Topic - Online Video & accessibility

web video university

Google Rolls Out Automated Captioning For YouTube Videos

youtube closed captions Google Rolls Out Automated Captioning For YouTube VideosGoogle today announced that they are adding automatic captioning capability to videos on YouTube.

This is a fantastic step forward for accessibility for deaf Internet users.  Says Vice President Vint Cerf, who is hearing impaired himself:

Defining ROI for Online Video: A Fluid & Frank Discussion

mark portu Defining ROI for Online Video: A Fluid & Frank DiscussionMark Portu, CEO of The FeedRoom, looks back at the first 10 years of online video and offers practical advice on achieving ROI

Over the years, we’ve seen Web video evolve from a relatively nascent, one-way mass medium into a popular and far-reaching platform for delivering engaging, online user experiences. Not unlike the Web itself, online video has truly transformed the way that content creators and audiences engage, share, learn and collaborate. No longer viewed as “emerging” technology, tools for creating, managing, distributing and measuring video content have matured to the point that we enter our second decade in a business climate where online video is not only widely accepted, but also expected.

SEO For Video – Video SEO Tips & Techniques

Below is a resource and set of links to some of our more popular video search engine optimization tips and tutorials from the past year.  We will update this list from time to time as we post additional video SEO tips, tutorials, guidelines, etc…. Good luck with your video search marketing and optimization efforts.

Flash Video Obsolete with HTML 5? Open Video Standards

HTML 5 <video> tag  – It’s the end of the world as we know it and Flash feels fine? No, probably not. with the prophesied coming of HTML 5 and the video tag, Flash could be on the very short end of a very long stick and the new messiah for online video could take the world by storm. In fact, without some severely significant reasons to continue using it I daresay that it could go the way of the Dodo in regards to online video. I mean seriously. Within a year or so we simply won’t need it (though Microsoft will probably either drag their feet or screw up the IE adoption of HTML 5 so maybe that’s 2-3 years).

Now, let’s not just automatically write off the old bird shall we? I mean it’s got a lot of things going for it, it’s the old flame we want to keep ignited, not just a Flash in the pan. We’ve been through a lot with her and well, some of us love her. Simply put, she’s everywhere. Everyone is using it, almost everyone has the plugin installed, and nearly every internet user has some idea of what it is so even if they don’t have it installed they’re more than happy to install it.

Online Video Subtitles Increase Video Viewing by 40% – New Research

In addition to the fact that subtitles can assist with accessibility and discoverability, subtitles can also increase the amount of time that a user spends watching a video by almost 40 percent.  In fact, where subtitles appeared, 80 percent more people watched the entire video to its completion.  This is an important indicator for post-roll video advertising as well as for those videos that have a branding message or call to action at the end of the video.

Flip mino HD camcorder review – good or bad for business video?

fliip mino hd review Flip mino HD camcorder review – good or bad for business video?Billed as the “world’s smallest HD camcorder,” is the Flip mino HD a smart investment for those serious about online video marketing and video SEO? ReelSEO’s Grant Crowell, and video producer and director Bob Sandidge of Creative Core Media, put the camcorder through a series of semi-grueling  tests in this  podcast review, and a custom mino HD YouTube playlist on the ReelSEO channel in featuring video clips of common business scenarios. Hear what they say is good and bad with the mino HD, and whether its a “thumbs up” or a “flip you off” verdict…

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OmniVideo – The Future of Online Video Monetization & Discovery – Interview with James McQuivey of Forrester – Part 2

omnivideo OmniVideo   The Future of Online Video Monetization & Discovery   Interview with James McQuivey of Forrester   Part 2

The following is Part 2 of our interview with James McQuivey(Ph.D.), Vice President and Principal Analyst at Forrester Research.   In Part 1 of our interview, we covered some background on James as well as some of  his thoughts regarding the future of video consumption.

In Part 2 (below), James discusses the future of online video monetization, video discovery and video search, and a concept that he has coined, “OmniVideo.”

Usability Standards for Web Video (Where the hell are they??)

Grants RantMost 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.

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Video now passing search in total views

video search views Video now passing search in total viewsOnline video views are now surpassing searches performed on the top 5 search engines, according to the most recent two months of stats released by comScore. In October 2008, 12.6 total billion searches were made – as compared to 13.5 billion videos viewed. “Video is now a standard, an expectation.” Says Michael Boland, Senior Analyst for the Kelsey Group, who presented this data at the Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference, while moderating the panel, Act Universal: Using Video in Small Business Marketing.

Will It Blend (for 50 bucks)? The ‘budget myth’ about a popular viral video campaign

50 dollar will it blend Will It Blend (for 50 bucks)? The budget myth about a popular viral video campaign

One of the myths with viral video marketing perpetuated by both search marketing pundits and mainstream media is an example they give about a wildly successful viral video campaign, claiming it was done with only chump change, so anyone else with just their own creative strategy can do it, too – right? That ”budget myth” is Blendtec’s popular WillitBlend video campaign, which prompted one panelist at the Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008 Conference to claim that “the cost to produce it was only $50!” Here’s the story on what the costs actually were, and how the budget myth got spread.

SES Search Usability Panel’s Recommendations for Video SEO

ses 08 logo SES Search Usability Panels Recommendations for Video SEOReelSEO’s Contributing Reporter Erika Blackwell continues her coverage of the Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008 conference, and asks the Usability and SEO Panel – What usability tip do they recommend to clients when it comes to featuring video on their website? The panel’s reply: Include transcriptions and captions; plus include a “click here to read [keyword title]” SEO-friendly link of both the video and audio-only file.

Video SEO Tutorial – Using SWFObject 2.1 to Provide Alternative HTML Content (Part 2 of 2)

swfobject Video SEO Tutorial   Using SWFObject 2.1 to Provide Alternative HTML Content (Part 2 of 2)In Part 1 of this series, I introduced Video SEO, Flash Video, and the importance of using SWFObject to provide alternative content for accessibility and SEO purposes. I explained why you would want to provide alternative content for your flash video projects and how to utilize SWFObject to accomplish this.

In Part 2, we’re going to dig into some code and walk through a tutorial for using SWFObject 2.1. Let’s jump in.