FasTV thinks it's ready to show the world -- especially TV programming execs -- that it's ready to become the Yahoo of video.
"We would like to be the first place that a Net consumer stops to see video," FasTV vice president of marketing Barry Layne told Wired News Monday. "We've got a significant head start over anybody else in this space."
On Monday, the Los Angeles startup pitched its service to a meeting of the National Association of Television Program Executives in New Orleans.
The firm is out to become a Web hub for news and informational videos, as well as for promotional materials such as movie trailers. If successful, the firm would provide a central searching and indexing hub for footage from sources such as CNN, PBS, and the Weather Channel.
"People can search and watch videos and video feature packages," said Layne. "Type in the word you heard discussed in a [news] report and the video clips that deal with that subject matter come up."
Layne said that the site will debut with 38 packages under five subject headings: news, business, lifestyle, entertainment, and other. Almost all content will be news and documentary-oriented, Layne said.
Contrasting FasTV with Broadcast.com, Layne said his company's product is more search-oriented. Where Broadcast.com offers selected subjects and news events and the Web-based video access to them, FasTV.com plans to be more comprehensive and provide more context.
"Breadth of content and breadth of functionality" will be FasTV's mantra, he said.
At launch, 20 providers were working with FasTV to make their video programming searchable at the site. They include CNN, CNNfn, C-SPAN, the Weather Channel, Nightly Business Report, and Merrill Lynch. FasTV, which won't make its official "consumer launch" until March, relied heavily on CNN for its news content.
Layne said that by year's end, FasTV hopes to have 100 content partners on board. Corralling them hasn't been easy.
FasTV met with resistance from cable and broadcast companies and networks, who've been reluctant to provide content. Many are already providing searchable video of their own, including CNN, NBC, and ABC.
The challenge for FasTV will be to overcome their resistance and strike deals with enough broadcasters to build a critical mass of searchable content for its directory and search service.
Analyst John McCormick of the market research firm Frost and Sullivan said that even if FasTV can build its content offerings, it still has a big hurdle in the area of name recognition.
"You think of CNN or ABC when you think of news," McCormick said. "So you naturally go to them. FastTV has an uphill battle to draw recognition." That's why he thinks they'd have an easier time targeting partnerships with existing portals, as video search technology companies like Virage have done.
"The biggest challenge to any [video-oriented] destination site is being able to aggregate a critical mass of content at a time when content providers [such as individual news sites] are, in a sense, trying to implement the same strategy," said Virage spokesman Carlos Montalvo. He said his company, while not ruling out a dedicated site, is keeping its focus on partnerships with existing search sites, like AltaVista.
Partnering with existing directory sites, as FasTV has done already with Lycos, is an important component of FasTV's strategy, said Layne. But the primary mission remains to establish its own recognizable brand on its own video-focused site.
