Check out my Google+ Hangout with Neil Davidson on, "The Core of a Successful Corporate Video"

Today, I had the pleasure of joining Neil Davidson, Founder and CEO at MyWebPresenters, in a Google+ Hangout to discuss, "The Core of a Successful Corporate Video", as part of his new Hangout series of talks with digital leaders. I was glad to join Neil's list Google+ Hangout guests, who've included: Conrad Weaver of Conjo Studios, Tim Schmoyer of ReelSEO, Justin Foster of Liveclicker, Tyrone Shum an expert on YouTube Video Marketing, Gideon Shalwick an online video marketing expert and Chris Savage of Wistia.

Google+ Hangouts have become a great way for people to "hang out" and have group video conversations and Google has added a lot of new features recently including: Remote Desktop, live rewind, and instant replay. The product has gained popularity over the last few years since its initial release in 2011 and relaunch as a standalone product at the Google i/o developers conference in May 2013. For more on the development of Google+ Hangouts and how it grew out of Google Talk, see this article: Exclusive: Inside Hangouts, Google's big fix for its messaging mess | The Verge.

I had a great conversation with Neil and you can see the topics we discussed in the interview questions below and watch our Google+ Hangout video for the full conversation.



Neil Davidson's interview questions:

1. Larry - you must have seen (and made) a few corporate videos in your time; what would you say are the commonalities that all of the good ones share?
2. How should a business go about fitting a video production into their marketing strategy? How can they decide what type of video to use and how to market it?
3. Which businesses would you say are leading the way in using video as a marketing tool?
4. I find that failures are normally good learning experiences. What is the biggest video failure you have had and what did you learn from the experience?
5. What are the big opportunities that you see in the coming year for those using online video? Is it just more of YouTube or are there other good opportunities out there?
6. What do you think of the short video format? i.e. Vine videos? Do you think that they will take off with businesses?

Watch all the Google+ Hangout interviews on Neil's YouTube channel at: Neil Davidson - YouTube.

Follow Neil Davidson (WEBPRESENTER) on Twitter.

Read my article on Streamingmedia.com, "No Second Chances: Get Live Events Right the First Time"

I just wrote a new article for Streaming Media Magazine titled, "No Second Chances: Get Live Events Right the First Time - Streaming Media Magazine", that looks at the five core elements for a successful live event in the enterprise setting. It's a culmination of key learnings from years of producing live events and offers battle-tested advice to ensure live enterprise events come off without a hitch.

A big thanks to the many people who have helped me over the years to learn what works best for live events, and what doesn't work so well, and to the many clients I have worked with who have trusted me to produce their live events. Many thanks to Eric Schumacher-Rasmussen and the people at Streamingmedia.com, for their support over the years and for giving me the opportunity to share my best practices in live event production with this article.

Here's a brief excerpt from the article:

The success of any live event is dependent on five core elements: the people, the plan, the technology, the venue, and the audience; they all intersect to either make or break an event. The added layer of virtual attendees creates an even greater challenge, because you have to produce the event for people both inside and outside the room. 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. 

 And I can tell you from experience that it better be good!

 Over the last 20 years of producing live events, I’ve learned a lot about how things can go right and wrong, and from good to bad, and from bad to worse. Most problems stem from the things that fall through the cracks: forgotten tasks that didn’t make your checklist or that were not delegated. They can either creep up on you or blow up in your face, and we all know what’s at stake. As they say in the live event biz, “You’re only as good as your last show.”

 You can avoid most problems with proper planning and clear communication. The best shows are the ones where everyone knows what to do, so the show comes off without a hitch. Whether you are in the studio or on location, the same rules apply if you want to be successful. The key to succeeding is that you go in with a plan and strongly dissuade clients from disruptive last-minute changes. They may think it’s not a big deal, but you know better...

Continue reading the full article at: No Second Chances: Get Live Events Right the First Time - Streaming Media Magazine.

This view is of a video village with HD engineering, monitoring, switching, and recording. (This was set up inside a closet! Really, and it actually fit!)

I'll be following up with part two, that looks specifically at how to deliver an effective webcast, including interactive and social media elements, to the audience off-site.

This article appears in the June/July 2013 issue of Streaming Media magazine as "No Second Chances: Best Practices for Live Events in the Enterprise, Part 1."

Learn the five core elements for a live event, then follow this battle-tested advice to ensure live enterprise events come off without a hitch.

by Larry Kless

The Evolution of Enterprise Video Platforms (Infographic) and The Rise of Virtual Event Delivery

This infographic by Mediaplatform, an enterprise video platform, looks at the explosive growth in the use of video in the enterprise over the last decade. It started with voice-only teleconferencing, which naturally evolved into videoconferencing. Then, the need to extend to desktops  evolved into web conferencing, webcasts, online collaboration, virtual event delivery and telepresense. It grew out of necessity to expand beyond videoconferencing rooms and conference centers to reach all desktops and mobile devices, as well providing richer metrics on audience engagement.

The need to be connected everywhere, all the time, with access to information and your online contacts is still a new phenomenon within the backdrop of the analog age. We used to use a variety of physical media, such as, audio cassettes, VHS tapes, 35mm slides, and conduct all training and in-person. Production costs were high, satellite transmissions were expensive and editing was all done on film or tape. CD-ROMs and DVDs made things easier for a short time, with the ability to better organize our content into chapters. But as the Mediaplatform infographic shows, the Internet changed everything and gave us the ability to use video for live and archived productions and events at a fraction of the cost of analog video, powered by an industry of enterprise video platforms.

"By contrast, tools such as on-demand webcasting and online video portals now allow trainees to view video content from their own laptop, desktop, or even mobile devices. Employees can now collaborate on projects from remote locations with much greater ease and efficiency through the use of video conferencing and webcasting tools. With this all in mind, we thought it would be a fun exercise to develop an infographic highlighting the evolution of business video in the enterprise."


© 2013 MediaPlatform

What's Next?

Today, the integration real-time of business communication services with non-real-time messaging services make up the unified communications suite. But what's next for the enterprise? This article on the, One Market Media Blog - Google Glass, Lifecasting and the Future of Business Video, explores how augmented reality and wearable devices like Google Glass and Apple's iWatch will have a dramatic effect on business video and customer experiences.

Infographics Sources

• The Evolution of Enterprise Video Platforms| Mediaplatform
• The Past, Present, and Future of Enterprise Video | ReelSEO
• What does a corporate web video cost? 25 Factors (with prices) that affect corporate video production costs. - Marketing with Video and Rich Media Blog | One Market Media

This Day in Online Video History | First Video Uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005

It was eight years ago today that YouTube's first video, Me at the Zoo, was uploaded by Jawed Karim on April 23, 2005. Karim had co-founded YouTube with Chad Hurley and Steve Chen just a few months earlier as a way to share videos with friends and family far away. The video is only 20 seconds long and was shot by Yakov Lapitsky at the San Diego Zoo, and little did the video creators know that it marked the dawn of the UGC (User-Generated Content) online video age. YouTube wasn't the first video sharing site, but since Google purchased it in November 2006 for $1.65 billion, it has revolutionized video sharing across the Internet and has become the top online video content property, with more than 1 billion unique users visiting the site each month.

Just last week, YouTube won its second legal battle against Viacom in federal court with the dismissal of Viacom's $1 billion copyright lawsuit. The ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton in New York stated that Viacom had never proved that YouTube was aware of copyright infringement by its users, and upheld his original ruling from June 2010 which leaves in place the current understanding of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. Stanton also ruled that YouTube didn't act with "willful blindness" and had previously responded to Viacom's requests back in 2007 by removing 100,000 copyrighted videos a day after Viacom notified YouTube of the infringement.

Google Senior Vice President & General Counsel Kent Walker said that the ruling marked an important day for the Internet.

"This is a win not just for YouTube, but for the billions of people worldwide who depend on the web to freely exchange ideas and information."

Read more about the case and the verdict in this article on ReelSEO: Viacom Comes Up Short Against Google/YouTube In Court Once More.

Happy birthday to the first video uploaded to YouTube! While you're not too exciting, you started an online video revolution.

Also to those born on April 23rd, I want to wish a special happy birthday to my daughter Marley Rose, my niece Rebecca and my good friend Steve Dung, owner of Visions Plus video production service in San Francisco!

I'll be back soon with more online video analysis and video conversations.

Ooyala's 2012 Global Video Index is Great News for Online Video Publishers

According to Ooyala's Global Video Index, "2012 was another historic year in online television," and by 2016, 1.5 billion people will watch online video. Ooyala released its 2012 Q4 video index report last week, which measures the monthly viewing habits of nearly 200 million unique viewers in 130 countries. The report found several key trends of its video publishers reflects the overall state of online video, such as live video matters, premium content matters on all screens, larger the screen = higher engagement, branded video viewing and conversion rates surged during the holiday season, mobile and tablet share doubles, and iPhone users watch twice as much video than Android users.


via Ooyala

Ooyala CEO Jay Fulcher says that three key themes stood out in the report.

 "First, live streaming is the new norm. Online viewers tuned in to the Tour de France, Wimbledon and the U.S. Presidential debates right as they happened, and the data shows viewers watch live video longer on all devices. Second, Tablet TV is surging. The share of tablet video viewing more than doubled last year, as mobile, social and video converged on a single device. And Smart TVs and Gaming Consoles continue to change the way people watch TV. New findings in this Video Index show how viewing patterns change seasonally."

The Lines are Officially Blurred

"One of the most important takeaway of 2012, is that the lines between traditional media and streaming media are really starting to blur," says Ooyala Co-Founder and President of Products Bismarck Lepe. 

It's not just about media being consumed across all devices, Lepe emphasizes, business models are also starting to blur. For example, Netflix is now going direct to consumers with original streaming content, and also going the traditional route by licensing its content to television companies in markets where it doesn't have a streaming business.

"We're probably going to see that 2013 and 2014 are going to be the tipping point period for this industry," says Lepe. "As technology improves and business models catch up to where consumers are obviously headed."

Video Consumption Trends Shift

Lepe says that for online video, we're in the middle of phase one and phase two. Distribution platforms like iTunes, Amazon and Hulu Plus have expanded their selection and made it easier to find and view premium content, replacing Torrent sites and the need for DVDs and physical media. The majority of streaming content is still consumed on smaller screens, but as more connected TVs make it into the home, people will move into the third phase of wanting to see streaming content on bigger screens, which is more of the traditional living room lean-back experience. 

Ooyala sees a spike in mobile video in places where public transportation is more prevalent, for instance, in Japan video consumption on mobile and tablets is more than double of that of the U.S. Viewers are watching video on the screens that are most convenient to them based on the availability of content and quality of service. 

Lepe also predicts that the smartphones war, between iOS and Android will shift over the next year to favor Android platform by 50%.

There's Still Work to Do

"There’s still a lot of work to do," Lepe says. "The industry has yet to agree on standards for online video ad measurement, making it difficult to demonstrate the efficacy of paid streaming content. Network speeds and data-caps also create institutional barriers between viewers and videos. In order for “online video” to fully transition to “online television,” media and technology companies must work together to find common ground in this new media landscape." 

Lepe's view of the online video industry, and specifically, the online video platform market, is that we'll continue to see the cookie-cutter, templated video platforms trying to compete with YouTube for free.

"We're very focused on the top end of the market," says Lepe, "where half a trillion dollars changes hands every year, either with episodic television content or theatrical content – and these companies have historically worked with large systems integrators and consultants to build the spoke systems. But the problem with the spoke systems is that they solve the immediate problem, because there isn't a roadmap that supports the long-term trajectory of a particular industry."

Lepe says Ooyala remains committed to its primary mission, to provide value to its customers with video analytics and monetization tools to help them personalize the video viewing experience across all screens, maximize audience engagement and increase revenue.

Key findings from Ooyala’s 2012 Global Video Index

Live Matters

• In Q4 2012, viewers watched live video 18X longer than VOD on desktops, 5X longer on tablets and 4X longer on mobile. 

Premium Matters on All Screens

• About one third of the total time spent watching tablet video last quarter was with premium, long form content running more than 60 minutes. 
• The percentage of time spent watching long-form video (over 10 minutes) on tablets increased 37% from Q1 to Q4 in 2012. 
• Publishers are fueling the growth trend by making more premium long form content available to consumers

Branded Video Consumption Surges Between Black Friday and Christmas Day

• Conversion rates for branded videos jumped 91% from the start of the quarter to their peak in mid-December. 
• There’s a huge opportunity for retailers, e-tailers and consumer brands to connect with online audiences between Black Friday and Christmas Day. 

Mobile and Tablet Share Doubles

• Measured together, the share of all hours spent watching streaming video on tablets and mobile hones increased 100% in 2012. 

 Home (and Online) For the Holidays

• Short-form video* viewing spikes on Black Friday and Christmas, presumably because people are unpacking and tinkering with new connected devices.
•  The amount of time people spent watching short-form video on Connected TVs & Gaming Consoles increased 500% in the two days following Christmas. 
• The share of time spent watching online video on tablets jumped 73% on Christmas

Phone Wars: iOS vs. Android

• Although Android phones are outselling iPhones globally, last year Apple users watched twice as much online video on their mobile phones.

Download the Global Video Index: 2012 Year in Review here.