The paid and earned lines are increasingly blurring. While media owners disclose paid content whether it be native ads or branded content, Microsoft’s YouTube promotion is less transparent. The tech company is paying $3 CPM for YouTube content creators to mention the Xbox One and incorporate game footage with a maximum payout of $3,750 for 1.25 million views. An alternative campaign might be creating a UGC contest around gameplay footage which would achieve a similar outcome.
Tag: youtube
Roku 3 Adds YouTube Channel
As an addition to its already impressive stable of video services, Roku has finally added the grandaddy of all online video streaming services, YouTube, to its latest Roku 3 hardware. The update is only available for users in US, UK, Canada, and Ireland, but it shows that Roku is keeping pace with competitors like Apple TV and gaming consoles like PlayStation and Xbox. Still, Roku maintains a lead in the space for having over 750 “channels” of content including Netflix, Hulu, HBOGo, and Pandora, among others.
In Favor Of YouTube Comments
Users have spoken in outrage (as they do with any major change to a a major platform) over YouTube’s recent changes to comments. Main changes include Google+ integration, improved moderation tools and the ability to post publicly or privately. Despite the complaints of some 90,000 who are petitioning, Memeburn makes a convincing argument on the why this is an improvement for YouTube. Among their most salient points are the fact that tying your comments to an identity promotes meaningful discussion–a far cry from the current state–and curation as the video owner and those in your circles are more visible. Brands should be in favor of this change (aside from the improved audience data) as YouTube has moved to become a more premium network a brand would like to associate with. While comments will likely drop as a result of this change, they will be more impactful. In the same way marketers have grown weary of the value of a like, they should adopt the same approach to comments or engagements.
Netflix & YouTube Make Up Half of Peak Internet Traffic
Sandvine, a data analysis service, released upstream, downstream, and aggregate traffic statistics for North America during peak usage hours. As it turns out, Amazon and Netflix make up 50.31% of downstream traffic during those hours; Amazon Instant Video and Hulu only got 1.61% and 1.29% respectively. It’s further confirmation that most Internet users are spending their time on these services, away from the “traditional” social networks. Indeed, Facebook finished with a paltry 1.31%. It’s important for advertisers to note this big shift in digital that’s trending towards streaming and content consumption, rather than always-on-sharing.
YouTube Plans Spotify For Music Videos
YouTube, the number one destination for music is preparing a premium on-demand music video service that looks a lot like Spotify. With both free and premium models, users get access to a breadth of music that is organized by album and artist in a way that makes it a more lean back experience than YouTube currently offers. Amidst serious competition from Spotify and Pandora and a precedent of free services, can YouTube breakthrough the clutter?
Amazon Pitches YouTube Networks
In a move that takes it into direct competition with Youtube, Amazon is pitching YouTube networks that produce short-form videos for the digital video leader. From the producers’ perspective, it would expand their viewership numbers, and it would open up a pay-per-video revenue stream. They would also receive branded pages on Amazon that would promote their videos, much like a show page on Hulu or a Channel on YouTube. The ultimate goal is to be able to market these videos to people searching for the products the videos are about; for instance, if I’m looking for a video game, a review video might pop up in my search results on Amazon. It’s a potent possibility, and if it pans out it could mean true competition with YouTube.
YouTube To Host Live Music Awards
It’s certainly the age of awards, and why shouldn’t YouTube have their own? To crown its newly-minted digital music video domain, the YouTube Music Awards will take place on November 3rd, and will livestream globally at 6pm EST. Kia has sponsored the 90 minute event, which will only be available on the Google-owned service. It will he hosted at Pier 36 in New York, and artists will be nominated based on views, likes, and shares of videos. After the nominees and award categories are announced, viewers will vote for who they want to win. Artists performing at the event include Lady Gaga and Eminem, and it will also feature broadcasted concerts from London, Moscow, Seoul, and a TBD city in Brazil. YouTUbe even brought in Spike Jonze as creative director. It’s a big step in how YouTube supports and showcases artists on the platform, and could mark the real beginning of YouTube’s digital network dominance over traditional mediums.
Youtube Debuts Offline Viewing
If you’ve ever been in a place without Internet and wanted to watch Youtube, you would have likely been frustrated. Not anymore though; the Google-owned company announced today that they’ll let users “add videos” to their mobile devices for offline viewing. The idea is that commuting through limited service spots doesn’t mean that you’ll lose out on the morning’s worth of content. Though Youtube doesn’t quite specify how the service will work, it is reported that users will be able to save videos for up to 48 hours for later viewing. It could mean a very different commute for many.
Virgin Mobile Uses Webcam “Blinkwashing” In New Ads
Virgin Mobile is using a new technology called “blinkwashing” for a new series of YouTube ads that, in brief, uses webcams to react to a viewer’s blinks. Including 25 videos, the technology time-codes every word across each video to “create a smart caching system that switches seamlessly between videos whenever the viewer blinks.” In an ideal use-case, a viewer switches videos so quickly that five or six blinks creates a full sentence. It’s a very interesting way to move through content and create viewer engagement, but whether this is a sustainable practice through multiple campaigns is doubtful at best.
YouTube Co-Founders Launch Video App
There’s a third hat in the video app ring: YouTube cofounders Chat Hurley and Steve Chen announced MixBit, an iPhone app that lets you record, edit, share, and mix video clips from other users to create your own movies. The videos are designed to be recorded and viewed horizontally, and it operates just like Vine and Instagram – tap-to-record and release to finish. Clips can be as long as 16 seconds, and finished can include as many as 256 clips in a single video, meaning that videos can last more than an hour. There are no filters, but you can rearrange, cut, and further edit clips before publishing. With the flexibility to post videos that are far more long-form than either Vine or Instagram allow, MixBit could be a potent new video capturing and editing app – and with YouTube’s powerful backing, it’s not too far fetched to guess that it will be an important third party in the Instagram and Vine-dominated world.
