Will #rodo change the game?

What is the meaning of this hash tag “#rodo“? For many of my readers who follow me on this blog, you must still be new to Twitter.

Otherwise, you would have seen my numerous tweets from the launch of Rogers On Demand Online (RODO) Beta last night – targeted at the social media crowd.

I was one of the few grey haired guys invited to join; I commented at one point that when I think Beta and video, it reminds me of my first VCR. Most of the others in the room may not have ever seen a VCR!

Anyway, I’ll be playing around with the Rogers on Demand Online Beta for the next little while. Some of the important points that I picked up:

• The service will be available to any Rogers subscriber to any Rogers service. So, even if you are just subscribing to one Fido phone in an otherwise TELUS or Bell or Teksavvy or Primus household, you will be able to get a free account.
• Premium content will be available to subscribers to premium video. So, all users can get access to content on the over the air portions of the site, such as CityTV, but other content will be available to other users. This is an advantage over Hulu, which does not get access to premium content.
• Initially, there will be two different bit rates for different quality images (and different impact on your monthly bit caps).

I’ll let Rogers tell their own story about features – you can look through my tweets to see some of the highlights.

As I was heading home, a colleague and I chatted about what had been presented and we agreed that RODO has the potential to be an industry game changer on many, many levels.

RODO brings quality video (contrasted with user generated) to Canadians, with full licensing of the content. It is a different business model from the many of the popular US services – such as Hulu – but it recognizes the need to provide value to all the players in the food chain, while giving customers access to the content they want. [Rogers will have to work hard to make network content available quickly, racing against unlicensed copies.]

By authenticating the user and using ad support, there is tremendous knowledge about the viewer available for improved targeting of consumers – increasing the potential for higher rate ads.

By tying the service to Rogers customers, there is the opportunity for inoculation against churn. Video services will encourage customers to buy higher bandwidth and high bitcap services driving improved performance from the internet business unit.

The deeper you look, the more potential you see for On Demand Online.

As David Purdy, Rogers VP Video Product Management said last night, “we’re no longer in the cable TV business; we’re in the video entertainment business.” Rogers On Demand Online demonstrates a means for broadcast distributors to maintain relevance. Profitably.

As a streaming media vehicle with an easy user interface, coupled with terabytes of archival storage, does On Demand Online provide a portal for more Canadian content?

Will RODO accelerate telco FTTN deployment?

Will local content be able to find a home on this portal, allowing users to access news and information whether on road or at home?

So much more.

See Marketnews and Lara Skripitsky for further coverage.