Ira Opper Downloads On Technology & The Future Of Action Sports Videos

josh hunter

• October 27 2009
• 653 views
• 3 comments

It’s no secret that the way humans consume media is changing. For some industries the changes have proven difficult—even deadly. But for every challenge there is an opportunity. Identifying what he believed to be the latter, Ira Opper created The Surf Network, a Web site where users can purchase and download surf videos to their iTunes library, iPhone, or iPod Touch. Opper says that declining DVD sales led he and his team to develop software that would offer an alternative to shiny, plastic disks.

The site, thesurfnetwork.com, has a legitimate look and feel. It doesn’t feel like some software company just decided to plug into the surf market. That probably has something to do with Opper’s background.

After finishing journalism school at Arizona State University in 1971, Opper, a life-long surfer, didn’t waste too much time before becoming the first producer of surf related content for prime-time television. Now, twenty-five years—and seven Emmy’s—later Opper is pioneering another platform for surf-specific video content.

TransWorld Business caught up with Opper to download on all the details of his latest project. Here’s what he had to say.

How long have you been working on this project [The Surf Network] and when did the site launch?

We started working on the technology, and trying to develop the platform about five years ago. Then we went online with it in July 2007, so we’ve been online over two years.

Was it a situation where you saw an opportunity in the market, or how exactly did this business come about?

There was a combination of things that just came together. One is that we’d been experimenting with web video … We had an edge because we’ve been involved and on the Web since the mid 90s. It’s been an area that we always felt was the future of video distribution. [We thought] that once the aggregate marketplace grew to where computers were capable and the Web was capable, then video files would start moving around globally, which turned out to be true. We’ve always been on the cutting edge of that.

We felt that the download market was the future, so we started experimenting and developing our own platform and then creating a business model that we would—as a distributor or our own content—find comfortable to participate in. Coming from both the content side and the technology side I think gave us a unique edge and perspective to develop compelling technology.

When you launched in 2007 was it strictly content that you owned for sale on the site, or had you already started to distribute other people’s content digitally?

We reached out to all of our friends in the industry first. Obviously we had our own interests. We felt that if we were going to launch a site that was comprehensive and would attract not only the core market but potentially the fringe market, we needed to include a lot of other quality programs that were out there. So once we had the business model and technology perfected we reached out to everybody so that we have enough programming and video on site that once you go to The Surf Network, hopefully you find something you’d like to see.

How many videos do you have at this point?

We have over 500 titles right now, and growing quickly. Because of the meltdown in the DVD market we have provided a fairly robust alternative.
The other benefit too is that we’re a green technology because there’s no waste, no shipping.

What other advantages are there to avoiding shipping expenses?

Another aspect of the business that we didn’t anticipate is that we’ve become a global vending machine for surf videos. Most of our business is coming from around the world in places that I think historically didn’t have access to quality surf content.

Let’s say for a domestic DVD producer, it’s very difficult to sell in a lot of parts in the world because you’ve got customs, duties, and all these other shipping issues. Where we are just as clean as can be.

So you’ve reached customers that you hadn’t originally targeted?

All of our analysis pointed to surf-related markets—East Coast, West Coast, Hawaii, a little bit of Australia. But not Moscow, Tel Aviv, Calgary, and places that you’d never expect to sell a title. Those are actually some of our more popular regions for downloads. We’re seeing downloads in the hundreds of titles in the most remote places. I think part of it is just having access to the content.

What are some other global bright spots of the business that you didn’t anticipate?

The UK is huge as far as downloads go.

Why do you think that is?

I think a lot of it is that your traditional Apple Stores that sell content for iTunes are geo-blocked; so you can only access them from the country that you’re in. Our platform is global; we don’t block it so that people can access it from all over the world. I think part of it is 1.) The movies, and then 2.) The Pound and The Euro are stronger than the US Dollar. So they also have that advantage.

Traditionally, if you wanted a surf DVD in Europe you had all these taxes and shipping costs, so it drove the price up so high that it was more difficult for that market to purchase them. We provide a unique type of core content to countries that would normally not have access.

How’s the business doing right now in this economy?

We’re seeing a 25–30 percent growth rate per month right now, so we’re pretty excited about the future.

Do you plan to expand into other sports and take the software you’ve developed and use it for other niche markets?

Yes, absolutely. We developed the technology and the software is our own. It’s unique because it’s iTunes compatible and there is no one else other than Apple that is providing that form of distribution for this type of content.

The Surf Network is our proof of concept—the actual functioning of the site for downloads. We also offer streaming video, and we’ve also developed an affiliate program like we have with TransWorld SURF where we are providing the back end. So there’s no other platform like it, and what we wanted to do is first build out in an area that we’re very comfortable with, and have great relationships both with the distributors as well as the media. Now that we’ve reached a successful level we’re looking at other specialty niche markets.

The next site that we’ll launch is The Snow Network. We have that in development.

When will The Snow Network go live?

Probably this time [October] next year [2010]. We’re fully in development and acquisition of content mode right now.

How does it work for the content owners and distributors?

The distributor, copyright holder, or filmmaker who owns the title receives a fairly large percent; equal to what they would receive if they sold a DVD. We tried to create a business model that would be compatible with their DVD market, so they also have access to a password protected dashboard where they can see exactly what’s going on. We maintain total transparency for everybody. They can log in, go on to the site, and see exactly how many downloads they sold each day and what the royalty is. We tried to create a high degree of comfort with everybody.

How can filmmakers get their projects to you to be featured on the site?

We have an online ingestion system. You just fill out the form, provide us with artwork, the proper descriptions, who is in the film, and copyright information and then a digital file encoded to our specifications, which is similar to providing a DVD file to make DVDs. Then within 48 hours we can be online with the title. So that makes it easy for the filmmaker to find a new income source. We tried to simplify the front end as much as we possibly could, so it makes it easy for people to participate.

Opper surfing Malibu circa 1963

How do you deal with piracy issues and protect yourself from liability?

We embed the customer’s id into every file, so if anything does pop up out there we would be able to track it down to the individual. But no matter what you do—it doesn’t matter if it’s on a DVD, or whatever—however content is distributed, people can pirate it if they want to spend the time and energy to deal with it. We believe most people don’t. They would rather pay a fair price and use a simple way to get it.

If [consumers] don’t subsidize the filmmaker of the product that they like then the filmmaker is not going to be able to produce anymore content, so it defeats the whole business model.

In our case, we want to share with the filmmaker so that they are happy and provide us with more content. So hopefully the consumer recognizes that.

I understand that you guys recently added some new capabilities to the site?

We’ve added some new features. For example, if you have an I Phone or an iPod Touch and you buy a movie on our site on your computer, then anywhere you go where you have either Wi-Fi or 3G access you can watch anything you’ve already purchased at any time from you iPhone or iPod. You don’t even have to download it to the device. We’ve formatted the Website so you can just log in to the site and watch it.

Let’s say you’re in the airport and you’re stuck for four hours because your plane is delayed, but you want to watch a surf movie. You can access the site using your password from your phone, watch it immediately, and then it will transact your credit card [because it’ll be on file] and then when you get home that movie will be downloaded into your iTunes on your computer.

You can watch anything you’ve already bought, or buy anything you want at anytime you want to. Those are features that we’re just starting to market.

Opper is still surfing. Photo: Moonwalker

Have you identified any possible retail opportunities within shops?

We have a coupon solution. For example for Christmas you can go online and buy a gift card and then we’re also partnering with some of the manufacturers. For example, if you buy some boardshorts or you take a surf lesson then you get a free code to download a movie from our site, or our affiliate Websites.

We’re working on a retail solution to get the retailers involved in a couple of different ways.

Are you talking about some sort of in-store kiosks?

Well, online we definitely want to work with retailers and do things like affiliate relationships, and we’re looking at the gift card options so that they can get involved at the counter level, but we’re primarily an internet based software platform. So we’re focused on working in that space.

How do you protect your intellectual property at this point and what stops competitors from launching a similar business?

We’ve been involved with really sophisticated encoding for over ten years, and there was a lot of trial and error. You can’t really go open up a manual or go online and get the information because there’s no one else doing it other than Apple. So we had to go through a long trial and error process. That has eliminated a lot of competition.

Also, I think the key is to build very respected, comprehensive Web sites that have a bulk of the content and try and capture a market niche one niche at a time.

It would be very difficult to come into surf, right now because we’ve already got 500 titles. I don’t think you’re going to pull that off very quickly.
Plus there’s a lot of loyalty with the people we’re working with to try to help us grow what we’re doing.  Working with the major publishing groups is going to be crucial in the long run because they are looking for alternative ways to grow their businesses as well.

Have you had any problems with Apple, or has it been a symbiotic relationship thus far?

Apple has been supportive. They have promoted our site several times through pod casts and things like that. I don’t think we’re any kind of threat; rather we compliment what they are doing.

It’s difficult to find surf titles on Apple’s site, for example. They probably have a handful at best. We’re looking at niche markets where there is a rich library of content with lots of titles out there with passionate participants that we can talk to and market to very directly. So I think we help sell Apple, and they have been supportive.