Filed under: Internet, Video, Features, P2P, DLS Interviews
Vuze extends its online video monetization platform - DLS Interview
Azureus launched Vuze in January, and Gilles BianRosa tells us that since then, the video client has been downloaded and installed 10 million times. Vuze has also partnered with between 60 and 70 major content companies to distribute content. Those companies include CBS, Showtime, and the BBC.
We recently had the chance to ask BianRosa a few questions about Vuze, online video distribution, and the company's new open monetization platform.
Download Squad: Tell us a little more about Vuze.
Gilles BianRosa: Our users are in five countries, mostly Northern America and Western Europe. We use Azureus' backbone to distribute music, movies, and games.
You have a lot of companies that are launching new services, but not many of them have an actual user base that's engaged. We've had 2 million new installations of the client in September alone. And everything's growing. We are seeing our users engaging significantly around Sci Fi, anime, sports, music videos, so we are learning a lot from that.
We are seeing a lot of media companies looking for new ways to reach this audience, and it's an audience that we've known for a long time because they were using Azureus. And we think that it's creating a company where large companies as well as small companies from the media space can engage directly and learn from the way this generation is about to consume long form and short form entertainment.
DLS: You've got 10 million installations. And it seems like the sort of software that people download and install after they hear about it. But we're not sure that's the best number to measure success by. How many of those users are coming back and using the software again and again? Or do you know how many members are downloading paid content from Vuze?
GB: You're right, when it comes to installing clients, companies like to mention the biggest number they can count up. For us, those 10 million are not a base, they are installations. Right now we are seeing about 3 million uniques monthly on the project. And this is growing at a 25 to 30 percent rate month after month. So we think this is a very good number, and again, we started from zero in January. The content that they consume, a lot of it is free or ad-supported. So that's our best measure of engagement.
We are launching a new recommendation engine this week. We launched it in beta last week, and that drives a significant increase in consumption of content. But on average our users use their client daily or weekly. 46 percent use it daily or weekly. So the average time spent watching varies from 10 minutes to an hour per month per user.
DLS: You're launching the ability for pretty much anybody to monetize content. How will that work?
GB: We've done about 60 or 70 partnerships. And we've learned from these partnerships what media companies are looking for and what's important for them. So we took all the features from this first platform and we've productized it.
So the way it works is simple. You'll download the Vuze application, click "publish," and then here you have a choice, you can either publish for free, which is something people have been doing for some time right now, and which is aimed at pro-amateures. You know, folks that are using Final Cut Pro, using Avid, using professional tools to create professional videos for download, yet looking to monetize, looking to create awareness.
Now you have another option which will enable you to choose between ad-supported or sell-through and VOD. For any of these cases, you need to have an account, that's the first requirement to ensure that casual piracy isn't being used.
After that, if you want to sell your content, you can set your own price, although we offer guidance around what pricing levels could be. For a short, I think it's 50 cents, and for long format 99 cents. But we also let people set their own price. So highly specialized videos can be set at a higher price if that's what the content producer wants to do.
The overall philosophy behind the service is to recognize that media companies have different business models and have different tiers of content for which they would like to apply different monetization schema.
For example, if you have a serialized show, you can offer the first few episodes ad-supported and sell later episodes. Or you can do the DVD version ad-supported, and the HD version sell-through.
They can also choose various protection models from no protection all the way up to Microsoft DRM. The platform is a way to engage media companies that are often in the business of selling content to networks or DVDs. This is a way for them to sell their content directly to the audience.
DLS: Do you see your competitors in this space more as Joost, Babelgum, and VeohTV or companies like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, and companies that are offering downloads rather than streaming video.
GB: We see the ad-supported model getting significant traction. And we are launching at the same time peer to peer streaming, so you'll be able to stream at DVD quality and download it in HD if it's available.
So from the standpoint, I think it looks less like a movie download store and more like an IPTV solution. I think the big difference is our platform is open. And the flexibility of not just being free, but also having the ability to sell content of higher value is a key differentiator here.
DLS: A frequent complaint about companies like Joost or Babelgum is that while they might have a great interface, they don't have a lot of content worth watching. You've already announced partnerships with companies like the BBC. You know that your users like science fiction and they can get old Doctor Who episodes and things like that. But when it comes to newer content that people might watch on television, it seems like they're still more likely to go to something like iTunes to download it. How do you bridge the gap between high quality professional content and user generated material?
GB: That's the key point. Everybody wants to watch Battlestar Galactica. And ultimately it's going to be available everywhere. But people who are avid fans of sci fi also want to watch the things that didn't make it to the Sci-Fi channel or networks but are also of high quality. Sanctuary is a show that costs a million dollars an episode and we're the only place outside of their website to carry it, and it has a huge cult following.
Between the Battlestar Galacticas of the world and the user generated content, there is a massive amount of content that is specific to a community, but is of high value to them. And that's where we help.
DLS: Vuze grew out of Azuereus, which is a BitTorrent client. When people think of BitTorrent, they don't think of paid downloads, they think this is an application I fire up to go to my favorite BitTorrent tracker and download the same shows illegally. It might be harder to find Sanctuary than BattleStar Galactica. But right now you can ignore Vuze altogether and use Azureus to get BattleStar Galactica. So how do you convince people that should pay for content that they can get illegally for free?
GB: We thin ad-supported is a good model, because users in general are having a hard time paying for content and they would rather sit through advertising and get free content. Having an ad-supported model helps reduce the friction. Secondly, if you make the user experience easier than having to go to a pirate web site, you've won something. And the experience to go and download pirated content is not that fun. You have to go to a web site and sift through adult oriented ads, and have the German subtitles on the show you are looking for. So we think by creating a simple user interface and having content that its right here inside the client, you can engage users to find them.
Our users are not pirates. They're people like you and I who are mainstream consumers. They're 18-34. They're affluent. 80 percent of them are employed. They pay for satellite, they have iTunes, they use Netflix. This is the profile of an Azureus user. So providing Vuze for them and for new users is a way to provide content right at their fingertips. It's probably the best way for the industry to fight piracy, which is to provide something that's easier than getting pirated content, and also having content you've never heard of which you will like, which is why a recommendation engine is paramount.
DLS: There's a growing push to move web video from the computer to the TV. Does Vuze have plans to get to the TV?
GB: The path to go to the TV is an important one. But it has its own timing. Certainly today it's a dangerous road.
Our user base today is 18-34 year olds. Most of the content they watch is on their PC. There are a few devices connected to the TV that are being used by 18-34 year olds and for which we have a solution to push to the TV. And those are the game consoles. If today you have an Xbox 360 and you launch it and you have Vuze running on your computer it will detect the Vuze folder and be able to stream all the videos you have from Vuze onto your Xbox. And that's a way that is interesting because it doesn't require any specific hardware. We think consumers will have a hard time getting another set top box next to the TV just for the purpose of streaming content.
Users like to do a few things on the web or on the computer and that's discovering and searching for content. And that's what they do with a 2 foot user interface. And the one thing they like to do with a 10 foot UI is watching. So we're trying to respect this use case and not try to force everything into a 10 foot UI experience because that's not very easy to do.
And we do have an embeddable client, so we have set top box manufacturers coming to us and want to explore putting our technology into their box. It's hard to find companies that have large enough footprints.
DLS: Do you think you might have announced Vuze too early, considering how much attention Joost got by launching after you?
GB: I think getting the industry excited about IPTV products such as Joost or Vuze is a good thing. Joost is getting a lot of hype, and I wish them to succeed, because we need to demonstrate to the market that those projects are interesting, so I think this is a good thing. I'm more excited about having had 10 million downloads 3 million uniques a month after 7 months than anything else.
GB: You're right, when it comes to installing clients, companies like to mention the biggest number they can count up. For us, those 10 million are not a base, they are installations. Right now we are seeing about 3 million uniques monthly on the project. And this is growing at a 25 to 30 percent rate month after month. So we think this is a very good number, and again, we started from zero in January. The content that they consume, a lot of it is free or ad-supported. So that's our best measure of engagement.
We are launching a new recommendation engine this week. We launched it in beta last week, and that drives a significant increase in consumption of content. But on average our users use their client daily or weekly. 46 percent use it daily or weekly. So the average time spent watching varies from 10 minutes to an hour per month per user.
DLS: You're launching the ability for pretty much anybody to monetize content. How will that work?
GB: We've done about 60 or 70 partnerships. And we've learned from these partnerships what media companies are looking for and what's important for them. So we took all the features from this first platform and we've productized it.
So the way it works is simple. You'll download the Vuze application, click "publish," and then here you have a choice, you can either publish for free, which is something people have been doing for some time right now, and which is aimed at pro-amateures. You know, folks that are using Final Cut Pro, using Avid, using professional tools to create professional videos for download, yet looking to monetize, looking to create awareness.
Now you have another option which will enable you to choose between ad-supported or sell-through and VOD. For any of these cases, you need to have an account, that's the first requirement to ensure that casual piracy isn't being used.
After that, if you want to sell your content, you can set your own price, although we offer guidance around what pricing levels could be. For a short, I think it's 50 cents, and for long format 99 cents. But we also let people set their own price. So highly specialized videos can be set at a higher price if that's what the content producer wants to do.
The overall philosophy behind the service is to recognize that media companies have different business models and have different tiers of content for which they would like to apply different monetization schema.
For example, if you have a serialized show, you can offer the first few episodes ad-supported and sell later episodes. Or you can do the DVD version ad-supported, and the HD version sell-through.
They can also choose various protection models from no protection all the way up to Microsoft DRM. The platform is a way to engage media companies that are often in the business of selling content to networks or DVDs. This is a way for them to sell their content directly to the audience.
DLS: Do you see your competitors in this space more as Joost, Babelgum, and VeohTV or companies like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, and companies that are offering downloads rather than streaming video.
GB: We see the ad-supported model getting significant traction. And we are launching at the same time peer to peer streaming, so you'll be able to stream at DVD quality and download it in HD if it's available.
So from the standpoint, I think it looks less like a movie download store and more like an IPTV solution. I think the big difference is our platform is open. And the flexibility of not just being free, but also having the ability to sell content of higher value is a key differentiator here.
DLS: A frequent complaint about companies like Joost or Babelgum is that while they might have a great interface, they don't have a lot of content worth watching. You've already announced partnerships with companies like the BBC. You know that your users like science fiction and they can get old Doctor Who episodes and things like that. But when it comes to newer content that people might watch on television, it seems like they're still more likely to go to something like iTunes to download it. How do you bridge the gap between high quality professional content and user generated material?
GB: That's the key point. Everybody wants to watch Battlestar Galactica. And ultimately it's going to be available everywhere. But people who are avid fans of sci fi also want to watch the things that didn't make it to the Sci-Fi channel or networks but are also of high quality. Sanctuary is a show that costs a million dollars an episode and we're the only place outside of their website to carry it, and it has a huge cult following.
Between the Battlestar Galacticas of the world and the user generated content, there is a massive amount of content that is specific to a community, but is of high value to them. And that's where we help.
DLS: Vuze grew out of Azuereus, which is a BitTorrent client. When people think of BitTorrent, they don't think of paid downloads, they think this is an application I fire up to go to my favorite BitTorrent tracker and download the same shows illegally. It might be harder to find Sanctuary than BattleStar Galactica. But right now you can ignore Vuze altogether and use Azureus to get BattleStar Galactica. So how do you convince people that should pay for content that they can get illegally for free?
GB: We thin ad-supported is a good model, because users in general are having a hard time paying for content and they would rather sit through advertising and get free content. Having an ad-supported model helps reduce the friction. Secondly, if you make the user experience easier than having to go to a pirate web site, you've won something. And the experience to go and download pirated content is not that fun. You have to go to a web site and sift through adult oriented ads, and have the German subtitles on the show you are looking for. So we think by creating a simple user interface and having content that its right here inside the client, you can engage users to find them.
Our users are not pirates. They're people like you and I who are mainstream consumers. They're 18-34. They're affluent. 80 percent of them are employed. They pay for satellite, they have iTunes, they use Netflix. This is the profile of an Azureus user. So providing Vuze for them and for new users is a way to provide content right at their fingertips. It's probably the best way for the industry to fight piracy, which is to provide something that's easier than getting pirated content, and also having content you've never heard of which you will like, which is why a recommendation engine is paramount.
DLS: There's a growing push to move web video from the computer to the TV. Does Vuze have plans to get to the TV?
GB: The path to go to the TV is an important one. But it has its own timing. Certainly today it's a dangerous road.
Our user base today is 18-34 year olds. Most of the content they watch is on their PC. There are a few devices connected to the TV that are being used by 18-34 year olds and for which we have a solution to push to the TV. And those are the game consoles. If today you have an Xbox 360 and you launch it and you have Vuze running on your computer it will detect the Vuze folder and be able to stream all the videos you have from Vuze onto your Xbox. And that's a way that is interesting because it doesn't require any specific hardware. We think consumers will have a hard time getting another set top box next to the TV just for the purpose of streaming content.
Users like to do a few things on the web or on the computer and that's discovering and searching for content. And that's what they do with a 2 foot user interface. And the one thing they like to do with a 10 foot UI is watching. So we're trying to respect this use case and not try to force everything into a 10 foot UI experience because that's not very easy to do.
And we do have an embeddable client, so we have set top box manufacturers coming to us and want to explore putting our technology into their box. It's hard to find companies that have large enough footprints.
DLS: Do you think you might have announced Vuze too early, considering how much attention Joost got by launching after you?
GB: I think getting the industry excited about IPTV products such as Joost or Vuze is a good thing. Joost is getting a lot of hype, and I wish them to succeed, because we need to demonstrate to the market that those projects are interesting, so I think this is a good thing. I'm more excited about having had 10 million downloads 3 million uniques a month after 7 months than anything else.
