Last night at an event in NYC dubbed “Videocracy,” YouTube gave marketers a sneak peak at some upcoming initiatives. Silicon Alley Insider’s Michael Learmonth tried to get in, but was thrown out. Luckily, Deep Focus CEO Ian Schafer took notes. Here is what he learned:
—YouTube is excited about its active sharing feature that lets YouTube watchers signal to other viewers when they are watching a particular video (if you turn the setting on, anyone watching the video at the same time as you will see your username on the right side of the screen).
—Better video-editing tools are on the way. (What took you so long?).
—Video recommendations will soon be launched based on what you have already watched (similar to Amazon’s collaborative filtering, people who liked this book also liked that one).
—YouTube wants to be everywhere. It will continue to distribute its videos beyond the Web browser to mobile devices and large, flat-screen TVs in the living room.
—For marketers, the “real news was YouTube’s announcement of an impending launch of advanced analytics tools. You’ll be able to see where video views are coming from (geographically and site-wise), as well as many other data points. This will be a huge help to advertisers trying to extract more success metrics and data from their YouTube efforts.”
YouTube is also planning some more “Tentpole Content Initiatives” to draw a mass audience, much like its presidential debate partnership with CNN. These will include:
—The YouTube Games. A takeoff on the Olympics featuring homemade videos of the “wacky wide world of weird sports.”
—Living Legends. Videos of living legends like the Rolling Stones.
—The YouTube Global Gathering. A worldwide event that will be broadcast from multiple locations on YouTube.
Thanks for sharing, Ian!
How about higher quality video? I want that but Im not willing to stop using youtube because its such a huge community.
Can we see live video in YouTube.. That should be nice
yeah bob, you’re right.
and I think a lot of work will go into separating the good stuff from the crap that is plenty on YT.
However, the “good stuff” is a very subjective thing, so cleaning will not be an easy task…
Anyway, it’s good to see the leader improving its product.
A lot of things seems need to be done, some are quite ambitious, but YouTube isn’t producing anything itself, not sure it will win the competition over the TV media who are trying to get a share of online video. And bandwidth-wise, some stupid ISPs still limit the monthly usage, high def video, not quite ready yet, although I am not quite sure if we need to think about high def each time we talk about video…coz the contents are more important to YouTube users…they are fun and original, if ppl care about video quality that much, they won’t go.
I agree with Bob, we really need higher resolution videos, this is getting ridiculous. Vimeo is offering HD content for pete sakes!
hey, we offer (rudimentary) video editing of ANY Youtube video already at Searchles… not just the video you upload. No downloads, all done in Flash. It kicks butt.
http://www.searchles.com/misc/remash
dumbfounder
YouTube stressed that quality WILL be improving. And the video editing they showed went beyond cutting and splicing. Lots of over-the-video additions that some may find tacky (like speech bubbles), but many others will find lots of fun.
Google finally added a page on youtube…
http://www.youtube.com/googlebusiness
I have dozens of videos up on YouTube, and personally the most welcome feature is the “advanced analytics tools”, because I’d like to know where the clicks on my videos come from. Even a rough idea, a la Sitemeter, will satisfy my curiosity.
And I hope YouTube can make the “advanced analytics tools” available for all users, not just the marketers. (YouTube team, are you listening?)
Better yet, if YouTube can just make it possible for users to embed the hit-count meters (like Sitemeter) on their video pages, that will be just dandy. I can do this on Blogger, surely, it is technically feasible on YouTube pages???
This morning I took a dump and it was shaped like a love heart… so appropriate for valentines day
Yes, I have already seen Searchles’ online video Editing tool. I have been using that like crazy. They call it Searchles TV Remash.
We have almost 400 videos on YouTube, and add 7-10 videos per week. We welcome the analytics and quality improvements, but what about some improved RSS features? When will we get RSS for every playlist that we create? We can make RSS for all YouTube features and our favorites, but what about the playlists? We also need some more flexibility with the profile design too. Oh, and can we make videos that are removed automatically disapperar from the playlists, or at least not stop the playback. One thing I like about my other widgets is that they remove videos that are not available and keep playing! Anyway, THANKS to YouTube for the changes, keep them coming!
Interesting, but until YouTube goes HD this doesn’t make much difference to me.
@bob
Youtube can’t improve video quality for the same reason you use it!
It’s a huge community and it will be totally impossible that everybody access high quality video.
I don’t know how much Google pay each day for Youtube servers but it will be absolutely unaffordable with HD.
That’s why small video sharing sites propose HD (because of a little audience) and Youtube is forced to low quality video.
Unless they give access to a paying premium service…
the problem with youtube it’s not its ability to innovate with more services and better video quality but rather it’s problem to monetize effectively its traffic.
A subscription model should be introduced to open a new revenue stream for HD and other premium services.
A good idea that they haven’t considered so far is collaborative script writing which can help produce video. i.e a group of users write the scenarios and another group of talented people produced the video. Can turn it into an online soap opera in the long run. Monetizing the video is not a problem because you can syndicate the content to mass tv in the future.
That’s the next big hit.
http://spy.myaboo.com/
HD is for couch potatoes. YouTube is for active participants in this new online video revolution.
HD and YouTube are two different animals, as YouTube fan (wink) Mark Cuban will tell you.
Asking for HD on YouTube is like going to an Italian restaurant and asking for sushi.
hi
to add to my previous comments, let me say that generally if you engage in the mass public service ( like youtube and facebook which has a large user base) , there is a disproportion of the amount of money you make and your user base or traffic.
You can have far less users but still be making more money. Youtube needs to consider the commercial side of things if it wants enough money to continue innovating.
It can for example allow third parties to use its bandwith and store/host their videos on its servers. Amazon entered this arena and its paying off
http://spy.myaboo.com
Do you think cable/telcom operators are going to watch bandwidth consumption (as isp provider) go up and viewership of their cable channels go down without doing anything? Of course they are going eventually meter bandwidth and you will pay for your HD stream, VOIP, music, etc. based on usage. You will get your HD, but it won’t be free.
Advertiser analytics: nobody clicked on your ad. People were annoyed.
For advertising they need to do something like overlay.tv in which advertisers can place links on objects in the videos its great for product placement.
I like the feature of advanced analytics tools that will enable advertiser to track videos geographically
I like active sharing. I think its a good idea. YouTube have to keep on adding new features to stay ahead of the competition.
Oh, I guess the Swedes at http://www.jaycut.com will be following upgrade #2 closely.
If YouTube introduce annoying overlay advertising, consumers will look elsewhere for their video and there will always be a video site willing to stay ad-free.
YouTube is a great service but not a great business yet. There are lots of innovative services surfacing in the 2.0 era but there is no innovation in business models.
I’d never pay $10/month for Facebook but I certainly would for HD YouTube.
There is actually a rumour saying that Google is interested in Jaycut.
acesse http://www.videolog.tv
I want better sound quality @ youtube!
1.title:Take YouTube Videos with you
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