Husameddine identified himself as an “assistant” to the Oil Minister and a member of the ruling Baath Party in the video that was posted on YouTube. In the video, he is shown reading a paper, wearing a suit and tie and sitting on a sofa at an undisclosed location and he says, “I, Abdo Husameddine, Deputy Oil and Mineral Resources Minister, announce my defection from the regime and resignation from my post and declare that I am joining dignified people’s revolution.”

The defecting official continues, “You have inflicted on those you claim are your people a full year of sorrow and sadness, denied them their basic rights to life and humanity and pushed the country to the edge of the abyss. I do not want to end my life servicing the crimes of this regime.” Husameddine has served for the regime for over 33 years in a variety of government positions. In the YouTube video, Husameddine said he was defecting, “knowing full well that this regime will burn my home, persecute my family and make up a lot of lies. I advise my colleagues to abandon this sinking ship.”

• The top video ad networks in terms of their actual reach delivered were: BrightRoll Video Network with 27.2 percent penetration of online video viewers, SpotXchange Video Ad Network with 19.8 percent, and Tremor Media Video Network with 16.6 percent.
• 135.4 million viewers watched 12.7 billion videos on YouTube.com (93.4 videos per viewer).
• The average Hulu viewer watched 23.5 videos, totaling 2.3 hours of videos per viewer.
• The duration of the average online video was 4.1 minutes.

Comments

If correct, cable companies are likely losing millions of subscribers that are instead getting their TV fix from online sources, such as Hulu. The problem? Online TV watching doesn’t generate anywhere near the revenue of cable programming.

If we all switch to watching TV via Hula et al, what happens to the quality of the programming? If we continue down this path, we’d better figure out a way to make online video ads successful–and fast–or we may see the end of quality shows such as LOST and House.

Comments

In July, Google Sites continued to rank as the top U.S. video property with a record 8.9 billion videos viewed, making up 42 percent of all videos viewed online. YouTube.com accounted for more than 99 percent of all videos viewed at the property. Viacom Digital ranked second with 812 million (3.8 percent) followed by Microsoft Sites with 631 million videos viewed (3.0 percent).

So Google leads the pack (yawn!) but Hulu reached an all time high with 454 million video views. Not bad. As for number of viewers Google logged 121 million viewers who averaged 74 videos a month.

Other notable findings from July 2009 include:

• The top video ad networks in terms of their actual delivered reach were: Tremor Video Network (20.1 percent viewer penetration), Brightroll Video Network (17.4 percent), and BroadbandEnterprises.com (14.4 percent).
• 81.0 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
• The average online video viewer watched 500 minutes of video, or 8.3 hours.
• 120.3 million viewers watched 8.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (74.1 videos per viewer).
• 48.2 million viewers watched 518.6 million videos on MySpace.com (10.8 videos per viewer).
• The average Hulu viewer watched 12.0 videos, totaling 1 hour and 13 minutes of videos per viewer.
• The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

I still marvel at the amount of video content consumed. My question is what percentage of it is stupid human tricks and the online version of the last words of every redneck, “Hey y’all watch this!”?

Comments

The report is based on the findings of a daily tracking survey on Americans’ use of the Internet. The results are based on data from telephone interviews conducted by Princeton Survey Research International between March 26 to April 19, 2009, among a sample of 2,253 adults, 18 and older.

Now for some numbers:

• The number of people using video sharing sites has gone from 33% in 2006 to 62% in 2009
• 89 percent of internet users ages 18-29 now say they watch content on video sharing sites, and 36 percent do so on a typical day
• 46 percent of adult internet users are active on social networking sites, which makes the 62% number for video more impressive. How the research defines social networking sites of course impacts this because YouTube can be clumped in there quite readily.
• Evidence of some possible alternative definitions of social networking sites can be found by the statement that 11 percent use status updating sites like Twitter. Normally Twitter is part of social networking but to have it peeled off under the category of “status updating” site is kind of odd. What’s Facebook then a “What’s on your mind?” site vs. a social networking site?

As with any research we need to take it with a grain of salt. Online video consumption will need to be watched based on age more than any other measurement. The 30 and under (specifically 18-29 years old) set registers an 89% of Internet users having used a video sharing site and 36% doing so daily. My response is for these folks to maybe exercise their bodies as well as their eyes but that’s just me.

So what are your video habits? Do you have to see the latest stupid human trick on YouTube or else your day is not complete? Do you turn to video for product information regularly? While it’s interesting to know the total numbers what is more informative is the specific types of video consumed on these sites and how Internet marketers can take advantage of these habits. Tell us your deepest, darkest online video habits but please keep it in the realm of ‘family viewing’. No one really wants to know everything you watch online .

Comments

Whatever it is, ClickZ reports that comScore’s Video Metrix service showed an Internet users watched 16.8 billion online videos in April of this year which is a 16% increase over March. Google itself increased 15% month over month for videos viewed on its properties led by YouTube. What is most striking is what Google is doing regarding market share of online video. It’s a show that is as impressive, if not more so, than their search engine dominance. Here’s the numbers

• Total Internet: 16.8 billion; 100 percent market share
• Google sites: 6.8 billion; 40.7 percent market share
• Fox Interactive Media: 513 million; 3.1 percent market share
• Hulu: 397 million; 2.4 percent market share
• Viacom: 315.2 million; 1.9 percent market share
• Microsoft sites: 288.3 million; 1.7 percent market share

If you are Microsoft you have got be getting tired of being on or near the bottom of lists that Google is on the top of. Here’s one stat, however, that really seemed a bit over the top but if you’re Google you gotta smile just a bit

In a month of record video viewing on Google, nearly 152 million U.S. Internet users watched an average 111 videos each.

Thank God for those super fast business class Internet connections at work, huh? What would you do at work all day if there wasn’t video?

Comments

Session description: Google, Yahoo, Ask, and other search engines have changed the way they present search results, and the changes have major implications for interactive marketers. The still emerging trend, referred to as unified search, integrates vertical content into the main natural search results page. Images, videos, news and blog posts, previously accessible only by clicking between tabs in the results, now appear in the main query results. How can you adjust your search strategy to capitalize on the changes? Learn what types of content have grown in importance and hot to capitalize accordingly.
Moderator: Lee Odden, CEO, TopRank Online Marketing and publisher of the TopRank Online Marketing blog

• Chris Heuer, Partner, The Conversation Group
• Paul Bruemmer, Director Search Marketing, Red Door Interactive
• Bridget Shea, Director of Account Services, SendTec

Lee Odden
Explanation of universal search. Execution is different: Ask 3D—3 columns; disambiguation/results/images & video
Live: harder to prompt video
Yahoo & Google: video mixed in
(examples: Shrek III, Nintendo Wii—integrating Google News, Blog search results (as of yesterday))
1/2-2/3 of the audience executing universal search right now
Pushing site on several different channels: Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Chris Heuer
Search is the beginning of a conversation. Social media is also a conversation—search is the end, social is the beginning. Text, audio, video & stuff by people and for people. You’re people, corporations are people.

Success requires clarity of purpose. The original idea round SEO was to help people find answers (ie your content). Universal search is a natural evolution—provide many different types of info. It’s in the best interest of the searcher. Universal search simply requires search marketing professional to apply keyword optimization to all channels. It’s still about “filling the funnel.”

Put the searcher first. Serving their interest is the purpose, form which you leverage the “because effect.” Interruption isn’t welcome. Roadblocks are . . . blocking.

Serve the market and you serve the marketer.

Making media optimized to engage searcher in the conversation is the optimization of marketing. Universal means thinking about other media in the same way you used to think about landing pages.

Paul Bruemmer

Have you responded to capitalize on the changing face of search engines?

How can you adjust search strategy to capitalize on these changes?

Learn what kinds of content have grown in importance (and how to capitalize on those).

Is Google Backing off from universal search? (15 Oct search insider column, Mark Simon). Very thought provoking

1. Are users confused by natural search?
2. Does universal search make Google money?
3. What about Google’s tabs image/video/etc?
4. Does it erode relevancy?

He’s going to rebut those arguments.

Understand Google’s culture: It was created as a research project; heavily anchored in math. Large amounts of free, relevant info. Successful search & advertising DNA created off the back of organic listings. It’s not about paid search; all about user experience.

Google’s marketing and PR people do a very good job of distracting analysts and journalists from Google’s core activities (it’s all analytical, mathematical—not emmotional)
infolab.standford.edu/~backrub/Google.html — their initial abstract/plan in 1997, got them the grant at Stanford

Is research history?
Google wants to bring DGM, video product reviews, catalogs, books, local, maps, products, web, finance image blogs etc etc etc. Research probably isn’t history.

Do people trust consumers’ opinion? yes—he expects a big growth pattern in video
Video customer reviews
Yideo product demos—videos go viral, videos in conversion
He who hesitates is lost—get to work on universal search

Bridget Shea

She’ll play devil’s advocate. Any shift in the organic listings will have affect on paid listings. We can see that visually the SERP is going to change. For any of you that read the Enquiro research with 2010 SERP, the changes are certainly even more drastic.

It looks like a major shift, but I think this will have a very small impact on the core fundamentals of search campaign management.

We’re always getting back to the fact that it’s nothing new that search has all these dynamic variables. We always have to look at “cost allowable” CPL, etc. Core fundamentals—if you have that intact, you’re ready. It’s just another variable to deal with. Like seasonality—holiday season doesn’t mean you have to scrap everything you’re doing the rest of the year. Like competition—new companies or products don’t mean everything you’ve done is completely irrelevant.

It’s very math-driven, especially in paid side.

The image is most obvious. If you put the image in the middle of the organic listings—it changes the way the users’ eyes go. If you’re getting more consideration on the organic side, you may get less consideration on the paid side.

Another thing that might change is average position. Ask3D—overall average position. We might have 2 average positions—overall and within each individual media category.

Things that impact consumers can then impact marketing. One idea: price comparison within SERP—you might start to see a shift that could be big. If consumers can find all the info that they need and there’s a corollary B&M—if the SERP has reviews, specs, info, local address and store hours could drive your online sales offline.

Some agencies will be better positioned already, but I don’t think we need to scrap everything we know—make improvements and upgrades to move quickly with it. Agencies and SEOs that have full service are better prepared—already doing paid, SEO, video, etc.

An area where agencies could make up some ground, certainly with video in SERPs—take the same video for a tv campaign, cut it up, get it online and add online CTAs, voila.

Additional data points mean we need to not rely on our old ways of doing analytics—big upgrade there.

You can’t rely on one great high-caliber analytics guru—find systems to make all those analytics replicable and scalable to grow business and not get bogged down in data.

Flexible technology. If we’re gonna throw in other variables, think about all the different parameters in query strings—agencies with proprietary technology and those that can modify and track parameters and conversions will definitely be in a good place.

Lee’s question: What do you think is the low-hanging fruit for the organizations that are already publishing different kinds of content to take advantage of universal search.

Paul: certainly along the lines of what Bridget was saying. Those who have the materials need to just get them up and get it going. That’s very low hanging fruit

Chris: the linking behavior around it—having an index page of your images, give images relevance

Paul: Weather.com did a great job implementing their video for earth forecast. Their video pageviews have increased 400% by essentially creating a site map of their videos with thumbnails, links, text, etc.

They’re doing a great job of organizing that data.

Bridget: It’s kind of the last check on the box is once we go live on their TV campaigns is that we launch is on Google video as well

Chris: there are all these sites where you can put up your content for free (blip, flickr, youtube) and link back to the brand

Lee: promoting those different media types—upload your video to your site and submit it to those free sites.

Chris: it’s about serving your clients’ needs. They need this, they demand it, someone is going to serve those needs. Are you going to find a way to serve those needs or will you partner out?

Paul: you’ve gotta have content, and if you don’t you have to look at all the other media and find a way to provide the content or be lost in the sea of data.

Is there a preference if there’s something appropriate, tagged appropriately, it’s more likely to come up in SERPs (if video or image)?

Paul: Universal search is not where it’s gonna be 12 months from now. They’re throwing a lot of switches. There will no doubt be a mathematical algorithm to find what people want.

Bridget: they’re smart about how they’re testing. There’s a reason why the page isn’t filled with just video and images. You only see maps when doing a local type search.

Lee: Google Blogoscoped posted screen shots of universal paid results. Very much dynamic and in flux.

Paul: it’s embryonic at this point. Not a foregone conclusion about its direction.

Chris: I don’t see a future where you’d see 10 video results. It comes down to individual preferences and learning styles. Some people are number-driven, some story-driven. 5-1 difference in video v. audio downloads. Yeah, they’re going to other tabs and just listening to it play. It’s a matter of individual preference—may set in profiles.

Paul: You hit the nail on the head there. Gord interviewed Marissa Mayer a while ago: people are tired of network television telling them the news. People want the news the way they want the news and they’ll get it from Goolge. Google provides it to you in a vast, universal way. That’s the direction.

Lee: difference between choosing your content and random access content.

Paul, you showed a shot where there was a right-rail video pd search. Was that live?

Paul: That was live and it was gone the next day—one ad, two “videos” results, two “products” results (very like Ask 3D).

Video is easier—like to be entertained. It’s a lot less of recall and retainment. The advent of more advertainment is going to make it harder to get ROI than it is today. The world may be bigger, but I think it would be harder to dive good ROI through video

Paul: Marketers have their centric POV in getting ROI, but that’s not consumers/searchers POV and goal.

Chris: people don’t want to be advertised to. It’s an interruption. Social graph—how do we monetize it? I’m there to be social, not to transact. Same with YouTube. People don’t want marketers in a lot of their conversations because they’re trying to get them to do things they don’t want to do. But helping them do what they want to do? That’ll work.

Followup: but why should I, then, work on my entertaining video when it doesn’t help?

Bridget: It’s not just entertainment. It should have a strong CTA, it needs to be clear what you want the do after they view it.

Lee: it’s the content that gives them value but also has a CTA

Chris: this shift is NOT about selling, it’s about helping people buy. When they’re ready, they need to be able to find it

Search is a textual medium—Ask 3D commercial. I’m just wondering if this is what the searcher wants, I would submit that if someone’s going to a search engine, if they want an image or video (which they often indicate in query). If it’s not indicated in the query, I don’t think it’s what they’re looking for. There are some improvements that universal does great, but are we getting away from the simple elegance that search provided?

Lee: I have to believe that search engines are looking at click stream data—for this type of query, what type or result they go to, and factoring that data in future SERPs.

Bridget: Huge shift on local with maps onebox for local search. It comes down to preferences and local.

Paul: remember the common denominator. Google is anchored in math. As humans, we can’t do Google’s calculations. It’s gonna be very complex, how they arrive at this.

Followup: from the users’ perspective, what do they want? Are they looking for a rich media experience every time?

Paul: that’s what they’re trying to find out. Google has 30 data centers costing $2b/yr, 400k servers—they’re into it.

Chris: people often don’t know what they’re searching for. They think they can search and just find it. See what they want in SERPs. Helping to direct them more specifically to the things they’re looking for. [requiring less query refinement]

From the advertisers’ standpoint, and working with our clients, it’s around what are people doing when they’re at your site. Are they watching your test drive video? Put it in Google video and drive traffic there. A lot of this going around keyword up there. Not every result gives a universal result. It’s back on you—what are people doing on your site?

Chris: Marketing has popularly become associated with selling. The original idea of marketing is matching the value of a product/service with the audience, the people who will drive the most value from it. If we get back to that, it will changes things drastically.

Would you say our low-hanging fruit should be not only including images in Flickr and video on YouTube, but creating a universal LP—include images, video, etc. If you have a product, you want to show everything on that same page—blog, review, text, video, image.

Bridget: you’re gonna want to test that. When you have two product offerings, we do a lot of landing page testing where we give them a very clear decision. You might offer both paths. We don’t know if it’s termite or pest control. If we let them choose. If it’s a broader term that’s a brand term, again it’s going to follow the same principles. More likely: take whether broad or specific query to match to pages like you’re doing now.

Paul: example—Amazon. Long long product pages, everything on there. Do well in organic and paid.

Chris: social media allows you serve a/b markets. Helps you create serendipity—long tail keyword. Those 20 people at the end of the spectrum that call it something else. More content is better!

Yesterday we heard 80% of clicks are on organic. One more tool bar on Ask, no organic results ATF (well, images and video are probably organic results)

Lee: Clicks on search results are on organic side. For folks who aren’t doing SEO, it’s moot. But if you are, and landscape is changing on types of content represented, what’s getting clicks—it’s an opportunity for you

Gord: We understand images much faster than text. It’s a much longer cycle to understand & process text. Spend a little less time with the spreadsheets, spend a little more time looking at what makes your customer tick.

Comments

That number surpasses the 39 percent of people watching user-generated video by 67 percent and is expected to increase over the next six months as traditional TV viewers begin to shift their viewing habits towards other devices.

When searching on a computer, mobile device or media player, 62 percent of people say it takes at least a few minutes to locate interesting content to watch. For people watching programming on their TV sets, 72 percent said that it takes at least a few minutes to find interesting programming. The challenge of finding shows and movies to watch on TV is costing TV service providers lost revenue as 43 percent of people said they would watch more Video-on-Demand and Pay-Per-View if they could find more content of interest. That number is up 19 percent from 2006.

"The Survey shows that there is an inefficient video discovery process that over time will slow the pace of change in consumers’ viewing patterns," said Toffer Winslow, EVP of ChoiceStream Sales and Marketing.

"Consumers, especially those in the younger demographic, have grown accustomed to watching TV programs, sports, news and video at their own convenience and do not want to spend time searching for meaningful content every time they turn on their TV, PC or mobile device."

The survey found that 55 percent of all people are watching some type of video on their computers, mobile devices or digital media players. Sixty-six percent are watching at least one hour per week through these alternatives. Close to 70 percent of younger viewers watching video on alternative devices say they watch traditional TV programming, compared to 46 percent who said they watched user generated video.

Sixty-five percent of television viewers do not use a digital video recorder. Some viewers who do have such devices are still watching television advertisements, with 23 percent of people indicating they sometimes or always watch the commercials. The reasons for watching advertisements include finding the commercials educational (36%), entertaining (34%), and too hard to fast forward (19%).