Video Articles

comScore starts off another year of online video tracking and so do we.  Many have reported on the decline in video views for January 2010 when compared to December 2009.  However, even with the decline of 2.5%, when you look at the numbers year over year, video views in the US were actually up almost 120% [...]

Livestream recently let loose a seriously long-winded open letter to content and event owners seeking to find a streaming partner. In it they included a ‘zero tolerance’ statement about piracy and a lot of finger pointing at other major live streaming sites.My first question is: is this necessary? I’m reminded of something parents say about [...]

Over on the YouTube API Blog they’re announcing an upcoming change to video page URLs that is interesting.  It’s not a change that video viewers and every day users will notice, but is one that could impact developers–which is why it’s showing up on the API Blog instead of the standard YouTube blog. The URL is [...]

When asked the biggest challenges in online video advertising this year, top executives at media agencies like Starcom and MediaVest say they’re most eager to target audiences better and to access more sophisticated data around viewership. At last week’s 4A’s conference in San Francisco that drew top brass at ad agencies and brands, I caught [...]

A great number of Internet marketing specialists will wade into the waters of literature and publish a book about how to succeed at one of the many marketing methods available online.  A large number of these people choose to fill their publications with common knowledge, fluffy prose, and otherwise-unhelpful information.  Thankfully, some of these individuals [...]

The winners of the Open Video Contest were announced last Thursday at the Wireside Chat with Lawrence Lessig. We’d like to send a big congratulations to Amani Channel, our first place prize winner, and runners up Elvina Beck, Kasia Cieplak, and Raffaella Traniello. The contest really highlighted the diversity and talent of the open video community, and we offer our sincerest thanks for all of the great submissions we received. Lastly, our thanks to our five all star judges: Jesse Dylan; Mitchell Baker; Jimmy Wales; Elizabeth Stark; and Matt Asay.

Read on to see the winners…

Amani is heading to SXSW Interactive and Elvina, Kasia, and Rafaella will be able to record some more videos with their new Flip Minos. In case you missed it, here are their winning submissions:

First Place — Amani Channel
“Amani Channel Talks About Open Video”

Direct video link: [OGG] [MP4]

Runner Up — Elvina Beck
“What Open Video Means… to Me”

Direct video link: [OGG] [MP4]

Runner Up — Kasia Cieplak
“Robots <3 Open Video”

Direct video link: [OGG] [MP4]

Runner Up — Raffaella Traniello
“Open Video” (in Italian)

Direct video link: [OGG] [MP4]

Enjoy!

This has been one of the busier weeks for viral video that I can remember… at least in terms of the sheer volume of buzzed-about vids.  Let’s jump right into our look at three of the best, breaking them down to find their recipe for success. The Super Achievement You may remember the last time the band [...]

Everyone is finding some benefit to using online video, even the scientific community. They’re not really using it as advertising and marketing but more as a way to connect with the public in general and help them understand where all that research money goes. For those that don’t know, I am a scientist. It comes from [...]

ReelSEO's Grant Crowell asks Harvard Law Professor and political activist Lawrence Lessig, what's in it for businesses to be more lax in their enforcement of copyrighted video based on fair use culture?

YouTube, the leading destination for video sharing online, has announced today that they are rolling out their Auto-Captioning service on all videos.  In a press conference at their San Bruno campus, their Director of Product Management, Hunter Walk, gave a walkthrough of the technology for members of the media. You may remember that YouTube began rolling [...]

Trailers (”previews”) are film advertisements for feature films that will be exhibited in the future. The term “trailer” comes from their having originally been shown at the end. That practice did not last long, because patrons tended to leave the theater after the films ended, but the name has stuck. Movie trailers have now become extremely [...]

Vimeo decided it was high time there were some super cool ultra-modern video analytics for Vimeo Plus users, so now you have them.  The analytics for Vimeo Plus users needed a nifty name because typing that all the time is tiring. So they’ve called it Vimeo Plus Stats. It slices! It dices! Watch as it cuts through [...]

AccuStream Research says that there was nearly a 20% jump in “professionally produced, hosted or syndicated online media and entertainment video views”. So either we’re all going pro or the pros have come to see the value in it. Personally,  I think if you’re reading ReelSEO, you are a pro! Alright, enough sucking up [...]

If you haven’t already signed up for SES 2010 New York (that’s “Search Engine Strategies 2010 New York” for the abbreviation-impaired), it’s not too late.  The conference and expo hall start on March 23, with partnered training beginning on the 22nd. As usual, there are several levels at which you can register, with an option for [...]

If you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area next Wednesday, check out the Kaltura Developer Meetup with Michael Dale, the creator of the HTML5 media JavaScript library used by the next version of Wikipedia.

Come learn how it can be used to easily extend any web based application with video capabilities, and help brainstorm on ideas and plans for open video projects. Plus, meet cool people working on open video (and grab some pizza!) For more details, get in touch! Visit the library’s project page to download and tinker with it ahead of time.

When/Where

• When: Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 18:00 – 21:00
• Where: Wikimedia offices, 3rd Floor at 149 New Montgomery St (San Francisco).

So yesterday I wrote this totally awesome article about this. Unfortunately, Wordpress did an eat and delete on it. So now you’re stuck with this far less witty and entertaining, yet still as informative, rewrite. My apologies…send hate to Wordpress please. So Implix, who I found out sells an email marketing services, did a [...]

Lawrence Lessig’s presentation last Thursday at OVA’s first Wireside Chat was a huge success. Over 3,000 unique visitors tuned in, plus hundreds more watched at over 40 local screening events. But since Lessig’s slidecast of the 45-minute talk contained 15-second clips of copyrighted music by Warner Music Group, the YouTube version was literally silenced!

Lessig’s talk—in case you missed it—was about, of all things, the importance of fair use and current copyright issues. His presentation was highly critical and thoroughly educational—as TechDirt put it, “There could be no clearer example of fair use.” But yesterday, the YouTube-hosted video was scrubbed of its audio track, rendering the presentation useless. (The talk has since been restored, and remains available at Lessig’s blip.tv page—highlighting the importance of a broad, diverse video ecosystem without single points of failure.)

It’s still unclear whether the takedown was the result of a DMCA request or due to YouTube’s ContentID system, which automatically scans videos for copyrighted material and takes action. Luckily, Lessig has legal expertise and counternotice know-how. He filed a counterclaim informing YouTube that his video on fair use was, in fact, fair use. It doesn’t matter why the video was taken down; the lack of human review is no excuse for a serious flaw in the way YouTube handles copyright complaints.

Fair use, a doctrine in US law that allows for short transformative uses of copyrighted works, lies not only at the heart of remix culture, but also education, news, commentary, and criticism. When YouTube utilizes filtering systems like ContentID, or when media companies improperly take advantage of the DMCA, important expression is stifled. We constantly see examples of fair users being shut down; this policy of guilty-before-proven-innocent runs counter to the internet’s foundational values of freedom and openness.

We need to run with this. The fact that a video about fair use would be taken down for copyright infringement is bad press for YouTube, bad press for WMG, and bad press especially for the legal and technical system we have in place today. The importance of pushing to fix these flaws and create an open video ecosystem has never been stronger.

Media agencies and brands are hungry for data — they want better data that they can use to target their potential customers. That’s why this week’s New Media Minute takes a detailed look at a data-driven deal and a new research tool and explains why they matter in the online video [...]

Unhappy with the look and feel, YouTube has decided to do more with the space alloted them. That means more nifty changes for you to peruse should you opt-in to do so. But what exactly have they fiddled about with this time round? Well, of course I’ve got the scoop of poop for you. Luckily, it’s [...]

When I first took the dive into online video, I quickly found that there was a steep learning curve – especially with regard to new terms like codecs, video file formats, compression and the like. At ReelSEO, Ive had several readers ask me to clarify the differences between mp4, AAC, flv, mov, H.264, VP6, Spark, AAC, [...]