Tag: video

The YouTube Network

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The first YouTube video was uploaded in April of 2005, making this month the five year anniversary of the online video revolution.

Wired celebrates with their top five reasons YouTube was successful, and all are valid: YouTube attracted viral content, found a workable business model (eventually), cooperated with those concerned their content was being uploaded illegally, gave rise to a new class of talent, and continues to innovate.  These were all instrumental in the rise of YouTube, but they missed an important factor that doesn’t fit into any of those qualities.

YouTube was one of the first sites to recognize that a website could be popular without anyone visiting it.  By making videos embeddable on any blog or website, YouTube didn’t have to bring you to www.youtube.com to get you to watch their videos.  Thus YouTube became less a video sharing website than a video sharing network – a distinction which invites more content.

The embed code on most YouTube videos is a string of letters and numbers that means little to most users.  Yet that string is why YouTube is where it is today: everywhere.

NewTube

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

YouTube’s new design for its video player pages debuted yesterday.  The new, streamlined style highlights the video itself, with comments and share links underneath:

Previously, YouTube video pages had focused many of their functions “above the fold”: most of the functions and options were arranged so they could sit on your computer screen simultaneously with the video.  Like a work desk that has every document you need somewhere on the desktop, clutter accompanied convenience.  This design is more vertical and simple.

More subtle are some of the functional shifts: YouTube’s ratings system has been replaced with a Facebook-style “like” button, and the comment system has been tweaked to prioritize video responses and comments from frequent video uploaders and power users.

Perhaps most interesting is the explanation behind the changes, as reported by Wired:

Two members of YouTube’s team mentioned the fact that people watch YouTube for an average of 15 minutes at a time, while they tend to watch a staggering five hours of television at a stretch. YouTube aims to shrink that gap with its new playlists, which will present a selection of similar songs if you’re watching a music video, for instance. You’ll also see search results that follow you around the site so you can check out a number of them in succession, and rollover previews at the top of the screen.

We all get unicorns? Oh, it’s April Fools…

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The National Republican Senatorial Committee celebrated April Fool’s Day by releasing a well-timed video chronicling the difference in President Obama’s promises and results:

Messaging on April Fool’s Day can be tricky for political groups.  As a private company with a reputation for lightheartedness, Google can make annual fake announcements without fear of retribution.  (This year they are renaming the company “Topeka” – reciprocating the promise of the free-broadband-seeking Topeka, Kansas to rename their city “Google” for a day.)

The NRSC did a good job with the video.  Because it’s obvious and over the top, it’s clearly an April Fools joke from the beginning.  Sure, that might make it a bit less funny, but the NRSC isn’t going for an award from a comedy film festival.  They were looking to do just what they did: use measured humor and creativity to deliver an important – and well-timed – political message.

Why ACORN cracked

~ Jim Eltringham ~ 4 Comments

ACORN is closing up shop and may have to file for bankruptcy.  There’s no mystery as to why: donors have refused to write checks to the organization since the now-infamous “pimp videos” featuring James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles.  The ensuing controversy that made ACORN radioactive had as much to do with the organization’s response as it did with the actual content of the videos.

A Wired article on Andrew Breitbart – whose Big Government was a platform for the videos – details the strategy behind the tiered release of the videos:

Breitbart initially released only the video from Acorn’s Baltimore bureau, which the group dismissed as an isolated incident. The next day, he posted a video of O’Keefe getting similar results in Washington, DC. Oops. Acorn stepped on the rake again, claiming the videos were doctored. Then Breitbart posted more — from New York City, San Diego, and Philadelphia. Congress started pulling Acorn’s funding, and The New York Times flagellated itself for its “slow reflexes” in covering the story.

A less savvy operative might have released all the videos at once to illustrate the scope of the problem.  They would have received some coverage, but the media would largely have dismissed the story.  After all, how many government and non-profit offices would you really have to walk into if you wanted to catch someone saying stupid on camera?

By releasing the videos in slow drips, O’Keefe and Breitbart established a pattern.  With each new video, the story became a bit bigger, and more media outlets paid attention.  This strategy also allowed ACORN to be dismissive of the first few releases, making them look all the more foolish when the “isolated incident” proved to be anything but.

On its own, video of O’Keefe and Giles would have told a compelling story about ACORN.  Handled smartly – as it was – this information became a tangible result.

Carly’s Boxer Blimp

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The Carly Fiorina campaign has released a follow-up to their much-lampooned “Demon Sheep” web video.  In this one, Barbara Boxer turns into a giant blimp because she’s full of hot air.  (Getcha popcorn ready, because it’s almost eight minutes long.)

Despite the ribbing from Fiorina’s primary opponents, ad maker Fred Davis claimed victory for the viral hit, pointing to its high number of YouTube views.  Davis might have a point.  The funny part of the Demon Sheep video – the campily costumed and Keds-clad sheep – came at the end, after the video had railed on fellow Republican candidate Tom Campbell’s fiscal street cred.  The Boxer Blimp wouldn’t attract nearly as much attention if it hadn’t been for its fluffy forefather.

Still, the video is as unfocused as it is comical and over the top.  The message shifts from the Senator being arrogant to incompetent to out of touch, and discusses taxes, environmental policy, financial restraint, national security, and Boxer’s personality with clumsy or non-existent segues.  The imagery is often uneven; at one point, the announcer accuses Boxer of being progressively “less and less effective” during her Senate tenure just as her image is smashing through the Capitol dome.

It does, however, tell a good story about Carly Fiorina – but unlike the Demon Sheep, the story comes after the CGI blimp attack.

But regardless of what anyone thinks of the style of the ads or how many viewers they attract, the one measure of effectiveness is at the polls.  That’s an area where Fiorina still lags behind.

(By the way, if you look closely, I’m pretty sure the shots of San Francisco include Alamo Square – more notably known as “Full House Hill” for its inclusion in the opening credits of the legendary and classic sitcom.)

Hulu learns content is still king

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

The decision by Viacom to pull its content from Hulu – while still keeping that content online – shows exactly why Hulu is the #2 site for online video.

As Tech Crunch reported, a key factor was the share of the ad revenue – Viacom makes more money by selling ads for video content on its own websites because it doesn’t have to split that money.  At the same time, Viacom can still make clips of its shows sharable and embeddable.

It brings to light a significant problem for Hulu: what value do they really add as a third party service?

Hulu was born because founding parents Fox and NBC were rightly worried about their content being ripped off and posted on YouTube – and because they realized that online video was an entertainment medium that they needed to embrace in some way.  The Simpsons, SNL, Heroes, Family Guy, and other shows from those networks made it on the site, along with content from their cable and feature film properties.  Other media companies, like ABC/Disney and Viacom, signed on as well.

The reason Hulu has always played second fiddle to YouTube is in a distinct difference in their business model.  While Hulu has always been about the content, YouTube has served as the infrastructure for the advent of web video.  In the days before YouTube, putting video online meant thinking about managing huge files and possible paying exorbitant hosting fees.  YouTube’s value to the content provider was allowing people who otherwise could not have done so to share video – whether that meant a cat falling off a bed or an independent short film.

Hulu’s value proposition to its content provider partners appears to be the ability to give them space on a high-traffic website.  But like YouTube and any other online video site, traffic comes because of content.  In reality, high traffic numbers are content providers’ value to Hulu, rather than the other way around.

This doesn’t mean the end of Hulu, of course – after all, the site was started by content providers.  But it may mean that, eventually, NBC/Universal and Fox find that they are the only ones left on the playground.

Two campaign tools you don’t have to pay for

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

Google Wave is still a mystery to many folks – I have to confess, I haven’t spend a considerable amount of time pondering its potential yet.  But Wes Donehue of TechRepublican has, and he shares some ways to use this new tool for a cause or campaign:

Also at TechRepublican today: Jeff Vreeland has a good idea about using Facebook as a email match program.  Amassing email addresses has become a basic function of any organized effort, but an email address alone is worth little.  Using that information as a springboard for connecting on other platforms can help draw potential volunteers and donors into the fold.

Twitter, YouTube look back on 2009

~ Jim Eltringham ~ Leave a comment

This week, both Twitter and YouTube released their 2009 trends list, much as Google did a few weeks back.  Unlike Google, though, these trend lists say more about the way each site is used rather than social trends.

Twitter Trends: The Iranian election was not the top story of the year in American media, but it did top Twitter’s news trends list – largely because Twitter itself was such an important tool in organizing street demonstrations.  In Entertainment, movies Paranormal Activity and District 9 ranked highly.  Both became early examples of what is being called the “Twitter effect.”  Real-time fan reviews on social networks gave both films an instant box-office boost.  (The same effect may have sapped the excitement around other top-Twitter-trenders GI Joe and Watchmen, both of which did worse than expected.

Predictably, there were other trends that lend credence to the “I’m-sitting-on-the-porch” pointlessness of Twitter when misused.  However, these examples also speak to the potential advantage of Twitter as an organizing tool – whether the goal is overthrowing an unpopular regime or flocking to a better-than-expected movie.

YouTube Trends: YouTube is interesting in that it can report two trends: the most-watched videos and the search terms.

The top viewership trends on YouTube centered around you-gotta-see-this viral sensations such as Susan Boyle’s performance on Britain’s Got Talent and the famous wedding party entrance to the tune of Chris Brown’s “Forever.”

Top search trends, which were broken out by month, centered around news and entertainment events but weren’t always directly related.  For instance, the death of Michael Jackson led to an increase in searches for the Thriller music video.  What does this mean?  Probably that a generation that doesn’t remember the dawn of the music video era was looking for a famous short film that was frequently discussed but seldom seen.  YouTube’s slogan is “Broadcast Yourself,”  but it may as well be “Catch what you missed.”

Year in review lists are a chance to look back at the big stories of 2009, but those are common knowledge.  Digging into the trends can, however, show how people are using the online tools – and give insight on how to reach them.