But for online videophiles in NYC and LA, be sure to check out the great content, speakers & panels at the Digiday Video Upronts next week. NYC is 4/12 and LA is 4/14.

In New York, Digiday editor [...]]]> Hope you’ve been following my columns over at Digiday Daily. Writing about more than video these days.

But for online videophiles in NYC and LA, be sure to check out the great content, speakers & panels at the Digiday Video Upronts next week. NYC is 4/12 and LA is 4/14.

In New York, Digiday editor in chief, Brian Morrissey, will be interviewing Dan Goodman and Bill Masterson of Believe Entertainment, talking about their new web series, The Lebrons. And in LA, I’ll be chatting with Jared Hoffman, managing partner at digital media studio, Generate, about their branded entertainment and how they are changing the talent management industry.

We’ve also got James Kiernan from ESPN, Nate Parieni from iClips, Dave Kohl from VEVO, Jordan Berman from the Office Entertainment Network, Perry Cooper, who leads the digital division at the NHL, and DBG’s Chris Young, who is executive producing the Kiefer Sutherland webseries, The Confession.

Come by and say hello!

We’ve reached convergence. The vast majority of content is available on all screens legally, made publicly available by [...]]]> You may have noticed we’ve been neglecting this space recently. The reason, more or less, is that there’s not that much “online video” to write about that isn’t already being covered by mainstream media and industry publications.

We’ve reached convergence. The vast majority of content is available on all screens legally, made publicly available by the rights holders. The models for monetizing and distributing the content to new mediums are still evolving, but the content is out there, more easily accessed by going through rights holders than pirates.

The way media is being covered as we near 2011 is not as “online video” or as “TV” but as content on various converged platforms on the basis of that which is most widely watched. Some of that content is independent, most of it is owned by large media companies, (how little things change) but it’s all being covered the same way, again. And that’s a very big deal.

So there’s not that much left for me to write about. When I started writing on this blog three years ago it was in large part because most of the people writing about the industry clearly lacked knowledge of the industry. As so many people got involved in making the push toward convergence with different ideas about how that would happen, there was a very clear need for voices which brought some more technical understanding to the technologies and business models being built.

Today there are many knowledgeable people with a solid understanding of the space, who are writing intelligently about online video, and they have far more free time than I do. They have along with this blog helped to provide a voice to the industry and to those working in it and they continue to do so on a more consistent basis than us, so go check them out, they’re conveniently located in the Blogroll on the right side of the homepage.

Media is media. Content is king. Distribution and marketing are the crown princes. Access has increased, media has democratized, technology will continue to evolve. And the content production business for better or worse is the same as it ever was.

It was a triumphant — yet somehow bittersweet — night for both winners and finalists in the inaugural Digital Video or DIVA Awards. Jason Krebs, in picking up ScanScout’s prize for Best Video Ad Network, judged in juxtaposition to the company’s acquirer and category finalist Tremor Media, offered his thanks, then said [...]]]> Taken from Digiday Daily….

It was a triumphant — yet somehow bittersweet — night for both winners and finalists in the inaugural Digital Video or DIVA Awards. Jason Krebs, in picking up ScanScout’s prize for Best Video Ad Network, judged in juxtaposition to the company’s acquirer and category finalist Tremor Media, offered his thanks, then said poignantly, “It will be the last time the name ScanScout appears in public,” since the company is being cheerfully absorbed by its new partner. Krebs sheds his EVP title at Scanscout to become Tremor Media’s Chief Media Officer. The team still has formidable marketplace competition in the form of MediaMind, which won “Best Video Advertising Platform” against tough competition from adap.tv and YuMe.

Kyte would have to be considered an “upstart” winner for besting perennial favorite KickApps in the best video content platform category. As finalists, both offer exceptional tools for both Web and mobile video, but Kyte’s recent mastery of real-time streaming to any iOS device may have been a differentiator. The third finalist in this cateogory, Limelight Networks, can hardly be considered an also-ran, since it serves as the backbone for Kyte’s real-time streaming.

DIVA judges also soundly disagreed with those ( like comScore) who claim creativity is absent from Web marketing and media, especially where video is concerned. Whether it was the tintillating promise of a passing encounter, as captured in RAPP New York’s campaign for Guess’ fragrance, the slam-bang action of Gorilla Nation Media’s Halo Reach: Deliver Hope Experience, or the ultimate “Best Video Creative” winner The Visionaire Group’s Fugitive Chronicles NYTimes.com’s Home Page Takeover, the emotive and entertaining power of online video creative in this year’s entries demonstrated that online can hold its own against any other medium.

The Fugitive Chronicles entry also took first place in the Best In-Banner Video Ad, and The Visionaire Group’s Chatroulette spoof of how how viewers reacted to being presented a potential “date” with the lead character in The Last Exorcism took top honors in “Best Viral Video Branded Content” over stiff competition from Snoop Dogg for HBO and Threshold Interactive’s elaborate online competition for Nestle Butterfinger. Butterfinger still took home its own “bar,” though, winning “Best Viral Video Ad” hands down. HBO, likewise, didn’t go home empty handed, snagging “Best Video Website” for its TrueBlood portal, perhaps aided by creative elements like Snoop’s Oh Sookie fan-rap tribute.

It was a good year for the macabre generally; along with the sweetly addictive PopSugar, FEARNet was a finalist in the “Best Video Website” category, and Medialets’ Vampire Weekend snatched “Best in-App Video Content” honors away from both HBO’s The Pacific Interactive Battlemaps and Jirbo’s camp app for Kick-Ass the Motion Picture.

On the technology front, innovation is often hard to recognize except in the disruption it brings. It’s something that changes the way an industry does business. Adap.tv does this by providing an open platform where all elements of the video advertising ecosystem can do business with each other effectively in a frictionless environment for transparent buying and selling. Put simply; it’s a game changer, justifying the company’s “Best Video Innovation” honor.

Homeaway, Publicis and Kyte won “Best Viral Video Branded Content” with the Griswold’s Hotel Hell Vacation; Volvo / Euro Rscg and Media Contacts won “Best In-Stream Video Advertisement” (thought the real winner in the category was probably Innovid, whose iRoll format underlay all three finalists in this category); Mindshare took “Best Branded Video Content (Long Form)” with it’s Bertolli Frozen Meals “A Taste of Italy”: Cosmopolitan won for “Best Social Branded Video Advertisement”: and Oprah Winfrey Network won “Best User Generated VIdeo for a Brand” (supported, incidentally by Kyte).

Last but not least in this celebration of all things new and digital, it was a member of the “old guard” that stole the show. CBS Interactive’s Around the World for Free — a Web-original spin-off of the parent network’s Emmy-award-winning Amazing Race — took both “Best Video Series or Show” and “Best of Show” honors. While some of CBS’s competition in the Best Series category still hailed from traditional cable — ESPN’s The Next Round — it wasn’t alone. SheKnows, an Internet-only upstart, also broke into the top three in this rarified winner’s circle, paving the way for other niche content category winners in future. Links below will stay open so our readers can browse the winning and finalist entries for a short time before they are archived in our DM2PRO.com knowledge base.

Best Branded Video Content (Long Form)
Alloy Digital / First Day for Kmart
Alloy Digital / Hollywood is Like High School with Money / L’Oreal Paris Clean 360
WINNER: Mindshare / Bertolli Frozen Meals

Best Branded Video Content (Short Form)
WINNER: Momentum Worldwide / Triscuit Home Farming
Revision3 / Team Detroit / Ford
Threshold Interactive / Nestle Butterfinger

Best In-App Video Content
HBO / The Pacific Interactive Battlemaps
Jirbo, Inc. / Kick-Ass the Motion Picture
WINNER: Medialets/ Vampire Weekend

Best Video Content Platform
KickApps
WINNER: Kyte
Limelight Networks

Best In-Banner Video Advertisement
MediaMind / ThinkJam / Avatar
Mindshare / Dove Men + Care
WINNER: The Visionaire Group / Fugitive Chronicles: NYTimes.com Home Page Takeover

Best In-Stream Video Advertisement
WINNER: Volvo / Euro RSCG / MediaContacts
Disney / Prince of Persia / Tremor Media
Tourism Australia / National Geographic / Innovid

Best Social Branded Video Advertisement
Big Fuel Communications / Fisher Price
WINNER: Cosmopolitan

Best User Generated Video for a Brand
WINNER: Oprah Winfrey Network
Coors Light/ Coors Light Advanced Television Campaign

Best Video Advertising Campaign (B2B)
WINNER: Microsoft
EyeWonder

Best Video Creative
Gorilla Nation Media /Halo Reach: Deliver Hope Experience
RAPP New York / Guess

WINNER: The Visionaire Group / Fugitive Chronicles: NYTimes.com Home Page Takeover

Best Viral Video Branded Content
HBO / Oh Sookie Video
WINNER: The Visionaire Group / The Last Exorcism – Chatroulette Reaction Videos on YouTube
Threshold Interactive / Nestle Butterfinger

Best Video Advertising Campaign (Branding)
WINNER: Homeaway / Publicis / Kyte
iNDELIBLE Media Corp / Ride NSS
Revision3 / Team Detroit / Ford

Best Video Series/Show
WINNER, and BEST OF SHOW: CBS Interactive/ Around the World for Free
ESPN / The Next Round
SheKnows / SheKnows’ HomeStretch

Best Video Advertising Network
WINNER: Scanscout
Tremor Media
YuMe

Best Video Advertising Platform
adap.tv
WINNER: MediaMind / MediaMind Version 2.0
YuMe

Best Video Website
WINNER: HBO / hbo.com/trueblood
FearNet
PopSugar

Best Viral Video Ad
Threshold Interactive / Nestle Butterfinger

Best Video Innovation
adap.TV

Scanscout CEO Bill Day will become CEO of the combined company [...]]]> Starting the week off with a huge bang, Tremor Media is buying competitor ScanScout, continuing the much anticipated consolidation in online video ad networks. Undertone Networks has acquired Jambo Media, according to the Jambo website, and Specific Media recently purchased BBE (formerly Broadband Enterprises).

Scanscout CEO Bill Day will become CEO of the combined company and Jason Gickman, currently Tremor’s CEO, will become executive chairman.

According to AdAge, the combined company is expected to go public within 18 months.

As an avid online video watcher, pre-roll evangelist, and all around opinionated curmudgeon, I always get excited when the industry comes together to talk about business, pat ourselves on the back for how great we’re doing, and how our clients are all pushing the [...]]]> This is a column that I wrote for Digiday Daily, published today.

As an avid online video watcher, pre-roll evangelist, and all around opinionated curmudgeon, I always get excited when the industry comes together to talk about business, pat ourselves on the back for how great we’re doing, and how our clients are all pushing the boundaries of the medium because of our brilliance. These gatherings (like the, ahem, Nov. 11 Digiday On Video conference) present an opportunity to hold the industry’s feet to the fire.

As the agenda for the show developed, there were some key issues that stood out to me as holding the industry back. Not just from a revenue standpoint, but as a consumer of online video. How are we going to make this medium better for audiences, advertisers and content producers?

First, where’s the quality online video? And by online video I mean “not TV online.” We already know that there’s plenty of good (and bad) TV – that’s why TV consumption continues to grow and why Hulu dominates in ad delivery and time spent per user. But outside the handful of “hits” – which is another sub-topic of its own – where’s the actual good stuff? Despite online video viewing nearing 15 hours a month, there’s a disconcerting lack of quality stories being told online. I’m disturbed by the lack of “must see” online video series, and what that means for the sustainability of our business. It feels like the last big creative spurt came when the TV writers went on strike, and that ain’t good.

When I talk to “webisode people,” they have a tremendous amount of passion for their projects, and seemingly no understanding or means to sustain it. The question I continually ask them is, “Is this a hobby or a business?” It primarily looks like a very expensive hobby, doesn’t it? Where is the high quality, reliably consistent entertainment that a few million people want to keep up with? The on-demand nature of the medium should make it easier, not harder, to build a fan base. So where are all the supremely talented writers with a Flipcam and mediocre lighting?

Second, where’s all the interactivity? Full disclosure, I work for an interactive pre-roll provider, and I see plenty of examples of what can be done when the creative juices get flowing. That’s why I’m doubly disappointed in where things stand overall. Its been more than four years since I saw my first truly interactive story, and I haven’t seen anything like it since. Interactive pre-roll is a step in the right direction – a very big step for the much maligned, revenue generating workhorse. Like rich media’s growth in the early 2000’s, advertisers are way out ahead of the content producers here. Unfortunately that means there aren’t enough opportunities for them to present an interactive brand experience within an interactive content experience. We’ve heard talk of the “choose your own adventure” style narratives, but there’s so much more that can be done – not just adding a chatroom or Twitter feed on the side of a program. Where’s the innovation in storytelling for this medium?

On the advertising front, market fragmentation is getting worse, not better. There are more devices and platforms, Flash vs HTML5, and new boxes and screens to consider when building a media plan, branded content, or any form of video advertising. Scale needs to be looked at in aggregate, figuring out how to reach millions of people regardless of the device – or devices – they choose to consume content on. Currently we’ve got plenty of new devices, only a smattering of new, original content, and the same age old problem of delivering scale effectively to advertisers. Isn’t it easier to follow the content across devices? I’ve seen mobile pre-roll, and it’s honestly pretty good. Is there a dramatic – or even significant – difference between a person watching a 30-minute comedy on their DVR or streamed from a broadcaster’s website? Which leads me to my final point of contention du jour….

Online video conversations sound like the Tower of Babel. All online video is not created equal and we need to stop pretending like it is. Comparing the typical Hulu experience to the typical YouTube experience is not only inaccurate, but it does the industry as a whole a disservice, making it harder to develop appropriate ad formats to monetize content appropriately. Moreover, as we introduce new devices into the mix, we shift our focus to the new shiny objects and away from the actual user experience. Does the box that delivers the content to your screen of choice define the experience? When I watch a sitcom on my MediaCenter, or Boxee, or GoogleTV or AppleTV that is plugged into the big screen in my living room, I’m “watching TV.” What do you call it? What should advertisers call it? What about mobile? If I’ve got that same episode on my phone, purchased in HD from Amazon, and I plug it into that same screen via HDMI, what do you call it now? Mobile video? Maybe, but I’m still watching TV.

Before anyone comes out swinging, yes, I’m making some sweeping generalizations. I’m well aware that there are a handful of examples to point to as successes here. Many of them will be honored at the DIVA Awards. But why aren’t there more? This isn’t a condemnation of our industry. It’s a kick in the ass. These are opportunities to be wildly creative, not excuses for inaction. But we need to move a bit faster, take a few more risks, and be willing to fail a little bit more. If not, we’ll be stuck with a pocket full of digital pennies while those TV fat cats go back to their multi-martini lunches, laughing at us in a YouTube video.

Earlier in the week, Innovid [...]]]> Interactive pre-roll providers, Innovid, announced a strategic investment from Deutsche Telekom’s T-Ventures to accelerate their growth and pave the way for their entry into the mobile market, connected TV, as well as Europe. Genesis Partners, who lead the company’s Series A round, also participated in the $4 mil raise.

Earlier in the week, Innovid CEO, Zvika Netter, sat down with Beet.TV to talk about interactive pre-roll.

“Innovid is a pioneer in the video advertising market, a high-growth industry across multiple platforms,” said Georg Schwegler, CEO, T-Venture. “We are impressed with the effectiveness of Innovid’s iRoll advertising format online, and are excited by the potential of their platform in the mobile internet market as smartphones continue to increase in relevance and market penetration.”

In the past quarter, Innovid has delivered their iRoll interactive pre-roll format in campaigns for Kraft, Buick, Hyundai, Disney Pictures, Sony, and agencies including Publicis’ MediaVest and Digitas, Havas’ MediaContacts, and WPP’s Mindshare, and Omnicom’s OMD. The company has also signed deals with 80% of the web’s top video publishers, such as NBC, CBS, MTV, Fox, Tremor Media, National Geographic, Crackle, DailyMotion and more.

Disclosure: I am the director of marketing & communications for Innovid.

Leading up to the release of their new album, Easy Wonderful, Guster launched a site featuring 12 videos for the 12 songs on the album, by 12 different directors. To date, they’ve [...]]]> Boston’s best live act, and the band that turned me into a true music fanatic, Guster, is launching a new online video promotion.

Leading up to the release of their new album, Easy Wonderful, Guster launched a site featuring 12 videos for the 12 songs on the album, by 12 different directors. To date, they’ve released videos for “Do You Love Me” and “Stay With Me Jesus.”

Up next? Tapping into their voracious fan base to direct a video of their own. The band’s site states, “We ended up one director short, so we’re opening this song up to you guys.”

If you aren’t familiar with the band’s quirky sense of humor, their guidelines lend a little bit of insight. “Keep in mind one thing: We’re not necessarily looking for technical skill or anything fancy… if you have a friend who can eat cheesy poofs all-entertaining-like, for four and a half minutes, film it with your smart phone and we just might pick that one. Or we might hate it. It’s our song and we get to be the obnoxious-but-respected judge with the British accent. There is love, there is peace in this world.”

Submissions are due by October 12th. The members of the band will view all submissions and pick a winner by October 19th.

Hey guys — how ’bout a video for Happy Frappy while you’re at it?

Remember those old choose-your-own-adventure books? They were great. You got at least two choices for how the story would end, and if you finished the book and didn’t like the outcome, well, you could just go back, re-read it, follow [...]]]> Tapping Into Video SEO: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Story
By Yaniv Axen, Co-founder and CTO of SundaySky

Remember those old choose-your-own-adventure books? They were great. You got at least two choices for how the story would end, and if you finished the book and didn’t like the outcome, well, you could just go back, re-read it, follow a different path and reach a different conclusion.

Here’s a choose-your-own-adventure tale for the e-commerce set. The protagonists are two respected e-businesses that deployed video on their websites. One did it with SEO in mind and reaped the rewards in Google rankings and resulting page visits and sales. The other took an enormous cache of video content, uploaded it onto a website and left it there – unoptimized, untagged and unprofitable.

Video Optimization Adventure #1: QVC
QVC is a company that clearly understands how to make compelling video. The cable shopping network broadcasts live 24 hours a day, 364 days a year. It has a massive store of multimedia and it has loaded tens of thousands of videos onto its website. But one would never know it by the number of QVC videos indexed on the major search engines. Google has one. There are two others on Bing and four on Yahoo!. That’s a total of seven indexed videos for a company that is #11 on the Internet Retailer 500. QVC’s wasted resources are a reminder that the number of videos a business offers on its site isn’t as important as what it does to properly deploy them.

Video Optimization Adventure #2: Overstock.com
Overstock.com sells everything from crib sheets to faucets and jewelry at discount prices and rivals QVC in the number of videos on its site. But those multimedia assets are working much harder for Overstock.com, since the retailer took the extra step of optimizing its videos to increase search engine rankings and drive traffic. There are more than 56,000 Overstock.com videos indexed on Google, and the revenue implications of that fact are clear. Here is just one of many examples; if you do a standard Google search for “Strada ceiling fan,” you’ll see Overstock.com as the number one result, with a video thumbnail accompanying the text link.

Both companies understand video creation. Both took the time and effort to populate their websites with video assets. And yet, the end of their e-commerce stories are quite different, all because one completed the steps required to achieve higher SEO ranking with video and the other did not. Simple adjustments — such as text and markup in the page surrounding the video, site-wide descriptive formats, video site maps and proper video embedding — could easily have led both of these companies to similarly happy SEO endings.

The outcomes, perhaps, are too predictable to make for riveting fiction. As non-fiction, though, these two stories are instructive for any company. Almost any business moving to the Web understands at some level that search engines drive traffic. The 100 best companies in Internet Retailer’s Top Retailers Guide report an average of 30 percent of their traffic is search-engine delivered. And by now, most e-businesses realize the importance of deploying video as a means to increase website visits. It is with this knowledge in mind that retailers such as Zappos, Overstock.com and Newegg have deployed thousands of videos across their websites.

Given the apparently widespread awareness of the power of video online, it is amazing to see that many large retailers are investing in multimedia without taking the steps to put those elements to work for search engine optimization. In fact, 80 percent of online retailers fail to optimize their website videos.

Of course, before a business thinks about optimization of video, it must create those multimedia resources in the first place and do so across its entire product catalogue. It is not enough to simply post a few videos on the homepage and other main pages. For instance, eBags.com manually produces videos that are indexed on Google, but because it is so expensive to produce each video for its entire (large) catalogue, the company can only have a limited number of videos. This results in limited video SEO when users search for products, and other sites with video will pop to the top of the results page, no matter what type of optimization eBags.com completes for its modest video library.

We’ve learned from SundaySky customers like Sawbuck Realty, which has more than 400,000 compelling real estate videos on its site that a combination of sound SEO strategy and sitewide video usage leads to superior search engine rankings. Targeted verticals like Sawbuck (real estate), as well as larger businesses like Overstock.com, can attest to the payoff that optimized, widespread video delivers.

SEO benefits are not the only result of optimized video. Companies offering quality video experiences also report increased engagement and appreciable conversion lifts. These results have been experienced by so many businesses in so many industries; the conclusions are no longer surprising.

Spoiler Alert
E-businesses with sitewide, high-quality, optimized video do better in search rankings, engagement and conversions than those that merely post a handful of untagged media files on their sites. There’s no need to flip to the back of the book to sneak a peak at how any particular e-business video adventure ends when the correlation between video SEO and e-business success is so clear.

Read More Research about the State of Video in E-commerce here: http://www.sundaysky.com/resources/download-q210-report.html

Yaniv Axen, co-founder and chief technology officer of SundaySky

The company is also expected to release a new iPod touch with a higher res [...]]]> So says Bloomberg which cites no less than 3 sources. The announcement is expected tomorrow at that Apple press conference with the vague guitar picture on the invite. Apple will reportedly lower the price of the new AppleTV to $99.

The company is also expected to release a new iPod touch with a higher res screen, not to be confused with a smaller iPad which may or may not be coming in time for Christmas. Oh Mac rumors, you never cease to bore me.