YouTube Archive

comScore is out with their latest U.S. online video report today. Back in May comScore listed Hulu for the first top in the top 10 with 88 million videos viewed. Today Hulu has moved up in comScore’s online video report for October to sixth position with 235 million videos viewed. Pretty amazing growth for a service some called crap before Hulu actually launched.

Other notable facts from the report:

• YouTube passed the 100 million U.S. visitor mark for the month of October
• ESPN listed in tenth position for views – I wonder how many of those views come from their auto-launcher on the espn.com home page (hate that feature)
• All of Google’s video sites pushed out more than 5.3 billion video views for October

This morning we reported on the outage at Technorati. Om reports that Yahoo had some issues today as well. Now it appears that YouTube is out of service as well. We saw a few outages with YouTube earlier this year but the site has been rock solid since.

There’s a bunch of chatter about the outage over on Twitter. I understand there are several people visiting local hospitals because they are unable to watch the latest cat videos. People, please remain calm during this unfortunate time. 

As always, please report in if YouTube is down for you as well.

Update 10:45PM: YouTube does appear to load now however the site loads without the stylesheet.

Update 10:55PM: As c187 notes in the comments, Google’s server "http://s.ytimg.com" appears to be the issue now – and the reason for the style and look not loading.

Update 6AM: Apparently YouTube was down because they decided to bring out a awesome nasty looking new design update. Mike Arrington notes that they have also added a search bar to the embedded video option. My gut tells me they shrunk the header even further to allow for a larger ad space – but the text in the nav just looks like amateurish. I also noticed earlier this week they began trapping the referral url into the links inside the embedded movies. This will tell YouTube/Google where people are grabbing links from.

YouTube co-founder sat down with Spencer Kelly of the BBC to discuss several topics including copyright, revenue models and live streaming.

Hurley noted that when they started YouTube they weren’t familiar with the concept of "rights". They talk about the issues with Viacom and Hurley points to many brands actually wanting their videos on YouTube as they reach the company’s core customers.

On the topic of revenue models, Hurley said that the new click to buy will be one piece along with ads as the ads within the videos are more engaging than traditional display ads.

Kelly attempts to get Hurley to talk about costs for hosting, bandwidth, etc. but Hurley won’t share any figures.

Lastly the two talk about live streaming on YouTube. Hurley says that they are looking at new ways of engaging one another on YouTube and live streaming might be a piece of that but most importantly they will take their time on implementing these new engagement methods. 

Unfortunately BBC does not allow for embedding so you will need to watch the interview on their site.

I thought this commercial was pretty funny. Nothing worse than someone yapping on the phone while you are trying to do some business. Bigfoot makes an appearance in the video too. Happy Friday everyone!

Shipping company DHL wanted to get the word out about their online tracking services in Beijing. They created two campaigns and used YouTube to help spread the videos further than if they only placed them on their DHL China Web site. The idea behind both videos is to show that you can track your package at any time using their online tracking system. I will give you a moment to take it all in.

Here we see DHL delivery agents wearing sandwich boards that have a mouse arrow on them. I am guessing the unions here in the U.S. have a provision to not allow delivery agents to walk around with huge arrows on them as they deliver packages.

And then we have the DHL delivery vans also sporting a mouse arrow.

The delivery agent has no URL on their uniform or on the arrow – the van has a small URL on it. That’s where I’d focus DHL.

Compete is out with their latest online video market share report. As anyone with a pulse could guess, YouTube/Google is still dominating the market. YouTube is up 14% from a year ago while half of the top players are down from a year ago. This report from Compete is really about where people are watching online video. What I’d love to see is for Compete to compare the video hosting players in terms of where content producers are placing their media.

What I am seeing with YouTube is that more consumer brands are leveraging the YouTube platform. If YouTube wants to generate real revenue, this is where it is. Sure there’s money in pre-roll ads, but partnering with large consumer brands will provide YouTube with a more level revenue stream. We will have to see over time how loyal YouTube users feel about brands invading their cat video sanctuary.

Check out the Compete posting for more detailed analysis about Jokeroo.

As I create more videos and have more discussions with online video talent, the conversation seems to move many times to finding the optimum hosting and distribution structure for video. I want to make sure my viewers never hit a dead end and can easily find other videos to view from the series. Since at least half of my videos are business-oriented, the idea of putting them on YouTube and hoping for the "viral effect" is not attractive. Earlier this year I wrote about the online video market here in NYC and I see it continuing to expand today.

Currently I am using Viddler almost exclusively for my videos. I like Viddler because their player allows for in-stream commenting and their upload function is easy-to-use. I find the uploading function on YouTube to be absolute crap, can’t they even offer an upload status bar?!? For the purposes of this discussion, we will only discuss pre-recorded video content and not live services (Mogulus, Ustream) or mobile video streaming (Kyte, Qik, Flixwagon).

I get the idea behind services like TubeMogul which put your content everywhere and I will probably look at doing this as well. But it’s critical from my standpoint that you select a video sharing/hosting partner to work with in which you can build your video brand. This means that the player that’s used on the video creator’s site remain consistent over time. Some video content creators are being paid to use services and I see this trend continuing as the video creation market expands and hosting networks fight to get out of the commodity business.

There are a number of indie video stars on the scene today. I’ve selected Justine and Gary Vaynerchuk to use as examples with regards to how they use various video hosting networks for their videos and shows. When I check out Justine’s Web site, she seems to use YouTube as her first choice and it’s clear that this strategy has helped her with growing her brand. Justine has over 18,000 subscribers on YouTube. These subscribers drive massive views to her videos. She uses Viddler as well for some videos and all of her videos are distributed there as well. Gary Vaynerchuk at WineLibraryTV uses Viddler for the main player on the site. Gary also has a distribution deal with Revision3 which publishes a shorter wine show on Revision3 and other video hosting providers including YouTube.

There are more options than ever for video hosting – from the most basic YouTube through working with distribution partners like ForYourImagination who can produce, record and package the shows. Viddler, Vimeo, Veoh all sit in the middle and I’d consider blip.tv a "show" distributor.

Below is the setup I have been considering for the videos I create on CN. My goal is to find the best combination of:

• reaching the largest audience
• using the best technology
• using a player with good usability for the viewer
• outside distribution to as many sources as possible
• tracking and analytics
• ability to monetize the videos over time — either with cpm views or finding a sponsor

Business Shows:

These are videos I shoot of product demos and also include our interviews like the one we shot with Dina Kaplan last week. I am looking at using blip.tv for these videos. blip.tv can offer me a gallery player to allow viewers to watch any video they like. blip.tv also has an advertising network and also works with shows to find sponsors. This is very attractive to me – especially in the beginning. blip.tv will also distribute the shows to iTunes which could work relatively well for creating loyal viewers.

Fun Videos:

These videos include the Twitter Song and How to Effectively Quit Blogging. I see continuing to post these videos on Viddler because the interactivity and community there is a perfect fit for these videos.

Conclusion

I’d love some feedback on my thoughts and suggested video network usage for CN. What am I missing in creating the right mix? The next mission is to get a better video setup and move away from my tiny Canon Elph to something a bit more professional.

Editor’s note: I am not paid (nor have I been) for using any video service to-date.