WebProNews

Tag: YouTube

  • Rumor Puts Google In Pursuit Of Miramax Movies

    YouTube’s selection of movies has been largely awful to date, both in terms of size and quality.  That may soon change in a big way, though, as a new report puts Google in discussions to buy the digital rights to over 700 Miramax films.

    Claire Atkinson wrote, "Google is in talks with Filmyard Holdings, the soon-to-be owners of famed film studio Miramax, about a potential deal to gain digital rights to Miramax’s archives, according to people close to the situation."

    Atkinson then continued, "Sources said Google is eyeing the film rights to bolster its efforts to turn YouTube into a Web destination for longer form content, although Google may have to do battle with Netflix, which has also shown an interest in Miramax’s film library."

    Whoever wins will get an impressive prize.  Miramax is an important name in the entertainment industry, with ties to movies like City of Men, Garden State, Heavenly Creatures, and Pulp Fiction.  Movies that people want to watch over and over, in other words, versus abominations like Bachelor Party in the Bungalow of the Damned – something YouTube currently offers – that shouldn’t be viewed even once.

    We’ll see what happens.  Unfortunately, it’s hard to say when any deal could be sealed, as the acquisition of Miramax by Filmyard Holdings is still itself underway at this point.

  • Skippable Ads On Deck At YouTube

    However much marketers might like to think otherwise, trying to force a person to watch an ad online does little good.  The average person will open a different tab, run to the bathroom, or perhaps just stare at the nearest wall.  So YouTube may be onto something as it prepares to give users the option of skipping certain ads.

    According to Irina Slutsky, YouTube should roll out an endeavor called TrueView over the next few weeks.  She reported that this will "give viewers a choice of three different ads to watch.  Users can also skip the ad altogether and the advertiser isn’t charged."

    Note that TrueView won’t be available in every situation.  Also, Hulu should get credit for exploring the choose-your-own-ad idea first.

    Still, this development seems to represent a win-win for marketers and YouTube viewers.  The marketers will have to worry less about annoying people and/or getting ignored, while viewers will be able to decide what sort of experience suits them best.

    Then you can toss in a third win for YouTube, since TrueView should help both keep marketers and users coming back to the site.

    So stay tuned to see how this works out.  Slutsky wrote, "YouTube plans to start off TrueView with advertisers who have a managed account at Google — those marketers with dedicated channels.  But eventually, as with everything at Google, the platform is meant to scale and automate and be available to everyone."

  • YouTube Video Upload Rate Hits 35 Hours Per Minute

    Given that they start out with zero users, it’s not too rare for young sites to achieve hockey stick growth. Sites that were created more than five years ago, on the other hand, tend to have less impressive numbers. But new YouTube data indicates the site is still taking off in terms of the volume of video uploaded per minute.

    Hunter Walk, a director of product management who once worked for Conan O’Brien, announced on the YouTube Blog, “[Y]ou’ve increased the amount of video uploaded to YouTube to 35 hours per minute. That breaks out to 2,100 hours uploaded every 60 minutes, or 50,400 hours uploaded to YouTube every day.”

    Walk then noted, “If we were to measure that in movie terms (assuming the average Hollywood film is around 120 minutes long), 35 hours a minute is the equivalent of over 176,000 full-length Hollywood releases every week. Another way to think about it is: if three of the major US networks were broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the last 60 years, they still wouldn’t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days.”

    So this is truly a stunning milestone, as the graph below shows.

    The development is important on a practical level, too. Every hour of video uploaded to YouTube is another hour the organization can try to monetize, and as YouTube gets closer and closer to profitability, that fact should outweigh the added bandwidth costs.

    (more…)

  • YouTube Remote App Debuts

    A recent study by Logitech determined that the modern living room is awash in remotes, with at least 40 percent of living rooms in five different countries playing home to four or more of them. Google’s (partial) solution came today in the form of the YouTube Remote app.

    A post on the YouTube Blog explained this afternoon, “YouTube Remote creates a virtual connection between your phone and YouTube Leanback. To ‘pair’ your phone with your Leanback screen, simply sign into YouTube Remote on your Android phone, and to YouTube Leanback on your Google TV or computer with the same YouTube account.” (more…)

  • Watch the Election Results on YouTube

    Watch the Election Results on YouTube

    You can watch the elections on YouTube tonight if that is your preferred video hub or if you’re not near a television (though you can still watch them there from your TV if it’s connected). At 9PM, the CBS YouTube channel will stream the results live. 

    "It’s been a memorable campaign season on YouTube, but the time for persuasion and debate is over — now it’s time to vote," writes Ramya Raghavan of YouTube News and Politics on the company blog. "As polling results come in from across the country, we’re partnering with CBS News to live stream election results and highlight election trends on YouTube and Google."

    "Already, CBS has been highlighting election trends through data from Google and YouTube platforms," notes Raghavan. "In addition to analyzing the top political videos on YouTube, they’re watching Google Trends and Insights for Search to determine what people are searching for and watching online. This approach of examining web trends adds a new level of depth to election reporting and is a model that news organizations can use for any major event or milestone."

    CBS YouTube Channel

    9 out of the top 10 searches on Google today have been election-related, according to the company. Google itself is providing other tools to help users follow the elections and to find where to vote. 

    In fact, social networks like Facebook and Twitter are doing their parts as well. Here you can see what Twitter is doing, and here are Facebook’s offerings. Chances are if you use Facebook, you’ve already seen some of them today. 

    CBS is taking feedback and ideas via Google Moderator from their channel. The top submissions have a chance to make it on the air. 

  • No Real Social Media Plan? Try Starting With This.

    Coming up with a social media plan isn’t always the easiest thing to do for businesses. There are so many factors that come into play, even beyond the landscape of communities that actually exist. For example, business leaders need to ask questions like: How much time should be spent interacting with social media sites? How many people should be representing the company on social sites? How much of their time should be dedicated to it? Should it be the full-time job of one person? The full-time jobs of more people? Only part of the job for a lot of people? Etc. Etc. Etc. 

    No matter how much time and how many resources are spent on your brand’s social media presence, more can always be done, so many will have to find they have to be selective in areas of participation and time spent. If your budget and time aren’t as restricted, you can build an enormous social presence around the web in the places that matter. Just remember, more can always be done. We at WebProNews certainly have plenty of room to expand and improve our own social strategy, and chances are you do too. 

    So, with all of that in mind, here are some ideas you can use to build your social presence. 

    Twitter

    1. Post regular Twitter updates everyday. That doesn’t mean spam or post them constantly all day long, but there should be enough regularity to where your followers know you’re there and don’t forget about you. That said, don’t talk just to talk. Have something valuable to say. If you produce content, share your links. Some may not think it’s a good idea just to pump out your own links on Twitter, because it’s "about the conversation", but the way I look at is this: if someone is following me, they’re probably interested in what I have to say. If I’m writing articles, those are in essence, what I have to say. That doesn’t mean that it’s not about the conversation. 

    2. You should engage in conversation on Twitter. Start conversations that don’t necessarily pertain to your own links. Listen to what others are saying, and join conversations with them, regardless of if they are directly related to your brand or not. 

    3. Monitor your brand. Respond to @mentions (good or bad). Respond to direct messages. 

    4. Post pictures and videos using services like TwitPic, TwitVid, Yfrog, etc. These things can help humanize your brand and increase engagement with others. They can be conversation starters. People like visuals. 

    5. Create relevant lists. Create lists of other Twitterers that can provide value to others. You don’t necessarily have to, but it might be a good idea to create a variety of lists for subjects related to your niche. If you have a car blog, for example, you might have a list of car brands, a list of other car bloggers, a list for mechanics, a list of auto part vendors, etc. 

    WebProNews on Twitter

    Facebook

    1. Have a Facebook Page for your brand. If you’re running a business, you need a Page, not just a personal profile. What you do with your personal profile is up to you, but your page should be up, and it should be promoted. 

    2. Post regular updates throughout the day. Just like Twitter, I see nothing wrong with sharing links to your content here if you write articles or blog posts. I should note that this should be actual helpful content though – not just posts about why people should buy your product. Nobody wants to be a fan of a page that does that. 

    3. Respond to comments on your Page. Get involved in conversations. 

    4. Update your photos and videos. You don’t have to use third-party services for this on Facebook. 

    5. Experiment with landing pages for your Facebook Page. It doesn’t have to go right to your wall. You can direct fans to any information you want to provide. 

    6. You can use "notes" to put blog-style content right in Facebook should you choose to do so. 

    7. There is a virtually unlimited number of Facebook apps. Look for ones that might be able to add value to your page and get people engaged in a helpful way. This will also take some experimenting. 

    WebProNews on Facebook

    YouTube (and other video sites)

    1. If you create videos, you need to have them on YouTube and other video sites/networks. This is key for getting your videos out to a wider audience. 

    2. These sites are also communities. Respond to comments and subscribe to others. Make friends in the communities. 

    3. Push subscriptions to your channels. Keeping people subscribed means keeping them engaged as you continue to produce content. This can help build a following. 

    4. Even if you don’t create your own videos, it doesn’t mean that you can’t get involved in conversations and comment on others’ videos. 

    5. You can create "favorites" lists of videos that can be helpful, even if they’re not your videos (similar to the Twitter lists).

    WebProNews on YouTube

    MySpace

    1. MySpace may not be the current flavor of the week, but make no mistake – it’s still got a lot of users. Makes friends on MySpace with like-minded individuals and businesses, and expand your network here. 

    2. Like anything else, keep up with your comments and direct messages, and engage in conversation on and off your own page. 

    3. Have a professional-looking design for your page. 

    4. Highlight your best content. 

    5. Update your page regularly with new status updates, blog entries, videos, etc. 

    Google Buzz

    1. Update Buzz regularly throughout the day with links and general conversation. Basically, treat it similar to Facebook or Twitter. 

    2. Engage in conversation on and off your own Buzz posts. 

    3. Spend some time making your Google Profile (which is connected to Buzz…and appears in Google search results) the best it can be. Provide links to your other profiles. 

    4. Integrate other options that are available and applicable to you (Google Reader sharing, Picasa photos, Orkut, etc.)

    5. You can apply these to other networks like LinkedIn and FriendFeed as well. 

    Digg, Reddit, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc. 

    1. Share links to others’ content on social bookmarking sites like these regularly. This will help you build a following. 

    2. Have buttons to make your own content easy to share on these sites. 

    3. Engage in conversations in the comments of links you share and links others share on these sites. 

    4. Become friends with others like-minded and interesting people on these networks. 

    Forums

    1. Find relevant topics in forums that are also relevant to your business and get involved in existing conversations. 

    2. Start your own relevant conversations. Don’t just get in there and link to your content. It’s tacky and people will see through it. You can often provide your link in your profile anyway. 

    3. If you have built up enough credibility in a forum, you might be able to share a link of your own from time to time in a legitimate fashion, like for example, if you wrote an article on the topic being discussed that helps to answer a question that is being asked. 

    4. The more actively you engage in useful conversation, the more credibility you will gain, and you can come to be looked upon as an expert in your field. 

    Blogs

    1. If you have a blog, keep up with the comments. Respond and stay involved in the conversations. If people disagree with you, which they often will, don’t make a big deal about it or try to prove them wrong. You might just be driving them away. Keep it constructive. Respectfully disagree and maybe elaborate on why you stand by your position, or if they change your mind, maybe tell them you hadn’t looked at things that way. 

    2. Take the time to participate in conversation on other relevant blogs. You can basically think of blog comments as mini forums. The same rules pretty much apply. 

    Photos

    1. As I said, people like visuals, especially current users of sites like Flickr and Picasa. Update photo sites regularly. Again, this can help humanize your brand and even open you up to different audiences. 

    2. Participate in conversations in comments on and off of your own photos. 

    3. Promote your presence on these sites. On your own site/blog, maybe have some links pointing to these accounts.

    The Right Person/People for the Job

    1. You want to make sure you have the right person or people representing your brand in all of these communities. You don’t want someone that doesn’t really understand your company’s vision or position  to be out there giving people the wrong impression. 

    2. Whoever is representing your brand should have a grasp on current news and strategies related to what your business provides. In other words, they should be knowledgeable. It wouldn’t hurt for the people involved to have a designated amount of time each day just reading news. 

    Finally, just keep everything up to date and current. Don’t let profiles go sour. Don’t let comments, questions, and messages sit there to rot. You’ve got to keep up with it all. So, with that in mind, don’t bite off more than you can chew in social media. Look at how much of this you actually want to do, and plan time and resources accordingly. 

    This is by no means all that can be done. There are plenty of other communities I didn’t mention, and probably a great deal more strategies that I didn’t touch upon. I think the things mentioned in this article should be a good start though. 

    What did I leave out that you would add? Please do so in the comments. 

  • YouTube Crosses 1 Billion Subscriptions, Launches Tool for a Quicker 2nd Billion

    YouTube Crosses 1 Billion Subscriptions, Launches Tool for a Quicker 2nd Billion

    YouTube announced that its crossed a billion subscriptions. That’s subscriptions to YouTube channels. 

    "Early on (we’re talking ’06 here, people!), the yellow subscribe button made its debut so the latest videos from your favorite channels could make a beeline to your inbox/eager eyes," YouTube Product Marketing Manager Georges Haddad, said in a blog post yesterday. "Today, the button that’s been immortalized as a throw cushion hits an important landmark: it’s been clicked over one billion times."

    While it was MachinimaSports that got the billionth subscription (featured on YouTube’s homepage today), a number of channels have over a million subscribers. In fact there are 15 of them. These include: fred, nigahiga, kassemg, shanedawsonTV, shanedawsonTV2, smosh, universalmusicgroup,machinima, sxephil, mysteryguitarman, davedays, kevjumba, realannoyingorange, raywilliamjohnson, collegehumor, failblog.

    Machinima Sports on YouTube

    YouTube has also launched a new widget for video producers to embed on their sites and blogs that allows for one-click YouTube channel subscription. That should help the second billion come a lot faster. 

    When a user clicks the button, they don’t have to leave the content provider’s site to log into YouTube or to confirm their subscription. It all happens right in the widget. Content providers can get the source code for the widget here. 

    In other YouTube news, CEO Chad Hurley announced that he is stepping down from his post, and will assume an advisory role with YouTube. As Doug Caverly points out, he was the last of YouTube’s co-founders to have close ties to the company.

     

  • YouTube CEO Hurley To Step Down

    YouTube CEO Hurley To Step Down

    A change in leadership will soon take place at the site Google bought for $1.65 billion.  While speaking at a conference in Ireland, YouTube cofounder and CEO Chad Hurley announced that he’ll step down and assume an advisory role.

    Hurley was the last of YouTube’s cofounders to have close ties to the organization, and it’s not every day that a CEO operating at this level gives up his position, which makes the change significant.  In all honesty, though, this development may not be as exciting as it sounds.

    There’s no reason to believe Hurley’s being forced out, for example, since he’s been more than happy to let Googler Salar Kamangar run things for several years.  There’s no reason to believe Hurley’s bailing, either, since the terms of the Google-YouTube deal released him a long time ago.

    Chad HurleyAccording to Lisa O’Carroll, Hurley just said at the F.ounders (not a typo) conference, "Right now I am in the process of transitioning into the role of adviser, stepping down, still being involved in the company but it’s given me an opportunity to work on new projects."

    Hurley also complimented Kamangar, who appears to be the obvious choice in terms of replacing him if Google decides to keep the CEO position.

    It should be interesting to see where the cofounder of YouTube lands next.

  • YouTube Starts “On The Rise” Spotlight Program

    Some lesser-known participants in the YouTube Partner Program are about to get a serious leg up when it comes to promoting their channels.  Late yesterday, YouTube introduced a contest-like feature called "On the Rise" which will grant crowd favorites a spot on the homepage.

    The rules are simple.  A post on the YouTube Blog explained, "[E]very month, we’ll pull together a list of partner channels whose subscriber rate has quickly accelerated in the last 30 days but who still have less than 100,000 subscribers.  We’ll winnow that list down to a handful of channels, and then we’ll ask the community to vote on one channel . . ."

    Next, as mentioned earlier, the winner will "be featured on the YouTube homepage and get promoted through our social media channels on Twitter and Facebook."

    The first four contestants are makeup expert emilynoel83, a golf channel, oddball kalebnation, and toy reviewer optibotimus if you’d care to vote.

    Or, if you’re more interested in receiving votes, we’ll mention that it’s possible to nominate yourself for On the Rise in the comments section of the YouTube Blog post.

    Good luck to all current and future contenders.

    A couple programming notes: the first round of voting will end on November 2nd, and November 6th is when the initial winner will be featured on the YouTube homepage.

  • Yahoo Mail Goes Social With Facebook and Twitter

    Yahoo has launched Yahoo Mail Beta, which the company boasts is twice as fast and offers more social networking connectivity from directly within the inbox.

     Users can opt-in to try Yahoo Mail Beta.  The new mail service allows users to view and share updates from Twitter and Facebook without having to leave the inbox. An automatic slideshow feature allows people to see photos and videos from sites like Flickr, Picasa, and YouTube from within their email messages.

    “Online communication tools are an important part of people’s lives—whether they’re connecting with their friends and family, sharing pictures and videos, or keeping up on news across social networks,” said Blake Irving, chief product officer, Yahoo.

     

     

    Other highlights of Yahoo Mail Beta include:

    *A new email search feature that allows users to navigate, sort, and narrow search results by sender, attachment file, date, or folder location.

    *Improved instant messaging and texting along with using third-party apps all within the inbox.

    *Improved spam protection and a consistent email experience on desktop, mobile and tablet devices.

    During the Beta period, Yahoo says it will update and add new features to Yahoo Beta Mail. Users can switch between the new and old versions of Yahoo Mail. The new service is available in 25 markets globally.

     

  • YouTube Can Help Promote Your Business

    YouTube Can Help Promote Your Business

    Does your business have a video strategy? Do you want more people to watch and share your videos?

    Coverage of SES Chicago will continue.  Stay with WebProNews for more notes from the event this week.

    In the session “How to Transform Your Approach to Video,” Jonathan Allen, Director, SearchEngineWatch, offered ways to make video more effective.

    “YouTube is brilliant at mediocrity,” said Allen. Video on YouTube has to be good but not great. There is more exciting content on YouTube then on Twitter in Allen’s opinion.

    Jonathan Allen

    Embeds drive the most traffic for video. People forget discovery is the main traffic driver on YouTube.

    Use all the space available on YouTube for the description of your video. Uses tags  be the source. Put videos into playlists and copy other peoples tags.

    Talks about a video of himself eating live octopus. Has 4,000 views on YouTube. Added tag and titless based on YouTube search for eating live octopus. Got picked up in related videos by National Geograhphic. That brought him 1,200 views for the octopus video.

    Talks about making a video called “man versus snowman” where he tackles a snowman he made and said it ranks first on Google.

    Video discovery can lead to your video spreading to blogs and other websites.  Foreign language can lead to more traffic for you video.

    Greg Jarboe, moderator of the session and Co-founder, SEO-PR, said video is 50 more times likely to make you rank on the first page of Google search results.

    It’s like a backdoor to Google (video). You can segment longer videos with shorter videos. Link them together as a playlist. Submit chunks of a video to other video sharing sites besides youtube.  Tubemogul is a good site to you use and Vimeo.

    Invite bloggers to embed videos on their sites and webmasters. Don’t  just borrow tags, borrow great ideas!

    Develop your persona, define the conncetors and your final audience. Your content must be relevant to your audience and your business.

    Make your videos easy to share. Youtube offers 13 ways to share video, use them. By getting embeds it empowers you. Get people to interact with your video  by sharing via socail media.

    Recommendations are the future of all Web TV.

  • Facebook Falls To Yahoo In Online Video

    comScore Video Metrix has released its September online video rankings finding that 175 million U.S. Internet viewers watched online video during the month for an average of 14.4 hours.

    Google sites, driven mainly by video viewing at YouTube, continued to rank as the online video content property with 52.2 million unique viewers. Yahoo sites move back into the second spot with 54.4 million viewers after falling to Facebook in Augst. Facebook closely trailed with 52.2 million viewers. Microsoft moved up 3 postions in September, landing in fourth place with 45.5 million viewers. Google Sites had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.9 billion and average time spent per viewer at 260 minutes, or 4.3 hours.

    September-Video

    Americans viewed more than 4.3 billion video ads in September, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 794 million. Tremor Media Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 526 million ad views, followed by BrightRoll Video Network (476 million) and ADAP.TV (444 million). Video ads reached 45 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 32 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 27.5 over the course of the month.

    Other highlights from comScore include:

    *The top video ad networks in terms of their potential reach of the total U.S. population were: ScanScout at 46.8 percent, BrightRoll Video Network at 44.5 percent, and Break Media at 44.1 percent.

    *83.9 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

    *The duration of the average online content video was 4.9 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

    *Video ads accounted for 12.3 percent of all videos viewed and 1.2 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online

     

     

  • YouTube Honors John Lennon For 70th Birthday

     Yoko Ono and EMI Music have partnered with YouTube for worldwide tributes honoring John Lennon to mark his 70th birthday (October 9).

    YouTube will honor John Lennon with a homepage spotlight starting at 9pm PT on Friday, October 8th and staying active for 24 hours. The spotlight will include a personal video from Yoko Ono, asking people around the world to submit videotaped tributes to John Lennon.

     

    Video testimonials from Lennon’s friends and fans, including Ringo Star, Brian Wilson, Aerosmith, the Jonas Brothers, Jeff Bridges, Tony Hawk and Bret Michaels, will also be included in YouTube’s homepage spotlight.

    "I hope you’ll join me and a family of peace around the world to celebrate this very special day," said Yoko Ono.  "Send in your own video tribute to YouTube, and we will share in keeping John’s memory alive."

    YouTube has also created a global Yoodle of the YouTube logo, to be launched in 25 countries at 9pm PT on Friday, October 8th and to remain live for 24 hours. The Yoodle will be synced to cover Lennon’s October 9th birthday in all regions.

    Google has created its first-ever video doodle, which presents sketched animation featuring John Lennon’s self-portrait set to an audio clip of Lennon’s iconic song, "Imagine."  It was created by Google doodler, Mike Dutton, with Yoko Ono’s approval.  The Google doodle will be live on Google homepages all over the world starting noon on Friday, October 8th and all day Saturday, October 9th until midnight.

  • YouTube Promotion Tools Pass Field Test

    There was big news earlier today in the online video world, with comScore announcing that Facebook had passed Yahoo in terms of monthly unique visitors.  Only YouTube/"Google sites" of course remains in first place, and this afternoon a YouTube product manager took a moment to discuss the effectiveness of the site’s promotion tools.

    On the YouTube Blog, Jay Akkad explained an experiment’s setup: "Our team selected 20 partner videos who upload fresh videos regularly and then we drove as many views to them as possible with a cost per view (CPV) of $0.03."

    Their findings?   Among other things, "Promotion at $0.03 per view increases views per day by 30x when compared to two weeks prior to promotion."  Also, "Partners in the test got 46,000 subscriptions that were directly attributed to sessions with a Promoted Video click.  The cost averaged out to be between $4-$6 a subscriber."

    That’s pretty impressive stuff.

    YouTube’s no doubt hoping to attract more advertising dollars with those figures, and it’s likely to succeed.  Most organizations can afford a test on that scale, especially if they’ve already sunk time and money into creating a series of videos.

    Good luck if you choose to try the promotion tools out for yourself.

  • Facebook Second Only To YouTube For Video Viewing

    comScore said today that 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video in August for an average of 14.3 hours per viewer.

    Google sites, driven by video viewing on YouTube, ranked as the top online video property with 146.3 million unique viewers. Facebook move up one position to land in the second spot with 58.6 million viewers, for a total of 243 million viewing sessions. Yahoo sites ranked third with 53.9 million viewers, followed by Vevo with 45.4 million. Google sites had the highest number of overall viewing sessions with 1.9 billion and average time spent per viewer at 270 minutes , or 4.5 hours.

    comScore-Video

    Americans viewed more than 3.8 billion video ads in August, with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at 790 million. BrightRoll Video Network ranked second overall (and highest among video ad networks) with 469 million ad views, followed by Tremor Media Video Network (442 million) and Microsoft Sites (234 million). Video ads reached 45 percent of the total U.S. population an average of 28 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 30 over the course of the month.

    Other highlights from August include:

    *85.1 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

    *The duration of the average online content video was 4.8 minutes, while the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes.

    *Video ads accounted for 10.7 percent of all videos viewed and 1.0 percent of all minutes spent viewing video online.

     

  • Content Creation Slows On Social Networks

    Content Creation Slows On Social Networks

     While the worldwide adoption of social networking is still increasing, other forms of social interactions, such as content creation, have experienced no significant growth in the past year, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

    Jacqueline-Anderson “Social Technographics data can be used as a benchmark to help understand where certain social media approaches might work and where they might fail,” said Forrester Research Consumer Insights Analyst Jacqueline Anderson.

    “For example, while almost 40 percent of metropolitan Chinese consumers can be classified as Collectors, only 10 percent in Europe are [Collectors]. Providing the Chinese consumers with tools to easily tag content would be helpful, while resources would be better spent elsewhere for European target consumers.”

    The number of people who joined social networks increased by 11 percent in Europe, 18 percent in metro China, and 11 percent in Australia. By comparison, North America saw slightly less growth, with only an 8 percent increase. On the other hand, between 2009 and 2010, no markets exhibited growth in the number of people who create social content.

    “A lack of growth in social creation translates into a lack of fresh ideas, content, and perspectives,” said Anderson.

    “For example, one-third of online consumers in the US regularly watch user-generated videos on sites like YouTube. But, only 10 percent of US online consumers upload videos they’ve created to public sites. The traits required to create social content are unique, and at this moment, the consumer market interested in these behaviors has plateaued.”

  • 60 Minutes Reaches Out To YouTube Audience

    A news program that debuted way back in September of 1968 is now taking steps to embrace a video-sharing site and the latest social media trends.  60 Minutes has launched a YouTube channel and asked viewers weigh in.

    The channel-related development is straightforward (though important).  Certain 60 Minutes segments will simply be uploaded to youtube.com/60minutes after they air so that people who miss the show on Sunday night can catch up later.

    It’s the request for feedback that’s a little more interesting.  A post on the YouTube Blog explained, "[W]e’re partnering in a new program called, ‘Ask 60 Minutes,’ where you can engage directly with their correspondents.  This week, we’re featuring correspondent Lara Logan’s story from the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, where she spent weeks with the 101st Airborne undergoing relentless attacks."

    Later, the post continued, "Go to the 60 Minutes YouTube channel to upload a 60-second video with your thoughts, as well as vote on others responses.  If you don’t want to use video, you can submit your feedback in text.  60 Minutes producers may broadcast some of the top-voted responses on TV (that’s a weekly audience of 13 million!) or respond to them directly on their website, 60minutes.com."

    This seems likely to drum up interest in 60 Minutes, given that lots of people love to give their opinions on current events and many others are eager to get their face on TV.

    The move also acts as a compliment to YouTube, since the show’s ratings are quite good and it doesn’t need to make a desperate grab for new viewers.

  • Google Partners With POLITICO On Technology And Politics

    Google and YouTube are partnering with POLITICO to host an event on Monday at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. to talk about technology’s role in democracy and the political process.

    The Google Blog offers more details.  “With less than six weeks until the midterm elections, we wanted to hear from some of politics’ most creative minds about what innovation and democracy mean in 2010.”


    “As part of the event David Axelrod and Ed Gillespie will answer questions and offer thoughts and predictions about the upcoming elections. Arianna Huffington will then moderate a panel about innovation in media, and will be joined by Becki Donatelli, Stephen Hayes, Nate Silver and Amy Walter. We’ll also demonstrate tools built for citizens and government officials using YouTube and Google Maps, and will be joined by our friends on the politics team at Facebook.”

    Google is also inviting people to submit a question for any of the panel members via youtube.com/citizentube. People will also be able to watch the entire event live on YouTube on Monday from 2:30-5:30 ET and on POLITICO.

  • YouTube Focused On Mobile Growth

    YouTube’s very interested in mobile users, and mobile users are also very interested in it, according to a YouTube exec named Francisco Varela.  Varela recently spoke about YouTube’s mobile strategy and success yesterday at a conference in Norway.

    Let’s first focus on the present and future.  Kevin Taylor reported that "Varela, head of platform partnerships at YouTube, yesterday told delegates that the company’s new high-end mobile website (codenamed Blazer) would provide a ‘best-in-class’ video search experience from a mobile, and address many of the earlier issues with YouTube mobile services."

    More specifically, YouTube’s aiming for a fast mobile interface with options for personalization and access to a comprehensive library of content.

    Then, to bring the past into the equation, Varela brought up the fact that YouTube’s mobile traffic grew by over 160 percent in 2009, and Taylor wrote, "[S]trong growth was also expected in 2010."

    YouTube Logo

    Unfortunately, Varela didn’t make any other forecasts or announcements at the Global Mobile Broadband Forum 2010, leaving everyone more or less in the dark about what happened traffic-wise during the first eight months of the year and what’s on the horizon.

    The one thing he hinted at is some level of involvement with mobile operators in order to ensure that data plans are affordable.

  • YouTube Instant Gets A Million Visitors in 10 Days, Creator Accepts YouTube job

    Feross Aboukhadijeh, a Facebook intern and student at Stanford, launched YouTube Instant, just after Google rolled out Google Instant. It quickly became a viral hit. If you’re not familiar, read here. We received an email from Aboukhadijeh early this morning. 

    "Good news!" Aboukhadijeh tells WebProNews. "YouTube Instant hit one million visitors and I will be accepting the job offer at YouTube!"

    He also tells us that for the time being, he’ll be keeping YouTube Instant (as opposed to it becoming property of Google). 

     
    "YouTube Instant hit one million visitors on Monday, just 10 days since I launched it!" he adds. "The site also has 28,000 Facebook Likes, 20,000 Tweets, and 14,000 Stumbles – quite impressive numbers for only two weeks since launch! (I’ve been busy with the first week of classes at Stanford, so I didn’t announce this until now.)"

     

    "YouTube Instant has been on the homepage of CNN, Fox News, VentureBeat, CNET, Hacker News, All Things D, Engadget, PC Magazine, and WebProNews — of course!" he says. "The site went viral on a scale that I never could have predicted."

    YouTube Instant

     

    "Also noteworthy: I just updated the site with some awesome new features: autoplay, keyboard controls, shareable URLs, and a sexy new design. And I’m not going to stop there. I’m currently working on adding awesome Facebook integration, on-the-fly playlist creation, and custom auto-updating AdSense units."

     

    YouTube Instant has gotten a lot of exposure all over the world. Only 40% of its traffic is from the United States. Feross talks more about it here. 
  • MySpace Gets Synced with YouTube

    MySpace Gets Synced with YouTube

    MySpace has introduced a new Sync with YouTube feature. This enables YouTube users to automatically distribute YouTube video content through Myspace. 

    The company tells WebProNews, "Whenever a synced user uploads a video on YouTube, the video appears in the Myspace activity stream. Similarly, whenever a synced user comments on, likes, or favorites a YouTube video, or subscribes to a YouTube video channel, that user’s Myspace friends will be notified via the Myspace activity stream."

    MySpace YouTube Sync Feature

    "Here’s why we love syncing," MySpace Director of Corporate Communications Laurie Spindler  tells us.  "YouTube users now have the benefit of broadcasting to Myspace’s vast community of content creators, curators and consumers, instantly making their videos more viral."

    "In turn, Myspace users can now receive YouTube video content from their friends delivered right to their activity stream, providing a richer, more relevant content experience," she adds.

    Video producers should love this feature for its instantly added promotion value. MySpace has recently placed greater emphasis on content, and this is an extension of that. In fact, this should automatically make the site a more valuable place for content consumption.