ReelSEO Video Marketing » Video Industry News

Intangible Values of Online Video – Beyond Monetization

Mark R Robertson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:19:47 +0000

D2DVD recently blogged about whether or not online video has some sort of value not based in money. While many of us equate popularity and views with value ,some of us might have forgotten about a great deal of other avenues that might be considered to have value for the creators. Sure retail sales tracking and ad revenue are valuable, but what else is there?

When talking about video views there are two pieces (so we’re told) that are import to consider, who and how many. How many we know as views and is good for ad revenue, while who boils down to demographics. The demographics are where a true hidden value can come in. If those viewers are say, studio executives, commercial ad agencies, public relations or other content buyers that video could result in revenue from other projects which were spawned because of the original work. This would not be readily apparent when you look at YouTube and see that a video has a lowly 1500 views.

Another facet is simply exposure…publicity / Brand Value. When a film becomes popular on YouTube or another video sharing site people begin to talk about it. That means they will blog, write and generally point links to the video, the creators or related websites. This could be an extremely useful tool for the content creator when they want to find new work or get their name out in the industry. This is also valuable in SEO for search results and pagerank.

Another value add to online video is that it’s persistent. You place it online and for the most part it remains there for some length of time unless the services it is on go under or it’s deleted. It is a perpetual record of the creator’s works and can lead others to other pieces that they have created thereby increasing their popularity all around.

I’m going to lump the next two together – Education and Experience. The library of online video serves as both a record of the creator’s experience and their education. As time progresses and their videos become more complex, have better editing, writing or storytelling it becomes apparent through a chronological look at their body of work. Additionally, as it is all online, people can learn from the mistakes they made as well as discussions about the videos which sometimes have a fair amount of value in them in regards to technical issues and the like.

The reason I put them together is that as you create more and more video you not only gain valuable experience and show that you can work on your own but it also shows that you’re learning from your past work and mistakes (we all make them, it’s ok). The videos also serve as educational material for others who want to get into the online video market. By seeing what has come before they can determine what works and does not, what should be done and what shouldn’t. This gives them a leg up in their beginning if they’re wise enough to use it.

Finally, there’s the networking value or the social value. You create a video you put it online at multiple sites and you end up meeting new people. These people either become fans of your work and strive to see more of it in various ways by supporting you or they become involved in future endeavors or present projects to work on. That means that you might not only increase your fanbase but you’ll also find new business partners and contacts so that even if they don’t bring you any projects you might be able to bring them and their particular skills in on one of your future projects without having to go on a lengthy search for the right individual.

Overall there’s most likely more intangible value for online video creators than actual tangible value. Sure the one might lead to the other and mean more money in your pocket or it might simply mean you have a contact list close to bursting with fans, friends and colleagues so that when your next project is ready to go you won’t need to spend as much time getting the project going or marketing it when it’s done. That’s a definite win in any industry.

Related posts:

editing, monetization, video sharing

Web Video Marketing – 10 Common Marketing Mistakes

Mark R Robertson — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 21:00:10 +0000

This week there was a good post by Michael Kolowich of ChannelOne Marketing titled, “Ten Ways Marketers Drop the Ball in Video Marketing.” Michael offers some advice as far as what not to do upon deploying a web video marketing project. I thought it would be a good idea to summarize and elaborate a bit.

You’ve either made these mistakes in the past or seen others make them. Let hope that if you are a reader of ReelSEO, you aren’t making too many of these web video marketing mistakes

Common Web Video Marketing Mistakes Marketers Make

Here is a my summary of the 10 common mistakes that marketers make deploying an online video or web video project:

1.) Video Deployment as an Afterthought

As Kolowich writes, ”Very often, the production of a video is driven by a big live event, a trade show, a product launch, or a live presentation… Only after the event is over does the attention shift to distributing the video on the Internet. That’s too late.”

Ill add here that another common mistake I see related to this is what I call, deploying video for video sake. Yes, online video is HOT… But don’t just produce and deploy videos online without a video marketing and video deployment strategy. Not only will this not work, but this just adds to all the crap video content that is out there these days, and I, for one, am sick of seeing it…

2.) Using Outdated Video File Formats

All too often folks deploy web video by merely posting a video file up on their site such as a WMV, MOV, or even a RealMedia file format. I’ve seen many times folks save a video as an SWF by itself rather than using an SWF player to play a video file. That is better for usability vs. posting a WMV since flash swf’s are basically ubiquitous and can be played everywhere. However, the better method is to use Flash swf as a video file container for playback. FLVs, MP4 (M4V), etc.. are all great formats and can showcase video in excellent quality (assuming you don’t make mistake #3). If you want to get even more advanced and take a look at what some folks think will be the future of web video deployment, check out our article on Ogg Theora and HTML5

3.) Failure to Have Videos Properly Encoded

As stated above, FLVs and MPEG4 .H264 can help to showcase your video online in excellent quality – IF the video file has been encoded properly. The right combination of resolution, bit rate, frame rate, keyframe frequency, and deinterlacing methods are required to encode your video properly for the web. Add to that the fact that there are various applications available for video encoding with many different settings and the fact that users are watching your video with different connection speeds, and it is crucial that you encode your video properly.

4.) Not Using a Video Host or CDN

Most web servers are just not optimized for video playback. Additionally, the bandwidth required to play a video, especially one that is popular, can cause issues with sites run on that web server. There are many different solutions available to host videos these days. I wont go into all the solutions here as we tend to cover these on a daily basis at ReelSEO. However, your best bet is to leverage a CDN or a video hosting provider for deploying video on your site. Depending on your budget, CMS, and strategy, some solutions may be better than others.

5.) Failing to Optimize Videos for Search

Do we really need to go into this one? Well, this is the reason that I started ReelSEO. I cant tell you how many times I spoken with companies and individuals that have spend tremendous effort and resources deploying online video only to ask one of the most important questions in terms of strategy, last. Namely, “How do I get users that would be interested in watching my videos to find them.” Oops. That’s one reason why we are here. If you want some tips to start, we’ve collected a ton of Video SEO tips here.

6.) Using YouTube the Wrong Way

We all know that YouTube in many cases is an excellent vehicle for increasing reach with your videos. That being said, there are many best practices to keep in mind when distributing your videos to YouTube, especially if you expect to drive traffic back to your own website (see mistake #7). We’ll be featuring some tips in the near future from our friend and expert, Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, who is currently finishing up a powerful book on the subject of YouTube Marketing.

Additionally, using YouTube as your video host has all sorts of implications even though it is “free.” We will talk about this another time but one potentially negative implication that immediately comes to mind is with regard to ranking. If you put the video up on YouTube (owned by Google, with a PR of 9), guess who will outrank your site in Google for that video?

7.) Not Leveraging Calls to Action

Calls to action are an effective way to leverage your video when your purpose extends beyond branding alone. As Michael puts it

“Once you’ve engaged and touched a viewer with your message, they often are left asking, ‘So what do I do next?’”

What purpose do you have with your video marketing if it isn’t to have entice viewers to follow up with you in some way? Issuing a call to action is extremely important, especially if you are posting your video to video sharing sites like YouTube. Even when you do post to video sharing sites, there are effective ways to issue calls to action within your video and in the case of YouTube, within your Youtube user channel.

Consider creating creative calls to action within your video. How you do this will of course depend on the goal that you have in mind as well as the type of business that you might be promoting. If you are selling a product or service, try including a unique promo code in your video that you can track when users make a purchase. This is not only an incentive to get the viewer to inquire more, but is a good way to track and measure the ROI of your video marketing effort. Other ideas include teasers, contests, etc… Even a call tracking number within the video sometimes works.

If you have control over the video player, consider including interactive features within the video player. For example, the ability to fill out a quick email inquiry from within the video, hyperlink overlays, etc…

Beyond calls to action, dint forget the importance of showing your brand within the video. This can be done with watermarks or even just showing your website URL in a lower-third.

8.) Failing to Take Advantage of Social Media

How you seed a video is important and using social media is one great way to kick start your video marketing effort, especially your video appeals to a special-interest community. Even YouTube sees the importance of this and recently launched the ability for users to notify twitter and facebook accounts when a new video is uploaded to their account (see YouTwitFace).

” Tweeters, bloggers, and Facebookers love to be the first to talk about new video programs in their area of intere.st” – states Kolowich

In addition to proactively notifying social communities, don’t forget to allow viewers of your video to do the same (see mistake #10)

9.) Failing to Leverage Email Marketing in Conjunction

Michael includes this as a common mistake for web video marketing and I hate to say it, but… Ive made this mistake. I suppose it is time for me to take the time to dive into this…. There are even options available these days to directly include a video within your email marketing message.

Video messages can inherently lift click-through rates for email campaigns. And email campaigns can have a profound effect on the distribution of a video. There is a growing body of knowledge about what to put in your email message to encourage click through. Hint: plain text links saying “watch our video” are not the answer.

10.) Failing to Enable Interaction & Sharing

Just as it is important to seed your video using social networking, it is just as important to allow users to spread your video to their social network. The easiest way to do this is to allow users to share your video using viral sharing widgets and tools that are embedded within the video player. Again, you can look at the way some of the major video player and video sharing sites already do this. There is a reason why they have included this functionality. They know that it helps to increase views, which then helps to increase their own visibility, pages views, monetization, etc… Let users email, digg, tweet, share on facebook, etc…

As we’ve covered before, allowing sharing and interactivity is also a best practice when it comes to search engine optimization of video content.

Additionally, unless you have a really good reason not to allow users to embed your video (perhaps there are legal restrictions on the content) let users embed the video..

Lastly, let users comment on your videos. There are many reasons that this is important. One reason in particular is the fact that it can help to add additional relevant on-page text to your video landing page which will assist with search engine indexing.

Conclusion – Don’t be Afraid to Ask for Help

“With the web video landscape changing literally month by month, it’s nearly impossible for any marketer to keep up with the options and optimal choices for video preparation, hosting, and promotion,” Kolowich said in an interview. “Increasingly, it’s important for marketers to work with production partners who not only are great visual storytellers but also have mastered the process of creating and distributing highly effective video-based interactive web experiences.”

And here is my favorite quote from:

“And the next time your webmaster says “I’ve got it covered” with respect to web video, make sure he knows what he’s talking about.”

Let’s take it one step further. You are better off at this point in assuming that your webmaster doesn’t have it covered. Not that I have anything against webmasters, I’m one myself. But keep in mind what Kolowich states above in that it is next to impossible to stay up to date completely with all that is going on in the web video marketing space. Get yourself an expert or partner who specializes in this quickly growing field, and more than anything, try to avoid the common mistakes covered in this post. Good luck!

Digital Agencies and Client Challenges with Video – CIMA Recap

Grant Crowell — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:28:05 +0000

I recently covered the Chicago Interactive Marketing Associations’ panel discussion – Creative, Technology, Media, and Analytics. The panelists of senior industry leaders debated on how creative, technology, media & analytics are converging more in interactive video marketing; and how agencies can overcome the limitations of video measurement towards client buy-in.

The CIMA Interview

For some background, The Chicago Interactive Marketing Association (CIMA) largely consists of marketers on the agency side (including creative, technology, and media agencies) who gravitate heavily towards advertising solutions for upper-tier clientele. Their clients consist of large or well-known brands, or have a notable background and investments into both traditional and/or online marketing. In other words, no small potatoes by any means.

Jen Brady of Fred & Associates, & CIMA’s VP of Marketing, says the goal of the dinner was to provide “senior industry leader insights” to the their members and the interactive marketing industry, based on what topics are considered most relevant to CIMA members. According to Jen, their this dinner topic of creative and media was actually discussed by their board for many years,

“but adding the angle of accountability was relevant, especially in today’s economy.”

Observations from the CIMA event

The panelists expanded on our pre-event interview coverage about new video technologies; and strides that web publishers, technologists, and collectives are making to re-cast online-video; how success with video needs to be better measured, and future predictions with video applications online. The panelists all agreed on some key points about better packaging and purposing online video for client buy-in and campaign success:

On Creative – making a branded video a more interactive experience (such as providing an extended level of engagement or inspire an action by the viewer), rather than simply a display tool or message vehicle. Patrick Hounsell, GM of Marketing for Razorsfish, says

“the effectiveness of video in creative, media and technology fusing together will be about turning it from a message delivery vehicle into a more engaging conversation and experience.”

On Media – Integrate the offline idea into a multi-channel point for the video. Catherine Spurway, VP of Strategy and Marketing for Pointroll, suggested better application and audience targeting with dynamically-generated video ads. According to Spurway, it would allow agencies to better determine

“elements of a rich media [campaign] we perform that are specific to that individual advertiser, rather than across an industry or vertical.”

On Technology – Improve the ability to measure latency in the video experience (i.e., measuring an extended time from the initial experience, including repeat experiences); Spurway shared an example of “on-command” interactive video in the Kellog’s Special K Jeans campaign, where the user’s commands into a search box right within the video, generated video actions of within the same video in real-time.

(Note: I did try out video demo myself, and while I found serious limitations with the range of interactions from search commands, it does show a lot of innovation and potential for great improvement. Hint-try searching the word “dance” or “jump” and then click search)

The agencies cry for help: Better Video Analytics!

The panelists all expressed that a big problem they continue to struggle with is the limitations on tracking and measuring viewer engagement with their clients’ online video, and connecting that with real business revenue. For agencies to be able to convince their clients to get more involved in the online video space, being able to better measure online video is hugely important. According to the panelists, right now, most agency’s clients still treat the video for the Web as a TV model. Clients believe that online video its unproven for business value, yet at the same time, they know they have to at least be somewhat involved in the space. So rather than treating online video as a fully integrated part of their primary campaigns, they instead relegate it to a much smaller share of their budget than their agencies are pushing for.

Elizabeth Bleser, Managing Director for Incognito Digital, said her hope for their industry is that someone can come up with a technology that better measures video across the board, so they can get online video to have a better client buy-in.

“We need to be able to better measure UGC content, in-banner, professionally produced content, from rich media video ads. We need technology that will literally give you reports with measurements at literally every different intersection. Agencies like ours are very committed to finding a partner that does that.” She Says.

Related posts:

media, technology, video marketing

In Search of Video SEO that Works – Beyond the Hype

Mark R Robertson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 08:00:59 +0000

Earlier this year, I was contacted by Nico McLane for an interview on the subject of Video SEO. Nico was looking for specific guidance with regard to the topic of Video SEO. To give you a bit more background, Nico wrote the following in an early email correspondence;

“The subject of VIDEO SEO frustrates me because everyone is telling us we need it, but for who and for what benefit?”

As we all know, Video SEO has generated a ton of buzz and hype within both the online video and Internet marketing industries over the past year (good for ReelSEO of course). There are a ton of companies that claim to offer video search engine optimization services and tons of blog posts popping up that offer readers tactical information about video SEO.

That said, I happen share similar frustrations with Nico in that I think that despite the hype, there is still a general lack of understanding when it comes to the subject. This is true not only with regard to the definition of “Video SEO”, but also true with regard to an understanding of the actual benefits, tangible ROI, strategy, etc… I wont go into too much depth here with my feedback on the subject as I have written about this several times in the past. However, I can sum it up with the following:

“Video SEO is not a means in and of itself, it is a strategy and a set of best practices that need to be combined with best practices for producing, publishing, and syndicating online video content. It is the application of SEO best practices when publishing online video content to ensure maximum visibility across search engines and ultimately, your target audience. Ultimately, the ROI depends on many factors but is similar to that which can be achieved with traditional, oragnic SEO.”

So, why am I telling you this long @$$ story?

Well, Nico wrote an excellent in-depth article titled, “In Search of Video SEO that Works” which was just published in the June/July 2009 issue of Streaming Media Magazine. Nico, among other things, is a talented writer for Streaming Media Magazine and streamingmedia.com; which, if you haven’t already, I highly suggest that you subscribe to (click here for your free subscription).

Streaming Media magazine’s readership is heavily weighted with C-level executives, presidents, owners, and industry leaders in large organizations. With that in mind, I thought it might be worthwhile to solicit some additional expertise to join us in the discussion for a balanced view of the topic. Because Everyzing has worked directly with several large organizations with regard to video search and video search engine optimization, I reached out to their CEO, Tom Wilde, who participated in the interview.

In the interview, Tom offered the following when asked “What makes for good VSEO?”

“Optimize the video’s presentation page using standard SEO techniques; this is also true for videos uploaded to sharing sites. Logical file naming schemes, site structure, use sitemaps and relevant keyword usage throughout the landing page will result in good VSEO.”

Checking your indexed videos – An Added TIP

As we’ve covered in the past, you can easily add a video XML site map or MRSS feed of your own hosted videos to Google for proper indexing. As Nico mentions in the article, two-way RSS feeds are also becoming much more dynamic.

“Even Google Video search is experimenting with outgoing RSS feeds and observing how video results are extracted and re-purposed”

Nico goes on to offer a simple and effective tip show you how to view a feed of your own indexed videos, as output directly from Google Video (see the image on the right). This tip may help you troubleshoot issues you may experience with only some of your videos from your sitemap or MRSS feed getting properly indexed:

Simply do a search on Google Video (video.google.com)
Restrict the search engine query to your site by adding “site:yoursite.com”
Then add the following tag: ?&output=rss.

For example to view an RSS feed that shows 10 videos that are indexed in Google Video for our site, you can view the feed at http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=site:reelseo.com&num&output=rss

In Conclusion

In pondering the future of video search, video SEO, and the semantic web, Nico concludes the article with,

“It’s like trying to think about the size of the universe. If you sit and think about it too long, it’s exciting and a little bit scary to have such endless possibilities. The secret is in the sauce, and no two recipes are ever the same.”

I recommend reading the article in its entirety (http://www.streamingmedia.com/article.asp?id=11224) as she offers a thorough background of video search along with several actionable tips for both hosted video SEO, and syndicated video SEO.

Nico – thanks for the opportunity to share our opinions & expertise

Joost Reinvents Service as Brandable Video Platform

Christophor Rick — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:20:50 +0000

Joost was what the creators of Skype went on to after it was sold. They’ve recently announced a new focus for the company, mainly they want to be a white box video platform and they’re working toward that goal now.

The new Joost will seek to allow media companies to create a branded video sharing presence for themselves. It seems that Joost wasn’t doing so well as a consumer-facing product, competing directly with YouTube, and so they’ve moved their aim at bigger potential clients. Meanwhile Hulu has taken the lead for high quality broadcast TV video online.

Mike Volpi, CEO at Joost will step down as Joost restructures to achieve their new goals. In his seat will be Matt Zelesko, senior vice president of engineering.

The downfall of Joost as a consumer service can probably be blamed on the need to download a piece of software in order to upload and stream videos which we all know we don’t need to do on many of today’s most popular services and certainly won’t need to do in the near future with the HTML 5 tag. Joost has been in a downward spiral ever since its launch and this recent restructuring looks like a last ditch effort to keep the company from completely folding.

The last move, to that of a video-streaming portal will not be undone just yet as they’ve announced that it will remain open but they’ll move to provide a full-service, low-cost video sharing solution for media companies that are looking to build online video portals.

Joost currently has about 100 employees but some are expected to be laid off due to the restructuring. If they can manage to turn themselves around and provide a great full-service end-to-end product they could very well save themselves and create a nice niche for themselves. They’ll have a lot of others to contend with to carve out some market space but if they bridge the gap between difficult-to-implement open source products and crazy expensive full-service ones…they just might get a third shot at salvation.

Youtube Doubles Upload File Size Limit – More HD

Mark R Robertson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:05:58 +0000

Damn it is hard to keep up with all the changes that Youtube has been launching. This is one that Im certain you will all be thrilled to hear about, because it means more HD.

In addition to the doubling of upload file size from 1GB to 2 GB, they have also implemented some new features which will make it easier for you to share HD videos. The changes will allow users to share links directly to the HD version of videos, as well as to embed the HD version with ease. Many of you may have known about how to do this previously, as it was possible. However, they have now publicly made these options clear and have integrated the HD embed code options into the

Here’s How to Share HD Video Links

To share a link to the HD version of a video, simply append &hd=1 to the end of the URL string. This means the video will start playing in HD as soon as someone follows the link.

Here’s How to Get the HD Embed Code

To embed the HD version of a video on a website or blog, click the ‘customize’ button to the right of the embed box on the video page. Inline with options that were previously there is a new option ‘play in HD’. If you check this option The embed code that’s generated will cause the video to start playing in HD as soon as a viewer clicks play.

Youtube recommends embedding HD videos at the largest size (853×505) for “maximum enjoyment,” but clearly you dont have to.

Keep in mind of course, that this option will only be available on videos that have been uploaded for HD. If there is no HD version, this checkbox will not appear and you cant use the Youtube HD hacks that we previously mentioned.

Finally, right?

Open Source Video Projects – Participatory Culture Foundation

Christophor Rick — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:00:48 +0000

The Participatory Culture Foundation has been hard at work building up several services that make great use of online video. As such we at ReelSEO thought it was time that we took a look at them to see how they’re doing. The PCF is a non-profit organization that wants to build a new open mass medium platform that’s simple and easy to use.

Two projects – Miro and Make Internet TV are already up and running so I’ve decided to take a look into each and let you know what they’re all about and how they’re going along.

Make Internet TV

The Make Internet TV project (http://makeinternettv.org/) is about empowering people and giving them the necessary tools and information to allow them to create and publish video online. They offer a six chapter path of information and services to help you.

Step 1 – Equipment – This step gives you some basic information on types of cameras and recording devices. It tells you the difference between DV and Digital and offers some opinions on to whether or not you might want to use a specific device depending on what you want to do. They have some fairly well done areas on major device platforms which will certainly help inform novices and might even give some guidance to those with a little experience but looking to upgrade their equipment.

Step 2 – Shoot - This step gives good, basic information on how to hold your camera and some techniques for getting that proper framing. It also gives some information about sound recording including types of microphones and a few tricks.

Step 3 – Edit – In the Edit section they give you the most basic information about the video editors that are included in today’s most popular operating systems including Windows, Mac and Linux. The section also gives hints on how to get your video off your camera and onto your computer.

Step 4 – License – Step 4 starts talking about the license of your material and offers two possibilities Creative Commons and Copyright & Fair Use issues to make sure you don’t get in trouble if you use material from someone else and so you know what others can potentially do with your material.

Step 5 – Publish – Now to get your video published on the Internet. They take a quick look at some of the most popular sites including YouTube, Hulu, blip.tv, TubeMogul, DailyMotion and more. They even give you some tips on setting up your own video blog etc.

Step 6 – Promote – This final section talks about getting your video in front of viewers, three typical types of viewers and options like streaming, embedding and downloading. They cover very little in this area. They talk about iTunes, Miro (another PCF project, see below) and syndicating your content via mefeedia and vlogbot.

[See post to watch video]

Overall the service won’t be a great resource for those of us who are already using video online but it could become a valuable resource for the millions of people who are new to Internet video publishing, for example the million iPhone 3GS owners and anyone who gets into online video later down the road.

MIRO – Open Source Video Download and Player

Miro (http://getmiro.com/), the other PCF project, is an Internet TV platform that is trying to make watching video online as easy as watching broadcast TV at home. The Miro player will not only help you find programs to watch but will download them so that you can take them with you and watch them whenever and wherever you want.

It’s a full-screen, HD-capable player and covers over 6,000 shows and video podcasts. It’s not only an HD video player but a general one as well and can playback Quicktime, WMV, MPEG, AVI, Xvid and more. It even included a BitTorrent client so you can download and watch in the same application. The content guide itself covers YouTube, blip.tv, etc.

Downloading the software is quick and painless and when it begins after a fairly well done install interface you’re presented with the web-based Miro Guide. Anyone can add their media RSS feed to the directory and get their content included in the guide to start attracting more visitors.

They are working to incorporate a lot of other cool features in the player including an ambitious subtitling support project that will be able to automatically find the subtitles if they are available from sites like OpenSubtitles.org etc. The software gives you the ability to rate videos and then takes those ratings and can create playlists of feeds that it thinks you might like. You can even create your own guide and feed list and plug it into the Miro Guide for your personal use.

Sociality?

You bet! With Miro you can email feeds and videos, share links and videos out to popular social networks and even import and export your feed lists.

Version 2.5 of Miro is on the horizon and promises a list of new features and better speed. They’re reorganizing the library, boosting speed and more.

One of the problems I see with the Miro guide is simply that there’s tons of content and wading through it is tedious. Hundreds of podcasts about nothing are mixed in with hundreds of podcasts about things I have no interest in. That means that if you start putting your video podcasts into the directory it’s going to be difficult for many to find them unless they end up being most popular, top rated or the videos get chosen for the ‘Videos You’ll Love’ lists for viewers. With over 585 pages of new shows, it’s certainly going to be an uphill battle to get your video seen.

But at a player Miro is cool. It can play just about every form of video that’s popular and even some that aren’t so popular. It can automatically download the videos you choose so you have them when you want and you can delete them as you need to. There are some big name shows like Diggnation and Tekzilla and you could possibly find tons of new videos that you might like. Of course a lot of shows won’t show up in your lists if you’re not in the proper region so Miro is no work around for restrictions at sites like Hulu, damn.

Is this the future of online television? With the automatic download that allows you to watch whenever and wherever you are, it very well could be. Time-shifted TV is quite popular and there’s no reason that something like this shouldn’t prove popular with travelers and business people who spend a lot of time on the road. Plug into the internet, fire up the player and it starts downloading any videos that you’ve subscribed to, similar to podcasts and iTunes. It even ties into LegalTorrents so you can get other forms of entertainment outside of video.

Video Ads are THE Most Effective Ad Format

Mark R Robertson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:00:07 +0000

In the past, I’ve written about how video ads perform when compared to traditional banner ads. Now, Google confirms the strong effectiveness of video advertising with a recently released a study via DoubleClick which states Rich media ad formats with video outperform all other types of ads by an overwhelming margin. According to the research video ads even outstrip Flash animation and can be the deciding factor on whether or not it’s a successful campaign. By measuring the consumer intent to purchase a product the study, “The Brand Value of Rich Media and Video Ads”, has found that people who see a video in a rich media ad are more likely to make the purchase. Google is trying to determine the answer to how differing types of ad formats impact results for brands.

DoubleClick tasked Dynamic Logic Data to compile the data and find the answer. The company used surveys which were shown to consumers after they see an ad, and correlates the results to whether or not they viewed the advertisement.

It was found that ads with video generally increase intent to purchase by 1.16% over a control group that did not see an ad. versus Flash animation the intent to purchase rose 0.26% That shows that consumers do find video ads more compelling than flash. The study also suggests that more rich media, i.e. video, is needed than simple images or even Flash animations. The market norm is 0.60% so video almost doubles it while simple flash performed the worst, falling short by about two-thirds.

Considering that Flash ads have been around for some time now part of this could be down to consumers simply not even looking at Flash ads or have created some mental blocks.

Now ads with video vs without video have turned out to be more favorable for brands. A full 2.3% more consumers said they favored a brand that had a video ad unit as opposed to other ad formats. Flash only boosted preference a measly 0.15%. The study also said that the best first exposure idea is video. They go on to suggest that to save money on a campaign, follow it up with less expensive media like images and Flash which will still retain positive feelings.

Over 4,000 campaigns were tracked through 2008, by Dynamic Logic’s MarketNorms marketing effectiveness database. Campaigns needed two things: One of four ad formats: simple Flash, JPG/GIF, rich media with video, and rich media without video and a questionnaire that used standard MarketNorms branding questions.

I highly recommend reading and downloading the whole study here – The_Brand_Value_of_Rich_Media_and_Video_Ads.pdf

Of course the study then went on with a bit of self-promotion stating that using the DoubleClick DART for Advertisers was one of the best ways to control costs and quickly change ad content. They state that it can save money by optimizing ad content quickly and easily. Overall, I think that the point here is the same point we try to make every day at ReelSEO – Video Fricken Rocks

About YouTube’s New Channels – YouTube Channels 2.0

Mark R Robertson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:05:37 +0000

In case you thought YouTube Channels 1.0 were shite, they’ve now given us version 2.0 (beta). But really, what’s in a name and version number?

Ok so YouTube is getting ready to release a new version of YouTube channels and they’re quite pleased with themselves overall. Thousands are already using the new Channels 2.0 but they’re continuing to add on to them and this week they’ve added a whole new slew of things including… channel ADS. If you are a Youtube Partner, you will be able to pile on a ‘full range of ads’ on your YouTube Channel. It’s about time!

Aside from the new design refresh which includes several default design themes and the ability to customize your own theme (within the framework established), further enhancements include sort controls (most viewed, chronological, rating), clickable rating stars, video count per section and more.

They’re planning on doing more to the new Channels before giving them a proper full release which is expected to launch on July 15th. Things they’re looking at include the ability to reorder lists and playlists, autolinking URLs, upload date in description and continuing to hunt down and squash some bugs.

They have had several issues including a problem where thumbnails were misaligned and funky, but apparently, that’s been fixed as well. In order to make sure they create the best product they can they have been asking that if you’re interested to begin using the beta Channels 2.0 and offering up feedback so they know what they should fix and focus on for the future release.

To upgrade your channel, you can login to your account and click the “Edit Channel” link. You will then be prompted with the following message where you can then “upgrade your channel”:

Try our new BETA channels!
You may have seen them already, and now you can try it out for yourself. With our new design, you can watch a channel’s videos, browse its playlists, and even edit your own channel, without leaving the page. We’ll save a copy of your current “old” channel design, and you can switch back to it by clicking “opt-out” at any time. See our blog for more information and updates on our BETA’s progress.

More than anything, I think it helps create a better channel experience for visitors in that they will be able to view all your content without being pulled off the channel page. Additionally, you will be able to customize the design of the channel and the videos that appear on the channel without leaving the channel, thanks to the added ajax functionality.

Here is a video that they released to announce the new channels Beta back on the 24th.

Click here to watch the video.

I found it a bit funny that it has a rating of 1&1/2 starts. I suppose the community either thought the video sucked, or the new features do. Judging by the comments (which I wont re-post, but recommend reading), people dont seem to be too happy about the new changes. Apparently, users will be “forced” to adopt the new channel layout upon the public launch on July 15th and that seems to be what is causing all the negative feedback.

To give you an idea of the extent to which this is upsetting some users, check out some of the videos from users that have been flooding YouTube over the past few weeks.

Like this ridiculous dramatic video.

Click here to watch the video.

Overall, I like the new layout and am thankful that the folks at YouTube are continuously upgrading and changing things up. Come on folks, Yes, change is hard. But change is a good thing

What do you think?

Related posts:

Google, video sharing, youtube

Digitalsmiths Lets You Search Inside Video

Christophor Rick — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:00:51 +0000

Digitalsmiths claims to have a so-called ’skin detection algorithm’ that will allow users of the video search engine to search for dialogue, nude scenes and more… How peculiar.

I knew that opening would get you to read more… Apparently, from what we’ve learned, they’re aiming the new detection system directly at broadcasters who are sharing their video online directly to consumers and are not interested in directly competing with the major players in video search (Google, Blinkx, etc). They’ve also got their eye on Hollywood studios as well which makes sense if one thinks about it.

Where other sites only allow you to search metadata, descriptions and tags, Digitalsmith’s newly dubbed Videosense 2.0 works with actor names, characters, locations, dialogue and even objects in scenes which makes it sound really interesting and powerful. I’d like to see a demo of all of that (hint, hint…).

The service basically works by giving a larger amount of space for keywords and metatags from what we’re given to understand. Meanwhile its ’skin detection system’ is said to be able to determine which scenes have nudity and allow content providers to tag them individually. Great for parents, terrible for the porn industry I bet. But it’s not just about finding nipples, penises and the like. The service can also utilize a facial recognition technology so it can pull out the characters and actors in scenes as well as pull in the dialogue and run it through speech analysis. I wonder if nipple and penis recognition is next? I mean that would really be something wouldn’t it?

So if you want to see Angelina kiss another girl or Brad get naked now you’ll be able to just skip to those scenes and not have to 16x through the whole film online anymore or randomly guess where it is (24:30 in Gia…ok it’s a joke, I don’t really know).

Digitalsmith has carved up their service into four products:

MetaFrame – to assign tags including characters, actors, dialogue, and location.
VideoSense Asset Manager – for content management of videos.
VideoSense Intelligence – The consumer-side search engine.
Publisher – scheduling and distribution of content.

This might break the mold for the major players in the online video distribution market and give consumers a far quicker way to see exactly what they want to see. Of course seeing Megan Fox lean under the hood of Bumblebee over and over again without having to search for it might actually be worth paying a premium for such a service online.

YouTube Adds Call-to-Action Overlays – Drive Action off YouTube

Mark R Robertson — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 08:00:45 +0000

You want to measure impact on retail sales of your product for your online video campaign on YouTube? Well now they’re helping you do that with a new overlay that can even help drive that impact deeper into your business and allow you to link off-site.

We always talk about online video campaign ROI and how difficult it is to actually determine it and how to do it accurately. Well now YouTube might have added a new feature that will help us do exactly that. The new call-to-action overlay will help you track how many users move forward with some sort of transaction whether a sale, sign-up donation or other positive interaction which you are specifically hoping for from them.

So how exactly do you track all of that via YouTube? Well, with their new Call-to-action overlay will help drive users from Promoted Videos, and you can track the clicks within Youtube insight. This has been in testing for some time they tell us and there was a lot of dialog with search marketers on how they wanted it to work. Now, anyone who runs a campaign on YouTube with Promoted Videos can take advantage of the new ability to drive users away from YouTube as desired.

All you need to do in order to take advantage of the new overlay is begin a campaign to promote your video on YouTube. Go into the video details page for that specific video and fill out the “call-to-action overlay” fields there. These fields include a headline, ad text, destination URL and an image if you wish. When the video is played the overlay will show up and the interactions will be tracked on your YouTube Insight.

Now if only those interactions could be tracked in Google Analytics and incorporated into campaigns with adsense…

Related posts:

adsense, Google, youtube

Kyte Introduces Video Publishing App for iPhone 3GS

Mark R Robertson — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:28:26 +0000

With the iPhone 3GS out in the wild now it’s time for us all to get down to the business of iPhone video creation. Thanks to Kyte’s Mobile Producer you’ve now got a way to upload videos quickly right from the iPhone 3GS and they are the first to release a 3rd Party video publishing application in the App Store.

Kyte’s Mobile Producer allows you to easily record video and upload them straight to your Kyte channel and then share them out to the world. It also lets you add photos and links as well.

Kyte is an online and mobile platform that lets you share your photos, videos and more. It was designed for media & entertainment companies and combines the real-time, interactive and community building capabilities of the social web, with the analytics, control, and monetization features of professional video platforms.

To get the app, you can head over and purchase it in the App Store on iTunes for $4.99 Darn – why cant it be free?

Related posts:

iPhone, kyte, media, mobile, publishing