Friday 3 July 2015

What we're listening to this week. Leon Bridges 'Coming Home'. Wow.



Very, very rarely do you come across a debut Album that's as good as this. The Album cover design, straight out the 1950's gives more than a clue as to what Leon Bridges is about. It's Sam Cooke, Curtis Mayfield, Otis, Marvin Gaye retro - almost gospel - but boy, pretty excellent at that.

The 25 year old Texan, sings blues but in a new way from the soul. So it sounds classic from the outset and the studio set-up has a rawness that actually is under produced. They used classic, vintage equipment and you can hear it wonderfully. Which is exactly what the Album needed. 

Released in June this year it's getting real talkabout already and we're not surprised. This will go big, being restricted only be the style of music which mightn't appeal to a broad, young, record buying public.

But you'll like it.
Trust us.
Amazing was the consensus in Streamabout.
And you don't hear that, like, never.

This is just one track - it's not even a single - but you'll get it. 



Thursday 2 July 2015

Facebook Video to take on YouTube. More good news for video Ads!







Facebook are having a go at YouTube.

Whilst they have been using video on autoplay in feeds for a year now, they now want video creators to upload more video and make money from them. Same as YouTube.

So they'll share the Ad revenue generated by the video in the first place, both with the video creator and Media placer.


Those Ads are not pre-rolls, but rather an overlay that appears under the video that you initially watch and making further recommendations based on what you've watched (further relevant content). Those recommendations will include sponsored ad video.

It's a 45% split to Facebook and 55% to others.

Early days though as it's unclear how much revenue is generated when you watch part of a video and so on. But the intent is there.

Facebook is going to monetise video and therefore, encourage more video.
That will work.

And it's good for online digital video companies such as Streamabout as clients will want to make more for Facebook. And that can't be bad....