What's this all about?
Simple. After eleven years of waiting (I commissioned a very early article on Internet video back in 1994), the time finally seemed right (summer of 2005) to start a publication that focuses on Internet video issues.
For a free highlights version of this blog, go to http://www.internetvideomarketingletter.com/
After two years of very part-time experimentation, I've come up with a formula that this past month (July 2008) generated over 1,000,000 video views.
Better yet, traffic for the test site is growing at 10% per month - and it's all free - so next year this time, the site will be doing well over 2,000,000 views per month, unless I get ambitious and start pushing it a little.
Total time investment to keep the thing going and growing: 15 minutes per day.
More details later, but here's the screen shot:
I had friends who played in virtual worlds in the late 1970s (they needed mainframe access back then.)
I didn't get it then - and I don't get it now - but whether I get it or not doesn't matter.
This year $1 billion was invested in various "virtual world" ventures. OK, there's a lot of hot money around right now, but it can't ALL be dumb money.
Also, if "community" is the key to the Internet, what could be more of a community than a place where you completely immerse yourself in another world with fellow virtual world inhabitants.
Two resources for you if you want to keep up-to-date with what's going on:
!. Virtual World Management
The virtual world industry is big enough to have its own conferences, expos and industry analysts.
http://www.virtualworldsnews.com/
2. Machinima
What is it?
It's "animated filmmaking within a real-time virtual 3-D environment."
Frankly, I've yet to see a good machinima (I haven't looked all that hard), but clearly this is a medium to watch. It's growing fast and the current fan base is very passionate.
You can get a crash course here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machinima
Ken
A bit long-winded (he's an academic) but when he finally makes his point at the end, it's a pretty good one.
Actually, John Walker, co-founder founder of AutoCAD, made this same point brilliantly way back in the early nineties. The folks who are going to make a killing in software, he said, are the folks who create tools that let people make their own stuff.
There's so much going on in Internet video, just tracking it could be a full time job.
Unfortunately, I already have a full time "job" (actually a couple of them): running a business; organizing and hosting the annual System Seminar; counseling non-profits in New Orleans.
So the number of posts to the blog has suffered, though I do think the quality has been sky high.
In fact, we accomplished the most important thing: alerting Internet marketers to the impending breakthroughs that were on track to put Internet video on the map as a major force in Internet marketing. Folks who took our advice were well positioned when the reality we predicted (with a pretty good degree of precision) arrived.
Now video on the Internet has practically become "business as usual."
With that in mind, let's talk with a real Internet video veteran, a guy who, while he was at Microsoft, was already looking at video's online potential seriously TWELVE years ago.
Hundreds of high level, high stakes online video presentations later, he has a lot of practical advice to share with us:
Did you feel the earth shake?
You should have.
Little Apple, Inc. (formerly Apple Computer) which many were ready to write off as dead as recently as ten years ago is now the world's biggest music retailer. It just beat out the former champion Wal-Mart.
Who says this is so? The NPD group.
There was no online music industry to speak up five years ago. Chalk up another one to the Internet.
If you haven't heard from me lately it's because I've been far too busy making and promoting Internet videos to take the time to write about them.
If you're new to the site, just check out the archive. It's got plenty of very useful, on-target information on Internet video - including the original premise of the site itself.
This is my 15th year of talking about the impending impact of the Internet on TV and my third year of this blog.
Since then, my clients and I have used Internet video to sell millions of dollars worth of products in all categories. I routinely get uploaded videos to 10,000+ viral view status and have occasionally hit 100,000 plus with one video crossing the 500,000 views mark - all viral without penny one of advertising (or real effort for that matter.)
A casual, extremely part time video publishing experiment I started in August of 2006 with a mailing to 50 colleagues has now blossomed into an active subscriber list of 23,000 and growing. Again, all without a penny in advertising. Amazingly, because it wasn't my intention, the site accidentally nets over $3,000 a month. Imagine if I invested in it a little bit.
A quote in an article in yesterday's New York Times by Alan Wutzel, the head of research for NBC put it best:
"(Watching video on the Internet) has become a mainstream behavior in an extraordinarily quick time. It isn't just the province of college students or generation Y-ers. It spans all ages."
I know. I called it three years ago (fifteen really, but who's counting?)
It was inevitable. After all, corporate TV sucks. Always has. The only reason they were able to get away with it for so long was because an alternate distribution hadn't emerged. Now it has. "Game Over" for the bad guys.
In the same article, Quincy Smith, the president of CBS Interactive summed up the big broadcasting industry's problem quite nicely:
"The four and a half billion we make on broadcast is never going to equate to four and a half billion online."
Well, boo-hoo. After all the big networks have done such a good job maintaining and raising cultural standards and educating people about health, personal finance and citizenship that it would be tragic to see them go out of business. NOT.
Internet television will generate many billions of dollars in revenue and that revenue will be distributed broadly. Network executives may actually have to work for a living some day. Meanwhile, people with their wits about them and content that people want will be doing just fine.
Will it all be good? No, of course not, but a lot of voices that are currently not being heard thanks to what amounts to Corporate Amerikan censorship will be heard and the country and world will be a better place for it.
You gotta love this.
A web site and TV channel that are nothing but commercials.
It's called Firebrand.com
Content: free. Production values: sky high.
Will people watch? I watched for a while last night in a hotel room. It was better than the cr@p that was on the local cable service.
Monetization?
They do a lot of call outs to people who view the channel online. I think they could be doing a lot better on the monetization front, but hey, it's a start, and they're both online and on cable.
To see it in action: Firebrand.
For over a year now, "Video" has been one of the choices Google has offered on its very spare home page along with other popular search services like "Images", "News", and "Maps" etc.
Well, I just took a look on my spanking brand new MacBook and "Video" is gone as a home page choice.
It's been replaced with a button called "Products."
If you google "Google Products" what you come up with are lists of the all the software products that Google makes available above and beyond their search results (ex. gmail, Google Earth)
A very quick search on Google itself turned up nothing about this new initiative.
So what is it exactly?
First, "Products" is shorthand for "Google Product Search" and like all things Google it's in "beta."
Second, it is a very slick, lightening fast search engine for...products. You name it and it appears Google has got it. Think UBER-catalog.
Not only that, but it appears Google has made is dead simple to shop across multiple online catalogs with a service called Google "Shopping List."
The experience ends, of course, with a visit to Google "Checkout."
Do you selling physical "stuff?" You need to get on this...like now.
By the way, Google's catchphrase for the service is "search for stuff to buy." Talk about cutting to the chase. I have a feeling this is going to be huge. There's got to be a cold chill going through the folks at Yahoo Stores and even eBay right now.
Here's what the page looks like: Google Product Search
Here's in the info page for sellers: Sell with Google
I happen to be in LA this week so I'm seeing lots of new about the looming writers strike.
Writers on strike?
Believe it or not those charming airheads on the tube don't write the words that come out of their mouths. A back office of writers keeps the game going.
Now those writers are on the verge of walking off the job. Their complaint is that they're not receiving compensation for DVD sales and other digital repackaging of their work.
Is this really a big deal?
Yes it is for two reasons, one micro and one macro...
If you want to take a look at an NBC/Fox attempt to steal market share from Google/YouTube, you can take a look at the beta here: Hulu.com
It makes sense that some big "me too" ventures would crop up. The smart thing would be for these two networks to promote Hulu.com heavily on their broadcasts. They'll be able to generate a surprising amount of spike traffic this way.
Interesting counterbalance to Google's lock on search traffic.
TV still trumps search when it comes to eye balls, but of course the the Internet, the distance from screen to play button is a whole lot shorter.
There have been illegal TV episode viewing sites for years, each getting shut down by the MPAA and similar entities for illegal distribution. You might have visited one of these sites, watched a few episodes of The Simpsons Season 4 and the next day, the site vanished. Apple Inc. in the past year has been making agreements with cinema and television companies in order to provide video content for iTunes and the iPod. Other companies are beginning to follow suit.
An Online TV Application called Joost was recently released to the public. Joost claims to be the first Broadcast Quality Internet Television service. The Online TV Company secured $45 million in financing back in May 2007. Joost has since made agreements with major networks like MTV, CNN, Discovery Channel, WB, and CBS so they can provide over 15,000 shows and several channels at launch.
Joost is an application that you can download for free for Windows and Mac. You need a broadband connection to use the service. Joost boasts an amazing interface that allows you to browse channels via a grid. You can search for a show you want to watch. There are chat rooms, so you can talk with others watching the same show, similar to watching TV in your own home. There is instant messaging support for gMail and Jabber. Joost supports multiple accounts, so different users can customize the interface to their liking. There are commercial breaks with only one commercial per break.
Look at Joost Press Releases Here.
Download Joost from the Official website to see what the buzz is all about.
Microsoft has now launched its online video service out of Beta.
http://video.msn.com
Aside from the fact MSN Video will distribute content for NBC Universal and News Corp, and this video content will include full-length programming, movies and clips from at least a dozen television networks and two major film studios.
Forget the fact that they have years of experience in encoding and distributing video across the Internet, or their robust and scalable content delivery network.
The real buzz is the other side of the new MSN Video portal.
It's Microsoft's "User Generated Content" section called SoapBox on MSN.
There are over 100 websites that offer the ability to upload your videos for the world to view, most notably YouTube and Google Video.
So why would Microsoft's SoapBox be important?
Three words: "Mass Market Reach".
For the last 24 months Microsoft has really been investing in a collection of integrated services and products called Windows Live.
The most familiar is Windows Live Messenger, the replacement for the market leading MSN Messenger.
So wouldn't it be a nice idea if Microsoft would let you create a list of videos on MSN Soapbox and then actually watch them with your friends and family in Windows Live Messenger.
Well you can... here is an image of how it looks:
http://www.marctalkstech.com/images/messenger-soapbox.jpg
Now realize that Windows Live Messenger is free to download and is available in 26 languages and is used in more than 60 countries by more than 240 million active accounts each month. And you should start to see the attractive nature of this new video portal.
Can anyone say "Viral Video"? But it does not end there.
Microsoft is adding MSN SoapBox functionality directly within other Windows Live software that can be downloaded free of charge.
Windows Live Writer (Blog posting software for the desktop) and Windows Photo Gallery (desktop photo/video management software) now offer SoapBox support for uploading videos to Microsoft's portal, and in the case of Live Writer actually posting SoapBox videos you find directly to your blog.
Also don't forget the Microsoft Search engine "Live.Com" which serves up videos direct from its own MSN Video portal!
After purchasing YouTube, Google always seemed to be unrivaled in terms of online video.
But that may be about to change now Microsoft has entered the arena in a big way and with a sound business model included. Whilst you may argue SoapBox is no YouTube, Microsoft does have a huge user base to tap into - and it is!
Let the battle begin.
Marc Liron
Microsoft MVP
www.marcliron.com
Note from Ken:
P.S. Did you know I'm on the road this fall?
For the first time in three years, I'll be
offering small group trainings in Internet
marketing.
Here's where I'll be and when:
Toronto - October 13
Los Angeles - November 3
San Francisco - November 10
Vancouver - November 17
Details: http://www.SystemIntensive.com
I like this promotion from the magazine Streaming Media
It expresses the urgency that small businesses should be - but for the most part are not - feeling about the unfolding Internet video revolution.
It's an advertisement for a white paper on Internet video and education, but it equally applies to anyone who has a story to tell or a product to sell.
The old adage "the more you tell, the more you sell" is as valid as it was 100 years ago. Internet video is evolving into one of the premiere ways to tell. Ignore it at your peril. I guarantee your more ambitious competitors are not:
"Think the video revolution is limited to user-generated content and online movie downloads? Think again.
And you'd better think fast, because learners of all kinds-whether college students, outside sales forces, or technicians in the field-are increasingly demanding the ability to receive both traditional academic courses and training materials on video. They also expect that video to work as seamlessly and easily as YouTube and with the portability of their iPods, but with the kind of interactivity and supplemental materials they'd receive in a traditional classroom.
All of which means that academic institutions and enterprises alike are looking for the most advanced, efficient, and cost-effective ways to teach and train online..."
Here's Shelly Palmer, president of the New York Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the guys who award the Emmy's. Palmer shares some very good business advice for people who want to create Internet TV channels.
Of course, the smartest use of Internet video is for entrepreneurs to use it to sell and educate their customers directly without a media middleman.
This is a hard concept for people from the traditional television and advertising industries (the middlemen) to grasp. They'll get it - some day. In the meantime, here's some state of the art advice on niche video publishing.
I'm going to keep saying this until it become "common sense":
Video is the new paper.
Some quick history...before the second half of the 19th century, paper was fairly expensive and it not rare, it was not ubiquitous. There were no mass market books; newspapers existed, but sparingly; and there were no catalogs.
Industrial sophistication made paper cheap and launched the print explosion. Yes, Gutenburg invented the printing press way back in the late Renaissance, but in those days printing presses were like mainframes or television studios. They existed, but they were high capital items.
Moving pictures have been around for a little over 100 years. Video for about half that. Most of the population has been conditioned to think of moving pictures in terms of movie theaters and television screens. This conditioning has been so strong that most people over the age of say 25, don't get that we are in a Brave New World as far as moving pictures are concerned.
Video is going to be EVERYWHERE. (It already is for those who use the Internet with awareness.)
Here's what this means:
Just as print communication became a necessity for businesses once paper became inexpensive, so will video.
Video won't be a relatively rare experience that only shows up on certain screens according to a railroad- like timetable (how 19th century!) and produced only by specialists in NY and California. 24/7 on demand video will become part and parcel of every day commercial life: to sell products, to provide customer service, to train...you name it.
A little more history:
The web started with engineers and scientists, then migrated to digital artist/activist types, then spread to bleeding edge entrepreneurs and consumers with lots of random time on their hands, then colonized "the enterprise" (aka Big Business staffs), and then became ubiquitous.
That's the very path that Internet video is on.
The bleeding edge entrepreneurs (and intrapreneurs) are all over it and Internet video is slowly being seen as a useful internal communications tool for The Enterprise. The next stop: true mass market ubiquity, or as I've been putting it for the last three years: Video is the new paper.
Here's a sign of how seriously The Enterprise is talking the idea of Internet video as an everyday corporate communications tool: YouTube for the Enterprise
Amazon has long used its customers comments to help sell books. Customer reviews and recommended book lists have led the way. (I wonder if that makes them a pioneering web 2.0 company?)
Now Amazon has joined the video age.
Go to Amazon, pick any book and select the "review" option and you'll be given two options: 1) the standard text option and 2) the new video option.
Just like with YouTube, you get an easy-to-use interface to upload your video to Amazon.
Interestingly, Amazon recommends the PureDigital line of video cameras we first reported on a year and a half ago. I remain amazed that Google/YouTube hasn't made a similar deal with PureDigital (or bought the company.)
PureDigital seems to be thriving in spite of their low profile. New cameras with new features. Where's Apple? Micro video cameras is a cool niche that fits their mission to a 't.'
When I started this blog two years ago (after patiently waiting eleven years for Internet video to catch on), one of the first companies I featured was a modest little start-up called TurnHere.com
I really liked TurnHere.com's model which was to take video into neighborhoods and small businesses and give those otherwise unheard voices a chance to "be on TV." Video is, for better or worse, the ultimate marketing medium, but until the cost of producing - and distributing - video messages was prohibitive, for all by the most deep pockets organizations.
No more and I'm happy to say that TurnHere has turned out to be one of the true movers and shakers in this movement. When I first profiled them, they had a network of less than 50 videographers. Now they have thousands.
This video features a somewhat rare interview with Brad Inman the mastermind behind TurnHere.com. Before taking a leadership role in the Internet video world, Brad was - and still is - deeply involved at the intersection of the Internet and real estate. He's the preeminent publisher in the field and his traveling conferences on the subject are top notch.
Listen to what he has to say about the opportunities in Internet video. The door is wide open, especially for people who are smart about finding niche markets to serve.
VideoPiggy is an Application for Windows XP and Vista that will let you download videos straight from YouTube, Google Video, and Metacafe. This program even has built in Video Conversion to watch videos on your PC, iPod, PSP, or Cell Phone!
Internet video has created some interesting new business opportunities.
Viacom pays $100,000 per month to have its copyrighted videos scrubbed from YouTube. "Video analysts," the employees who spend their days searching YouTube and other online video services for copyright infringements, get paid $11 per hour.
You're going to hear a lot on this topic in the months and years to come.
In a way, it's an old concern. The web's inventor was reportedly furious with Marc Andreessen for creating the image tag because he was afraid that the increased bandwidth demand of transferring tiff and jpeg files would crash the Internet.
It didn't happen. Then again, video files are exponentially bigger than graphics files and video watching on the Internet is evolving into a very popular activity with a hockey stick like growth curve.
Here's a video produced by an industry group that has a stake in the outcome. Great example of using video to make complex ideas more easily comprehensible.
In advertising, we call them "testimonials," but in truth customers couldn't care less about them.
What they really want are real life case studies if they're business buyers, or product reviews from other customers, if they're consumers.
When we, the advertisers, say something, or even relate a customer comment second hand in the form of a "testimonial," our much-abused and rightfully skeptical prospects take it with a grain of salt.
On the other hand, when a real person says it, credibility skyrockets.
Since I started my latest round of writing about Internet video in 2005, I've often repeated my hunch that one of the slam dunk uses of video was going to be to capture customer reviews. In fact, as far back as 2000, I was making sure that every time I did a live event I grabbed video from customers. This video has been, far and away, my most effective selling tool.
Now the studies are coming in and guess what? About 80% of consumers put more faith in advertisers who present customer reviews than those that don't. Over thee out of four customers say it is extremely or very important to read customer reviews before making a purchase.
And not just any old reviews. They want customer reviews and prefer them 6 to 1 over "expert" reviews. 44% of online shoppers say that consumer ratings and reviews are the most useful e-commerce feature. No other eCommerce shopping feature came even close.
Another study came up with different but similar numbers.
First, 85% of consumers research big ticket purchases like travel, electronics and cars on the Internet before they make their purchase. And what do 63% of them most want to see on a web site? You guessed it: customer reviews.
In the consumer electronics category, Amazon and Circuit City are the most trusted vendors, Amazon because it's familiar and Circuit City because it's the easiest to use. Less trusted, at least in terms of online buying, are Wal-Mart and BestBuy. Guess who doesn't provide customer reviews...
But that's just changed. Last week, Wal-Mart started offering customer reviews on its web site. Wal-Mart's own self-reported numbers state that 85% of their customers are Internet users. Sounds a little high to me, but then again, Wal-Mart's got a pretty good record of tracking customer behavior (an understatement actually.)
General Motors is also getting into the act with big media buys at Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers, in case you didn't now, is one of the granddaddies of user generated content sites. Members ask questions and other members answer them. Yahoo claims 90 million users and 250 million answers posted worldwide. Notice the theme: people talking to people without the mediation of pesky "experts."
In the online video arena, one company is making business of video customer reviews: ExpoTV.com. These guys are harnessing the two biggest forces on the Internet today: consumer-generated content and video. Currently, the site has over 50,000 product reviews, all provided by consumers who shoot, edit and upload their own videos. ExpoTV then turns around and syndicates this content to sites like Smarter.com, Buy.com, AOL and Yahoo.
ExpoTV pays its visitors $5 for every video they submit that's accepted. Interestingly, the company says that only 5 to 10% of videos submitted by its users have to be rejected on purely technical grounds like bad sound or lighting. Clearly, huge portions of the world are now not only comfortable watching video on the Internet, they're also comfortable and capable of shooting and uploading their own videos. (Thank YouTube for kicking that revolution into high gear.)
So what's the take away from all of this?
1. Are you making it possible for your customers to post reviews of your products and services so other prospects can see them? If not, you may be missing out on a huge credibility builder.
2. Don't think that text-only "testimonials" are enough. Consumers are getting used to the idea of seeing video customer reviews. The first player in your niche to take advantage of this lesson will quickly leave the rest of the competition behind.
Remember the numbers from the surveys:
1) Prospects value the opinions of customers over "experts" 6 to 1,
2) Well over half of all Internet users believe that customer reviews and ratings are extremely or very important, and
3) The single most popular feature on eCommerce sites, by a very wide margin, is the availability of customer reviews.
Bottom line: Customers want to get their product information from each other. Not from advertisers. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Ken McCarthy
P.S. For a free highlights version of this blog go to:
Internet video continues to demonstrated its effectiveness and superiority over text.
As proof of this, you can hardly find a single big numbers Internet marketer who has not made a serious investment in mastering the medium.
What about you?
I know from first hand experience how expensive and time consuming it can be to sort this stuff out.
That's why I'm always on the lookout for good *educators* in this field.
Here's one I recommend very highly:
Jay Douglas.
He may have put together the best, most comprehensive, lowest cost way to get up to speed and fluent in
Internet video fast:
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/jaydouglas/
Enjoy!
Ken McCarthy
P.S. I'm of the opinion that the tools for Internet video production have become so cheap and easy to use that everyone should at least look at the potential of making their own sales videos.
You wouldn't hire a typist to write your e-mails and sales letters for you, would you? That would get awfully burdensome.
It might makes sense to run up the learning curve on video, just the way you did on typing.
Here's a great resource to do just that:
http://www.thesystemseminar.com/jaydouglas/
I recently asked Google this question not too long ago and found nothing but misleading information in the top ten results. There are very few resources out there that spill the beans concerning which video format you should use for the web. If you turn to the video sharing sites for information, you may find nothing but a half-assed manual that reads like stereo instructions. What's even worse, is that even if you do know which video format is good for YouTube or Google Video, getting the video to that point and making it look good is another struggle.
What do I mean by video format? What I am really saying comes in two parts: the "video container" and the "video codec". Perhaps you've seen some of these containers online: Windows Media Video (WMV), Quicktime Video (MOV), or Flash Video (FLV) to name a few. Maybe you've heard of some of these codecs: MPEG, DV, Sorenson, H.264. These are just the names, but what do they mean?
Think of the "video codec" as if it were the brand of film you would put into a 35mm camera (the container). The camera needs the film to take pictures and the film needs the parts of the camera to expose properly. Professional photographers often use different types of film for different situations. Black and white for weddings, slow speeds film for astronomical imaging, fast speed film for sports events. Codecs like DV are suitable for videotaping, editing, and uncompressed Master Tapes. Codecs such as H.264, MPEG4, and FLV are made for streaming on the web. But all of these codecs can be found in a container like Quicktime or Windows Media.
So which codec and container is the best for my website? This really depends on a few key factors: your website's content, audience, and server capabilities. It is best to consult a professional when attempting to provide video content on your own server. But if you use video sharing sites to host your content and then just embed the videos on your site, this question then becomes "Which video codec is best for the video sharing site I am uploading it to?".
When providing video on your own server, the best answer I can give you is to provide multiple containers and formats at varying data rates. The worst number in video streaming is 1. If someone cannot view your video and they get a message saying "please download plug-in here", say goodbye to a potential viewer.
Make the same video available in 300kpbs FLV, 150kpbs WMV, and 300 kbps MOV. This setup will ensure that anyone using any Operating System will be able to view your video content.
I will be providing step by step tutorials over screen captures in the future about the specifics of outputting video in various applications in Windows and Mac OS X. If you want to know how to output video for the video using a specific program, just shoot an email to me at videopro@iuseapple.com. I cannot promise a return email, but I will try my best to reply in the form of a blog post.
YouTube's founders, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley, were in Paris last week where they announced they'd be creating "localized" YouTube in seven languages: French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, Polish and Dutch.
This comes a month after SytemSeminarTV started posting video content in French, German, Russian, Lithuanian, and Ukranian.
Why foreign language content?
Simple. That's where the growth is. More Int
Many people around the world speak English, but if want to hit them where their heart is, speak to them in their own language. Or at the very least introduce yourself in their language and then continue the conversation in English.
Here's a sample in German
Howdy,
My name is Steve Blue. I am a Video Pro who will guide you through the stormy seas of Internet Video Creation. I am a jack of all trades when it comes to video production. I've edited and shot it all: commercials, documentaries, music videos, wedding videos, artistic video installation, professional sports videography, even large marketing multi screen presentations for CES. I help Ken McCarthy edit and post videos online for The System Seminar.
I will be posting to SystemVideoBlog, in the capacity of a Video Pro.
Trends in Internet Video are shifting everyday it seems. It can be quite difficult to keep up with the latest video technologies and services out there. I hope this blog post will be your yellow brick road to the future of internet video. As "The Wizard of Oz" transformed movie screens from black and white to color, companies like Google and Apple, Inc. are changing the quality and delivery of Internet Video right now.
If you are a business owner, you probably outsource video creation to a professional. Some professionals, even those in the business for twenty years, may not know a single thing about internet video. Most professional videographers are concerned with the latest quality innovations, such as DVD and HDTV. Some even denounce internet video right off the bat, saying it looks horrible, so why would anyone even use it?
Picture quality doesn't matter to the average viewer. Everyone is wowed and amazed by HDTV at first, but still content to watch the worst quality video of some guy skiing off a jump on YouTube.
But what if I told you I can create a video designed for streaming over the Internet that has close enough quality to broadcast, that the casual viewer can't even tell the difference? I will show you how in upcoming blog posts.
Internet Video has grown up and is now moving out of the house. If you visit Apple's iTunes website right now, you will be greeted with a message that says "YouTube, meet AppleTV". AppleTV viewers will soon be able to view thousands of YouTube videos right on their television sets. Did you know AppleTV also supports 480P, which is the standard for DVDs right now? Internet Video and Broadcast Quality are converging right now. But at the same time, YouTube also struck a deal with Verizon Wireless at the end of 2006, establishing a cell phone television-like channel for the most popular videos on YouTube. Now YouTube is moving onto the iPhone too, which means AT&T has access to the Internet Video Giant. Internet Video is now available on millions of digital devices out there. Internet Video is spreading like a virus.
It amazes me how YouTube is the most popular video sharing service by far. YouTube has 44% of total internet viewership. YouTube also has the worst interface out of all the video sharing sites I have encountered. I upload maybe 10 clips at a time to YouTube about a certain topic. It is one huge pain in the butt when I have to change preferences about them. In contrast, what makes a good video sharing site? Well, the ability to upload multiple videos at once for starters, with a large file size and duration on each clip. It's called Google Video, which is still in fifth place lagging behind MSN, Yahoo, MySpace, and of course YouTube.
Upload videos to a cocktail of sites. I upload videos to YouTube, Google, MySpace, and iTunes. In future posts, I will detail step by step instructions on the best methods of uploading videos to these services.
When you are ready to upload to the internet, output the best quality video with the smallest filesize possible from your editing program. This can be a struggle. I use Quicktime H.264 for this task, others go straight into Flash FLV. Most of the online sharing sites use FLV and will convert most anything you give them to this format. Make sure you upload the best quality video possible to services like YouTube or Google Video. Those sites will make your video look crappier. But do not fear. Because of the Apple's efforts to upgrade the video quality in iTunes, all the other internet video sharing sites will follow suit and gradually improve the quality of online videos. YouTube did it just the other week. If you view a movie on YouTube using their new beta interface, you will find a slightly larger screen for the video. YouTube just switched over to the H.264 standard probably because of their dealings with Apple. Why would the Internet Video Giant think of switching over their entire library to a new standard? H.264 is not just a standard for the Internet. H.264 can handle everything from the crappiest looking online video to full HD quality 1080i.
Broadcast and Internet Video standards are converging right now. So, in addition of making your video suitable for current online conditions, make sure you always have a master copy available that is Broadcast Quality.
I hope you just gained some nuggets about Internet Video. I will be writing articles on SystemVideoBlog.com, even with step by step instructions, that will get down to the nitty gritty about all different aspects of internet video creation. If you have questions that you'd like to see me address on the blog, please mail them to me at videopro@iuseapple.com. Due to the volume of mail I won't be able to respond personally and I won't be able to answer every question, but I'll do my best.
Steve Blue
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