Catherine Warren, Chief Operating Officer of Blue Zone, describes to
advanced-television.com's Tony Morbin how the company is expanding overseas
on the strength of its major implementations rolled out in Canada.
April2001 Photo
by Maj Britt Hanson
Catherine Warren has won plaudits and awards as one of Canada's top five female
media market pioneers. But if the company's MediaBZ a software does everything
Warren says, then the praise should pretty soon be international.
The company's proprietary browser-based software, MediaBZ, is used to create,
manage and broadcast interactive content. Benefits cited by the company include
scalability and the fact that broadcasters can employ it while utilising existing
technology. In addition to providing software, the company also undertakes consultancy
to create revenue models for new interactive companies.
Warren describes the target audience of its clientùs multi-purpose content
as 'viewsers' - perhaps a sign that she has strayed too often over the border
to her southern neighbour. Nonetheless, the need to encapsulate 'viewers' and
'users' amply demonstrates the activities of the new media audience.
Founded in 1988, Blue Zone was originally dealing purely with Video. Then in
the mid-1990s - the early days of the Web - it developed several solutions for
enabling broadcasters to utilise the Internet. As a result, the company repositioned
itself in the belief that there would be a shake-out in the video market while
broadcasters sought to connect with their users in new ways.
Blue Zone went on to develop one of the first news Web sites for CTV (CTVNEWS.com),
as well as developing interactivity for Pay-per-view and speciality channels
and interactive solutions for corporate sites. CTV remains Blue Zone's biggest
client, and Canada's largest private broadcaster.
The CTV operation provides a 'real life' demonstration of Blue Zone's capabilities,
in a 24-hour interactive news service environment.
Warren explains the rationale behind Blue Zone's offering, "Our philosophy is
that clients want to be where their audience is. Audiences can demand, 'I want
my content, my way, on my device.' We enable that migration."
"In working with broadcasters we are seeking to automate their interactivity
and extend their reach, which is why we created the MediaBZ product. It's an
end-to-end publishing solution, which took three years to create. We went public
to finance the project in a major investment cycle. Our solution now creates
the ultimate output: MediaBZ handles content acquisition, enrichment and cross-publishing
distribution - branded media-rich content delivered onto iTV interfaces, the
Web, wireless and other platforms. "
Broadcasters only need have a Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.x browser, though
a broadband connection is an obvious advantage. MediaBZ is "as easy as email"
for journalists or producers to use.
The system securely encodes video, which becomes the centrepiece of the ESP
- Enhanced Story Package. Journalists or producers take the video, and provide
'deeper, richer, more meaningful data,' - ie supply accompanying background
text, pictures and graphics plus audio and video clips. The additional copy
can come from in-house resources, outside providers, or be links to other sites.
The system can contain hundreds of assets per package.
"You just push a 'Publish' button and the content then goes to all the affiliated
platforms, and the consumer can choose how they access it - via the Web, interactive
TVs (such as WebTV, OpenTV, Liberate and others), PDAs, and WAP phones. It also
enables personalisation of the relationship with the viewer, which creates opportunities
to upsell advertising, interactive advertising, subscriptions and ecommerce."
Warren explains that the software is designed for traditional news teams who
are used to operating on tight deadlines. It can support various content niches
and allows the creation of rich media, cross platform publishing and content
management from remote locations - to handhelds or whatever. This is made possible
though the use of XML standards - though Blue Zone also writes translator programmes
to provide a bridge for non-XML legacy systems to integrate with MediaBZ.
In the CTV installation, Warren says that the client software outperforms all
its competitors in terms of speed to market of interactive content, volume of
interactive news - and with less staff, delivering to Web, WAP and iTV. "For
example, rather than 100s of interactive staff as at other networks, CTV has
just 14 people enriching and broadcasting interactive content around the clock.
CTV is broadcasting 60 interactive news stories daily. In comparison, competitors
such as CNN and ABC deliver a much small number of interactive news stories
to the Web, and require entirely different teams of staff to deliver content
to all other platforms."
The system also supports digital rights management, using a rules-based system
to define the parameters of the application. This includes time-limited use
of material and different distribution aspects, eg only for use on output to
the 24 hour channel etc.
"Another true benefit for broadcasters is building an enhanced story archive
for access at the touch of a button," says Warren.
"Broadcasters can also create different branded looks for displaying their content.
Our smart system creates template models for the broadcasters to deploy." MediaBZ'
staging engine segments data for different platforms, including traditional
television. "Broadcasters can reach their audiences with the right kind of "look
and feel" for each platform," says Warren. "Broadcasters can also interact with
their individual audience members to obtain valuable personal data."
There are two kinds of information gathered. One is content specific, used to
promote future services, gathered via user opt-in data; the second is statistical
in terms of usage patterns and this is automatically tracked.
A secure commerce and advertising engine is provided, which includes tracking
and fulfilment options, supporting secure transactions, fulfilment houses, telecos,
and e-commerce.
"The end-to-end approach reduces costs - you need to be in the interactive space
with the fewest staff and the biggest reach. Revenue can then be enhanced in
terms of ecommerce and targeted advertising, as well as the interactive applications
themselves. Whatever advertising agencies provide, MediaBZ will support."
Blue Zone plans to break into new markets outside Canada this year, primarily
the US and UK. "We are in advanced discussions with all the major broadcasters
and in the fortunate position that we are able to demonstrate our capabilities
with the tailored CTVNews.com service so others can see what it means. A year
ago there was no visible implementation of the software, though we had bench
mark statistics."
ATV asked, 'how have people taken to presentations now that there is a reference
product in the market?'
"The reaction has been unbelievably positive. At NATPE this year people were
saying, If it does all you say, we can't believe it. When they saw MediaBZ in
action they were extraordinarly impressed."
The system scales for small public broadcasters, and prices relate to the complexity
of an enterprise - roughly costing 2 per cent of a traditional TV below-the-line
production budget. Though Warren adds, "These are very flexible scales as we
want to be accessible to as many clients as possible. Building relationships
at the network level, and percolating through to the channels."
To date Blue Zone has been though two rounds of financing, initially raising
$5.25 million, with the second round raising $2.5 million. Warren also describes
the organisation as being, "One of the only convergence companies with real
revenues and real clients - a long term play which has stood the test of time.
We have the vision and scalability to build in a steady way. Our revenues from
convergence are growing at the pace of the industry, which has meant being patient
to date. This industry has not taken off like a rocket - we are scaling to adapt
to the speed of the market. We are in the business of enabling interactivity
for broadcasters, producers and distributors. These are the leaders that will
take advantage of interactivity and we are equipping them right now to deliver."
Warren's own background is in both mass media and new media business and finance.
She was originally an editor and bureau chief in the computer industry in the
1980s, becoming a publisher, launching her own publications, then becoming an
interactive producer and business leader. Warren worked with Microsoft to develop
its early operations plans, team and content for what became Encarta. After
seven years in the non-profit sector, particularly promoting the empowerment
of women through new media, Warren has continued pursuing a twin track career
of entrepreneurship and philanthropy.
