Madness on Demand Delivers
Looks like the March Madness On Demand (MMOD) free stream that I mentioned yesterday is a big hit. As of 5:30 p.m. Thursday, MMOD had already delivered a total of 1.2 million video streams in about four-and-a-half hours of play.
And by the end of play on Thursday, CBS SportsLine reported a total of 2 million streams according to this report in The Mercury News. The most at any one moment was 268,000 simultaneous streams, significantly more than last summer’s record-setting Live 8 global concert in which aol.com attracted 175,000 simultaneous video streams.
I signed on 3 times today – twice from work on a T1 and at home on DSL, and I’ve been able to get in within a couple minutes despite some warnings about being in a long line for video when I logged on.
Admittedly, it’s not hiccup free. Sometimes the audio drops out and the picture in full-screen mode on a decent quality Dell LCD monitor was a little dark at times, a little blurry here and there, certainly not as good as watching on TV but entirely watchable.
After about 15 minutes the stream stops momentarily asking if you are still there. You have to click to stay connected. A smart move used to make sure all available streams are active rather than playing to an empty office/room. It helps to move the waiting line along for those registered in the holding tank.
During commercial breaks the video stream fed me a series of Web commercials including spots from Nike, Dell and Major League Baseball.
One feature that cracked me up is the “Boss Button” where you can click and it turns your video screen into a spreadsheet for a 2005 Budget. You just click again and the stream is back.
Although I don’t claim to be a diehard basketball fan, I’m excited by the success CBSsportsline.com has had so far. It’s just what was needed to entice lots of people (some 268,000 at a time) to check out internet video again to find that it’s come a long way — it’s not the frustrating crap it used to be — which will help increase the demand and acceptance of online video programming overall.
This post was written by: Kim Mickelsen
March 18th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Sounds like a great idea, but the devil in in the details. I’ve logged in 2x. Both times I was in in about a minute. But, watching it is torture. The picture freezes constantly. One second you see the point guard bringing the ball up, a second later it freezes, 10 seconds later its back with the off guard going up for a jumper…FREEZE…50 seconds later they’re back and 5 points have been put on the board. You go make a sandwich. 10 mintes after that yo look again. Still frozen. You give up and go to the audio option.
Is it me, is it my cable modem, is it my PC? Who knows? I do know that its saving me a bundle of money and frustration as I avoid VOD like the plague.
March 21st, 2006 at 11:38 pm
[...] Madness on Demand Delivers [...]
March 30th, 2006 at 8:16 pm
[...] When I watched the stream I personally found the games to be less cluttered with ads than on TV. There were only three commercials shown per break and there were some skyscrapers and banners on screen during the stream. Overall, I found the experience to be a good one as I said in this post. And it was free (unlike last year when it was by subscription only). Made free only because of advertisers. [...]