Online Video In 2011: Connected TVs, Social Recommendations, And Standards Wars

Editor's note : Online video is going through many changes as people begin to connect their TVs to the Internet and social sharing over Facebook and Twitter influence what people watch as much as search. In this guest post, Jeremy Allaire , founder and CEO of online video platform Brightcove , gives his view of where online video is going next year. Allaire's last guest post for us was on the standards war in mobile video formats. Web video is just getting started, and 2011 promises to be yet another year of transformation in the online video landscape. The stage is set for mainstream connected TVs, Over-the-top adoption, and even more videos watched directly streamed from website. Here are the five biggest trends in online video that will play out in significant ways for end-users and publishers alike. 1. Connected TV Platform Wars The past year saw the definitive emergence of platform wars in the handheld computing landscape. This year will see those wars expand into new territory, the Connected TV platform market. Input 1 on the TV is the new homepage or start screen. We should expect that the battles will look incredibly similar to the market that emerged for smartphones over the past several years, but with some other entrenched players. Google vs. Apple vs. the dominant TV brands . In fact, these platforms will largely be based on a similar architecture, offering app and content publishers a common model for creating device-oriented applications and Web experiences. Apple will ship an iOS-based Apple TV display and will open up Apple TV to third-party apps beyond Netflix. Developers will have a common model for building apps across the phone, tablet and TV, as well as a suite of new APIs for phone and tablet apps to interact with TV apps (think remote control type activities, gestures for games, etc.). Its platform will also support HTML5 with a set of design standards for TV Web 10-foot experiences.