These posts are, well, rather inconsequential. But fun all the same.
The use of online video to present, inspire and captivate customers has been one of the primary engines of the video distribution revolution. Here are a few examples that I think are worth noting.
The first is not new content by any means. According to the date stamp these videos are almost two years old. All the same their clarity in messaging and memorable content have insured a long self-life of interest for them. I offer two videos that work nicely and should be viewed in succession. The first (with 1.5 million views) is from Dove's award winning campaign that helps young women understand the mechanics of selling beauty. The second one is the other side of the coin. If parody is the highest form of flattery then Dove must feel loved. With 1.3 million views we see a journey on a road I know all too well.
The second is about the future rather than the past. Like the metal and plastic puck most of us lug around in our pockets and purses, our mobile phone of the future will be a constant companion, serving not only as our communicator but also as our environmental sensor. "Naturally", it will harness solar energy and be self-cleaning (thanks to integrated nanotechnology). But that's just skimming the surface. To see the full-blown vision of engineers at Nokia and the University of Cambridge Nanoscience Center, watch this video.
I was recently asked to create a list of video syndication and distribution sites on the web. To create a definitive list would require a post much, much longer than this entire blog. I have compiled a few of my favorites and those I believe are market leaders.
I have created a rather diverse list of sites. Exploring every site may seem a little daunting at first. I have broken the list into examples of social networks and how user generated content is being incorporated in on-line communities. The second is a link to Brightcove with examples of how large corporations are using Brightcove's technology to create unique channels. Brightcove is by no means the only example of 3rd party channel creators. You also may want to browse around in the list of aggregators. This is where the real money appears to be right now. I think it is wise to have a familiarity with their model and approach. The last two are more of a list of hardware solutions and tech platforms. If you choose not to reinvent the wheel, it is likely you would use one of these solutions for distributing your content.
Social networks
Vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/
Bebo http://www.bebo.com/
Youtube http://www.youtube.com/
Myspace http://vids.myspace.com/
Eyespot http://eyespot.com/#
Magnify http://www.magnify.net/
Channel creation
Brightcove http://www.brightcove.com/customers/selected-customers.cfm
Aggregators
Hulu http://www.hulu.com/
Yahoo http://tv.yahoo.com/
Joost http://www.joost.com/
Veoh http://www.veoh.com/
Myspace http://vids.myspace.com/
Xboxlive http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/moviesandtv101.htm
AOL http://television.aol.com/
Tech platforms
Anystream http://www.anystream.com/
Gotuit http://www.gotuit.com/
Movenetworks http://www.movenetworks.com/
Permissiontv http://www.permissiontv.com/
Brightcove http://www.brightcove.com/
Blip.tv http://www.blip.tv/
Worldnow http://www.worldnow.com/
Distribution/Monetization
Signiant http://www.signiant.com/
Tremor media http://www.tremormedia.com/home.php
Adap.tv http://www.adap.tv/
Akamai http://www.akamai.com/
Yume http://yume.com/
Voxant http://www.thenewsroom.com/
Freewheel http://www.freewheel.tv/
Search
Clip Blast http://www.clipblast.com/#welcome
Web distributed video media is showing up in all sorts of novel places on the web. One problem area for large corporations and firms is attracting and retaining the best job candidates. More and more Human Resources managers are beginning to understand the value of creating content that reaches their intended audience using a narrative voice that rings true. The Boston law firm of Choate Hall & Stewart has created a recruiting section of their web portal that leverages some very innovative thinking about how to find the right summer associates. Frankly, this is very clever. The specific content will not have a very long shelf-life (the Mac v. PC parody will get tired in a few months) but the personal testimonial by this year's summer associates and the clever tone and solid production value leads me to believe they have an idea that will be stolen and emulated over and over. My mom said that is the highest form of flattery. But I digress. Their Director of Marketing noted, that the videos have "streamlined every point in the recruiting process" starting with improved candidate self-selection, more productive in-depth interviews, a higher acceptance rate on offers made and a higher quality of new hires. All recruits said they had seen the videos reacted positively. They especially appreciated seeing their friends candidly discussing their experiences.
What isn't necessarily obvious but should be noted is the success of the site really stems from the clarity and consistency of the vision for the site. All the videos are exceptionally well written, shot and produced. The interviews are short, to the point and sweet (as Wired called it, "snackable".) All of the elements really hold together and add up to create a very nice user experience. The consistency of the tone (not too stuffy, not too self-aware, not overly clever) makes it work. I think that is why the success of this implementation of web video in a non-traditional environment stands out. They did it right.
OK, I am just making this up, but could the gas crunch be a windfall for video syndication on the web? Are we going out less and sitting home more? I ask this because Online Media Daily reported today that U.S. Internet users watched 12 billion online videos in May, up 45% from a year ago and about 10% from April, according to comScore's Video Metrix service. That is really significant.
The other interesting thing today is that the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and others are reporting that Google Inc. and Viacom Inc. have agreed to allow Google to anonymize YouTube visitor data before complying with a judge's order to deliver the data to Viacom as part of a broader copyright lawsuit. This is from the pissin' match where Google is required to provide user data in an effort to prove that YouTube has done a poor job of policing copyright violations. This one might effect most everything we see on the web and how we interact with the web.
Finally, Will Richmond has an interesting perspective on long tail economics and video on the web. As one of the early champions of video syndication models on the web he notes today that the trend toward widespread video syndication to small-to-medium sized web sites continues to gain momentum. He believes there is an increasing likelihood that broadband video's eventual distribution model will look far different from traditional, tightly-controlled approaches.
First of all the blog aggregator is a bit flaky. Sometimes you have to refresh the page once or twice for all the pages to load. Also, I think what I have discovered about feedraider is that if you have a private blog this will not aggregate your content. Kirk, Aaron, Keiichi, Brian, Yi-Jen, Susie, Chris, Sarah, Rebekah, Sean, Christy, Kristina, Sebastian, Jennifer and Raquel have all submitted addresses that are good to go. Annie & Maury’s feed appear to be blocked by security. At least the feed raider is not parsing your posts. I am aware it is a hassle, but if you want to be included in the class feed you may need to cross-post your weekly assignments to a separate blog without the security limits. Those of you who said you were sending me link information please check that you have sent it to drewke@u.washington.edu. If you blog is not listed it is either a security issue or I didn’t get it.
On a different note, here are a few items that have come up and you may be interesting in reviewing.
I love this site… This is what happens when a rival technology eats your lunch. A particular irony considering the site title and the final outcome of HD DVD.
http://www.thelookandsoundofperfect.com/
Give CNN credit: their 4 month-old "iReport" feature seems to making steady progress, demonstrating how a traditional news organization can effectively incorporate user-generated content.
"Widgets" are quickly proving to be a potent way of distributing content in general and video in particular. EgoTV is a broadband content startup who is distributing their "Malibu U" program through Clearspring's widget platform. Here is how the model works. They are small chunks of HTML code that essentially create a container into which content can be continuously pushed. Widgets have gained widespread popularity with the rise of web 2.0 social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, as users can select different widgets for embedding in their personal pages. This allows both the user and visitors to easily view content there. A user can also embed widgets in personal content sites using PageFlakes, iGoogle or others, or can use widgets right on their desktop.
Here is an interesting take on “fair use” in video. There is an ongoing discussion about fair use and the potential chilling effect on creativity when apparent copyright holders threaten legal action. It seems the Center for Social Media has developed a "Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Online Videos". Certainly relevant to all that we do in internet distributed video.
Broadband Internet TV has overtaken cable TV in France, according to audience measurement company Mediametrie.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117988728.html?categoryid=14&cs=1
Here are a few of the posts I read and enjoyed this week. Some good, thoughtful starts to the class. But I did not see posts from everyone.
After watching the first couple minutes, the stream caught up to the buffering so I decided to see how long it would take to buffer the entire 30 minute show: about 12 minutes on a mediocre comcast wireless set-up.
I have to tip my hat to Hulu.com for providing a service so slickly packaged and entertaining, that it may soon replace TV.
Nifty graphic illustrating BitTorrent
The average of Metacafe video is only 90 seconds long. This feature prevents some technical and navigator crash related problems.
Websites incorporating streaming media should load promptly or else viewers lose interest and move on elsewhere.
I quickly found out researching for streaming websites can be a highly distracting (although enjoyable) experience… I did manage to focus on one subject, catching some Wimbledon actions. Tracking the little tennis ball on screen turned out to be a good test for streaming.
Also, I liked Sean’s comparison chart
Nowadays, having overcome the novelty of finding streaming media on a print publication’s Web site, I find such combinations of media (multi-mediumed multimedia?) to be the norm.
