In its 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review whitepaper on prevailing trends and their implications for the future, ComScore reports that online video "continued to gain momentum, with an average of 179 million Americans watching video each month."
Engagement levels also rose during the year, with viewers watching online videos more frequently. More than 88.6 million people watched online video on an average day in December 2010 (up 32 percent from December 2009), while viewing sessions totaled 5.8 billion for the month (up 13 percent).
Americans also spent a significantly higher number of hours viewing online video in 2010 versus the prior year due to increased content consumption and more video ad streams. The average American spent more than 14 hours watching online video in December, a 12-percent increase from last year, and streamed a record 201 videos, an 8-percent increase.
There was also good news about video advertising, which "now reaches 7 out of 10 Americans online, and nearly 1 out of 2 Americans nationwide each month. In December 2010, video ad networks served 5.9 billion ads, averaging 40 ads per viewer and 0.4 minutes per ad."
(Click on image to enlarge)
ComScore's 2011 projection:
Online video viewing continues to account for an increasing amount of consumers’ time online, as content options, quality and convenience drive people to this channel. Video ads will continue to offer advertisers an engaging venue to reach their target audience and will be an important aspect of the development of the online video industry. In 2011, look for cross media relationships to take center stage as the convergence of traditional TV and online video viewing continues to blur the lines between media channels.
ComScore is a leading online marketing research company. Download the full report here.
How long do you think we'll sit through a video before we click away to something else?
A minute? Nope: 44.1 percent will be gone by then.
How about ten seconds? That's when 19.4 percent will have flown the coop. Yes, nearly one in five viewers won't even give you ten seconds of their attention. (Click on graph at right to enlarge image.)
And it doesn't matter whether the entire video is five minutes or an hour -- if you don't grab them in the first ten seconds, say bye bye.
That's the conclusion drawn by Visible Measures, a video metrics outfit that analyzed the habits of viewers who collectively watched (and ultimately abandoned) over 40 million unique video clips, which, in aggregate, received nearly 7 billion views. And we're not talking feature-length documentaries here -- the research project was limited to short-form videos of less than five minutes in duration!
Something to think about when you're shooting and editing your videojournalism masterpiece. Those long slow scene- and tone-setting builds and reveals may be Oscar fodder in movie theaters, but will be completely lost on online video audiences.
It bears repeating -- you've got ten seconds to hook 'em!
Columbia Journalism Review devotes a zillion words to the state of videojournalism in its October issue, quoting the usual suspects, and not adding much to the conversation except the need to improve video search capability -- a point we've been making for more than two years.
Virtually all the worthy videojournalism examples cited in See It Now! by Jill Drew have been previously showcased on KobreGuide.com and KobreChannel.com (though both are blatantly overlooked in this report).
We suppose we should be grateful that the publication is paying attention at all ... but why does the article feel like old news already -- too little too late?
If you missed the advent and struggle of online videojournalism for the past two years, here's as good a place to start as any. For those in a hurry, here are the money grafs:
For candid video to move to the forefront of online news and address a rising generation of news consumers, several things have to change: online video journalists need to develop their own storytelling styles, breaking with the anchor-centered conventions of broadcast. Newsrooms need to better integrate and bolster their multimedia and video staffs, and create career paths for visual journalists that extend right to the top. Great video needs to be promoted just as big text stories are.
Video stories need to be judged like all other stories -- by how good they are, not how many clicks they get. And at the same time, media companies need to push search engines to focus on creating better tools to highlight well-produced, unique video stories.
Essentially Anderson credits Web video for accelerating the global communication of new ideas, techniques, technologies.
Fish says that the media corporate beasties who have been lurking in the wings while amateurs beta-tested Web video are now about to pounce, wiping out the free-spirited pioneering grit and replacing it with TV-style slickness and canned laugh tracks.
Hidden among all the cute kittens and pirated TV shows, online video is driving astonishing innovation in thousands of different fields ranging from the ultra-niche to the sharing of truly world-changing ideas.
Explosions in innovation have happened in music, photography and animation, to name but three fields. The reason online video is so significant, is that it is now allowing the rest of the world's talents to be shared digitally.
Dig under the surface of today's visual web, and you'll see an explosion of grassroots-driven innovation and experimentation everywhere you look, both trivial and epic.
We are entering a new era of professionalism -- gone is the wild Darwinian kingdom of video memes, the meritocracy of the rabble rousers, the open platforms equally prioritizing the talented poor as well as the rich. The upcoming golden age of ‘quality’ professional content will be ruled by Steve Jobs and his ilk at HBO, Pixar, Hulu, LG, and Vizio.
The pioneer age of the free and open culture of internet video is ending... The wild world of amateur video -- its production, promotion, and distribution procedures -- is moving from the realm of prototyping, beta-testing, and experimentation to expert production, algorithmic optimization, and alpha release five years after its debut on YouTube and Current TV.
This professionalization is a historical result of 5 years of industrial development, individual trial and error, and profit-focused talent agencies and creative thinktanks. It is also a product of the historical convergence of the internet and television hardware, as well as the corporate consolidation of content and software around the idea of the app -- a professionally designed hardware/software/content peephole into a small fraction of the internet.
More anthropological however is the historical transformation of the subculture into the culture... The “golden age” to follow this pioneering phase will be as innovative as the golden age of television as we welcome the equivalent of I Love Lucy, Friends, and Lost and along with it the return to spectatorism, canned laughter, and the proliferation of middle class values.
***
What do you think? Will the "professionalization" of Web video benefit or hinder its pioneering spirit? Videojournalists strive for the highest standards of video production and journalism, but they've also been buoyed by an aura of fierce independence -- the rough-hewn lone-wolf 'backpack VJ' maverick vs. the slick TV news crew with its coiffed anchors and groomed correspondents. Is it any wonder, given the economic state of the news biz, that some of the better in-depth videojournalism projects are increasingly produced by solitary practitioners for non-profits and NGOs?
While you're mulling that over, watch Anderson's own TED talk on this subject (below), and stay with it all the way through. The last two minutes drive home his point with emotional intensity -- and make you wonder if high-quality, high-minded video from independent non-corporate sources isn't here to stay, and even lead the way.
On his blog, videojournalist Glen Canning provides a humorous guide to screwing up. It will ring a bell for all of us who, at one time or another, have been careless about battery charging, audio levels, white balancing, autofocusing, lighting, and worse.
Anyone involved with producing online video probably is aware of the too numerous to mention web sites they can go to for helpful information and tips on how to do it right. From holding the camera right to getting the color right, it’s all there readily available for the eager to learn and grow. Yet through it all there isn’t much mention on how to do it wrong. So, here I am filling that niche. This is Glen Canning’s guide to failing at online video.
Ever forget to pack your tripod or otherwise plan ahead for a shoot? This guide's for you.
When's the last time you saw a text story on a news Website that didn't have a headline?
And aren't you accustomed to also expecting a byline and dateline?
Don't photos usually have a caption and photo credit?
And aren't those photos right there next to the story they're illustrating?
It's common sense, right?
OK, then we have to ask. Why is it so %*#&@$! difficult for news Websites to appropriately label and organize their video stories?
Our KobreGuide scouts -- who search daily to locate for you the Web's best videojournalism stories -- have been looking high and low for great material on a daily basis for more than two years. Nobody has seen more videojournalism, good and bad, than they have. And you know what astonishes them most? No, it's not just the overwhelming overuse of zooms and underuse of tripods. No, it's not just the overabundance of actionless talking-head footage. It's not even all those "single-source" one-perspective stories that would never be allowed to fly on the print side of the operation.
No, what truly amazes us is that, even after all this time, most news Websites are still doing a stinky job of labeling and organizing their videos. Even as they're complaining that nobody watches their videos, they insist on making them impossible to find. And even once you find them, there's nothing compelling about the way they're packaged or presented that would make anybody want to click the PLAY button. We're tempted to link you to some of the more egregious examples, but we think you know who we're talking about.... Just about all of them!
So listen up, folks. Here's the bare minimum of what you need to provide potential viewers if you want them to become regular consumers of your video offerings.
1. TITLE. What's the video called? Make sure the title is in the video and in text adjacent to the video. Make sure those two titles match each other! Make sure they're spelled and punctuated correctly! (Bonus: Text next to a video makes it easier for search engines to find it.)
And don't get us started on this one: Make sure the title is interesting! We can tell that most titles are composed on the fly by the videojournalists themselves, and it shouldn't be expected that titling is their strong suit. Most of the titles we encounter are either too short and dry ("The Yellow Car") or impossibly unwieldy ("A Walk Down Memory Lane with a Grandmother Visting from Russia"). Instead, engage the writers and editors who are responsible for those catchy and memorable homepage headlines.
2. DATE. Put the date the video is posted in at least two places -- on the video (title sequence or credit roll) and adjacent to the video. People want to know WHEN this story happened -- and, remember, not everyone is going to see the video the same day it's posted. They may stumble upon it a week, a year, or a decade later.
3. CREDITS. Put the credits on and next to the video. You wouldn't leave a byline off a staff-produced story; why would you deprive videojournalists of their rightful due? And make sure to include all contributors -- including but not limited to reporters, writers, videographers, still photographers, editors, producers, music composers, and narrator.
4. LINKS. Given that most online videos aren't self-contained to begin with -- and rely on text stories for context and important details -- it's especially important that someone watching the video can quickly find the accompanying text, photo gallery, and all other relevant material. That includes previous coverage of related topics. Furthermore, you must provide links to the video from all those other places, so that anybody reading that text story or viewing that photo gallery can easily find the video (which, ideally, should be embedded right there on the Web page alongside the other story components). Amazingly, most news Websites hide their videojournalism so well that readers would never even know that there was a video that goes with a story.
5. NAVIGATION / ORGANIZATION. This is the one that really gets our goat. Even the top news outlets have made a complete muddle of their Video sections. They are unattractive, unappealing, and an organizational nightmare that prevents viewers from finding anything, whether they're looking for it or not. The worst are the ones that just stockpile videos one atop another, with no eye toward organization whatsoever -- today's burying yesterday's until you can't even find anything more than a few days old. While that scheme works for daily blogs, it's no way to run a video section. Lots have made attempts to sort them thematically, like newspaper sections (e.g. Sports, Lifestyle, Business), but even then it's usually in reverse chronological order, and so a video's shelf life ends up being somewhere between that of milk and yogurt.
Ideally a video should be accessible from multiple locations -- adjacent to its accompanying text story or package, in logical and easy-to-find locations within the video section. Additionally there should be a video box on the Website's homepage that features at least thumbnail versions of several videos, and a link to a video index page. Anybody visiting that video index page should be instantly enticed -- by the layout, design and alluring text descriptions -- to stick around and click on a variety of video options.
You want an example of who knows precisely how to sort and arrange tons of video options so that viewers can find something to watch instantly (whether they're looking for it or not)-- and are seduced into searching for, and clicking on, plenty more? Netflix, that's who! Go take a look at how much thought that company has put into creating an attractive organizational scheme, easy-to-use navigational tools, and appealing design. And all that descriptive text is a copy-editor's dream -- light, tight, bright. Isn't it time that news organizations took a cue from Netflix, which packages and presents its videos like its financial lifeblood depended on it?
***
OK, now that we've got that off our chest, we've got a bone to pick about most of the primitive and dysfunctional videoplayers that news outlets are still using. But that's another topic for another day. And while we're assembling our checklist of which features videoplayers should have, why not share your ideas on the subject. What are some of the best (and worst) videoplayers you have encountered in your Web travels?
"After a protracted drought," the New York Times reports, "money is trickling back into the professional Web video industry."
Excerpts:
The promise of Web video has risen and fallen over the last few years. What makes the current round of interest more compelling is the realization in the industry that Web video will not supplant television viewing anytime soon, just complement it. That partly explains why the companies have stopped labeling themselves “TV on the Internet.” ...
"We realized we were putting a burden on Web-original programming by trying to make it like TV,” said Lance Podell, the Next New Networks chief executive, who now calls his company a provider of “Web original programming.”
The Web video industry flies under the radar, but together, the major players rack up hundreds of millions of video views each month. As people spend more time online, producers are betting that video viewing times will keep growing in tandem...
Reaffirming its belief in made-for-the-Web programming, YouTube last month announced $5 million in grants for online producers...
Despite the evidence that viewers are eager to watch more on the Web, the recession was an ugly reality check for purveyors of such programming, and many start-ups were closed...
Web video companies say that advertisers are starting to make million-dollar commitments — hardly a threat to established television networks, but a big improvement for sites that started out making $5,000 at a time.
OK, here's the fly in the ointment. All this refers to entertainment video. All those online ersatz TV-but-not-quite-TV shows. Mini-soap operas. Goofy comedies. Game shows. Music videos.
Now, how about videojournalism?
Isn't it about time that major news organizations took a cue from their entertainment counterparts and started recognizing the power and potential profits in online video stories?
Read that New York Times story again, and be aware that all the facts and figures apply to the time and energy that audiences can and will spend watching non-fiction featurettes. True-life reality mini-documentaries. Not the home-movie video slop that's currently polluting most newspaper websites, but high-quality visual stories that are professionally told.
Imagine if time, talent and appropriate resources were wisely invested in creating online versions of TV newsmagazine segments -- minus the unnecessary slickness.
Remember -- "60 Minutes" has run longer, drawn a bigger audience, and made more profit for CBS than any of its sitcoms.
So where are the networks and investors for videojournalism?
The Wall Street Journal's online video efforts have frankly been disappointing. As often happens when print journalists attempt to emulate broadcast personalities, they look and feel amateurish. Often the reporters end up interviewing each other about their stories, rather than the actual subjects of their stories.
This is not the best use of videojournalism to report compelling news.
Slate's "The Big Money" tuned in this week and seemed to agree:
It’s not hard to mock the Wall Street Journal’s online video operation. The outlet’s daily broadcasts can feel a bit like the A.V. club at a tony school aping the nightly news. That impression isn’t helped by the fact that a host, Simon Constable, resembles the Muppets’ parody of a newscaster.
Still, "The Big Money" wondered whether whether this represented the future of online news video -- and if TV news would look like this in five years.
Lord, we hope not.
Mysteriously the Wall Street Journal's approach apparently draws eyeballs, but we can't help but think that their reported "10 million streams a month" has more to do with the sheer quantity of video it's producing (by a team of 23!), combined with its brand-name reputation.
By its own admission, its live Webcasts of its signature twice-daily NewsHub show perform miserably. What it generously calls "experimentation" is actually just a poor attempt to reinvent the broadcast wheel. Just because you're a talented print reporter doesn't guarantee that you're going to do well on camera, especially in an anchor's seat. And you can brag about your "air of informality" all you want, but ultimately audiences sense the difference between roughshod and slipshod.
We don't mean to pick on the Journal, but that's the formula we see popping up across the nation, as daily newspapers join forces with their city's local TV newscasts. Instead of a professional studio, they stick a makeshift camera and mic in the newsroom, and livestream print reporters, who have limited on-air presence, joshing and kibbitzing with each other about the day's events.
This is not a step forward.
As the gatekeepers of KobreGuide to the Web's Best Videojournalism, what we'd like to see, of course, are more thoughtfully planned, shot and edited video stories that represent the highest standards of the journalism profession. That would indicate that news outlets are respecting their audience's intelligence, not pandering to it. It's OK to be informal -- but why not jettison the whole anchor/correspondent TV shtick, which doesn't work so well on the Web anyway? Produce feature videos that speak for themselves.
"As information converges on a digital platform, news organizations are starting to see that video is replacing photography as the attention-getting feature that differentiates their take on the news," concludes The Big Money. But there are smarter and more useful ways to get attention with video.
UPDATE: Slate pulled the plug on the money-losing "The Big Money" just days after publishing its report on the Wall Street Journal.
ReelSEO.com, the online video marketer's guide, is hosting a free online webinar on HTML 5 video next week.
Mark your calendars: Wednesday, July 21, 11am to noon (PT).
As we've previously discussed on this blog, all Apple mobile devices (iPhones, iPods, iPads) will not enable Flash video -- it's a personal pet peeve of Steve Jobs. That means that most Web video will not appear.
Jobs is prodding Web designers to adopt the still evolving HTML 5 standard, which incorporates a simple VIDEO tag that enables most video formats to automatically play without the need for an external player (the same way that an IMAGE tag currently displays all JPGs and GIFs within the browser itself).
Webinar instructors are:
* Jeroen Wijering, creator of the open-source JW video player
* Philip Jagenstedt, Opera browser core developer
* Mark Robertson, ReelSEO.com founder
Webinar topics include:
* Overview of HTML5 VIDEO tag
* Why HTML5 video is relevant
* Technical advantages / disadvantages of HTML5 vs. Flash
* Implications for video search engine optimization (SEO)
* Tips & best practices for HTML5
* Encoding for HTML5
* Browser support
* How to code HTML5 with Flash fallback
Oh, and while you're there, check out ReelSEO's handy online glossary of technical video terms. Whether you're an old pro, or you don't know your DRM from your CPM, you'll find it's comprehensive and helpful.
What is Google TV? It's more than just a search engine on your TV set. It's a useful way of integrating your television with your Internet browser, to create a symbiotic TV and Web experience that is more than the sum of its parts.
Let the Big G explain it for you themselves in this short video below. And then ask yourself if this will change the way people view Internet video... and if this will be the catalyst that will take online videojournalism to the next level.
With the increased opportunity for attracting eyeballs -- on bigger screens, in an improved and enriched environment -- will media organizations now invest more resources to produce higher quality nonfiction video feature stories? What do you think?
Brightcove and TubeMogul recently issued a research report to "identify key industry trends" that may lift the spirits of media organizations that have been grumbling about the financial state of online news video. (Brightcove is a videoplayer platform; TubeMogul is a video ad platform.)
Here are some of their key findings:
Growth Trends
• Broadcast networks and pure-play Web media properties represent the fastest growing sectors for online video streams.
• Newspaper and magazine publishers have the greatest number of video players across online media properties.
• Newspaper publishers show the most growth in video production for online properties, followed by broadcast networks and pure-play Web media brands.
Engagement
• Online video content from broadcast networks attracts the most viewing time per video.
• Newspaper and magazine publishers garner the highest online video viewing completion rates.
• Consumers in the U.S. average more minutes of video watched per stream from broadcast networks and newspaper publishers, compared to their European counterparts who average more minutes per stream from magazine publishers and music labels.
Discovery
• Google generates the highest volume of referral traffic to online video content, followed by Yahoo!, Bing and Facebook.
• Compared to search engines and other social media sites, Twitter referrals generate the highest level of consumer engagement for online video content from broadcast networks, magazine publishers and music labels. Newspaper publishers see the highest level of engagement from viewers who find their content via Yahoo!.
Formats & Strategy
• In-stream video advertising is the dominant ad format followed by overlays, sponsorships, companions and player skins.
• Despite experimentation with other ad formats, 35 percent of survey respondents said in-stream video advertising produced the most revenue for their media business compared to other ad formats.
• For in-stream advertising, respondents said the dominant insertion point is pre-roll, followed by post-roll, player load and mid-roll.
• More than half of the survey respondents indicated that they would add sponsorships to their monetization strategy for online video this year.
• Close to 70 percent of respondents said that their media companies sell their own advertising versus using an ad network.
• While just over 10 percent of respondents said that they currently distribute ad-supported video content to mobile devices, more than 50 percent said that they will roll out ad-supported mobile video within the next twelve months.
Video Stream Trend Data
Broadcast networks and pure-play Web media properties represent strongest growth sectors:
Broadcast networks and pure-play Web media brands represent the largest volume of online video streams with a combined quarterly run rate that now surpasses 700 million streams.
Last year, these broadcast networks grew online video streams by 74 percent. During the same period, Web media brands grew online video streams by 165 percent.
Data from Q1 of 2010 suggests another strong growth year for both media industry verticals. Broadcast networks have started the year doing more than 380 million video streams, which represents a 44 percent increase compared to the same quarter last year. Similarly, Web media brands kicked off 2010 with 326 million video streams, which is an increase of more than 300 percent compared to Q1 of 2009.
Magazine publishers and music labels achieve next highest volume of video streams:
Magazine publishers have achieved eight consecutive quarters of video stream growth.
Overall, magazine publishers grew video streams by nearly 100 percent between 2008 and 2009.
Magazine publishers walked into 2010 doing more than 190 million video streams in the first quarter of the year, which is up 90 percent as compared to Q1 of 2009 when this media vertical did 99 million video streams.
Newspaper sector video streams flat in 2009, but signal growth ahead for 2010:
As a category, newspaper publishers did nearly 136 million video streams in Q1 of 2010, a similar volume compared to Q1 in 2009.
Newspaper publishers had only one quarter of stream growth in 2009, but have grown overall by five percent from Q4 of 2009 and Q1 of 2010.
A recent batch of new research may provide some fresh hope for those who've been discouraged about news video. While the news is best, by far, for broadcast outlets, growth in audience should be good news for all video producers.
New numbers from Brightcove and TubeMogul look promising. Broadcasters who stream from Brightcove have seen a 74 percent increase in traffic the first quarter of this year, while they've posted only 10 percent more material than in the first quarter last year.
Web-only brands do even better, with a startling 300 percent growth in views. Newspaper videos were up 37 percent from the same period last year. Broadcasters get the best news in length of time watched, with users spending an average of 2:53 watching video, compared to 1:41 average time watched at newspaper sites. It's a bit of apples and oranges, however, since the broadcast material includes a lot of much longer non-news content. Newspaper sites had a slight edge in completion of videos, at 41 percent of viewers finishing, compared to 38 percent for broadcasters.
You can hardly run into a media site these days that no longer includes online video (even we are getting ready to launch TechCrunch TV). But which kinds of media sites are getting the most views? In a joint report by Brightcove and Tubemogul, the non-YouTube sites seeing the most success with online video are those of the broadcast TV networks and Web-only media brands, followed by magazine sites and music labels. Newspaper sites are lagging when it comes to both total video views and growth....
Obviously, newspaper sites are having a real problem getting their audiences to watch videos. For every 2 billion videos they throw in front of them, only 136 million get viewed (6.8 percent). Whereas broadcast TV sites are getting 380 million views for every 670 million attempts (56.7 percent). Maybe that is because people go to newspaper sites for news and quick hits, and they go to TV sites to watch videos. But even magazine sites are seeing a 12.7 percent hit rate. Again, this could be a time commitment scenario. Most people go to news sites for quick facts and breaking news. But those people who do bother to watch videos on newspaper sites, are slightly more likely to watch them to the end more than on other types of sites. The completion rates for videos on newspaper sites are 41 percent, versus 39 percent for magazine sites, 38 percent for broadcast sites, and 29 percent for music label sites...
The BBC will experiment with more livestreaming and short-form video on its website as part of its developments in multimedia news journalism...
More live coverage will be explored with the development of a "rich live page" featuring related content, streams of microblogged updates from correspondents and social media feedback from viewers alongside news videos...
The article quotes the BBC's new multimedia guru pontificating about what does and doesn't work with online video, and how it should and shouldn't be packaged and presented.
And you can see the current state of affairs over here and here.
Right now it pretty much looks like TV news repurposed (i.e. degraded) for the Web, as opposed to created for the Web -- a hybrid of raw footage, soundbites, half-assembled reports, with the occasional anchor or correspondent voiceover. Much of it looks like it's not ready for prime time, but was apparently deemed "good enough" for online use (i.e. scraped off the proverbial cutting-room floor). Plus the videos themselves are poorly organized -- just a jumbled woodpile of unenticing titles and nondescript thumbnail images begging not to be clicked.
In short, not an improvement on standard newspaper video presentation (which is, for the most part, abysmal). For starters, we think the BBC could augment their basic headline service and B-roll with a healthy dose of full-fledged enterprising videojournalism storytelling. That takes an investment of time, money and talent -- far more than the slapdash efforts currently on display. If they really do decide to stop dragging a foot in the past, and instead boldly plant one in the future, we believe the journalistic rewards will become readily apparent, with audience loyalty and financial rewards to follow.
Streaming video is rapidly becoming the Internet’s predominant data type, according to this article in the New York Times about scientists who are mapping the evolving shape of this anarchic network.
Here's an amazing statistic that caught our attention:
"When we started releasing data publicly, we measured it in petabytes of traffic,” said Doug Webster, a Cisco Systems market executive who is responsible for an annual report by the firm that charts changes in the Internet. “Then a couple of years ago we had to start measuring them in zettabytes, and now we’re measuring them in what we call yottabytes.”
One petabyte is equivalent to one million gigabytes. A zettabyte is a million petabytes. And a yottabyte is a thousand zettabytes. The company estimates that video will account for 90 percent of all Internet traffic by 2013.
American online video viewing continues to surge in popularity. December 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service shows that nearly 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month. A record 33.2 billion videos were viewed during the month.
The top outlet by far is YouTube/Google, with 13.2 billion video views.
Hulu ranked second with more than 1 billion videos viewed, an all-time high for the property, and representing 3.0 percent market share. Microsoft Sites ranked third with 561 million (1.7 percent), followed by Fox Interactive Media with 551 million (1.7 percent) and Yahoo! Sites with 539 million (1.6 percent).
Nearly 178 million viewers watched an average of 187 videos per viewer during the month of December. Google Sites (YouTube) attracted 135.8 million unique viewers during the month (97.5 videos per viewer), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 59.8 million viewers (9.0 videos per viewer) and Fox Interactive Media with 56.8 million viewers (9.7 videos per viewer). The average Hulu viewer watched 22.9 videos during the month, representing another all-time high for the property.
This certainly bodes well for purveyors of videojournalism who were once worried that people wouldn't sit still long enough to enjoy videos on their computer screens.
Entries are now being accepted for the 7th annual National Press Photographers Association's Best of Photojournalism Contest, which features a slew of Web video categories.
It's free to enter, for both NPPA members and non-members. Entries must have been originally posted during 2009. Deadline for submissions is January 29.
Web video entries "are for video-based stories that are written and produced for the web. These stories must have been posted on a website before any other use in the broadcast arena."
Here are the Web categories:
48 Hour A story that covers a planned or unplanned news event or a subject of general interest and importance. It can be spot news or a follow up or side bar to spot news. The event should be timely. The entry should contain no music, except where it's part of the natural sound of the story. Stories must have been shot, edited, and posted on the web within 48 hours. (Max. length: 10 minutes)
News Feature A feature/human interest story or series of stories where the photojournalist has put considerable time and effort into the production of the entry. News Features that score highly show imagination and creativity. (Max. length: 30 minutes)
Sports Feature A planned story or series of stories about the preparation for, analysis of, or audience reaction to a sport or coverage of a sporting event. Greater weight will be given to stories that have sports action video and focus on the competition. An outcome must be given. (Max. length: 20 minutes)
In-Depth A planned story or series of stories about a subject of general interest and importance where the photojournalist has put considerable time and effort into the production of the entry. (Max. length: 30 minutes)
Highlights the use of audio, video and animation in the presentation of web-based stories. Judges will pay special attention to the use of available technology to complement and enhance the art of visual storytelling.
Entries may include single galleries, slideshows or video, as well as packages that include multiple elements that were grouped and published together as a single story or theme.
Content, usability, and interactivity are key to this celebration of cutting-edge storytelling.
Audio Slideshows
Audio-enhanced collections of still photographs presented in a gallery or slideshow format, that tell a clear story. Animation can be used only to advance from one photograph to another.
This category is for still photography combined with audio only. There is no video allowed in this category.
An entry is defined as a single gallery or slideshow; not a group or collection of slideshows. Web packages that include multiple slideshows should be entered as Multimedia Packages.
The emphasis here is on presenting great News, Sports and Feature photographs with the additional level of detail that audio can provide.
*****
For inspiration, you can revisit last year's winners in these categories:
Here is an annotated list of 84 Websites where you can watch videos online, courtesy of Step to Tech.
Most of them don't qualify as (or even aspire to) videojournalism, and we can't even guarantee that all the videos are any good -- though there are plenty that merit your attention.
But with each passing day, we can't help but observe that -- despite all those dire predictions that nobody has the time or patience to watch video on their computer screen -- all signs point to the fact that, for whatever reason, millions of people are somehow finding the time and patience.
The Beet.TV Roundtable on "The Influence of Online Video: A discussion of technique, technology and impact" included panelists from top media outlets such as NBC and the Economist. Among the questions pondered at the Wash. D.C. gathering: Could the "fast food" approach to news creation work for video? Conclusion: "We don't think so."
Creating quality, enduring online video news content doesn't need to be expensive, but it has to be done with skill and credibility. It is the skilled video producers who will emerge in this new ecosystem of online video news, those who bring strong journalistic skills, notably editing, to the effort... For video news creators, there are big opportunities for those who produce quality content, using basic reporting skills. They will rise to the top.
An observation remarkable not for its profundity but a sign of the times that it even needs to be stated at all.
More good news, to corroborate the ComScore blog item below:
The Nielsen Company reported overall online video usage and top online brands ranked by video streams for October 2009. Year-over-year, unique viewers, total streams, streams per viewer and time per viewer were up, led by a 26 percent growth in total streams.
Click on the image below to see charts for "Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)" and "Top Online Brands ranked by Video Streams for October 2009."
AdvancingTheStory.com notes: "Facebook is now the third most popular place to watch video online in the world! It seems to me that this is another area of opportunity for news organizations to disseminate content to expanded audiences."
Mashable: The Social Media Guide reports that Hulu and Facebook are shattering online video records, according to the Web analytics firm ComScore.
While YouTube draws 125 million viewers per month (one billion views per day!), Hulu and Facebook are closing in with double-digit percentage gains that shatter their previous video-viewing records.
There were 27.94 billion videos viewed in October, up 7% from September. Out of that, Google/YouTube is still on top with 10.52 billion videos viewed.
The big mover in October though was Hulu. In September, the News Corp/Disney/NBC joint venture delivered 583 million views. In October, that number shot up by 31.8% to a total of 855 million video views. This is by far a record for the TV video website....
The biggest winner seems to be Facebook. In September, it had 31.18 million unique viewers. In October, that number skyrocketed by nearly 25% to 41.15 million uniques. Once again, this is a record for the world’s largest social network, and one that speaks to how powerful Facebook is becoming in the video space...
We urge newspapers that are still not convinced about the future of video, and pulling back on resources instead of investing in its future, to look at these eye-popping statistics:
* 84.4% of U.S. Internet users watched at least one online video in October.
* The average person watched 10.8 hours of online video in October.
As Mashable notes: "Online video continues to grow and the end is nowhere in sight."
Tell us, how much video do you watch every day? How much for business? For pleasure? How much at work? At home?
We still hear folks whining about having to wade through a lot of video swampland to get to the good stuff. It's faster to scan a page of headlines, and a few sentences of text, to decide what to read -- but committing to watching a video is a bigger investment of time and attention. We realize that, and that's why we created KobreGuide -- to help you find that golden needle in the haystack every day!
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In its 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review whitepaper on prevailing trends and their implications for the future, ComScore reports that online video "continued to gain momentum, with an average of 179 million Americans
(Click on image to enlarge)
ComScore is a leading online marketing research company. Download the full report here.
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