Lots More Video

Video was a hot topic this week at Digital Hollywood and all of the video vendors I spoke to said the event was very targeted and effective for them. I ran into the Eyespot guys, as well as some of the big boys responsible for video strategy at Microsoft, Yahoo and Sony, to name a few.

One discussion covered establishing and monetizing an entertainment and communications medium around mobile video, where the bigger boys at Nokia (head of branded content and aggregators – what a title, eh?), ABC News (Digital Media Group), QUALCOMM and Sony exchanged ideas.

And as if Hollywood likes to think of themselves as leading edge, they had to build in a session on the Reinvention of Hollywood: Internet Video, Mobile, User Generated Media, IPTV and Broadband. There were agency folks, viral marketing discussions (grassroots, ground up stuff – some of which is working and some not), with a mix of perspectives, including Rob Bennett, GM of Video and Entertainment at MSN, Stephen Smyth of Reuters, William Morris’ VP Lewis Henderoson, Sony’s VP of Video Chris Dorr, and Verizon’s director of content and programming Walter Delph.

Tied into video and digital-rich content was the whole search discussion around targeted search and browsers as content and information: aggregating markets and advertising. Here, we heard from Andrew Pancer, COO at About.com, Blinx Co-founder Suranga Chandratillake, Kaboodle’s Manish Chandra, Songbird’s CEO Rob Lord, Kosmix’ CTO Sesh Srinivasan and Eurekster’s Steve Marder.