The effectiveness of commercials delivered via television is steadily diminishing (source). In search of alternatives, marketers have begun to broadcast their video ads over the Internet - only to discover an increasing shortage of available ad space (source).

Our company addresses this growing problem.

The drivers responsible for this problem/opportunity are as unmistakable as they are unstoppable.  A few examples:

• US broadband penetration cleared 68% in February 2006 (source)
• Key demographics now spend more time online than watching TV (source)
• US DVR penetration (e.g., TiVo) cleared 10% in February 2006, and is expected to clear 40% by 2010 (source)

$60 billion dollars is spent annually on television advertising in the United States.  Estimates suggest that by the 2010 upfront*, some 20% to 35% of these dollars will be reallocated to putting video commercials on the Internet; (up from less than 1% today).  This represents an addressable market of $12 billion to $21 billion within the next 4 years.

*The "upfront" refers to the buying bazaar that takes place each spring as the TV broadcast networks try to sell between 75% and 80% of their commercial airtime ahead, or upfront, of the new fall TV season.

As a marketer, imagine being able to put your video commercial in front of an audience that is growing in size, rather than shrinking.  What if this audience represented the most difficult to reach demographics, including kids who simply no longer watch TV?  What if, within this audience of millions, you could target by almost any criteria, including age, gender, daypart, and location – only reaching those viewers that fell exactly within your key demographic?  How about being able to show your ad to the exact number of consumers you want, exactly how many times you want?  Instead of 8 ads per commercial break, imagine if there were only one – yours.  Now imagine that consumers couldn’t skip over your commercial.  In fact, what if you could track the exact number of consumers who actually viewed your commercial in real-time, as well as all other relevant information?  Finally, imagine if you could provide consumers with a direct response opportunity moments after they viewed your commercial.

This is what we offer today.

We brought together a team of brand marketing gurus and merged them with a bunch of cutting edge technology geeks in order to devise and build the perfect video delivery product from the ground up.

The result: A client-side video network built on Microsoft’s .Net framework, operational on any thick-client device and infinitely scalable.

On the Internet today, there are only two significant media distribution systems: websites & email.  However, due to an exponential increase in clutter, these two legacy systems have now become congested freeways of message gridlock.

Impact is a function of relevancy.  Thus, the impact of content distributed via websites & email is decaying because the amount of irrelevant content is increasing (as a percentage of the total content viewed each day).  This trend has effectively reduced the value of all content delivered through these overly crowded communication systems.

Conveniently accessing rich, highly relevant content is simply not here yet.  Mega-portals, (e.g., Yahoo, AOL, MSN, et al.), are very good at offering a little bit of everything, but like an oversized Wal-Mart, finding a lot of something is never an easy task.  From spam and spyware to banners and pop-ups, sifting through clutter is a seemingly ever-present chore that has now become synonymous with Internet content.  Even specialized portals, such as ESPN.com, promote NASCAR to the golf fan and force the soccer enthusiast to wade past last night’s boxing highlights.

Since there is obviously a finite amount of content a consumer can view each day, both relevancy and the efficiency of information flow will continue to decline in direct proportion to the increase of clutter.  This loss of value negatively impacts both the consumer and the content provider.

What can be done? When city traffic jams finally reach unacceptable levels, often the only viable solution is to build a new road. This same logic applies to traffic over the Internet. Therefore, the solution for bypassing clutter on websites & email becomes clear: Build a third road that operates independently of websites & email and is designed to handle priority content traffic.

Functioning as the Internet equivalent of a “carpool lane” or private road, this new communication system will be deployed by content providers and adopted by consumers who have a mutual desire to communicate with each other outside the clutter of websites & email.

Because only user-defined content will pass through it, this new opt-in communication pipeline will eliminate message congestion, boost impact through guaranteed relevancy, and improve the efficiency of information flow via increased speed and convenience.

The modern PC is a computing resource of staggering power, yet (when interfacing with the Internet) most of us still use it for nothing more taxing than sending an email or surfing the web. Thus, because of its excessive dormant resources, the most logical location to lay the technical foundation for a new content distribution system is the consumer PC, and the desktop itself will serve as the primary user interface.

The Vision: This new communication network will support an unlimited number of unique channels. Each channel is a highly customized software program that is designed to deliver, display, and support a particular type or genre of content in the most efficient manner possible. Every channel will be individually represented by its own unique desktop icon. Consumers may instantly access content by simply clicking on the icon associated with the channel they wish to view. Consumers will install only those channels that have particular significance to them, and may install as many or as few channels as they desire.

DeskSite Channel [technology] desk•site. A desktop-based communication channel that is richer, faster, and more personalized than a website.