Netflix has signed deals with Disney/ABC and CBS (CBS) to stream television shows online a day after they air on television. Netflix also has done deals with Microsoft to distribute video on Xbox 360 and created a player by Roku to stream movies to customers who subscribe to monthly DVD rental plans.
The latest deal means Netflix will be able to stream current shows from CBS and Disney. As Hulu has shown, a recognized brand name or troves of branded content are big assets in the streaming business.
In fact, though the "long tail" has gotten a lot of attention, there is some evidence that content viewing in the online world mirrors content viewing in the offline world to a great extent. That is to say, people mostly watch the "branded, professional" content they typically watch on television. Early experience with long tail content might have suggested otherwise, but as more people start to use online video, online viewing patterns might start to look more like offline viewing patterns.
One study of music listening by Rhapsody customers shows that the top 10 percent of titles accounted for 78 percent of all plays, and the top one percent of titles for 32 percent of all plays. Of course, that is precisely what the "long tail" theory would predict. Popularly known as the "80/20" rule, the Pareto distribution predicts that roughly 80 percent of results are generated by 20 percent of the actions, or that 80 percent of sales volume, profit or margin are generated by 20 percent of products.
Rhapsody's listeners follow that pattern. Just 10 percent of titles in the million-title catalog account for nearly 80 percent of the plays.
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