As usual, my Friday blogging habbits seem to lead towards a selected “Viral Video”…which leads me to my 4th “VIRAL VIDEO OF THE DAY”…but at the same time I totally got sucked into Reuters YouTube Posting covering Michael Phelps and his Marketing success.

Michael Phelps is a “Marketing Dream” to companies like Speedo, AT&T, and Visa. He earns $5mm a year in endorsements, but can expect more post-Olympics. But none of this could happen without the Marketing Magic behind Phelps, Octagon.

Want a little humor? Well, according to the Video above, VISA immediately launched a commercial congratulated Phelps on the most metals in Olympic History, yet the marketing firm behind Phelps hasn’t seemed to update their own web-site: http://www.octagon.com/worldwide-overview/athletes-and-personalities. Check it out…they still have him down for “8″. Looks like VISA was a step ahead

…Now that’s some good Blogging right there! As for Phelps, have fun buddy!

Posted under Online Marketing, Online Video

YouTube, which accounts for more than half of all video views, will generate a mere $200 million in sales in 2008…yet they still are among other “losers” failing to be a profitable company in the Online Video space. According to Dow Jones investors have spilled more than $8 billion into Online Video. Here’s some #’s (though they don’t add up to $8 Billion) that give you an idea of Online Video Spending over the past 3 years:

2005: $1.764 billion
2006: $2.117 billion
2007: $2.009 billion
2008: $453 million (Q1 only)

These numbers come primarily from AlleyInsider’s reporting on the Dow Jones VentureSource, which provided them with a running tally of venture investment in online video startups since 2005. The dealflow includes “video infrastructure (Brightcove), ad platforms (YuMe), service providers (VideoEgg), and consumer sites (FunnyOrDie, Veoh, Joost, etc). Between 2005 and Q1 2008, that tally is $6.06 billion. Add in one big acquisition — the $1.65 billion deal for YouTube ($1.65 billion) — and a few smaller ones — like Sony’s pickup of Grouper/Crackle for $65 million — and the grand total comes to $8.06 billion. Keep in mind this doesn’t include any of the billions invested in Europe or in China.”

Now according to a more recent AI article, Sorry, Investors: The Online Video Pie Just Shrank By 65%, according to eMarketer, “In February, the Web prognosticator said YouTube et al would sell $1.4 billion in ads in the U.S. this year. Now it says it was overzealous: It has ratcheted its estimate back by 64%, to $505 million.”

I really liked how AI broke down the $505mm and decided to copy and paste the text for all to see:

…here’s how a $505 million market would break down this year:

• YouTube says it will generate $200 million in advertising in 2008.
• We’ve estimated that Hulu will sell as much as $90 million.

That means the remaining $215 million, then, is divided between the following:

• Big media companies like ABC/Disney, CBS, Time Warner, Yahoo, News Corp/MySpace, NBC U, and Viacom.
• Video aggregators like Veoh, Joost, Metacafe and DailyMotion
• And ad networks like Brightroll, Tremor, Husky and Broadband Enterprises

It’s really hard to see Online Video draw back it’s yearly quote predictions for the 2nd time this year, but there’s hope yet in terms of IAB taking yet another step closer to determining Online Video perameters. This is the first I’ve seen of it: Digital Video Ad Measurement Guidelines by the IAB. 3 CATEGORIES all committed to Online Video, while I find it interesting to see E-Mail only has 1 guideline. EVEN MORE INTERESTING, is the fact that it Digital Video is now a whole new category in “Emerging Interactive Platforms”, along with Games Advertising, Mobile and User-Gen Content & Social Media. I’m interested to see when these will be in full completion and what will take their place as “Emerging”. Either, I hope the best for Video and look forward to seeing YouTube lockdown their Ad-Model and finally bringing in the big bucks!

Posted under Online Video

I was in search for an article to “blog” about and came across a rather interesting post by AlleyInsider’s creater himself, Mr. Henry Blodget. It’s a big statement, but they claimed It Was NBC’s Fault US Gymnasts Blew Gold Medal. I mean, I personally thought it was because team captain Alicia Sacramone lost her balance on the “BALANCE BEAM” and floored her “FLOOR ROUTINE” (puns intended).

Well, Martha Karolyi, the team co-ordinator, was quick to blame officials at Beijing’s stadium as quoted from this Yahoo article, US clears Beijing officials of blame for gymnastics loss.

Karolyi said immediately after the US loss to China that officials at Beijing’s National Indoor Stadium disrupted Sacramone’s beam routine by delaying her performance for an extended period, breaking her concentration

“First they called her name up, then they did not even put her name up even though the Chinese had finished … (it was) totally unusual holding,” she said.

“She was mentally prepared and then she had a mental break, then after not doing the job, the beam, on the floor exercise her concentration was bothered.”…

Karolyi insisted the world champion US team would have won gold if Sacramone had not become unsettled.

Well, AlleyInsider did it’s investigative work and found the heart of that article, quoting Alas: It was NBC’s fault…

USA Gymnastics president Steve Penny said the delay involving Sacramone’s beam routine happened because of scheduling issues related to the Games’ television feed.

“It’s a normal television thing that’s typical in international competition,” he told AFP.

Well, in the end, there’s really no need for blame! China still out-did America by over 2 points and on their home-turf. China’s first time team-gold-medal in this category is worth clapping for and everything else aside, Sacramone herself didn’t play the blame game, saying “I think everybody knows there’ll be good days and bad days, I just wish this was a good day for me.”

Posted under Online Video

I dedicate this one to a certain somebody with a certain obsession with Star Trek. And now…Nimoy singing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins”:

Posted under Online Video

You may be asking yourself, “yea, like that would ever happen!” Well, guess what? IT DID! And if you don’t believe me, check out these three articles:

• GigaOm Article: Gmail’s Out…Again
• Reuter’s Article: Google Gmail users have trouble accessing accounts
• ZDNet Article: Gmail locks out users for an hour

According to Reuters (a reliable source) “Users across the United States, Canada and India reported problems with Gmail and a Google employee also reported that the company’s own corporate e-mail account was down.” The problems started at about 5 p.m. EDT (and around 2:30pm Pacific Standard Time here in Seattle, WA.).

And it seems this isn’t a one time occurance. Quoting GigaOm, “in recent weeks, not only Google’s services but those of Amazon’s S3 and Apple’s MobileMe have gone on the blink, leading us to rethink our assumptions about the reliability of the web as a platform. Clearly a lot of work still needs to be done.”

So what did you do during “the G-Crash”? Well, considering this may happen again, I suggest you come prepared. I call out to all of you Gmail, GApp, Googler Lovin’ Hippie Geeks…stand tall and heed my words of wisdom…

Here are your “Top 5 Things To Do When Google Shuts Down”:

• Take a nap and when you wake, hope the world hasn’t collapsed into itself.
• Revert to your SmartPhone in hopes that it has found a loop hole during these depressing moments of your internet life
• Pick up a newspaper and “read it”.
• Oh wait, Blogs still work so there’s no need to go to such lengths…I suggest www.RedRussak.com
• If you made it this far, I’d assume that Google’s 19,604 full-time employees and $23 Billion have come up with a solution.

…I’m glad we made it through these tough times. It’s funny, I can’t imagine what would happen if Google decided to take a vacation for longer than 5 minutes. That would make for a great blog post

Posted under Online Marketing