Online video, online video publishing, streaming media, OVP, OTT, web television, video advertising, marketing, startups, gadgets, social media, videoconferencing, collaboration and related topics are discussed here. Thanks for stopping by the "Klessblog."
My blog, aptly titled Larry Kless's Weblog, turned a year old last month. I started it mainly to join the voices of the streaming media community from my own unique perspective, share ideas, conversations, tips and tricks with an emphasis on streaming media and online video publishing. It's become one of my many channels of communication along with Twitter, Friendfeed and the scores of other social networks.
2008 seemed to pick up the pace sometime around mid-year and has barely slowed down since. I've had the pleasure of meeting many new friends this past year and I look forward to meeting many more in 2009. I also had the opportunity to speak with CEOs from various online video startups to learn about their businesses. Those who I want to personally thank are Sean Doherty of Channels.com the web-based video RSS aggregator, Stephen Chao of How-to video site WonderHowTo, Teresa Phillips of How-to video site Graspr who has recently partnered with Glam Media, Bismark Lepe of Ooyala, Philippe Schwartz of ooVoo and Paul Kontonis of For Your Imagination. While I haven't been able to publish all those conversations I hope to do so in the coming weeks.
There are so many others who I met along the way, who's blogs I read, videos I watch that I need to thank but the sun is going down on 2008 and I have to move on to 2009. Thank you to all my readers and friends and all the best to everyone in 2009! Here's a handful of posts from my blog that I present as a "Best of 2008" stay tuned for more to come.
Digital media and web video studio For Your Imagination has been successful in defining itself as a leader in online video. In a market still unsure of revenue models, FYI has demonstrated year-over-year revenue growth of 34% in sponsored and branded entertainment implemented of a leveraged distribution network and delivered strong advertiser video solutions. Their 2008 highlights have been on expansive reach, powerful advertising solutions, a focus on vertical video networks and sponsored and branded entertainment and on agency partnerships. They recently held a Spring 2009 Upfront event as a preview of upcoming web shows and verticals launching in 2009. FYI has held these in the past and they've been successful in building interest with advertisers and brand sponsors.
The night's theme was “Who’s Watching?” and Tilzy.tv and Tubefilter both covered the Upfront here:
I spoke with FYI CEO Paul Kontonis about the Upfront event and their press release on enhancing market leadership with reach, revenue and solutions which can be found at the end of this post.
Larry Kless: How did the Upfront go? How successful was it for FYI?
Paul Kontonis: I think it was successful for us because it gave us an opportunity to attract some attention to what we're doing in our content. It allowed us to position our content to the advertising agencies that we'd love to work with. I think it's important that we react to the changing economy not only by reducing expenses but by also putting out a more compelling product and service that can still attract the dollars.
So, I do agree very strongly that when the economy is not going in the right direction you reduce expenses and run a very tight ship and we've been needing to do that our whole lifespan… so for us it's all about how do we continue to innovate, get those dollars and provide a real powerful advertising solution for the brands we hope we can work with.
LK: How often do you host the Upfronts? Have you been doing them for a while?
PK: Yes, the first one we did I believe was in the Fall of '07 so I think that this might our 6th. We've been doing them once a quarter since late 2007.
LK: Any immediate results?
PK: Sure, we've had inquiries on a couple of our shows right away and about some brand opportunities. I would say that we've sent out information on Lurker the new series by the Break a Leg guys to some big online destination site type of networks. We've had inquiry on the Greenhouse which is our Green Living network and also on the Spanish show Spanish por la Mañana.
LK: Regarding your press release, did you share that as part of the package for the Upfront event?
PK: Not all of it. The revenue related stuff wasn't there at the event but everything else was.
LK: So how about the expansive reach? Your release says you're looking at exciting partnerships with Hulu, Joost, Dailymotion, Howcast and Tremor Media and OggiFinoggi.
PK: Coming in January we'll start having our content put out on Hulu. We actually close the Hulu deal much earlier this year but they use an encoding format MP2 that is not really standard in the industry so we've been holding back on spending the time to do that encoding specifically for them. Everyone else uses .mp4 except for them and Joost. They both are MP2 holdouts and they some pretty.
When it comes to the file format they're a little on the primitive side in that A) they are using MP2 and B) they don't have the ability to encode. So for example, you could upload to let's say Blip or Viddler an .mov, an .avi, a .wmv, a .mp2, a mp4, pretty much any format you can think of, you can upload the Flip video format (.avi plus Divx plug-in) and it will work fine and they encode to the .mp4 format they use and the .flv format that use. Both Hulu and Joost don't do that at all so you actually have to give them exactly the file format you're going to use. So when you got all your files in your workflow to be .mp4 based since everyone uses.mp4, H.264 files are beautiful and then all of a sudden it come around to another file format it's a real pain in the @$. There's over 300 files and downloads alone and we're talking over 80 hours to encode all of that. It's insane.
But we're looking forward to finally getting our content up on Hulu and since were doing Hulu we might as well do the web version of Joost as well because they've got some great functionality and we've got a nice working relationship with them that was built in the Dailymotion days when most of the people left Dailymotion to go to Joost. So we're really excited about that too.
We're solidifying the relations with Howcast and we'll probably see some content for them to continue to build out their content library.
With Tremor, they really helped us with targeting publishing verticals and helping with not really distribution but targeting some of the relationships with the publisher and ad networks that we want to work with for promotional purposes.
OggiFinoggi has a video player that we will use and a widget that we'll distribute on other sites that has some really cool functionality to it when you mouse over it, it expands into a much bigger player that has multiple videos and ad units on it and so we can drive specific traffic to videos as well as to additional videos by using their player as a widget we can place all around vertical sites across the web.
LK: In terms of powerful advertising solutions, in working with these destination sites that use the ad server model, how effective has that been in combination with the "baked in" endorsement approach? Do see this as a one-two punch?
PK: Definitely, I think the ad server model adds in a little supplemental revenue which is pretty negligible at this point so we really don't pay much attention to those dollars, the pre-roll, the overlays and post-rolls, The baked in host endorsement product placement and thematic content -- meaning we do an episode about something that relates to that product's brand but still stays in the vein of the show and the authenticity and the credibility of the show -- is definitely a very successful way for us to integrate advertising messages in a real quality kind of way into the content and still make it very true to the content brand that we've created and yet very accommodating to the advertisers. and again in a way that people receive it as informative and entertaining and not a straight up pitch. The host endorsements are very sincere they're very authentic and they really differentiate from the ad sever model.
The response we've seen form the audience is, "Okay, cool." It's a very positive reaction because we're very clear that they're helping bring this programming that you find informative, entertaining and useful to being a Dad, for example, people respond very positively to it. The recall is very high, the brands and everyone is re-upped so everyone who's tested something out has decided to do more at this point. So we're really excited about Hasbro coming in this week at DadLabs because we're hoping that they re-up for their next release.
LK:What drove the new expansion into these other areas of personal finance, style and fashion?
PK: The one that I'm personally most excited about is GEQ network which stands for Generation Equity and that's the personal finance content. It's something that from pretty early in setting up For Your Imagination I had always followed the "click these rankings" of brand spending online and looked at the categories and personal finance has been one of these areas that has been a very very high dollar spend online and that continued even through this downturn in he economy. It's still one of the biggest areas of online spending. So take that and balance it with this idea that you have this whole generation of people, Generation Y and even older and younger, who are active, building their futures, some in the workforce some still in school and have really no idea how to manage their money, how to balance their checkbook, how to control their spending, how to work with debt, how to work credit cards.
Home Economics used to be one of the biggest classes you had to take at some point and now it's out of the curriculum, it doesn't exist anymore. So you people who really have no clue what they're doing, and the number one source for information for them are their friends first who are also completely illiterate on personal finance and then you have family members as the next place they turn to. And for the most part we've become a society ridden with debt and really managing our money every well as a whole. You've got a generation that's turning to itself which doesn't really know what it's doing relying upon then their parents who don't know what they're doing either. So it's a real mess.
There is a need here for really good, and sometimes I call it mundane and practical, information on what you should be doing -- and I'm not talking about Jim Cramer, "Get your money into an IRA and roll it over to this and make investment in these stocks..." -- I'm talking about which online banking is better? How to do it? SHOULD you have a credit card or should you NOT have a credit card? And if you do what do you really look for? What do you need in a credit card? And how do you pick one?
Most college students at this point got their credit card because someone was giving them a T-shirt or a hat at street fair outside their school or on the school grounds. And they sign up for the credit card they've got no idea why except, "I got a cool T-shirt" or "I'm getting a coupon for Pizza for my friends."
LK:Right, and they have no idea the 19% APR kicks in after a few months.
PK: Yes! And the blatant marketing towards the use on the credit card arena is really disastrous and causing problems now and could potentially cause more problems in the future. So, I'm not against credit cards, I think I'm against people not knowing what to do with them and the credit card companies not educating people on how to best manage it.
We did a round table here and we asked a very simple question of college students, "Do you improve your credit rating with a credit card? Or how do you affect your credit rating with credit cards?" and some of the people said, "Oh yeah, it's good to have a credit card. Get and just don't use it." Other people said, "Oh no, you have to get put money on it and pay it off right away." While others said, "No, I thought you were supposed to carry a balance and just make your monthly payment."
LK:(LAUGHS)
PK: There's just total ignorance without even realizing you don't need a credit card at all to improve your credit rating. But that's what people have come to think and they're just going through the motions of and how much debt are people accumulating when their in college and how long will the it take to really pay it off? We asked people how long it take to pay off their student loans they had no idea and said, "I don't know, a few years after school?" But how long is it really going to take? 30 years, 50 years? They really had no understanding whatsoever.
So that's the one that has the most robust financial opportunities and tech revenue generator for us but also it serves a real true purpose. It is filling a gap that is missing in content online in an accessible kind of way. I consider, take Suze Orman mix it with a little Consumer Report and then make it fun and informative for that generation and that's what we're really shooting for with GEQ.
LK:Are there several programs launching in that vertical or one main program?
PK: There's four shows total.
The first one is news and interview and community focused show taking to peers and interviewing news makers and giving vital information. That one's called straight up, "Generation Equity."
The next one is a How-to series called, "Ka-ching! Live Well Spend Less" and that's going be giving real practical tips on how to manage your money. A lot of people have advocated, "You cut your expenses, don't sound any money, never eat out, never do this," but I'm a believer in you just do in moderation and you learn how to balance everything. So this is really going to focus on how to help people understand you can still live well and spend less.
Then there's going to be straight up entertainment scripted comedy called, "Broke in the City" about two recent college graduates who are living in a big city. One is planning to go to Grad school and works whatever odd jobs while he's in school. The other one is getting an entry level position in a big ad agency and it's them living in a city with most of their money going to rent, eating ramen noodles and really giving people a chance to laugh at themselves. Because everyone has bought something they really shouldn't have when they didn't have any money and put it on a credit and said, "Aw crap, now what I going to do?" Everyone has done that so this gives you an opportunity to laugh at that and probably learn through making fun of yourself in a way.
The last one is called "The Economiguide" and it's a practical product review show that will do things like comparing all the different Master Card options you have, comparing the online banking between Chase, Citybank, HSBC, ING, What are the pros and cons of each? To educate you on if you're going to make a decision and something like this is important here's all the information you need to know. "What's so special about a Capital One Visa Card?" They do all those these commercials and make it really cool, Is it really cool? What does it means when fees change on the ATMs? How does that compare across all the different banks?
So you take all four different shows and you're building out the community, you're educating people and you're doing the How-to component which is very popular online. So the first one is very timely, the next one is very evergreen because it's How-to, the product review we're hoping is evergreen as well and the evergreen scripted comedy is pure entertainment, another way of getting people into the space and open to learning and participate in. To me, I see it as a big hole in the marketplace and we've had some initial conversations with brands and agencies and their response has been absolutely overwhelming. We're hoping that we will close something up and start to be able to begin production in January and get that out in January too.
We're bringing in special directors for it, John Threat who's over at Media Threat and has done absolutely amazing film work and really funky online video stuff and Jesse Cowell who did an amazing series called "Drawn by Pain." So we're bringing in people who from a visual standpoint and a content standpoint taking what could be a very dry and hard to just sit there and listen and really apply some real creative techniques in delivering it making it accessible to the audience. On the flip-side we've put together an advisory board of real experts in the informational side to make sure what we're putting out us as accurate as could be. We will have an opinion and not totally be neutral, it is going to be about avoiding debt as much as possible to do the things you want to do. The panel of financial experts will guide the content and the panel of entertainment exports to make it as popular as we possibly can.
LK:Will it all be brand new content vs. established brands?
PK: Right now the plan is that it will all be brand new. But as we do with all our other networks we are always looking for established shows or shows that are already being planned that we can also put through the distribution network as well. I don't know if that will be dome in time for the launch.
LK:Any plans in place to pitch to the shows to other established networks? For example Glam Media with Glampede?
PK: Nothing formal, we have a budding relationship with them but nothing really solid there. We'll see what happens though, we just have a very unique opportunity to work with a very well established fashion photographer by the name Tom Concordia who's very well entrenched in the fashion industry and has been producing absolutely incredible shoots and has the opportunity to film them all and produce this content. So we've been producing the content but haven't been editing it yet and putting it out there but it will have some amazing access. It's not so much about, "On my God, who's the model?" it's more like, "Wow, look at how they actually did that!" It's going to have wonderful product integration opportunities and that's going to be very product oriented.
LK:How about the Agency Partnerships? For Your Imagination will continue to support and enhance the agency-to-brand relationships with traditional, interactive and public relations agencies.
PK: I think what's really important is recognizing the ecosystem that we're in -- that the agencies are the brand stewards -- and we need to think in terms of supporting the strategy that agency has created for their brands. Being a real partner to that strategy versus a renegade to that strategy. I've seen a lot of production companies produce content for other brands and they don't stay true to that brand. I don't think they understand what brand guidelines are and what the positioning strategy of a campaign is and that's something that where we're building off our interactive agency experience and our agency experience.
I was CMO for a big agency for three and half years working with Mastercard, Samsung, Pfizer, Lucent, really big brands and when every point of marketing is fully brand enabled and supports the brand strategy and criteria it's a beautiful thing. It ends up being very powerful so I think we're very mindful that these agencies are really the stewards and the brands and the ones we need to support and if we empower them with powerful tools that support their brand and positioning strategies then we're going to get a great response. We're going to be a team player not somebody who's trying to usurp their relationship with the brand.
We've had a lot of positive reaction to the way we've been working with agencies and we hope to continue to expand upon that. I think that's something that differentiates how our approach is from a lot of the other companies. As well is that we are agency and traditional media production people, we're not coming at this as Hollywood script writers or talent that want to do something exactly their way and find the brand integration obtrusive. When you see our brand integration it's smooth, it's very high quality because we know there's more than putting a bottle of water on somebody's desk and saying, "Hmm, good!", it's a lot more about thinking of brand strategy. The agencies are very comfortable with our approach to things. I think that's a real important piece for what we want to do moving forward.
LK:In terms of the economic state, it seems like FYI is well positioned with this exciting launch of these new networks. What do you think about of the current state of the online advertising marketplace? How long before you see it bouncing back and for the ad dollars start to support this new programing?
PK: I think there's going to be a shifting of ad dollars. Whenever there's a downturn you go a lot towards direct response and away from brand marketing. Different mediums will lose and gain accordingly. I think traditional will take another big hit. So TV, newspapers and magazines and out of home will take additional hits from what they've already been taking so I think they'll drop faster. I think you'll still see online spending going up but the year over year growth rates won't increase as much. There will be a shifting like to more keyword buying and search engines, more email marketing, more direct type of response.
We need to prove that we can take some of those dollars that are fleeing TV and provide an absolutely compelling proposition to anybody who is considering advertising on TV. This is an educational challenge for us. It's educating brand that, instead of spending $400,000 to produce a 30 second intrusive spot and then buying a million dollars worth of media to do a little campaign, spend that $400,000 on 6 months of an original web series that you will underwrite and be integrated into in a quality way that will attract an audience and we'll go out on the line and say, we'll guarantee you that you're going to get 5-10 million views a month on it with that budget. Let's go do it and don't go spending the dollars on media spend it on more keyword buying and a few good promotions to move the product off the shelf.
So we can be a real strong component to their media plans and marketing plans and do it in a ridiculously cost-effective way and still provide them something they're comfortable with, which is TV-like content produced specifically for the web that still allows them to increase their brand reach and frequency but also put a direct response component into it. On TV, the direct response is you do the phone number and hope somebody calls. I'm glad we could do the phone number, click to go over here, click to sign up for that, we have so many more options. We know that if you're already on a web page and see something really cool you're more likely to click on that than you are to go from your TV to your website. So we increase the likelihood of the response. We can give the same brand awareness and that's not even higher recall and higher responses that they use on TV for a fraction of it maybe a 5th of the budget total between the production and the media.
LK: So when are we going to see some of the first programming?
PK: I don't know the official launch date that why we have done a GEQ only release or any shows specific releases. As we start getting closer and know the exact dates then we'll start doing releases.
LK: Final comments?
PK: I believe in a down economy you innovate you get more creative and you get scrappier you focus on ROI and cost-effectiveness and you'll be in a better position once it starts swinging up the other way.
ONLINE VIDEO COMPANY ENHANCES MARKET LEADERSHIP WITH REACH, REVENUE AND SOLUTIONS November 24, 2008 For Your Imagination, a leading digital media studio, developing, marketing and distributing targeted online video networks and web series, today announced notable growth and successes for 2008. In a market still unsure of revenue models, For Your Imagination has demonstrated year-over-year revenue growth of 34% in sponsored and branded entertainment implemented of a leveraged distribution network and delivered strong advertiser video solutions.
For Your Imagination 2008 highlights include:
Expansive Reach: With a total potential reach of 60 million views per month, For Your Imagination has developed a leverage distribution network that can target audience and interests. Some of the most exciting new partnerships for 2009 include Hulu, Joost, DailyMotion, Howcast, Tremor Media and OggiFinoggi.
Powerful Advertising Solutions: For Your Imagination’s authentic and popular hosts deliver endorsements and product placements that drive the highest brand recognition and actions in online video.
Focus on Verticals: In 2008 For Your Imagination bolstered a commitment to deliver high quality comedy, green and parenting audiences and will expand into the lucrative personal finance and style and fashion lifestyle markets in 2009.
Sponsored and Branded Entertainment: High quality original content, led by Axis of Comedy, The Green House, and DadLabs, is complemented by the development and production of popular and effective branded entertainment. The new, targeted networks for early 2009 are GEQ, a personal finance network, and Glampede, fashion and style videos.
Agency Partnerships: For Your Imagination will continue to support and enhance the agency-to-brand relationship through strong alliances with traditional, interactive and public relations agencies.
For more information contact: Kathryn Jones For Your Imagination 866-475-6908 x704 kathryn@foryourimagination.com www.foryourimagination.com
About For Your Imagination: For Your Imagination is a leading online media studio which develops, markets and distributes high-quality original Internet TV and web video series, turning concept into reality for brands and content creators. The studio works with brands and content creators to develop their online video content, offering them the opportunity to reach a targeted advertiser-friendly audience effectively and monetizing quickly.
About Paul Kontonis: Paul is the Chief Executive and a co-founder of For Your Imagination. As an interactive media veteran, Paul has been a new media pioneer and has developed interactive content practices which reach out and engage an audience. Paul was the General Manager of Educational Marketing and Corporate Sales for Kaplan Test Prep and Admissions, the leading test preparation provider. Prior to joining Kaplan, Paul was the Chief Marketing Officer of btldesign, a 25-year-old marketing communications agency, specializing in business-to-business marketing communications for Fortune 100 global brands like MasterCard, Samsung, Pfizer, Major League Baseball and the FIFA World Cup. Paul's interactive experience began as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at SenseNet, a Web application development agency, and as the Director of Business Development for Silver Shock, a boutique interactive agency. He appears in a number of marketing publications, digital media books including the Documentary Filmmakers Handbook, and is a speaker at several industry conferences and seminars annually. View Paul Kontonis' Linkedin profile. Contact: Paul Kontonis For Your Imagination (o) 866-475-6908 x 701 (e) paul@foryourimagination.com www.foryourimagination.com
I've met with people at Turnhere and I plan to do more coverage of them in 2009. Their business model focuses on producing and distributing short-form video for business clients with their wide network of talented producers. The key is to keep the costs down and Turnhere is able to do that by contracting within their filmmaker network in local markets. Clients are charged a package rate and extra for any work out of scope. TurnHere owns the copyright of the completed video and gives the client a license to it.
Bradley Inman, founder and former CEO of TurnHere said. "The demand for quality, authoritative news and business video will only increase, and our industry-leading expertise positions us to capture a large share of this growing market." Needless to say they know a lot about how to produce and market online video and published the following recent tips.
David Rich is senior vice president, sales and marketing for TurnHere, a leading Internet video production and advertising company that provides broadcast-quality online video for both large consumer brands and small businesses.
With the recent explosion and expansion of online video, the biggest question is how to best drive viewer action and monetize this new medium. Online video has a lot of promise. It offers what was once limited to expensive TV advertising: reach and emotional engagement with potential customers. And, it’s relatively cheap and provides immediate, measurable feedback. (more...)
In this article David Rich offers six steps to creating online video that works:
Make it Authentic
Make it Relevant
Make it Engaging
Make it Google-Friendly
Make an Action Path
Make it Shareable
More video marketing tips for small business came from Jared Simon, TurnHere's senior director of site and business development, who spoke at the recent Search Engine Strategies conference in Santa Clara, California on the panel, Using Video in Small Business Marketing, These notes come by way of Grant CrowellcloseAuthor: Grant CrowellName: Grant Crowell Email: grant@reelseo.com Site:http://www.reelseo.com/about/grant/ About: Grant Crowell is a professional consultant and developer in the online marketing space and the Founder of Grantastic Designs, an online marketing solutions firm established in 1996, specializing in search-optimized, user-friendly web design and multimedia content, including video and podcasting solutions for commercial enterprises, video solutions providers, non-profits, and academic and government organizations.See Authors Posts (61) from Reel SEO (Special thanks to ReelSEO’s contributing reporter, Erika Blackwell, for her on-site coverage of this event.)
Tell a story with your video. “What kinds of businesses profit from videos? Anyone with a story to tell. Videos convey a story, passion, and authoritative nature of what you do. The process of shooting that video is not intrusive. They are short, authentic shoots catching the business owner at his most normal time.”
(Again) portability. “Video should be portable for email insertion, You Tube, video search engines, vertical-oriented sites and more. An example - let’s say you’re a flower shop… How-to sites are starving for content. Give them your video showing how to arrange flowers. And don’t just make one video - create a series of videos. And put those videos on unique pages of your site, linking them all together. This will help with your rank, and be sure to use ‘video’ as a keyword itself.”
Work with the local directories and portals. CitySearch, Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), Google Maps/Local, and Yahoo Local all have the ability the embed video into your local listing.
Mark Robertson of Reel SEOcloseAuthor: Mark RobertsonName: Mark Robertson Email: mark@reelseo.com Site:http://www.reelseo.com/about/mark/ About: Mark Robertson is the creator and Publisher of ReelSEO.com. Mark has had extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mark is Director of Search for Freedom Interactive Media and has worked with many newspaper and broadcast stations for optimization online content.See Authors Posts (911) spoke with Founder and chairman of Brad Inman, in this recent video interview:
"Brad talks to us about the genesis of TurnHere, their recent launch of custom voice-over capabilities, the importance of optimization when it comes to the future of online video marketing for SMBs, and what is in store for the future of TurnHere. Finally, Brad provides some solid tips for filmmakers that are either interested in becoming a part of the TurnHere filmmaker network or are looking to become more actively involved:
“Sign up, get in the network, send us your reel… I encourage our filmmakers that are not getting work, or are not getting assignments - dont be afraid to call us and bug us, cause all we need is one good experience with a filmmaker, if they are reliable, trustworthy, good shots, good sound, they deliver on time, they will get more work.”
About TurnHere, Inc TurnHere, Inc. is a leading Internet video production and advertising company that provides broadcast-quality Internet video advertising and Web distribution for companies in a wide range of industries including media, publishing, travel, local and real estate. The company leverages its growing network of more than 7,000 professional filmmakers across more than 70 countries to create affordable Internet videos that deliver emotionally engaging and authentic content to the right audiences. With deep backgrounds in media and video production, TurnHere works with customers on creative treatments and strategy to help produce effective video solutions for driving viewer action. Founded in 2005, the company is privately held with headquarters in Emeryville, California, and offices in New York.
This comes by way of Streamingmedia.com as a two-part featured article by Geoff Daily. It appears in the October/November issue of Streaming Media magazine. Click here for your free subscription. It's an in-depth discussion with with nine content decision makers who offer great advice on what works and what doesn’t in online video content creation.
Daily spoke with Greg Clayman, executive vice president of digital distribution and business development for MTV Networks, Richard Glosser, executive director of emerging media for CondeNet, Jim Louderback, CEO of Revision3, Kip “Kipkay” Kedersha, the highest earner in Metacafe’s Producer Rewards program, Damon Phillips, VP of ESPN360.com, Kevin Nalty, viral video genius and top YouTube producer known as Nalts, John Zehr, vice president of the emerging media group at ESPN, and the great Steve Garfield, one of the first and most well-respected video bloggers.
In Part 1 of this article, we looked at the importance of understanding your audience—both existing and potential—and the different challenges facing major media companies and independent content creators. In Part 2, we’ll look at the importance of video production quality and the pros and cons of long-form and short-form content. We’ll also get some advice from successful content creators about what works and what doesn’t.
Topics discussed include:
The Importance of Quality Content
How Long Should Online Videos Be?
Formulating Success
Bringing It Together
More Streamingmedia.com Featured Articles are here.
2009 is just around the corner and while it was a holiday week it was still a busy news week in online video, advertising and social media. 2008 reviews and 2009 predictions abound on the web and I've listed some of them in this installment of the weekly review.
December 26, 2008
louisgray.com: Quantcast Shows Which Services Rely Most on Their "Addicts" If you're like me, you have a list of sites you visit just about every day, without fail, and some may even be visited multiple times a day. Whether you're a frequent visitor of Google News, CNN.com, Facebook or Twitter, site and service owners know they can count on some consistent traffic from their regular visitors, in addition to natural traffic from external links or search engines. Web traffic measurement company Quantcast tracks much of this data, and has even gone so far as to categorize the most frequent visitors to some sites as "addicts", defined as those who visit a site more than 30 times in a single month - the "hardcore segment of a site's audience". As it turns out, some popular Web services rely on these so-called "addicts" for more than a third of their total traffic, and at major social networks, that number is as high as two-thirds of all visits.
Snackfeed: A Newsfeed For The Web’s Hottest Video Clips Snackfeed, a video recommendation site that tries to aggregate the web’s hottest videos, has made impressive progress since its launch last fall. We were first introduced to the site at the DreamIt Ventures(a startup incubator similar to Y Combinator and TechStars) first funding day, and it held its private launch three weeks later. Since then the site has seen impressive growth, with a reported 150,000 unique visitors in November. Snackfeed is currently in private “b’alpha” but TechCrunch readers can grab one of 1000 invites by visiting this site and entering the code “snacktastic”.
Mediabistro, the New York-based publisher of ten media-related publications including TVNewser and Agency Spy, as well as job boards and training programs, will launch a new publication to cover the digital media business. The publication, called WebNewser, is live but will have its official launch in early January.
Some of the companies best positioned to connect your living room to the Internet are those that already have a box hooked up to your TV -- like the gaming industry. So it's no surprise that Nintendo (NTDOY) is teaming up with Japan's largest ad agency to add video to its Wii videogame consoles.
This makes sense: The Wii is already wildly popular, and its main rivals both offer video -- Microsoft (MSFT) via its own digital distribution platform and Netflix (NFLX) movie streaming, and Sony (SNE) via its own digital distribution platform and Blu-ray movies.
Jake Zim is Chief Operating Officer of Safran Digital Group (SDG), a digital media entertainment company that finances, develops and distributes entertainment programming and technologies for digital platforms.
Everyone has a story they’d like to tell. As COO for digital media entertainment company Safran Digital, one of the best parts of my job is being pitched those stories, in the form of new web show ideas. The first step in getting your project off the ground is a successful pitch, so if you’re an artist looking to tell stories online and you need financing, here are a few suggestions on how to best construct — and deliver — one.
Most retailers, online and offline, appear to be feeling the pain from the rotten economy. But, of course, even in bad times, some businesses manage to do well. Take Raymond Galeotti, the owner and president of Evesaddiction.com, a five-year-old online seller of sterling silver jewelry. Mr. Galeotti said his business, whose annual sales are approximately $10 million, is up about 25 percent this holiday season.The secret to his success: more aggressive online advertising, especially on Google.
“I don’t want to rule [acquisitions] out, but they have been the cause of most of the value destruction in media companies, and that certainly has been the cause for a lot of value destruction at our company.”
We began our Facebook Connect integration with our announcement last week. Tonight, all websites using Disqus now have the option to enable Facebook Connect. — If you've already added your Facebook API Key to Disqus, note that you will also need
Most media companies will do deals with YouTube in 2009, ending what has been a confrontational relationship for many, expects Michael Learmonth, staff reporter at Advertising Age and veteran reporter of digital media having worked for the Industry Standard, Reuters and Variety. Michael recently blogged for the Silicon Alley Insider.
Michael thinks that the ownership of exclusive, unique content is key to monetization, not aggregation or syndication schemes. We agree.
I sat down with Michael at the Mogulus studio in downtown Manhattan where we taped several segments last month. This is good overview of the business. Check it out.
Commentary: Long tail isn't wagging Hulu just yet t wasn't supposed to be this way. When NBC Universal and News Corp. announced in 2007 that they were getting in business together to launch an online home for their TV and movie offerings, it became a laughingstock. Two media companies collaborating successfully? And online no less?
Well, look who's laughing now. Hulu has emerged as an unexpected triumph, home to thousands of top-shelf episodes and movies from more than 100 premium content partners. Although the proud parents of Hulu initially downplayed notions that the venture would be a "YouTube killer," there are already estimates indicating that Hulu is pulling in just as much ad revenue with a fraction of the video tonnage. But in what might be an act of contrition on the part of the blogosphere that so clearly underestimated Hulu, there is now a countervailing hype enveloping the site.
The Associated Press named Hulu its Web site of the year. Mark Cuban declared "Hulu Kicks YouTube's Ass." Influential blog TechCrunch issued a mea culpa. And if that guy Barack Obama hadn't arrived on the scene, surely Hulu CEO Jason Kilar would be Time's Person of the Year, right?
Music Ally | Blog Archive » Ditch the CD by Christmas 2009, Gartner tells music industry Could this Christmas really be the swansong of the CD? Analyst Gartner certainly hopes so, having issued a challenge to the music industry to move to a ‘digital first’ strategy by the end of next year, in order to stop being held back by its reliance on CD revenues. Or, as Gartner’s research VP Mike McGuire puts it:
“By propping up the CD business, rather than fully investing in online distribution alternatives, the major labels and the larger music industry have neither succeeded in stamping out piracy nor done much to recreate the business models of the old ‘record business,’. Music labels should instead emphasize ‘digital first,’ making all new releases and catalog issues via digital services and moving CDs to an on-demand publishing mode.”
Gartner backs up its claim by saying that physical music revenues went from 91% of overall sales in 2005 to 77% in 2007, while pointing out that by 2012, 77% of US households are expected to have broadband internet. The analyst appears to be suggesting that the remaining 23% will either get their CD’s burned on-demand, or will buy their music through Wi-Fi laptops and 3G mobile phones.
Want to quickly download YouTube videos and/or convert YouTube videos in order to watch them on the device of your choice? With Movavi Flash Converter (YouTube downloader and YouTube converter) and this tutorial, you can download YouTube videos and convert them into any video format in just a few clicks.
Things you need: - Computer with stable internet connection - Tool: Movavi Flash Converter
Top honors went to anime site Naruto Wire, which won the popular vote (we all know how important that one is!). Anime has long been one of the most popular video categories on the Internet and is typically one of the top-visited genres in OVGuide.com's database, OVGuide said. OVGuide also selected winners in various categories with input from a range of judges, including yours truly. Here are some of them.
PixelFish Picks Up EyeSpot to Develop Platform For Video Advertising PixelFish, a leading provider of affordable and effective video advertising solutions, has acquired Eyespot Corporation for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition enables PixelFish to accelerate the development of its market leading video advertising platform by augmenting its custom video ad creation and optimization technology with Eyespot’s advanced video publishing, online video production, transcoding and advertising-related applications.
How to Upload HD Videos to Youtube and embed High-definition Youtube Videos A few weeks back, we posted news about the fact that Youtube was testing HD (high-definition) video playback. Shortly after that, Youtube officially launched HD video playback on their site. When it was first launched, videos in HD would play within the new widescreen 16:9 default player on Youtube. Now, when you choose the HD playback, the layout of the page is modified to display a much larger video player that expands the width of the page. The new video size is a huge 855*480 pixels (actual resolution is 1280×720) and the player is 855*505 pixels. Apparently this change was made back on December 5, but some users are just now seeing the update. So, How do you Upload Video in HD to Youtube?
For the highest quality, YouTube now recommends the following setting for your video:
Pocket Video Cameras - Buying Guide The year 2008 saw the emergence of some great pocket video cameras that are no larger than your mobile phone, inexpensive, they shoot good-looking video and are almost as easy to operate as an iPod - no confusing controls, just a single record button. These pocket camcorder attach to the computer via the USB port and record video in a straight-to-web format perfect for YouTube and other video sharing websites. If you looking to buy one this holiday season, you have three pocket video cameras to choose from - Flip Video Camcorder, Creative Vado and Kodak Zi6. US Consumers Prefer Streaming Video Content vs. Downloading - Reports a New Study A new research released by Ipsos MediaCT’s MOTION study found that more than 1 in 6 (57%) of US internet users have streamed online video within the past 30 days versus only 22% that have downloaded a video in the same timeframe. Additionally, YOY, streaming has shown an increase of 50% while downloading has increased less than 20%.
Add Video To Drupal - Open Source Video Module for Drupal - New from Kaltura Kaltura, an open-source video publishing platform, just launched an open source video module for Drupal, a leading open source Content Management Platform used by more than a million sites. This new module, dubbed, “Kaltura’s All in One” enables Drupal site-builders to easily add video and rich-media functionality to their Drupal sites. The module is comes with 10GB of free hosting and streaming that can be later upgraded. It was designed specifically for Drupal and seamlessly integrates with several key Drupal features and modules, including CCK, Views, cron, tags and taxonomy, and user permissions. The module is currently compatible with Drupal 6 (a Drupal 5 compatible version will be available soon).
Even as traditional publishers put the squeeze on digital units, efforts to expand online video are pushing ahead. After initial forays in the last few years, magazine and newspaper sites are upgrading video operations with an eye toward reaping the premium rates that video ads command.
Publishers such as Forbes, Conde Nast, The New York Times and The Street.com relaunched their video platforms this fall with plans for further growth in 2009. Whether those ambitions will be realized is in question as all forms of media and advertising face cutbacks in a deteriorating economy.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Hulu isn't exempt from the laws of gravity, or from the effects of hit TV. Bereft of hit "Saturday Night Live" clips including those of Tina Fey impersonating Gov. Sarah Palin, the NBC Universal-News Corp. venture served fewer unique viewers in November than in October, according to Nielsen VideoCensus. NBC.com takes a hit
Online Video Up, Everything Else Down | Online Video Watch Despite dire warnings, layoffs, and general crappy market conditions, online video is expected to buck the downward trend, according to Mark Walsh over at Mediapost. Richard Glosser from CondeNet said it best: “We certainly expect monetization is going to ramp up as our video footprint grows and it becomes more and more important to us.” Online Viewers Just as Likely to Watch on TV Set, Study Says - TVWeek - News eople who watch movies and television shows online and on alternative devices are just as likely to also watch programming on the television set. That’s the finding from a study conducted this fall by premium cable network Starz and shared with TelevisionWeek.
The online survey of 5,500 individuals 12 and older found that about 18% of that group watched TV shows and movies online, on broadband-connected gaming consoles such as the Xbox, or on cell phones. Of this group, 77% also watch live television on the TV set itself, compared to 75% of the general population who do so.
Web Video Hurdle: Good Recommendations - TVWeek - News Online video sites want to get to know you better. The Sony-owned Webvideo destination Crackle is developing tools to offer personalized video recommendations to site visitors based on their past viewing history. NBC-Fox venture Hulu introduced a similar feature earlier this month.They join video sites like Veoh and TheWB.com that offer varying degrees of viewing suggestions for visitors. Tailored tips have worked well for Amazon and Netflix.
Andrew Baron - Rocketboom and Lisa Nova Join Forces - It is my greatest pleasure to announce that Rocketboom is teaming up with Lisa Nova to produce additional content for the Rocketboom network. In addition to Rocketboom’s rock-solid anchor, Joanne Colan, Rocketboom will expand from five episodes per week, to seven episodes per week with the addition of Lisa Nova hailing from a new west coast Rocketboom news desk.
Lisa Nova will of course continue to post on her Youtube LisaNova Channel http://www.youtube.com/user/LisaNova in parallel with creating and hosting two news days per week of Rocketboom.
Earlier this year at the TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco, Kelsey interviewed Ron Yekutiel, Kaltura Chairman and CEO. We are publishing this interview for the first time today. Here's the take on today's news by Erick Schonfeld at TechCrunch. Kaltura could be big -- keep an eye on this one.
Since September, some major video publishers moved to Flash including MLB.com, MySpace Music, DirecTV and Sunday Night Football/NBC Sports. At the Beet.TV Online Video Roundtable at MSNBC in October, Flash was a topic of conversation. This segment is lead off with a question from TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld on the value of Flash versus Microsoft's Silverlight. Discussing the topic are Fred McIntyre of AOL and Mark Larkin of CBS Interactive.
Rounding out 2008 on OMC, and looking at what’s next for ‘09 ¦ Online Media Cultist It’s been a great year overall here on the OMC. Though there were a few lengthy periods where I was not able to post a lot due to work commitments and other projects, I really feel that I’m hitting the end of the year strong. I’m also thinking a lot about the future of this site. Here are some scattered things that have been on my mind for a while. I’d really appreciate your thoughts on any or all of them.
The Contextual Web - ReadWriteWeb It's the end of 2008 and everyone on the Web is hurting due to the economy. But we know that things will get better, because slow-downs eventually bury the old and give birth to new evolutionary ways of doing things. One of these evolutions started quietly in 2008. We are witnessing the rise of a new kind of web: contextual. You might not have heard or thought about it much yet, but you are already using it today. Search remains the killer app on the web, but context is quickly become a viable contender. Why? Because context is what happens instead of search.
After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.
Real World Video Compression » So Long VHS Ryan Kugler, left, president of Distribution Video Audio in Burbank, and his brother Brad, the CEO, have shipped their last truckload of VHS tapes. “Anything left in warehouse, we’ll just give away or throw away,” Ryan Kugler said.
Long Tail theory contradicted as study reveals 10m digital music tracks unsold - Times Online The internet was supposed to bring vast choice for customers, access to obscure and forgotten products - and a fortune for sellers who focused on niche markets. But a study of digital music sales has posed the first big challenge to this “long tail” theory: more than 10 million of the 13 million tracks available on the internet failed to find a single buyer last year.
Will 2008 be the last big Christmas for CDs? Analysts Gartner think so, saying the music industry must away from its dependence on revenues from CDs and invest in online distribution networks.
"Music labels should instead emphasise 'digital first,' making all new releases and catalogue issues via digital services and moving CDs to an on-demand publishing mode," said Mike McGuire, research vice president at Gartner.
Music Labels In Talks To Create Hulu-For-Music (GOOG) Warner Music Group -- now banned from YouTube following failed licensing negotiations -- isn't the only major record label tired of doing business with Google's video-sharing site. A source familiar with the negotiations tells us that Warner and the three other majors -- Sony BMG, EMI, and Universal Music Group -- all think they could do better creating their own music video Web destinations and are in early talks about forming a joint venture similar in concept to Hulu, the increasingly popular TV-on-the-Web joint venture from News Corp and NBC Unviersal
Roku has released support for streaming HD content. Through the use of advanced compression technology, Roku can deliver instant streaming of HD content over average consumer broadband connections – bringing HD to the mass market at an affordable price of just $99. Netflix is the first content provider to deliver HD content to the Roku player. Additional providers of HD content are expected in the first quarter of 2009. The new software will be automatically delivered to all Roku players free-of-charge over the course of the next few weeks.
As expected, this morning Roku announced that the Roku player is now capable of playing hundreds of HD quality movies from Netflix. While my Roku player got the software update over the weekend, Roku says all players will be updated over the next few weeks. In addition to the new 720p HD support, the new Roku software upgrade also allows for up scaling of SD titles to 720p and enables Roku's switch to the new VC-1 AP streams, which previously used to be VC1-MP. The switch to the new encoding gives similar or better quality for lower bit rates. Roku's HD quality videos are now encoded at 2.7Mbps and 3.8Mbps
My blog, aptly titled Larry Kless's Weblog, turned a year old last month. I started it mainly to join the voices of the streaming media community from my own unique perspective, share ideas, conversations, tips and tricks with an emphasis on streaming media and online video publishing. It's become one of my many channels of communication along with Twitter, Friendfeed and the scores of other social networks.
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