Video Marketing Tips from the 2013 Video Summit [ReelSEO Creator's Tip #105]

The 2013 Video Marketing Summit was held on July 25-26 in San Francisco and is the largest and only annual event devoted to all things video marketing and video commerce. The sold-out event drew over 300 attendees and was co-hosted by ReelSEO and Liveclicker, and was held in tandem with the Liveclicker's Video Commerce Summit. This year's combined summit was Liveclicker's 5th annual and an inaugural event for ReelSEO, and drew a cross section of over 300 retailers, brands, and agencies attending either summit.

Over the last few years, I've interviewed attendees and speakers at the Liveclicker video commerce summit, and this year the tables were turned, when Tim Schmoyer asked me to share a video marketing tip for his weekly ReelSEO Creator's tips. He included me in the following video, with video marketing tips from Suzie Reider (Marketing Director, YouTube), Jim Louderback (CEO, Revision3), Reed Lucas (Director of Channel Management, Channel Factory), Rob Sandie (CEO, vidIQ), Sofia Stefou (Video Strategist, Sofina Media), Jason Cesare (Account Executive, Unruly Media), Jay Nolan (Producer, Ecommerce), and Anthony Bucci (Founder, RevZilla).




See my tip is at 1:15, "Tell a story and capture your audience, whoever they may be--marketers, consumers, your customers." Don't sell the product, tell the story.

For a summary of all of the video marketing tips, see the related ReelSEO article here: Quick Video Tips from Experts at the ReelSEO Video Marketing Summit [Creator's Tip #105]

For a full look at the event, speakers, schedule and video summit links, visit reelsummit.com.

For a preview of last year's conference, watch this video with interviews I conducted at Liveclicker's Fourth Annual Video Commerce Summit.


2013 Video Commerce Summit — Advancing video in e-commerce

See you next year!

Tweet #vsummit

Read Part Two of my Streamingmedia.com article, "No Second Chances, Part 2: Best Practices for Live Events"

Part two of my Streaming Media article, No Second Chances, Part 2: Best Practices for Live Events - Streaming Media Magazine, is now in print and online. The second installment looks at different ways to make the overall webcast experience engaging for your online audience using a variety of different video production techniques interactive tools. Live events have changed dramatically over the last few years with the evolution of enterprise video platforms and the rise of virtual events and live webcasting. Today, companies are now incorporating new and innovative ways to engage their growing online audiences.

Webcasting tools have become easier to use, and, with the development of interactive and social media tools, they’ve evolved from one-way broadcasts into two-way conversations. But just because you have myriad bells and whistles at your disposal doesn’t mean you have to use every one for every event. As I said in Part 1 of my article, “the key is to use the right technology to make it easy to reach the live audience and virtual attendees and provide them a quality and worthwhile experience.”

Here's a brief excerpt from part two:

THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE

We’ve already established that you need the right team with the right tools and the right capabilities at your live event venue. But what are the secret tricks to creating an engaging experience for your audience with streaming video, audio, graphics, and real-time interaction to move them from passive viewers to active participants?

If you only take away only one thing from this article, remember this tip: Don’t let your online audience be an afterthought. You need to cater to their needs by making their experience as engaging as the live audience’s, but in a different way.

Waiting for the big event to begin, in person and online (Photo credit: Harvey Woo)

Look no further than popular culture to see what "American Idol" has done to capture its live audience. The producers were deliberate with their intent, because they knew that the real show was on the screens of millions of TV viewers; it was not for the hundreds of people in the live audience. They didn’t skimp on production value, and, from the start, they introduced an audience response text-to-vote system that gave the audience the power to influence the outcome of the show.

Just think: What if you put that capability into the hands of your online audience? We’d be able to vote off every boring presenter known to mankind!

Corporate communications departments are seeing the shift as well. Donn Kanagaki, senior manager of IT communications at Kaiser Permanente, oversees the employee outreach events for the CIO and senior IT leadership, which incorporate a combination of a live event, webcast, WebEx, and telephone bridge in order to reach more than 6,000 employees across five time zones. About one-third of the IT employees are able to attend the event live via webcast, but the online numbers are growing. Kanagaki says, “We have to recognize that the majority of our employees that participate are watching online, so we need to look at ways to better engage them.”

While Kaiser Permanente CIO Phil Fasano addresses an in-person audience of several hundred, the live webcast reaches thousands of employees who can watch the event online and submit questions directly to the CIO and senior leaders. 

In the words of Marshall McLuhan, “The medium is the message,” and the message can be delivered more effectively using the latest interactive technologies. You may have to use a hybrid approach with a combination of tools based on the capabilities of your webcast or webconferencing platform. Beyond content design, it really does come down to pushing the limits of any platform and streaming technology to achieve the best two-way experience for your attendees and yourself.

TELL A STORY

The plain and simple fact is that no technology, however great it is, can make a boring presenter better. You have to design your presentation to the right audience using the best set of tools and production value to carry your message. But beyond any technology, presenters need to connect with their audience.

All the great presenters, from Steve Jobs to Gary Vaynerchuk to Isabel Allende, use storytelling to convey their messages. People respond to personal stories because they convey emotion and a universal message.

According to Tim Schmoyer, producer of The Reel Web for Reelseo.com and one of the most diversely skilled and knowledgeable people in the online video space, storytelling is important and the best way to get your message across. “Stories are something that everyone enjoys and appreciates, and there’s an emotional connection to stories,” says Schmoyer. “What we really believe in is that stories are much more compelling, especially if you can tell a story that answers the ‘why?’ question.”


Continue reading the full article at: No Second Chances, Part 2: Best Practices for Live Events - Streaming Media Magazine


My thanks again, to the many people who I have worked with over the years to help me learn what works best for live events, and what doesn't work so well. Also, my thanks to the many clients I have worked with who have trusted me to produce their live events. I also want to thank the following people for contributing to this article, including: Nick Balletta, CEO of TalkPoint, Donn Kanagaki, senior manager of IT communications at Kaiser Permanente, Tim Schmoyer, producer of the Reel Web for ReelSEO.com, Casey Wilms, product manager at Zencoder, Mike Folgner, CEO and co-founder of SnappyTV, Harvey Louie, technical director, producer, and consultant of the webcasting company Event Compression Group, my good friend and creative partner Harvey Woo, owner and creative director of Professional Sound Productions, my production manager and traffic controller  Steve Dung, owner of Visions Plus video production services and my IT partner and colleague James Adams, Manager of Virtual Event Delivery at Kaiser Permanente.

My thank you's could go on and on, so I'll cut it short, and finally extend my thanks to my trusted crew and "A" team for your professionalism and support, you know who are... (Sammy, Dwight, Dominic "Baby Dom", Marcia, Brad, Tom, Alfonso, Jason "JJ", Rachel "Ray Ray", Harold "Dirty B", Luke, Ricker, Lorin, Paul and Weyman "The Pro Sound backbone", and the Young Guns, Sam, Matt, Brandon and Josh, and again, Harvey.)

This article appears in the August/September 2013 issue of Streaming Media magazine as:  No Second Chances, Part 2: Best Practices for Live Events.

Businesses are increasingly depending on live event streaming. For expert tips on how to pull them off like a pro, read the second part of our series.
by Larry Kless

OTTCONversations: Andrew Kippen, Boxee - Reinventing Broadcast Television

I caught up with Andrew Kippen, VP of Marketing at Boxee, earlier this year at OTTCON 2012 to talk about the future of television and how Boxee is reinventing broadcast TV. In January 2012, Boxee Inc. released Boxee Live TV, a new product that added live TV content from the big networks: NBC, ABC, Fox, CBS to the Boxee experience. According to Kippen, this $50 add-on solution to the Boxee Box combined the best of everything available Over-the-Top and live broadcast TV. However, since my conversation with Kippen, Boxee discontinued the original Boxee Box it released in November 2010, to make way for a new streamlined $99 Boxee TV box, which was met with strong criticism from both Boxee users and technology blogs like Streamingmedia.com and Popular Science.



The new Boxee TV includes an an antenna to pick up live HD channels and added a subscription-based cloud DVR with "no limits" and built-in Internet apps like Netflix, VUDU, YouTube, Vimeo and Pandora. Boxee also struck a deal with Walmart to sell the new Boxee TV device direct to consumers in time for the holidays. Kippen says that Boxee's major consumer markets are the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands and is available in 35 countries, giving it a much broader footprint than other companies in the space.

In his recent article, Tim Siglin points out, that two main features of the new Boxee TV aren't even available in all markets.

"For the company to avoid disappointing customers again, it would make sense to have the most important features -- the USP, or unique selling proposition -- ready to go at product launch. Yet, the two primary features still aren't available, almost a month after launch: live television pause and cloud- or network-based DVR (nDVR). Those two features, which the company touts as part and parcel of the "Boxee Rebellion" on its packaging, are not ready for widespread use. In fact, the nDVR functionality that Boxee calls unlimited DVR is only available in beta in eight cities in the United States: Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C." 

Siglin added that there's also a mismatch in the Boxee-Walmart retail strategy, because Walmart has a limited presence in many of those urban markets and faces a big hurdle to sell to sell the Boxee TV to its rural markets, where the unlimited DVR service is not yet available.

Although, the Boxee TV blog states that:

"As we begin service in these markets we assume there’s going to a few growing pains so we’re marking the service as BETA, but most users should have full functionality (and it will be FREE during this period)." 

While Boxee continues to innovate its product and strike deals with content providers, many of its early adopters have expressed their frustration at being abandoned. The company started with an agnostic business model and a free software-based OTT social media center and devoted user community, but has phased out the software platform, and locked out popular features and development as the Boxee platform matured over the last few years.

Boxee CEO Avner Ronen wrote on the Boxee blog:

"Our small team has poured our hearts and souls into the Boxee Box and it has been great to meet users from all over the globe. Some loved it, some wanted more features, others complained, but everyone was passionate.  We hope you have enjoyed it and will continue to use it in your living rooms, dens, bedrooms or wherever else you set it up."

Kippen says that Boxee's focus has been to extend the feature set, streamline what they do to make it simpler and easier to use, and bring in as much content as they can. He says that the company has always seen Boxee as an ecosystem play.

"We want to be the experience that you have on your TV, on your mobile device, your tablet," Kippen says. "We could be on a set-top box, Blu-Ray player or game console. We really see Boxee as a great way to access all that content that's coming from the Internet, and now from your antenna or cable system. We do a great job of bringing that all into one place. So I think for us, we would really like to see Boxee in a lot of those different devices, and also powering more innovative experiences between different screens." 

According to Kippen, it all comes back to storytelling, which has grown beyond the traditional linear narrative into a transmedia experience.

"How do we take storytelling to the next level to where it's more than just a TV show, more than just a website or an iPad app," asks Kippen. "How do we create a story arc that goes across all these different platforms?"

Kippen is confident that Boxee can be a great way to experiment and build those experiences out.


About Boxee
Boxee Inc. is helping people fall in love with TV all over again. We believe TV should be personal and delivered on your schedule. That’s why we created the world’s first cloud DVR that allows you to record an unlimited amount of TV programs to the Internet, and then watch on your TV, computer, iPad…pretty much anywhere. Boxee also lets you watch shows from broadcast TV channels and shows & movies from online services like Netflix, VUDU and YouTube. Boxee is made with love in NYC.

OTTCONversations: Roku CEO and founder, Anthony Wood

The future of television, as Roku Founder and CEO Anthony Wood sees it, is not as futuristic as you'd think, where we'll be able to watch every movie ever made, in any language, day or night. Wood says the future is getting close. I caught up with Wood earlier this year at the Over-the-Top Conference, OTTCON 2012, where he delivered a keynote, "Future of TV: Why OTT is a Game Changer." Well regarded as a pioneer and innovator in the TV and digital media industry, Wood has had an influential hand in shaping the future of television, as inventor of the digital video recorder (DVR) and the popular Roku streaming player. He discussed the different themes in what's going to happen to OTT over the next few years, and noted the skepticism around the OTT industry when the OTTCON started 3 years ago.



Distribution Models are Changing

Wood says the industry is maturing and distribution models are changing. Once a upon a time there were 3 networks, but OTT has changed all that.

"Over the top is really about distribution. It used to be television was distributed over networks, ABC, CBS, NBC, and then there was cable and VCRs, and satellite, now television is moving to the next phase, which is distribution over the Internet," says Wood. "And it's creating a lot of opportunities and risks for some of the incumbents, and a lot of opportunities to create new brands, like Netflix and Roku."

He uses a 1999 commercial by Qwest Communications, Qwest - Every Movie, to illustrate his point.

Description: "A tired man goes into a cheap motel in the middle of nowhere and asks about amenities. When he asks about entertainment, the girl responds "all rooms have every movie ever made in any language anytime, day or night." This Qwest ad aired in 1999 and 2000 and was before website such as YouTube or cable services such as OnDemand were available. It was shot at Roy's Motel and Cafe, a historic Route 66 landmark in Amboy, California, in 1999."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ9qcp6Lcno

As Content Increases, Usage Grows

Roku has sold more than 3 million boxes to date. Wood says sales of Roku boxes tripled in the last year as the demand for Netflix increased, and as traditional models of distribution like Blockbuster died and quickly faded away. He expects his company to sell 19 million Roku devices over the next 3 to 4 years. Wood also predicted the end of Blu-Ray in 4 years at the recent "TV of Tomorrow Show" in San Francisco last month, as the industry and consumer trend is shifting to streaming devices and smart TVs.

"But like all television, the most important thing is the content, the television show. If there's not a lot of great TV, people won't watch it."

Content is available on Roku through it's channel store. Netflix was the first channel available on Roku, and now the list has grown to over 500 channels with new ones going live every day.

"As we've added more content, the usage on our platform has grown as well. So, what used to be about 6 hours a week on average people used Roku has been growing consistently to 12 hours a week, and that's going to keep growing until we get to 35 hours a week, which is the average amount of TV people watch in the United States."

Wood described the emerging content packages available to consumers through OTT platforms. One category of content, OTT Bundles, are available from new brands like Netflix, Amazon and Hulu, who have taken existing and back cataloged content and bundling it into new low cost packages over the Internet. There also new companies he calls, New Brands, like Glenn Beck TV, YouTube and Revision3, that are creating content just for OTT distribution where they don't have to go through a cable company. (Note: Revision3 was recently acquired by Discovery Communications and may create an even newer category of content bundles across all screens.) 

There's a third group of content that's just starting to come onto devices like Roku, and that's the incumbents like ESPN, Disney and HBO. As an example, the entire HBO catalog is available on Roku through authentication, or through a "TV Everywhere" subscription. Disney has recently signed a 10-year agreement with Comcast to bring ESPN to all it's platforms, but, when can we get ESPN without all the extras for $9.99/month? Wood, says, "Probably, never." Companies will try packages, prices will come down, but, everything is based on bundling, and will not be changing anytime soon.

OTT Platforms are Shifting

So, how are most people getting their OTT content?

Wood says that game consoles and PCs lead in streaming hours and that content owners attempt to be platform-agnostic to reach consumers. That's because there are so may game console out there. But the future trend is that game consoles will decline, and inexpensive Smart TVs and streaming players will be on the rise. As more and more of the general population gets into streaming, they're looking for simpler devices.

Wood notes that we'll continue to see rapid consolidation within the space as it continues to get more complicated to maintain all the R&D that goes into the streaming platform software. Everything under the hood is always in development, and will cause a shake out in the platforms. He predicts that there will be only a handful of players within 3 to 4 years.

Who Will be the First Virtual MSO?

Will it be Xfinity? Verizon FIOS? Direct TV? Intel? Wood says that there is some hesitancy in the industry to be the first, but we'll probably see one emerge later this year.

"I think another big question people have is, when will I be able to get that package of content and not have a subscription to my local cable service? Something the industry calls, Virtual MSO, and that's a good question" says Wood. "No one has said they're launching that kind of service, but  my guess is, I think maybe sometime this year that could happen."

The Virtual MSO (Multiple System Operator) model, or online cable company, and is based on the bundling of TV channels and delivering them to consumer over the Internet without any geographic restrictions that confine traditional cable operators. While there's been some skepticism in the media about the emergence of a Virtual MSO, Boxee CEO Avner Ronen, shared Wood's his prediction that a Virtual MSO shall rise later this year.

The Future of Television is a Squiggly Mess

In the final slide of his keynote presentation, Wood uses a simple graphic to describe the present, future and end state of television, which he defines the current state as a squiggled mess. He says the future of television is coming faster than you think.






Wood pointed out that a lot of industries have been revolutionized by the Internet, for example, music, books and e-Commerce. But video took a little bit longer because bandwidth requirements are higher.

"But now we're at that point where video distribution over the Internet is a real possibility, and it's happening mainstream," says Wood. "So, now we're in this squiggly mess part where there's a lot of stuff happening, a lot of different things being tested, but over the next 4 years there's going to be some big milestones. I think Netflix will pass 50 million customers. We'll see fairly soon, the launch of the first virtual MSO, over-the-top cable package. Most TVs will start getting their content delivered over streaming over the Internet instead of a cable or satellite box. All these things are going to happen over the next 4 years and what comes out of this is the new world, where all TV is delivered over the Internet and every TV show ever made is available on demand, and customers have an incredible amount of choice and options with their TV viewing."

Why OTT is a Game Changer

Wood says that most of the industry incumbents are embracing the change and seeing more value in getting their content on more devices and more places inside and outside the home. They've seen what's happened in other industries and they don't that to happen to them.

"The industry as a whole is very engaged and I really don't see any major obstacles. I think this is happening now."

Wood says, “Roku is about being an open platform," and that future development of will be focused on further enhancing the user interface and creating upgradable devices like the new Roku streaming stick unveiled earlier year, which is a small USB flash drive-sized Roku streaming player that simply plugs into a TV equipped with a Mobile High-Definition Link-enabled HDMI port to transform it into a Smart TV. The company has not been caught in the latest Internet IPO craze and continues to expand into new markets, launching earlier this year in the U.K. and Ireland and in Canada and signing a deal with DISH Network to bring more than 50 international programming channels to the platform. The 150-employee company did about $100 million in sales last year, up from $46 million in 2011. But it has yet to turn a profit, due to huge investments in product development and marketing. But Wood says the company will probably be profitable in 2013.

About Anthony Wood

A pioneer and innovator in TV and digital media, Anthony Wood is the Founder and CEO of Roku, a name that means “six” in Japanese to represent his sixth company. In the early days of Roku, Anthony also served as the vice president of Internet TV at Netflix, where he developed what is known today as the Roku streaming player, originally designed as the original video player for Netflix.  Prior to Roku, Anthony invented the digital video recorder (DVR) and founded ReplayTV, where he served as President and CEO before the company's acquisition and subsequent sale to DirecTV. Before ReplayTV, Anthony was Founder and CEO of iband, Inc., an Internet software company sold to Macromedia in 1996. The code base developed by Anthony at iBand became a central part of the original core code of Macromedia now known as Adobe Dreamweaver. After selling iBand, Anthony became the vice president of Internet Authoring at Macromedia. Earlier in his career, Anthony was Founder and CEO of SunRize Industries, a supplier of hardware and software tools for non-linear audio recording and editing. Anthony holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University.

About  Roku  Inc.  

Roku is a leading streaming  platform. Delivering entertainment to millions of customers in the U.S. and in a growing number of countries around the world, Roku streaming players are affordable, are  easy to use, and feature  the  best selection of streaming entertainment. Channels on Roku vary by region and include Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle,  Hulu  Plus,  HBO  GO,  MLB.TV, Pandora,  Facebook, Disney, Angry Birds and many more. Based in Saratoga, Calif., Roku was  founded by Anthony  Wood,  inventor of  the DVR. For more information, visit www.roku.com and follow Roku Player on Twitter and Facebook

Related:

• Anthony Wood: How Roku Prospers In An Apple-Google TV Invasion - Forbes
• How Roku is kicking the cable industry’s butt & where it’s going next [exclusive] | VentureBeat
• Roku is in a sweet spot in shifting TV land - Therese Poletti's Tech Tales - MarketWatch
• Roku pins TV's future on Internet streaming - SFGate
• Roku CEO: Blu-ray will be finished in 4 years — Online Video News
• Six Questions: Roku Founder/CEO Anthony Wood | Home Media Magazine
• How Roku Wants To Beat Apple By Treating Your TV Like A Smartphone - Business Insider
• Roku Explains the Growing Threat to Cable and Satellite - Streaming Media Magazine
• Light Reading Cable - IP & Convergence - A Virtual MSO Shall Rise, Boxee CEO Says - Telecom News Analysis

Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise

Last month I had the pleasure of participating on a panel session: Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise, at Streaming Media West. The panel was comprised of several enterprise video industry veterans from Wells Fargo, Cadence, Oracle, Lockhead Martin and myself, from Kaiser Permanente. While I'd usually say that I'm pleased to share the video from the session, I have to say that I may enter it in The Sucky Video Awards. I say this because from my personal experience, the videographer forgot one of the cardinal rules in video – have good lighting. In this video, it looks like only one light was used to cover the four presenters and moderator and you can barely see me in the dark corner of the stage. I would have used at least two lights in this situation, and also move the podium to one side so that all the presenters were in a row and well lit. Beyond that – I present this video not only for the great content each presenter shared, which is very valuable webcasting tips and tricks from the enterprise, but also as an all important tip – invest in good lighting or your video will suck.



Streaming Media West 2011, Session C201: Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise

This session focuses on best practices from enterprise corporations which have adopted and implemented live video across their organization. See firsthand how these companies are using video for internal and external communications and learn how you can better leverage assets already available inside your company. Hear firsthand from those who have been successful with their deployments and learn what advice they have for others deploying live video in the enterprise today.

Moderator: Patty Perkins, Team Leader, Wells Fargo Creative Services Technology, Wells Fargo
Speaker: Michael Chop, Senior IT Architect, Cadence
Speaker: Tony Sehgal, Sr. Manager, Digital Media Operations and Infrastructure, Oracle
Speaker: Eric Hards, Manager, Web, Media Graphics and Streaming, Lockheed Martin
Speaker: Larry Kless, Production Manager, Videoconferencing and Virtual Events, Kaiser Permanente

We started our discussion talking about the partnerships that we've developed within our organizations and how we use all the assets available us to make webcasting work.

Eric Hands shared how at Lockhead Martin, they just completed a architecture design working with each of our individual business units. Each unit currently has its own streaming system. Some from one vendor some from another. It has always been his goal to provide a unified architecture and they are getting close with these new accepted requirements. But it has a long way to go.

Mike Chop's elevator pitch is "To have a strategy around any audio/video that touches our
network". At Cadence, they are pretty strong on the webcasting, telepresence, unified communications, Microsoft Lync and trying to add mobile to the mix. They started building a pretty strong creative production group. Here is a link to their latest podcast. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GOPPf_9Vr8

Tony Sehgal discussed how at Oracle, they deliver live streams to both external and internal audiences using two different networks and media platforms. His responsibilities focus on live events, but he works with their broader team on hosting on demand media for Oracle's external audience. They do all their streaming in Flash, both internally and externally, and were one of the first organizations to stream with Flash multicast over their LAN. He's able to get metrics data for live events from Akamai and from MediaPlatform's Webcaster product. They also have a metrics team that implements SiteCatalyst to capture the official metrics data for our team. The SiteCatalyst plugin has been implemented on all of our live event platforms.

My work at Kaiser Permanente is focused on virtual events delivery, through videoconferencing, WebEx and webcasts and the full content life cycle. I partner closely with a colleague in our IT organization who heads up our WebEx rollout and over the last few years we've developed a Virtual Events Delivery Team. Prior to WebEx, we used our videoconferencing network as our internal broadcast network but since we've standardized on WebEx as our web conferencing platform we've been able to get to people's desktops, where they've been asking us to reach them for years. We work with internal business units on enterprise all hands meetings, town halls, educational sessions and since we're a health care organization we've even done live broadcasts from the OR (operating room). We currently don't have an internal video streaming we outsource large webcast events. On demand video is mainly delivered from web servers a progressive downloads and or from internal social media platform that is powered by Jive Software.

An interesting topic we discussed was a question Mike Chop asked about: What are “good metrics” for “stickiness”, his term for improving attention span. At Kaiser Permanente, we use Webex as one of our enterprise webcast platform, and a great tool within Webex, is the attentiveness meter that can tell if people are multi-tasking or paying attention. We've found that we can achieve 75% attentiveness with live video and real-time chat which helps keep the virtual attendees highly engaged. On demand video is not at all as engaging as live video, and having a community manager to respond to chat questions and add color helps keep people tuned in.

See my last post for more webcasting tips and tricks: Larry Kless' Weblog: I'm going to Streaming Media West to discuss Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise

blinkx Powers Video Search and Discovery with Targeted Ads, Acquisitions and New Video Channels

Earlier this year at OTTcon, I caught up with Suranga Chandratillake, CEO and Founder of blinkx, which describes as "the world's largest and most advanced video search engine." Chandratillake founded blinkx in 2004 and has helped pioneer video search on the Internet. Unlike other search engines that focus on text web, titles and metadata, blinkx uses a unique combination of patented conceptual search, speech recognition and visual analysis to find and qualify online video. The company has an index of over 35 million hours of searchable video and more than 720 media partnerships, including national broadcasters, commercial media giants, and private video libraries.



Chandratillake says blinkx has positioned itself as a premier destination for online video.

"When you come to blinkx.com, and search for any topic you're interested in right now, we can find videos for you that match that topic, that are highly relevant to that topic of interest and we bring those back to you. So you can click on them and watch them, and that's our core business. But we also power video search behind the scenes for other people too." 

In particular, if you go to Ask.com, blinkx powers the video search experience for that site, which in turn helps power blinkx's ad business with its tens of millions of unique views each month that it sells advertising against.

"One of the really nice things about the advertising is that we use our search technology to try and target the ads. So if you're watching a video about a particular topic, you will likely see ads that are highly relevant to that video."

From a user perspective, Chandratillake says, that's great because you're not getting irrelevant ads that waste your time.

"It's also great from an advertiser's perspective because it means you're being able to engage people or consumers who may actually care about your product."

In April of 2011, blinkx acquired online video media company Burst Media for $30 million in stock and cash in a move to integrate its premium video content with Burst’s 150 million monthly uniques 35 billion page views (according to comScore Media Metrix, September 2011). Just last week, Burst Media introduced 12 new Internet video channels premium video from a host of blinkx's direct play partners, including Reuters, Howcast, CelebTV, GeoBeats and TVGuide, offering TV-style programming on a wide range of subjects, from food to fashion, celebrity gossip to gardening, health to How To.

blinkx also also made two strategic partnership announcements last week, that it is powering video for Aurasma, and it is partnering with Orb Networks to bring its vast video catalog to Orb BR and Orb TV Users. Aurasma is the world's first visual browser for smartphones and tablets that recognizes physical objects and delivers related online content - videos, animations, audio or web pages - in real time.

Orb TV is a hockey puck-sized OTT device that plugs into any TV, enables consumers to stream online video, photos and music to a TV. In addition to blinkx content, Orb TV provides consumers with easy access to services such as Netflix, Amazon Video on Demand, Hulu and Comedy Central. Orb BR is a software solution that leverages the power of PS3s and connected Blu-ray players to bring users the same content as Orb TV - without any additional hardware purchase. With the announcement, Orb BR brings blinkx content to the millions of PS3s and connected Blu-ray players in the market.

Chandratillake noted that the the online video and OTT space has come of age after so many years of video on the Internet. What's different, he says, is the momentum at which the idea is gaining. The reason for that is because the reality of that connected television universe is just getting ever close. More and more of us are watching Internet video on our television sets or contemplating the purchase of a set-top box or game system to watch OTT video.

"From a blinkx perspective, we look at the TV as the screen or one of the screens of the future. Today, the vast majority of our business, and most our audience is accessing our system through a computer screen. But in the future, I don't know if it's either two years or five years, I think a lot of people will actually access it straight through a television screen. So we've got be there and offer a very relevant service, but it's very important that we make the right partnerships to make sure our services are available though all these different devices."

Just as OTT video is gaining speed, so is social video, with video discovery and recommendation becoming more relevant than video search, which almost seems antiquated in comparison.

"Search and discovery are two sides of the coin," Chandratillake noted. "So on the one hands they never see each other , or on the other hand they're on the same coin. It's one of these classic cases where things can be so closely inter-related, yet so far apart. But its all down to the nature of what the user or consumer is doing at a given point in time."

Search is more of a lean-in experience, where you're doing investigative work finding specific information in a search engine like Google, Yahoo or Bing. You tend to add, subtract and play around with words to find the right combination to get the best search results. That, of course, is also the case with online video search.

But there are many other cases on television when actually it's about relaxation. It's about leaning back. It's about turning the box on and leaning back on the sofa and having entertainment come to you. Whether that piece of video is recommended to you by a friend or from personalized recommendations like blinkx's system.

"That's where discovery comes in," says Chandratillake,  "discovery is about knowing enough about you, and knowing enough about the content to figure out what you want to watch right now."

About blinkx

blinkx plc (lse aim:BLNX) is the world's largest and most advanced video search engine. Today, blinkx has indexed more than 35 million hours of audio, video, viral and TV content, and made it fully searchable and available on demand. blinkx's founders set out to solve a significant challenge - the growing amount of TV and user-generated content on the Web means keyword-based search technologies only scratch the surface. blinkx's patented search technologies listen to--and even see--video on the Web, helping users enjoy a breadth and accuracy of search results not available elsewhere. In addition, blinkx powers the video search for many of the world's most frequented sites. blinkx is based in San Francisco and London. More information is available at www.blinkx.com.

I'm going to Streaming Media West to discuss Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise

I'll be taking a short break from my intense work schedule next week to speak at Streaming Media West, on a panel session, Webcasting Tips and Tricks From the Enterprise. According to the conference program, "this session focuses on best practices from enterprise corporations which have adopted and implemented live video across their organization. See firsthand how these companies are using video for internal and external communications and learn how you can better leverage assets already available inside your company. Hear firsthand from those who have been successful with their deployments and learn what advice they have for others deploying live video in the enterprise today."

Streaming Media West returns to Los Angeles and the conference organizers promise it to be even best show yet. Last year more than 2,500 content owners, viral video creators, online marketers, enterprise corporations, broadcast professionals, ad agencies, educators, and others all come to Streaming Media West to see and hear more than 100 speakers and 30 sessions focused on latest online video technology and the business models that are coming of age. In conjunction with the show is the first ever HTML5 Video Summit, which is an expanded two-day summit with how-to sessions, demos, case studies, round table discussions and more.

Here's a short promotional video about the conference which kicks off this Monday with pre-conference workshops and the show is November 8-9, 2011.




My session is scheduled on Wednesday, November 9, 2011 at 10:30 am and confirmed participants include:

Moderator: Patty Perkins, Team Leader, Wells Fargo Creative Services Technology, Wells Fargo
Speaker: Michael Chop, Senior IT Architect, Cadence
Speaker: Tony Sehgal, Sr. Manager, Digital Media Operations and Infrastructure, Oracle
Speaker: Eric Hards, Manager, Web, Media Graphics and Streaming, Lockheed Martin
Speaker: Larry Kless, Production Manager, Videoconferencing and Virtual Events, Kaiser Permanente

I'll be wearing my day job hat as a webcast producer like I did when I first spoke at Streaming Media West five years ago on a panel session on, Distribution & Delivery of Digital Media. The following year I also spoke on another panel session, Best Practices For Webcasting Production which I blogged about here.

Here are some "best practices" that I shared in that post, that address the technical and logistical challenges for webcasting, and how you put the right team and the right technology in place.

If you are producing a webcast, consider the following:

• Know your role. You may be producer, director and technical director and even camera all rolled up into one. Or you may have the luxury of hiring a full crew.
• Get clients on board with deadlines, financial commitments and better understanding of web cast requirements.
• Audio is the number one killer. It’s an ongoing issue when using wireless microphones, telephone call ins, multi-point conferencing and live PA (Public Address) system.
• Working with a team you know and trust and who knows your business is best. Relationships are vital to your process. Delegation and deference to expertise key to getting the job done. You need to rely on your team to do their job and sometimes take over your chores too when you get called away to manage client issues and handle last minute changes.
• Redundant personnel and technology is a must and equipment failure should be expected. Back up to you back ups really saves the day in a pinch.
• Make every room a broadcast studio.
• Site surveys at least a good 8 weeks ahead to inspect data and A/V ports, power requirements for lighting, ceiling height for rigging, windows and doors for light and noise, bring a digital camera, measuring tape and a continuity tester as part of your arsenal.
• Complete all pre-web cast equipment and connectivity testing well in advance and conduct it on-site for higher reliability.
• Prepare a production summary that includes every last bit of detail that covers the entire production. Give everyone on the crew a copy for reference and lead a production meeting before the works so that all teams are synched up.
• Be prepared for last minute changes and if there’s time just roll with them – update your script, rehearse if possible, but say “No, we’re out of time” when you have to. Really, there’s nothing worse than a major on-air blunder. But as they, “It’s live television.”

Also, be sure to have back up equipment and crew in case of technical or physical problems, and don't forget to test your webcast on location. I'll share more tips following my session next week.


For more information, go to: www.streamingmedia.com/Conferences/West2011/

Resources:
Larry Kless' Weblog: Best Practices For Webcasting Production
Larry Kless' Weblog: Streamingmedia.com: How to Execute a Successful Webcast
Larry Kless' Weblog: Streamingmedia.com Featured Article: Lessons Learned from Live Events

Video is the Swiss Army Knife Of Internet Marketing - Mark Robertson, ReelSEO.com

According to ReelSEO.com's Mark Robertson, online video is the swiss army knife of online marketing, and social video can help eCommerce retailers move from conversions to conversations with their customers. I sat down with Mark following his keynote, "Welcome to the ‘REEL’ Web: Why Video Marketing has Evolved Beyond SEO" at Liveclicker’s 2011 Video Commerce Summit in San Francisco last month, to get a high level overview of how social media has changed search, the state of V-Commerce and what tactics and tools eCommerce marketers can harness to move beyond product videos.


Retailers Have Embraced Product Video

Mark says that SEO has evolved over the last 10 years, and now social media engagement enhances SEO rankings, a lot. Universal video search is becoming less effective for e-commerce transactional queries.

"I feel that eCommerce providers, for the most part, have done a fairly good job with online video, and they've embraced product video, specifically. So product videos on their landing pages, which makes sense. It's cost effective, highly measurable and they are there to sell products. But I believe as well, that online video is the swiss army knife of Internet marketing. It really can be used all over the customer life cycle. So, whether it's customer service, whether it's marketing, even recruitment, people are using video."

He included a few statistics in his presentation to illustrate his point:
• 73% of US retailers feature video on product pages in Q4 2010.  ⇑ vs. 55% 2009.
• # retailers > 1,000 videos on their websites ⇑10% from Q4 2010 to Q1 2011.
• ⇑ 37% YOY growth in video views for LiveClicker retail sites live with video >1 year.

Source: eMarketer's "Video for Ecommerce" report | Sunday Sky’s “State of Video in Ecommerce Q1 2011” | MediaPost, Justin Foster 7/2011

Mark emphasized that while product videos are great, they don't lend themselves well to social sharing or universal video search. So while they're incredibly important, he says that marketers’ must embrace social video throughout the customer life cycle and produce video that lends itself to social. He cited a number of strategies and video types that can be applied to the video marketing purchase funnel, and a key ingredient to every application is to make all videos sharable.

Strategies	Video Types
Video Advertising, Video SEO, Live Video Events, Social Video, Video Distribution	Video Commercials, Branded Video, Instructional (How-to) Videos, UGC Videos, Lifestyle Content
Video SEO, Social Video, Video Chat	Company profiles, Product Demos, Video Case Studies, Video Testimonials, Video Comparisons,
Website Video, Video Chat	Product Videos
Website Video	Training Videos, User Generated Videos, Video FAQs, Corporate Image/Culture, Customer Support, Thank you/rewards videos
Video Sharing/Social Video/UGC  MAKE ALL VIDEOS SHAREABLE	Product Video Reviews/Testimonials

Examples of Retailers Going Beyond the Product Video

He presented a few examples of companies that were doing some innovative work that goes beyond the product video. 

Think Thin

ThinkThin, a health and wellness bar retailer, is providing comment value with its lifestyle web series that features the company’s CEO and Founder, Lizanne Falsetto, called Lizanne Naturally. It's highly produced branded entertainment in the form of a weekly web cooking show that is simultaneous released across all channels (YouTube, Facebook, Twitter), with outreach partnerships on relevant YouTube channels and niche target sites like diet.com.  It's a good example of an eCommerce company investing in online video outside of the product page.

"In challenging socio-economic times, people are searching for authenticity, even in the brands they buy. Consumers want to be given something more than forced advertising. They want community and trust. Producing original branded video content is one way to provide value back to the community and grow brand awareness and loyalty at the same time." - Stacy Bellew, ThinkProducts, Inc.

How does it tie back into sales?
• Carefully - Viewers want value, not a sales pitch
• Indirectly – Brand awareness, Loyalty = soft ROI
• Calls to action
  - “Download the recipe” – takes viewers to product website.
  - ASK: for email information, Facebook likes, etc...
  - Incentive: 20% coupon

Zappos.com

Zappos is embracing video like it's going out of style. The eCommerce retail giant sells over 300,000 different products, and began producing product videos in 2009 and soon found that the company could sell anywhere from 6-30% more merchandise when accompanied by videos. In its first year, Zappos exceeded its goal producing over 50,000 videos and is looking to double that in 2011. Zappos also has a YouTube it uses to expose its brand to the public and interact with the community. The channel offers fun behind the scenes looks at Zappos and has a number of blooper reels in its YouTube page. Zappos is a great example of a eCommerce retailer getting it right with video and has developed a broad and comprehensive video retail strategy. 

Zappos Video Strategy
• Product videos
• How-to videos
• Brand marketing
• Internal communications
• Corporate culture
• User-generated product reviews (planned)
• Video reviews
• Customer service videos

“What works the best is the fact that our videos are very real. There is value in being candid. There's an emotional connection that can’t be captured via photograph or text” – Laurie Williams, Zappos.com Video Product Manager

The results have been powerful with an increase in product page conversions and customer satisfaction and a decrease in product returns. Its success can be attributed to an honest, personal, informative approach to its video strategy and a diffusion to all its channels (Zappos website, YouTube, Facebook).

This video is from Zappos' insidezappos YouTube channel and explains how to properly package a return.



Moving from Conversions to Conversations

Mark concluded that eCommerce retailers must embrace social video as part of their overall marketing strategy throughout customer life cycle.

"I really think that product videos are a no brainer, and I honestly believe that every eCommerce retailer should be doing them. I can't think of any logical reasons now why they shouldn't. That being said, I think that there's many other opportunities around that and I think that if eCommerce retailers really want to embrace online video and really excel, they'll be doing video across the customer life cycle and that will lend itself better to social, that will lend itself better to search and helpfully we'll some interesting innovation there."

About Mark Robertson 

Mark Robertson is the Founder and Publisher of ReelSEO, an online information resource dedicated to the fusion of video, technology, social media, search, and internet marketing. In addition to running Reel SEO, Mark is a popular web video consultant and has worked on digital-video initiatives with several major brands, including, Zappos.com. He is considered a leading expert within the digital video and search marketing industries and has had the pleasure of speaking at many conferences including Search Engine Strategies, Streaming Media, SMX,  PubCon, Video Commerce Summit, Online Video Platform Summit, Online Video Summit, and more…
Twitter @markrrobertson | Google Plus | Facebook | Linkedin | YouTube

Related

• See these related posts by Jen Fahey on VideoRetailer.org » Mark Robertson on why retailers should explore beyond the product video and on ReelSEO.com Video Marketing Advice For Retailers: Product Videos Alone Aren't Enough Anymore
• Visit the The VideoRetailer.org Blog to see more conversations from the 2011 Liveclicker Video Commerce Summit