Streaming Media - December 2008/January 2009 - (Page 54)

for download, but he uses his standard-definition camera when he’s creating videos for Metacafe. He has no plans to distribute those videos anywhere other than on Metacafe, which doesn’t yet support HD, and he wants to save the hours he has to put on his HD camera. How Long Should Online Videos Be? In addition to calling into question the need for high production values, the dawn of YouTube also introduced the possibilities of short-form videos. And on that video-sharing site, best practices still hold that shorter is better. “Resist the temptation to make it too long,” says Nalty. “I used to say 3 to 5 minutes; now it’s pretty much 30 seconds to 2 minutes. Remember the first-30-second rule; you’ve got maybe 15 to 30 seconds to convince them to stick with the video. And for God’s sake, surprise them or have something interesting at the end because that’s where you make the decision to share it with others.” Major media companies also seem to recognize that shorter videos are more likely to go viral. “Our content tends to really fall into two buckets: short-form and long-form,” says Clayman. “On the short-form stuff, that’s what people tend to share and blog about and put on social networks. Long-form content, people tend to just sit and watch the whole thing.” It’s also important to consider when and where you’re expecting your audience to view your content,according to Zehr. “Unlike our brethren at ABC, where you have people doing catch-up TV, our style of programming tends to be a little different, as there’s not as much you have to catch up on from ESPN,” he says. “So I think shorter is probably better in terms of the nonevent programming. Under 10 minutes is a good length. We’re taking advantage of users that are probably in the office environment sneaking away for 10 minutes during lunch.” Yet, at the same time, viewers are watching longer form content online, especially when it comes to events. “The month of June was very good to us,” says Damon Phillips, vice president of ESPN360.com. “Between the U.S. Open with Tiger Woods’ win, the Euro Cup 2008, and other events, we saw incredible usage. The average viewer spent more than 3 hours on our site that month.” In addition, there have been reports on StreamingMedia.com of other events, such as CBS’s online March Madness coverage, in which some viewers were investing multiple hours in a single sitting. So even though short-form content is more likely to go viral, viewers are willing to watch long-form as well. “The biggest thing on the format front is don’t lock yourself into the broadcast-cable format of 22 minutes of content with three or four ad blocks,” says Louderback. “What works for regular TV doesn’t necessarily work for the internet. And on the internet you can be 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever. Just do enough for what you’re trying to do and the story you’re trying to tell. People say it’s got to be short-form, but we’ve found that if it’s the right content and the right host, people will watch for half an hour and even longer.” And because of the ability to put up content of all shapes and sizes, taking clips from longer form programs and reworking them into shorter pieces (either by mixing and matching them with clips from other shows or by creating highlight reels) is another successful trend cited by Revision3 and MTV. But here’s what this all really comes down to: “If you sit down and ask a 16-year-old if they like short- or long-form content, they’ll say, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I like the internet,’” says Clayman. Formulating Success When it comes to making decisions about what video to produce for online distribution, not only is there not a magic formula for success, there aren’t even any rules that are instantly transferrable from one brand to another. “What’s interesting is that we have no formula that we use 54 STREAMING MEDIA December 2008/January 2009 http://www.vbrick.com http://www.ESPN360.com http://www.StreamingMedia.com http://www.vbrick.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Streaming Media - December 2008/January 2009

Streaming Media - December 2008/January 2009 Table of Contents User-Generated Politics Netflix Needs a Business Model Technology and Business Trends by the Numbers Improving Video Color Quality What Makes for Compelling Video? Game On: Bringing the NHL to IPTV Give! The New Era of Corporate Communications New Video Frontiers: Taking It Beyond the PC The HD Showdown: Codec Vendors Battle It Out for Supreme Quality The Ultimate Guide to Creating Online Video Content That Works, Part 2 Planning for Webcasting Success: Considerations for Deploying an Enterprise Video Communications Platform All Mobile Devices Are Not the Same Datmedia Datpresenter LSI Tarari Encoder Accelerator LCPX-6140 Gomez Active Streaming XF Transcoding for Global Reach Executive Visions 2009 The Revolution Is Being Televised

Streaming Media - December 2008/January 2009

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