Interesting to see that both Joost and Veoh recently abandoned the downloadable Internet TV apps they spent years building, moving to pure web based models. This shows me that First on Mars really has a 2nd mover advantage in this space. When we first started designing FOM, we looked at Joost which was a really cool app in terms of the design and motion within the program, but we realized that by using Flex we could get really similar motion with a browser based app, so why would we even think about putting up such a huge barrier for people to use us as having a downloadable?
I am really wondering if downloadable apps are going to make any sense for streaming digital media ever again given where we are with rich media running in the browser? Anyway, definitely not for us.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
What we built and why it was worth building
Many of us having been through the evolution of the digital music business, saw that the digital TV business was going down a similar road...and it was going to be a bumpy road for Internet TV fans.
The major TV networks which had watched the major record labels go down in flames by witholding their catalogs from the Internet were rushing to put a LOT of shows online as fast as possible. But, they could not agree on who to license. They were all pissed off at YouTube for having built an audience at least partially on the back of illegally uploaded copies of their shows. NBC and Fox were starting HULU, but other networks did not like the idea of playing third fiddles in that group. Joost had launched a cool application that didnt work and had not been able to secure many licenses.
The result was a ton of great content spread across 60 different sites. Consumers desperately needed a way to access it all through a single application. That's what we wanted to give them. We also felt that the experience of searching or browsing through a typical website structure for TV shows was exhausting and NOT fun. So we threw out everything we knew about "websites" and built something that felt more like a sexy programming guide you might find on the cable box of the future.
We launched the public beta in September and you can check it out at www.firstonmars.com !
We love to hear feedback so please use the submit feedback links to let us know your thoughts.
The major TV networks which had watched the major record labels go down in flames by witholding their catalogs from the Internet were rushing to put a LOT of shows online as fast as possible. But, they could not agree on who to license. They were all pissed off at YouTube for having built an audience at least partially on the back of illegally uploaded copies of their shows. NBC and Fox were starting HULU, but other networks did not like the idea of playing third fiddles in that group. Joost had launched a cool application that didnt work and had not been able to secure many licenses.
The result was a ton of great content spread across 60 different sites. Consumers desperately needed a way to access it all through a single application. That's what we wanted to give them. We also felt that the experience of searching or browsing through a typical website structure for TV shows was exhausting and NOT fun. So we threw out everything we knew about "websites" and built something that felt more like a sexy programming guide you might find on the cable box of the future.
We launched the public beta in September and you can check it out at www.firstonmars.com !
We love to hear feedback so please use the submit feedback links to let us know your thoughts.
The new team is the old team
Ok, so we formed the company (in the US) and brought in the first set of investments...and as it turned out a couple of the guys that worked for me at the old company were leaving since the buyer was moving operations to New York and, hey, its hard to leave SF once you are wrapped in that warm bubble! Fred Zirdung, who had worked at Dolby for many years and then at DRA agreed to come on board as CTO.
with a one page description of the product I was imagining, I flew out to San Francisco in March and sat down in a dark room with Fred as well as our friends Jay and Denis (who happen to be brothers). Jay is always watching the cutting edge of entertainment apps and had a lot to say about usability and Denis is a top notch graphic designer who doodled on his macbook as the team refined the design. We emerged a week later with a spec and a set of mock-ups.
with a one page description of the product I was imagining, I flew out to San Francisco in March and sat down in a dark room with Fred as well as our friends Jay and Denis (who happen to be brothers). Jay is always watching the cutting edge of entertainment apps and had a lot to say about usability and Denis is a top notch graphic designer who doodled on his macbook as the team refined the design. We emerged a week later with a spec and a set of mock-ups.
Thank god for Skype
We will be launching an official First on Mars blog where David Keefe, our director of content and his crew will be keeping FOM fans in the loop about new networks and shows getting added to the site, new features and tips, but I also thought it would be fun to start a little blog about FOM back stage.
This is my 4th company and by far the most fun. We are all having a blast figuring out how to create the most fun, most useful, easiest way to find Network TV online. Its like building a big toy, and when you've got the amazing talented group of people we've put together, it adds up to a really great job.
After I left my last company, Digital Rights Agency, last November after 5 years of hard and sometimes stressful work, I moved to Paris to live with my girlfriend Juliette thinking I would take a year off. I spent a few months wandering around France, Thailand and India, but quickly got bored. Around the time the first hints of boredom were hitting, an investor I had pitched the First on Mars concept to the previous year called me and said he'd been thinking about it and would provide angel funding if I wanted to move forward.
I thought to myself "how often does THAT happen? Investors calling me to ask to invest?. Ok, lets give it a shot." But, of course, I had just moved to Paris and had to figure out how and where to put together a team. I quickly ruled out Paris because the French bureaucracy is just to thick.
This is my 4th company and by far the most fun. We are all having a blast figuring out how to create the most fun, most useful, easiest way to find Network TV online. Its like building a big toy, and when you've got the amazing talented group of people we've put together, it adds up to a really great job.
After I left my last company, Digital Rights Agency, last November after 5 years of hard and sometimes stressful work, I moved to Paris to live with my girlfriend Juliette thinking I would take a year off. I spent a few months wandering around France, Thailand and India, but quickly got bored. Around the time the first hints of boredom were hitting, an investor I had pitched the First on Mars concept to the previous year called me and said he'd been thinking about it and would provide angel funding if I wanted to move forward.
I thought to myself "how often does THAT happen? Investors calling me to ask to invest?. Ok, lets give it a shot." But, of course, I had just moved to Paris and had to figure out how and where to put together a team. I quickly ruled out Paris because the French bureaucracy is just to thick.
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