You've Got Streams

Later this month, AOL.com will officially launch a free portal, giving visitors a place to check e-mail, find news, and even stream video clips, including movie trailers and content from AOL's Time Warner sibling, CNN. B&C's Ken Kerschbaumer quizzed Kevin Conroy, executive VP and COO, AOL Media Networks, via e-mail about the portal's launch and the role of video on the new site.

Video streaming still has a reputation for often being sluggish. What are you doing to improve performance?

We've made significant investments in streaming-network infrastructure and technical development, as well as product optimization to make sure that we provide a great streaming-media experience.

AOL's new video player is part of the trend toward players that support multiple formats. Is it getting easier to provide a personalized video-player experience?

Users want control. The upcoming launch of the AOL Video 3.0 player gives viewers the ability to navigate AOL's full on-demand video archive in a consistent experience contained in a single product.

Many Internet ads look like online versions of TV commercials. How can video advertising on the Web take advantage of the interactive nature of the medium?

The new AOL video player is an important step forward, thanks to in-stream video advertising with synchronized ad curtains [incorporating video and still images]. It delivers advertising inventory in a way that meets [Interactive Advertising Bureau] recommendations and makes it easy for top advertisers to do business with AOL.

One of the issues with video streaming is search functionality. How will AOL.com improve video searches?

Video searches query against often-imperfect metadata that must be manually created by the content owner. This summer, we'll deliver what we believe to be an industry-leading video-search experience, of which Singingfish [an audio/video search engine owned by AOL] is an important part.