Great article on Spotlife!...
thestandard.com
Streaming Video For the Real World
A new site wants to build a community of online video enthusiasts ? and sell lots of Webcams in the process.
Kristin White, a bubbly blonde former 49ers cheerleader and now head of marketing at San Francisco's trendy Hotel Triton, became known as "City Party Girl" last year after the e-mail she penned with the subject line "You Know You're a Party Girl When..." was forwarded around the country. The Internet changed her life then, but not as much as it will in the next few months.
White is one of seven people living for free in the house on San Francisco's Lombard Street that MTV made famous with its Real World series. But this venture has nothing to do with MTV; it's a scheme by an Internet startup spending nearly $10,000 a month on rent alone to fund this Webcast copycat.
The show is an elaborate commercial for SpotLife, a company recently spun out of Logitech, king of trackballs, game devices and keyboards. Logitech also happens to be the nation's No. 1 Webcam maker with a grip on 34 percent of the market, according to International Data Corp.
The idea is that viewers will buy Webcams and stream their own content on one of SpotLife's channels, like Blister (travel and sports) or Groove (style and music). They could Webcast, for example, a wedding or their own live talk show.
The seven roommates' daily exploits are streamed live on SpotLife's Web site, and the company hopes to be ready to add consumers' streaming Webcasts ? which it defines as anything more than a single picture per second, with audio ? sometime in April. Until then, the site will let users post nonstreaming Webcam images.
"We realized this [market] was much bigger than our little cameras," says Guerrino De Luca, Logitech's president and CEO. After Logitech bought Connectix's QuickCam in 1998, revenues increased from $25 million to $100 million in 1999, according to De Luca. So Logitech put four engineers to work full-time developing a concept for leveraging the Webcam market.
"We were caught in a hardware model," says Tom Pandera, former software product manager at Logitech's Connectix division and founder of SpotLife. "But we saw high-speed bandwidth coming and decided, why not make it easy for people to broadcast video?" Logitech holds a 50 percent stake in SpotLife, which operates as an independent company.
IDC predicts that at least 4 million Webcams will be sold this year, more than double last year's number.
"Once upon a time [computer] speakers were a novelty only geeks had, but now everyone has them," says Amit Goswamy, SpotLife's president. "We want to take Webcams mainstream."
PC cameras are already well on their way to becoming de rigueur on many hardware systems. For instance, Logitech inked a deal in January to bundle its QuickCam with Compaq (CPQ) 's Presario. And every QuickCam will be SpotLife-enabled. The software will let users set up a streaming Webcam feed directly to the SpotLife site.
While plenty of companies stream video on the Web today, the task can be onerous for people who don't know the ins and outs of HTML, HTTP and FTP. SpotLife isn't the only company aiming to simplify the process for the masses. TrueTech, Earthnoise and Surveyor make Webcam software and host feeds online. Officials at WebcamNow, which makes plug-and-broadcast software for live streaming video, say SpotLife made moves to acquire their company last summer.
"We talked to [WebcamNow] about a range of things, from an alliance to acquisition, but in the end we decided not to do anything," says Goswamy.
Online film startups AtomFilms, Ifilm, Popcast and others aim to put short films online. But live video offers an unpredictable, intimate quality many people find more appealing. "People don't want to watch movies on their computers," says Michael Stern, cofounder and president of WebcamNow. "They want live action."
The obvious application for such a medium is, of course, porn. "At first, we had a policy against nudity and offensive material on WebcamNow," says Stern. "But we had to give those people a place to go."
SpotLife could find its own audience-building efforts hampered by a commitment to family-friendly content, which will be monitored by a staffer. But executives are confident the site can generate healthy PG-rated traffic. "We are going after microaudiences," Goswamy says.
Nudity or no, SpotLife's relationship with Logitech gives its software a powerful distribution channel. Anyone can download the software, but people who have it built into their QuickCams are more likely to use it. The trick will be to convince other Webcam vendors to incorporate SpotLife's technology.
SpotLife so far has raised $13 million in funding from CMGI AtVentures and Atlas Ventures. As for how the company will sustain itself, it's hedging its bets with a revenue plan that appears to be all over the map.
The CMGI partnership should help with advertising, since CMGI has built a healthy online ad empire. SpotLife.com, designed by San Francisco interactive shop Phoenix Pop, will also have 14 sponsor-ready content channels. For example, Zap, the channel for kids, could be sponsored by Toys "R" Us (TOY) . Then there's the requisite e-commerce strategy: The site will take a cut on sales of products like microphones, speakers and, of course, Webcams. According to a study by Arbitron Internet Information Services and Edison Media Research, Webcast viewers are more than twice as likely as general Internet surfers to click on Web ads or buy from a site.
SpotLife also plans to promote what it calls "content commerce." If a swing-dance pro wants to offer lessons via Webcast, SpotLife would arrange payments and take a percentage. Or it might facilitate a day-care center that charges parents for the privilege of monitoring their kids online. Additionally, charter members will get 240 free minutes a month and 15MB of free space, but SpotLife hopes to charge people who want more time for their Webcasts.
"We want to be able to react to whatever [revenue model] turns out to be successful," says Pandera.
Meanwhile, the draw of reality-based programming is undeniable. CBS (CBS) recently bought the rights to the Dutch TV show Big Brother, set to debut in July, which features nine or 10 American strangers living in a house wired with cameras and microphones. Viewers will be invited to vote by telephone and online to kick individuals out of the house.
So broadcasting the Lombard Street roommates' antics as entertainment may pay off for SpotLife. But the company insists its focus isn't on content, but on creating a new communication medium.
The company's lofty goal notwithstanding, the seven roommates are grateful for one thing: A free house in San Francisco's sky-high rental market. And White, for one, plans to give a little back. "We are going to find a husband for my friend Tammy," she exclaims. "We'll auction off a date with her in a future show, and the highest bidder's money will go to charity." |
