For most people, watching Web video is predominantly a streamed experience on their computers. But an important and substantial portion of Web video is still downloaded to be watched later, or transferred to a different screen (usually an iPod, but sometimes a flat-screen TV). The problem with downloads is that they don’t fit neatly into the advertising model that rules most other Web video.
Some companies try to charge for video downloads on iTunes, but many simply give away their videos for free as downloadable podcasts. (In fact, quickly browsing iTunes seems to turn up more free videos in at least the TV show category than paid downloads). Serving up videos on iTunes in many respects is a loss leader for many online video producers. They need to do it because their most loyal viewers subscribe to their shows through iTunes, but then they have trouble selling those very same viewers to advertisers. Arguably, these are a show’s most valuable viewers because they keep coming back for more.
Earlier today at the Beet.TV Online Video Summit (which I co-moderated with Cnet’s Dan Farber and Beet.TV’s Andy Plesser), blip.tv CEO Mike Hudack revealed that his company has found a way to dynamically insert ads from DoubleClick into video downloads on iTunes and elsewhere.
Blip.tv is a video publishing platform that claims about 50 million views a month across many different Websites and distribution channels. (Last week, it raised a round from Bain Capital). Hudack estimates that 15 to 18 percent of blip.tv’s traffic comes through video downloads, mostly from iTunes.
For the past six months or so, blip.tv has been experimenting with placing pre-roll, post-roll, and overlay ads in some iTunes videos. These ads are served by DoubleClick and have hyperlinks that make it easy to track when somebody clicks on an ad. This measurement only works when someone is actually watching the video on their computer inside iTunes, which Hudack estimates happens 50 to 75 percent of the time. For the rest of the videos that are watched on iPods, iPhones, and Apple TVs, whatever ad that was inserted at teh time the video was delivered will be shown, with no tracking capability.
But for all of those videos watched on a computer inside the iTunes player, instead of sticking in an ad that may become irrelevant in two weeks, blip.tv can insert ads from ad campaigns that are currently running and which are targeted to the type of content people are watching. For instance, Puma was able to use blip.tv to target women who watch golf-related videos on iTunes.
What is missing, of course, is the ability to insert and track ads on other devices such as iPods, iPhones, and TVs. As long as these devices are connected to the Internet, it should be possible to insert ads on videos watched on them as well. And surely there is a way to asynchronously insert ads and gather back tracking information for devices that connect only intermittently. Perhaps clicking on an ad while offline will generate a canned message, whereas clicking on it when online will serve up a new ad. There are many ways to do this, but in order for all of this video to be worth anything there needs to be a consistent way to serve ads against them, no matter where or how people are watching.
Update: Here is the clip from the roundtable, courtesy of Beet.TV.
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and that should make us happy or sad …or no comment at all !
Are there other companies out there doing this type of thing? If not, then I would say blip.tv has really landed on a goldmine, whether it can use the technology for other devices outside of iTunes. If there are, then you are right in what you say about the need to have the ability to serve ads at any point.
Though, we are talking specifically about ads the user must point and click to, correct? Is this where web video is going? The reason I ask is because having a user click away from the video will distract them from watching the video, which may deter people from clicking. However, if the ads are simply video commercials themselves, without a need to require a click, the user may be more apt to stay with the video. I know most people will say “but then people will just skip through the video.” To that I would encourage them to develop a technology that disables the video’s fast forward and rewind capabilities (leave the ability to pause, stop, and play the video) during the commercial segments.
There you go, Silicon Valley. A free idea for you.
You mean like Hulu? You are such an innovator…
Well, your idea isn’t really an idea because a lot of companies do something like that already. But I agree with you that they should focus on impression based ads, not click based. Because users will obviously not want to move away from the video by clicking on an ad.
I agree that a lot of companies do ads in the spots, but are they dynamic like what blip.tv is talking about?
Our new and upcoming release of iDesktop.tv is exactly what we are trying to-do with your YouTube videos. Where you select your video and ad videos from YouTube and then create a pretty player. You then add pre, mid and post videos.
Look at the examples here
http://beta.idesktop.tv/embed-examples
Join the beta if you’re interested.
Have fun.
I’m from Canada, and have never had the chance to use Hulu. Maybe you could enlighten those of us who aren’t from the glory land of the USA?
The problem is that since iTunes’s native media player does not include any functionality to make calls to an adserver, send tracking etc, that it requires the user to download and install a plugin for iTunes. Which lets be honest, is not a popular idea.
Check http://www.volomedia.com (and also http://www.kiptronic.com) - both of which offer variants of this already and have done for some time.
Mark,
We don’t require users to download an iTunes plug-in.
- allan@blip
What does this mean for adsense publishers?
That is the last thing a user wants to see. If someone pays for an itunes video, they should not have to worry about annoying ads that may pop up if they are to want to watch the video on their ipod. They can of course fast forward through it, but that shouldn’t even be an issue. You are paying the luxury to not have to withstand commercials.
Craig
http://www.budgetpulse.com
I believe the point is to implement this on free videos.
VoloMedia dynamically inserts ads at the server level for podcasts downloaded through iTunes. It is trackable. http://www.volomedia.com
Ask A Ninja was doing this two years ago in terms of clickable ads in downloads in iTunes. It is just the file format that is clickable in the iTunes player. Not a big deal. Serving it via DoubleClick is the real news. Nice. Blip is cool. Check out Volo trying to get business in the comments. Typical of them. They have a mystery spyware plug-in that no one can ever find. How about reporting how many active users for your spyware Volo. Put it out there publicly and let someone audit it. Cheesy trying to get business from the comment trail.
This had better not start happening on paid iTunes downloads. It’s like putting in a Disney VHS for my kids. I’ve paid to watch 20 minutes of commercials followed by 45 minutes of content.
According Furrier, Blip is finally catching up. Check out his ripping commentary http://furrier.org/
Make sure to read Furrier’s post at the permalink (http://furrier.org/2008/10/28/techcrunch-reporting-innovation-from-2005-bliptv-finally-gets-with-video-ad-insertion/) so that you can see the comment thread going on there.
I chimed in to point out to John that:
a) This requires no client-side software;
b) The ads are tracked at impression time using DoubleClick — meaning that you don’t have to count download numbers to figure out how many “views” you’re getting and then how many “impressions” you’re getting. You actually get to know how many impressions you’re getting according to the IAB standards. This is a first.
more noise and clutter
And Apple is OK with this? Maybe they want to be the ones inserting the ads.
Castfire does something similar. Though, granted, not quite as dynamic. We’re using them for one of our iTunes video podcasts:
http://phobos.apple.com/WebObj.....=118677811
As far as I know, Ask a Ninja (referenced above) uses the same platform as well. It allows us to insert ads based on a template structure, keeping the pre- and/or post-rolls up-to-date.
Blip’s recognition of DART’s importance underscores how this medium is very mainstream, even with mid/long tail publishers.
Three Months ago, Kiptronic’s major media customers benefited from its launch of kipTraffic – both DoubleClick’s DART for Publishers and Microsoft’s Atlas AdManager ad trafficking.
Kiptronic brings major media publishers dynamic video ad insertion with no changes to the publishing process due to the company’s integration across the major CDNs. Now with kipTraffic, publishers can traffic ads once and have those campaigns appear wherever the content goes - online and offline including iPods, iPhones, PC Apps (iTunes, Adobe Media Player), Internet connected devices (TVs, games, etc) and widgets.
high-quality ads? why not, so we can clearly read the brand…