Tag Archives: Video

Own Your Video Content

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Content- Let’s get as many video views as possible.
- Let’s get as much content as possible.
- Let’s run a preroll advert in front of every video on our site.
- Let’s auto play videos so we get even more views.

No, no, no, no.

YouTube have had phenomenal success in terms of generating traffic and video views because they are purely publishers, they are in the business of content delivery, and they know it. They don’t try and put in the mix their own original content. Users return to them again and again because they understand YouTube and know what they are doing.

Content originators who publish video through their own websites seem to be a bit confused about what they have to deliver, what their objective for delivery is and how they should deliver it. This confuses users and means they are less likely to return to the site and form a lasting relationship with it.

Some original content producers want to be editorialised versions of YouTube and are fixated with having as many video views as possible, while ignoring the fact that the content being shoved down people’s throats is not relevant to the brand or of any value to a user, if the site’s brand is based on the original content that is.

If your brand is based on publishing original content then that should be your main objective with video.

- Put your brand values, creativity and ideas on video.
- Put in place sensible, engaging, scalable commercial opportunities.
- Put in place a reliable, high quality delivery mechanic.

Do not try and get as many views as possible from as much content as possible. Aim to publish reliable, sustainable original content with which users can form a lasting relationship. If it’s good enough users will return to view it again and again. Your audience with compound, snowball and you will be successful.

As an original content-based brand it is of the utmost importance to own the content you are distributing.

Become Streetfighter: You’re In The Advert

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streetfighterHow do you make an advert more intimate and memorable? Put the viewer in it! The new promotional site for Street Fighter IV becomestreetfighter.com does this brilliantly.

Become Street Fighter allows users to very easily include a picture of their own face on the character in the video. You can then embed the video that is created on a variety of different sites including Facebook and Myspace.

This is a brilliant example of how making commercial media an intimate experience for users and allowing viral distribution through social networks can have a positive impact on the way people form a relationship with a product or brand.

Creating a video like this takes no longer than 1 minute if you already have the pictures. No registration pages or forms to fill out, just upload your pics, get your video and that’s it.

The system is built using technology made by 15secondtv, which renders the face from an uploaded picture on to the video a user has selected to create the final video.

This is an overwhelmingly positive commercial experience, which is infinitely more memorable than a normal game trailer and should therefore have much more of an impact in driving sales of the game.

Contextual Adverts On YouTube

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When watching the new Lilly Allen music video for The Fear on YouTube I was presented with a pop up link across he bottom of the video. I hadn’t seen an ad like this pop up in YouTube before and have to say I really quite liked it.

It’s not too intrusive, doesn’t spoil the video and is of genuine use to users who are watching and enjoying the content. As soon as you click ‘Buy Song’ the video is paused and you are taken directly to the page on iTunes. When you there, if you have an iTunes account, you are only 2 clicks away from completing a transaction for 79 pence which will mean you now own a copy of the single.

It is micropayment transactions like these that will become an increasingly important part of networked business’s revenue stream.

Because of the short form nature of most of the videos on YouTube users won’t react well to preroll because they think of YouTube as providing exactly what they want to watch as soon as they click play.

In-play contextual overlays are a form of advertising that give engaged users a valid opportunity to make a cash transaction with a product related to he content being viewed without having any negative impact on the act of consuming the content.

This is a positive commercial experience.

The Internet is a medium that allows for users to instantly switch between consuming media to a transactional interface. This is a perfect example of the opportunity the Internet offers to utilize that capability to drive a cash transaction, which is of value to the user and publisher.

Live Events Online

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As I write this I am watching the US Open final (the score is currently 3-3 in the second, Federer having taken the first set comfortably 6-2).

I am watching it on justin.tv a service which is presumably illegal but has a thriving community sharing paid for premium sports content, in this case they are streaming Sky Sports 1, which normally requires a subscription to view. I am watching on a stream with another 21,934 people according to the viewer counter, which is updated live. Like me they will all not have a subscription to the original broadcasters service.

Of the top ten most viewed streams 9 are currently the US Open final with a total amount of viewers numbering 45,439 world wide. The 9 different pages could essentially be seen as channels on justin.tv are showing exactly the same game and together they have more viewers than most small UK TV channels. Incredible when you think about it.

As well as allowing users to watch the game they can also engage in a debate running alongside the content, most of the debate I have to say is completely unrelated to the content but I think that in the correct setting users would use the chat tools to contextually debate the content they are watching which would be a beneficial to the activity of viewing the content and make the process more meaningful and rewarding.

Over the coming years content providers like Sky, whose footage is being essentially stolen here, will need to tackle this problem, how they do that directly is not an easy question to answer when their whole business model is built around hardware, installation and subscription.

One thing that is certainly on their side and will be pivotal to future developments is the quality of the video. If I had a subscription to Sky Sports I could be watching it in HD on a big LCD screen as it is I get an idea of what’s going on but its not the same by any stretch of the imagination. I am not sure the Internet it its current form will ever compete on the grounds of video deliver because the hardware and bandwidth is so different to that on Sky.

The score is now 5-1 in the third and Federer is 2 sets up. I’ve enjoyed the game so far but not as much as I would have done if I had watched it on TV.

Pilot ejects from Harrier crash. User submits video of it.

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drop-in-image_bbc.gifThe BBC have a nice piece of citizen journalism up today which covers the Harrier crash in the midlands. The Story contains a video as it’s lead which has been submitted by a witness on the scene.

The actual piece of journalism itself is not by the citizen but an BBC journalist. The article as a result becomes a collaborative effort between the citizen and journalist.

This video has probably been uploaded using the BBC’s upload system which can be found here. It’s also the sort of video that might well have been sent via ShoZu which I looked at recently.

While the image quality of the recording in this video is a bit lacking it adds a real life element to the story which makes it more engaging and meaningful for the users viewing it. I have to say I am slightly disappointed that the person who submitted the video has not been asked to give his/her account of the scene when they arrived instead relying on others statements. The submitter also has not been given any credit, which they always should be, it’s a motivator for others to do the same.

The video really brings the story to life while not having the ability to show professional footage of the scene. It’s also fantastically cost effective. I am sure this story will be shown on TV using footage taken from a helicopter which will probably cost thousands to film. If you have somebody on the scene with a camera phone it’s free (or probably £50 if the owner of the footage asks).

People pull their phone out all the time now to take pictures and videos of things they see happening around them. Those videos are being used more and more on TV and the Internet. The first instance of mobile video and pictures being used heavily was the 07/07 terror attacks on the London underground lots of people who were on the tube being evacuated pulled out their phone and recorded their experience.

Over the coming years I am sure collaborative citizen journalism will play an increasingly important role in the delivery of web based news as people become more and more familiar with it’s use they will want to become actively involved in its production and delivery.

Links:
- No Casual Operation: Inside a Citizen Journalism Newsroom
- CBS launches citizen journalism upload site
- Value of citizen journalism
- Citizen-Journalism Site Relaunches With New Features – nowpublic.com
- Bleacher Report Takes Citizen Journalism to Fox Sports