MINIWEB IN DEAL TO INTEGRATE ITS CONNECTED TV PLATFORM WITH EUROSAT'S NEW FREEVIEW HD SET-TOPS

March 25th 2010

Miniweb, a London-based company that offers a platform designed to enable converged broadcast and broadband entertainment on the TV, said Wednesday that it has signed a deal with Eurosat, an EU-wide distributor of terrestrial and satellite TV products, to integrated its flagship Connected TV Services Platform and its broadband content guide with Eurosat's new Manhattan range of set-top boxes, which are designed for use with Freeview HD, the new HDTV service from the UK's free-to-air digital terrestrial platform. The Miniweb-equipped boxes are slated to be available in retail later this year...

from itvt

Miniweb provides connected TV to Eurosat STBs

March 24th 2010

Satellite, TV and communication equipment distributor, Eurosat, is integrating Miniweb’s Connected TV Services Platform into its new generation of Manhattan branded Freeview boxes.

The deal will add internet video and personalisation features to the Manhattan Set Top Box, with a UK launch planned later in the year.

Miniweb’s technology will enable easy navigation and consumption of internet video, and will also provide global search, recommendations, related content, personalization, micropayments and community/social networking features.

Miniweb’s platform makes it easy to integrate internet video publishers, offering a new revenue stream and allowing viewers to search for content across all providers with a single action...

from Tech Watch

I predict a takeover approach by the next interim results...

There must be plenty of investment bank advisors and media moguls poring over the last set of Blinkx results which showed, as we know, EBITDA profitability for the second six months of the year. It therefore seems highly likely that the next set of interim results - in about 6 months - will show clear profitability for the half-year, and that the business will still then be growing very strongly indeed.

When one considers the range of businesses into which Blinkx could slot - from WPP to Bertlesmann, quite apart from the obvious suspects of News Corp, Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, even Apple - it seems fairly inevitable that a takeover approach will be made for Blinkx. My guess is that this will happen well before the next set of results: someone will try and steal Blinkx at a low price (say 60p) before the wider world wakes up to the success story that Blinkx seems to be turning into.

I don't expect such an opportunistic bid to succeed: but when the first approach comes it will light a firestorm of speculation, and if we aren't already there the share price will be into 3 figures very very soon thereafter.

Blinkx management are therefore faced with the choice of keeping the share price rising to keep shareholders happy and onside and not open to a bid, or being taken over for a song.

Let's hope the former. Blinkx seems to have woken up - at long last - to the necessity for good PR, good newsflow and to keep shareholders happy. Let's hope it continues to be so...

Stunning results

Sorry, readers - been on an industry conference for the past two days so too busy (or drunk) to post.

Stunning results yesterday - simply no other word for them. EBITDA profitable for the second half of last year, and well on track for a full-year profit this year, with mobile, Miniweb and Cheep still to come. All looking very good indeed.

However, for those who think I will now close this blog and shut up - dream on. All my past criticisms of Blinxk mgmt were valid at the time I made them and they're still valid. No news of Miniweb or Pinball on yesterday's conference call, I notice?

And everyone seems terribly excited about the share price rising so much yesterday and today: let's see where it is in 3 months during the long between-results longeur, shall we? And even today it is still nearly 50% below the IPO price!

I'll leave you with this thought - if Blinkx mgmt had had any choice about revealing yesterday how well they were doing - with the risk of attracting a predator despite AUT's holding - do you think they would have revealed them?

Bring on the takeover. Google, Yahoo or MS (or News Corp...) could have mine for 150p a share...

Blinkx video search goes mobile

San Francisco and Cambridge, UK-based firm Blinkx claim to have around 35million hours of video indexed - including sites like YouTube and the BBC's iPlayer - using voice-recognition technology to make the videos searchable by their actual content, not just titles and descriptions.

They reported 204% growth in the last year, making them the second fastest growing video platform in the UK behind Facebook.

Video on the mobile web is still in its infancy, with many smartphones, notably the iPhone, not supporting Flash; Flash being a bit rubbish even on many phones that do; many web video providers not offering an alternative to Flash; and HTML5, which should get round the whole thorny problem, still years away from being widely adopted.

But that looks set to change - leading technology firm Cisco recently predicted that almost two thirds of the world's mobile traffic will be video content within the next five years. In the UK, smartphone adoption has shot up 70% in the past year, according to research firm Comscore, meaning the market for mobile video is growing rapidly....

from Metro

Blinkx and mobile...

It's good to see that Blinkx have (finally) taken my advice both about the necessity of a Blinkx mobile service (although why the hell did it take them so long?) and about the necessity of a B2C strategy - for make no mistake, that's what this new mobile service is. Quite why they didn't start a B2C strategy earlier - say during the recession, when TV advertising was cheap(er), to promote blinkx.com: and why they didn't launch TH during the depths of the recession, when consumers were even more price-conscious than they are now - is yet another mystery about Blinxk to add to the list.

I've got two more pieces of advice for Blinkx, if they should be reading this:

1/ the Blinkx management team to buy shares in their own company, in the open market, to demonstrate their confidence in the company's future, and

2/ Chandratillake to stand down as CEO and move to a CTO role; the new CEO to be someone who is much, MUCH better at communicating with shareholders and the City...

Next they'll be releasing a Blinkx Facebook app, and then I'll know that they know I've been right all along...

Gary Flake: is Pivot a turning point for web exploration?

Blinkx launches mobile video search site

Blinkx has launched a mobile version of its video search service.

Users can access the video aggregator’s mobile video search from any phone with a web browser that can play MP4s, including the iPhone, Google Nexus One, HTC Desire and Magic and Blackberry Bold 9700 devices.

Blinkx has adapted its home page for use on mobiles, displaying a blinkx video wall of nine thumbnails of the top stories from around the web, one-click category browsing and a large central search bar...

from New Media Age

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Comment: Exellent news, of course - but according to some shareholders who claim to have been there, didn't Chandratillake say at the last AGM that Blinkx weren't that interested in mobile as he didn't think there was much money there?

So - if those reported comments are true, and we only have the word of some anonymous posters on a bulletin board that they are - was Chandratillake lying to shareholders, or did he change his mind? And if the latter, was it, I wonder, because of the consistent criticism from this blog for Blinkx's lack of mobile ambitions?


And if that is true, maybe he'll take this piece of advice too: resign, and make way for someone who can deliver shareholder value, someone who has a clue...

Waiting to Pay For Hulu? Wait a While Longer

A public service announcement for any of you eager to start paying for Hulu: Be patient. You’re going to have to keep waiting.

Last month, the Los Angeles Times said Hulu was set to roll out a subscription service “as soon as May 24″. That’s next Monday. But people familiar with the company say there’s no way a Hulu Plus will be up and running by then...

from MediaMemo

Congratulations to Blinkx management...

...who finally seem to have succeeded in destroying the last vestiges of market interest in and shareholder patience towards Blinkx.

Here we are the day before results and the price is still dropping (currently down .44p on my screen on volume of 826,220 shares) - no large buys, no excitement, no buzz, no nothing.

The results tomorrow better be fucking SPECTACULAR - I'm looking for turnover $30m+, loss no larger than $10m, with a very strong forward-looking statement and clear information about when we can expect Miniweb revenues to kick in, what the hell is going on with Transaction Hijacking, the full story on Pinball - in fact a full and frank overview of all Blinkx's products and services, with complete transparency for shareholders on each.

And if I don't get that I'll be writing to the large institutional shareholders - even Credit Agricole is down on their recent investment, let alone those stupid enough to buy at 18p or at the IPO price of 45p (if there are any of those left) - suggesting that at the next AGM they vote against the re-election of the management team (and especially Chandratillake) and support their replacement with a bunch of grown-ups who can focus obsessively on delivering shareholder value - if by no other means then by putting the company up for sale to the highest bidder,.

Enough is enough. The jokers running Blinxk have had THREE YEARS to prove themselves - and just look where we are; the share price on its ass and nobody remotely interested in this company. It's finally time for those in charge of Blinxk to put up - or get the fuck out...

YouTube hits 2 bn daily downloads

"YouTube said it now gets over two billion hits daily - nearly double the number of people who tune into the US's three prime time TV stations combined.

The news comes as the site celebrates the day five years ago when the first beta version of YouTube was launched.

Over seven months ago the video site clocked up one billion downloads..."

from BBC News

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Comment: yet more evidence to suggest that online video is exploding in all directions. And in two days we get to find out whether Blinkx have taken advantage of this opportunity or whether they've fucked up again.

God help them if it's the latter...

articles from New Media Age 13th May 2010 edition

Articles from New Media Age 2010-05-06

Interesting video...

No date on the page, so not sure when it was made, but SC talks about Blinkx having 30 million hours of video indexed, whereas now we think it is at least 35 million - so if that's right it was made a while ago, anyway.

All good, interesting stuff. I note that SC is very careful to say that Blinkx is very successful 'from a revenue perspective'. So the obvious question is: when are we going to see profits?

babble on the bulletin boards

This from 'citytrade' on iii

"on my guestimates blinkx rev will be $30mill with profits of 1c per share.

If correct the sp will rise rapidly on news, possibly 26p+ next week.

this is because the business model is proven.

But I've called this badly over 2 years.

I also dont share the view that Suranga Chandratillake is bad, he presents full of integrity a prerequisite for business, & I'd rather have someone young and enthusiastic than aged and cynical.

I've noticed a conscious campaign to attack him begun by one person and which spread, I assume to drive the sp do
wn.

next week could be good."

The first serious suggestion I've seen that Blinxk will post any kind of profit next Wednesday - and almost certainly wrong. Any hint of profit or break-even (which we were promised was 'very close' back in early 2008 - remember?) would undoubtedly have required an RNS to notify the markets. Quite blatant ramping...

As for "I've noticed a conscious campaign to attack him begun by one person" - who can he mean?

And he's dead wrong. I started 'attacking' Chandratillake - which I would prefer to describe as questioning his business strategy, abilities and actions, with plenty of evidence to back up my view (the Miva fiasco, the Blinkbox fiasco, the total lack of clarity or communication with shareholders and markets, the failure to buy any shares to support his own company) - precisely because the share price dropped relentlessly, not to drive it down.

Dumbass...

Let’s Try This Again: How Much Web Video Is Really iPad-Ready?

Steve Jobs says there’s no reason to cling to Flash video on the Web, because most Web video also works on the H.264/HTML5 standard he’s supporting.

But Adobe (ADBE) says the majority of the Web’s video uses its Flash standard. And if you surf the Web via Apple’s (AAPL) iPad, you’ll quickly find clips that don’t work on the Flash-free device. Instead of video, you’ll confront the dreaded blue box.

So who’s right? Depends, of course, on whom you ask. But the answer is probably somewhere in the middle.

Earlier this month, Encoding.com said that 66 percent of the videos it processes are in iPad-friendly H.264, adding that this number reflects the wider Web. But MeFeedia, a video search engine, which says it catalogs millions of videos from 30,000 sources, pegs the H.264 universe at a much lower number, 26 percent of all clips...

from MediaMemo

Hulu Still Not Coming to Your iPad’s Web Browser

Waiting to watch Hulu on your iPad’s Web browser? Going to have to keep waiting.

The video site announced today that it isn’t going to support HTML5, the standard Apple is promoting for video.

Or at least that’s what it said at some point in the last few hours–the blog post where Hulu made the statement has now vanished. (My hunch is that the disappearance is a technical snafu, not a corporate policy shift.)...

from MediaMemo

Web Ads Are Growing Again. But by How Much?

We know that the Web ad business (and the ad business in general) is much better than it was a year ago, when it was awful. How much better?

Pick your data point:

The Interactive Advertising Bureau says U.S. spending on Web ads hit $5.9 billion in the first quarter of 2010. That’s a record for the first quarter of the year, but it’s a relatively modest 7.5 percent increase over a very crummy comparison in 2009.

And bear in mind that the IAB’s data include search spending, which means that the spike is in large part a reflection of Google’s (GOOG) health.

Want a bigger number? Try comScore, which says that the volume of display ads, i.e., the kind you might see on this page, shot up 15 percent in the last year. But while comScore (SCOR) says total spending on display ads hit $2.7 billion for the quarter and that the average CPM (cost per thousand impressions) hit $2.48, it isn’t reporting how those numbers compare to last year’s results...

from MediaMemo

Another video initiative which will turn out to have nothing to do with Blinkx...

Social Video System

Cisco Show and Share is a social video system that helps organizations create highly secure video communities to share ideas and expertise, optimize global video collaboration, and personalize the connection between customers, employees, and students with user generated content.

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps6682/index.html

Advert for Reuters Insider from this evening's Standard

[click image for larger version]

Don’t Sleep on Blinkx, It’s More Than Video Search

Where does Blinkx fit into the video search segment? Why did it have as much growth in terms of video views as Facebook (204% compared to 205%) in the U.K. in the past twelve months. Let’s look as some answers and theories.

First, Blinkx describes itself as the largest video search engine with 35 million hours of indexed online video and audio content. They use advanced speech-recognition technology to analyze videos and deliver search results that are more accurate than standard metadata-based keyword searches. Blinkx has also leveraged their technology to launch AdHoc, a contextual video advertising platform. In February of 2010, Blinkx had almost 29 Million video views (U.K. based views). Of course, the elephant in the room is YouTube which averages over 10 Billion views (2.4 billion in the U.K.) per month. Globally, Blinkx has approximately 60 million video views per month globally. Competitors for Blinkx include Truveo, VideoSurf, Cast TV and others...

from Blackweb

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Comment: Yeah - don't 'sleep on Blinkx' (whatever exactly that means? Nonsensical enough to have been written by Blinxk themselves or their PR company...). And don't be stupid enough to buy shares in it , neither...

Here is the online video news

Thomson Reuters is launching an online video service to half a million financial customers with technology that it hopes will shape the future of news.

Reuters Insider captures thousands of hours of video produced by its reporters and 150 financial partners. Initially it will be available only to Reuters subscribers, who pay up to $2,000 (£1,335) a month.

Thomson Reuters is in preliminary discussions to expand the technology to non-financial customers, The Times has learnt, in a move that could challenge traditional publishers and news agencies...

from Times Online

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Blinkx involvement? Nothing RNSd - but then that doesn't mean a thing with this company...

Blinkbox rolls out PS3 service

UK video-on-demand site Blinkbox has launched a video streaming service for PlayStation 3 in the UK, bringing US TV titles such as Heroes and 30 Rock to the console.

The service is being billed by the company as "the first optimised legal movie streaming service" for PS3. As well as shows such as Gossip Girl, it will offer movies including Avatar and Up In The Air, along with an archive of 6,000 TV and movie titles...

from C21Media

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Comment: Of course they shouldn't bloody be called Blinkbox - and wouldn't be if Blinkx hadn't been so slow on the uptake and had launched their legal action sooner.

Yet further evidence for the proposition that Blinkx mgmt are utterly clueless at anything not strictly related to the company's technology...

And the price just carries on dropping...

As I write the share price is now a third below the level of the share placing (18p) only months ago.

So Blinkx placed shares at 18p (and AUT ended up with over 50% of those shares) - and the price headed south.

Credit Agricole bought a 3.1% stake at (I'm guessing) around the 14p mark - and the price kept on dropping.

As I write the bid/offer is 11.5/12p - down 1p today and looking like it's heading even further south. That price is roughly 75% below the IPO level of 3(ish) years ago - and in the time I've been invested - more than two years now - it has never breached 30p (and in the past year I don't think it has breached 20p).

Of course markets around the world are tanking at the moment over the fears of a Greek debt default - my trading screen is a sea of red at the moment - but even allowing for that, I can't help thinking that if Blinxk hadn't completely bolloxed their PR/newsflow almost since they came to market, that the price would have been much much higher before this widespread sell-off started and they would be better weathering the storm. The next set of figures are due in less than two weeks now (19th May), and there is not the slightest sign of interest from the markets; even the usual T10 brigade have failed to materialise in anticipation of a run-up in the share price to results.

And of course it's notable - once again - that there is one party which isn't buying shares at any price - the company's own management team. They'll raise money by placing shares at 18p, and I imagine they were happy (having seen Lloyds sell their stake) to see Credit Agricole come on board at c14p - but Chandratillake and the rest of the Blinxk team haven't bought at either of those prices, or indeed this current price, or even when it hit 8.5p 18 months or so ago.

Why is that? I think shareholders are quite entitled to wonder aloud about why Blinkx management doesn't have enough confidence in their own company's future to buy shares in the open market with their own money. Shareholders are quite entitled to be concerned that there are now only about 2 years left of the exclusive license to Autonomy's technology (which I quite accept Blinxk has built on in that time) - doubts over what happens when the exclusive license runs out is only one reason, I suspect, why the markets are so disinterested in Blinkx.

The company needs to release a comprehensive trading update with the next set of figures. We need to know - we are entitled to know, goddamit! - exactly what the hell is going on with Pinball, why Transaction Hijacjking was shelved and what plans there are for its future monetisation, why Blinkx keeps releasing more and more products (SmartShopper, Deal-Scout, Blinkx music) without then doing anything with them - in short I think shareholders are entitled to know everything which affects the value of their stake in this company.

And if we don't get it, I think at the next opportunity shareholders should vote to get rid of Chandratillake and the rest of the sorry crew, and replace them with a new management team who gives a damn about their shareholders and doesn't just act like the R&D department for a certain large, Cambridge-based search technology company...

ITV revenues up 6%

"UK broadcaster ITV has posted a 6% rise in group revenues, reaching £450m (US$663m) for the first quarter of this year, with broadcasting and online revenues also up 6% to £390m..."

from C21Media

World of Warcraft Maker to Hook Its Online Gaming Service into Facebook

Perhaps best known for World of Warcraft, video game developer and publisher Blizzard Entertainment let loose a hugely significant tidbit of information in the gaming space: It will integrate Facebook into its popular online service Battle.net.

Outside of WoW, the Starcraft franchise is one of Blizzard’s other extremely popular multiplayer universes, and the Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty sequel has been highly anticipated. When the game launches for the PC on July 27, players will be able to share in-game activities and accomplishments directly with their Facebook friends...

from Mashable

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Comment: so Blizzard can hook battle.net into Facebook, but Blinkx are incapable of providing a Facebook app/widget which allows for a user to search for and share their favourite videos.

Well at least we don't have to wonder any more why the Blinkx share price is so low (and falling by the day): it's because Blinkx is run by a bunch of clueless numpties who don't have the first idea about modern digital media and how this whole social media thing works. The fact that Facebook is now the second biggest referrer to YouTube after Google itself has obviously completely passed Blinkx management by - they remain completely oblivious to the fact that Facebook users clearly have a huge appetite for viewing and sharing video.

The people 'running' Blinkx are, in my view, laughably pathetic. Unfortunately it's rather hollow laughter given how much their complete cluelessness is costing me in terms of the (paper, so far) loss on my investment.

The next set of results (due May 19th, my wife's birthday) had better be fucking SPECTACULAR - and NO unpleasant surprises...

Google Ups Its TV Bet, Invests in Invidi

Google, which is still trying to figure out how to crack the TV business, has invested in a tech firm trying to do the same thing.

The search giant is leading a $23 million series D round in Invidi Technologies, a New York City company that works on “addressable” TV ads. Addressable ads are supposed to target specific viewers, using data from set-top boxes, in the same way that Internet ads sniff out specific Web surfers.

You can see why Google (GOOG) would be interested in this stuff, particularly as it tries to integrate its Android platform with TVs. Shishir Mehrotra, who runs product management for all of Google’s video businesses, will join Invidi’s board...

from MediaMemo

iAds Could Be Big for Apple, Huge for Developers

Steve Jobs promises that his new iAd platform won’t “suck.” It may also generate more than $800 million a year for Apple.

This estimate comes from Bernstein Research’s Toni Sacconaghi, who also thinks Apple (AAPL) will do more than $58 billion in sales this year. So that number is nice, if not needle-moving.

But the analyst also points out the real benefit of iAds to Apple: It will generate more than $800 million a year for developers, giving them even more incentive to build programs for iPhones and iPads.

Sacconaghi thinks iAd could throw off $550 million this fiscal year (and double that in 2011); Apple will keep 40 percent of that. And he thinks Apple could keep another $250 million from more conventional advertising that runs on media ads/apps on the iPad...

from MediaMemo

'Hard-up Britons watching more TV', industry body says

TV viewers in the UK are watching more than four hours of programmes every day, the Broadcasters' Audience Research Board (Barb) has said.

It said figures from January to March 2010 showed people watched, on average, four hours and 18 minutes daily, up from three hours, 56 minutes in 2009.

Two-thirds of those hours were spent watching commercial channels, it said.

Commercial TV marketing body Thinkbox said the rise was partly down to cash-strapped Britons staying at home.

A spokesman said 93.9% of households now had digital television - which meant viewers had a greater choice of channels - and almost half (44%) now had digital TV recorders...

from BBC News

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Comment: watching more TV and, presumably, more online video too.

And with 93.9% of households now having digital, bodes well for Miniweb...

Google’s YouTube Boosts Display Advertisers 10-Fold

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Google Inc. has boosted the number of advertisers using display ads on its YouTube video site 10-fold in the past year, a sign the company is making headway to lift sales in businesses other than search.

YouTube, the most popular U.S. video-sharing site, has gotten more companies to place display advertisements, such as videos or graphical marketing messages, said Barry Salzman, managing director of media and platforms for the Americas at Google, owner of the largest Web search engine...

from Bloomberg

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Comment: isn't Blinkx involved with YouTube?

Interview with Chris Maple of Microsoft Advertising

From New Media Age 29th April 2010