It may seem weird, but I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when I see ads in my viral video. eMarketer expects online video advertising to nearly double in 2008 to $1.3 billion, but no one’s really nailed a scalable ad platform for video. However, Google’s been quietly testing their own system and there are a bunch of other startups tackling it as well. There are a couple key issues they’re all struggling with as they try and generate the greatest amount of ad revenue. There’s still some uncertainty about where to put the ads (pre/post/interstitial?). Even the type or length of the ad is up for debate. A recent study found longer ads were more effective at branding, while conventional wisdom has cast doubt on users sitting through the longer plugs. After deciding on the format, determining the content of the video in order to generate relevant ads is yet another tough problem. It’s also a dire matter for big brands that don’t want to risk being associated with inflammatory content. Finally, these ad platforms will need publishers, advertisers and a marketplace to trade in. Here’s a look at what people are doing in video advertising: Definitely the team to watch, YouTube is treading carefully, experimenting with text ads running along the bottom of the video that users can click on for a full video ad. They’re going to be testing the system with some of their top content producers and word on the street is that the terms are pretty good. Revver splits ad revenue 50/50 with publishers. They run ads at the end of viral videos, which might mean that people are still paying close attention after watching the main content. However, this also means they lose some precious real estate to help drive traffic to other videos on their network like YouTube does. Revver filters the content themselves, tying in the appropriate ads. Similar to Revver, VideoEgg helps publishers deliver and monetize their video inventory. It’s a very hands on approach suitable for larger brands that have tight control over the quality and context of their content. They serve up over 20 million videos daily across their EggNetwork. Ads show up alongside lead ins to other videos as well. ScanScout’s technology scans each video and determines content, with ads delivered contextually to match each scene. They run text ads along the bottom of the videos based on → Read More
Nobody likes piracy. Well, we do, sure, but content providers aren’t as cool with it as we are. Enter PodZinger, a start-up whose main widget—true video search—could finally save YouTube and the like from constantly being sued by the Viacoms of the world for copyright violations. With its video search technology, users are able to pinpoint, with a 70 percent accuracy so far, exact conversations in video. Looking for the scene where George and Jerry discuss growing up and changing their lives for the better? Simple search for a relevant keyword—here, “we’re not men”—and the video pops up. Neat-o. → Read More
Audio and video search engine Podzinger will launch a new advertising platform for podcasters and online video publishers tomorrow. The first write up was in ClickZ this evening. I think the strategy for video ads could be unpleasantly annoying but the audio ones are more likely to work well for everyone. Showcase appearances of Podzinger ads will be in This Week in Tech and in Rocketboom. Podzinger says they are approaching 500,000 media episodes indexed from tens of thousands of media series. The company’s technology lets users search for words used inside media files and begin playing the files at the point where the terms appear. According to the ClickZ article, video ads will be between 10 and 15 seconds long and will be played before the video rolls – even if viewers enter in the middle of a file using Podzinger’s speech recognition technology. I wonder though how many users will accept being sent to a particular point in a file only to be forced to wait through 15 seconds of advertisements before gaining the supposed rapid access of audio search. In some ways the company doesn’t have much of a choice – if they are letting users enter a file at any point according to search and there’s no reason to believe they will consume from that point until the end – then the point of entry is the only point audiences are highly likely to be found. Podzinger’s video ads will be determined relative to both the file contents and the search terms used. VideoEgg has recently introduced a video advertising service as well. Audio ads for podcasters will be opt-in only and the ad revenue will be split 50/50 between publishers and Podzinger. One of the upsides to Podzinger’s podcast advertising service is that the company will be making some audio available through RSS feeds that hasn’t been before. This may be the most realistic way for many radio shows to be turned into podcasts – for advertising services like Podzinger to serve the shows that way. The recently profiled HearHere project from Pluggd is likely to aim to do similar things when it comes to market. Podcast advertising strategies being explored range from this kind of content analysis to geographic targeting. As new media emerge users can become accustomed to being spared both subscription cost and advertisements – when the transition out of that period → Read More
Podzinger, which I wrote about briefly last month along with two other services, officially launched a couple of days ago. Podzinger is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts In my post last month, admittedly when Podzinger was still deep in development, I could not make it work. I am still having problems with core funtionality. Podzinger uses speech recognition technology that is supposedly also used by the CIA and other government organizations to turn podcast audio into searchable text. In a few quick searches, it seemed to be returning relevant results. Results can be listed by date or relevancy. Users can listen to podcasts direclty from the search results, or download the file. Users can also subscribe to the feed or the search results via RSS. This is where I ran into problems. A “killer” feature of Podzinger is the ability to listen just to the snippet that contains the search term. Links appear within the result that can be clicked on to hear the snippet. I see the links and click on them, but cannot get a single one to play. This issue is addressed in the FAQs, and it suggest either using Real Player or being patient. However, I am getting actual errors, not just long delays. When I click on a snippet, why is there sometimes a long delay from the time I hit play until the time I hear the audio playing? Most media players including Quicktime require that the file be downloaded before play begins. You should not experience this delay with RealPlayer, since it supports something called the Range feature of the HTTP1.1 protocol that makes it possible to begin playing almost immediately at any point in an audio file. Assuming they get this working properly, it’s a great way to search for content within podcasts and other audio files. A perfect new feature would be the ability for publishers and users to tag additional content within the file and allow others to jump right to that. Also, Podzinger is obviously fully transcribing the podcasts…although I cannot seem to find the full transcriptions anywhere. If the transcription exists and has a permanent URL, I imagine podcasters would link to it like crazy. Podzinger is supported by advertising and is also rolling out a cost-per-click product to allow podcasters to sell advertising into transcripts. → Read More
