In itvt.com’s interview with Akimbo Systems’ CEO Josh Goldman, a few things stood out to me.
One was the fact that Rocketboom, a popular videoblog that Robin Good describes as “a daily 3-minute show that is both informative, ironic, innovative and irreverent,” is Akimbo’s “second or third most popular content provider out of 140 or so channels.” (Here’s a link to a video interview with Rocketboom’s founders).
Another thing that struck me was the apparent significance of foreign language programming in Akimbo’s early market growth. According to Goldman:
I think in many cases, people are acquiring Akimbo devices and subscriptions to get the niche content—to get the stuff they can’t get anywhere else. We’ve had great success with Chinese language television shows and movies, and we’re now launching Indian movies and TV shows as well. This is because there’s great, pent-up demand for that kind of content, and it’s important enough to some groups of people to have it that they will go out and acquire a special device to get it.
Perhaps most important for Akimbo’s future is the question of whether its apparent goal of becoming a web-content aggregator can succeed in a world where everyone—from cable operators and telcos, to studios, to Google, Yahoo and a slew of startup web-video platform providers—is aiming to expand their slice of future video audiences and revenue streams. This is especially important in light of the fact that Akimbo does not have exclusive distribution rights to most of the programming it offers.
Goldman says Akimbo is “focused on protecting [its] lead in this space” and that we should expect announcements from the company in the coming months in three key areas: new content deals, new distribution deals, and innovations in content discovery and navigation technologies.
Akimbo’s first distribution deal is with Microsoft. In October the Akimbo service will become available to owners of Microsoft’s Windows Media Center computers. The company’s tougher and more important sell in terms of distribution will be the owners of the dominant broadband pipes to the home. Cable operators already directly manage a wide range of content-distribution deals and have historically demanded control and high margins when dealing with new ventures and small players. And the two largest RBOCs, SBC and Verizon, are looking increasingly to Yahoo as their source of broadband content. While this suggests Akimbo’s prospects for securing a win-win deal with these players are not great, if Goldman’s team can secure such deals, they will have gone a long way toward proving that their pioneering strategy reflects not only courage and vision, but also an ability to swim with the sharks without getting eaten.
Mitch Shapiro at 12:29 PM|Comments(0)
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