Along with the Ajaxy, new look, Microsoft is introducing a new video ad-serving system based on how long someone is watching videos on its site, instead of on how many videos he or she sees. Unfortunately, Microsoft’s idea of embracing a less intrusive ad model is, according to it press release, to show viewers ads “no more than once every three minutes during their viewing session.”
Gee, thanks. So that means if you watch videos that are three minutes or longer, you could be shown one ad per clip. How is that an improvement over what viewers on MSN and other ad-supported video sites must endure today? Even on TV, they have the decency not to bombard you that often.
I am not sure a time-based approach is the way to go. From a consumer’s point of view, I can tolerate about one 10-second ad per every three or four videos. And if I’m watching a longer video (anything longer than five minutes), the instant the video is interrupted by an ad, I’m probably going to click away. Watching video on a laptop, where you are used to controlling the situation and clicking away to other sites incessantly, puts you in a different mindset than watching on TV. That’s why newer types of ads, such as click-able ad overlays or ad bugs that crawl across the screen, are more promising. Give consumers more control over what types of ads they see and when they seem and, guess what? They may actually watch more ads. The old-TV model of interrupting the viewer experience is something the Web video industry needs to leave behind. (Easier said than done, I know. But someone with the heft of an MSN needs to just do it and show advertisers that there is a better way).
Your first blog post, nice. =)
Hope you guys like this, we worked long and hard to craft the new look.
http://fakestev...er.blogspot.com
Oh nevermind, wrong post. At any rate, it looks like you have messed up a bit of html there, as the text links to:
*/2007/09/26/msn-videos-new-look/Left
Microsoft does upsets entrepreneurs & Startups. Entrepreneurs have worked damn hard.
I heard Microsoft live is doing Natural language search which is ten times better than Powerset.com
Of course, mircosoft already have Natural language search. Take an example, Microsoft word 97 with grammar checker. You can easily write on ASP.NET
I feel soo bad for Powerset.com. Their hype is failing…
What happened to MSN Soapbox btw? I’ve heard about that some 1 year back.
Deelip
http://www.nintynine.org
People use MSN Video? If a tree falls in the forrest and no one is there to see it, did it really fall? Same goes with “new” page of MSN video.
This concept played out on sites like GameVideos.com and Soapbox works well although sometimes I do find myself needing a results page URL.
This site does not work with Safari; typical for MSN…
Epic failure.
Hey this is a great post. It looks like MSN is going through some majore changes. Keep up the good work.
except for magazines, i have never seen a medium where the content is worth suffering through ads…. i never click them, automatically hate anybody who uses pop-ups, will never waste time on any video where there is ads, never watch television because of ads… it just isnt worth it to me to have my attention abused…. i wonder if others are like me, and if the ad revenue model of web sites is sustainable… we shall see
This post seems to come from someone who has never used MSN video and all of the comments seem to be coming from a completely different market than those who use MSN video. You missed the fundamental reason why MSN video is popular, will be very successful and continue to rack in money for Microsoft. The latest version of Windows Live Messenger has links to MSN’s video scrolling with the latest videos all day. I know I’ve been intrigued to click on those ads and millions of others will too. Plus, marketers would be impressed with the taglines that MSN has created to encourage people to click on them. I wouldn’t discount what MSN is doing in this space, even if it’s going for a very different market than most startups featured on Techcrunch.
“The notion (borrowed from regular text search) that people want to toggle back and forth between video search and watching the actual videos is going to go away soon enough.”
I really think the above is a poor comparison. People can listen to a video while they search which is something you couldn’t do with regular text search. Don’t be surprised if this becomes the defacto standard for video search.
The page looks nice and the ajax thing ..yes the ads are nice .i hope the windows mssg ads do the trick for MSN Video’s
The actual layout of the page is weird. I keep look at the banner rather than the video player because it is in the space where ads are usually displayed. Maybe just convention but…
Also it is interesting to see that the actual look and feel is mainly just a generic clone of a corporate portal video page. There is so many more innovative ways of using layout and integration with video and it looks like MS has just gone with a standard slighly boring layout. No#1 – the ability of the user to customize layout??!!
With regards to the ads — well I would prefer streaming video with ads to subscription based download. I agree that there MSN could have thought more about the new opportunities such as ticker-ads, bug-placements and other less broadcast generic ad formats
It’s a good effort, intuitive and user-friendly, like Live image search’s interface, which has since become better than Google’s.
What I don’t get is why they didn’t put this under their Live brand. The web address is “videos.msn.com,” and on the page they have a little blurb asking you users to memorize “msnvideos.com” while what they should have been doing is putting it under Live.
Also is this a Beta? — When I try and watch the History channel stuff the audio stops at 2:14 and the video continues? If I press forward or pause the video stop and I get served MSNBC in stead of history channel. Strange….
Anyway a little step in the right direction for MSN still not very convincing as of yet though.