There’s an interesting tidbit in this TV Week story about how the networks are depending on their own technology teams to do much of their video development. For example, ABC.com built its own video player in house, which ABC.com classifies as content, not just technology. “Our core competency is creating content,” said Albert Cheng, executive VP for digital media at the Disney-ABC Television Group. “We have that expertise in-house and it didn’t seem to make sense to go out when we have people to do it.” This is the classic battle at many media companies — what to build and what to oursource to a vendor — and a big danger is trying to separate content from technology to make these decisions. In some cases, they’re inexorably linked, just like ABC.com’s video player.
ABC won an Emmy for its player, and Disney has filed for a patent.