We are a Video Nation. A new research found that 54 percent of adult Internet users create their own video offline, but only 11 percent upload it to the Internet.
Interactive agency Sharpe Partners, who conducted this research, says that this margin represents a significant opportunity for software and system providers to help facilitate the migration of a burgeoning consumer generated video marketplace online. One of the chief reasons for the disparity between producing and posting video is the difficulty consumers said they have with the process.
The study also suggests a profound fragmentation of the video marketplace. It says than those who edit video are presumably more likely to share it with others, which will expand this market even further. However, according the study, two-thirds of those who create their own video found it difficult to edit their content due to the lack of consumer-friendly software.
Video is much more emotional, online ad search does not work
The future of online advertising is video. Paid search works but "doesn't grab the heart and mind". eMarketer senior analyst David Hallerman agrees that paid search is the gorilla of the market right now, but says it's essentially direct marketing tool, and does not engage people's emotions like a good video ad.
Hallerman also says that repurposed TV ads don't work either, and he recommends TV commercial producers take a few extra hours while they're on a shoot and create original content for the web. Check it out the interview in Beet.TV
Local radio stations will add video, and local TV sites will gain a competitor
Two hundred radio station websites in the U.S. will offer Reuters text and video stories. The radio stations are part of Clear Channel network, and will also be able to upload their own video to the service. It means that local TV sites are gaining yet another video competitor, both in eyeballs and sales.
The deal allows Clear Channel's website to offer a robust news on demand service that combines Reuters video and text feeds with radio stations existing coverage from its news network of local stations.
“The primary focus of this product is for News-Talk-Sports, but there are lifestyle and entertainment segments we can use with our music station Web sites,” said Evan Harrison, executive of Clear Channel’s online radio division in announcing the new alliance.
Advertisers can buy 5 and 15 second pre-roll ads
CC is paying a license fee to Reuters for the content and retains all of the advertising, allowing station Web sites to customize advertising opportunities for either local or national advertisers. Advertisers can buy 5 and 15 second pre-roll ads in video segments.
“We already have more than 12,000 of our advertiser customers partnering with us online so the next step is for them to buy audio and video advertising that goes along with their on-air ads,” Harrison said.
A longtime TV anchor shifts to the station's website
A very interesting development on the Internet TV evolution. A traditional TV station is devoting an anchor to their website.
At Boston's ABC affil, WCVB, longtime anchor Jim Boy, 64, with the station since it debuted in 1972, is leaving the TV airwaves and he is going to report on stories throughout the day on the station's website, thebostonchannel.com.
A political blog with $5 million evolves into a real news media
HuffingtonPost.com, which started last year as a political web for celebrity bloggers and now has 2.3 million unique visitors a month, is preparing to venture into original reporting, with plans to cover Congress and, already, the 2008 presidential campaign, the NYT reports.
Softbank Capital, a venture capital group, invested $5 million in the site earlier this year. Arianna Huffington, 48, who lives in Washington and had been a reporter for The New York Times and Newsweek, started HuffingtonPost.com about 18 months ago.
Now she is planning to hire investigative reporters as well as a multimedia team to do video reports and wanted to make the site more interactive. “Now is the time to generate our own original content,” Ms. Huffington said. “It was always our intention, once we had the money, to hire people to do reporting.” The site already offers a mix of opinion and breaking news from wire services and other sources.
Revver.com opens up its API so anyone can use their tools
Revver.com, the clean video sharing that monitors uploads clips for appropriate copyright issues and provides a revenue sharing model for content providers with advertising post-roll, has decided to open up its API so anyone can use their tools (but no access to the code; the API is a kind of software development kit).
The Los Angeles-based company has raised over $10 million from impressive backers like Comcast Interactive Capital, Turner Broadcasting, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners, Draper Richards and a personal investment by William Randolph Hearst III.
