ABC is the first broadcaster to launch its own live-streaming app, but four big limitations highlight the difficulty of getting TV fully online.

ABC will become the first broadcaster to launch its own live-streaming app this week. But before you start cutting your cord, know that true online TV isn’t quite here — not yet, anyway.

Disney/ABC Television Group will officially release the “Watch ABC” app on Tuesday, letting users stream live network content on the Apple (AAPL, Fortune 500) iPhone and iPad. The company called the announcement “a defining moment in technology and distribution.”

That may be, but the app still isn’t a total-package solution for everyone — and none will be, until someone figures out how to align the varied interests of studios, cable providers, networks and affiliate stations. They all want more eyeballs, but they can’t agree enough to pull TV completely into digital.

Four giant obstacles lie in the way of getting ABC, and TV in general, fully online:

Not TV ‘Everywhere’: At launch, Watch ABC will be available only to viewers around New York and Philadelphia. That’s because ABC, like other broadcasters, doesn’t own and operate most local stations across the country. Instead, they sign contracts with affiliates and wouldn’t have the right to stream them without inking separate deals.

That means without an affiliate agreement, you might be able to watch “Jimmy Kimmel” but not the local news broadcast that precedes it. That’s too messy a setup for ABC to implement.

So ABC is working on those affiliate deals. The company has signed an agreement to launch the app in Hearst Television’s 13 ABC station markets, which include Boston and Kansas City, and plans to negotiate more affiliate deals by the fall TV season.

Meanwhile, Watch ABC will also launch soon in six other ABC-owned station markets including Los Angeles and Chicago. But a nationwide roll-out will take time.

Related story: Will broadcasters beat Aereo at its own game?

Pay-TV subscribers only: Even if you’re a viewer in a Watch ABC area, you can’t exactly watch for free. After a six-week no-cost trial in New York and Philadelphia, only viewers who pay for cable or satellite subscriptions will be able to log into the app — even though ABC, like all broadcast content, is free with an antenna.

Like the affiliate model, this pay-TV setup requires ABC to work with cable and satellite providers. Deals are in place with providers including Comcast (CMCSA), Cablevision (CVC, Fortune 500), Cox and AT&T (T, Fortune 500) U-Verse.

A rep for ABC, owned by Disney (DIS, Fortune 500), wouldn’t say explicitly why the company opted for a pay-TV setup: “We’re looking to help cable providers add value for their subscribers,” said VP of communications Karen Hobson.

It could be ABC’s way of appeasing cable and satellite companies, who pay broadcasters a per-subscriber fee to air their content.

Commercials aren’t the same: ABC confirmed that the app won’t air the same commercials as the network does. Instead, the ads will be similar to those shown on ABC.com. Hobson, the ABC rep, noted that “advertisers sometimes license music for commercials that can be aired only on TV and not online, for example.” The commercial break length will be the same on the app and on TV, she added.

Competition: As the TV titans struggle to figure our their strategy, a startup called Aereo is trying to undercut them altogether.

Aereo lets users live-stream or record broadcast content for a small fee, assigning each customer a unique antenna. Broadcasters including ABC, CBS (CBS, Fortune 500), Fox owner News Corp. (NWS) and Comcast’s NBC Universal, have sued Aereo in an unsuccessful yearlong bid to take the company down, and a few have threatened to become cable channels unless Aereo is shuttered.

Disney told the New York Times that the Watch ABC app was in the works before Aereo appeared on the scene last year, but it seems the startup may have expedited broadcasters’ plans to tiptoe into digital.

Coincidentally, Aereo announced on Monday that it is eliminating its daily $1 plan and annual $80 subscription. Users can get 20 hours of DVR storage for $8 month, or 60 hours for $12.

Continuing to build its agency team, AOL Advertising has brought in Anthony Romano and Ed McHugh as global head of its Publicis Groupe team, and global head of its Dentsu Aegis and Havas teams, respectively.

Most recently, Romano spent three years within the Publicis Groupe network as EVP of worldwide, group account director at both Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis Modem. McHugh comes over from Comcast/NBCUniversal, where he was VP of Marketing Solutions for the cable and digital ad sales team.

Both Romano and McHugh will be reporting to Jack Bamberger, who AOL hired away from MEC last November to serve as head of agency and industry relations.

Per AOL’s hiring strategy, Bamberger says his team is focused on deeper senior coverage within the agency community.

“I also see us being even more of a solution provider to the industry and to our agency partners,” Bamberger said on Monday.

“The [agency] has been focusing much energy on broadening AOL’s agency coverage with both influentials and influencers in the agency community,” Bamberger added. “The Agency Team has also had some great traction in terms of co-creating innovative, strategic solutions with a number of agencies.”

Meanwhile, Bamberger said AOL was happy with the attention generated by its recent NewFront presentation. “We are seeing tremendous movement with AOL’s NewFront video inventory,” he said.

At AOL, McHugh will be expected to develop deeper relationships with Dentsu Aegis and Havas.

Romano has also held senior agency management positions at Carmichael Lynch and Ogilvy, as well as running Arnold NY’s digital practice. On the client side, Anthony held the role of managing director and global head of digital innovation and emerging media at Polo Ralph Lauren.

Prior to joining Comcast/NBCUniversal, McHugh spent eleven years in senior account management roles at a number of agencies, including Ogilvy, Publicis and Euro RSCG, where he managed clients such as Kraft, GTE (now Verizon), Heineken, Nestle, AT&T and Pernod-Ricard.

Only at MEC for several months, Bamberger was president of digital in North America and led the agency’s digital practice.

Before joining MEC, Bamberger was at Dentsu America, where he was chief consumer engagement officer, and set up the digital and social media practice in the U.S. for the agency.

“I think I just passed by Sarah Jessica Parker, and btw I’m much taller than her,” I immediately texted my lady as I was walking into AOL’s annual Newfront presentation.

The Newfront is a digital content event similar to the TV industry’s upfront. The Newfront also one big soiree, and lots of fun, usually including many celebrities, TV icons, and senior executives.

AOL Senior Vice President Ran Harnevo opened by discussing AOL’s vision, and at one point during the presentation, displayed on a big screen, a high-resolution picture of his young daughter Dani. He described how Dani consumes content, and why it’s very different than what our generation is used to. To Dani, it doesn’t matter if  video is presented on a TV, on an iPad, or a Boxee box – it’s content.  In fact, when it’s on TV – Dani at times demands to be able to pause the show with a swipe of her fingers, or share it with friends, and when Harnevo told Dani that’s not possible on TV, she got upset, not understanding why the TV can’t do what she would like it to do.

TV offers reach, while the Internet offers quantification. If given a choice, reach aside, I would probably prefer to advertise online, as I’m likely to get a better dashboard on the performance of my ad: did the user click, did the user share, what was the earned media created, and more.

And indeed, the way things work today, TV and Web are totally different environments. You can advertise on TV based on ratings, or you can advertise on the web based on demographics, but there is no real bridge between the two.

AOL wants to change that.

And as first phase, AOL has presented a strategic partnership with Nielsen that will enable TV-like ratings for AOL viewership. Imagine you could buy TV inventory, and at the same token be exposed to a HuffingtonPost live audience, or Techcrunch TV while interfacing the same metrics you already know and use: ratings.

I don’t know what that journey is going to look like, and how long it is going to take till we have real convergence, but I think we have a good idea about the end game.

I wish AOL, and Nielsen the best of luck, and if we could get to do what Dani is already taking for granted, it means we are on the right tracks: advertisers would not buy TV and the Web separately. They would be integrated to the future experience of online viewership — because, as at the end of the day, people are people are people, no matter where they’re consuming content.

We just want to make sure we reach the right ones.

Let me start off by saying that as the head of sales for a digital video publisher, I may not be the most objective source in the world, but I believe this is the year video will begin to close the gap with television in the upfront marketplace. Hear me out.

Last week, participants at the Digital Content NewFronts showcased hundreds of hours of original digital video content, professionally produced and ready to be distributed across multiple platforms including mobile, tablet and OTT.  Heavy hitters across traditional TV and digital media made it clear they take digital video seriously; as a vehicle for high-profile producers, directors and talent to create content and a platform to build brands with valuable metrics.

The Associated Press predicted that deals at the NewFronts could reach $1 billion, a sizable shift from last year.

Clients have acquiesced to ubiquitously shift dollars to buy “video” whether it’s linear or digital and in turn, TV networks have responded by making impressions measurable regardless of the platform.  The big challenge is to get the digital agencies to think of, and buy, digital video in the same way they do traditional TV.  Some have started to implement buys with a comScore vCE or Nielsen OCR metric, but it’s just the beginning as the original forms of measurement are gradually replaced and client demand for digital video increases.

In traditional TV, a network will send a media plan of programming to the buyer.  It has a household CPM, an audience composition metric (VPVH) from Nielsen which equates to a demographic CPM; a mathematical result of the first two metrics. Based on these metrics, a higher CPM is paid when buying against a specific demographic.  Depending on the demographic, it could be 5x the household CPM or more.

In digital video, the vCE and OCR metrics are now the equivalent of TV’s VPVH index.  Not having a comparable demographic index to traditional TV in the past has arguably been the main reason we haven’t seen TV dollars migrate over to digital in the same capacity.  Clients want the apples to apples comparison with metrics they are familiar with. Now, we might actually have it with these new applications.

But herein lies the billion dollar question: Will buyers come to understand the value of digital video enough to pay the increased CPM the way traditional TV buyers do?  Take for example” Cybergeddon 2″ that’s coming out from Dolphin Digital Entertainment.

“Cybergeddon” ran on Yahoo Screen last year and was one of the most expensive Web series of all time.  If a client wants to buy it this year, and they want it guaranteed against men 18-34, they should pay the same CPM against that demo as if it were a series or movie running on the SyFy cable network. A TV buyer wouldn’t blink at the CPM, and would value it fairly. But will a digital buyer?

We are already seeing a shift as most agencies realign their buying groups to be specialists in all things video – regardless of the platform.  In my opinion, those agencies have a head start and will sooner come to fully understand how and why digital buys are so vital to an overall media plan and strategy.

Only time will tell how it will shake out, but digital video creators will have to dig in and make sure they get full value for the professionally produced, high quality original content that brands and agencies have been asking for. After all, if the agencies want “TV like programming” with a guaranteed CPM against a specific demographic, they should pay fair value for it.

Mobile spending is forecasted to increase across a range of industries as the year progresses. Retail marketers, especially, have already seen the value of mobile advertising and are using it as a platform to drive sales. However, for some areas of the hospitality industry, mobile has served a very different purpose. By infusing mobile into daily business practices, hotels and restaurants further their sustainability efforts while improving the overall experience for the consumer.

Replacing Traditional Menus with Tablets

Many restaurants offer daily specials or seasonal menus that constantly need to be updated and reprinted.Some higher-end restaurants will even include the date on the specials menus, forcing restaurants to discard them at the end of each day. Rather than reprinting dozens of menus each day and wasting paper, other restaurants are investing in mobile. A digital menu allows for flexibility, as Revolution Grille, an eclectic American restaurant based in Toledo, Ohio, saw when its tablet menu was launched last summer. The ability to change a menu provides opportunity for the restaurant to tweak dishes or even replace ones that may not be as popular among patrons. For an industry that has to worry about controlling food waste, disposing of paper properly should not have to be of concern anymore.

Instantly Redeemable Restaurant Deals

The restaurant landscape began to shift as a result of the financial crisis. Customers were dining out less frequently, putting a strain on the traffic and sales of many establishments. Soon after, daily deal sites emerged as a way to entice those customers back with price breaks. However, many of these deals still require the customer to take that extra step for printing, making the possibility of an impulse purchase less likely. In an interview with New York’s WCBS-TV News, Farnoosh Torabi, author of Pysch Yourself Rich, states that “one in five buyers on these daily deal sites like Groupon and Living Social end up completely wasting the voucher. They never redeem the deal.”

Unlike its competitors, Scoutmob, a mobile-based company that thrives off of local curated deals and events, delivers the deal right to your mobile phone, eliminating the need to print. At the end of a meal, all the patron needs to do is show the waiter the app and click “use this deal.” A pre-determined amount, usually ranging from $10 to $30, is immediately taken off the bill. As the reliance on smartphones becomes even more prevalent in the lives of consumers, traditional coupons will be replaced with mobile-accessible apps that can easily be scanned.

Digital Concierge

Resorts have started to introduce digital touch screens into hotel lobbies as a way to increase engagement with guests. These visually driven devices appeal to tech-savvy visitors who want to learn more about the hotel’s offerings once they’ve arrived. By providing these in the lobby, hotel management can move away from printing pamphlets that constantly need to be updated according to day, week or season.

This concept also allows for hotels to provide guests with better customer service. Because of the ease of swapping out information and updating it, hotel management can easily update event and activity information for guests. Fliers in rooms can now be replaced with digital boards throughout the hotel, which guests are more likely to see and take notice of while roaming the hotel grounds.

When most brands approach mobile, their strategy is usually sales-driven. However, the hospitality industry has discovered ways to create seamless experiences for consumers while also practicing green initiatives through the adoption of mobile.

Persuasion and Content Marketing

Before you roll your eyes and scroll further down your RSS feed to find something that’s less slimy, consider this: Every interaction we engage in has an effect on our thinking and emotions. In fact, way back in the 17th century, philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote “the art of persuasion has a necessary relation to the manner in which men are lead to consent to that which is proposed to them.” I interpret this to mean that your buyer personas don’t have to fall for your branded solution, but it’s in your best interest to try. Here are some fascinating and scientifically proven ways to drastically improve the persuasiveness of your content marketing strategy:

1. Start a Herd

Social proof is a powerful factor in persuasion, and it’s amazing what a few words can do to change someone’s mind. In the fantastic business book Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be More Persuasive, the authors cite a case of a hotel. It placed signs in rooms informing guests that many others had chosen to be more environmentally responsible and reuse their towels. When the wording was changed to say “most guests” reused towels, adoption of the practice jumped 33%.

2. Be Negative

Most of our millennial readers recall Steve Job’s 1984 Apple commercial, but some believe that the best advertisement of the 20th century actually was for the original Volkswagen Beetle in the 1960s:

“Lemon.” It’s a pretty bold and undoubtedly negative statement to introduce a new car. The copy below the ad went on to explain that the chrome strips on the glove compartment were blemished, and needed replacement. The result wasn’t just sheer brilliance, it propelled the bug to become one of the most recognized cars of the decade. Framing your content like a smear campaign can draw people in through the power of the negativity bias, and make them more receptive to what you really have to say.

3. Rhyme a Little

Your preschool teacher may have really been on to something. A study once asked people to rate the following proverbs:

a. Caution and Measure Will Win You Treasure

b. Caution and Measure Will Win You Riches

The group voted that the first option was more “practical and insightful.”

4. Reduce Your Options

While only your company’s blog marketing metrics can reveal whether list posts of 25 or 5 items resonate best among your audience, fewer options have typically proven to be better in product marketing. When Head & Shoulders shampoo reduced their total product options from 25 to 16, their sales improved 10%.

5. Use “Because”

The word “because” has this magical power to make almost anything rational, even if it really isn’t. In a major experiment, individuals attempted to cut the line at Kinko’s by saying “Excuse me, I have 5 pages. May I use the Xerox machine?” 60% of the time, it worked. When the request was rephrased to “May I use the Xerox machine because I’m in a rush?” 94% complied.

6. Don’t Quantify Negatives

Just as statistics can be used to promote positive behavior, they can also reinforce the negative. The U.S. Petrified Forest National Park actually A/B tested some of its signs. The first stated that an estimated 12 tons of petrified wood are stolen each year, while the second simply asked people to avoid theft. Theft increased 300% in response to the first sign, because the high number subconsciously conveyed to visitors that stealing was acceptable.

7. Free Isn’t Valued

If you were presented with the following two options, which would you choose?

a. 98-page eBook on Expert Business Blogging, at no cost

b. Free Business Blogging eBook

If you’re anything like the majority of consumers, you’d pick the first option. People don’t want free things, they want value at no cost. We’re not saying you shouldn’t fill your sales funnel with amazing content, just that you should be sure to emphasize why it’s worth the download.

8. Personalize

If you needed any evidence that people really want highly personalized messages, consider that personalized notes have been shown to improve response by as much as 39%. If you’re still blasting off emails to your lists that start with “Dear Valued Friend,” recognize it’s not doing anything for your click-through-rates.

9. Use the Foot-in-the-Door Technique

Smart salesmen have been using a tactic known as a “foot-in-the-door” technique for generations. By eliciting an initial agreement from whomever you’re communicating with, they’ll be much more receptive to what you have to say. While content creators typically work behind a computer, not at a car lot, consider using your business blog introductions as an opportunity to establish common ground: “Social media would be a lot easier if we all had 100 hours a week of free time.”

10. Give a Gift

Amazing, free TOFu content, such as eBooks and webinars, aren’t just great inbound marketing practices and one of the best ways to execute modern lead generation. They also tap into the age-old principal of reciprocating niceness. One study revealed that people who received a gift from a stranger were twice as likely to purchase something from them.

11. Map Solutions

Here’s the thing: Prospects probably stumble on your website in the first place because they know they need a branded solution. They’re aware they have a problem. Emphasizing the severity of the issue might not help your company much. In fact, research indicates that spelling out the potential consequences of inaction is less effective than sharing solutions.

12. Assign Social Groups

I know I’m not alone in thinking that MINI Cooper’s commercials from last year were a little bit brilliant:

I mean, 1.5 million+ YouTube views don’t lie. Who doesn’t want to go out and buy a little tiny car from this brand that understands what it means to be an individual? Defining the social group or status of your audience—motivated young professionals, or creative self-employed professionals—has been shown to improve results around 15%.

How have you improved the persuasiveness of your content marketing strategy?

image credit: posterize/freedigitalphotos.net

Everyone wants to be in show biz, and these days — on the Web at least — it seems as if everyone is.

Digital and traditional media companies, including newspapers and magazines, have for years been building a video presence on the Internet. But until now the offerings have largely been low-budget, single-camera affairs featuring talking heads.

Last week, however, major media companies like Condé Nast, The Wall Street Journal and Univision presented ambitious slates of original programming to advertisers for the first time.

Companies that were already producing Web content, like Yahoo and Hulu, also announced greatly expanded offerings.

As a result, viewers are being bombarded with an array of new Internet programs — 11 from Yahoo, 14 from AOL and a whopping 30 from Condé Nast, including one that will let viewers watch a Vogue editor, Hamish Bowles, as he shops around the world.

Hulu’s four new original offerings include one called “Behind the Mask,” a show it describes as a “comedic docu-series,” which looks at the world of sports mascots.

These companies are moving rapidly because they believe viewers are now so accustomed to watching programs on devices like mobile phones and tablets that the lines between traditional television and Internet video will blur.

But the companies are also acting out of desperation because many of them can command higher prices for video ads than traditional online banner ads, which are increasingly being undermined by fast-paced algorithmic buying technologies.

Advertisers are also shifting dollars from traditional display advertising to sites like Facebook that can deliver huge audiences. Media companies were wooing ad executives in New York last week during an advertising event called Digital Content NewFronts that is trying to imitate the success of the network television upfronts, which are being held later this month. At lavish open-bar parties, companies not previously known for programming tried to convince advertisers to sponsor shows, or better still, whole channels.

Yet even with the amount of so-called premium content booming, it is not clear ad dollars are following. According to data from the research company eMarketer, spending on digital video — while growing — is expected to reach only $4.14 billion in 2013, a far cry from the $66.35 billion expected to flow into the television market.

Many advertisers say they worry that with so much new content being thrown at the market on so many different platforms, audiences for individual shows will become even more fragmented and microscopic than they already are.

“I don’t care how good your attention span is,” Rino Scanzoni, chief investment officer of Group M, said of the crush of new offerings, “I think it becomes all a blur.” Group M is one of the world’s biggest media-buying and planning agencies.

Ben Winkler, chief digital officer of the advertising agency OMD, which represents brands including Pepsi and Nissan, called it “cable to the nth degree.”

“We are talking narrow, narrow television, niche television if you will,” he said. “If you are reaching just 100 people, is it worth our time and energy?”

AOL is one of the companies making a big bet on “premium video,” or video it hopes will generate greater ad revenue because of higher production values. Tim Armstrong, the company’s chief executive, said in an interview: “Consumers are adopting video very quickly: big investment in devices and networks, big investments by the most talented creative people to get involved in this medium; and big investment in measurement. So I think this industry is about to explode.”

Many online sites are citing the success of “House of Cards,” the Netflix series that drew critical praise this winter, as proof that the moment for video content has arrived. But “House of Cards,” with top-flight talent and sophisticated production values, was hugely expensive. And Netflix relies on subscriptions, not advertising.

For now, most digital companies are looking to produce programming that, while more expansive than one-camera fare, is still cheaper than TV.

Online Video Woos Madison Avenue

Online Video Woos Madison Avenue

Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer at Informa Telecoms & Media

Informa Telecoms & Media (publisher of IP&TV News) has revealed its Top 10 trends for 2013 for the telecoms and media sectors. Five of the predictions relate directly to telecoms operators and the other five cover the TV, digital media and OTT communications sector.

“We reckon that 2013 is going to be another tough year for the telecoms industry with a continued emphasis on cost control,” according to Mark Newman, Chief Research Officer at Informa Telecoms & Media.

“For operators, the migration to a data-centric business and revenue model will continue apace. And we see risks for those operators that do not invest properly in building wide-area networks that can deliver high-quality data services.”

“When it comes to new services, there will be a continued usage migration to smartphones and tablets. But both established and new players are trying to figure out how best to monetize mobile usage. Don’t be surprised to see some of the disruptors being disrupted by new technologies and business models in 2013.”

1. Wi-Fi will become a victim of its own success

There will be a shift in operator sentiment away from public Wi-Fi as it becomes evident that the growing availability of free-to-end-user Wi-Fi devalues the mobile-broadband business model. Mobile operators will respond by articulating the value of their cellular networks better, but others not affected by this trend will double down on their public Wi-Fi investments to continue to propel the deployment and monetization of Wi-Fi.

2. Facebook goes all in on mobile

Facebook is having a tough time translating its popularity on mobile devices into revenues. Although its most recent financial results at last showed some improvement in mobile advertising revenues, we do not believe that this alone will be enough to sustain and grow its mobile business.

There are three new monetization strategies currently available to Facebook: 1) develop new premium services to sell to its existing customers; 2) take a share of revenues from third-party content providers that develop services on its platform; or 3) expand into the device or device software business.

We believe that the first two are Facebook’s preferred options and that billing and marketing / distribution relationships with operators, particularly in emerging markets, could bring tangible benefits.

With regards to the devices business, we expect Facebook to emerge as a strong backer of the new Mozilla mobile operating system which is expected to challenge Android in the low-cost smartphone device sector.

3. What’s up with WhatsApp

The hype bubble around WhatsApp and other OTT messaging services will continue to expand in 2013, especially driven by frequent acquisition rumours, but the emergence of early anecdotal evidence that some consumer segments are starting to migrate their attention and usage to alternative services, both old and new, will start to dampen expectations and highlight the fickle and fragmented nature of consumer behaviour.

4. Digital services: Show us the money

Investors will demand a clear path to revenue from investments into digital services before operators begin to feel any share-price benefit from initiatives. PR-friendly they may be, but demands and expectations from shareholders will grow that they are also friendly to the bottom line. It will become apparent to many operators that material revenue streams that can shift the dial of group-level revenues will be very hard to come by.

5. Content providers continue to spend on infrastructure

Google, Netflix et al will continue to invest heavily in extending their infrastructure closer to users in 2013. Informa recommends that operators consider these proposals carefully and recognise where they are likely to gain more from reduced costs and increased network efficiency than lose out in terms of uncertain revenues from so-called two-sided business models.

6. Subsidies under the microscope, but not necessarily for the right reason

Handset-financing models established themselves in Europe in 2012 and will continue to spread globally in 2013. But a reduction in subsidies and changes to traditional ways of retailing devices will come at a cost to operators.

Physical and online retailers, such as Amazon, as well as device-platform owners, such as Apple or Google, will accelerate their own initiatives to disrupt traditional device distribution models. Every slip in the share of devices sold through operator channels will serve to further erode the balance of power between operators and Internet and platform owners at the negotiating table.

7. Shared network, shared pain?

The logic of network-sharing will increasingly be questioned by the industry given the core strategic importance of a differentiated network platform. In Europe, especially, we expect more operators to forsake dividends and free cash-flow in order to ramp up investments into network infrastructure in the hope of establishing a competitive advantage built upon network quality of experience. However, despite this reversal of attitude by some, network-sharing and operator consolidation will sweep through emerging markets, especially in Africa.

8. Voice over LTE: Only fools rush in

Boosted by a lack of any negative customer feedback about interim voice for LTE solutions (such as falling back to circuit-switched 2G and 3G networks), more operators will join Verizon Wireless and EE in pushing out their timelines for the commercial deployment of VoLTE. A business case that looks to be based solely on spectrum efficiency will struggle to gain enough executive support to justify a rushed investment plan.

9. APIs: The new currency of the digital economy

APIs will become the leading currency of the digital economy – speeding service activation, configuration, customer experience management and time to revenue. Whether directly monetized or not, APIs are the new “interconnect standard” among digital service stakeholders.

10. Netflix will have a breakout TV hit in 2013

In 2012, a previously niche channel player, AMC, owned the most popular show on US TV – “Breaking Bad”. In 2013, it will be the turn of an OTT provider to break through – perhaps with “House of Cards”. Pay-TV operators should respond by looking at how they might partner with Netflix, rather than seeing it only as a threat.

Just after it gave its NewFront presentation without mentioning it at all, The Financial Times says Google’s YouTube is ready to debut a pay wall for some of its specialty channels.

YouTube so far is distancing itself a bit from the story—nothing to announce, they say. But it’s not flat out dismissing it.  It told the paper it was “looking into creating a subscription platform that could bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our creators with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content, beyond the rental and ad-supported models we offer.”

In other words, part of the revenue would be split with creators, who could use the money to make bigger projects, presumably for conventional TV and theatrical release.

That could be lucrative for channels like Machinima, The Onion, Howcast, or maybe even Awesomeness, the kids site that was sold last week for $33 million to Dreamworks.

The FT story says “Viewers will be able to subscribe to each channel for as little as $1.99 a month” as if that is dirt cheap.

The vast millions of  YouTube videos, and all the user-generated stuff,  would still be available for nothing, which in many cases is what they are  worth.

The pay channels idea sounds iffy to me, but it’s an interesting experiment that could become an indicator of just how much consumers are ready to pay for content, and how paying for it changes it.

YouTube is not only the 800 lb. gorilla in the video space, but is a veritable pack of gorillas in a jungle of little furry animals. If they can make turn a free site into just a partly-free site without adverse effect, things will have changed.

As everybody knows, in the history of the Internet, users have not been too friendly toward paying for that which was once instantly available sans wallet.

Paying for content is working to some degree for Hulu Plus, but probably not as well as Hulu would have hoped. Free content converted to pay content is still a mixed bag for newspapers that tried it.

Still, the allure to online video—probably more than content makers would like to know–is that most of it is free and free-form. There’s a cultural allure that even YouTube acknowledged at its NewFront presentation. YouTube fans feel they’ve “discovered” channels, and indeed YouTube’s presentation was loaded with performers that users, not Google/YouTube, did most of the “marketing” to make into stars.

Throwing up a pay wall, even for a fraction of the channels, commercializes the idea of being an online hunter. It changes the experience. Does it ruin it? Maybe we’ll find out.

The online video entrepreneurs say they compete with cable for audiences, but that’s not totally true because while cable does get money from customers it happens in a whisper. You don’t really know you’re paying $4 a month for ESPN and lesser amounts for dozens of others because it’s folded into a much larger cable bill.

But subscribing a to two or three YouTube channels, and then to Netflix or Amazon, and MLB.com,  and maybe to The New York Times digital edition (or the very excellent Financial Times, which is reporting this story ahead of others), a consumer will start to see those charges adding up on the Visa card.

Then what? Are a bunch of short/quirky/niche videos worth $1.99 a month?  How about 10 subscriptions?

pj@mediapost.com

Recently, Alloy acquired DBG, while Dreamworks acquired Awesomeness TV.

Terms of the Alloy/DBG deal were not disclosed.  Dreamworks paid $33 million for AwesomenessTV, with earnouts pushing the deal up to a deal size of $123 million.

The companies have some similarities, as they all operate in the video space.  Both targets (DBG and AwesomenessTV) have a repping business on top of their core: AwesomenessTV produces content, but as a multichannel network (MCN) on YouTube, it has aggregated 55,000 other channels who share a similar demographic.  Other MCNs include Machinima and Maker Studios.

I’m personally a bit cynical on the long-term viability of MCNs, though invariably the top few will have big businesses when the market shapes up.  Anyway, DBG produces its own content (most of which was created for sponsors), but the bulk of its business is the distribution of content and advertisement across a network of third-party sites.  As such, both businesses have “owned-and-operated” dynamics with a representation layer.  Also similarly, neither had an actual “owned-and-operated” web property, focusing instead on distributing content on other sites:  DBG on mid to long-tail sites, AwesomenessTV on YouTube.

Until fairly recently, an audience built on YouTube wasn’t deemed valuable at all.  But then once people realized that YouTube was the main hub where people actually watched videos — and Google paid $100 million for content and investors took notice – -then YouTube went from pariah to the belle of the ball.

AwesomenessTV focuses exclusively on YouTube.  As an earlier entrant in the online video landscape, DBG instead focused everywhere else.  Early on, when marketers were adverse to YouTube, this was a sound strategy.  Today, it’s not.  It’s worth noting that until a year ago Alloy itself had fairly little exposure to YouTube, but that all changed when Alloy bought Smosh and ClevverTV, giving them a sizable footprint on YouTube.

While DBG showed high reach on comScore, the reality was that a distributed model just isn’t as attractive as having a large audience on one property.  Naturally marketers prefer if the property in question is a producer’s owned-and-operated website, but by 2013 it’s pretty clear that that is wishful thinking and not going to happen; at best you have a large audience on YouTube, where people come to watch videos.  Since YouTube partnered with comScore (and thanks to Google’s robust Analytics platform), then an audience on YouTube is as good as it gets.

YouTube has gone from a promotional platform to a commercial platform in about two years, while the syndicated Web seems to have fallen out of favor.  Let’s face it: bundling content in a player and then distributing it all over the Web is tough to monetize and will only get tougher.

DBG’s decision to sell to Alloy is a reflection that its branded business wasn’t going to grow fast enough, or grow to be big enough (despite all of the hype around native advertising)  –and that with no presence on YouTube, its “consumer-facing” business was nonexistent.  It needed to catch up, and partnering with Alloy was a “good enough” solution.  But because an audience on YouTube doesn’t come with a shortage of obstacles and headaches, Alloy is basically buying DBG’s distribution network to ensure that it has beyond-YouTube reach.

That decision to hedge from YouTube isn’t all that different than when LA-based The Collective (not to be confused with the NY-based display ad network Collective) bought Metacafe, despite having a large enough footprint on YouTube. (The grass, my friends, is always greener on the other side).

As is often the case in these deals, sometimes these decisions make sense when you consider the pedigree.  DBG was founded by Chris Young, who previously sold Klipmart to Doubleclick; he becomes Alloy’s chief marketing officer.  AwesomenessTV wasn’t coveted by Dreamworks for the 55,000 channels or 14 million claimed subscribers — it was founded by Brian Robbins, whose acting credits include “Head of the Class” and producing credits include “Smallville.”  If that wasn’t enough, AwesomenessTV lists a who’s who of backers, including Mark Terbeek of MK Capital, UTA’s co-founder and CEO Jeremy Zimmer, Machinima founder Allen DeBevoise, MediaLink CEO Michael Kassan, Greycroft Venture Partners, New World Ventures and Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills.

While DBG most likely had more reach and revenues, it should be abundantly clear which one of these two deals was more lucrative.  Whether or not that means that the Dreamworks/AwesomenessTV is a crazy outlier, or a shift in the online video and M&A market, remains to be seen.

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and less than five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently. “ (Warren Buffett)

Whether it’s a tweet, a post on your Facebook wall, a video upload, or a simple online transaction, the reality is that your brand is on air 24/7. In this golden digital age, brands are afforded the opportunity to have a global presence without necessarily having a real global footprint. This arguably raises the question of whether the definition of a “global brand” needs to be reevaluated — a debate best saved for another day.

More certain, however, are the common issues faced by every global brand marketer: Consistency, compliance, connection and communication.

Consistency

As the number of people that touch your brand grows, it becomes more and more important to protect your brand equity and ensure that your brand promise is clear and consistent — regardless of geography or who is broadcasting it. While it takes blood, sweat, tears and generally years to build a brand’s reputation, nowadays it’s all too easy to damage it Take the infamous Chrysler Twitter scandal, where an agency employee used the company’s corporate Twitter account to post a tweet that used expletives and criticized Detroit drivers. A single Tweet was powerful enough to undermine Detroit’s reputation as America’s motor city and Chrysler’s “Imported from Detroit” campaign.

A common misperception is that consistency equals boring and standardized, but having consistent message delivery as part of your brand strategy doesn’t translate into uninspiring briefs to a creative agency and it doesn’t mean that a global brand has to roll out the same communication in each market. Having guardrails, however, provide stakeholders with clear direction and vision — and coupled with consumer insight, can lead to incredibly powerful communication. The issue faced by global custodians however, is the time and effort required to put these guardrails in place.

Compliance

Mention the word legal and you’ve often lost half your audience.  However, compliance or the lack thereof can pose a serious threat to global brands. The Bogart Estate recently sued Burberry for posting an image of Humphrey Bogart wearing a trench coat in the film “Casablanca” on their Facebook and Twitter. LinkedIn had a difficult summer last year when it faced lawsuits over breach of user privacy law. Every single area associated with the development, marketing and ultimately the sale of any brand or service is subject to the adherence to a myriad of rules and regulations. Multiply this by the number of markets in which a global brand operates in and you begin to get a picture of how significant a challenge this can be and how critical it is to manage this effectively and efficiently.

Connection

Even the most iconic and well-known brands around the world have a stronger connection to their point of origin than to any other market they are present in. Coca-Cola is one of the most recognized brands in the world, but its roots are still firmly based in America. The further away a brand moves from its epicenter, the harder it has to work to connect with its audience both internally (employees, agencies, etc.) and its customers.

Communication

Hitting the communication or “glocalization” sweet spot is surely the ultimate goal of all global brands. Realizing this goal, however takes some doing. Coca-Cola recognizes and respects local culture and have adapted their products and tailored their communication strategy accordingly. Through the adoption of this approach, they have strengthened rather than diluted their commitment to “Inspiring Happiness” around the world and continue to delight their global consumers with products as well as communication that are consistent, compelling and connected.

It may be the small incentives via mobile that drive consumers to spend more at retail.

There are the big deals, like a half-off-the-price sale, that can drive a consumer to a location and cause a sale.

But there also are small deals that, with a little customer push, can drive shoppers on site to buy more.

For example, a gas station and convenience store chain in Canada found that by sending a mobile offer of 10 cents off per gallon to customers on site, it could drive up to almost a third of motorists at its pumps into the stores.

Another chain, U.S. National Oil and Gas Inc., has been sending mobile coupons to customers as they pull up to a store. If their Wi-Fi is on, motorists receive a mobile offer when they come within a 300-foot radius.

These offers generally involve small incentives, like cents off on gas, but they cause customers to go into the store, where they can be sent additional offers, driving incremental sales.

As mobile commerce evolves, the sophistication level of targeted marketing is increasing.

The power is the context and relevance of the small consumer push.

A supermarket shopper could be sent an on-the-spot coupon based on what they just scanned.

When a shopper is looking at their shopping list or recipe on their phone, they can see which items have associated coupons, a feature recently introduced by Coupons.com.

The point is, these are very small but highly relevant incentives for consumers based on their exact location and current activity.

Rather than a grand scheme to conceive of ways to drive more sales, it may just take a little mobile nudge.

Scott Kupor, managing partner at Andreessen Horowitz, explains how “we” are holding back the middle class in America, and points to the U.S. government’s mistake to “systematically cut the middle class out of the most important wealth creation opportunity for the next 50 years.”

Kupor’s rant plants his viewpoint firmly with investors detailing why we should care if the world has fewer billionaire founders and CEOs of publicly traded companies, but the changes also impact the online advertising industry by stifling growth and innovation. He says if the United States had not seen initial public offering (IPO) volumes fall “off of a cliff” in the last decade, the Kaufman Foundation estimates the U.S. would have created an estimated 1.9 million new jobs.

Pointing to examples of two companies founded by Harvard dropouts — Microsoft and Facebook — Kupor tells us that until a decade ago about 300 startups went public annually, with the average age about five years. In the most recent decade, fewer than 100 companies each year have gone public, with less than one-third of those being small IPOs, and the average age roughly doubling to 9.4 years.

Regulatory changes have reduced the frequency of stocks in high-growth companies that are offered to the public during dramatic growth phases, he writes, which leads to the economy’s decline. I don’t necessarily think it’s important for a company in the online advertising industry to go public. I do believe they must spend the money to innovate or die.

Some might view my thinking as a dotted line from one concept to another, but companies are going to great lengths to find the best talent, ensure that products resonate with consumers, and reduce operating costs rather than rely on money from investors. Google ran a promotion that gives people a chance to become a test wearer for Google Glass(es), which in turn will educate its engineers on what they need to do to improve the product before it hits the shelf next year. The “explorers” will pay $1,500 for the glasses, as well as attend a launch event in person.

It will be interesting to see whether analysts crunch the numbers on the amount of money this testing will save Google in operating costs. How much would it cost the search giant to hire the people needed to test the product? Not only are they getting free testers, but people are paying $1,500 to do it. Call it the ultimate marketing tactic, but will it become the future — especially for startups that need the finanical backing, an alternative to going public?