7 posts tagged “youtube”
In
the wake of the film awards season, YouTube is coming out with their
own virtual red carpet. In an effort to bring another level of
exclusive user-generated genre recognition, YouTube will round up those
popular clips we've watched over and again, and release them to the
general YouTube population for voting the best to the top. The winners
in the chosen categories will get a trophy. Yep, a trophy.
Not
being completely accepted by mainstream media, YouTube has set out to
create their own event to promote the acceptance of user-generated
content.
The awards event will be popular, I'm sure, and will be
even more so when YouTube decides to grow the event year after year, as
they plan to hold a live awards event in the future. That being said,
who knows what this could actually turn into. YouTube is already being
utilized as a launching pad for many that are hoping to catch the eye
of a film producer or citcom writer. Why not continue to leverage that
in hopes of making your own ecosystem within the online video realm? Perhaps
YouTube will also add cash and other substantial prizes, like a meeting
with a television show director, for next year's event.
No one's been ragging on Mark Cuban lately, and that's because his prophecy about GooTube being slapped with lawsuits turned out to be right. Viacom, YouTube's worst enemy, is taking the video-sharing site to court to the tune of $1 billion. That's more than half of what the company was purchased for when Google decided to take on the responsibility of the adolecent video hub.
The tension between Viacom and YouTube has become rather thick lately, escalating on a weekly basis. The promises YouTube made to the media industry have yet to pan out, and other video sharing sites are taking note, striving for extra measures to ensure that they do not fall in the same trap as YouTube. Other media companies have perked their ears as well, as the larger networks have taken a tendency to align with Viacom, noting that YouTube's copyright infringement issues have yet to be settled.
While YouTube claims that they have yet to receive the lawsuit from Viacom, the ensuing war is getting bloodier by the day. As long as YouTube remains non-compliant, they will continue to be threatened by established media. This can't be good for Google, which is trying to permeate the old media realm in what seems to be another advertising takeover. They've recently added printed and radio ads to their list of services, and are no doubt anxious to take their simplistic and self-serving model to new heights.
Though YouTube tried to avoid this very consequence by making preemptive deals with several media companies, the walls are now tumbling down around YouTube. Will this end in defeat for YouTube, placing them in the same situation as Napster? Or will this simply be enough to get YouTube's attention and compliance?
Viacom and YouTube are still battling it out, and a recent statement from Viacom has brought new light (and perspective) to the dissonance between the two companies. Viacom, which demanded that the popular video-sharing site remove over 100,000 clips that infringed on copyright agreements, states that they've seen a substantial increase in traffic to their own websites as a direct result.
Instead of waiting for the deal with YouTube to pan out, Viacom has taken a proactive measure to ensure that they're not on the losing side of an ongoing situation. They've utilized their far-reaching network, including television stations such as MTV, to drive traffic to their own websites in an effort to monetize the traffic that was previously lost to YouTube.
If Viacom's statements are true (considering YouTube says the exact opposite, citing a surge in traffic since the Viacom clips were removed), then more power to them. Networks are more emphatically seeking out ways to avoid the middleman and bring traffic directly to their own sites. Why shell out cash to YouTube for things like branded channels, and why wait for second-hand ad revenue when you can show (better quality) video clips directly from your own site? Viacom obviously considers this to be asinine , and is getting a few of the other large networks to agree.
But if YouTube continues to be the centralizing hub that it's become, it will be an unavoidable fact that advertisers will always follow the crowd. And the crowd is still on YouTube.
YuMe, an advertising company that deals with the online video market, has officially launched today. The company, which received $7 million in venture funding from Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners and BV Capital, has been working with advertisers in beta for some time.
The service offered by YuMe is particularly important for advertisers that have an obvious concern for their ad campaigns being associated with questionable material by offering "brand safe" content. Their technique of scanning video content and categorizing it accordingly means that YuMe can assure advertisers that their campaign will show within the context it was meant for.
YuMe, an advertising company that deals with the online video market, has officially launched today. The company, which received $7 million in venture funding from Khosla Ventures, Accel Partners and BV Capital, has been working with advertisers in beta for some time.
The service offered by YuMe is particularly important for advertisers that have an obvious concern for their ad campaigns being associated with questionable material by offering "brand safe" content. Their technique of scanning video content and categorizing it accordingly means that YuMe can assure advertisers that their campaign will show within the context it was meant for.
This tool is good for video hosting sites that wish to offer an ad-revenue sharing model. As this system is geared for advertisers to pick where they want their content to show, it leaves little flexibility for the content owners. This doesn't appear to be a system that would enable content owners to pick which ads show alongside their material. YuMe is directed towards lowering advertisers' risk.
YuMe's real time tracking system allows for easy modification of ad campaigns and provides added value for the advertisers, who can see peak times and overall effectiveness of their online ads.
I'm curious to know how they go about searching and categorizing web video content, as it is probably the most difficult thing to search, given its visual (as opposed to textual) context. Does YuMe simply search keywords associated with the video content? If that were the case, it would be rather easy to trick the system.
The Academy has requested that YouTube remove clips from the Oscars. Ric Robertson, the executive administrator for the Academy, states that for the purpose of managing the value of their telecast and brand, YouTube has been forced to take down the clips.
Not surprisingly, some of the clips removed were among the most popular on YouTube these past few days.
Also not surprising is the attitude the Academy holds towards YouTube, and the protective manner in which they are requesting their clips be taken down. It doesn't seem to be a matter of advertising revenue, or any of the usual copyright infringement reasons we've seen from Viacom or other media companies.
This does, however, highlight the still-present dissonance between old and new media--that of the established regard and that which represents a new generation.
Though YouTube has brought about the rise of a few noteworthy actors and comedians that have been accepted by the media standard, the seriousness of the Academy is slow to accept, and probably always will be.
Brightcove's upcoming AfterMix feature will enable users to take professional video clips to use in their own video manifestations. The tool will also allow mixing of video content recorded directly from a webcam without having to download it first.
Sounds like a fun tool for the evolution of user-generated video content.
Pete Cashmore of Mashable brings up the obvious question of what this means for YouTube.
The addition of AfterMix takes Brightcove a few steps ahead of the more popular video-sharing site, but then again, several aspects of Brightcove's service are superior to YouTube.
What YouTube has is numbers. Their sheer mass makes them a powerhouse. Not their quality or even their user interface.
Brightcove is doing all right for itself, though. They should continue to put quality first.
YouTube has made a deal with Wind-Up Records, an Indie label, for inclusion in an ad-revenue sharing model. The label holds claim to the band Evanescence, among others. Their deal with YouTube will allow the label to collect ad revenue from user content that includes their copyrighted material, including songs playing in users' videos. Wind-Up Records will also upload several of their artists' videos for inclusion on YouTube.
Seems like YouTube is taking steps to right their wrongs, though this deal is a replica of the model they've struck with the larger media companies like CBS. And that deal didn't pan out in the end. YouTube has yet to prove that their deals can hold much water when it comes to pleasing the big boys.
Will the war go on, or is this deal with Wind-Up a sign of the end? The fingerprinting technology they use to identify copyrighted material is necessary, but easily made obsolete. YouTube is caught in the middle of the larger struggle going on between consumers and suppliers. Poor Middleman.
