Larry Kless' Weblog

Friday, February 5, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Building Value with Real Interactivity

In this final video from the Online Video Platform Summit, this panel discusses how interactive video experiences build value and engagement with online viewers. Interactivity by definition, is where a user can control their viewing experience, comment on it and actively contribute to it. The web evolved from text and image to interactive social media experiences. Social media interactivity can transform the passive, lean-back viewing experience into more of an active lean-in, engaged experience. A few examples are by customizing video players with clickable objects, comments, real-time chat, live audio and video, exploratory interactive video and virtual worlds, online gaming, and video remixes.

Building Value With Real Interactivity

Moderator: Tim Siglin, Chairman, Braintrust Digital
Alex Blum, CEO, KickApps
Scott Broomfield, Co-Founder and CEO, Veeple
Michael Dale, Open Media Developer, Wikimedia Foundation
Rainer Cvillink, Evangelist, Livestream

Video is more than just a one-way communication medium. At its best, it actively engages viewers in a lean-forward experience by allowing them to interact with the content in a unique way, including the ability to comment, rate, and share it across social networks; explore clickable objects within the video player; and even remix their own video responses using webcams or mobile devices. Live video streaming can offer even more functionality and an even higher level of interaction through real-time chat, live comment streams, and status updates. Our speakers will show examples of what you can do to make your video more of a targeted and personalized experience and discuss why you should make the effort.

Highlights from the Panel

The panel discussed ways to moving from audience to community. Community building tools from Kickapps, offer Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) suite of hosted social and media applications, to build highly interactive websites with a broad range of social experiences. CEO Alex Blum said that you can learn a lot about your audience or customers through their natural interaction, publishers can harvest data from their social media graph to gain insight for editorial choices, marketing or e-commerce, and foster deeper relationships with customers.

Veeple introduces clickable objects within the video that creates "call to actions" for viewers, interactive layer on top and deep analytics underneath. Engagement dramatically increases conversion and click-through rates for online advertising and marketing campaigns. According to CEO Scott Broomfield, Veeple customers have seen more than 25% viewer engagement by adding several interactive elements within the video. Veeple argues that the experience needs to branded, actionable and and measurable.

For Wikimedia, interactivity is used as a way to inspire collaborative production, through editing tools and sharing options. Values for Wikimedia community are free open source software, which Michael Dale said created problems for the video space, since there's no open ended video format. They are working with Kaltura to bring video to Wikipedia, and are pushing HTML 5 + Ogg Theora as the open video platform, and maintain that it's comparable in video quality to H.264.

Livestream offers a interactive TV platform by simulating traditional TV channels, but unlike
traditional TV where 98% is on demand, with a live channel, everyone is watching the same thing at the same time. Real-time comments on the live feed through chat, Facebook and Twitter allow viewers to engage with live broadcasters. The content creation tools Flex and Flash based studio giving control over the on air elements streaming solution with real-time conversation through user chat, Twitter and Facebook.

Many platforms offer a variety of solutions within the interactive space, which shape the way we consume, share, create, and monetize video content. This panel session offered unique examples of how interactivity builds value, by transforming viewers into contributors, and converting viewers into customers.

Alex Blum noted, that while many online video platforms are still having the same conversations about video from 10 years ago, he sees that changing:

"What I think is the next wave, is interactive elements within the video. The idea of wrapping social experience around the video experience."

Related @ovpsummit Tweets

@dboyll thanks for the kind words, and the tweets! 9:16 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck in reply to dboyll

RT @areggiori: RT @spidcast: New podcast: Managing video production work flow and metadata http://bit.ly/2MQyfm 4:13 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck

ogg theora video looks as good as h.264 -- at least in the wikimedia demo here #ovps09 3:49 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck

Wrapping up with session on building real interactivity into the video experience. Thanks to all who made the first OVPS so great.#ovps09 3:40 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck

RT @kyte: RT eMarketer: Stat of the day: 139.8 million people watch TV and go online simultaneously in the US. #stats 1:21 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck

RT @vamsri: Live video stream viweing on mobile devices barriers: mobile bandwidth, mobile device processing power #smwest09 12:27 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck

RT @klessblog Online Video Platform Summit Interactive Video Panel - Building Value With Real Interactivity http://bit.ly/115MAs #ovps09 12:18 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from web

RT @Kaltura: Michael Dale from Wikimedia Foundation, will discuss Kaltura's collaborative video project w/Wikipedia today at 3:30pm #ovps09 12:02 PM Nov 19th, 2009 from TweetDeck

Follow on Twitter

For detailed bios on each panelist, see - Online Video Platform Summit Interactive Video Panel - Building Value With Real Interactivity

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Redefining Monetization

Established methods of monetizing online video content include: advertisement, sponsorship, merchandising, licensing and acquisition, paid syndication, subscription and pay-per-view, product placement and branded entertainment. And in many cases, businesses may use video as marketing tool for lead generation and sales to promote their products, goods and services and extend brand message. But the question of how to most effectively monetize online video and what revenues to expect, tend to be more difficult to answer for many online video publishers. I led a panel discussion on Redefining Monetization at the Online Video Platform Summit that featured a diverse panel with Benjamin Wayne, CEO of Fliqz, Peter Csathy, CEO of Sorenson Media, Kevin Nalty of Nalts Consulting, and Teg Grenager, co-founder of Adap.tv who debated the viability of advertising in online video and the true value of online video as a marketing tool.

Redefining Monetization

Different organizations have different goals and business models when it comes to monetization. Some monetize their video content directly with advertising through pre-rolls, post-rolls, overlays and product endorsements or by a pay-per-view or subscription model. But most organizations will benefit by using video as a way to build value by driving sales, highlighting products, expanding brand awareness, and increasing customer engagement. This panel discussion will look at monetization from all the angles, address the different needs of B2B and B2C initiatives, and show examples of successful monetization practices.

Moderator: Larry Kless, Founder, President, OnlineVideoPublishing.com
Peter Csathy, President & CEO, Sorenson Media
Teg Grenager, VP of Product and Marketing & Co-Founder, Adap.tv Inc.
Kevin Nalty, Consultant, Nalts Consulting
Benjamin Wayne, CEO, Fliqz

Highlights from the Panel

Benjamin Wayne noted that until recent years video tended to be viewed in narrow terms of monetizing the video stream, and while ad supported models have proven effective, we're now seeing video used as a marketing tool in broader terms for reaching, building and converting an audience with a call-to-action on the site, with a 3-4 times conversion rate. Some of the businesses now using video are real estate agencies, dental offices, law firms, industrial and manufacturing.

Benjamin said:

"So the question is really, if you have a website and you're using online marketing as a tool to drive people to that website, video really should be part of the marketing mix. And the way in which you integrate it into the site and into your SEM (Search Engine Marketing) and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) efforts needs to be broad reaching and strategic, as opposed to simply tactical around ad monetization."

Kevin "Nalts" Nalty looks at video as the most visceral form of social media, and initially he looked at it as an awareness tool, but more and more he's seeing it as a direct response vehicle. Now as a full online video marketing consultant, he works with many brands who are afraid of YouTube and video and want a safe place to play. But his message is, that it's the same concern about the web a decade ago, and that you need to be where the people are and bring your compelling message. His videos get about 6 million views per month with the bulk coming from YouTube, and as a content creator that's become a second source of income through the ad sharing revenue program.

Kevin shared some advise for creating branded content.

"When I'm commissioned by a company to do a promotional video, it's got to be entertaining, it can't feel like an ad, where people just turn it off."

Peter Csathy said any business online can use video to monetize their business and that 99% of sites with online video are not content or media sites that serve ads, they're much like the sites that Benjamin described, small and medium-sized businesses that drive revenue through video to showcase their products and services. He said that in 2010, competition in the business sector will drive more adoption of video as successful practices emerge, and high quality video is very important because it reflects on your brand.

Teg Grenager discussed online video from the media company perspective, and that the primary revenue stream for media companies is advertising. But they are faced with challenges of scale and inventory, but with ad networks and companies like Adap.tv, media companies have been able ramp up their online video publishing businesses. But CPM (cost per thousand) impressions vary and large media companies the Wall Street Journal and NY Times boast that hey can command CPMs of $50-60-70, but as Teg maintained that small media companies can run a very good business in a reasonable range of $10-15, which is what direct ad sales teams can get with relatively small but high quality content.

Benjamin pointed out that the page CPM and video ad CPM are different, and that the ability to monetize the entire page gives publishers more leverage. Teg agreed and said that the web offers a unique experience akin to television where publishers can measure time the spent on a page and balance that with an ad load that viewers can accept, such as two ads every 10 minutes.

Nalts shared a pet peeve of his about how impressions and CPMs are measured from a media purchase to a media buyer. Online video ads (pre-mid-post-rolls) and banner ads don't have the same result and level of engagement and until that gets fixed, we won't have real measurement of the viewer experience.

According to Kevin:

"An impression is such a lousy term for video, because an impression isn't an impression unless it MAKES an impression."

The panel discussed online video advertising and balancing the needs of viewers, publishers and advertisers, and that over time through real-time feedback on ads, there will be a more personal viewing experience where you won't get served up irrelevant ads. They also debated the production value of video advertising and the sustainability of amateur video for business marketing efforts, the death of viral video, and how that making a viral video is not a smart business move.

Kevin shared a few videos, this is sponsored video:

And this one that he almost didn't post, which now has over 14 million views

People always ask Nalts, "what works?" and he said that he has no clue, because he thinks that Scary Maze Game is a terrible video, but things that people should take into consideration are a few basic elements: good thumbnails, title, brevity, being a little edgy, sometimes sincere or moving, you've got to hook them at the beginning and adding that human element, having a face or person that the viewers can connect with really works - and all of these elements are transferable to publishers.

Kevin said a key strategy is that businesses can use YouTube to drive views back to their own sites, which can increase conversion and brand awareness. Benjamin said, video SEO is the "neglected gold mine" in the online space and that using proper submission techniques to Google, video is 53 times more likely to generate a first-page Google ranking than using traditional SEO techniques. He shared an example of a search term, "social product development in action" which when searched, brings up their customer's same video as the top first-page ranking with the video on YouTube and on the customer's own site. Email marketing with video thumbnails is another area that's been incredibly successful for another customer, Military.com, which Benjamin showed increased their views 800% to 10 million views a month.

The panel closed with final comments with shameless plugs and advise. Nalts said to become your own audience, sit through videos and realize what's good and what's bad, where you irritated and captivated and subscribe to WillVideoForFood.com. Benjamin suggested that sponsorships can be a great way for content publishers to escape the CPM lock and reach a niche audience. Brand advertisers can sponsor the page for month rather than video, which can be much higher rate of return.

My thanks to Benjamin, Kevin, Peter and Teg for a great a panel discussion!

See these related posts:

Visit these blogs:

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Online Video Platform Showcase, Day 2 - Multicast Media, Datpresenter, Sorenson Media, Ooyala

This is the second Online Video Platform Showcase from day two of the Online Video Platform Summit, featuring Multicast Media, Datpresenter, Sorenson 360, and Ooyala. As in the previous showcase from day one, each of these providers differentiate themselves through a range of features, pricing, customer value and market focus. While they differ, they each offer a similar solution as a Software as a Service (SaaS) model with key capabilities in media management, encoding, publishing, distribution, analytics and monetization. Watch the video to learn more, and visit their websites for more information and free trials.

Online Video Platform Showcase - Day 2

Lou Schwartz, Chairman and CEO, Multicast Media Technologies, Inc.
Datpresenter, presented by IdaRose Sylvester, Co-founder of Silicon Valley Link
David Dudas, VP of Product Management, Sorenson Media
Sean Knapp, Co-Founder & CTO, Ooyala

For the latest updates on these OVPs, follow them on Twitter:

See these related posts:

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."

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Online Video Platform Summit: Online Video Platform Showcase, Day 1 - Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, Delve Networks

As part of the Online Video Platform Summit, eight of the leading online video platform providers showcased the features and capabilities in two sponsored sessions over the two-day event. This session from day one features Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, and Delve Networks. While each of these providers have similar offerings, they all differentiate themselves by their video publishing platforms, analytics and monetization features, scalability, integration, pricing, strategy and market presence. According to the The Forrester Wave™: US Online Video Platforms, Q4 2009, an evaluation of six leading online video platform vendors, "71% of the US online audience watches video on the Internet, and the number of streams consumed should more than double by 2013", so whether you're a large media publisher or a small retailer, every organization needs a video strategy and online video platforms power video for an organization.

While the report was criticized for not being inclusive of the many OVP providers in the market, Forrester maintained that it employed a specific 37-criteria evaluation of online video platform vendors. That ruled out all but the six in the report, with Brightcove and Ooyala leading 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 serve more narrow segments of the market and are Contenders.

Regardless of the Forrester report, watch this video to learn more about Kaltura, Kyte, VMIX, and Delve Networks. Also, see Jan Ozer's article Choosing an Online Video Platform, on Streamingmedia.com.

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

What are the main functions and features customers should be looking for when evaluating online video platforms?

My friend Kris Drey of Vidcompare offers this advise:

"It’s important to know your use case for online video prior to getting started with your search. Identifying the purpose of your video effort be it a start-up marketer looking to extend brand reach and increase time spent on site, a large media publisher looking for content management, syndication, and distribution, or a SMB looking for an internal training solution with multiple log-ins, and administrative rights. Once you’ve identified your needs you can look for a provider who can accommodate the top 4-5 features that address your goals."

Follow these OVPs on Twitter:
@kaltura
@kyte
@vmix
@delvenetworks

See these related posts: