Most companies producing online video content aren’t giving enough consideration to the end user’s experience with the video they’re watching. Despite the huge business growth of online video, not a single major usability organization or video solutions provider has put out any publicly available ‘best practices’ information on the web video experience for the end user!

Listen to my podcast on web video usability.

PODCAST SHOW OVERVIEW

Intro - Grant’s bad user experience with a web video company

Oh, it was so traumatic! (OK, it was really one of many experiences I’ve had with video on a website not working properly on multiple levels and left me with a less-favorable impression of the site owner.) 

What is ‘web video usability?’

My definition: The user’s experience with meeting their web-based objectives with video, and matching the intended goals of the video owner. In short, the quality of an online video engagement experience. We’re not just talking ‘viewing,’ which is a passive state. We’re also talking ‘engagement’ which is an active state. If you’re online watching video, you are much more likely to take some kind of action (including an immediate action) than with a television.

Why usability is important in web video

You can’t assume that your experience is everyone else’s experience. If you don’t know what’s involved with other people’s experience (What goes into that is not just hardware and software, but also human ability and subjectivity -i.e., human preference.)

If people have a bad experience, it leaves them with a bad impression, and can not only waste all your efforts up to that point, but leaves the opposite effect of what you originally intended.

Anyone who’s producing and promoting video should be thinking about how to measure the quality of an online video viewing experience. This is why we need a best practices for usability in web video. Best practices allows for us to have universal standards. When we have standards, its easier for both video owners, and video users, to follow.

The dearth of usability information for web video

Being a usability professional myself (meaning, I’ve produced usability reports and conducted user testing and focus groups for clients for many years now), I checked with a number of the most well-known usability organizations: Nielsen/Norman Group (NN/G), Human Factors International (HFI), User Interface Engineering (UIE), and even the Usability Professionals Association (UPA).  I also contacted some of the panelists on the recent Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference who spoken on a usability panel.

I asked both of these groups if any of them either possessed or knew of any reports, presentations, articles, white papers, podcasts, seminars, experts, or tools on usability with web video.

My answer: ZERO. All of the companies were unable to provide me with a single resource they either had or knew of. (The UPA’s Director of Member & Vendor Relations submitted my request to their board of directors several weeks ago, and today informed me that no response has been provided by them yet.)

Pretty shocking, that neither usability firms or online marketing firms can supply any information around web video, don’t you think? There are three reasons I can think of for this: 1) Combining usability with web video is multi-faceted and can be rather intimidating, 2) It exists, but its not being shared, and 3) There’s a perception by these companies that the public really isn’t interested in hearing about it yet.

I would argue that last possibility. I do believe that web video is no different from website usability when it comes to its importance, and I do believe the business community would demand it if they were just made aware of it. So where does it start? How about with some ideas on what areas of usability really matter to web video…

Areas of web video usability

These are just a few of the areas with web video usability that should be included

Location of the video

• On a website and web page.
• In a stand-alone media player

Features of the video

• The video player
• Navigation
• Accessibility
• Search
• Image and audio quality
• Length
• Content
• Delivery (Including speed)
• Conversions
• Completion

Testing

• Lab testing
• User testing
• Analytics

Resources which ARE available on web video usability

The Usability Kit, by the SitePoint. This is a ‘web usability toolkit’ in binder format and CD-ROM. The very last chapter of the book offers 8 page of information and tips for web video and audio content. The report is over 2 years old, and while all of the tips still apply today, much web video development has happened since. (Sitepoint says that their company has no plans to put out any new reports on web video usability.)

Eyetracking Report -  Below is slide from ReelSEO Publisher’s Mark Robertson presentation given at PubCon with myself, detailing an eyetracking study that shows we naturally navigate towards where we see video and video icons on a search results page.

Shelly Palmer, MediaBytes.com. His article, “What does quality online video look like?”Offers some good suggestions for online video quality. While the suggestions are largely dedicated to broadcast-quality websites, it’s a good basis for what could be applicable to small-to-medium size businesses (SMBs) as well.

Producing Video Podcasts - A Guide for Media Professionals. This book by Focal Press, with authors Richard Harrington and Mark Weiser of RHED Pixel, is an excellent guide on video podcasting, from preproduction to delivery. However it’s not meant to serve as an analysis or testing platform for users’ experiences with video on the web. (I also encourage readers to check out their companion site, VidPodcaster.com, and their free podcast series on iTunes, Producing Video Podcasts, where some of their tips are indirectly helpful for usability.)

And lastly, my own article,  ”Call for video professionals to decide online video standards.”

Calling again for web video usability standards

Right on the home page of the Usability Association Professionals’ web site is an article titled, What is the value of usability? Well, if neither usability industry themselves nor marketing professional cancome up with a body of information on usability for web video, and one that matches the explosive growth of web video, then I would argue that the value of both usability AND web video risks to be seriously diminished.

 Grant Crowell is the Senior Analyst for ReelSEO. 

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• Youtube Keyword Research Tool for Video SEO
• YouTube Geo-targeting Local Video – Good New Feature, Still “Buggy”
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comScore, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released November 2008 data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that U.S. Internet users viewed 12.7 billion online videos during the month, representing an increase of 34 percent versus year ago.

Hulu Retains #6 Ranking

In November, Google Sites once again ranked as the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed (representing a 40 percent share of all videos viewed), with YouTube.com accounting for more than 98 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Fox Interactive Media ranked second with 439 million videos (3.5 percent), followed by Viacom Digital with 325 million (2.6 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 304 million (2.4 percent). On the heels of a surge in viewership in October, Hulu retained its #6 position with 227 million videos viewed (1.8 percent).

*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks.  Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.

Google Sites Draws 98 Million Video Viewers in November

More than 146 million U.S. Internet users watched an average of 87 videos per viewer in November. Google Sites attracted 98 million online video viewers, or approximately two out of every three Internet users who watched video during the month. Fox Interactive ranked second with 58.1 million viewers, followed by Yahoo! Sites (40 million) and Microsoft Sites (35 million).

*Rankings based on video content sites; excludes video server networks.  Online video includes both streaming and progressive download video.

Other notable findings from November 2008 include:

• 77 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 273 minutes of video.
• 97 million viewers watched 5.1 billion videos on YouTube.com (52.3 videos per viewer).
• 52.5 million viewers watched 371 million videos on MySpace.com (7.1 videos per viewer).
• The duration of the average online video was 3.1 minutes.
• The duration of the average online video viewed at Hulu was 11.9 minutes, higher than any other video property in the top ten.

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• Video Presentation - Google - Unleashing Video Search

It’s not surprising that during a downturn, the clear metrics and ROI offered by performance based ads are looking more attractive. But in his wide-ranging ‘09 outlook, JP Morgan analyst Imran Khans expects marketers to treasure performance-based ads even when the larger economy begins to grow again.  The report, Nothing But Net: Outlook for Global Internet Stocks in 2009 (PDF), predicts that the mostly performance-based U.S. search ad market will rise 10 percent in 2009 to nearly $16 billion.

Bearish online video: Khan expects the accelerated shift to performance ads having a dampening effect on the growth of online video ads. Even in a series of downward revisions, online video ad growth still seemed poised for healthy gains this year. For example, at the end of November, eMarketer forecast online video growth of 44.9 percent, which was still nearly half of the 81 percent growth rate the researcher predicted for 2008. Khan believes that online video is headed for a considerable slowdown because one, it’s still reliant on the CPM model, as opposed to performance-based measurements like cost-per-click or cost-per-action based display.

And unlike television, which still can count on advertisers to respond to CPMs, online video can’t guarantee viewership for any specific video the way TV does in the upfront model. Plus, considering the unpredictability of popular videos, they uneven quality and the continued battles over copyright, JP Morgan doesn’t expect online video to have great prospects for the next few years. However, Khan is intrigued by Google’s experiments with an e-commerce platform—i.e, performance-based model—for YouTube videos. For example, if a user watches a a song featured in a music video, they can click on a link that lets them buy music directly Amazon and iTunes, with YouTube getting a cut of the revenue.

Continue Reading From Source

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• Online video advertising reported for less (but still strong) growth

We have spent a good amount of time covering some of the popular local online video platforms focused on providing online video marketing and video production services for small and medium sized businesses (SMBs).  WellcomeMat.com, is an online video production network specifically focused on the Real Estate industry and I had the pleasure of interviewing both co-founders of the business - Christian Sterner and Phil Thomas DiGiulio at the Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media Conference.

Despite the current state of the Real Estate market throughout the nation, Christian tells us that their business does not seem to be suffering.

“Actually, It’s been nothing but an acceleration at this point,” states Christian.  “In a period of rising inventory in the real estate space, you need to stand out more…  The people that are being smart, are spending more money and standing out more.  The number 1 thing that we hear from real estate professionals is, ‘I don’t loose listings against people that don’t use video.’”

Phil (who we have interviewed in the past and had many excellent insights to share) answered one of our questions about the importance of distribution and video SEO for SMBs that are doing online video marketing in the real estate arena.  We think this is an excellent answer:

“Context is king…  In the real estate space, that means having video in places where the consumers are looking for that content.  Your video doesnt have to be on Youtube and many of the other sites where, yes, people might be looking for video but not neccessarily for homes for sale.”

Thanks to both Christian and Phil for taking the time to speak with us at ReelSEO ;-)

We also would like to thank our friends over at VideoAgency who were kind enough to provide us with a filmmaker for this event.

Related Online Video News

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• Interview with John Love of SpotMixer - Online Video for SMBs
• Interview with Jivox - Online Video Advertising for SMBs

Adobe and Intel recently announced that they will work to extend the Adobe Flash platform for the Intel Media Processor CE 3100. This means a better Flash experience in set-top boxes, Blu-Ray players and other AV connected devices.

With the Flash platform’s high-definition capabilities and the Intel CE platform consumers will now be able to enjoy rich web experiences and content. They are also planning on expanding Flash Lite and optimize both later in 2009. This will extend the Flash player onto televisions across the planet and give it a firmer foothold. This project, combined with the Open Screen Project means that publishers and content providers can start looking at just one implementation of their content across multiple platforms. Full Flash capabilities and an optimized implementation of Adobe AIR, allowing for innovative, branded applications, on Intel’s digital home platform should help to expand usability of Flash content and increase ROI as content won’t need to be reformatted or re-encoded to be repurposed for multiple platforms.

“Our effort with Adobe is poised to accelerate a rich yet relevant internet experience on the TV that will provide consumers with access to a growing number of Flash-based applications that will ultimately be enjoyed across a number of screens seamlessly, from the laptop to a [mobile internet device] and now the TV,” Leszinske said.

Why do you need to know?

Simply put, Adobe Flash could become the one-stop shop for all your video advertising needs. If Flash gets a firm foothold in the television realm via set-top boxes and Blu-Ray players it could put your video advertisements, which you specifically made for internet users, in front of the eyes of millions of television and home entertainment users. It could also mean that you no longer need to continually think about multiple formats for online and television or it might allow you to expand your presence straight to television and Blu-Ray disc without a massive amount of re-working the original content. While there will always be some technical hurdles to a universal media approach to your advertising and marketing this could greatly decrease the time and investment while extending your reach at the same time. To me, that sounds like exactly what we need.

The Open Screen Project is an industry-wide initiative by mobile carriers (Verizon), electronics manufacturers (LG, Motorola, Sony Ericcson, Samsung, and Nokia), broadcasters (BBC, NBC, Comcast) and more. Its goal is to “enable consumers to engage with rich Internet experiences seamlessly across any device, anywhere.” The group hopes to create a consistent runtime environment that will offer web browsing and applications for everyone via Adobe Flash and AIR. This could mean one application works on everything including PCs, mobile phones, televisions and other electronics. For more information, check out the Open Screen Project.

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One of the top viewed pages on ReelSEO is that of a post that I put out late in 2007 with a resource list of 180 video sharing (now replaced by this post).   This weekend, I finally took the time to update the list entirely, and add a bunch more - 338 in total.  So, after many hours of clean up, I am pleased to present a brand new, list of  338 video sharing websites below. I encourage you to bookmark this post as I’ll be updating it every now and then.

Additional Resources:

• List of Video Search Engines
• Detailed Video Sharing & Search Website Matrix
  

Note - I have set the default sort to Alexa Rank - but you can sort by clicking on the column header names.

Internet Video Sharing Sites

List of online video sharing websites and video sites like YouTube! Last Updated Jan 4 2009.