Larry Kless' Weblog: Video SEO

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Friday, February 14, 2025

Happy birthday YouTube!

Today marks the 20-year anniversary of YouTube—a platform that has defined online video, reshaped digital culture, and empowered millions of creators worldwide. What began on February 14, 2005, as an online video dating site founded by ex-PayPal employees Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim, has since transformed into the world’s largest video-sharing platform and the second-largest search engine after Google. Just a year after its launch, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006—a move that cemented its dominance as the #1 video sharing site with over 5.1 billion videos.

With its massive reach, YouTube has cultivated an entirely new industry of YouTube Creators, giving rise to web series, podcasts, music videos, personal vlogs, with over 360 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute. It has become a launchpad for influencers, musicians, educators, and entrepreneurs—turning everyday people into global sensations with 83 million people watching 1 billion hours of video content daily.

For a closer look at YouTube’s impact, SEO.AI’s content team has broken down key statistics in comprehensive detail, highlighting the biggest YouTube channels and most-watched videos of all time, and a lot more interesting YouTube statistics are here. The platform’s massive success has shaped the online video industry, making it the default destination for video creators and viewers alike.

NPR’s Taylor Haney pointed out that YouTube’s role in viral moments, such as the iconic “Lazy Sunday” video, helped define the early days of viral content and brought online video into the mainstream and finally gave the power to independent online video publishers.

YouTube CEO Neal Mohan shares four big bets for YouTube in 2025 in this video from the YouTube Creator Liaison. As Mohan states, TV is the primary device for viewing YouTube in the U.S. surpassing mobile by watch time.

According to Mohan:

YouTube will remain the epicenter of culture
YouTubers are becoming the startups of Hollywood
YouTube is the new television
AI will make it easier to create and enhance the YouTube experience for everyone

Over the past two decades, YouTube has evolved from an online video dating site to global media giant for digital entertainment, reshaping the way we consume content and engage with creators worldwide. It all started on April 23, 2005, when co-founder Jawed Karim uploaded the first-ever video to the site, “Me at the Zoo”—a simple 19-second clip video that unknowingly ignited a revolution of user-generated content. This democratization of online video transformed YouTube into a global hub for content creators, offering anyone with an internet connection the chance to self-publish videos and reach millions without the need for expensive equipment, professional video skills, or traditional media networks.

As YouTube celebrates its 20-year anniversary, its influence continues to grow—shaping culture, empowering content creators, and revolutionizing how we experience video content.

Happy 20th birthday, YouTube! 🎉

Thursday, April 14, 2011

If You Publish It, Will They Come?

You can have the most compelling content in the world, but if people aren't aware of it and can't find it easily, it won't make any difference. From search engine optimization to social media marketing, there are myriad strategies for getting your content in front of as many people as possible. At the Online Video Platform Summit, this session "If You Publish It, Will They Come?", assembled some of the brightest minds in online video search and discovery, social media optimization and entertainment to examine the art and science of getting your videos seen. Tim Siglin wrote a great summary of this session in a post on Streamingmedia.com, that captured some of the key points the panelists discussed on the importance of both video SEO and social media recommendation. The following quotes in this post are excerpted from his post.

ReelSEO's Mark Robertson moderated the discussion and opened the session with new data from TubeMogul which pointed out that while Google is still generates the highest volume of video traffic from search, "referral traffic from Facebook and Twitter is growing faster than traditional engines as a source of video views."

Frank Sinton, of MeFeedia added that, "The portion of video watched when it has been recommended by a friend is significantly higher than viewing times for content found by search."

Mike Sommers of KickApps noted that the problem with video is that Google's search engine bots can't understand what video content is about as well as humans can. He said that search engine optimization (SEO) is evolving into friend engine optimization, "which is building your website in way that makes it sharable, that invites people to take our content, notify your friends about it and then drive traffic back to your website."

Patrick Starzan of Funny or Die, said that search is a bigger factor when it comes to their content being played and but social media media gives them more engaged viewers. He said, "Our optimization may be driven by top celebrities we've worked with-Lindsay Lohan searches yield Funny Or Die as one of the top "found" sites-but then viewers spend a lot of time browsing and viewing other videos."

Adam Singolda of Taboola, agreed that search and social media are both important and that said that publishers spend time optimizing their sites, "and look closely at the anchor videos which bring viewers to your sites, but remember that most sites-including those with interesting videos-are primarily still not video-centric sites."

Read more of Tim Siglin's article here and watch the video below for more of the discussion.

Speakers for this session include:

Mark Robertson, Founder, ReelSEO (Moderator)
Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com, The Online Video Marketer's Guide, which provides news, tips and trends on the online video industry and video marketing. Mark speaks regularly at conferences, webinars and industry events sharing his extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mark was previously the Director of Search for Freedom Communications and has worked with many newspaper and broadcast stations for optimization online content. Follow ReelSEO Video News (reelseo) on Twitter

Frank Sinton, CEO, MeFeedia
Mr. Sinton is responsible for product development, communications, advertising and media functions at MeFeedia. Before founding BeachFront Media, LLC/MeFeedia.com Mr. Sinton spearheaded the strategic technology vision at Sony Pictures Entertainment and was largely responsible for the search engine that powered the successful startup of Business.com ($340 million acquisition). Mr. Sinton is also the founder of Gotkidsnetwork.com, a parents social networking site. He received his B.S.in Chemical Engineering from Tufts University. Follow MeFeedia (mefeedia) on Twitter

Mike Sommers, EVP of Products, KickApps
As Executive Vice President of Product Management, Mike oversees all of KickApps’ product management efforts. He has over 15 years experience building Internet products. Before joining KickApps, Mike was VP of Product Development for AOL Search. In his 7 years at AOL, he was also responsible developing a variety of rich media, search and community products. Prior to joining AOL Mike worked for a variety of Silicon Alley startups in New York City.
Mike has a B.A. degree from Columbia University. Follow KickApps (kickapps) on Twitter

Patrick Starzan, VP of Marketing, Funny or Die
Funny or Die, www.funnyordie.com, is an award-winning website that has become one of the top destinations for comedy on the web. The site has averages over 5 million unique video views per month. With hundreds of exclusive celebrity videos and a steady stream of huge viral hits, Funny or Die has become the "place to be seen" for comedic celebrities, and the obvious destination for a daily comedy fix. Funny or Die's founders are Will Ferrell, Adam McKay and Chris Henchy. Mr. Apatow is also a partner in Funny or Die. Follow Funny Or Die (funnyordie) on Twitter

Adam Singolda, CEO and Founder, Taboola
As the chief executive officer of Taboola, Adam Singolda is leading the company business strategy, execution, and business development, while maintaining a unique company culture of competitiveness, quantitativeness, and innovation. Prior to founding Taboola, Adam served as an officer in a mathematical elite unit in the Israeli National Security Agency (I-NSA) for almost seven years. Adam’s focus in the unit was data-mining and “unsolvable problems.” His background uniquely prepares him to lead Taboola’s efforts toward technological advantage that focuses on scale and quantifiable value to publishers, advertisers and users. Adam is an honored alum of the IDF's elite "Mamram" computer-science training program, and he finished first in his class in the officer's academy of the IDF. Adam's vision for Taboola is to change the way people around the world discover the videos they like no matter where they are. Follow adam singolda (adamsingolda) and Taboola (taboola) on Twitter

The Online Video Platform Summit is a two-day event designed to help organizations of all types, not just those for whom video is their core business. Held on November 2-3 in conjunction with
Streaming Media West in Los Angeles, the Online Video Platform Summit is designed for video publishers of all types and sizes, whether small businesses looking to publish content for the first time, independent entertainment content creators, large media organizations, or anywhere in between.

Related:

Friday, February 25, 2011

Fliqz is Acquired by VBrick, Another OVP Bites the Dust

News of more consolidation within the online video platform space came earlier this week with the announcement that Emeryville, CA-based Fliqz has been acquired by enterprise IP video pioneer VBrick. In a press release issued on Tuesday, Wallingford, Conn.-based VBrick announced that it has acquired the assets of Fliqz, and will merge Fliqz's SaaS-based online video platform with its video streaming product VBoss (VBrick's Online Streaming Service) to further grow and expand its offerings and customer base. VBrick noted that the Fliqz service "brings a strong on-demand component to VBrick’s already strong existing SaaS offering and also gives VBrick access to the small-and medium-sized business (SMB) market."

While no financial terms of the acquisition were disclosed, Jonathan Marino of peHUB suggested that "Fliqz investors took a bath" and that two of his sources confirmed that Fliqz was sold for less than its three rounds of funding which totaled $12 million. Marino noted that, "one of the sources acknowledged the sale process, run through Lighthouse Capital Partners, only attracted $1.4 million from VBrick."

Fliqz was founded by Benjamin Wayne in 2005 as a white-label plug-and-play video platform specializing in video SEO. Fliqz is in use by more than 35,000 websites with a wide variety customers including the US Army MLB, Monster, Rackspace, WebMD, Expedia, Sony, VH1, T-Mobile, Nokia and many others. Fliqz offers 5 different SaaS video solution packages and launched SearchSuccess in November 2009 as as an add-on to Fliqz's Gold video solution. Fliqz said that more than two-thirds of all videos submitted to SearchSuccess produce a first-page Google search result, and up to 25% have resulted in a number one Google ranking.

Just two years ago, Fliqz was recognized as a "Contender" in the Forrester Research report, The Forrester Wave™: US Online Video Platforms, Q4 2009, which evaluated six leading online video platform vendors. Brightcove and Ooyala led the pack with their end-to-end product offerings that target organizations of all sizes. VMIX and Kaltura followed closely behind with comprehensive offerings and are Strong Performers, while Twistage and Fliqz served more narrow segments of the market and were noted as Contenders. Wayne received some notoriety as the "YouTube Is Doomed" guy from his Business Insider post from a few years ago. He's recognized though as an industry expert in video marketing and spoke with Reel SEO in this video about the importance of video SEO. According to Wayne, "video is fundamentally a marketing tool," and that video SEO is the "neglected gold mine" in the online space.

Kris Drey, Vidcompare Founder is the former VP of Marketing at Fliqz and provided a unique perspective on the Vidcompare blog:

"Fliqz was one of the early OVPs (when the term OVP was popularized) to mass-market SaaS-based B2B2C video platform services bringing the notion of using online video for marketing purposes to the forefront of corporate online marketers. In fact, I helped build the first version of this solution with Benjamin Wayne, the founder and CEO of Fliqz when he hired me back in early 2007 (I left the company in June of last year). Fliqz made it easy for businesses to integrate online video into their websites with simple to use uploading, encoding, management, analytics, and playback video content tools."

Although, recently Fliqz experienced trouble raising additional funding and just wasn’t successful competing with with other larger companies, like Brightcove, Ooyala and Kaltura for VC funding. Wayne will not be staying with VBrick but according to Drey and also Ryan Lawler and Fliqz's future still looks promising. VBrick will invest $1 million into Fliqz to help integrate and build out the product offering. VBrick has also renewed the lease of Fliqz’s offices in Emeryville, CA. Fliqz will remain open and continue function temporarily as its own business unit for the next several months as its staff of 20 are retrained and folded into VBrick. Jim O'Neil spoke with VBrick CEO Doug Howard who said that, "Fliqz CEO Benjamin Wayne will help guide the transition and is expected to remain onboard for at least the next three months." VBrick currently has 9000 customers in the corporate, government and education sector and according to Howard, Fliqz will add less than $5 million in annual revenue to VBrick's estimated $45 million.

It's been a busy M&A season within the OVP space within and as Drey said expect to see more changes ahead:

"We expect to see further merger and acquisition activity in online video this year and will keep you posted on what it means for the industry. January and February have definitely set a trend pointing towards more focused and specialized business plans and product offerings."

Disclosure: Vidcompare is a sponsor of this blog

Related:

About VBrick Systems, Inc.
VBrick is the leader in Enterprise IP Video, with over 9,000 corporate, education and government customers and 60,000 installations worldwide. VBrick solutions work over standard IP networks and the Internet to enable the creation, publishing and distribution of rich media content. Our comprehensive streaming solutions are used in a wide range of live and on-demand applications including meeting and event broadcasts, employee collaboration, distributed learning, digital signage, TV distribution, and video surveillance. Headquartered in Wallingford, CT, VBrick’s products and services are available through industry-leading value-added resellers. In purchasing the Fliqz assets, VBrick did not assume any liability, debt or obligation of Fliqz except to the limited extent specifically agreed and specified. For more information, visit www.vbrick.com.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Video Replay of "Reel” Video SEO Strategies & Best Practices Webinar

If you missed the Ooyala hosted video SEO best practices webinar from last week, you can now watch video recording. The webinar, "Reel” Video SEO Strategies & Best Practices, featured Mark Robertson, Founder and Publisher of ReelSEO, Dr. Pete Kocks, President of Truveo and AOL Video, and Sean Knapp, Co-Founder and CTO of Ooyala. Mark provided an overview of what is video SEO, guidelines and best practices for hosted video, YouTube optimization and shared good and bad examples of video SEO. Pete covered video search optimization and the key differences between web search and video search. Sean talked about Ooyala’s new SDK release which helps helps increase visibility on search engines by creating rich on-page text for video landing pages.

The webinar was well attended and the feedback was very positive which is indicative of how much interest there is in video SEO.

As Mark says, it's not smoke and mirrors and,

"the value of video SEO lies in generating additional exposure through positioning relevant video content in front of a growing number of internet users who are actively seeking out that content using search. Just as with general SEO, Video SEO is about publishing content in a way that follows best practices to ensure and maximize indexability and discoverability."

Here's a link to Mark's presentation. You can also contact Mark through ReelSEO.com or hire him as a Video SEO consultant at mark@reelseo.com.

Thanks to Ooyala for hosting this free and very informative educational webinar.

Sunday, January 31, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability

One of the most challenging areas for online video publishers is to optimize their video to be more discoverable by search engines, and for businesses, this is critical to bring new traffic and customers to their web sites. Publishing video content in a way that it can be easily indexed by search engines has been proven to increase higher first-page Google rankings. It's not smoke and mirrors, and it's done through video search engine optimization (VSEO) which, as my good friend and publisher of ReelSEO, Mark Robertson says is, "video SEO purely an extension of SEO."

Search engine optimization (SEO) is defined as:

"The process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. SEO includes technical tasks to make it easier for search engines to find and index a site for the appropriate keywords, as well as marketing-focused tasks to make a site more appealing to users. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases." - Search Engine Watch SEM Glossary

While traditional SEO techniques are focused on text-based search, the rules are different for video search since it can't be discovered on its own by search engines. Nico McLane attempted to uncover the mystery behind VSEO in her Streaming Media article, In Search of Video SEO That Works, and concluded that the secret's in the sauce and no two recipes are the same. Mark Robertson says that despite the hype, there is still a general lack of understanding when it summed it up this way:

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

In a report by Forrester Research's Nate Elliott, he pointed out that search engines have been blending specialty search results (e.g., video, news, images, blog posts) into their standard search result pages for several years, and concluded that optimizing video content to take advantage of "blended search" is by far the easiest way to get a first-page organic ranking on Google. In fact it's 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking than traditional SEO techniques.

In this panel session from the Online Video Platform Summit on optimizing video search and discovery, Mark joins Dr. Pete Kocks of Truveo, Lou Schwartz of Multicast Media, and Tom Wilde from RAMP, in a discussion moderated by Tim Siglin of Braintrust Digital. See this related post for detailed bios on each pressenter - Online Video Platform Summit SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability.

Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:30 AM PST

Video discovery via search has seen rapid growth over the past few years with the explosive increase in the online video market. But it's not enough to achieve a high Google ranking; making video more discoverable through video search engine optimization (SEO) is key for businesses to maximize visibility, drive traffic to their sites, and reach a targeted audience. Panelists in this session will discuss the importance of increasing user engagement with video SEO—using keywords, metadata, relevant content, media RSS, and video syndication—and social media marketing through demonstration of use-case scenarios.

Moderator: Tim Siglin, Chairman, Braintrust Digital, and Contributing Editor, Streaming Media magazine
Dr. Pete Kocks, President, Truveo
Mark Robertson, Founder, ReelSEO
Lou Schwartz, Chairman and CEO, Multicast Media Technologies, Inc.
Tom Wilde, CEO, EveryZing, Inc.

Highlights from the Panel

According to Mark, there's been a shift in how people discover video and data shows a rise in videos discovered via search engines and a slight decrease of videos discovered on social video sharing sites. Videos dominate universal search and he says the key is:

"to create unique and valuable content, and to publish that content with best practices for SEO in mind. Nothing works as well for SEO as creating good, unique, and valuable content."

Tom Wilde said that "video" as a search term dominates with 85-90% of search coming from Google web search. Users look for video through search, but Tom identified the challenge of video discoverability as one of the key emerging problems of the web, and that rich media content misses out on monetization opportunities when it can't be discovered through search engines.

"Search engines have historically had very little to work with in terms of properly discovering and indexing multimedia content. The value of multimedia content is trapped inside of files, out of view of search engines."

Tom said that including text transcripts with the video and "content optimization" helps unlock the value of online video and exposes it to the web at large. Lou Schwartz cited the Forrester report, that video is 53 times more likely than text to appear on first page of search result. He also shared how metatags within the video, show up as text in search and makes the video more visible and discoverable. Tagging helps reduce the amount of flat text that you publish as html and focuses on specific topics that the search bots can pick up.

Dr. Pete Kocks said that search is more than keywords and is more behaviorally-based. He shared two important tips to improving video SEO:

Make sure your video has a fast load time.
You need to have a killer thumbnail

Several key factors can play into slow load times, such as player file size, video file size, true streaming vs. progressive download, pre-rolls, network congestion, bandwidth constriction, among others. Viewers will abandon the video if it doesn't load fast, Truveo ranks the order of all the major video sites and Pete says,

"We don’t really want to send somebody to a place that is a slow moving site. That’s also true, by the way, for all the major search engines. …It’s very important that the pages load fast…"

Since people tend to click on related videos, thumbnails shouldn't be an after thought, but part of your video SEO strategy, as Pete advises,

"If you’re creating a thumbnail for your video, you should spend a lot of time trying to figure out exactly what that thumbnail is. First and foremost, it’s what the user clicks. …"

Mark concluded that, the goal is not to optimize for search engines but for user experience, and as long as you're providing relevant text that's useful to the user coming to that page, then that's going to help with the video SEO

Related @ovpsummit Tweets

See these related videos:

See these related posts for more Video SEO tips:

Be sure to check out the Ooyala webinar on "Reel" Video SEO Strategies & Best Practices, February 4, 2010 at 11:00 am PST, featuring Mark Robertson, Pete Kocks and Sean Knapp

Here's what Mark had to say about the upcoming event,
"Video SEO has become somewhat of a buzz word these days for internet marketers and online video publishers alike. Having videos that rank well within search engines is certainly an attractive proposition.However, the true value of video SEO lies in positioning video content in front of a growing number of internet users who are actively seeking out that content using search. Just as with general SEO, Video SEO is about publishing content in a way that follows best practices to ensure and maximize indexability and discoverability. Join myself, Pete Kocks, and Sean Knapp as we discuss Video SEO strategies and best practices.To register for the webinar please click here."

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Streaming Media West Red 2009 Carpet Interview - Tom Wilde, RAMP on Monetizing Discovery and Engagement Through "Content Optimization"

In this 2009 Streaming Media West 2009 Red Carpet interview Peter Cervieri sits down with Tom Wilde, CEO of RAMP, the company formerly known as EveryZing, and the industry’s leading "Content Optimization" platform for media publishers. Tom also spoke at the Online Video Platform Summit on the SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability, and is a recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising. His newly rebranded company made the announcement at Streaming Media West with a new name, new and improved tools for video search and discovery, and new focus. The new Software as a Service (SaaS) platform platform is divided into four core solutions: RAMP:workflow, RAMP:discovery, RAMP:engagement, and RAMP:monetize, and is designed to help media publishers expand video search and discovery and ramp up engagement monetization of all types of web content though, "content optimization."

RAMP has an interesting history in that it's portfolio of technologies spun out of a company called BBN Technologies, one of the world’s foremost research organizations with more than $100M government funded research, in speech-to-text and natural language processing technologies and search for the Department of Defense. The technology was developed primarily for monitoring phone calls and broadcast television mediums. When the company was acquired by venture capitalists they decided to spin out some of the technology which was over 30 years of R&D and included 20 patents that his company acquired. Some of the problems that the government was trying to solve was speaker, topic and format independent technology, which has very similar requirements to that of big media companies.

RAMP began as PodZinger, a podcast search engine, and started trying to figure out how to create rich metadata from audio files to make audio podcasts more discoverable. PodZinger used speech-to-text technology to create a text index of the audio, which enabled users to find content anywhere within podcasts and jump directly to the point of their keyword. They moved to a B2B media merchandising platform solution soon after rebranding as EveryZing, and opened up their platform to include all forms of online multimedia content. Tom identified the challenge of video discoverability as one of the key emerging problems of the web, and that rich media content misses out on monetization opportunities when it can't be discovered through search engines.

RAMP Content Optimization and RAMP Platform Solutions suite is more of big media company play with startup fees roughly in the low tens of thousands, with monthly fees usually between $5,000 and $15,000. Licensing costs can be paid either on a monthly or annual cycle, based on the amount of content that is processed. Many media companies use RAMP's speech-to-text algorithms to auto-generate transcripts and tags for third-party content. Customers in specific market verticals include news, sports, local, infotainment, print publishing and web.

On Vator News, Tom said that the re-branding was,

"largely driven by the completion of our solution to a business-to-business SaaS provider to media companies. Everyzing was an older consumer destination name and we didn't feel it was reflective of what we do now and what we're doing going forward. RAMP has a nice set of meanings; ramp up your traffic, ramp up your sales, it's easier to remember."

According to Tom, 2010 will bring more focus on social media, mobile and managed services and he noted that the pervasiveness of video across all verticals will continue to grow.

In his Red Carpet interview he said,

"In the end, virtually every company of significant size out there has to begin to think like a media company. They have to produce media because that's how the marketing conversation will happen through video and through social. So I think all of this converges in the future, where there won't be any major company that isn't behaving like a media company."

See Mark Robertson's post on ReelSEO for more on RAMP's Content Optimzation Platform. Also see Andy Plesser's interview with Tom on Beet.TV where he talk about how companies like CNBC, Thomson Reuters, FOX have implemented the service and OVPs like thePlatform, Brightcove, and YuMe have partnered with hosted solutions.

About RAMP
RAMP is an advanced Content Optimization SaaS platform providing publishers’ workflow, discovery and engagement solutions to drive monetization of online content to users’ search and browsing behavior. RAMP offers publishers an open, flexible and modular capability to optimize large amounts of content, including text, audio, video and images, within dynamic publishing environments. As a result, publishers’ content becomes positioned for discovery and precise targeting, both on search engines and within publishers’ own websites. Users rely on such precision to discover and engage with content, thereby increasing the commercial viability of content for publishers while curtailing publishing costs.
Leading publishers using RAMP include – FOXNews, NBC, DowJones, Meredith, and others. For more information visit: www.RAMP.com, or contact us at info@RAMP.com.

Related:

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit SEO Panel - Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability

Video discovery via search has seen rapid growth over the past few years with the explosive increase in the online video market. But it's not enough to achieve a high Google ranking; making video more discoverable through video search engine optimization (SEO) is key for businesses to maximize visibility, drive traffic to their sites, and reach a targeted audience. Panelists in this session will discuss the importance of increasing user engagement with video SEO-using keywords, metadata, relevant content, media RSS, and video syndication-and social media marketing through demonstration of use-case scenarios.

Optimizing Video Search and Discoverability
Thursday, November 19, 2009 10:30 AM PST

Moderator

Tim Siglin
Chairman
Braintrust Digital

Tim Siglin is a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com. He serves as Chairman of Braintrust Digital, a digital media production company, and is a co-founder of the go-to-market consulting firm, Transitions, Inc. He has been involved full-time with strategic consulting and digital media integrations fields for almost 20 years. Besides writing as a contributing editor for StreamingMedia.com, Siglin has also recently created a new blog, covering digital media workflows, with emphasis on metadata and online video in the corporate, higher education, web development production industries. The blog can be accessed at www.workflowed.com

Braintrust Digital is a media production and design company specializing in creation and delivery of content through traditional and new media. Braintrust also provides AV integration services for select clients that require high-quality viewing experiences on corporate, religious and educational campuses.

Transitions, Inc. - a business and technology development firm - assists startups and hypergrowth businesses in the financial services, digital media and advertising / marketing industries.

Speakers

Dr. Pete Kocks
President
Truveo

Pete Kocks oversees the ongoing development, growth and operation for Truveo, the leading video search engine. He joined Truveo shortly after the company's founding in 2004. Prior to Truveo, Pete helped launch three software startups in the fields of video surveillance, database monitoring, and application hosting.

At Presidio Technology, he led the development of a distributed video surveillance system with a unique approach to indexing video streams. As CEO and co-founder of BayGate, he led the development of a database monitoring system from inception to deployment in the mission-critical datacenters of dozens of large corporate customers. BayGate was acquired by Portal Software in 2001. As one of the first employees of Digitivity, a startup that developed and brought to market a Java application server, he guided the technical and business relationship with Citrix systems that ultimately led to its acquisition by Citrix in 1998.

Pete holds a doctoral degree from Stanford University where his research focused on systems modeling and computation. He received his undergraduate degree from Wesleyan University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa.

Mark Robertson
Founder
ReelSEO

Mark Robertson is the Founder and Creator of ReelSEO.com, The Online Video Marketer's Guide, which provides news, tips and trends on the online video industry and video marketing. Mark speaks regularly at conferences, webinars and industry events sharing his extensive experience in online marketing, particularly in Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Mark was previously the Director of Search for Freedom Communications and has worked with many newspaper and broadcast stations for optimization online content.

Lou Schwartz
Chairman and CEO
Multicast Media Technologies, Inc.

Lou Schwartz's vision and leadership have been the driving force behind the growth and success of Multicast, a company that has not only pioneered the way video content is managed, distributed and consumed over the Internet, but has also helped many satisfied clients define winning business models. Since co-founding the company in 2000, Mr. Schwartz has led the organization and its strategic direction.

Prior to launching Multicast, from 1993 to 2000, Mr. Schwartz practiced corporate and securities law guiding numerous companies from the earliest stages of private seed financing through the public offering of securities. While practicing law, Mr. Schwartz completed mergers and acquisitions aggregating in excess of $3 billion. Mr. Schwartz received his bachelor's degree from Pennsylvania State University and law degree from Mississippi College School of Law.

Tom Wilde
CEO
RAMP (formerly EveryZing, Inc.)

Tom Wilde is a widely recognized leader in the field of Internet search and online advertising, and prior to becoming EveryZing’s CEO has held numerous leadership roles in the field including SVP/GM of the Consumer Division at domain portfolio company NameMedia, senior vice president and general manager of MIVA Inc.’s North American division, responsible for both MIVA’s U.S. online advertising network as well as the company’s consumer business, and senior operating roles managing Terra Lycos’ global search & publishing divisions. Tom has also served on the IAB Search Engine Committee and holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Follow OVP Summit (ovpsummit) on Twitter
hashtag #ovps09

Monday, October 12, 2009

Online Video Platform Summit Program and Speaker Announcement, November 18-19, 2009

With a little more than a month to go before Streaming Media West and the Online Video Platform Summit roll into Silicon Valley, I'm excited to announce that the full program of the Online Video Platform Summit is now online and all the speaking slots for each session have been filled. For the past several months I've been working with Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen as Co-Chair of the event, and we've got an impressive line up of industry leaders, digital media executives, entrepreneurs, experts and innovators in the field of online video who will bring their unique perspectives to the conversation. We'll be showcasing a number of the platform providers and learn about their features and capabilities. Keynotes from Streaming Media West will be featured along with an exclusive keynote by Jeremy Allaire, Chairman and CEO of Brightcove.

The Online Video Platform Summit is designed to help organizations of all types, whether small businesses looking to publish content for the first time, independent entertainment content creators, large media organizations, or anywhere in between, not just those for whom video is their core business. Stay tuned for more news on the event in the coming weeks and click here to register!

The Online Video Platform Summit Program

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

9:00 AM

Streaming Media West Keynote (open to all Online Video Platform Summit attendees)

Marc Whitten, GM, Xbox LIVE

10:30 AM

Defining Online Video Platforms

Moderator: Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen, Editor, StreamingMedia.com
Alex Castro, CEO, Delve Networks
Kristopher Drey, Founder, VidCompare
Bismarck C Lepe, Co-Founder & President of Product & Marketing, Ooyala
Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO, Kaltura

There have never been more people publishing online video, and there have never been more online video platform solutions on the market. But with so many choices, it can be confusing to decide what services are right for your online video initiatives. This "lay of the land" session will set the stage for the rest of the summit, and panelists will highlight the specific value associated with the capabilities of online video platforms to provide attendees with a working knowledge to better publish, distribute, and monetize online video content.

11:30 AM

Online Video Platform Showcase - Day 1

Ron Yekutiel, Chairman and CEO, Kaltura
Daniel Graf, Co-Founder and CEO, Kyte
Dan Charleston, Senior Vice President Business Development, VMIX
Alex Castro, CEO, Delve Networks

Come see the platforms from Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, and Delve Networks in action and learn about their features and capabilities, and get answers to your questions from the platform providers themselves.

12:30 PM