Category Archives: Digital Media

“Commercialising Video” conference in Sydney

analytics, Digital Media, vquence

On Tuesday 24th June I attended the “Commercialising Video” conference held in beautiful Jones Bay Wharf in Sydney’s harbour. AIMIA and Claudia Sagripanti from VentureOne organised it together.

It was a mixture of case studies and panels. The case studies were talks by successful digital media companies, including Sony, Bebo, Viocorp, Clear Light Digital and Fox Interactive Media (really: mySpaceTV). The panels constituted each a moderator and a small number of industry experts that briefly presented on their knowledge on a specific topic and then discussed this topic led by questions from the audience.

I thought the format was very successful and the conference covered a broad range of current topics of interest in digital media. Panel topics included:

  • mobile: challenges for getting video onto mobile and making a return on it
  • business models: how to make money from online video
  • sports video: what business models work with sports content
  • metrics: why we need to measure video and what and how
  • innovations: what innovative products are to be expected in the near future in video

I was one of the panellists on the metrics panel – my slides are here. The very last slide provides a very basic preview of the video metrics service that is in development at Vquence right now. Expect the final product to look much more professional, once I’ve included the awesome designs that we have just received from Chiz.

One thing that I took away from the conference is that the online video market is finally maturing and we are seeing business models that work. While they can roughly be classified into ad-supported, sponsored, and user-paid, there are many details that you have to take care of dependent on the service that you are providing. Ad-support can be inside the video e.g. in pre-roll, post-roll, mid-roll, overlay, or accompanying ads e.g. in dynamically loaded roll-outs, banners etc. Sponsorship is mostly used for non-profit sites. User-paid models are e.g. subscriptions, pay-per-view, pay-per-download. General video sites work not so well for ad-support as specialised sites. There is a lot of money for videos in specialised areas where your community is very keen to receive the latest video content fast, e.g. in sports.

In mobile in Australia, video business is still hard going, because the bandwidth costs are high, extra production cost is high, and because of challenges to get video into a usable form on such a small screen (e.g. soccer-ball is too small to be more than a pixel). This also means that the cost for consumers to get video is high, while the quality is still low. This obviously does not make for a very good market. The size of the iPhone screen, combined with the slow realisation by mobile phone providers that they have to drop prices for video transfers, may however totally change this situation.

Finally, I noticed that there was a large call for metrics. Measurement of the use of video and tracking the distribution of videos around the Internet, as well as measurement of advertising that relates to videos are all being requested to get more transparency into the business and mature the market. Initial services are available, in particular from existing Web Analytics and Internet Market Intelligence companies. However, the technology is new and we have a long way to go online and even more on mobile. This is a great opportunity for Vquence!

Thanks very much, Claudia, for organising this event and I hope there will be more to come in this space.

FOMS Workshop – Call for Participation is OPEN

Digital Media, FOMS, LCA, Open Source

The Foundations for Open Media Software workshop will take place in January 2009 for the third time before LCA. Yay!! This year in beautiful Tasmania!

At 17:33pm on Wed 11th June on irc #foms, the Call for Participation was declared open.

If you have any engagement with the development of open standards and open source software in the digital media space, consider attending. To attend, all we ask for is an email to the committee. Really simple!

We will have travel sponsorship for some key people and if the last two years are anything to go by, we will see some serious improvements to open media technology coming out of FOMS – an event that always stretches over the whole duration of LCA.

I can’t wait till Christmas is over…

What is a proper “viral video”?

analytics, Digital Media, vquence, , , ,

Many companies are intending to undertake viral video marketing campaigns.

This should come as no surprise, since video is undoubtedly the most effective content on the Web: “People are about twice as likely to play a video, or replay one that started automatically, than they are to click through standard JPG or GIF image ads.”

Even Techcrunch has a thing for dodgy viral video advertising approaches.

The definition of a “viral video” is however not quite clear.

Wikipedia defines “viral video” as “video clip content which gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or IM messages, blogs and other media sharing websites.” This describes more the process through which viral videos are created rather then what a viral video actually is.

I tried to analyze the types of viral videos around to understand what a viral video really is. I found that there are three different types and would like to provide a list of descriptive features of each (leave a comment if you disagree with the types or want to suggest more).

The reason for this separation of types is that if you are a company and want to create a viral video advertising campaign, you need to decide what type of viral video you want to create and choose the appropriate approach and infrastructure to allow for that type of viral video to be successful.

Here are the three types of viral videos that I could distinguish:

popular video

A video that has a high view count (in the millions) – possibly emerged over a longer time frame – is viral because in order to get such a high view count, many people must have been told about it and been directed to go to it and watch it.

A prime example of such a video is the “Hahaha” video of a baby laughing, which is currently at position 10 of YouTube’s Most Viewed of All Time page. I would also put the “Evolution of Dance” video into this category, which alone on YouTube has seen over 81M page view and has therefore the top rank on the Most Viewed of All Time videos on YouTube. This video has some aspects that make it a cult, but I don’t think they are strong enough.

The features of videos in this category are as follows:

  • high page view count
  • not subject to fashion or short-term fads
  • interest for many audiences
  • hasn’t spawned an active community

The reason for the last feature is that a popular video is simply a video that is a “must see” for everybody, but it doesn’t instill in people an urge to “become involved”. This is a bit of black-and-white painting of course – see also how many people created copies of the “Evolution of Dance” – but it is a general feature that applies to most of the audience.

cult video

Videos that become “cult” are not necessarily videos that achieve the highest view counts. They will however achieve a high visibility and almost 100% coverage in a certain sub-community. Such videos are regarded as viral since they virally spread within their target community. Sometimes they even create a community – their fan club.

The main aim of these videos is not a high view count on a single video, but an active community that is highly motivated to have the video be part of their culture.

A typical example is the “Diet Coke and Mentos” phenomenon. I would not be able to point to a single video on this phenomenon but there is a whole cult that has emerged around it with people doing their own experiments, posting videos, discussing it on forums, helping each other on IM etc. There are even fan clubs on Facebook.

The features of videos in this category are as follows:

  • many videos have been created on the same topic, in particular UCG
  • often, it is not clear which was the originating video that started the phenomenon
  • there is a substantial view count on the individual videos
  • not subject to fashion or short-term fads
  • interest for a sub-community mostly
  • has spawned an active community, possibly with their own website

I would use the “Ask a Ninja” series of vodcasts as another example of a cult video. It has a central website and a very active community of fans around it.

trendy video

The term “Internet meme” has been coined for the videos in this category. They are essentially videos that create a high amount of activity around the Internet for a short time, but then people lose interest and move on. They are trendy for a limited amount of time.

A typical example in this category is the “Dramatic Chipmunk” with more than 7M views on YouTube on this one video, and further millions of views on the diverse mash-ups that were created. At one point, it was a “must see” and you had to have mashed it up to be “in”. Now it has been replaced by Rick Rolling – the activity of pointing people to a URL of something but then falsely directing them to Rick Astley’s video of “Never Gonna Give You Up” on YouTube with more than 9M page views.

The features of videos in this category are as follows:

  • videos achieve high page view in a short amount of time
  • audience interest vanishes after a limited time
  • often consists of funny, shocking, embarrassing, bizarre, or slanderous content
  • there is a substantial view count on the video(s) related to the phenomenon
  • creates high user activity for a short time e.g. through mash-ups, remixes, or parodies

Now that we have defined the different types of viral videos there are the lessons for viral video marketing campaigns.

If you want to create a popular video, create a beautiful, time-less video like the Sony Bravia Bunnies ad that everybody just has to have seen. Then make sure to release it on the Internet before you release it on TV by uploading to YouTube and a set of other social video hosting sites. Feel free to complement that with your own Website for the video. Start the viral spread through emailing your employees, friends, social networks, etc and rely on the cool-ness of the video to spread.

Typical Australian ads that have achieved popular video status are Carlton Draught’s “Big Ad” and the more recent VB “Stubby Symphony” ad.

If you want to create a cult video, you should create something that will excite a sub-community and provide the opportunities for the community to emerge. Blendtec did this very well with their “Will it Blend?” videos and website. I actually believe, they should open that Website even further an allow discussion forums to emerge. They could pull all those blender communities at Facebook into their site. OTOH they could just be involved in the social networks that build elsewhere around their brand to make the most from their fan base.

If your video ad is however just meant to create a high audience activity for a short time, you might consider doing a shocking video like the one Unicef created with the Smurfs. Or something a little less extreme like the funny German Coastguard video created by the Berlitz Language Institute.

Ogg DirectShow Filters are searching for a new maintainer

Digital Media, Open Source,

This is not my typical blog post, but if it helps achieve the goal, so be it.

Zen Kavanaugh, who used to develop the Ogg DirectShow filters is not able to continue maintaining these. Therefore, the DirectShow filters are now searching for a new maintainer.

If you develop in Windows and are able to compile, test and package the DirectShow filters that are available from http://www.illiminable.com/ogg/, please consider becoming the maintainer.

At this point in time, there is not much actual development required – just the occasional application of a patch, compilation, packaging and then publication.

This is really important, so if you can help you should really consider stepping forward.

Standardisation in video advertising

analytics, Digital Media, vquence,

It’s great to read at ClickZ that the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is preparing new format guidelines for video advertising. This includes pre-, mid- and post-roll, overlays, product placement, and companion ads (display ads placed alongside video).

The standard is currently in public comment phase, which closes on 2nd May 2008.

It is good to see that the standard also contains recommendations on the ratio of ad-to-content and on capping the frequency of ads to save the consumer from overly getting swamped with advertising.

The effect this standard will have on the video advertising industry will be enormous. Content publishers will build their websites with these standards in mind and provide generic advertising spaces into which they can then include advertising as required from the appropriate advertisers. Advertisers can create ads that will be re-usable across websites. And video advertising agencies can finally start to emerge that provide the market place for video ads to find their locations.

This is a sign that online video advertising is maturing and more generally that free online video distribution will become more viable for content owners.

For Vquence this is great news since all this new advertising will need to be measured for impact – I expect the need for video analytics will grow enormously. 🙂

Video Metrics: an emerging industry category

analytics, Digital Media, vquence, ,

Yesterday, YouTube gave video metrics to their users. If you have uploaded videos to YouTube, you can go to your video list and click “About this video” to see a history of view counts. Very simple, but a good move.

It is great to see YouTube provide this service, even if just for your own, personally uploaded videos. It validates the newly emerging industry category of “online video metrics“, that Vquence is also a part of.

Our colleagues from VisibleMeasures expressed a similar feeling in their blog entry saying: “we view anything that companies can do to help showcase the need and improve the landscape for video measurement as a plus for the entire ecosystem”. I couldn’t express it any better.

Following the blogging community, there is a large need for online video metrics, both for tracking your own published videos – as YouTube has started providing since yesterday – as well as tracking videos published by the market generally for market analysis and intelligence reasons.

The number of players in the field is still small and FAIK we are the only Australians to offer these services.

U.S. spending on internet video advertising alone is expected to grow to US$4.3 billion by 2011. The need for online video publications is predicted to grow even stronger in the near future when each and every Website will be expected to use video to communicate their message. The need for video metrics will increase enormously.

Check out our new Website if you want to learn more about how Vquence measures video.

Google summer of code

code, Digital Media, Open Source

If you’re a student and keen to get more open media technology to the Web, apply for a Google summer of code project with Xiph. There are also a few Annodex-style projects in the mix, which bring annotations and metadata to Ogg.

Your interest could be with javascript, ruby, php, XML, or C no matter – you will find a project at Xiph to suit your favorite programming language.

Of the list of proposed projects, my personal favorite is OggPusher – a browser plugin for transcoding video to Theora. Imagine an online service for transcoding video to Ogg Theora without having to worry about having all the libraries installed.

You also have the chance to propose your own project to the Xiph/Annodex guys – you just need to find somebody who is willing to mentor you, so hop on irc channel #xiph at freenode.net and start discussing.

Incidentally, Google is providing a financial reward for successful conclusion of a project – but don’t let that be your only motivation. If you’re not in it with your passion, don’t do a GSoC project. This is about interacting with an open source community whose goals you can identify with. Become involved!

Xiph Mime Types and File Extensions

Digital Media, Open Source,

Late last year at Xiph we worked over our mime types and file extensions for Xiph content. The new set avoids using .ogg for everything and gives the different Xiph audio files a .oga (audio/ogg) and the Xiph video files a .ogv (video/ogg) extension, while using .ogx for more generic multiplexed content in Ogg. It’s important to separate between audio-only and video files – the codecs inside don’t really matter as much to select the appropriate application to start for using the file.

Today I read Fabian’s blog entry – one up for Ubuntu for getting behind it: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/201291 rock!

Metavidwiki gone public

code, Digital Media, Open Source

The revolution is here and now! If you thought you’ve seen it all with video web technology, think again.

Michael Dale and Aphid (Abram Stern) have published a plugin for Mediawiki called Metavidwiki which is simply breathtaking.

It provides all of the following features:

  • wiki-style timed annotations including links to other resources
  • a cool navigation interface for video to annotated clips
  • plain text search for keywords in the annotations
  • search result display of video segments related to the keywords with inline video playback
  • semantic search using speaker and other structured information
  • embedding of full video or select clips out of videos into e.g. blogs
  • web authoring of mashups of select clips from diverse videos
  • embedding of these mashups (represented as xspf playlists)
  • works with Miro through providing media RSS feeds

Try it out and be amazed! It should work in any browser – provide feedback to Michael if you discover any issues.

All of Metavidwiki is built using open standards, open APIs, and open source software. This give us a taste of how far we can take open media technology and how much of a difference it will make to Web Video in comparison to today’s mostly proprietary and non-interoperable Web video applications.

The open source software that Metavidwiki uses is very diverse. It builds on Wikipedia’s Mediawiki, the Xiph Ogg Theora and Vorbis codecs, a standard LAMP stack and AJAX, the Annodex apache server extension mod_annodex, and is capable of providing the annotations as CMML, ROE, or RSS. Client-side it uses the capabilities of your specific Web browser: should you run the latest Firefox with Ogg Theora/Vorbis support compiled in, it will make use of this special capability. Should you have a vlc browser plugin installed, it will make use of that to decode Ogg Theora/Vorbis. The fallback is the java cortado player for Ogg Theora/Vorbis.

Now just imagine for a minute the type of applications that we will be able to build with open video APIs and interchangable video annotation formats, as well as direct addressing of temporal and spatial fragments of media across sites. Finally, video and audio will be able to become a key part in the picture of a semantic Web that Tim Berners-Lee is painting – a picture of open and machine-readable information about any and all information on the Web. We certainly live in exciting times!!!

The nature of CMML

Digital Media, Open Source

Today, for the millionth time I had to listen to a statement that goes along the following lines: “CMML technology is not ideal for media annotations, because the metadata is embedded with the object rather than separate”.

For once and all let me shout it out: THIS IS UTTER BULLSHIT!

I am so sick of hearing this statement from people who criticise CMML from a position of complete lack of understanding. So, let me put it straight.

While it is true that CMML has the potential to be multiplexed as a form of timed text inside a media file, the true nature of CMML is that it is versatile and by no means restricted to this representation.

In fact, the specification document for CMML is quite clearly a specification of a XML document. CMML is in that respect more like RSS than a timed text format.

Further, I’ll let you in on a little secret: CMML can be stored in databases. Yes!! In fact, CMMLWiki, one of the first online media applications that were implemented using Annodex, uses a mysql database to store CMML data. The format in which it can be extracted depends on your needs: you can get out single field content, you can put it in an interchangeable XML file (called CMML), or you can multiplex it with the media data into an Annodex file.

The flexibility of CMML is it’s beauty! It was carefully designed to allow it to easily transform between these different representations. It’s powerful because it can easily appear in all these different formats. By no means is this “not ideal”.