Google/YouTube Still Leads in a Growing Online Video Market

February has been a big month for online video.

Video players Review

Here’s one of the video players or streaming sites review posted recently. It compares Youtube, Jumpcut, Vimeo, Viddler.

To do this review I will use four criteria on which I will base my comments: First, in terms of Video Player we can find different types of interfaces, ranging from very easy to use for the users to others very complicated. A second important point is the quality; while the sound normally is very similar along the spectrum of possibilities, the image is very different. A third point is the community, a very important criterion when thinking about web 2.0 applications. In this case, we need to assess if and how the users are allowed to comment and create social networks around the services. Finally, it is important to assess the financial component: how these services can create a revenue model for those interested in using them to attract consumers.

You could click here the view more details about how the authors said about each service.

In conclusion if you want to be famous with a video you need to upload your video to youtube, if you want to create and edit videos Jumpcut is a good option, but if you are looking for a high quality service you need to try Vimeo.

I would add that other than those sites, we have this new emerging online interactive video market, such as Asterpix, Ooyala, Overlay.tv, etc. Service like Asterpix actually doesn’t host your video. You could still use Youtube and Vimeo to host, and use their free web service and enhance your video and provides interactivity. You could then share with your friends or add to Facebook, Myspace, etc. For example, here’s what you could do with Asterpix:

and here’s their embed player:

from asterpix.com posted with vodpod

Original post here.

Do People Really Watch User-Generated Online Videos?

Jim Tobin from Ignite Social Media Agency had posted recently on this interesting topic. Often the time, people will ask “Sure, Jim, you can get the video and put it out there, but do you really think people sit around and watch this stuff?”

Jim has given couple metrics in his blog:

“Um, yes. They do. And not just a little–a lot. Only 22 billion views of user-generated video in 2007. This is projected to rise to 34 billion views in 2008. So, yes, note to all clients, people are watching this stuff.”

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project (as reported by e-Marketer), there is a clear age difference, with 30% of 18-29 year olds reporting that they actively visit these sites versus only 4% of folks over age 65.

Men are also about twice as likely as women to watch user-generated video than women (20% to 11%), but there is not much difference as you look at education level, income or ethnicity. Remember this is user-generated video. The numbers are different for all online video viewing. I’ll share those numbers in a couple of days.

The bottom-line lesson here is clear: There’s a tremendous opportunity for video to help folks with their social media marketing. If you do it right, people are clearly willing to watch.

Also, from the blog comments, Andrew Merchant from Liberate Media also mentioned about their success of iCrossing, which had over 1000 views just after a week of launch. They are using the web service Asterpix to try out the interactive social media video release. I have also blogged about their usage of interactive videos to create resume. Here’s my post and the interactive video:

from www.asterpix.com posted with vodpod

Original post here or here

Microsoft/Yahoo: Data

Nobody will argue with me that this week’s spotlight is Microsoft 44B bid for Yahoo. Here’s some data…

Current search market breakdown:

List of Microsoft/Yahoo properties, including category ranking and share:

Financially,

Will Microsoft/Yahoo be a success and change google’s future? Or how does the deal affect smaller startups?

Here’s some other interesting photos I saw related to Microsoft/Yahoo.

Asterpix Interactive Video – Robots inspired by animals

This interactive video from Asterpix is a good demo of how links in video could help giving you more information.  It’s not time-based, which most of the other sites or tools could provide years ago.  This is object tracking, the rectangle or hotspot will try to follow your object pick as long as it could!

from asterpix.com posted with vodpod

Statistics: Online Video Ads Convert

According to a study by Burst Media, barely over half of all viewers of online video will tune out after seeing an instream. Here are some highlights from the original post:

According to Burst Media’s numbers, slightly more than half of all online viewers recall seeing an instream advertisement (defined as either a pre-roll, mid-roll or post-roll advertisement).

…of all respondents, 50.7% stop watching an online video once they encounter an in-stream advertisement, and only 43.2% stay to watch the ad and the rest of the video. The study didn’t delve at all into response ratios at all, which is one of the reasons I think the report tends to skew the results a bit too far into the negative category.

If under half watch the advertisement, and then 45% of those folks respond, you’ve got around a 25% viewer to response ratio, a not insignificant number. Likewise, of all the folks that will view a video, 12.9% will end up buying the product, requesting a free trial, or ordering a subscription.

Essentially, what I’m saying is that we’re looking at a glass half-full/half-empty situation here, but video advertisement still has the highest return on investment of all other forms of advertising when you disregard issues of targeting. As such, the results of the survey look much more like a net positive upon deeper digging than they might on first blush.

Original post here

Yahoo buying Maven Networks, to serve online video ads for big media

Original post: Yahoo buying Maven Networks, to serve online video ads for big media

By Eric Eldon 01.31.08

Yahoo is buying a broadband television distribution company called Maven Networks, for $150 million, according to Techcrunch and for between $160 million and $170 million according to NewTeeVee.

If true, Maven will be a promising new way for Yahoo to sell more online video ads that run on large media companies’ videos.

Maven hosts videos for large media companies, then offers ways to syndicate videos, including video ads, online to other web sites well as high-definition downloads — at a tenth of the cost of rival formats, it claims. There are many such companies, meaning the market was crowded and the company sold for a relatively low amount, as WatchMojo points out.

The Boston-based company’s services are already used by Fox News, Gannett, Hearst, Sony BMG, Univision, TV Guide, The Financial Times and a long list of other big clients. Maven is now another reason for these companies to work with Yahoo for online video distribution, and online video advertising, instead of buying their own technology or working with a rival (such as Google or Microsoft).

Large media companies like Maven’s clients are trying to figure out how to distribute and make money on their large stashes of videos, as their television audiences stagnate. The sentiment in the media industry, as we heard from several executives at yesterday’s OnMediaNYC closing panel, was that they don’t care whether revenue comes from their sales teams or outside parties — outside parties like Yahoo, that has its own ad network. “Do you join [the tech companies] or beat them? Beating them is not an option, ” said Alisa Bowen, SVP at Reuters.

Sample Maven ad-insertion screen below:

 

Meanwhile, Maven is growing at a “breakneck pace quarter to quarter,” co-founder Hilmi Ozguc told NewTeeVee last fall. “Media companies have needs but they don’t have technology experience. It is rocket science, it’s difficult, and that’s what we’re very good at.”

Maven’s content management system was “designed for millions of video assets, millions of video transactions happening simultaneously,” Ozguc told Broadcasting Cable last fall in reference to the company’s deal with Fox. “[Maven] can handle anything from a few sites to hundreds, if not thousands, of sites that are simultaneously pulling video from Fox News, distributing it to a very large audience — both Fox’s own, as well as their affiliates.”

Of course, Yahoo is also a content creator that in some sense competes with these large media companies. “Some of [our media] brands will say “our content is great,” said Caroline Little, CEO and Publisher of The Washington Post and Newsweek Interactive, at the conference yesterday. “And I say, have you looked at Yahoo? It’s pretty good [content] too.” For more VentureBeat coverage of trends online advertising, see Julie Ruvolo’s post from yesterday.

Maven raised a total of $30 million in venture funding, from Accel Partners, General Catalyst, and Prism Ventures.

Interactive Video Resume

“PR is changing. We’ve already evolved.”

Interactive videos are changing our internet experience one by one, from education, retail, travel, etc. Today I came across this post Not the Social Media Press Release…but the Social Media Video Release, which about how the PR firm Liberate Media located in UK use Asterpix to promote Interactive Video Resume/Biography.

Each of the company directors filmed a video biography, and sourced additional online links referencing the credentials they talk about. These resources included visual cues for Flickr and LinkedIn, as well as downloadable photos that we hosted, and a PDF script for accessibility and fact checking purposes.

Our trials were so successful that we pitched the idea to our client iCrossing (formerly Spannerworks in the UK) for their re-brand announcement. They very much liked the idea but wanted a more polished finish, and more in-depth additional information.

Here’s the post Spannerworks announces iCrossing re-brand, and they distributed an interactive video release of global CEO Jeff Herzog, and CEO of iCrossing UK Arjo Ghosh, discussing the brand integration, and vision for iCrossing and digital marketing as a whole in 2008.

from www.asterpix.com posted with vodpod

The above video is interactive, offering links to other sources of information on iCrossing, our spokespeople, and some of the work that we’ve been pioneering in integrated digital marketing. Hover over the logos as they appear throughout the short film to view a description of the additional resource they provide, and click on them to open-up the information in a new browser. A PDF transcript of the video is also available as a download.We hope you enjoy the video, and continue to support us under our new brand.

I think there could be a lot more potential in this idea of using interactive video as the resume. Maybe pretty soon I will see interactive videos showing up in LinkedIn profiles. If you are interested, you could visit Asterpix to create your own.

This is another post from Asterpix CEO Nat Kausik talking about this idea.