Category Archives: Video Monetization

Pondering the Vidli.com Contest

Still only a few hours left in the contest being run by soon to be released Vidli.com. If you spend any time at all reading the posts here at BG, you likely know that I’ve been participating in their Social Media challenge. They designed an interesting way to weed out the wannabe Social Media “expert” types from those that can actually produce results.

The rules? Simple: sign up, get URL that points people to Vidli’s Beta Invitation sign up form, get people to sign up for their free beta program to be launched early 2010. The top five referrers are then invited to talk with Vidli folk in order to be further considered for the new position they are hiring for.

Some saw this as an exploitation of unemployed workers to further Vidli’s cause. Obviously, even in a losing effort, I never considered this to be taking advantage of me. Just like my response to those that argue Boxing is an exploitive sport: no one makes fighters step into the ring and compete based upon mutually agreeable rules and regulations.

Hell, even Nelson Mandela is on record as being a big fight fan. It’s true!

Anyway, if you are into making videos for whatever topic or niche, being able to monetize them is usually a lofty goal. Sure some of them are simply created to market other products or brands, but of the billions of videos viewed everyday online, only a super small percentage have any sort of video monetization associated with them.

If Vidli.com lives up to its self professed promises, the opportunities for you Camtasia, Pling, screen grabbing, Audacity recording junkies to make some money seems quite good.

Even though I didn’t get into the top five, I know the methods I chose to employ in this contest were sound, longer tail applications of using both social media marketing and solid content creation. There were several contestants that started emulating my techniques after they observed my efforts in action. Must be something to that, you know?

In a nutshell, this pursuit isn’t over. 2010 is just a few hours away. As such, I’m already working on taking advantage of this exercise in its fullest. As those products are ready, I’ll be sure to post information here for you lucky friends of mine that subscribe to this feed. If you don’t subscribe to this feed, no worries, just click here.

If you were among the 35 who took the time and put forth the effort to sign up thank you so very much. I am grateful that you efforted to help me out. Promise to make you proud!

Rendering Video Monetization with the Best Metrics

From ripping off live MMA to trying to figure out just what works and doesn’t regarding the monetization of online video, today’s stories are all about searching for the answers.

Startup companies like Vidli.com will definitely need to be way on top of their game if they are going to go head to head with the Ooyala’s, Apple’s and Ustream’s of the video delivery world.

We shall see! In the meantime, here’s what seems to be more pertinent snippets about licensing video and delivering profitability and ROI to the content owners and network operators. Just click through on the headlines to read their entire stories.

The Future of In-Stream Video Advertising for Yu and Me

On the topic of measuring performance for online video advertising campaigns, Jayant agrees that what may be considered acceptable performance metrics for many interactive ad formats does not necessarily translate in terms of measuring the complete success of a video advertising initiative.
“In the search business and in the display business, the primary metric people use is clicks… In video, depending on the campaign, a click may not be the best metric… You have a myriad of things that you can try…”

Apple TV Talk, Talk, Talk, Talk

Once again, talking about Apple’s future as a multichannel video distributor is all the rage. But people familiar with the discussions between Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and video programmers over a possible subscription package say the talk is far ahead of the action, one reason why details are still murky. If the subscription package could be pulled off with an announcement from a single player, I have no doubt Disney (NYSE: DIS), which isn’t commenting about this but multiple sources tell me is open to the idea, would be first in line.

UFC targets online piracy. Let’s just hope it doesn’t go all RIAA on us

It’s been a running theme for the past few years, and as more and more people get faster Internet connections, and as video compression technology continues to improve, we’re going to be hearing a lot more about it. I refer, of course (of course!), to illegal streams of live sporting events. Whether you’re firing up TVAnts on Sunday to watch Arsenal take on Aston Villa, or trolling USTREAM for a live feed of WWE’s Royal Rumble, or looking for MMA-TV to watch this month’s UFC pay-per-view, you are, in fact, breaking the law. Not only are you breaking the law, but you may even be taking money away from the companies/teams/sports you purport to support. But is that all there is to it?

If Vidli Takes on YouTube & Ooyala, Who Wins?

As Vidli.com prepares to enter the video licensing and monetization market, they’ll find the stakes getting higher by the moment.

Recently, video site giant, YouTube has been heard mumbling they may begin to offer premium content, ala Hulu.com, but for a fee. To be fair, similar whispers have also been rumored to be true for Hulu as well.

Another upstarting video delivery company, Ooyala, former winner of Amazon’s Web Services Start-up Challenge has steadily built up its offerings to be a contender in both live streaming of video events as well as on-demand delivery. Earlier reviews of their services showed interesting video monetization via ad insertions as well as a number of other methods.

The question for newcomer Vidli.com is whether or not they will be able to jump into the fray and compete with the big boys and girls of video delivery. From the Vidli blog, their aim is to “help people buy, sell and rent videos online.”

There’s clearly a lot of content to go around and it seems that any new entry into the space should be able to forge a successful business if they go about things correctly. Of course in today’s world of monetizing video online, knowing the correct course IS the battle!

What’s Next in Video Monetization and Premium Content Licensing

We’re seeing a number of announcements by the big boy companies attempting to grab major foothold share in video monetization industries. Companies like Google’s YouTube is considering a subscription model in an attempt to entice premium content copyright holders to use their system.

A move like that would place them in direct competition with Hulu.com with whom it is anticipated will start its own subscription model soon after the new year. Clearly however, in that marketplace, with Hulu’s owners being Disney, NBCU, and FOX, they have an advantage in getting that premium content.

For everyone else that’s not a Google or Hulu, there might be hope to make money with their copyrighted video by using Vidli.com, the Official Video Licensor. Their stated goals are to provide a place for you to sell, rent and buy videos online.