Yesterday, I visited the Streaming Media Europe conference/exhibition in Hammersmith for the first time.

The start of the day was comic, with two lines queuing up to register, one for this conference and the other for Internet Librarians. Obviously they were confused as a couple of Librarians realised that they were in the wrong lecture theatre seconds just before the first speaker stood up. I thought it was funny, and I missed Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, the moderator’s, reference to the Twitter hash, and did not join in. However, I would have found it hard to tweet, as the keynote speaker William Cooper, of informitv.com set off on such a fast paced review of how we got to where we are. He talked about how online video is challenging and also complimenting traditional broadcasting, causing market disruption. He referred to the challenges of delivering online video on all platforms. I wanted to hear more about the convergence of the Internet/TV in the living room, but he left this for another time, and questions were cancelled due to late start. I hope to catch up with him to find out more.

Guy Phillipson of the IABUK informed us about the numbers for the first half of 2009, with overall media markets down 16.6%, the Internet up 4.6% but slower growth over previous years, but video, defined as pre-roll, up 195% at £11.4M, just 4% of the total UK internet market in this period, so small, and a low base for growth, but rays of hope in very tough economic times. I searched the IAB USA stats, digital video (not sure if the definitions are the same as over here) is also 4%, as in the UK, at $477m, but only a 38% increase over the first half of 2008. There was a 5.3% decline in the total size of the USA Internet market in the first half, so the UK market has performed positively, especially as Guy pointed out that the UK is a middling player in broadband size terms. Jack Wallington of the IAB talked about standards, and formats that work/don’t work, obvious things like frequency caps, and gave some good examples of innovative ads, I particularly liked the Discovery Channel Orang-utan Island from Carat. Guy told us about UKOM, a new industry agreed standard for Internet audience research, available in summer 2010, monthly in arrears, demographic data from 35,000 people at home and work. A big achievement for everyone involved. It is ironic though, with so much real time information available online, that we apply traditional media research to make sense of it all. It will be interesting to see how this develops out.

After this I toured the Exhibition. I talked to Brightcove, Unicorn, VideoPlaza, Adswizz, Twofour Digital, Tremor, Global Mix, Ooyala, Craze, ims AG, yospace.

An interesting selection of digital video businesses, with potential for partnership, development and investment with Luca Media

I understand better the finance chain, between CDN’s, video online platforms, ad platforms, and cross platform connections with Advertisers. Competition is opening up in these sub sectors, with many specialist companies represented here identifying new opportunities in this growth sector.

I enjoyed meeting everyone, and will watch developments closely.