is that they can view their TV when they want (on demand) and where they want (TV, PC, mobile, tablet, etc). It's a no brainer proposition; who wouldn't want that?!

Newspapers need to do the same thing for news content. This is where Murdoch is both right and wrong. He's right in that consumers SHOULD pay for the value of quality content, but he's wrong in that they should pay twice for the same content: once for physical newspapers and again for online access.

Consumers WILL pay for the value of quality content, as long as they only pay for the "piece of content" once, and are able to view it how they want, when they want.

Assuming that the consumption of the content can be tracked across all devices, that ads can be dynamically placed across all devices, and that the content programmer gets "credit" for the view.... everybody wins.

End of debate.

Dish will be using the "TV Everywhere" name for it's upcoming Slongbox-enabled set-top box. That is clearly on a collision course with the broader, industry-wide TV Everywhere initiative.

http://multichannel.com/article/388171-Dish_Files_To_Trademark_TV_Everywhere_.php?rssid=20059

Story: http://www.lightreading.com/mobile/document.asp?doc_id=183922&f_src=lightreading%5Fgnews&site=cdn

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