TechAddress

YouTube Begins Streaming Full-Length Shows from CBS

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:32:18 +0000

As we watch the economy do what economies do - have growing pains and adjust to challenges - it becomes ever more apparent that doing things the old way just won’t work anymore. That is true of many of the old ways, especially when it comes to how companies advertise and grow their business.

It is my opinion that the return on investment (ROI) for traditional advertising will continue to shrink, even as companies using traditional advertising methods continue to throw money at ads in hopes that their company will survive these choppy financial seas. Instead of panicking and clinging to the deflating lifeboat of old ideas, now is the time to stand firm and innovate.

Evaluating the Situation

Before a company can find success in branding and marketing through non-traditional means like social media, companies and entrepreneurs need to reevaluate how they define ROI. Sure, there is always investment, but instead of thinking of this investment solely as monetary, also consider the investment you can make in time, staff, creativity, participation, and other less tangible resources. In this economy “investment” could be replaced by innovation, inspiration, involvement, or interaction for a different and fresh form of ROI.

Social media is often accused of taking a “touchy feely” approach to advertising, marketing and brand management. In a sense this is true. The ways of measuring ROI in a social media campaign are much more indirect than a cost based traditional model. In part this is because the cost of social media to grow your company is relatively low and consists mainly of intangible things like proper use of your time.

If the company is large enough, it may entail the cost of hiring someone to manage your social media efforts. If the company is a small to medium business or an entrepreneur or sole proprietor, most will find that after an initial training session with a good social media guide they can use existing staff to manage social media campaigns. This is a huge cost saver that can be carried over into a reduction in traditional advertising expenses as well.

Measuring ROI

One of the most tangible ways to measure ROI is site analytics. If you have a site that is starting a social media campaign, make sure to get a good analytics program installed, like Google Analytics. As you start each campaign, make sure to associate it with tags and key words you can track in your analytics program.

You can do the same for on-site CPM advertising, like the ever popular Google Adsense. By associating each ad block with key words and campaigns, it makes it easier to measure where the money and visitors are coming in from. Coupled with a great stats program like Mint or similar, there is no reason you can’t develop your own in-house ROI study as you embark on your first social media campaign.

Enhancing ROI

One of the many ways to enhance your ROI from social media campaigns is to consider transparency. Since it is very hard to hide behind an image these days (go ahead and Google your company name plus the word “sucks” or “stinks” or other negative connotations and see if anything comes back), the more transparent a company and its top level staff can be without giving away company secrets, the better.

A fantastic example of transparency helping a company’s numbers is that of BuzzAgent. They were so invested in the idea of changing how they approached their brand they did a 90 day experiment that showed measurable gains (and other interesting data) through openness and interaction.

Additional Benefits

If you aren’t sold on the idea of fully embracing social advertising, consider the intangible benefits of a brand campaign as well, including how social media can save you money indirectly. By becoming more involved with your brand and embracing both the negative and the positive (realize you no longer control the conversation about your company) you can stop problems before they start.

By giving your customers access to you through social media and using it to channel everything from customer support to sales and hiring, you will find that you are gaining income and stopping some tradition areas of corporate monetary hemorrhaging. All without spending vast amounts of extra money on ads no one stops to watch, listen to or read anyway outside of Superbowl Sunday. I’d say that’s pretty good indirect ROI, wouldn’t you?

Source:Mashable!

In another move towards earning more revenue from its huge audience, YouTube has started streaming full-length TV shows that will include advertising. The content, which includes Star Trek, The Young & The Restless, and Beverley Hills 90210 comes through a deal with CBS. Advertising will include familiar formats like pre, mid, and post-roll.

For YouTube, the deal certainly marks further indication that the company is not having a great deal of success in monetizing the user-generated video that dominates the site. While the current lineup of content from CBS may not be especially impressive – no offense Y&R fans – it’s likely just the first of many deals that YouTube will make to bring more professionally produced content to its site that can be more easily monetized.

For CBS, the deal might be seen as yet another sign of a lack of confidence in Joost, the professional video content site where CBS is an investor. Meanwhile, CBS already offers full-length versions of many of its popular shows like CSI on its own website. Ultimately, it would look like YouTube is simply being viewed as another place to distribute content for the media company. CBS also recently did a deal with Slide to distribute video content through Facebook applications.

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Magnify Adds New Video Distribution Partners: 5min, ViewDo, and Expert Village

Fri, 10 Oct 2008 20:30:07 +0000

Source:CenterNetworks

NY-based Magnify.net has announced three new search partners for their video search product. The partners include NY-based 5min, ViewDo and Expert Village. 5min provides how-to videos and they will now be included in the video search available to Magnify.net publishers. Magnify.net self reports 35,000 publishers in their network.

It will be interesting to see if Magnify follows a Blinkx strategy with regards to partnerships. In fact, maybe there’s value in both companies working together as Blinkx appears to have a strong video search network.

Check out our look at the NYC online video market which includes 5min and Magnify.net.

CN Sponsor: Check Your Credit Score
Other CenterNetworks Coverage: Viddler, Twitter, Web Jobs

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BitGravity Offers Video Producers More Control With Advanced Progressive API

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 18:31:02 +0000

Source:Mashable!

When we talk about video content on the Web, it’s now customary to speak about control. Things like on-demand, skip forward, skip back, shuffle, etc., are pretty common. They’re expected, really.

So what BitGravity, a self-described content delivery network, is looking to do at the server side of media management, is give video producers more controls of their own, and all through its new Advanced Progressive API.

What kind of control? A few items include auto-bitrate adjustments, scene selection, and establishing start and stop clauses, just to name a few items.

BitGravity also talks about things like advertisement injection, virtual projections and so forth, all revolving around its engineering of an HD Flash- and H.264-based platform. An “Advanced Progressive” platform, at that. In short, this option allows the viewer to seek information hosted online much as one would when interacting with a physical media player, albeit without the need to complete a full download. As you might suspect, this gives the user a natural feeling experience without having to wait idle for a loader to reach the 100% mark. Less wait equals better time spent, for sure.

As an HD delivery service alone, BitGravity has provided a fairly impressive option to content owners. Its ability to make instant-play and live video available at such a high level has proven attractive for a number of clients already, including Revision3 and comedian Tom Green. So the release of the API today is bound to lure more names from the creative world.

Control, after all, is what nearly everyone within the media world desires. It allows producers to stay adaptive to market conditions, which in this day and age are no doubt fickle and fast to shift.

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Hulu to Live Stream Presidential Debates and Offer Video Archive

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 16:34:44 +0000

Source:Mashable!

Company Name

TalentTrove

20-Word Description

TalentTrove is a global online talent community created to help individuals share their talents with the world.

CEO’s Pitch

TalentTrove not only provides aspiring artists and performers with the opportunity to be discovered, but also offers a virtual community for like-minded individuals to discuss their passions, share mutual opportunities, seek advice, and stay connected.

Users can create, upload, and broadcast their skills and talents in the form of audio and video files, images, or text. The site even provides artists and musicians from around the world with the opportunity to collaborate with one another.

The motivation to showcase talent specifically on TalentTrove is fueled by our promise— be seen, be appreciated, be recognized and be discovered.

Mashable’s Take

If you didn’t make it to “American Idol” or “America’s Got Talent” or any number of other well-televised auditions and competitions, and yet you’d still like to prove your showman’s mettle, TalentTrove seems like an interesting place to strut your stuff.

It wouldn’t have grabbed our attention if it were solely a place to post visual renditions of pop standards or juggling feats or whathaveyou. Much of the content displayed is quite amateurish, so visitors will need to spend some time traveling around the place to get a solid grasp of what it is that makes TalentTrove tick. It’s YouTube, but with an exclusively creative spin. Which some aren’t likely to enjoy very much. On the other hand, some may well benefit from the casual environs.

What is especially inviting about the website is its breadth of categories. Acting, comedy, music, dance, food, craft making, and even things featuring animals and writing are all welcome. Again, you may not be entirely thrilled with what’s currently shown, either at the main archive or at TalentTrove.TV and radio.talenttrove. But the service itself offers users many options with which to portray themselves and their work. Which is really half the battle, development-wise.

Now, you may have to forgive TalentTrove’s visual presentation. It’s not the prettiest platform on the Web. Not even close. And it can behave somewhat sluggishly. There’s some waiting to go along with a basic browse around the place. But it feels relatively thorough insofar as features are concerned. Again, it can take a few moments to learn what everything is and where it is located. But if you’re intent on producing an upload or two, exploration is simply part of the process.

It’s hard to say one way or another whether TalentTrove is qualitatively worthwhile. For truly promising aspirants in fields demanding of excellence, I would peg TalentTrove as a venue ideal only for tossing up bits and pieces in order to see what sticks. But as TalentTrove’s creator states above, it’s a community. And that’s an important point to keep in mind here. It’s nothing to take too seriously. Just somewhere to share material and get some easy feedback. For that alone, TalentTrove is worth the registration.

Editor’s Note: This post is part of an ongoing series at Mashable - The Startup Review, Sponsored by Sun Microsystems Startup Essentials. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Michael Moore Intended to Flout Slacker Uprising’s International Rights

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 02:31:08 +0000

Source:Mashable!

I don’t agree with Michael Moore over much, but for all his many jarring viewpoints, I find his approach to copyright and digital media surprisingly modern and refreshing. As Stan noted last month, Michael Moore decided to release the somewhat stale movie Slacker Uprising for free via download on the Internet:

“This is being done entirely as a gift to my fans,” Moore said. “The only return any of us are hoping for is the largest turnout of young voters ever at the polls in November. I think Slacker Uprising will inspire million (sic) to get off the couch and give voting a chance.”

Of course, once it was released to the wilds of the web, it made its way very quickly to international torrenting websites like The Pirate Bay. Unlike DVDs and most corporate video distribution websites, there are no regional restrictions. This doesn’t seem like a particularly big deal at first blush, but when you take into account, as TorrentFreak says today, that Michael Moore only owns the distribution rights for the Uniteds States and Canada, it becomes clear that there might be a flaw in this plan.

They had noted that this potential set of circumstances seemed obvious to them, but wondered if it was intentional or accidental by Moore. He responded today.

“What do you think I’m up to? I know it may not be obvious to most, but I think you guys get it,” Moore wrote to us. “I only own the US and Canadian rights. So my hands are tied. But this is the 21st century. What are ‘geographical rights’ ?” Moore continued. “I’ll say it for the hundredth time: If I buy a book and read it, and then give you the book to read, I have broken no laws. Why is that not true for all media?”

He went on to express that he’s looking for folks to pick up on this fact (and perhaps a fight with the international copyright holders?). He might not get one, in this case. Slacker Uprising isn’t the shockwave-inducing film that Fahrenheit 9/11 was, and isn’t really as relevant to those residing outside the United States as to those inside. For these reasons, it’s less likely that there will be a copyright fight here than under normal circumstances.

I do, however, admire the sentiment expressed here. While this was incredibly safe ground for Moore to use, it all has to start somewhere, and bringing some scrutiny on the absurdity of copyright rules in the digital age is an admirable goal.

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Slide to Distribute Content from CBS, Hulu, and Others on Facebook

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 16:35:44 +0000

Source:Mashable!

This is part of an ongoing series about government 2.0 written by Dr. Mark Drapeau. To view previous posts in the series click here.

Recently I had the chance to attend an event called “Government 2.0 and Beyond… Harnessing Collective Intelligence,” which was hosted by the Department of Defense’s Information Resources Management College (IRMC). It had all the makings of a public relations boon: High-profile speakers like David Weinberger (who blogged from the event), corporate sponsorship, media coverage, and a new auditorium to show off. Alvin Toffler, the author of Future Shock, was even there. But what I didn’t see among the people in the room was urgency.

Much lip service was given to welcoming new technologies, openness, information sharing, transparency, and collaboration. But there was no talk of a strategy, a plan, or a roadmap. Frankly, there was no talk of anything concrete in the way of actual progress towards Government 2.0, as the title of the event would lead one to believe. And while I am certain that DOD Deputy CIO David Wennergren was genuine when he spoke about the future of command and control being a more agile system of “focus and converge,” I am also certain that people in my workplace have Dell laptops so old they have time for a power nap during boot up.

This is particularly embarrassing given that one of the speakers, Bruce Klein talked in detail about Cisco Connect, their “next-generation workforce environment” that includes an encyclopedia, feeds, blogs, chat, and virtual meetings. No one discussed why the Department of Defense didn’t have this capability, and no one asked. More embarrassing still, Cisco Connect is very similar in principle to something the government already has – the Intelligence Community-built INTELINK, that I have used and written about before; the word “INTELINK” was never uttered out loud.

As the event was winding down, I heard a line not unfamiliar to me at this point, about everyone in the room being an “agent of change” that had to help. I became a bit frustrated with this and Tweeted the following:

While it’s probably inappropriate to “benchmark our enemies” in a Mashable post, I think it’s safe to say that terrorist and criminal organizations don’t need pep talks in wood-paneled conference rooms to adopt new technologies and gain a competitive edge. In the battle of bloviating versus trial-and-error, who wins?

One of the panelists, the co-author of Wikinomics, Anthony Williams, quipped that “The Ontario Government blocked Facebook, so everyone moved to MySpace. It’s a futile exercise.” Many people in the audience snickered. I don’t know about them, but I still can’t access MySpace or YouTube from my work computer. This is not a complicated multinational treaty negotiation. If everyone is so aware of the problem, why can’t we just… fix it?

To be fair, the government has non-trivial security issues when it comes to information systems – they must function alone and with each other properly, cannot be infiltrated by outsiders, and they must provide trustworthy information (imagine hacking not to plant a computer virus, but rather false intelligence or misleading geographic coordinates). The big takeaway that federal officials had from DEFCON 16 in Las Vegas was that social software has created a “perfect storm” for hackers – lots of new software, largely untested security loopholes, and a changing definition of privacy in society. As part of my Social Software for Security (S3) research project at the National Defense University I am working with government “information assurance” professionals to determine which social technologies are {always, sometimes, never} safe to use with DOD systems.

Unfortunately, all of this is likely discouraging young people – digital natives, or the Gartner-dubbed “Generation V” – from choosing honorable work in public service as a profession, and it is encouraging bright people already in Washington, DC to move on to greener pastures. It may be appropriate that a group named “Foreigner” wrote the song I quoted at the beginning of this article, because from my standpoint “urgency” as it concerns adoption of social technology tools into the defense establishment is thus far largely a foreign concept.

Dr. Mark Drapeau is an Associate Research Fellow at the Center for Technology and National Security Policy of the National Defense University in Washington, DC. These views are his own and not the official policy or position of any part of the U.S. Government.

Source:Mashable!

After attracting nearly 20 million active users, what does the application formerly known as FunWall on Facebook do for an encore? Add professional content from the likes of CBS, NBC, and Warner Bros, according to The Wall Street Journal. The application’s creator – Slide – has signed a deal with a number of media companies that will allow users of FunSpace to embed clips of various TV shows on their friend’s profiles.

While the deal doesn’t include full-length shows, it will make recommendations based on the number of times a video is posted to people’s profiles. Of course, you could already embed YouTube videos using FunSpace, so plenty of professionally produced copyright content can already find its way onto the service, at least until YouTube deals with it on their end.

Nonetheless, given many user’s penchant for forwarding video clips to friends, FunSpace’s deal with the media companies should make it easier for them to do so, at least within the walls of Facebook. And for the content producers, Slide’s massive reach on Facebook should provide yet another vehicle to monetize their video online.

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MotionBox Announces Full Support for HD Video Format (AVCHD)

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 00:33:15 +0000

Source:Mashable!

MotionBox has announced several video tools that will support the HD format AVCHD (Advanced Video Codec High Definition) which is used by most of the leading HD camcorders on the market today including Panasonic, Sony, Hitachi, Canon, etc.

AVCHD video quality is excellent, but it has been very difficult to view or edit this type of video on your computer. It’s been even more troublesome to share AVCHD videos online due mostly to the sheer size of the files and the time required to upload them. Because of these reasons, Motionbox will provide a new Motionbox Express Uploader (MxU) tool that’s based on Adove AIR. It will be able to upload just about any size video file and resume large uploads if/when connections are disrupted. This will be a big time saver for sure.

Motionbox also announced native AVCHD support which means after uploading these large files directly to your Motionbox account they’ll transcode it on their server - then you can use Motionbox web-based editing to edit the video. You won’t need to purchase expensive video editing packages like Pinnacle Studio or Sony Vegas. You can also embed your videos on your blog straight from your Motionbox account.

The Motionbox HD player features high-quality widescreen capable playback up to 720p, full screen option and an easy to use interface. Premium users ($29 per year) can download videos and watch them at resolutions up to 1080p. They can also embed these videos on their blogs or websites.

Basic membership now provides a 30-day trial period to evaluate all of the premium services so you get a chance to see the quality that these tools and services offer. If you’re serious about HD video and you’ve invested a great deal of expense in HD equipment, the low-cost premium account might be the way to go.

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