Google partners with agencies to research online video

This is an interesting development.

Google is seeking to increase its understanding of how users consume Web video and interact with advertising. To improve the company’s insight it will be working with agencies, focusing on YouTube.

Google is also working on an incentive programme for agencies to encourage buying across the company's video display network, and so drive Web video advertising growth and develop scalable and effective campaigns.

This development is to be welcome but hopefully all concerned realise that YouTube type hosting and delivery is yesterday’s use of video. Still very interesting, but it is looking backward rather than to the future.

Still you can’t blame the company trying to sell more ads. Dick Stroud

Do's and Don'ts of Online Video Advertising

Two things. Firstly, the Web video report can now be found as part of AdAge.

Secondly, the most recent edition contains an article about web video advertising from the marketing director of Turnhere the company I reckon will make a fortune from the Web video revolution.

It is a short sharp punchy article so I will not do it the disservice of trying to summarise. Just read it. Dick Stroud

YouTube tests geo video search

YouTube is apparently trying to improve its search features. It seems the company plans to broadly add geographic search to the site so that people can find video clips tagged with specific locations, according to a report from the blog NewTeeVee.

The company is already testing the geographic search feature by including a thumbnail of Google Maps in a search for a specific location, e.g. "London techy events," along with related videos from the area. People can also move the location dot on a Google Map to see new related videos in that area.

Over a year ago, YouTube began allowing people who uploaded videos to tag clips with a location. But the company had yet to offer the ability to search videos by geography. Meanwhile, Google Earth had started giving people links to location-specific videos in a YouTube layer.

Video and the future of the Internet

How many people would want to take the time to download from YouTube and listen to a three-year-old reciting the plot of the first Star Wars movie. Seven million people.

That is small beer compared with watching "The Evolution of Dance" on YouTube (87 million downloads) which is equivalent to transmitting 250,000 DVDs' worth of data across the Internet. Wow.

YouTube is just the tip of the iceberg. Netflix now streams videos to its subscribers over the Internet, and both Amazon and Apple's iTunes sell movies and episodes of TV shows online. Peer-to-peer file-sharing networks have gradu­ated from transferring four-minute songs to hour-long ­Sopranos episodes. And all of these videos are higher quality--and thus more bandwidth intensive--than YouTube's.

These examples are taken from the start of an excellent article appearing in Technology Review that is about how the Internet might, or might not, cope with the deluge of video that is washing through its backbone. Dick Stroud

Two interesting storefronts that use Web video

What do you think of this ad? Maybe not.

The really interesting thing is the company behind this shopping channel (The Talk Market). It is like an Amazon market place but using video. Funny I should think of Amazon.

According to Business Week the company has just received an equity investment from Amazon. Looks like a smart move by Amazon - wait and see how things develop, if it looks like the user generated video model is successful, then buy the company and incorporate into the Amazon business model. Clever.

Turnheretravel.tv is another interesting outfit. Like all of the stuff this company does the quality is excellent. I wonder why they don't enable embedding of the video? Dick Stroud

How to Maximize Search Engine Optimization for Web Video

This looks to be an excellent article about SEO and Web video. Definitely worth a read.

These are the top tips

Tip 1: Make your tags relevant
Tip 2: The more tags the merrier
Tip 3: Use consistent tags
Tip 4: Use adjectives in tags
Tip 5: Use tags that describe categories
Tip 6: Match titles and descriptions to tags
Tip 7: Don't use natural language in tags

If you haven’t already you should subscribe to Webvideo Report where this article was sourced. Dick Stroud

Demographics of your YouTube video watchers

Ever wondered who on earth is watching all of those YouTube videos you have uploaded? Now you can.

What a great feature. The above shows the demographic breakdown of the views of two ads on my YouTube channel. Lots of young guys watching the beautiful M&S models. A much more mature group of females watching the Dove Pro.Age ads. Dick Stroud