Bill Sewell speaks on digital asset management panel at Createasphere

I recently spoke on a Createasphere panel with Jason Bright from MediaBeacon, Joshua Duhl from North Plains and Jens Loeffler from Adobe about the reinvention of digital asset management (DAM). Topics included monetizing assets, rich media interfaces and open versus closed platforms. By the end of our hour-long discussion, we helped dispel the myth that DAM was boring.

Monetizing video assets

When people think of making money from video, they think iTunes movies or Netflix streaming. We helped explain that making money in a B2C setting is much different than a B2B setting.  Unfortunately, there is no simple eBay-style way to post your video for all to pay for and watch. Apple won’t license their FairPlay DRM, and their technology for iTunes and Flash DRM requires heavy development without iPhone or iPad playback capabilities.

Making money in a B2B environment is a lot easier. Many sales execs just need to find the appropriate media, assemble it into a sales presentation and fire it off to the perspective client to showcase their businesses’ relevant skills. Wiredrive does this really well. Most companies need this capability and simply don’t have the in-house ability to build such a toolset.

Open and closed platforms

We also talked about the strategies that open and closed platforms represent. Flash can play back on all computers and Android devices; but not on iOS devices. IPhones, iPads and (soon) AppleTVs can play back media in their own closed environment and offer the additional benefit of hardware-secured video playback. Imagine video professionals being able to deliver sensitive video right to a specific iPad.

Finally we talked about HTML 5 and Flash as competing interfaces. Poor Jens from Adobe said that he felt like he was taking a beating as we routinely pointed out the shortcomings of the Flash interface environment. The reality is that iPad apps are far more compelling than their websites that have had years to evolve. Just compare Wired.com to the first version of Wired Magazine’s app. Our expectations for interface design have rapidly changed. We are pinching, zooming, flicking and rotating away from the traditional point and click interface.

Needless to say, we had a good time and hopefully the audience enjoyed the talk as much we did.