I spent the last three days at the new video track of the VON conference which has been dealing with Voice On the Net for the last ten years. As we know, video on the net is currently gaining ground on a daily basis with Youtube, Google Video, video blogging and many other passionate artists, producers and and so on. That’s the reason why video was inserted in the VON program this year and I realize that video on the net will probably face regulatory issues that VOIP had to go through in the recent years: intellectual property, copyright protection and network neutrality just to name a few. In fact, Jeff Pulver is being proactive on that issue by launching the Video On the Net Alliance to advocate for this emerging Internet video industry.
Voice over IP is disruptive. The flexibility provided by VOIP is an important factor for its success, but its impact is also quite important in that it opened the telecommunication playing field to new players that can operate outside the grasp of the incumbent telecommunication industry. Jeff Pulver officially stated that VOIP, an industry he triggered, is now well established. “We are now the incumbents who can be disrupted”.
In that respect, video on the net will allow the same type of disruption. Broadcasters and broadcast regulation can (and will) be circumvented by people and organizations who see the Net as an effective distribution platform.
Does Skype ring a bell? Well, they could potentially be #1 in both spaces. But that’s the topic of my next post.
Tags: video+on+the+net, VON2007,
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March 23, 2007 at 21:54
jmbouffard
Talking about the issues encountered by the VoIP providers, Vonage is getting into more trouble this week. After loosing their case against Verizon they may be forced to stop using the infringing technology (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070323-vonage-enjoined-from-using-verizon-patents-stock-plummets.html)..
As IPTV is already deployed by some cable providers on their own closed network infrastructure, the technologies they currently use are probably already patented. We can then expect that the deployment of the industry of “Video over IP over the Internet” will sure be an interesting one to follow.