T-Cast Network

Video Keywords - What to do????

2009-02-09T15:37:00.000-08:00

So if you've spent any time on YouTube and other video sharing sites, you've bound to come across a video or two that really suck but has 10 000 000 views. Well you guessed it, spammers, tricksters and keyword stuffers are making it impossible to find your videos. What can be done.

Well there are piles of ways to get your videos seen, or to even boost your view count without anybody seeing it at all. But I want to look at keywords because that something we can all do better and still sleep well at night.

There isn't much out there on video keywords specifically, tubemogul has done some analysis and have a tool to help you as part of their Pro package but I haven't seen it working. Google is in firm control of YouTube but the search on the site is still a mess. Everything depends on how fast your video gains views on keyword in an algorithm designed to create "internet sensations". We have videos that earn their 10 000+ views 200 at a time, day in day out. They never received awards, they never made a front page. Why should they now be short changed on its keywords?

Now I've read a lot about keywords. E-book after E-book. There was a day when things were easier, but now you basically have to bite the bullet and use the Google Keyword tool. Say goodbye to hours of your life looking at the best keywords for each every project, page and video post.

The books all say the smart thing to do is look at your competitors, how are they getting their stuff to the top of the pile. Lets look at a YouTube video:

Here are the metatags for Chad Vader's video:

This is a response to David After Dentist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txqiwr...

Directed by
Matt Sloan
Aaron Yonda

Director of Photography
John Urban
http://urbanphotoco.com/

Lightsaber
Charley Brown
Check out his star wars video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjI6T0...
Category: Comedy
Tags:
david after dentist chad vader

You gotta wonder if this kind of metatag is really helping them, they do have an already effective and popular show based on a character that will likely get them sued one day should they ever make any real money.

But what about the keywords. A search on YouTube for the keyword "dentist" gives them the number 2 spot out of some 600 000 returns. Yes they have the word in both the description and the tags, which is something you have to do. But if you look at the video's stats, this one is getting a real helping hand from the YouTube editors.

A search on Google doesn't return Chad's video at all in the first 100, or a web page about that video. In both cases Google is cashing in on the ad revenue to the right. You better believe those dentists are paying top dollar for those ads, meaning you need to get those ads on a page beside your dentist video.

Ok now I mentioned that I've read a lot of books on this. But there is only piece of that has every really impressed me in regards to keywords. It was $198...I didn't buy it. But now its inventor, Brad Callen has created a FREE web browser version that is more suited to the times and really helps Google Keyword Tool work a whole lot easier.

Basically the tool will allow you to look at the keywords been used to generate the ads for your competitors. Sound's like "out of the box thinking" I know, but really its obvious and not something I came up with. The tool will let you capture those keywords, put them in Google's keyword tool, and see all the info you need to know what to put into your video's tags and webpages to search optimize and maximize your ad return.

Brad did a demonstration video, go check it out.

What is Going on with Revver?? Should I be replacing my players???

2009-02-02T16:15:00.000-08:00

If you've been in the game for a while you probably have a lot of Revver players out there in an ever increasingly vain attempt to earn money. Those days seem a distant memory. For the first time that we know of, EVERYTHING Revver went down. Quicktime, website, embedded players, forum, absolutely everything was down.

Logging in today, the site and players were back up and everything was working faster than it has in a while. With a "Scheduled Maintenance" message across every page. Maybe a revival is in the making, but the landscape is so changed you have to wonder what kind of business model they would be able to put together. The old one failed under its own success.

Two years ago Revver was the way of making money with video, offering $0.30 or more per click. I bet the spammers, scrapers and fraudsters had fun with that, but the problem was that their advertising inventory was skyrocketing while their advertiser's expectations where falling. Classic arbitrage collapse. Who wants to buy click ads that don't sell products at the other end.

But what is going on with Revver right now? And should I replace my players? I wish I had an answer for you. Its unlikely that they will be paying anything to content producers that would come close to the company's original vision. Is their technology still Hot. I'd say yes. Their players are solid, their transcoding is pro and they are still one of the few free services to be easily integrated with iTunes.

I don't think you need to feel bad swapping out players on under your control, if you want to do the work. They need to lower their bandwidth for a while, cement new relationships, and figure out a way to go up against the pirating sites on one side, and Hulu on the other.

In the mean times check out these other players:

Vimeo - sweet and simple, great transcoding, HD, and kind community
Dailymotion - Huge and likely to be a round a while, new HD players

Also remember Tubemogul makes video distribution easy, sending out to something like 24 videos sites at once. And analytics to boot :)

GopherX.net Launches Cadillac Series – Team Leader

2008-06-10T16:31:00.000-07:00

From the same people who brought you Tights and Fights, and The Retired Porn Producer, Team Leader is now online and ready for the public. Check out the entire series at www.team-leader.com.

If you are familiar with GopherX.net productions, you are in for a real treat as this show is a mile high in terms production value and storytelling. It’s the coming of age story of two slackers who are thrown into a life of corporate responsibility when their Team Leader commits suicide at her desk. This dark comedy runs 50 minutes across 12 episodes. The series has already been sold for broadcast in Canada and is online of everyone to see. Look for it anywhere you watch video.

“It’s a fun story, pretty ambitious for the internet, definitely a series to check out,” says Christopher Guest one of the series’ producers. “Our other projects have done well online, but we are really excited about this one because it raises the bar on internet productions to the level of Television.”

The series is free to watch and advertising supported. They also promise lots of extra features to come so be sure to subscribe to their feed. Here's a trailer to peek your interest.

Tobemogul Cracks the Definition of a Video View

2008-05-23T20:53:00.000-07:00

What is a view? That's been a big question for the past two years. Tubemogul did the research and cracked it.

Check it out:
http://www.tubemogul.com/research/index.php?r=6

Tubemogul Owns Video Deployment and Analytics on the Web

2008-04-17T11:03:00.000-07:00

So if you are a video producer trying to make a buck with online video, you need to stop reading this blog and immediately surf over to TubeMogul's Video staging and analytics service. There is simply not other way to stay on top of all the various video networks. Six months ago all video producers were visiting each site (from YouTube to Revver) counting up views by hand. Well close excel because TubeMogul has you covered.

So I'm sure you have two main questions, what does it do and how much does it cost. Well you'll be happy to know that their root service is free to use for any producer big or small. And those root services include:

- a staging area for you to upload your videos once before deploying them to up to 12 video sharing sites. You get 200 deployments a month.

- viewership tracking for shared videos by site, video or by groups of sites and videos. Graphical and chart reports.

- promotion options including <'embed> codes, bookmarking links, and direct link urls.

Its so amazing that you are likely asking yourself, "How do they make money?" And that is a concern for them as well. Longtime users of the site have seen some growing pains in recent months. The word on the street is that Tubemogul's bandwidth costs have ballooned and are growing. Responding to this huge challenge TubeMogul has reduced some of the services that it was offering for free, limiting publisher tracking to 5 sites on all free accounts. And has begun offering a premium service package for a base rate of $500/month.

What does $500/month get you? You'll get more of everything. More uploads, more deployments, more access to historical data, and more importantly more analytic tools . One tool that will be of great assistance to any internet marketer is TubeMogul's keyword analysis tool.

Keyword analysis is a cornerstone of web advertising and marketing, but in the world of online video its a total mystery. If you try to look up a niche topic on YouTube you can clearly see that the one thing Google hasn't gotten around to improving is the search capability of the site. While YouTube has just released their analytic data to users, TubeMogul will provide that data across an increasing group of sites. Hopefully TubeMogul's keyword tool will shed some light on how the search algorithm of each video site organizes its content.

If you are an average video producer out there, you probably can't justify the $500/month. But is well worth signing up for free account and being part of what will be the Nealson Ratings of the internet in the not to distant future.

Learn More
TubeMogul Industry Analysis
Supported Sites
Features Chart

Player Review: Revver

2008-03-06T10:43:00.000-08:00

Those of you who have been working with Revver’s video player and advertising network, will know how powerful the service’s syndication tools are and the upgraded Revver player puts it back on top of the online video game (at least now that Stage6 has closed its doors). The new player was release a couple of months back, first on their site then on the sites of their content producer’s and syndicators.

Be for we examine the benefits of the new player, its worth mentioning that 2007 was a difficult year on many fronts for Revver. Unable to sell enough advertising to properly service their massive video library, Revver abandoned their sales effort and turned to third party ad networks (first Adbrite, now Google Adsense). At the same time ad value for “video” and video related keywords fell sharply across the web making it very challenging for producer to create a higher standard of short form production.

The new player, and its slick black skin, incorporates a number of functions found in competitor players that greatly increase its viral capabilities. The player now has a “menu” button that provides information on the creator, embed code, email sharing and related videos which can be viewed in a list or on a thumbnail gallery. The player is highly customizable, including the ability to brand the player with your show’s logo. But at the root of it, the Revver player provides the same high quality video you’ve come to expect from this great service.

The complaints about the player are twofold and both relate to the advertising portion of the Revver network. Ads are now displayed as overlays along the bottom of the player, and at the end in a block of three ads. First, even if your viewer completes the video and sees both the overlay and the post roll adblock, the publisher gets credited for just one impression, not four. The ads are also accompanied with arrow buttons to allow the user the option of viewing more ads, but that also does not result in additional impressions. Second, if Adsense is driving the advertising within Revver videos, then why are those impressions not reported within our Adsense accounts? It is currently impossible to see how one video is doing in relation or user interaction with the advertising, a well developed feature of Adsense.

As a side note, revver has quietly mothballed its podcasting capability. While still offering the service, it is rare that ads are served into iTunes the way they once were. This is likely do to the ongoing debate about the compression formats used, and which should prevail. Web based catchers prefer flash video, while iTunes continues to push its quicktime H.264 iTV compression format. Fortunately video publishers still have a choice to use both formats within Revver driven RSS feeds.

Stage6 Goes Dark, and Google Big Oversight

2008-03-06T10:20:00.000-08:00

Feb 29th was a sad day for video piraters and the mass viewers of Stage6's high quality video format, when the service went dark after a 6 month effort to sell the one of a kind video sharing site. What made Stage6 so good? It was the DIVX format and its embeddable player.

Back in the days of Kazza and other peer-to-peer file sharing networks, DIVX was crowned king of video for making it possible to fit a feature length movie on a single CD. The company's main business model exploded world wide, as it found an army of eager hardware manufactures to license the format for their devices. Today divx is found everywhere from DVD players to handheld devices and mobile phones, which is why Google missed the boat not acquiring the service and its technology.

For all the great aspects of YouTube, the video player’s quality is far below that of Stage6. Even when DIVX is used to upload content to YouTube, the encoding to flash leaves a lot to be desired.

Without Stage6 will divx remain the best video compression format available? Will other pick up the format for new high end video sharing sites? Or will the format got he way of Bata? One this is for sure, iTunes and their iTV quicktime formats are the big winners here.

The following is the letter set to Stage6 publishers on Feb25th:

I'm Tom (aka Spinner), a Stage6 user and an employee of DivX, Inc., the company behind the service. I'm writing this message today to inform you that we plan to shut down Stage6 on February 28, 2008. Upload functionality has already been turned off, and you'll be able to view and download videos until Thursday.

I know this news will come as a shock and disappointment to many Stage6 users, and I'd like to take a few moments to explain the reasons behind our decision.

We created Stage6 with the mission of empowering content creators and viewers to discover a new kind of video experience. Stage6 began as an experiment, and we always knew there was a chance that it might not succeed.

In many ways, though, the service did succeed, beyond even our own initial expectations. Stage6 became very popular very quickly. We helped gain exposure for some talented filmmakers who brought great videos to the attention of an engaged community. We helped prove that it's possible to distribute true high definition video on the Internet. And we helped broaden the Internet video experience by offering content that is compatible with DVD players, mobile devices and other products beyond the PC.

So why are we shutting the service down? Well, the short answer is that the continued operation of Stage6 is a very expensive enterprise that requires an enormous amount of attention and resources that we are not in a position to continue to provide. There are a lot of other details involved, but at the end of the day it's really as simple as that.

Now, why didn't we think of that before we decided to create Stage6 in the first place, you may ask? That's a good question. When we first created Stage6, there was a clear need for a service that would offer a true high-quality video experience online because other video destinations on the Internet simply weren't providing that to users. A gap existed, and Stage6 arrived to fill it.

As Stage6 grew quickly and dramatically (accompanied by an explosion of other sites delivering high-quality video), it became clear that operating the service as a part of the larger DivX business no longer made sense. We couldn't continue to run Stage6 and focus on our broader strategy to make it possible for anyone to enjoy high-quality video on any device. So, in July of last year we announced that we were kicking off an effort to explore strategic alternatives for Stage6, which is a fancy way of saying we decided we would either have to sell it, spin it out into a private company or shut it down.

I won't (and can't, really) go into too much detail on those first two options other than to say that we tried really hard to find a way to keep Stage6 alive, either as its own private entity or by selling it to another company. Ultimately neither of those two scenarios was possible, and we made the hard decision to turn the lights off and cease operation of the service.

So that's where we are today. After February 28, Stage6 will cease to exist as an online destination. But the larger DivX universe will continue to thrive. Every day new DivX Certified devices arrive on the market making it easy to move video beyond the PC. Products powered by DivX Connected, our new initiative that lets users stream video, photos, music and Internet services from the PC to the TV, are hitting retail outlets. We remain committed to empowering content creators to deliver high-quality video to a wide audience, and we'll continue to offer services that will make it easy to find videos online in the DivX format.

It's been a wild ride, and none of it would have been possible without the support of our users. Thank you for making Stage6 everything that it was.

--Tom

Player Review: Blip.tv

2007-12-28T20:05:00.000-08:00

Blip.tv has so many great features and vision for internet video, we at the T-Cast want so much to love them. But they aren't making it easy.

The user profile dashboard seems simple enough until you try to navigate, menu items come and go, and loop you around. On some screens you have two menus one in blue one in grey with the title "Express Goodness". Its all really not intuitive.

But our main complaint is with the Playlist/Showpage organization of the videos. Your show page plays most recent to oldest, which isn't great for most shows. If you use the syndicate feature at the top right, you can get embed code that reverses the order. But you better have uploaded them in order because there isn't any way to change it later. You'd think this would be where a playlist system would step in, but no. And that isn't its only shortcoming. To load the playlist with videos you have to go to each video and add it to the playlist. Once you have them all in there , you can adjust numbers to order them. But doing so doesn't effect the RSS syndication options at the bottom right of the playlist page.

Still their player is nice. Check out the embedded syndication tools like "Tell-a-Friend" "video series embed code" and "preset RSS syndication, including iTunes".

You also get a "pop-in" of the show data and other episodes (showpage order). The full screen looks great and their are a wide array of ad options you can control. The post-roll ads appear between each video in your channel are high quality television ads, and your view can choose to skip to the next video at any time.

The views and ad revenue seems to be comparable to the new Revver scheme where earnings are made on impressions. There are stats for clicks, but they didn't seem to earn. We have tried driving traffic to these videos yet, so we can't say if the earnings are better or worse on syndication.

All in all, a nice player. The site has great potential but needs a total overhaul, as does the playlist/showpage controls. The Analytics is good compared to Blip's competitors, but it would be better if the views and revenue charts and graphs were on the same page so you could compare them. Definitely a site to watch.

Comming Soon! Reworking of the Caster sites

2007-11-28T17:58:00.000-08:00

So the three simple click fiction video directories are just costing to much and as Canadian operators we don't have access to YouTube's video advertising network, so we are reworking the three sites into blogs that will catalog and promote fiction based comedy, drama and science fiction.

Each posting will provide links to the series collections and websites, and include a sample video. If you would like your fiction based or character driven comedy, sci-fi, or drama. Please email - contact @ comedycaster.com -

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of Internet Video

2007-11-06T20:49:00.000-08:00

YouTube - www.youtube.com

The Good - YouTube is the king of traffic and community. It has basic syndication tool with a strong viral player that can be embedded and syndicated.

The Bad - YouTube still doesn't have a revenue vehicle that every content producers can tap into. There is the beginnings of such a development, but its focused on syndicators, not producers. Only US syndicators can access the program by linking their Adsense account to there YouTube accounts. A small number of premium producers have access to the other side of the YouTube ad network as a beta pilot that has continued for over a year.

The Ugly - Pirated content galore, and piles of poorly organized videos makes the whole site a mess. Even with Google's "King of Search" muscle, you can't find anything specific and end up floating around hoping to find stuff.

Revver - www.revver.com

The Good - Revver has the best syndication tools on the market. You can distribute in flash and quicktime over open API generated feeds, javascript and embed code. The ad network does an bottom margin overlay ad and a post slate of ads. This is currently the only open-for-all, 100% legal video and advertising delivery network.

The Bad - Revver's site itself doesn't have much traffic so you'll have to get out there and promote your shows. They have recently added a basic set of social networking features to a newly designed more powerful site, but the site still lacks in the traffic generation department.

The Ugly - Ad revenues have been falling and they have changed the way the revenue is calculated. Now CPM and CPC ads are calculated out across the genre into a eCPM, so everyone shares in less in relation to the number of ad impressions their videos get. You'll need huge numbers to be able to earn a living from the Revver ad network.

Metacafe - www.metacafe.com

The Good - This site had solid community and your videos will get traffic right from the start. You'll get 100 views before the submission process is over. There is no pirated content here, everything is reviewed by real people.

The Bad - Acceptance to the revenue program is based on a user rating system that is tough to crack. You need a rating of 3.0 and 20 000 views.

The Ugly - The community is very aggressive and competitive. Expect to get at least one of your video attacked by way of a nasty comment. The site is also very conservative and racy content gets rejected by the reviewers.

Veoh - www.veoh.com

The Good - If each company had to choose one aspect of the business to focus on, Veoh chose relationship building. They have signed deals with most of mainstream Hollywood and 6 months ago looked like the leader of the "Non-YouTube" contenders in the online video market. They also managed to avoid the kind of law suites that a network with as much pirated content as they have should face.

The Bad - Although Veoh has a decent embedable player, their main business model is a downloaded application player. This is a loosing model pretty much everywhere it's tried. Not only that, Veoh's application player is poorly coded without the courtesy features one would expect like control over the program's use of the Window's Taskbar. Three month's ago, much to the displeasure of pirated video viewers, Voeh switched their embedded players to a five minute preview, that would lead you to a download of that file.

The Ugly - As a result of this major change, the site's traffic has dropped significantly. The site hasn't even begun an advertising supported strategy having put all their money into the "Rent" or "Buy" to watch models.

Stage6 - www.stage6.com

The Good - Stage6 and Divx have the best player on the market. In fact when you upload to YouTube, your best option is to use the DivxHDi format. Its small file size and stable playback makes it a pack leader, but what makes it a star is the thousands of devices (mainly DVD players) that support Divx.

The Bad - The site is weak. Although it looks good it's often slow. On the syndication side it's quite good, so link sites have used it as a backbone for the distribution of pirated television and movies. In recent month's Stage6 has moved against the pirates and copyrighted content is pulled down quickly.

The Ugly - Stage6 has a secret. If you notice at the end of the video they have a clickable post slate with an ad for Divx. The company has not created their own ad network because their main business is licensing Divx to third part hardware manufacturers. Their site claims to be working toward a "Rent" or "Buy" to watch model that won't be successful. When asked if they will release that ad spot for content creators to insert their own advertising, they rejected that as never being an option. They want the sweet spot at the end of the video for themselves but aren't to sure what to do with it.

Producer's behind the T-Cast Network Launch New show!

2007-10-27T11:47:00.000-07:00

See it here first, then watch the rest of the series in the coming weeks at www.tightsandfights.com

Captain Euchre is Fighting Crime... without a Full Deck!

2007-10-23T18:38:00.000-07:00

Tights and Fights, An Innovative New Canadian
Comedy Series, Launches October 26!

(Toronto, ON) Soon to be airing on Movieola—The Short Film Channel (www.movieola.ca), the short form, multi-platform comedy Tights and Fights will be available for viewing online starting Friday October 26, 2007, at www.tightsandfights.com.

Tights and Fights is a fictional video diary of the ups and downs (and sideways) of a Canadian super-hero, Captain Euchre (played by writer/producer Scott Albert). Once a highly ranked player on the professional Euchre circuit, Captain Euchre now fights crime using a Euchre card deck which was exposed to mysterious cosmic radiation! Using his webcam, Captain Euchre keeps us updated about his daily life – whether he’s bogged down in meetings with Ronin Force, fighting Librarian Marm or the Salad King, or dating Dynagal, each hilarious episode contrasts the comic book clichés of being a super-hero with the frustrations of modern life.

Created expressly for the demands of multi-platform distribution, Tights and Fights is simultaneously distributed online, on mobile, and traditional broadcast. Each episode is less than five minutes long, making it ideal for viewers looking for a “content snack” on the go or just a quick break, while the ongoing storyline is also perfect for someone to sit back on the couch and watch a number of episodes in a row. The current storyline of 52 episodes will last until March 2008, with plans for a new batch of episodes to begin soon after.

With this ongoing series, GopherX.net is building on the run-away success of our previous multi-platform series, the animated six episode limited series The Retired Porn Producer’s Guide To... which has received over 100,000 views across the internet since its launch last year. It is currently airing on Movieola—The Short Film Channel and is distributed on mobile by Big Bang Pictures. A second 12 episode limited series, Team Leader, is currently in post-production, with a launch expected by the end of the year.

GopherX.net is a partnership between Christopher Guest and Scott Albert. Gopher X and The Retired Porn Producer’s Guide To... has been featured on G4 Tech TV’s Torrent TV, and has been covered by C21 Media and Playback Magazine. Tights and Fights can currently be seen on Movieola—The Short Film Channel and after October 26, 2007 at www.tightsandfights.com.

For More Information, please email contact@gopherx.net

Check them out on ComedyCaster in the near future.

Results on Binkx Adhoc Network

2007-10-18T10:30:00.000-07:00

So the results are in on how the Blinkx Adhoc network operates. Although the process for adding the ads and posting the ad enabled video is simple and easy, there is a major problem with the amount of communication from that goes on between the network and the site while the page is loading, causing a major load time delays.

As for payout, you'll get somewhere between 3 and 4 cents per click. Not bad considering the starting price for advertisers on the network is 5 cents.

Another issue is that some of the video posting sites will actually strip out the ads before displaying the video on their site making it a lot less "viral" than other networks.

All in all, its a interesting development that may be suitable for sites with only one video per page, but is not viable for video centric blogs that will display a number of videos at once.

Blinkx AdHoc a Strong Alternative to Video Ad Insertion

2007-10-13T22:52:00.000-07:00

Looking to squeeze a bit more advertising into your shared video offerings. Blinkx has a new easy solution, but does it work?

Blinkx is taking a different approach to their video advertising network. They are auto inserting contextual advertising into the shared embedded video from other hosting sites like YouTube, Revver, and Veoh. The process is so simple. You sign up for an account, which only requires your email address, a password and your paypal email. Then copy and paste the embed code from your favorite video hosting site and presto, Blinkx gives you a new embed code that will drive their advertising. You can choose to have the ads float over the top of the video or above video all together.

Blinkx states that the ads come from a variety of third party advertising networks providing CPM, CPC and CPA advertising, as well as Blinkx's own advertiser network which offers cost-per-click starting at $0.05. They don't say how much of that will end up with the publisher, but we'll find out and let you know in a future post.

On testing, no advertising was presented and it seemed to really slow down the video serving. Of the hosting sites tested only Stage6's embed code failed to sync with Blinkx's processes. Below are examples of the same video hosted on different sites displaying Blinkx advertising.

YouTube:

Revver:

Veoh:

If you notice any bugs when these videos stream, please leave a comment.

Veoh Player: One step forward two steps back

2007-10-08T12:07:00.000-07:00

Even with rumors falling viewership, Veoh remains a viable player in the internet "shared video" market. And with the release of a sorely needed tech upgrade they are signaling a plan to continuing with the "Branded Player" model that is behind those quickly sinking statistics. No one really needs another "video player" to install on their system, and although the upgraded "Veoh Player" is a substantial improvement over its former offerings.

For those of you who watch pirated video on sites like TV-Links, will have noticed that a few months ago Veoh changed the playback of a large portion of their content to a 5 minute preview model, where you can watch 5 minutes then you have to load up the "Branded Veoh Player" to watch the rest. Now this was a pain because the old player forced the download of the entire video before playback, now you can stream the video in the player.

The main strategy that has allowed Veoh to remain viable has been its strong industry relationships. Those relationships have kept them out of court room even though they have continually failed to fulfill their promise to block pirated content through a "technological solution". But more troubling, they have continued to neglect the construction of a viable advertising network that would solve the dilemma those industry partners find themselves in (mainly that viewers want simple free internet television, but then how do you make money from that?). You can now see Google ads on the Veoh site. And then there are the Chinese who don't seem to care if Hollywood makes any money.

Veoh has toyed with the "digital video rental" model that was the core element of its branded player business model. But at this time we have still not been able to sign up for "Veoh Pro" as the form to do so either doesn't accept Non-US users or is just buggy.

Two Big Changes in the World of Video Advertising

2007-07-22T13:44:00.000-07:00

So this was a big weekend for online advertising. On Friday Revver announced the start of their pre-roll CPM ad delivery program, and over the weekend Google opened its CPA network to more users including the T-Cast Network.

For those of you who don't know what all the acronyms are all about, don't worry we were all there at some point. CPM is "cost per 1000 impressions" meaning it pays the publisher every time its seen 100 times. CPA is "Cost Per Action" meaning it pays the publisher when the viewer clicks the ad, goes to a site and completes some action. CPA pays better but is harder to convert, while CPM pays poorly but consistently.

Sites like AtomFilms have been using pre-roll ads for years, but with viewer attention spans so soft, Revver went with the video first approach. Pre-roll CPM changes all that.

Revver's pre-roll CPM program is a divergence from its traditional business model and they are going to great lengths to insist that the ads will remain non-obtrusive. The plus side is producers will now be paid every time their video is played (albeit a small amount), this is good news because well over 50% of the time viewers don't watch the video to the end and therefore never see the ad. Hopefully this new product will prop up producer's falling earnings on the network.

Google has been pilot projecting their referral or CPA ad network for years with products like Adsense, Adwords and Firefox, but has now expanded to an impressive array of products to promote on publisher sites.

One major problem with CPA networks like AzoogleAds.com and RockitProfit.com is that promotions are localized geographically and rarely allow international traffic. Google's CPA network takes care of that and provides a rotator for the ads repeated visitors are exposed to different ads. Many offers pay for people signing up for a free account on photo-sharing and dating sites.

Payments on Google's Adsense content network have bottom out making it hard for publishers to continue to run CPC context sensitive ads. Now with the improved Revver and Google ad programs, producers of original video content can monetize their traffic more successfully...or at least that's the promise.

There are some noticeable holes right off the bat. Revver is its classic form launched its program without updated analytics so producers will have no idea how many pre-roll ads are shown or how much of their money is coming from the CPM ads. Not all videos are used for the program, videos under 30 seconds are understandable not used, but no other details are given for video selection.

The Google Referrals network has a bit of a weak interface, the ads lack variety in their creatives, and the ads seem to pay slightly lower than other CPA networks.

Still big changes all around, Revver still hasn't had to content with Google directly, but that day will come. Google's own pre-roll video ad network is known to be in small scale testing, likely several years away from launching to the masses of producers.

Content Update: ComedyCaster

2007-07-20T18:54:00.000-07:00

ComedyCaster has added the very original series, The Future Dead to its directory. This reworking of indy short films into a sketch like series with high production value and entertaining stories. Check out the first episode, then watch them all.

T-Cast Content Update: Entertainment News

2007-07-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

T-Cast producers have compiled a list of relevant news material and added a player to the site to syndicate that news. News feeds are provided by The News Room, and displayed on the T-Cast News Page.

Enjoy.

Revver the next Google purchase, or maybe Stage6?

2007-07-12T17:34:00.000-07:00

Google has build an empire on buying up the best innovations and integrating them into a vast advertising network. Providing free content and making billions for it. In a lot of ways Revver has what Google wants, a better player, CPC based auto insertion ad technology, and a pile of copy-right responsible content.

At T-Cast, we like the Revver model and wish them success. But there are problems with the things as they are. There is still no analytic reporting for video syndication and the revenue from those clicks is not broken down for either the syndicator or the content producer. Value of clicks are falling, but then are still better than most of the adwords content market with pay-per-click of $0.12 to $0.27.

It would seem to be smarter for the content producer to sell their own advertising, and the T-Cast producers asked Stage6's Divx support team for just such an opportunity only to be disappointed with the response. No question that the Divx authoring software is the best encoding software out there for under $50, and the Stage6.com site has proven that the player is post-roll clickable. Content producers could be running their own advertising campaigns off a wide variety of CPC, CPM and CPA advertising networks, and Divx HD quality video would be everywhere. Stage6 could be Revver for the masses.

Google needs to figure this out or it could get away from them. And there are other divx encoders out there. One of these companies has to put internet video syndication and dynamic advertising together before some hacker does.

Content Update: ComedyCaster and DramaCaster

2007-07-05T12:32:00.000-07:00

We have added two very exciting shows to our directories. Prom Queen a teenage drama about getting ready for prom night, promises some big surprises for the big night.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

And Snowmen Hunters! A crazy comedy/reality tv spoof will surely teach you a few ways to hurt yourself. Don't try this stuff at home.

Podcasting for Revver Ad Delivery

2007-04-30T18:02:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt that podcast and rss distribution can drive a show's viewership, but is it effective ad delivery? RSS tracking from Feedburner.com is a great way to understand your podcast or blog viewership, and revver files are supported by iTunes and most podcast directories which provides a turn key solution to hosting and syndicating video podcasts. But in our experience the powerful distribution combination, does not convert advertising clicks in an effective way.

For our original production, The Retired Porn Producer's Guide to... we have many methods driving viewership.

Podcasting
Our podcasting feed is directed to Episode 5 (the latest episode) of the series, which downloads (or as Revver puts it "views") when the podcast is subscribed to. Roughly 30% of those go on to download another episode and 10% download them all, but in general podcasting drives 30% of our daily viewership. That episode however has performed poorly over the last month with a click through rate of 0.15%.

Adwords Promotion
Our adwords promotion efforts are directed to a landing page where Episode 1 is embedded. This activity drives 40% of our web traffic, which is about 50% of our total embed code traffic. This episode is shorter and designed to bring in viewers in general, and we have already examined episode length in relation to click through rates. The episode converts clicks at 2.5%.

The series averages a click through rate of 1.31%, so you can see podcasting drives traffic but not necessarily advertising revenue.

Content Update: ComedyCaster

2007-04-28T21:13:00.000-07:00

So catching up on the random clip side of the site, we have syndicated 10 great short films that where lost in the pile called Youtube. If you have a short film that you'd like promoted contact us.

Check out the new clips!

Producer Tip: Short is King!

2007-04-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

If you're a film director you really want to be able to "get your vision out" but there is always that producer standing behind you saying, "do it faster and cheaper". Well if your producing or directing for the internet there is one more demand on that list. Make it short! On the internet short is king.

One of the goals of the T-Cast Network is to get a real grasp on how to create and market fiction based internet video. And then bring that knowledge back to producers and the community at large. We use a number of services like Revver reports, Google Analytics and Feedburner tracking to make observations in our "Producer Tips" stories.

So...

Lesson Learned 1 - Short is King!

In our original series The Retired Porn Producer's Guide to... we have four episodes:

Blogging
- 2 minutes, completes views 11% , converts clicks 3% of the time

Office Meetings
- 2 minutes 20 seconds, completes views 13%, converts clicks 0.7% of the time

Water Cooler Chit-Chat
- 3 minutes, completes views 10% , converts clicks 0.4% of the time

Biking to Work
- 3 minutes, completes views 8% , converts clicks 0.2% of the time

and one promotional episode
A Complicated Man
- 1 minute, completes views 21%, converts clicks 2% of the time

Since posting the videos to Revver, the promo episode, which is the shortest, viewers complete the view 21% of the time, nearly doubling the average. But the Blogging episode, which is 2 minutes long and completes views slightly better than average, converts clicks far better than the promo episode.

But is shorter really better, if so what is the best length? We also have two random un-promoted clips to test the shorter is better theory.

Stop-Animation: Joggling
- 9 seconds, completes views 37%, and converts clicks 2%

My Alien's Not to Bright -
1 minute, completes views 16%, and converts clicks 3.1%

Here again we see that the shorter the video the better it completes views but that a moderately long one minute episode converts more clicks.

If you want to make your video more financially successful you need to keep the clip length under a minute, but make the clips substantial enough to draw users in and entice better advertisers.

Content Update: ScifiCaster

2007-04-18T20:44:00.000-07:00

Poking the Eye of the Storm is a crazy serialized 'B' film, perfect for your inner geek.

More Sci-Fi to come!

Content Update: DramaCaster

2007-04-17T22:05:00.000-07:00

Chasing Windmills a internet soap opera is now on DramaCaster.

This is the overture of the second season of Chasing Windmills, in which new characters and plotlines are introduced.