Streaming Media - October 2008 - (Page 46)

creating online video content that works When Kedersha first starting producing videos for the internet, he followed an age-old adage: Fish where the fish already are. “A lot of my decisions had to do with what the trends were, like doing Windows tips-andtricks videos when everybody was jumping onto that bandwagon. Then I’d do a parody video like ‘How To Turn On Your Computer.’ And in response to a bunch of other hoax videos, I made one about the potatopowered MP3 player,” he says. By doing this, he was able to catch the wave of consumer interest as he established his audience and his voice, eventually leading him to earn more than $100,000 from the Metacafe Producer Rewards program. The benefits of tracking and following trends in content consumption are echoed by John Zehr, VP in the Emerging Media group at ESPN. “It’s vital to keep an people are interesting in reading about,” says Damon Phillips, VP of ESPN360.com, ESPN’s online network that specializes in live webcasts of sporting events. “We’re out there looking at trends, research, what rates well on TV, and what pages on ESPN.com get the most traffic. We have a wealth of information.” And one of the potentially more valuable sources of information is the direct, immediate, and regular feedback viewers can now give in the online environment. “We’ve always traditionally done lots of surveys and continue to do them, but now with commenting on websites we’re able to create feedback loops that are very open and present which allows for a much more ongoing dialogue with your audience,” says CondeNet’s Glosser. “For a site like Wired.com the audience is very vocal, either by topic "It's not important for us to have people who have traditional Hollywood or TV experience per se because it's a different style of skill, personality, and brand that works for online video," says Revision3's CEO Jim Louderback. "For us what's really important is to find people who have a proven ability to create communities around their interests." "What's attracting people is access to content and in many cases exclusivity of that content. If you know there's a fanbase of Brazilian National League soccer fans and your site is the only place to get that video online, in this very defined community you can find thousands and thousands of users who will very virally find out about the service and then let their fellow fans know where and how to find it for themselves," says Nada Usina of JumpTV. eye on what’s going on in the marketplace and how people are consuming content on YouTube. I think you do see different consumption patterns, and people are looking for different things over time, so it’s always good to be mindful of what’s going on in your space.” Listen to Your Audience But it’s not so much what your competitors are doing as what your audience wants to watch. And because of the lean-forward nature of online video, you can now engage a viewer and garner more feedback than has ever been possible before, which can help guide successful decision-making when it comes to figuring out what video to produce or acquire for online delivery. Here, too, the big, traditional media companies have an advantage: namely, having multiple properties to gather data from and the resources to pursue aggressive strategies to collect and analyze this data. “We’re very fortunate to have tremendous assets like ESPN.com, CricInfo.com, and Soccer.net to see what 46 STREAMING MEDIA October/November 2008 or anything about the site that they like or don’t like. You just have to embrace it and listen.” “We’re frequently asking people to take advantage of these interactive aspects, asking them to email or text message in and using that as a metric for how engaged the audience is,” says Zehr. “You’ve got to know there’s an audience out there that’s more likely to respond and engage.” The downside of an engaged online audience is that just because you’re getting feedback doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be helpful. “I gotta love the guy who woke up one morning and decided that he wanted to defecate in my mouth,” recounted Kevin Nalty, a top YouTube producer known as Nalts. Critical comments that can be more destructive than constructive are prevalent, he says. “This is one of the greatest challenges for anybody in this space,” he continues. “Part of the game is to stay tuned in to your audience, but it can create great emotional drama as people often get dragged into the weeds by people who are so nasty. You have to exploit http://www.ESPN360.com http://www.ESPN.com http://www.Wired.com http://www.ESPN.com http://www.CricInfo.com http://www.Soccer.net

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - October 2008

Streaming Media - October 2008 Table of Contents Standard Time Technology and Business Trends by the Numbers Encoding for Screencams Meeting the Enterprise Video Distribution Challenge Pulling Back the Curtain on Level 3 The 2008 Streaming Media Readers’ Choice Award Winners The Ultimate Guide to Creating Online Video Content That Works, Part 1 Brave New Platforms Video From the Democratic National Convention—Both Official and Unofficial—Made Clear That It’s No Longer Politics as Usual Creative Suite Turns 4 The Future of Internet Radio Decoding the Truth About Hi-Def Video Production Educating the Next Generation of Online Media Makers ViewCast Niagara GoStream SURF The Past and Future of Online Video: I’m Not Dead Yet!

Streaming Media - October 2008

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