Rogers on Demand Online (#RODO) – An Initial Review

November 24th, 2009 • Comments Toronto Social Media, Uncategorized

Rogers is no longer in the cable TV business – we’re in the video entertainment business.
David Purdy, Vice President Video Product Management, Rogers

Last night, the fine folks at Thornley-Fallis invited me out to an event for a launch of a new Rogers product. Well, that’s technically not correct; what they were doing was “leaking” this product into the hands of a few socially-minded folks for us to try and talk about.

The product is Rogers on Demand Online – a web extension of the Rogers On Demand service, and what is seemingly their answer to the Hulu/Fancast products. Public launch date is November 30th. ROD Online is an ad-supported content network online, available to any Rogers/Fido customer – including wireless, internet, home phone or even pre-paid wireless customers. Additional content is available to Rogers Cable subscribers depending on their packages – if you’re subscribed to Premium TV options, you’ll have access to more content based on the specific channels you’ve subscribed to. They see the platform as offering additional extras – though the specifics of which they didn’t do a deep dive into – above and beyond what you could find on ROD on TV.

The product itself is wrapped in a slick interface (screenshots below), and while the content on the beta now is limited to Rogers and Corus properties, Rogers VP David Purdy hinted at a major content provider signing on this week. The video is served up adequately right now – the Rogers team told me that this week is concentrating on performance in production, so many of the slight hiccups that I’ve seen are likely to be addressed during that time.

So, what’s the verdict on this? Let me break it down:

The Good:

• Free (to existing consumers): There was a lot of talk about it being a value-add piece to current packages, and all of the conversation that centred around cost spoke to a philosophy that would have it remain free (if ad-supported.)
• Quick: Despite all of the disclaimers that the Product Manager gave about it being a beta, and having performance issues, I haven’t really seen that. The videos have been for the most part snappy, page loads haven’t been long (4 seconds or so, and the Lead Architect was telling me he wanted to make it down to 1 or 2 seconds before launch), and the video streams incredibly well, with only a minimal waiting time if you’re scanning through the video.
• Slick: This isn’t your usual Rogers digital product. The interface is well-thought out from the landing page, and presents the various video options above the fold. The site organization seems like it’s had a significant amount of thought put into it, and it was intuitive to use. While I’m curious as to how the UI/UX will change to integrate in social and community features (something promised for early 2010), or for the mobile integration they’re launching in Q2 2010, so far, they’ve got it right.
• Easy to Provide Feedback: Feedback controls are present up-front, and while the labels could be a little more intuitive (I’d hate to be on the team that will have to moderate the current “Feedback” area; more direction please!), the fact that it’s an integral part of the interface while viewing a video shows the thought behind listening to the userbase. In fact, I Tweeted last night about my surprise about Rogers’ desire for ongoing user feedback – that’s not the Rogers that I’ve seen over my 10+ years as a consumer – but I got the sense that the product team actually believed it. If they’re willing to let their userbase help shape features and content, this would be a move we’ve NEVER seen from a Canadian carrier.

The Not-So-Good:

• The Ads: Okay, so I want to have my cake and eat it too, but the ads do irk me a bit. While the answer to the question of how frequent the ads are last night was “it depends on the provider,” the fact that some programs will have the same amount of total (unskippable) ad time as commercial TV in a day and age where PVRs are the norm doesn’t make sense. Yes, I like that it’s free; no, I don’t like the fact that some of it has to be ad-laden to do so.
• The Content: This also isn’t really fair – and this point may change as the service goes along – but right now there just isn’t enough compelling content. As their “deep library” (read: old movies, seasons of TV shows, etc) expands, this may become less of an issue, but there is currently significantly less content than is available on the TV-based Rogers on Demand service.

The Elephant in the Room: What about the Data?
There was one question in the room that was left unanswered, or at least, without a satisfactory answer, and that is what impact this will have on the monthly data caps as a Rogers consumer. While you can access this program as a Bell, Teksavvy, or other internet provider, it’s how current Rogers consumers will see this changing their usage or billing that remains a question. To be fair, this is not a question that anyone in the room, save perhaps Purdy, should’ve been expected to answer – the Product team should be worried about putting together the best product possible, not about some of the repercussions that it has on other Rogers services. In my opinion, Rogers needs to handle this VERY carefully with the average consumer, so that the shell-shock of bandwidth overage doesn’t reflect negatively on what is a solid, and needed product.

At the end of the day, there is one quote that sticks in my head. David Purdy started off the presentation by saying that Rogers “is no longer in the cable TV business, but the video entertainment business.” He also identified wanting to be the “first mover” on this. With this product, Rogers is offering high-quality video of quality content – and a channel to promote Canadian content – for free. This is a move unlike many of the carriers, and has in fact been one of the first carrier-supported moves to market in North America (along with Comcast’s offering.)

If Rogers can work with the content providers and build out a library of thousands of videos, add-ons and extensions, and integrate mobile and TV so that I could pause a show on one device and resume it somewhere else on another, this is a gamechanger for Canadian video. I know the product team believes this is possible; it’s just a matter of time before we see if their plans can come to fruition.

Thanks again to Thorney-Fallis (especially Dave Fleet and Michael O’Conner Clarke) and the Rogers team present – David, Lara, Jeremy, Dennis, Keith and Rob – for the chance to preview this!

See Mark Goldberg’s post on why he thinks this IS a gamechanger for another point of view.

UPDATE: April has a good viewpoint on why she liked the Rogers approach to releasing things this way – identifying what your detractors may say before public launch can prove useful as well.

RODO Landing Page (click for full)

RODO CityTV Channel Page (click for full)