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July 15, 2008

Viacom-YouTube Reach Privacy Deal over User Info

Google's YouTube won't be required, after all, to hand over user IDs to Viacom.

The measure is part of an agreement reached yesterday in U.S. District Court in New York City in connection with a Viacom copyright infringement lawsuit against YouTube. In that lawsuit, Viacom claims Google failed to stop the distribution of Viacom content on YouTube.

Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered Google to hand over to Viacom the following information: YouTube user IDs, visitor IDs, and the IP address, which is used to connect computers over the Internet. Under the new agreement, Google will be able to substitute the IDs and IP addresses for "unique values." As a result, the privacy of users should be better protected, while Viacom should still be able to establish what videos were watched.

"We are pleased to report that Viacom, MTV and other litigants have backed off their original demand for all users' viewing histories," the "YouTube Team" wrote on YouTube's blog.

Most visitors posting entries on the YouTube blog applauded the development. "thanks, Youtube. It's good to know that at least one organization is committed to our privacy," wrote arcadianraider.

Others asked when Google would reduce the amount of information it obtains from users. "Great! So when are you going to let us OPT OUT of information collection?" asked thestranger.

Posted by Anna Maria Virzi at 10:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

June 2, 2008

Quote of the Day: YouTube's Brian Cusack

"Our success story today is a success story about users and traffic. It's not a success story about monetization. That's coming... With a site as large as ours is we have the opportunity to give you cuts of every segment you might be looking for."

-Brian Cusack, YouTube sales manager, speaking at IAB's UGC and Social Media conference.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 22, 2008

Quote of the Day: Michael Eisner on YouTube

"The salacious and the stupid have been traditionally the avant garde and the advance guard of the more high-minded and definitely more profitable fare. The Internet will be no different. YouTube is celebrated as a completely revolutionary concept -- and it is. The ability for anyone, anywhere to create and distribute short-form entertainment that can be seen by anyone else, anywhere else is an extraordinary development. But in many ways, YouTube is very old news. It is to the Internet what the nickelodeon was to the movies -- a very preliminary installment of what is to come."

-Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, speaking at Microsoft's advance08 event yesterday.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 15, 2008

YouTube Adds Demographics Tab to Analytics Tools

YouTube has added a demographics tab to its Insight analytics platform for video uploaders. The feature makes it easy for creators to break down viewer patterns by age, gender or a combination of the two. The data come from birthday and gender data people are asked to share when they set up YouTube accounts.

The feature addition was announced in a blog post today from product manager Nick Jakobi. That post also notes many creators are altering their upload schedules based on learnings from the analytics tools, including insights about exactly when users are tuning in. In previous conversations with marketers, ClickZ learned that many agencies have used the platform to glean some new insights from old videos.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

April 14, 2008

Sony U.K. Froths Up Another Viral

The ad team for the Sony Bravia team in the U.K. has released a series of viral videos on the Web: First there was "Balls," then "Paint," and Bunnies followed. A new series of videos, Sony Foam City, made its way on YouTube, and a supporting microsite for Sony's new line of digital cameras an camcorders.

The video is a similar piece where a neighborhood of an urban area is taken over by, in this case foam, and it's affect on the area residents. Many are armed with Sony cameras to capture the event.

Posted by Enid Burns at 5:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 10, 2008

Live By the Crowd, Die By the Crowd

The SXSW conference has been all about bottom-up media; individuals and crowds creating, selecting and elevating content above and beyond whats doled out to them by traditional media outlets and corporations.

Sure, Business Week journalist Sarah Lacy's keynote interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg yesterday was a trainwreck, an abortion, went down in flames and every other metaphor for disaster. Why? Because Sarah was all about Sarah, all the time (except when she was dissing her audience). The media took her to task for it. So did the blogosphere and the Twittersphere (to which her "screw all you guys" response bears special mention).

In real time.

Her self-justification in this YouTube interview only makes something bad something much worse indeed.

Ironically, Sarah has, in unifying thousands of conference attendees against her (and providing the burning topic for conversation at last night's parties) become the most valuable object lesson in what's so endlessly discussed here in Austin. The word made flesh.

If you doubt the pundits, experts, panelists and pontificators, the Story of Sarah proves them right. In a highly weird way, it's almost the best thing that could have happened here. Except, of course, for Sarah herself.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 8, 2008

Mazda Creates YouTube-Inspired Interactive Video

Mazda's just posted new interactive video on its site promoting two of its sportier vehicles, the RX-8 and the MX-5 Miata. The Drive allows users to chose a vehicle, a strip of road, music, and camera angle to virtually test-drive the car in an "immersive online drive experience."

Created by interactive shop Sarkissian Mason, the company says the campaign was inspired by YouTubers who were posting video of their own Mazda driving experiences online. Sport car fans shot footage obtained by strapping cameras on the sides of their cars to emphasize features such as gear-shifting and brake functionality. The Drive is intended to target this type of consumer - presumably, the ones who don't already own Mazdas.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 4, 2008

YouTube Rolls Out Partner Program in the U.K.

YouTube contributors in the U.K. now stand to earn a share of the ad revenue the site makes from their videos.

The 'YouTube Partner Program' was made available to U.K. users for the first time Thursday, and places targeted ads next to user content. The resulting revenue is then divvied up according to the number of views the video receives.

Contributors retain copyright and are not tied in to an exclusive agreement, meaning that videos can be uploaded and distributed elsewhere on the net. Although the U.K. is the first country to be granted access to the program outside of the U.S. and Canada, the rest of Europe looks likely to follow.

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 30, 2007

Tribune Interactive Joins YouTube Distribution Wave

Tribune Interactive, the online division of the Tribune Company, is looking to capitalize on YouTube's distribution system and has launched a number of channels for its newspaper and television stations.

Tribune papers like the Chicago Tribune and the Orlando Sentinel, and television stations KTLA in Los Angeles or WGN in Chicago, will continue to have their own Web site presences, but each will have a YouTube dedicated channel as well. Michael Dizon, communications manager for Tribune Interactive, repeatedly told me that the expanded distribution that YouTube provides was the big draw.

"We invest a lot of time money and resources on our video content, and this partnership with YouTube is another way of making sure that we make this available to the greatest number of people," he said. "Our long term goal is to continue to populate these Web sites with as much good local content as possible."

The channels include advertising in the form of InVideo overlays, that run with the video content produced by the Tribune's news organizations.

Posted by MatthewNelson at 6:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

November 19, 2007

Google Video Units Hit the U.K.

Google has today announced the availability of its AdSense Video Units in the U.K. and Ireland, following the U.S. launch in October.

As reported by ClickZ News last month, the units allow publishers to display YouTube content within an embedded player on their site. Content-relevant text overlay ads are then displayed within the lower portion of the unit, with ads rotated every 20 seconds. Ads are sold on a CPM or cost-per-click basis.

Publishers can choose categories of video to target their site, specify individual YouTube partners, or have video units automatically target their site with relevant video. In theory this will allow U.K. sites to display U.K.-only content if required or desired. Other than that, the units themselves are identical to their U.S. equivalents. In a press release, David Thacker, group product manager for Google stated the program will "create a new revenue opportunity for publishers and content owners, and help advertisers reach their target audiences in new and innovative ways."

Posted by Jack Marshall at 12:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 14, 2007

Google Earth is a New Home for YouTube Videos

Taking a trip to Paris? Why not check out some YouTube video from the top of the Eiffel Tower? Or better yet, a video review of the restaurants there? That seems to be the opportunity that Google is looking to provide users of its Google Earth mapping system.

The search giant is now providing YouTube videos connected to specific locations within Google Earth by allowing the geotagging of videos. And although Google is touting the availability of videos linked to locations on the Earth map as yet another means of sharing interesting information, it didn't take the smart people over at analyst firm the Kelsey Group long to figure out that it also provides some new advertising opportunities as well. It's not hard to see how those in the travel industry or in local business might utilize geotargeted video advertisements, linked through Google Earth, to bring in business.

Considering that Google has just recently been experimenting with its video content distribution network and how to link YouTube videos and Google resources together, that the idea has obviously occurred to the folks at Google as well. Considering the linking of video to adSense, will additional links to Google Earth be far behind?

Posted by MatthewNelson at 5:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

October 8, 2007

'Jam Sessions' on YouTube

Ubisoft wants your "Jam Sessions" footage on YouTube. To promote its Nintendo DS title "Jam Sessions" where players strum the touch-sensitive DS screen with a stylus as if it were a guitar pick to compose music, Ubisoft created a contest on YouTube where gamers can submit videos of themselves of any original song with lyrics, played using "Jam Sessions" on the DS. It's a creative use of a YouTube contest. And the videos Ubisoft pre-populated the site with include a producer walkthrough to explain the game mechanics, and performers singing, rapping, playing the harmonica, and playing "Jam Sessions" as the rhythm guitar along with other instruments.

YouTube users will select the winners. Does the prize match the contest? Winners will be featured on YouTube's main page. The winner will also be flown to New York to perform live on FUSE TV.

Posted by Enid Burns at 4:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

August 10, 2007

The Science Behind Travelzoo

Ever wonder what's behind Travelzoo's Top 20 newsletter with the best deals in travel? A team of scouts cull through travel sites, and get offers from sources, then get together for a pitch meeting. Each deal is then confirmed to be sure it's attainable. The site documented its efforts in a news-style clip it posted on YouTube (link).

Posted by Enid Burns at 2:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

June 12, 2007

No Ads in Embedded YouTube Player (Yet...)

Last week a new YouTube ad unit was prognosticated by ZDNet's "Googling Google" blog (by way of Search Engine Journal). YouTube has updated its embedded video player to include related video thumbnails at the bottom of the embedded video, prompting ZDNet's Garett Rogers to predict, "For the next several months, people will get very used to using the related video tool that was just introduced. As soon as it becomes second nature for users to use the tool, we should start to see sponsored results mixed with these related videos."

Well, it's not a far cry from what YouTube does on its homepage, featuring sponsored video in a large top right placement. Still, for what it's worth, YouTube says it won't serve ads into the sponsored embedded player, now or anytime soon.

"Youtube is not currently serving advertisements in the embedded player and does not have any plans to do so in the near future," a YouTube spokesperson told ClickZ News.

Note the statement, in addition to employing the "near future" qualifier, does not mention sponsored video specifically.

Oh, and on a separate note affecting media firms and possibly advertisers, The Wall Street Journal reported today that YouTube is developing its video-fingerprinting technology, to "spot television shows and films posted by consumers without the content owners' permission, so the sites can remove them or share advertising revenue."

This technology has been promised by YouTube for quite some time and has served to pacify media partners that have agreed to provide their video content to YouTube. According to the story, it is believed the technology will be made available in the fall, and Time Warner and Disney plan on testing it "beginning in a month."

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2007

Chasing the YouTube Scammers

Before YouTube figures out how to incorporate ads into the videos on its popular site, first it may have to rid itself of scammers who artificially inflate clip approval ratings for their own gains. According to this Infoworld story, the clip "R0049_TDAU8," which has since been removed from YouTube, garnered 113 million hits and a five-star review by site visitors. The video of a woman giving birth to a can of fizzy beverage was littered with flames from users wondering how the clip received such a high rating. The answer is, it didn't.

The success of the clip stems from scammers who gamed the online voting system. The goal is often to drive visitors to adware or malware sites, according to Internet fraud researcher Ben Edelman, an assistant professor at Harvard University, who is quoted in the story. Some of the con artists purchase traffic from so-called paid link firms to inflate ratings on social sites.

This is the stuff that advertisers' nightmares are made of, and likely part of the reason YouTube execs have said they will venture gingerly into ads on their site.

Posted by Bill McGuire at 4:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Microsoft's Second Second Life Presence

Millions of Us, a virtual worlds/social media agency, recently launched Microsoft Virtual Studio in Second Life. They're also touting the success of the adjacent Microsoft property Coders' Cove island.

The community-building effort challenged coders to find hidden "eggs" and solve puzzles in order to win access to a mysterious blimp hovering above the area. Winners were accorded 900 square meters of virtual land (their lease is up in November, though).

Which reminds me -- this coming Monday, May 21, ClickZ is sponsoring the first-ever conference wholly devoted to Advertising in Social Media. We're going to be discussing projects in Second Life, social networks, syndication, and much, much more.

Check out the agenda, and if you're in New York, please make every effort to join us. We have an amazing line-up of speakers and one very cool, topical topic.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 3:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 7, 2007

YouTube Details Plan to Share Ad Revenue with Content Creators

YouTube has shared some details of its plan, floated last month, to share ad revenues with content creators. The program will help YouTube increase the amount of "safe" inventory it can offer advertisers and will be limited to the "most popular and prolific" video bloggers and other content creators on the site, including Lonelygirl15, LisaNova, renetto, HappySlip, smosh, and valsartdiary.

These individuals will benefit from the same revenue sharing and promotional opportunities already available to the site's professional content partners, which consist of big media companies, video game companies, universities and production studios. They were chosen because they've built and sustained large audiences, YouTube said, and proven that content to be largely safe for marketers.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 1:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

March 16, 2007

YouTube Adds Political Section, CitizenTube to Come

So, YouTube has a new channel for political candidates, basically a hub for all the official YouTube groups set up by official campaigns. Only the bigger names from the two big parties are represented so far in the section, which falls under the "YouChoose '08" banner. In YouTube's simple category list, the section can be located not by that title, but by clicking the "Politicians" link. I'm surprised they didn't use slightly more appealing terms like "Candidates," "Political Campaigns," or "Presidential Campaigns," but I guess Politicians works as a good catchall for elected officials and those running for office.

Still, I wonder if the site plans on having another section for political advocacy groups.

Missing from the Dems is Chris Dodd and from the Republican side, Sam Brownback, Tom Tancredo and Mike Huckabee. I didn’t check all of them, but from what I can tell, Dodd has a YouTube group. Perhaps it's not an official group or the campaign wants to create a more election-specific group before linking from the section homepage.

Of course, because these are the official campaign groups, you're not likely to see any of the less-flattering videos that have propelled YouTube to its status as an online political force. For instance, Joe Biden's own videos and those in his favorites list conveniently leave out the countless user-uploaded clips of Biden calling Barack Obama the first presidential candidate who is "mainstream, African-American who is articulate and bright and clean…."

What caught my eye here is it looks like PayAttention.org, an Ad Council campaign originally launched in July 2006, the only advertiser in the section. If you haven't seen it, it's a tongue-in-cheek voter registration effort featuring phony candidates like "Someone's Teddy Bear" and "Bag of Leaves."

According to TechPresident, the site plans to launch a "CitizenTube" section for CGM videos pertaining to the '08 election. I guess it's about time there was a special section for all that stuff since it's so disorganized now. Still, though I see the relevance of a handful of videos watched by millions, I can't help but wonder how many people are actually going to sit there and watch all the videos these campaigns upload.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 3:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

March 5, 2007

1040EZ-E: YouTube Contests Getting All Up in Your Tax Forms

Hey look, it's an advertising battle for the YouTube age.

Two online tax services, TurboTax and TaxCut Online, have launched dueling video contests on YouTube. TurboTax's is a rap video competition hosted by Vanilla Ice. Entries range from merely bad to the utterly ridiculous, from traditional hip-hop to so-whacked-it's-almost-good. What do you call that last one: TaxCore? (Oh, and here's Vanilla's contribution.)

TaxCut Online meanwhile is asking YouTubers to submit videos on the theme "Me and My Super Sweet Refund." Nearly 150 contributions so far. The dumber the better seems to be the rule here.

Both contests offer cash prizes to contributors. Is this a good way to get more people to file their taxes online? I don't know, but I'm feeling taxed.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 12:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

February 20, 2007

JetBlue CEO's Mea Culpa on YouTube

YouTube, meet crisis communicatons.

JetBlue CEO David Neeleman has an impressive apology up on YouTube. In the video, which has an impressive degree of unrehearsed, true-blue spontaneity, he assumes full responsibility for the airline's operational problems over the past week, vows to fix them, and presents a customers' bill of rights.

The stream is getting a ton of blogosphere pick up. After a long and agonizing week, JetBlue has finally gotten something right.

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 29, 2007

YouTube Revenue Share Raises Questions

Last week folks questioning whether Google would squelch its video site in favor of a YouTube-only offering believed they got an answer [no] when the company said it would make YouTube videos searchable through Google Video. Now, they're speculating about YouTube's apparent plans to share ad dollars with the users who drive their success.

According to BBC coverage, in a couple months YouTube will begin running ads (possibly very short pre-roll spots) to reward users for their creativity. "The offer applies only to people who own the full copyright of the videos that they are uploading to the YouTube website," notes the story.

Other CGM video sites like Revver already offer a cut of ad revenue to users. I suppose MySpace will be next. The thing is, paying thousands of people on a regular basis presents lots of potential factors YouTube would have to deal with. PayPal would be a good way to go, but then again, PayPal is an Ebay company and Ebay has a pretty tight relationship with Google rival Yahoo. They could also award points redeemable with online retail partners, possibly benefitting YouTube's relationships with advertisers.

One wonders whether the payment would be based on the amount of traffic a particular video drives, which leads one to extend that thought: what about other publishers or bloggers helping to drive that traffic? Do they get something out of it, too? The potential for handouts seems never-ending.

Other questions arise: if one of the biggest CGM sites out there does it, will online content contributors on other sites demand rewards? The forum posters? The blog commenters? The hotel reviewers? And what will become of the notion that YouTubers upload their videos for fun, not money, making for a much more naturally-engaged crowd of people? This certainly could affect the feel of the site and its ad potential.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 2, 2007

Potential Space/Tube Rivals Swooping in

The New York Times today has a piece about a handful of CGM video sites that, it implies, are moving in on YouTube and MySpace turf now that those sites are policing video content and enforcing copyright protections (or trying to anyway).

The story mentions sites including France's Dailymotion (where "hours of copyrighted material" like entire recent TV show episodes, along with lots of skin can be found), current events exposé-oriented site LiveLeak, and Stickam, (where "users broadcast live video of themselves and conduct face-to-face video chats with other users." LiveLeak is the only one that appears to run ads -- text ads; according to the Times story, they do that through the adbrite network. Evidently, not much monitoring for explicit material or copyright infringement is happening on these sites.

It's copyright protection and, perhaps more important, uncontroversial content that will draw real ad dollars to such sites. And, as I wrote in a post early last month, policing content could be the downfall of any site in the CGM video category:

Fact is, what made YouTube cool is its rule-flouting attitude….It took less than a year for them to go from affirming their street cred by pissing off NBC over the Lazy Sunday brouhaha to opening their Tubularms wide to embrace the stodgy old media suits when they finally came around, tails between legs.

….[N]ow that the company is beholden to [big TV netorks]…and its newly-adoptive public parent, YouTube's easy-going 'tude is bound to change. That's when the wilier unchained guys swoop in.

Posted by Kate Kaye at 12:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Google Hiring for YouTube Sales in Six Cities

Jon Fine observes that Google is posting classified ads seeking sales executives for YouTube. One Mediabistro listing for a Boston-area account executive describes the ideal candidate as one able to "drive revenue for the YouTube business unit and consult with brand advertisers and interactive agencies on how to leverage the YouTube platform and participate in the YouTube community."

No big departure here from YouTube's pre-acquisition focus. Fine reports full time sales positions are being filled in New York, Dallas, Detroit, Boston, Chicago and San Bruno, Ca.

Posted by Zachary Rodgers at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

December 28, 2006

John Edwards Embraces YouTube, Viral, SMS,

Presidential hopeful John Edwards jumped his own announcement of his plans to campaign in 2008, scheduled for today, by posting a video on YouTube yesterday in which he pre-empts the news.

Edwards' appeal is for Americans to join his OneCorps campaign, and his call-to-action is to do so either on his Web site or via SMS (text 'hope' to 30644). He makes sure to ask viewers to forward his message to friends.

And it seems to be working.The enthusiastic feedback on his YouTube page runs very much toward "you've got my vote."

Where the effort falls short, however, is the campaign's stubborn insistence to capture e-mail addresses, no matter what. Want more info via SMS? Want to learn more about OneCorps? You're not going to get it..unless you fork over your deets and get on yet another e-mail list. Even the reply to sending an SMS message is, "Please txt us your email."

It almost feels like you have to pay.

C'mon, Senator Edwards. You've gone this far in embracing new media. Take the final step and don't throw up barriers to your message, or to your supporters. Embrace other communications channels (To be fair, the OneCorps.com URL redirects to blog.johnedwards.com, but it's not loading today, so no word about RSS feed availability).

Posted by Rebecca Lieb at 11:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

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