Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Tilzy.tv Introduces The Onfronts - A New Marketplace to Bring Together Advertisers and Content Creators

Following up on the success of the first Annual Streamy Awards which honored the best and brightest original web series and the explosion of web television programming over the last year, Tilzy.TV, the leading publication in the digital entertainment revolution, has introduced The Onfronts. With support from Blip.tv, Tilzy will be hosting the first annual Onfront NYC on June 9, 2009 in downtown Manhattan at the Tribeca Cinemas - home of the Tribeca Film Festival - to bring advertisers and leading content creators together to share experiences and showcase upcoming projects.

According to Tilzy, "In the past year, online entertainment has demonstrated its value as a highly engaging commercial medium with devoted communities, strong metrics, and unprecedented interactivity. The market for ad buying on this dynamic new medium has just begun to take shape. That’s why we created The Onfronts. We’ve barely announced Onfront NYC, and we’re ecstatic to have Atom, Fox, Next New Networks, My Damn Channel, DECA, For Your Imagination, Generate, EQAL, Take180, and Revision3 already on board. We’re also grateful to CJP Digital for their early support of our vision. If you’re a content company that should present at Onfront NYC, let us know."

Tilzy and Tubefilter have been leading the charge to get content creators engaged with advertisers and through their organizing efforts web television meet ups are forming in LA, New York, Toronto and other cities.

Back in January, Jamison Tilsner wrote an in depth article, How Do Web Video Creators Talk to Advertisers? | Tilzy.TV, which detailed the state of online video advertising. He spoke with many industry professionals innovating in this area who shared their thoughts on how online video content creators could communicate value to advertisers. According to Jamison a standard metric for online video advertising will likely emerge and that, "Advertisers don’t necessarily understand what they’re buying when they delve into online video. That’s partially a function of the newness of the medium, but I think it is also related to a lack of cohesive language and industry standards. Idea-sharing and agreement on standards will help to grow the pie for everyone."

Over the past few months since he wrote his article the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) has announced a number of guidelines such as Digital Video Ad Serving Template (VAST) and Digital Video Player-Ad Interface Definition (VPAID) that will help simplify the display of advertising from ad severs and the buying and selling of digital video media.

"Digital video is one of the most critical growth areas for interactive advertising because it provides marketers with the power of sight sound and motion," says IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg. "The standards that the IAB has created have played a key role in paving the way for a greater breadth of marketers across vertical industries to tap its power and I have no doubt that we are only at the very beginning."

Even in this down economy the opportunities for online video publishers and web television content creators continues to grow as new distribution channels and advertising markets open up. It's encouraging to see the innovation culminate with the creation of The Onfronts and a big kudos to Tilzy.tv and Blip.tv for taking a leadership role in this area.

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