I encourage you to watch this video with great panel if you’re wondering how video Internet is going to be a big market…

Great panel: Henrique de Castro, Managing Director, European Sales & Media Solutions, Google: Nancy Cruickshank, Global CEO, VideoJug: Dina Kaplan, COO, Blip.tv: Mike Volpi, CEO, Joost: and Dan Scheinman, General Manager, Cisco Media Solution.
Moderator : Jack Myers, Editor & Publisher, Jack Myers Media Business Report

We are proud to announce the launch of your new corporate website at www.videoagency.tv

Videoagency now offers three important services to its clients all over the world:

Video production: Videoagency produces high quality internet videos at low cost, allowing business of any size to create videos that meet their budget and requirements. We have one of the largest filmmaker networks in the world and can dispatch a professional to you locally. Our video production is also available as a white label product to companies who which to offer video production services directly to their clients directly.

VSEO: Video Search Engine Optimization is a development in classic SEO that enables you to leverage on video as a ranking tool. With all the major search engines integrating videos directly in the search results, it is now more important than ever to optimize your videos for visibility to the search engines. Videoagency is pioneering a VSEO strategy which is now available to our clients to help them get the most out of their internet videos.

Digital Asset Management: Taking into account the importance of videos on the internet, Videoagency has developed a tool for companies (such as advertising agencies, media companies and SEO agencies) who need to manage a large number of videos from different sources and clients. The tool will let you upload videos on any video platform, manage the metadata around them. Furthermore, the advanced reporting tools will allow you to track the success of your video campaigns and calculate their ROI more accurately.

Message for all filmmakers: As before, you can register and join our network fro free on: http://www.videoagency.tv/filmmakers.html

Visit www.videoagency.tv for more information.

An article published by EADP outlines the 2008 outlook for local online advertising in the USA, based on a study conducted by Borrell Associates.
The outcome of this study predicts that local online advertising will continue to grow in 2008 but will require a dedicated sales organization to do so. These predictions can be attributed to the rising popularity of local search and the use of online video advertisements.
Most interesting for us, and of course our filmmakers, is the fact that locally placed online videos are set to triple, reaching $1.3 billion!
Here are some of the other key figures presented in the study:

• Local online ad spend is set to increase by 48% in the USA in 2008 (this would bring it to $12.6 billion)
• Local search marketing will reach $5 billion (more than double the previous year)

One of the interesting points made in the study is that local media companies, such as Yellow Pages publishers, will need to invest to create a dedicated online sales force to be able to satisfy the strong growth predictions outlined above. Their traditional sales structures and strategies, according to Borrell Associates, will simply not be able to cope in 2008. This is underlined by the fact that most of these large media companies are beginning to lose market share to newer players who focus just on the internet for their business.

Yesterday Youtube announced that it has broadened its APIs thus making it even easier for third parties to integrate YouTube content and community into other websites, desktop applications, video games, mobile devices, televisions, cameras, as well as a bunch of other applications… In essence, Youtube has become an open video services platform.

According to Jim Patterson (Product Manager at Youtube)  the new API services include :

- Upload videos and video responses to YouTube

- Add/Edit user and video metadata (titles, descriptions, ratings, comments, favorites, contacts, etc)

- Fetch localized standard feeds (most viewed, top rated, etc.) for 18 international locales

- Perform custom queries optimized for 18 international locales

- Customize player UI and control video playback (pause, play, stop, etc.) through software”  

Check out the video that Youtube has made in order to explain the new API changes:

This is an exciting step forward for online videos, however it will also have some brutal consequences. As Techcrunch (Erick Schonfeld) correctly points out, other video-hosting platforms such as Brightcove, Maven Networks and Move Networks will probably have a hard time keeping up with these changes.

Another question in everyone’s minds at the moment is how the ad revenue split will be defined. Here is what Jim Patterson had to say on the matter:

“We are not introducing any fundamentally new way to monetize. Any video that is uploaded through our API is treated exactly as on YouTube.com. In general if a video is uploaded to YouTube, in some cases we serve ads into that on YouTube.com. When people embed those we reserve rights to serve ads in the future.

It is not a white-label service. We do offer a hosting service, but it is not a direct alternative to the companies that you mention. There are some big differences. It is a YouTube-branded experience. It is free. The price you pay for using it is you must participate in the YouTube community. ”

Lets see what happens next! In the meantime take a look at these interesting case studies to see how various partners have integrated Youtube into their sites.

I have talked to many specialists in the SEO field over the last few days and we have all noticed that there is a real increase in the number of videos and images appearing in Google’s SERPs.

For most of the experts this is a sure sign that there is a big dance at Google. A dance which could change a lot of things for SEO as we know it. Some even argue that SEO is dead and DAO (Digital Asset Optimization) will take its place.

Is the promise of Universal Search coming true? Just search for “How to tie a tie” in Google and take a good look at the SERP.

SCREENSHOT:

So let’s analyze this page:

There are a total of 11 results with the following:

• 1 image results (3 images aligned next to each other)
• 3 video results with thumbnails (two of which do not originate from YouTube, something very new indeed!) and none with a “+” to expand the player within the SERP.
• 11 text results

This is great news for those who produced the videos that land on Page 1, but bad news for everyone else. The SEO game, which has been pretty much closed for the past few years is now wide open again. What a boom for the SEO market!

I’d really like to know more about the traffic that Google sends directly to Videojug as a result of their videos appearing directly in the SERP (as seen in the “how to tie a tie” example9.

Video SEO (VSEO) is becoming a real area of expertise and its going to be a major challenge for those who do not catch on to this revolution early on.

All you SEO gurus: get ready to tell your clients that they need to produce videos as it will have to become a key component of their e-marketing over the coming months and years. Video will become the tool for getting free traffic to your website in 2008 and beyond. Furthermore it will be a tool that, if used properly, can get you on the first page of Google (the dream of any marketer out there!!!).

Your customers expect video, and Google wants you to deliver it to them, so start producing videos now!

Users clearly LOVE video:

I’d like to hear what you all have to say about this… Comments please