VideoNuze Posts

Early bird discounted registration is now open for the VideoNuze 2012 Online Video Advertising Summit on Tuesday, June 19th in NYC. The Ad Summit takes the place of last year's ELEVATE conference, which VideoNuze co-hosted and which drew 400+ attendees.

I'm delighted to announce seven industry-leading companies as initial sponsors. These include Title Partners Auditude (Adobe) and YuMe; Premier Partner Adap.tv and Headline Partners Conviva, Mixpo, TubeMogul and Videology. All of these companies are bringing critical technologies to the online video advertising market and I'm honored they've decided to be a part of the Ad Summit.

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In another milestone for online video's evolution, independent online studio My Damn Channel is announcing today "My Damn Channel LIVE," a live daily comedy show. The show will be featured on My Damn Channel's web site and on its new YouTube channel. It will be streamed at 4pm ET starting a week from today and will be hosted by Beth Hoyt, an up and coming actor/writer/comedian.

The show is envisioned as a late-night talk show, but updated for all the elements that online offers. The format will include celebrity interviews, interaction with viewers, promotion of other My Damn Channel comedy shows and engagement with talent from other YouTube channels. Viewers will also be able to catch up on the show on demand.

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Today I'm pleased to share a video interview I did with Generate's Founder and CEO Jordan Levin at the recent NATPE Market conference in Miami, FL. In January Generate was acquired by Alloy Digital, in a deal that created a multi-platform media company targeting the young adult market. In the following interview Jordan discusses the rationale for the deal, the combined companies' top 2-3 priorities, how to judge the success of branded entertainment project and much more.

The interview runs 12 1/2 minutes. (Note, I'm off camera and my audio isn't great, so the questions are overlaid in text.)

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Yesterday's news that Nielsen is collaborating with GroupM, the largest media buyer in the world, to introduce "Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings," is the latest move by the Nielsen to get its arms around the elusive problem of coherently measuring online video advertising. As I recently wrote, many in the advertising and content community believe there's a "measurement crisis" as video consumption rapidly splinters to numerous new connected devices.

Given that "what can't be measured, can't be sold," cohesive online video measurement is essential. And since Nielsen is the gold standard in TV ratings, many in the industry have expected it to pick up the mantle in online video as well. That has led to some grumbling at Nielsen's perceived slow pace of innovation, and the drag this creates on online video ad spending.

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It seems like barely a week goes by these days without a new online-only original video series or new distribution agreement being announced. But even as content creators' enthusiasm for the new medium grows, there's one constant reality: if major advertising dollars don't flow into online video, these projects will not survive. Content creators, distributors and agencies need to make a coordinated, concerted effort to educate advertisers about these new opportunities in order to help drive spending.

That's why the recently announced "Digital Content NewFronts" (DCNF) are a step in the right direction. Recognizing that a rising tide lifts all boats, five of the top ten online video destinations have banded together with ad agency Digitas to host two weeks of targeted events. But as Mark Beeching, Chief Global Creative and Strategy Director for Digitas explains in the following interview, the DCNF isn't as much an event as it is part of an ongoing, inclusive dialogue between brands and content creators/distributors looking to tap into completely new customer engagement opportunities.

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I'm pleased to be joined once again by Colin Dixon, senior partner at The Diffusion Group, for the 125th edition of the VideoNuze Report podcast, for Mar. 16, 2012. This week finds Colin on business in Brazil, and he's been doing some sleuthing on how Netflix's rollout is going there. Back on the domestic front, we also discuss Intel's rumored TV plans and the latest on Aereo's rollout.

Colin reports that anecdotal feedback on Netflix's content selection in Brazil is underwhelming as it is perceived as mostly older titles. He raises the critical question of whether Netflix was wise in choosing not to partner with any established players which might have brought content as well as an understanding of local conditions. Colin points out that the landscape is very different in Brazil vs. the U.S., with pay-TV penetration of just 20% and over-the-air broadcast viewing dominant. All that said, Colin has heard that Netflix is advertising heavily to build its brand. And Brazil is of course an enormous market, representing big long-term opportunities.

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Brightcove is powering NBCU's recently-launched Emmy screener app for the iPad dubbed "NBCU Screen It" with its App Cloud and Video Cloud platforms. The app allows 15,000 members of the Television Academy who vote on the Emmy awards to gain authenticated access to view NBC's programs.

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With the world awash in video, opportunities continue to emerge for publications to intelligently curate the best from around the web in order to add value to their audiences. The latest example is The Clinical Advisor, a 125,000-subscriber publication targeted to nurse practitioners and physician assistants, owned by the British giant, Haymarket Media.

At its site ClinicalAdvisor.com, a new video section, curated with Magnify.net's tools, presents both its own videos, as well as specialized videos from YouTube and elsewhere. Videos are grouped by category such as Dermatology, Geriatrics, Men's Health, etc. Within each category are news videos, expert interviews and recently posted videos. In addition, there's also a pitch to users to submit their own videos for inclusion in an "Editor's Picks" area.

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