Msnbc.com has launched a new video technology that allows users to navigate an extended piece of video by keyword. They have started to use it in presidential debates, and they call it “debate video player”. See it in action right here. There are plans to make the entire player embeddable.
“This innovative and interactive video player, available at politics.msnbc.com , allows consumers to watch the full debate, and, at any time skip ahead to a specific topic by selecting one of the 20 key words available. When consumers click on a key word, the timeline reveals the various points during the debate when those phrases were spoken by the candidates. Users can then explore the issues in context of the larger debate and also read analysis provided by NBC News,” says Msnbc.
YouTube to offer TV shows facing competition from Hulu
YouTube will offer full-length episodes of some television shows, catching up to other Web sites that have promoted them, like Hulu.com (100 million video streams a month). Those videos will include advertising before, during and after each episode, following standards on network television sites. (See an example of what comes on the CBS page on YouTube, where offered TV shows like MacGyver, Dexter and Californication).
The growth of YouTube –five billion videos viewed in July, 44 percent of all online video consumption in the U.S.- has come primarily from short videos that last only a few minutes. And their founders had resisted so-called preroll, midroll and postroll advertising for fears that it would alienate users.
For short videos, YouTube is committed so far to in-video overlays (banner advertisements that sometimes appear on the bottom of videos).
YouTube introduces a new type of e-commerce ad
YouTube users can now click to buy digital goods without leaving the site from iTunes or Amazon Unbox, thanks to a new ad format aimed to turn the site's large audience into substantial revenue.
Google says the new ads are YouTube's first step toward building a viable e-commerce platform. For now, the program is limited to buying songs from EMI or the Universal Music Group on iTunes and Amazon. Over time, YouTube plans to expand the program to include other stores and other merchandise, like concert tickets.
AP quits Microsoft video technology
The AP’s Online Video Network, which powers online video on 2,100 affiliate sites in the US, many of them newspapers, has switched technology providers from Microsoft to ThePlatform, an industry leader in the broadband video management and publishing market, which is a subsidiary of Comcast.
In addition to offering enhanced content, AP will offer network affiliates for the first time a fully embeddable video player for video destination pages. The new system will also support higher video quality.
"The new version of the network will make it easier for our affiliates to incorporate compelling news video on their Web sites," said AP. "As video becomes the storytelling medium of choice on the Internet, we’re improving the content as well as the technical environment."
AP, as the world’s largest newsgathering organization, draws on its worldwide staff of journalists to create authoritative video clips of international and national events, entertainment, sports, and business news.
(The AP Online Video Network is an ad-supported news video service that draws on the global newsgathering resources of The Associated Press and its network of members and customers in the United States to provide video summaries of breaking news stories for Web sites).
