onlinevideo

The Federal Communications Commission is considering giving online distributors like Hulu and YouTube the same rights and responsibilities enjoyed by cable companies.

Most consumers have no idea what an M.V.P.D. is, but they mail a check to one every month. What they call Comcast or Time Warner Cable or DirecTV, the government calls a “multichannel video programming distributor,” or M.V.P.D. for short.

When that mouthful of a phrase was coined decades ago, it was pretty easy to identify what was a multichannel distributor — any cable or satellite company — and just as important, what wasn’t. But the Internet is changing that — so profoundly, in fact, that the Federal Communications Commission is now rethinking even the definition of the word “channel.”

While hosting this year’s Academy Awards, Billy Crystal cracked, “I prefer the big screen...

which is my iPad.” The remark was an ironic counterpoint to the evening’s theme, “Let’s go to the movies,” itself a half-hearted attempt to resuscitate flagging U.S. box office sales. On the heels of a year that saw the lowest movie theater attendance in almost two decades, it’s clear that the silver screen feels threatened by younger, slimmer screens.

Apple’s new iPad is shattering sales records and quickly ushering in the post-PC era. The company sold three million tablets in the first weekend they went on sale and may sell as many as 66 million by year’s end. Like the iPhone and iPod before it, the iPad is reinventing an entire technology category and bringing it to the masses.

As consumption of online video soars, how can brands optimise their video marketing to encourage social sharing?

Video consumption, both online and mobile, is growing. And growing rapidly. According to research by Experian Hitwise, UK visits to online video sites grew by 36% between September 2010 and September 2011, and in September 2011 there were over 785 million visits to video sites from the UK internet population, accounting for over 4% of all internet visists. With smartphones continuing to grow in popularity, viewers watch more than 400 million videos from mobile devices each day.

But it’s not just video watching that is enjoying a surge in popularity, it's also video sharing. Last week, a 30-minute video about an African warlord became a web phenomenon, racking up over 50 million viewings in a matter of days since it was uploaded. The video, dubbed KONY 2012, attracted over one million 'likes' - and 50,000 dislikes - and related topics spent much of the past week trending on Twitter.

Video is the fastest growing content type shared across the Web today. According to Cisco, 90 percent of consumer Web traffic will be video by 2015.  The other fast growing component is social media, which is becoming more powerful every day. The influence of social media on online video is apparent in a recent comScore report released last July which found that 50 percent of Internet users regularly share videos, with more than half viewing online videos with others.

These developments give new meaning to the phrase “business without borders”. Relationships and connections are codified to spread content and ideas. Customers are responding directly to their favourite brands. Businesses competing for consumers’ eyeballs and wallets realise that people are willing to pay more attention to a 30 second video than to a page of text.

So what can you do as a business to harness the power of social channels to build brand awareness and nurture customer relationships?

In case you haven’t been watching the online streaming video business closely over the past few years, now might be time to sit up and pay attention.

Three major announcements from four major American companies on Monday paint an intriguing picture of where things are headed over the course of 2012. Put simply: Everyone wants to be in everyone else’s business. No matter how you look at it, 2012 promises to be a very interesting year in online video.

There’s a land grab on in Internet video. Hulu’s 10 new series—plus original content from Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube—offer a hint of the future of TV, writes Nick Summers. Plus, read about Netflix's high-stakes gamble.

Maybe the next original series Hulu creates should be a Western. This week, the streaming-video service announced a slate of 10 exclusive shows coming to its platform this summer—one of the most aggressive moves yet in a land grab that is taking place among the pioneers of Internet video. Netflix has now green-lighted five premium series, and earlier this month, Amazon unveiled Amazon Studios, its first foray into original video. At YouTube, Google is plowing $100 million into launching 100 channels, with the goal of creating more content than there are hours in the day to watch.

This video reveals something shocking about Old Media: they are doing more new media stuff than any New Media operation: Why? They have much greater resources and they’re scared

Don’t be fooled: just because the established players can sometimes seem predictably traditional about their core business models, that doesn’t mean that they aren’t also pioneering some seriously bleeding-edge solutions.

Redesigned Howcast site offer comprehensive how-to videos.

Darlene Liebman holds up her neon-orange painted fingernails and points to her second finger. "See," she says, "It's the new matte finish. Different than your typical gloss finish."

Ms. Liebman, co-founder and executive producer of Howcast, an online library consisting of over 13,000 how-to videos, just came from a shoot on how to give yourself a manicure. But her nails aren't the only things that have been polished.

Howcast, which has just relaunched its website to add new navigation features, reports the number of viewings of its videos has now passed one billion.

Other websites like eHow and MonkeySee provide similar How-To video tutorials. Howcast's videos are distributed through a number of sites and platforms, including AOL, YouTube, and Hulu and spanning distribution across mobile, the web and in-home networks.

What are some winning strategies for creating online video that is engaging and valuable for customers and potential customers?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC leads #FixYoungAmerica, a solutions-based movement that aims to end youth unemployment and put young Americans back to work.

Many major advertisers feel they have more options for video advertising on cable than they do on the Internet. Why is that? In an era of virtually limitless online choices, major commercial cyber-buys typically stay in the "safe zone" of ABC, NBC, CBS and Hulu, with perhaps a few other well-known sites sprinkled in.

It's time that the accountability and transparency of traditional broadcast buys find their equivalent in the online world. It's not impossible; despite its reputation as a murky, unregulated medium, the web has made great strides in rating standards for display advertising. Online venues need a similar organizing element--a commonly held, trusted framework for media decision-making.

First determine what kind of material would complement your company’s brand.

Then learn the basics: preparation, equipment, and location

Many entrepreneurs are recognizing that offering video clips on their websites, or on dedicated YouTube channels, is a smart marketing idea. The segments might present compelling interviews, as you are doing, or feature the business owner talking about the company’s mission or history, or demonstrating a new product or service.

Whatever the content, including video on your site draws viewers in and can keep them engaged—if it is compelling enough. It personalizes your company for customers and potential partners and makes you stand out, giving you an advantage over competitors. Be aware that the average video posted online loses 20 percent of viewers in the first 10 seconds and 60 percent by the two-minute mark, according to a 2010 study by video analytics researcher Visible Measures.