Yahoo's Do's & Dont's of Online Video

We're cheered by Paid Content's optimistic outlook on Web video, in today's report by James A. Pitaro, vice president of media at Yahoo!

He prefaces his advice to video producers, in "The Do’s And Don’ts Of Creating Original Video," by noting:

Today, web video has mainstreamed. Three-quarters of Internet users, or 47% of the U.S. population, now watch video online. Videos streamed in September totaled 11 billion, up 24% year over year. Web-original video content is making up a bigger chunk of this consumption and has quietly become a viable business model for many online distributors.

As a result, new Internet companies focusing on video are emerging every day, and many existing businesses are transitioning to a video-intensive model.

Though he's focused on original drama, see if you can find ways to take his advice and apply it to nonfiction videojournalism stories:

You need more than just a good idea: Identify something that is not just a good idea, but a good idea for the Internet -- something that takes advantage of the medium.

Track your audience: If researched and developed correctly, your program should be virtually foolproof because it will deliver the right content to the right user at the right time on your site.

Get sponsors involved early in the creative process: Partner with the advertiser starting with idea conception and co-develop your program.

Be fast: Regardless of genre, web content must be timely.

Don’t spend a lot of money: Yes, it is possible to produce high-quality content without breaking the bank if you hire seasoned professionals and offer them some creative freedom and license – a somewhat novel concept in the entertainment business.

Read the whole report here.

What Would You Pay to Access NYTimes.com?

The New York Times is surveying subscribers to determine if they'd be willing to pay $5 a month to access content on its NYTimes.com Website, which is currently free of charge. The newspaper is also testing a 50 percent discount scheme ($2.50/month) for those who retain their home-delivery print subscription.

Read reports from Bloomberg, Poynter, and Paid Content.

Our question: What if all online videojournalism and multimedia (and of course advertising) was offered free of charge, and you had to pay to access the rest of a newspaper's online content (text, images)?

What if newspapers invested sufficient resources to create topnotch video stories as an inducement to lure viewers through the front door, and then required them to pay to visit all the other rooms in the media castle? Videojournalism, after all, is their most customized (and least easily duplicated) editorial asset.

That would build a substantial audience for all those currently neglected and underappreciated video stories -- which, to our thinking, is the storytelling form that best maximizes the Web medium's strengths.