Internet video startup Revision3, the home of Diggnation, XLR8R TV, Epic Fu and other popular video podcasts, has been making headlines since its founding in 2005.
The most recent headlines, though, have surrounded Revision3′s extended outage over Memorial Day weekend, and the way CEO Jim Louderback’s very publicly pointed the finger at anti-piracy firm MediaDefender as the cause for the outage.
Podcasting News’ Publisher Elisabeth McLaury Lewin caught up with Louderback, who answered questions about Revision3, how they plan to respond to the MediaDefender attack and his vision for the future of Internet media.
Revision3′s Vision For Internet Video
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Your company name, Revision3, refers to the idea of a “third wave” of television: standard TV being the first, cable the second, and Internet video the third.
What makes this third wave of television important, and how does it define your company?
Jim Louderback: It’s a brand new way to watch video content, and it will ultimately change the previous two revisions.
Unlike many others in this space, who see putting their video, ultimately, on broadcast or cable, Revision 3 believes in making the best video programming for the Internet. That’s different from doing it for broadcast. It’s a new medium, and new media needs a new company to make it work.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: You’ve described Revision3 as “the first media company that gets it”. What’s that mean to you?
Jim Louderback: The first one that “gets” that this is a new medium, and is creating content for that medium, rather than just cow-pathing old content into the new space.
Responding To MediaDefender’s Attack
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Revision 3′s service died over Memorial Day weekend as the result of a denial of service attack. What was the impact of this attack on your business?
Jim Louderback: We were unable to deliver programming and web pages for 3 days.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: On your blog, you pinned the blame for this attack on MediaDefender. Do you think MediaDefender intentionally targeted Revision3 and tried to take you down?
Jim Louderback: No, I don’t think it was intentionally directed at us – but I do believe that they were intentionally targeting anyone distributing bit torrent media who cut their access off.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: You use P2P [peer-to-peer] file sharing as a distribution tool. How important is this to your company? Does this help level the playing field for Revision 3?
Jim Louderback: It’s how we got our start, but it’s really not all that important to us. P2P accounts for under 5% of our views.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Do you think MediaDefender is “targeting piracy,” as they claim, or targeting P2P as a distribution platform?
Jim Louderback: I think they are targeting piracy, but were unable to fathom that a legitimate media company would use P2P for distribution.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: What’s your response to MediaDefender? Can you comment on whether you’ll take any legal action against them?
Jim Louderback: I probably won’t take legal action, but I am going to send them an invoice.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: This denial of service attack shut you down – you couldn’t serve videos, you couldn’t serve up ads, apparently even your internal e-mail was shut down by the attack. What do you have to do differently to ensure that your company can withstand an attack like this in the future?
Jim Louderback: We’re going to put a load balancer out front, rather than a firewall.
On Revision3′s New Media Strategy
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: It seems that Revision 3 tries to get its content everywhere. What’s your distribution strategy?
Jim Louderback: Our mantra is anywhere, anytime, any device, any service.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: How are you measuring the success of your shows?
Jim Louderback: Number of viewers of each episode, aggregate views per month, and revenue.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: You’ve got a wide variety of advertisers, including Sony, Microsoft, Verizon. What does Revision 3 offer advertisers, compared to traditional television or cable?
Jim Louderback: Incredible awareness, retention, intent and action
For example, 100% of our viewers can name a single sponsor, unaided. 93% can name two or more. 48% have purchased a product or service from our sponsors.
Did you watch traditional broadcast or cable TV last night? Can you name even one advertiser?
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: I noticed this morning on Mashable.com that your Tekzilla co-host Veronica Belmont is working on a new show, Qore, available via the Playstation Network. What platforms are Revision3 looking at developing content for?
Jim Louderback: Anywhere, anytime, any device, any service. Name it and we think it <laugh>.
Elisabeth McLaury Lewin: Looking beyond the recent attack, what’s your vision for the future of Revision 3?
Jim Louderback: To become synonymous with Internet Television. When you think of TV on the Internet, think of us!
Update: Revision 3 just announced that Wine Library TV and its creator, Gary Vaynerchuk, aka GaryVee, are joining the network.
Image: Robert Scoble
