Transcendigital blog

YouTube is formally announcing “sponsored videos.” This is an evolution and expansion of what was has been informally running under the heading “promoted videos.” The effort seeks to marry Google AdWords bidding and targeting with YouTube video content. Accordingly, it’s an auction marketplace but somewhat simplified vs. AdWords. And while there apparently will be a view from AdWords of sponsored videos the two marketplaces are largely separate — for now.

It’s a smart move for Google/YouTube and will enable content creators, publishers, marketers and even individuals to get their content in front of audiences searching on YouTube. Now that the program is formally rolling out it has an “obvious” quality — in retrospect. Indeed, what took YouTube so long? They told me that they were waiting until they got the experience right.

Article Link:searchengineland.com/youtube-formally-introduces-sponsored-videos-15450.php

YouTube took its first step towards a comprehensive movie service, reaching a deal with a big Hollywood studio to start showing full-length television shows and films.

The video-sharing Web site is set to announce that it will host TV episodes and movies from the archives of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) in its latest step to boost advertising revenue.

The deal is expected to be the first of many. It emerged over the weekend that the site, which is owned by Google, was in negotiations with other Hollywood studios. One report from the CNET news Web site suggested a YouTube movie service could be available within 90 days.

MGM will post videos from full-length action movies such as “Bulletproof Monk” and “The Magnificent Seven,” and its decades-old “American Gladiators” program. They will be free to watch, with advertising running alongside the video.

Article Link:www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,449504,00.html

This information is now available to all YouTube video uploaders with an
innovative new feature for Insight called “Hot Spots.” The Hot Spots tab in
Insight plays your video alongside a graph that shows the ups-and-downs of
viewership at different moments within the video. We determine “hot” and
“cold” spots by comparing your video’s abandonment rate at that moment to
other videos on YouTube of the same length, and incorporating data about
rewinds and fast-forwards. So what does that mean? Well, when the graph goes
up, your video is hot: few viewers are leaving, and many are even rewinding on
the control bar to see that sequence again. When the graph goes down, your
content’s gone cold: many viewers are moving to another part of the video or
leaving the video entirely.

Article
link:googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/your-youtube-video-hot-or-not.html

UStream, Justin.TV, Stickam, Mogulus and everyone else trying to make a business out of live streaming can breath a little easier. YouTube, which had previously said it would start live streaming in 2008, won’t be getting into the business this year. And it probably won’t next year, according to a source familiar with its plans.

Outsiders have long considered live streaming as a logical next step for YouTube, which dominates the market for pre-recorded Web video. Co-founder Steve Chen gave credence to the idea himself in February when he told Pop17’s Sarah Meyers: “Live video is something we’ve always wanted to do but haven’t had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google we hope to launch something this year.”

Original Article can be found here:www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/youtube-not-getting-into-live-streaming-after-all-goog-

The Google Webmaster Central Blog posted a recording of the webinar they hosted, along with the Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer team. The webinar is available in a 60 minute YouTube video.

For more details click here:googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/07/google-trifecta-recording-now-available.html

Additional Resource:searchengineland.com/080718-084348.php

YouTube has added long form videos/movies, in the form of deals with indie filmmakers, and launched its YouTube Screening Room. “While the majority of these films have played at international film festivals, occasionally you’ll find films that have never before screened for wide audiences,” the company said. Four shorts to be released every two weeks, with feature-length projects to be considered on a case-by-case basis, reports NTV. The company is courting indie filmakers this week at the Los Angeles Film Festival. More details in release here.

AP: Filmmakers can choose to have a “Buy Now” button attached to their work for sales of DVDs or digital copies. They will also collect a majority share of ad revenue generated from views of their work.

Article Continues here:www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/19/AR2008061901607.html

Many of us in the online video advertising space have been encouraging small businesses to deploy video to stand out in search results and level the playing field with larger competitors. Some colleagues and I have been working with select clients to test, learn, test again, and learn again from placing video in search and other distribution points. The early learnings have been interesting and reinforced some tips outlined further below.

Some video-related tips to keep in mind in 2008

Relevance is key. We’ve said it before—it’s all about relevance. The higher the relevance of the video to the information that surrounds it, the better the results.

Use focused keywords. The tighter, the better. For the condominium marketing agency, we can track what keywords people type to locate video ads. We’ve seen “long tail” terms like “old historic Seattle buildings with condos for sale” return property video ad landing pages toward the top of universal search results pages.

Create useful content. We are often asked, “How long should a video be?” We have deployed video ads for a number of clients and are finding that viewers watch an average of 70% of an ad, regardless of video length. If content is useful, people will watch it.

Optimize for performance. Unlike single .flv files that you upload to YouTube and leave alone, we change and optimize VideoAds for our clients wherever they are distributed. With some clients we’ve made tweaks to their VideoAds and seen views-to-impressions ratios increase by over 35% and true conversions (clicks-to-views ratios) increase by over 50%.

Article Continues Here:searchengineland.com/080501-123746.php

Today we’re releasing YouTube Insight, a free tool that enables anyone with a YouTube account to view detailed statistics about the videos that they upload to the site. For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time. You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks.

Article Resource here:www.youtube.com/blog?entry=IRJjhiDz6RU

The European Commission moved to simplify the nascent mobile phone TV sector by adopting a standard backed by Finland’s Nokia, but mobile operators said Brussels was acting too quickly.

The Commission said setting the Digital Video Broadcasting Handheld (DVB-H) as the preferred European Union standard would give the industry a boost.

“For mobile TV to take off in Europe, there must first be certainty about the technology,” European Telecoms Commissioner Viviane Reding said in a statement on Monday.

Article Continues here:uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKL1773916620080317

YouTube, Google Inc’s popular video sharing site, are now allowing web developers to tap into the underlying database functions of YouTube, as a result this would enable users to build their own YouTubes.

The Silicon Valley-based video-sharing site said on Wednesday that it is providing wholesale access to YouTube’s extensive video library, global audience, and the underlying video hosting and streaming network that powers YouTube.

This goes significantly beyond the current access to YouTube videos in which any Web user can copy and embed selected videos onto their own Web pages.
YouTube said its latest feature allows anyone building a Web site or Internet-connected software program to upload videos straight to YouTube. They can grab video feeds, comments, responses or playlists from YouTube.

What YouTube is offering is similar to an earlier move by Yahoo Inc to open up the ability of its Flickr photo-sharing site to provide deep access to Web developers in order to embed underlying features of Flickr in other sites.

Web site developers can let users rate videos or add them to a favorites list embedded within their own sites. They can also customize and control the Adobe Systems Inc Flash video playing software through which videos are viewed.

The expansion of what is known in technical jargon as APIs, or Application Programmer Interfaces, lets developers build a so-called “chromeless” Flash player — a video-viewing window that is stripped of formatting such as title bar, browser buttons or status bars so they can create their own players.

These free customization features can be used in conjunction with the existing APIs which launched last year and which provide the ability to view videos on other sites and to search for videos on YouTube.

By adding underlying features and functions of YouTube, developers can enable users to publish videos directly from their mobile phone devices or encourage new users to share videos to the Web site, as if they were on YouTube itself.

Resource for Article:www.webmasterworld.com/goog/3598292.htm

Additional Resource: uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKNAAD110120080312