Although the consumption of streaming Flash video will continue to dominate the bulk of online video viewing, the growth of downloadable media to a desktop application is going to quickly accelerate.
For many innovative online video publishers, distribution of online video via download exceeds streaming. This is the case at The Washington Post, according to Tom Kennedy, managing editor for multimedia — and at Rocketboom, according to show creator Andrew Baron.
Whether via P2P, iTunes, or the upcoming Adobe Media Player, more consumers will download and save videos. Bandwidth, coupled with inexpensive storage, is making this possible.
So, what about advertising? How are ads inserted into downloaded media and how can these ads stay fresh? Meaning, if an ad for a new product is inserted, will it get "stale" when the clip is viewed six months later? These are important issues and as far as I can see, the issue of effective advertising into downloadable media is far from being sorted out.
Podaddies, the San Francisco-based start-up appears to be making some progress in this area. Earlier this month, I inteviewed CEO Nate Pagel.
Beyond simply serving ads into downloadable media, Podaddies has a system to change those ads on the desktop, once the file has been downloaded. (Only if the device is connected to the Internet, natch.)
Adobe has a system to dynamically change ads into its new Media Player, Beet.TV reported earlier this year. I’ve pasted below my interview with Adobe’s Craig Barberich who explains and demonstrates the opportunity for inserting ads into downloadable Flash.
— Andy Plesser
