Saving YouTube

you.jpgDo a Google on "YouTube Sucks" and you'll find some interesting comments. But it's not fair- YouTube is a market leader and pioneer. YouTube began last year inviting anyone to easily share videos regardless of copyrights. It quickly became the most popular video site on the web. If you want to be seen as an amateur, your quickest route to fame is still YouTube. But now free video hosting is a commodity. You can get it anywhere- including on Google Video.

With some lawsuits and the enforcement of DMCA, YouTube has started to pull videos…. even SNL skits and movie trailers. This is a tough task when you're hosting the majority of the online videos in the world. So how does YouTube NOT get Napsterized? Three steps:

1) Clean It Up: YouTube can't survive with material that is submitted by people that don't own the content. It's not sustainable. YouTube has a giant task ahead and hopefully there's a technology that can help.

2) Share the Ad Revenue: The best content creators won't give up their stuff for free. Not when there are models that allow them to profit from their creations. And eventually the eyeballs will follow the content to where it's legitimately living (especially since most of it will likely be free and ad supported). Look what happened when iTunes arrived post Napster.

3) Share Affiliate Revenue: Currently, YouTube is mostly all about YouTube. It does allow other people to grab YouTube videos, and there are plenty of sites that sustain themselves on stuff living on YouTube. But there's no affiliate revenue for these folks. As a site owner, you're eventually going to select content from Revver because you make 20% of the ad clicks.

This is a tough time for YouTube because the changes I just outlined are extremely difficult to make. It's not easy to scrub the videos clean of non copyrighted stuff. And how can you start sharing ad revenue when you haven't been to date? It's a tough proposition. And you don't want to alienate your audience by overpopulating the site with ads.

My two cents…

Make Money Via Online Videos: Revver, ClipSyndicate and MotionTV

Let's put aside YouTube and Google Video for a moment, and focus on video services that share advertising revenue with content creators and the websites that host the videos. I review here three sites with different business models, technology and ad serving, but they all have one thing in common. They share revenue and they're not trying to be big video portals. They're acting as a "Visa" in the shopping world, allowing other people to create the products and set up the malls. For instance, when I create and post a stupid video I get paid when someone clicks the ad. As a site owner, I also get paid when someone clicks the ad on someone else's video.

Right now, I only count three models that facilitate this, and the details are still fuzzy. But I'll watch these sites closely and update this post as the picture becomes more clear. If I've missed a site, please let me know.

1) RevverRevverLogo[1].jpg

Model: Revver provides content creators 50% of the ad revenue, generated currently if someone clicks the single ad frame at the end of the video. Anyone can post videos to Revver, and they make a 20% affiliate fee (leaving the remaining 80% to be split by Revver and the creator). All you need is a PayPal account to receive the money, and you need to have copyright to the material when you post. Revver won't post your video if you even use a copyrighted song to score your video.

Technology & Ads: Revver uses Quicktime now (which is not as common as Flash) to attach the ad to the video. The company is exploring other technologies, and formally launches this summer (it's still in beta). If a viewer clicks the single ad frame at the end of the clip, the affiliate, Revver and creator make money. Otherwise it's a free impression for the advertiser.

Turn Ons/Turn Offs: What's cool about the site is that anybody with copyrighted material can upload. The short, funny and sexy clips garner the most views. The ads are non intrusive. Unfortunately, Revver doesn't want to compete with portals so it has neglected its own site. So it's not a great place to sort and view videos.

Logo: I give it an 8. I like the bullet, which says "speed" to me. Apparently they may explore other treatments.

clip syndicate.jpg

2) ClipSyndicate:

Model: ClipSyndicate is a new service that I just reviewed. Publishers can either pay an undisclosed fee to ClipSyndicate each time they show a clip – and then display their own ads with the clip – or run the videos with ads sold by ClipSyndicate and earn 5 percent of the advertising revenue. The video's owners, meanwhile, receive 30 percent of whatever revenue is generated from each clip.

Technology & Ads: The site uses Microsoft Windows Media player. A short ad is served before the video, and a banner ad resides above the video for the duration.

Turn Ons/Turn Offs: This will be one to watch, since it could soon facilitate a lot of killer clips that otherwise are burried in the vaults of local television stations. Soon YouTube will not be able to air these copyrighted pieces, and ClipSyndicate would then have exclusives. This isn't a good site for amateur video creators, but we'll probably see a lot of sites syndicate via them. The ad percentage sharing is not nearly as beefy as Revver, but the company will probably charge a premium on the ads since they're so prominent (a bit too prominent for my taste- who wants to suffer through an ad before every clip?).

Logo: Oh man- I give it a 1. It looks like a shower drain designed by an intern of a manufacturing association. Back to the drawing board.

3) MotionTVmotion.jpg

Model: Like Revver, MotionTV pays any content creators a piece of the ad revenue. MotionTV doesn't disclose percentages, but says the revenue is "tied directly to the popularity of your video(s), as well as the overall dollars earned by MotionTV.

Technology & Ads: MotionTV uses Macromedia Flash, and serves ads around the video. To my knowledge, Flash is the only service that doesn't yet provide a way to link an ad to a video. So ads have to sit around the outside, or have short clips load prior to the desired video loading.

TurnOns, TurnOffs: Like Revver, the site has low barriers to entry for content creators. The videos are organized well, and the ads are not intrusive to the video watching. It's hard to say how profitable this site would be for an amatuer. James Jarvis, one of the top Revver content contributors, told me he tried it and didn't generate significant income. But it's new so we'll give it a chance. I'm still kinda getting over the nastygram that I got from its CEO on my other blog, so I'm not the best person for an objective review of MotionTV.

Logo: Delicious! The film is a bit retro, but the identity is downright fun. I give it a 9.

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The Bottom Line: These are all companies to watch, but as an amateur video creator I like Revver's model best (grant I'm biased because I'm such a fan that I've set up an unofficial Revver blog: www.Revverberation.com). I don't get paid to hack 'em, though! I just like the model and I've made a decent amount of money posting as Nalts. I also make money as a site owner by syndicating Revver videos (www.CubeBreak.com).

What to Watch For:  I suspect that YouTube will transform into a model similar to these, but just as Napster got "iTuned," I predict that YouTube will get "GooleVideo'd."

Are TV Stations Waking Up to Online Video? ClipSyndicate

clip syndicate.jpgHere's a new online video service that shares ad revenue like Revver. It's called ClipSyndicate, and its partners include Bloomberg News, The Associated Press and other news outlets.

The idea behind ClipSyndicate, says The International Herald Tribute, is "to give local U.S. television stations, which have watched as online upstarts have stolen viewers and advertising dollars, their own foothold on the Web. Local stations have failed miserably in attracting audiences to their Web sites. But given the fascination with online video, that model is now flipping. After all, why struggle to build an audience of your own when new Internet businesses will find video-starved viewers for you in far-flung corners of the Web?"

ClipSyndicate shares revenue with any site that hosts its videos (provided the site isn't a broadcaster or porn site). Publishers can either pay an undisclosed fee to ClipSyndicate each time they show a clip – and then display their own ads with the clip – or run the videos with ads sold by ClipSyndicate and earn 5 percent of the advertising revenue. The video's owners, meanwhile, receive 30 percent of whatever revenue is generated from each clip.

I gave ClipSyndicate a whirl, and was intrigued a bit. The demo sites like Aerospace News (which shows crashed planes) are not the finest, but that may be because the service is new. An ad was served at the beginning of a video, which was spawned by Microsoft Windows Media Player (ironically I didn't see the video of the ad, but the video of the clip worked). There was also a YellowPages banner on the top of the video.

I'll do a comparison of pay services next.

Favorite Photo Manipulating Websites

RasterbatorWorth1000It's a little early in this blog's life to wander off topic (as I'm prone to do on Revverberation), but this is worth it. I've discovered two great photo sites this morning. Each worth some time. 

1) Worth1000: A site that features contests for PhotoShop junkies. Some hysterical images, including a collection of presidents in drag (which has been forwarded around a lot lately).

2) Rasterbator: Many applications allow you to convert your photos to tiled PDF images you can print on a B&W printer. But this one makes it very easy, and has some great stories around how people used Rasterbator creatively.

Videotaping Women in NYC

One intriguing site for online videos is www.idonothingallday.com. The site owner and videographer, Patrick, runs the site on his free time and has significant traffic. His videos feature beautiful women in NYC… walking down the street, reading a book, laying in the sun. Patrick asks for permission, but according to this Wired article, maybe that's not necessary.

Says Mr.KnowItAll: "As long as your subjects don't have a 'reasonable expectation of privacy' – meaning they're not somewhere they'd never expect a camera to be – you're on pretty solid ground."

idonothingallday

Mobile Couch Potatoes

Sirius streaming video in car

Stay tuned mobile couch potatoes… you'll soon not just hear Howard Stern but watch him on your commute. Sirius has confirmed plans to launch its live, streaming video service soon after the Consumer Electronics Show (Jan. 8-11) in 2007. For more see this article from www.engadget.com.

We at "Will Video for Food" think this is an intriguing new channel, but one that won't catch on quickly. Why? First- it's got limited appeal (parents, road trippers, TV addicts). Second, it's ANOTHER subscription. Third, it's bound to be spotty technology initially. There are two things Sirius needs to do for this to even approach mainstream: a) Partner with a broadband entity (Verizon/Comcast) so that the programming is an extension of the in-house video service, b) Ensure that no van ever leaves Detroit without a player. 

BBC Mistakes a Cab Driver for an Internet

This is one of the funniest videos that is painful to watch. For a segment about online audo downloading, a BBC interviewer thinks she's speaking with the editor of a technology website- New and Wireless. What she doesn't realize is her interviewee is a cab driver that was booked for another segment. What makes this video so delightful is: a) The cab driver's face when he's introduced, b) That the cab driver decides to wing it and offers some commentary on the subject, and c) That when the mistake is realized, they switch to the real expert without acknowledging the blunder.

BBC Cab Driver

AOL Video & Google Video Step Up Game

The online giants are waking up as YouTube continues to soar. More than 12 million unique visitors per month watch over 40 million videos per day on YouTube, making it the undusputed leader for online video. The silver and bronze go to MSN and MySpace. Google remains fourth, and has made two changes recently. First, it’s compressing the period between upload and live (it used to be days or weeks). Second, it’s catching up with a web-based uploader. The real problem with Google is its homepage is too commercial (with emphasis on selling videos), and there’s hardly any structure to the mass of videos. I’ve still got my money on Google for three reasons:
1) Google’s core competency is search and advertising. These are more vital than anything for online video.
2) Google’s huge, and they can’t afford to NOT have a place in online video as it grows dramatically. They’ve been fairly quiet, and I’m guessing they’ll launch a dramatically new approach to Google Video in the coming months.
3) The minute Google allows a homepage search to identify videos (like its image searcher) is the minute you short the stocks of the other companies.
That being said, Google Video will coexist with online video sites in the long term. Why? Google doesn’t want to host the world’s information; they want to make it searchable. So I’m not sure they care to be an online video hoster and streamer as long as they take us all from our video need to the destination. Tempting, though, isn’t it? The site that streams the video has the eyeballs during the viewing, and that’s where the ad dollars are going to explode.

For more: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060517-6850.html

Online-Video Marketing