“Is it just me, or has YouTube gone widescreen?” Just do a search on youtube wide in Google and you’ll get an endless list of blog posts (including this one). YouTube has apparently changed all videos on its site to play in widescreen by default, and not the standard ratio of 4:3. They’ve had the option to go widescreen in the past, but now it’s their Default. As a result, most of the videos have these horizontal black bars on the sides. Check out JagerBomb video to see what I mean. (Take note, that is how Jager Bombing is supposed to happen!)

According to the YouTube Blog article Bigger Isn’t Always Better… But in This Case, We Believe It Is, this is what they had to say:

“Over the years we’ve heard a lot of feedback from you about what you’d like to change about YouTube, and the size of our video player is always top of mind. That’s why today we’re excited to announce a bigger YouTube player. We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience.”

I’m not really sure what they’re doing. Maybe they’re playing the game of ‘catch up to the competitors’. Just a few days ago YouTube went Live! and now they’re going Widescreen. According to TechCrunch “YouTube is by no means the first video site to go widescreen – Blip.tv (my favorite YouTube alternative) has long had the feature. And as the comments point out, sites like Vimeo and SmugMug already offer video in HD”. (TechCrunch)

You know what doesn’t make any sense? When you embed the video on other sites, it maintains the 4:3 ratio! Well, one thing is for sure, YouTube is making improvements and the world is noticing!

Posted under Online Video, Social Networks

YouTube is launching its first ever live streaming event that will celebrate it’s endless list of user communities. Part concert, part variety show and part party, YouTube Live will bring together some of the amazing videos and unforgettable individuals that have contributed towards making the site what it is today. Expect to see Internet-born stars like Soulja Boy Tell’em, Esmee Denters, and “Canon Rock” virtuoso Funtwo, a global b-boy showcase featuring dancers from the movie Planet B-boy, Discovery Channel’s MythBusters and lots more.

But one thing is still unclear. Why did they call it a “Live Streaming Event“? Isn’t this more than event? Isn’t this the luanch of Google Live!? That’s the thing…nobody knows for sure. Here’s my time line covering YouTube Live from the first time it was mentioned until now:

• January 2008: First rumored on the popular blog Scobleizer.com,  when Robert Scoble asked the Chad Hurley (co-founder of Youtube), “Is YouTube working on streaming video?”. Chad responded, “We’re working on a lot of interesting things…” (watch the video here).

• February 2008:  NewTeeVee published a video taken by video-blogger Sarah Meyers asking Steve Chen (CTO & co-founder of youtube) “When are you guys gonna do live video on YouTube?” in which Chen responded:
  • “2008. We’ll do it this year. Live video is just something that we’ve always wanted to do, we’ve never had the resources to do it correctly, but now with Google, we hope to actually do it this year.” (watch the video)
    

• August 2008: according to an anonymous source cited by Silicon Alley Insider’s Michael Learmonth, they state that YouTube is not getting into live streaming. Well, that didn’t last long!

• October 3rd 2008: Wired.com’s Blog anounced that “YouTube will be hosting an event called YouTube Live in San Francisco on November 22 which (as the name implies) will be streamed live on its site”. (Blog.Wired.com) That same day, Gawker Media blog Valleywag also anounced YouTube is going live after all. But they also supported Michael Learmonth’s position saying “Google and YouTube won’t necessarily be offering live streaming video to users of the site any time soon.”

• October 22nd, 2008: AlleyInsider goes ahead and publishes a followup to their August article with a new one titled YouTube Launching Live Streaming Service — Or Something.  They claimed a source was telling them that “someone personally involved in the YouTube Live! event on November 22 [...] specifically described it as Youtube’s Live launch.”

• November 19th, 2008: Well here we are! In 3 days the Youtube Live! event is taking place. Will this be the “official launch” or just a one-time-thing?

Posted under Online Video, Social Networks, Viral Marketing

If I have learned one thing about marketing this year, it’s that GOING VIRAL WORKS! Everybody’s fighting to get consumers buzzing about their product. Whether it be on Video Sites, Forums, Social Networks, or mouth-to-mouth…Buzz Marketing Matters! This probably explains why Guitar Hero paid Heidi Klum to dance in her underwear for :40 seconds on TV!

That’s right! To promote Guitar Hero’s World Tour release, they released a number of video’s sporting celebrities imitating the famous scene in Risky Business (1983) where Tom Cruise dances to Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” in just his underwear! Maybe we can learn something from this type of branding+viral marketing+super-model!

My friends at Viral Video Chart have put this at #7 for Viral Videos, but it’s a Friday and I don’t think Obama video’s will entertain you like this. The video was discovered November 4th, and in just 3 days jumped to 1,199,076 views and 111 (well, now 112) blog-posts!

Enjoy….

Posted under Online Video, Viral Marketing

“Viral Video of The Day” is part of this blogs timely Friday Tradition, as provided by my friends at ViralVideoChart.com.  They  marked an interesting #1 video for today.  So for all of you marketers and mobile junkies out there obsessed with your PDA and e-mail, you’ll love todays Viral Video of The Day:

Introducing Gmail for mobile 2.0

That’s right! A geekie video made it to #1…and with reason. For all of you using PDA’s, the proprietary email application can be quite plain (static, no html, courier new, etc.). Well, this is probably more applicable to “Blackberry Users”. Well, today’s viral video promotes Gmail’s Phone Application. The guy’s kinda funny in the video, in a geeky google kind of way. How this made #1 for the day, I’m not sure…

Posted under Viral Marketing

• Discovered 01 Oct 2008
• 591,159 views
• 283 blog posts

The 2nd Video,  5 Friends Uncensored, is #2 Viral Video of The Day:

• Discovered 01 Oct 2008
• 615,283 views
• 340 blog posts

I sent an e-mail to both Scott & Matt of UnrulyMedia, the creator of this site and this is their response:

“We rank videos based on linking and sharing on the web rather than views – similar to how google ranks sites on it’s search engine.

Partially we do this because it’s information that is standard across sites (the definition of a view varies from site to site) and is a bit harder to manipulate and partially because that’s the way we’ve always done it…

Hope that explains it!
Matt.”

So there’s the answer! Now go drink and enjoy your Friday!

Posted under Online Video, Viral Marketing

Every time the TV is on or the internet movie is rolling, everyone knows not to bug me during “commercial” time. I once thought that I was part of a small sect of “commercial” lovers, commenting on them, critiquing them, or simply sitting back and enjoying them. Well, I recently discovered an article that claims there are many more “commercial lovers” out there…

As I was browsing the AlleyInsider Blog for some good material and up-to-date news, I came across Video Ad Companies: People Love Watching Video Ads! …That’s right! 3 Companies support the idea that someone “out there” manages to make it through the commercial. Now I’m not going to go as far as to say they enjoy the commercials as much as I do, but at least they’re not flipping the channel any-time soon. Check out the stats below as quoted from AlleyInsider:

• Tremor Media says [...] only 20% of Web video watchers give up and leave when confronted with the pre-rolls it serves up. Or, as Tremor is putting it in a release later today, 80% watch the ads all the way through. [...] [A]udiences are willing to accept pre-roll advertising in exchange for content they want, on demand.” And Tremor also says that its stuff is so good (it measured 65 million ad impressions across 100 different ad campaigns) that the bail-out rate didn’t change if the ads were 15 or 30 seconds long.

• Break Media is claiming an even higher “completion rate” — 87% — for its pre-rolls, which includes a whole lot of user-generated video. Break’s sample was a lot smaller than Tremor’s — 5.85 million impresssions. But we’re equally skeptical of both numbers. We’re certainly not anti-advertising, and we will indeed sit through some pre-rolls, when we know were getting good stuff we want to see. But there’s no way we do that 8 out of 10 times.

• Brightroll, said last week it had just booked a $1 million pre-roll campaign, and that pre-rolls account for 50% of their business.”

Now they haven’t exactly pinpointed WHY, but the money is there and that’s usually all that matters in order to convince the public that this form/method of advertising works. As for my commercial loving companions, our time to shine is just over the hill. Beware!

Posted under 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