Enforced Ads Coming to Flash Video Players

Dominare writes "The BBC is reporting that Adobe is releasing new player software which will allow websites that use their Flash video player (such as YouTube) to force viewers to watch ads before the video they selected will play. 'But the big seller for Adobe is the ability to include in Flash movies so-called digital rights management (DRM) — allowing copyright holders to require the viewing of adverts, or restrict copying. "Adobe has created the first way for media companies to release video content, secure in the knowledge that advertising goes with it," James McQuivey, an analyst at Forrester Research said.' This seems to have been timed to coincide with Microsoft's release of their own competitor, Silverlight, to Adobe's dominance of online video."

Comments

Java Applets

[Doc Ruby]

That kind of forced content inside interactive viewers will likely force a resurgence in Java player applets. Of course DRM applets can be written and published, but it won't be mandatory. If the video content is in an open format, then the player must enforce the DRM, which the publisher of the applet can decide for themself. If the content is in some proprietary format, it will not be as popular as content in an open format.

I just wish that Java would let me cache the applet fingerprint, so I can pull it from cache instead of downloading the identical one from each website publishing it.

All it will take will be YouTube to switch for the Flash version to get punched back into serving consumers. And if not YouTube, then it opens a competitive advantage for a new contender to come out of nowhere like YouTube did.

This Net video wave is just getting started. Consumers are more empowered to demand our interests be protected than ever before, in part because of the interactive video networks we've already got. We can get this thing right from the beginning, if we work together.