Lots of buzz in the YouTube community about recent changes toward professional content, but this is perhaps the most profound. Here’s the vlogbrothers, backed by dozens of backup singers. It’s a version of “American Pie,” and it reflects on the potential of YouTube going professional.
This is the 7th highest rated video of the day (despite the Scottish lady, who really has gone a bit overboard), and it has nearly 2,000 comments.
If Google was to battle the Nerdfighters (who are rallied by vlogbrothers, and are on a mission to reduce world suck), then I’d have to put my money on the latter.
This comment from WVFF back row’s Jan was worth scraping from below and adding here: “relax a bit, take a deep breath then get active. Do colab crap like this, promote each other, read Kevin’s book, get organized. That’s what social networking is all about, right?
If you’re an average online-video watcher, then today you’ll watch about 2 videos, and spend 6 minutes doing so. You’ll most likely be on YouTube, but if you’re watching long-form television on Hulu you’re probably skewing the average by watching for much longer per session/view.
So, friends, you’re probably watching online-videos for more time each month than you are having sex — depending, of course, on whether you’re one of those 2.7 minute ”slam bam thank you mam” YouTube people, or if you prefer the longer forplay of “Hulu-like” engagements.
And I’m not sure all of that online-video viewing is going to help you in the sex department, but it’s a more reliable, albeit often less climaxic, alternative.
Check out Stephen Shankland’s “Online Viewing Clears Three Hours Per Month.” Neilsen is the source. Do you know how silly that headline will look by the end of the year? First, we’ll have a more difficult time what’s occuring “online” versus “offline” as devices merge. Second, because that three hours will grow dramatically as people begin to consume an episode of Lost (which is, by my crude calculations, roughly the same time it would take to consume about 20 or so short videos on YouTube).
Here are some other notable points from Shanland, and a pretty chart so you can see that YouTube is dominating viewers and videos viewed. But this is going to change when we look at duration spent per site. After all, Hulu has longer-form content, and Yahoo’s 25 million users could, with a little prompting by Yahoo, start watching more video. Hulu has more ad inventory than it has sold, and one can only assume the ad inventory isn’t sufficient for Yahoo to compel its visitors to consume video. Or perpahs Yahoo visitors are busy enjoying display ads and drinking their Tabs or Mr. Pibbs.
March viewing rose 13 percent to 191 minutes. Total video streams viewed increased 9 percent from 8.9 billion to 9.7 billion. And the number of videos per user grew 7 percent from about 70 to 74.
If time spent is going up faster than videos streamed, that means a) we’re tolerating 2.7-minute YouTube clips, or b) Longer form content is skewing the average, and we’re continuing to expect our YouTube clips to be 2-3 minutes. I suspect the latter, but Neilsen and the Shankenizer aren’t saying.
The market share:
Google’s YouTube continues to dominate the category, with 5.5 billion videos and 89 million people using the service in the U.S.
Hulu is in second place with 348 million videos and 9 million users.
Yahoo is in third place with 232 million videos, but it’s got more users than Hulu, about 25 million users.
Before we armchair quarterback Geico’s YouTube spend today, let me share a secret story. The names will be changed to protect the innocent.
An extremely popular YouTube star (let’s call him Spiffy) last fall mentioned something fascinating to me in private. A major consumer-products good brand (let’s call them “Yummy Snack”) paid him handsomly to create an enteratining video incorporating Yummy Snack. A member of the Yummy brand team had shared the success story at a conference I attended, but left something critical out. It seems Yummy’s agency hadn’t asked Spiffy to post the entertaining/promotional Yummy video on Spiffy’s channel!
The talented Spiffy voluntarily posted it on his channel, and THAT was the Yummy video that popped. Not one posted by Yummy Snack on some branded YouTube channel page. Not because media dollars drove views. I thought that Spiffy’s generous move was so cool, I’ve decided not to call out Yummy’s agency on this horrible oversight.
YouTube might have saved Yummy, but can you blame them? Google is more concerned about selling media dollars than tipping off agencies to the organic power of a star’s audience.
YouTube doesn’t make money when a promotional video goes viral… only when there’s an ad buy.
I like to think agencies have learned something in the past year, so it’s sad to find history repeating itself even today. Geico insurance purchased the expensive YouTube homepage spot to boast its ”Gecko & Numa Numa kid video,” which prerolls (without audio). Today’s ad spend cost the Geico more than you or I make in a year, and Gary Brolsma (NumaNuma), the online-video sensation, isn’t posting the video on his own channel concurrently.
Are you kidding me? Much of the value of the YouTube stars is his or her embedded audience. Most stars have fans that will propel the video to the top of the “most watched” and “highest rated,” and share it with friends (assuming it doesn’t suck).
As an example, if Fred made a video endorsing Poprocks, his video would get million of views. If the agency posted it — even with some advertising dollars promoting it — it would get far less.
For a moment, let’s put aside the debate about Geico’s agency associating itself with the NJ kid who is mostly a “one-hit wonder” lacking a recurring audience. Numa only has 35K subscribers and his recent videos are fetching just a few thousand views. Even so, Numa dual posting the video would certainly attract views for an ROI that’s as good as any media spend. The agency gets credit for driving homepage views to its own ”Its the Gecko,” channel instead of Numa Numa’s… but one can’t help but wonder if there’s a longer vision for that branded channel or if it was an afterthought.
Why on EARTH would Geico not pay Gary a few clams to post it on his channel? Even without a lot of daily views, Gary could have posted it on his channel concurrently, and gotten views by:
Showing us a “behind the scenes” footage
Featuring the video on his channel page
Making the Geico spot a video reply to his big hit, where it would get residual views
I’d love to know if this was an oversight or a thoughtful decision because, for instance, Gary wanted more coin to distribute it than made sense for the agency. But absent that, it’s going to be my case study for being “half pregnant” on YouTube– smart enough to tap a star and invest in media, but not savvy enough to tap into the creator’s audience as well.
The lesson: It’s not smart for brands to tap into know YouTube stars without buying media, and it’s not smart to buy media without getting some “street cred” from a known YouTuber. It’s smart to do both. Who’s going to help brands figure this out?
(I’d like to use the case study I referenced at the beginning, but the star would get tainted by the agency for mentioning this slip and ”Spiffy” doesn’t deserve it).
Note that this post and video were done before the game actually finished, so we may see some unexpected surprises and need to revise accordingly. What do you think? Have some favorites I didn’t mention, or some losers of your own?
Here’s a Hulu widget that lets you watch the Superbowl ads in HD…
Now here’s my top-10 list (you can also see Adweek for some coverage).
Number 10 was Coke’’s avatar ad– visually appealing and sentimental.
Number 9 may be the most quoted ad: “Think With Your Dipstick Jimmy” by Castrol. Annoying at first, but it grows on you like fine wine or oil sludge.
For spot 8… I don’t often like repeat campaigns but that eTrade baby did it again with talking babies.
Position 7 belongs to Dreamworks animated film “Monsters Verus Aliens” and the clips rocked even in 2D.
Number 6 belongs to CareerBuilder for reminding us that these symptoms may indicate it’s time to brush up the resume.
Number 5 goes to Denny’s who flip off iHop’s foo-foo pancakes. We need more Giggledrops, baby.
The fourth best ad belongs to Coke with its medley of animated insects. Ladybugs, like cows, sell.
The second greatest Superbowl ad this year goes to Pedigree Dogfood video, which features no dogs but will be the most talked about. Rhinos in cars? Common, peeps. If you didn’t laugh at that ad, check you funny pulse.Now for number 1: Miller Light’s “Deliver Guy” ad by Saatchi & Saatchi is the indesputable winner of pre and post game buzz. Windell Middlebrooks spent 17 hours taping these 1-second spots, and it worked.
Now the losers?
Spot 3 is the absurdly forced Gatorade ad featuring a collection of athletes and animated lizards. Puleez- 1996.
The second loser award goes to GoDaddy.com for still pitching hosting solutions with hot babes. That campaign is beaten to death, and is almost as bad as Peta’s banned veggie campaign. The absolute worst ad belongs to the biggest sellout since me. Ed McMahon’s Cash4Gold.comlong after we care.
Why watch the game, when you can catch all of the advertisements on these online-video sites? And hey- most of these ads don’t have any prerolls. That goodness Madison Avenue and the online-video sites are finally cooperating.
Wired magazine reports this month that it’s the GPS revolution in 2009. Remember a decade ago, when we heard stories about how you’d be passing Starbucks and suddenly receive a text/sms offer via your mobile phone? Yeah, that and the space cars I’m still waiting on.
Well here’s a glimpse into the dangers associated with GPS-based (location based) text advertising. Jo and I depicted the sad reality as we see it. We’d be passing stores just to get the discounts retailers would use to lure us back. Mind you this isn’t a sponsored video, so the Borders, Starbucks and California Tortilla appearances are just to make it more realish.
I’m not sure if other countries have introduced this technology, but I sure can’t wait for it in the US. That’s what I love about those free 411 services. You suddenly get text junk mail. Eww. And how creepy would it be to have an advertiser know exactly where you are at a specific time. Here’s hoping for opt-outs.
I’m posting the blip.tv version first because it’s a bit better resolution:
A YouTube for All of Us
As a community, we have come to count on each other to be entertained, challenged, and moved by what we watch and share on YouTube. We’ve been thinking a lot lately about how to make the collective YouTube experience even better, particularly on our most visited pages. Our goal is to help ensure that you’re viewing content that’s relevant to you, and not inadvertently coming across content that isn’t. Here are a few things we came up with:
* Stricter standard for mature content – While videos featuring pornographic images or sex acts are always removed from the site when they’re flagged, we’re tightening the standard for what is considered “sexually suggestive.” Videos with sexually suggestive (but not prohibited) content will be age-restricted, which means they’ll be available only to viewers who are 18 or older. To learn more about what constitutes “sexually suggestive” content, click here.
* Demotion of sexually suggestive content and profanity – Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our ‘Most Viewed,’ ‘Top Favorited,’ and other browse pages. The classification of these types of videos is based on a number of factors, including video content and descriptions. In testing, we’ve found that out of the thousands of videos on these pages, only several each day are automatically demoted for being too graphic or explicit. However, those videos are often the ones which end up being repeatedly flagged by the community as being inappropriate.
* Improved thumbnails – To make sure your thumbnail represents your video, your choices will now be selected algorithmically. You’ll still have three thumbnails to choose from, but they will no longer be auto-generated from the 25/50/75 points in the video index.
* More accurate video information – Our Community Guidelines have always prohibited folks from attempting to game view counts by entering misleading information in video descriptions, tags, titles, and other metadata. We remain serious about enforcing these rules. Remember, violations of these guidelines could result in removal of your video and repeated violations will lead to termination of your account.
The preservation and improvement of the YouTube experience is a responsibility we share. Let’s work together to ensure that the YouTube community continues to thrive as a positive place for all of us.
1. Why should videos be demoted on profanity alone? Why not just hide them for people not logged in and are 18 or older?
2. Some of YouTube’s most popular stars…Bo Burnham, Charles Trippy, sXePhil, Chris Crocker, Mark Day, etc…(name as many as you want) all have used profanity.
3. The new thumbnail idea sucks. Now what if none of the thumbnails are good?
4. YouTube sometimes features videos with profanity.
—————–
OK, now I finally understand YouTube’s “Stricter standard for mature content”
“Videos that are considered sexually suggestive, or that contain profanity, will be algorithmically demoted on our ‘Most Viewed,’ ‘Top Favorited,’ and other browse pages.”
‘My Dearest Kevin,
Here is an article for your stupid website…’
3 Things YouTube Needs ASAP
Hey, it’s me, Zack Scott. I’m not a YouTube megastar like Nalts, but I am very thankful for my decent subscriber base. I’m also thankful for YouTube. Since its introduction of the Partner’s Program, I really think that it has undeniably taken the crown as far as the best video site. YouTube’s strongest assets have always been its ease-of-use and its community. But the relatively recent Partner’s Program has really made it an invaluable platform for video producers like myself. With that said, I think there are three things YouTube desperately needs to fully outmatch any video site out there. These suggestions will not only help Partners but YouTube as well.
1. Earnings Reports Per Video
As a Partner, I get earnings based off YouTube’s ad revenue. But I think creators need more insight. I’m not asking for a look at their formulas. All I’m asking for is to have an earnings report that specifies how much money each video receives on a per-month or per-day basis. YouTube has done a fantastic job with their branding options and their demographics reports. Why can’t a Partner have an earnings report? Metacafe has had something similar for about two years.
An earnings report will solve two issues. One, I will be able to enable ads on videos that feature my friends. I will then be able to easily know how much I can distribute to them. I already have apprehension on including anyone else in my videos because I really have no ideas which videos make money. I have a lot of ideas that will require more than just myself, but I really don’t want to underpay or overpay a co-creator. Two, it will give me a look into which of my videos do better in terms of ad revenue. For all I know, my most popular pet videos could be netting me less revenue than my less popular comedy videos. This would also be beneficial for YouTube because it will make me make videos that bring me (and by virtue YouTube) more ad revenue.
2. Thumbnail Selection
With tons of video sites letting creators pick from a vast array of thumbnails to represent their videos, I’m surprised that YouTube only allows you to pick from three. This means I still have to be very careful when editing my videos to make sure the quarter mark, halfway mark, or the three-quarters mark has a decent still shot. YouTube makes everything else easy when it comes to properly categorizing, tagging, and marketing your video. What is up with their limited thumbnail capabilities?
YouTube’s current model gives Partners incentive to inject a nice-looking scene or image into the middle of their video. Sometimes this completely ruins the flow of the videos, and it often breaks the fourth wall. I believe YouTube would benefit from better thumbnail selection because people’s videos would be better, people can edit videos faster, and people wouldn’t have to upload the same video multiple times. This will save YouTube some bandwidth. I hate it when I upload a video only to find out my thumbnails look horrible or blurry!
3. Direct Linking to a Specific Time within Annotations.
YouTube has done wonders with annotations and allowing people to link to other YouTube videos within their own videos. For better or worse, this has led to the creation of a lot of interactive videos. They’ve also recently added a cool feature where you can link to a specific time in any video. Now YouTube just needs to combine the two ideas. I would love to link to a specific time in any video within an annotation!
This would allow me to make an interactive video that is one video in size. I sort of like the concept of interactive videos, but I really hate how Partners have to upload twenty different videos. Maybe this is good for them because they get more views and ad revenue that way. But, at least allow me the option so I can have just one video. This should be a very easy fix. I think it will make the viewer experience much better.
Well, those are my ideas. I’ve already e-mailed YouTube a few times about them, but these changes haven’t been implemented yet. I think the first one is crucial, whereas the others are just fluff. But YouTube has been adding a lot more fluff lately, so maybe they will add these. Feel free to e-mail them as well and let them know if you’d like to see these ideas come to fruition. Also ask them to include a wide screen video player. Thanks for reading. I love you all.
I’m just so glad this cat’s out of the bag, so I can officially boast that I used LonelyGirl15’s Visine in the dressing room. Too bad the set was closed to cameras. In one of those moments I wish I had on tape, I had to ask the star of LonelyGirl15 what we should call her, because I couldn’t remember if Jessica was her real name or stage name.
Says the Hollywood Reporter about the HBO Labs web series debuting October 1, “”Hooking Up” could prove groundbreaking for the nascent webisode genre by amassing a sizable viewership, given its aggregation of Internet personalities who can promote the production to their devoted audiences of millions of young viewers.
Tilzy called it “a small scale Ocean’s 11 for the YouTube set.” I don’t know what I’m allowed to say or not say about this production, so I’ll keep it safe and say that some of the people that work for HBOLabs are so cute and talented I’d buy McDonald Happy Meal toys of their likeness. And this post is not a McDonalds or Visine promotion anymore than yesterday’s Twinkie post. I got contacted last night by a Forbes.com guy writing about sponsored blog posts, and I groaned at the thought that anyone would think my pop culture references have backdoor incentives. Ewww!
And for the record, this isn’t the first time all of us have been scripted. In a grade school production of The Wizard of Oz, I was the soldier that leaned over upon the dying Wicked Witch of the West and said, “she’s dead… you’ve killed her.”
We’ve seen a spew of Internet weblebrities flounder as they tried to dive across the giant chasm between online-video and television. But we have our money on Michael Buckley (WhattheBuckShow), whose HBO deal was confirmed by Wired and Tilzy. You know it sucks being at the center of gossip, but the last blog that gets the official story.
This was, of course, interesting for two reasons. First, we’ve grown immune to hearing YouTubers talk about a “big tv deal in development” that never seems to actualize.” Second, Buckley despite conversations with E and other networks, was quite happy sticking with his Internet thing. As noted in his comment below, Buckley will continue to do his WhattheBuck show, even if that means he outsources most of it to Mason, his abused assistant.
Here’s why if Buckley can’t do it, then aspiring television and film stars should put down their video cameras, stop surfing YouTube and get back to the headshots and waitressing:
Buckley’s got talent. He writes well, and has an appealing personality. Almost every one of his videos is among the top 10 highest-rated YouTube videos of the day, and he’s shot from obscurity to a top position on YouTube in less than 6 months (even with his late arrival to the scene).
His content is universal. We don’t need to know YouTube to understand his pop references. He clearly consumes more television than my children.
He’s as adept at interacting with his viewers (an obsessed lot) and YouTube’s community. But he has proven experience saying “oh no you dint” to agents and the cuthroat world of big media. He’s hungry but not stupid.
He’s got that “Secret,” inner confidence, “I Know Where I’m Going, Don’t You Want to Help?” vibe. A lot of YouTubers get shy or compulsive when confronted with the world of Hollywood, but Buckley will find it charming. It will get to his head, of course, but there’s enough room in there for everyone.
Buckley’s faithful assistant, Mason, takes a beating and stays with him. It’s no secret that in Hollywood you need a loyal assistant who can take abuse and remain faithful and avoid tabloids. Mason’s his guy.
Let’s celebrate the news by watching the Tubicide parody of him, or my recent video that shows what you television noobs have to look forward to whatever he’s got cookin’ with HBO. Hey- this started as a post about Buckley, and then it’s all about me. All about me. No wonder they never give me exclusives.
Kevin "Nalts" Nalty is one of the most-viewed YouTube comedians with nearly 800 short online videos seen more than 74 million times. He also consults with top brands to help them engage in social media & video (check www.NaltsConsulting), and is chief strategical officer at Hitviews.com.
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A YouTube for All of Us
OK, now I finally understand YouTube’s “Stricter standard for mature content”
3 Things YouTube Needs ASAP
I’m just so glad this cat’s out of the bag, so I can officially boast that I used LonelyGirl15’s Visine in the dressing room. Too bad the set was closed to cameras. In one of those moments I wish I had on tape, I had to ask the star of LonelyGirl15 what we should call her, because I couldn’t remember if Jessica was her real name or stage name.
We’ve seen a spew of Internet weblebrities flounder as they tried to dive across the giant chasm between online-video and television. But we have our money on Michael Buckley (WhattheBuckShow), whose HBO deal was confirmed by Wired and Tilzy. You know it sucks being at the center of gossip, but the last blog that gets the official story.
He’s as adept at interacting with his viewers (an obsessed lot) and YouTube’s community. But he has proven experience saying “oh no you dint” to agents and the cuthroat world of big media. He’s hungry but not stupid.
