Online Video Stats

Nielsen, as well as a number of other companies, measure the number of streams viewed on online video destinations every month.

October was no exception, although the figures were more interesting than usual. mainly because while the top two of YouTube and Hulu remained the same, there were some big changes after that. And it could be the start of a trend set to get stronger over the next few months/years.

YouTube Beats All-Comers

First, the non-surprise. YouTube topped the Nielsen chart for streams in the United States by a huge margin. The Google-owned site racked up 6,632,964,000 streams and 105,923,000 viewers.

Hulu ranked second as it has for a goods few months now. The site managed 632,662,000 streams and 13,472,000 viewers, which though impressive enough isn’t even a tenth of the numbers YouTube can boast.

Facebook Jumps To Third

Then the surprise hits. Facebook has jumped from number 10 to number three in the space of a single month. The social networking site racked up 217,765,000 streams and 31,594,000 viewers – the latter being more than double the number enjoyed by Hulu.

According to CNET, Nielsen Vice President of Media Analytics Jon Gibs, said in a statement:

“Facebook’s rapid growth in online video during the last year illustrates the site’s evolution from simply a communications focused tool to a media portal.”

“Social networking sites are evolving from a venue for catching up with friends to a platform for personal expression, allowing consumers to share their experiences in the full variety of content formats available online.”

Conclusions

This is a potentially pivotal moment for Facebook as it could (and only could) signal a new trend where YouTube is being abandoned in favor for the social networking site.

Facebook has millions of users worldwide who want to share videos with their friends and family and the system Facebook has built-in provides everything they need to do so.

While I can’t see Facebook ever catching YouTube for sheer number of streams every month, Hulu is certainly catchable.

Citizen Journalists

There was a time when news coverage was strictly professional, delivered by paid reporters, photographers, and cameramen. And then everything changed with digital cameras and video cameras standard on cellphones.

Now, any Tom, Dick, or Harry can be a citizen journalist, reporting the news as it happens in front of them. Twitter and social networks are an important facet of this trend, as is online video and in particular YouTube.

YouTube Direct

Google has this week unveiled YouTube Direct, which is designed to be a meeting place for citizen journalists and the news media organizations increasingly using this amateur footage as the basis, or to embellish, news stories.

YouTube Direct is an API tweak that allows news organizations to set up a virtual assignment desk. Requests for video can be placed on the site, and citizen journalists who want to see their footage reach a bigger audience can respond.

At that point, editors from the news organization can vet the videos sent in and pick the ones most suitable. The Washington Post, ABC News, Huffington Post, Politico, the San Francisco Chronicle, and NPR are already testing out the product.

Conclusions

This is good news for Google as it helps smooth over the search giant’s relationship with the news media. It’s also good news for the news media organizations as they get access to up-to-date amateur footage which won’t cost them a penny.

However, I can’t quite see what’s in it for the citizen journalists themselves. Apart from the five minutes of fame achieved by their video footage being picked up by major news channel or Web site, there’s little reason to participate in this.

[Via TechNewsWorld]

This is an important move not just to support the increasing number of home video cameras with HD options but also to give professional content creators confidence that the platform is right for their work.

YouTube Video Quality

When YouTube first launched four years ago, video quality (360p) on the site wasn’t great. But that wasn’t what the site was about so it didn’t matter. YouTube was there to offer a free and easy way for people to host video online. And it did that so well that Google paid $1.65 billion for the site a year later.

But times move on, as does technology.

YouTube first started offering a ‘High Quality’ (480p) version of some videos, and while the difference wasn’t vast it was noticeable. Then in December 2008 YouTube launched ‘High-Definition’ video, which took the clips to a native 720p.

Full HD On YouTube

Now, after an announcement on the YouTube Blog, the site is starting to offer Full HD of 1080p. There’s already a test video running at that super high quality and the rest of the videos on the site will begin airing in 1080p from next week.

YouTube is in the process of re-encoding all content that has been uploaded at 1080p back to its original resolution. However, there will still be a 720p option available on all videos so as to support viewers who can’t view 1080p without massive lag or hardware problems.

There will still be a 10-minute limit on video uploads but the 2GB size limit will surely be increased to cater for this new breed of high-definition video clips.

Conclusions

This change could have a huge impact in a couple of different ways.

For the average home user of YouTube it’ll make the viewing experience more pleasurable than ever, especially for those watching on HD televisions via their games console, set-top box, or connected laptop.

But more importantly than that, it will surely help YouTube in its quest to entice professional content creators to the site. Some may have been resistant all the while their content was going to look relatively poor, but now it’s widescreen and in Full HD, that reason not to get involved flies out the window.

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YouTube Revenue Vs Pageviews

Since buying YouTube for $1.65 billion in 2006, Google has tried to turn it into a moneymaking site. It’s certainly managed to take the site to the next level, with it now managing one billion page views a day, but the revenue still hasn’t come.

There’s been some debate over whether YouTube makes money, breaks even, or loses money every year but needless to say revenue needs to be upped in order for Google to make its money back. Especially as Google CEO Eric Schmidt has admitted the company paid $1 billion too much for the online video site.

Advertising Experiments

Google has experimented with a range of advertising options on YouTube. From huge one-off banner ads to overlay ads which remain through the course of a video. From pre-roll adverts before clips to post-roll after clips. None of which has been the magic bullet required.

YouTube now carries a range of advertising, with Google clearly deciding a scattergun approach for different videos and advertisers is the right path to follow. But the company still wants to fine-tune the experience.

Skippable Pre-Rolls

According to MediaPost, Google is now testing out skippable pre-roll advertising. The ads will run on carefully selected videos from content partners who have agreed to be a part of the experiment.

Google will collect data on when the ads are skipped, on what length and kind of video they are mostly skipped on, and the people most likely to skip an advert rather than watch in full.

The results of this experiment will then be used to formulate a new advertising model.

Conclusions

Pre-rolls are already used successfully on Hulu and other sites, but the YouTube crowd hasn’t really accepted them as of yet. Whether the option to skip ads that are too long or for uninteresting products makes a difference isn’t yet clear.

Either way Google will obtain data it can then use in the future to further fine-tune and develop its advertising model. The ultimate goal, of course, is to turn a profit and make the most of those one billion page views a day.

Live Success

YouTube is no stranger to live streaming, having experimented with the method of broadcasting a few times since being acquired by Google. However, Sunday night’s U2 concert was a hit like the site has never experienced before.

When competing with the bread and butter of YouTube – the viral videos generated by users – the U2 concert was a relative failure, but gaining such a large audience for an event such as this is nothing short of spectacular.

Handling Difficulties

The challenges facing YouTube and its partners were huge for this event, with negotiating the rights from all parties and the actual technical difficulties needed to be overcome needing to be managed inordinately well.

Thankfully, YouTube pulled it off, thanks in no small part to Akamai, the content delivery network which handled at least some of the load this type of high-profile event would have generated.

Viewing Figures

Initial reports suggested the viewing figures were under a million. This was then upped to 2.5 million. But Variety is reporting that the U2 concert on YouTube managed to attract 10 million viewers.

As MediaMemo points out, these figures mean the concert wouldn’t make the Top 20 highest-rated TV shows in the United States, with The Mentalist sneaking in with 11.8 million viewers. And the U2 gig was available in 16 countries.

But I still count it as a huge achievement.

Conclusions

Foo Fighters have now announced they will be playing a set from their studio which will be streamed live on Facebook. And I’m guessing this trend will continue, especially once groups and record labels realize how much potential for publicity there is.

With Vevo launching soon, and Muzu.tv and MySpace Music Videos already with us, there are no shortage of places for live streaming concerts to take place. Whether they become a regular occurrence or not all depends on everyone involved getting enough out of it to persuade them to do it again.

The full concert is now available to watch at YouTube.com/U2.

Live Streaming

Live streaming video is an everyday occurrence on the Web these days, with lifecasting sites such as Justin.tv, UStream, and Livestream (formerly known as Mogulus) offering everyone the chance to air an event to the wider world.

Last month saw Livestream launch Livepack, which includes all the kit required to film and stream live events such as weddings, graduations, and concerts. And all in a compact enough size to fit in a backpack.

U2 On YouTube

While that is a brilliant innovation, live streaming of big events is still a relatively rare treat for Internet users. I’m talking about rock concerts from big, well-known bands. Like for instance, I don’t know, U2.

Which is exactly who is lined up for a live streaming event on YouTube this coming weekend. As the video below previews, YouTube will live stream U2’s sold-out gig at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in California this Sunday.

Details, Details

The live stream of the whole concert, with 90,000 people in attendance, will take place at YouTube.com/U2 at 8pm local time on Sunday. 16 countries will be able to view the stream, including Australia, Canada, France, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Spain, the U.K., and the U.S.

This signifies YouTube’s first streaming of a full-length concert. It has previously dabbled in live streaming, hosting its own event in November 2008, and streaming performances by several bands at the Outside Lands festival in San Francisco recently. But this is a much bigger deal.

Conclusions

This has reportedly taken a great deal of time and effort to set up, with the live streaming of a concert complicated by the number of rights-holder involved (the artist, record label, publishers, venue, etc.).

But this will hopefully become a more regular occurrence as all those involved realize how much there is to gain from it. I’m guessing Vevo may make this kind of event a much more regular thing when it launches.

Three Years Ago Today

It seems like just yesterday that the co-founders of YouTube sold the site to Google. In fact, it was a full three years ago that Google decided to ante up $1.65 billion for the fledgling online video site.

We found out just yesterday that Google CEO Eric Schmidt thought that price tag was around $1 billion out, with the site actually worth more like $600 million. But Google wanted the site so badly it was willing to pay a premium for it.

We’ve Been Acquired

Chad Hurley, now CEO of YouTube under Google’s reign, took time out today to celebrate the three year anniversary. In a blog post which referenced the video above (which shows Hurley and Chen minutes after agreeing the acquisition) he spoke of the past, present, and future of YouTube.

One Billion Views A Day

He also announced that YouTube now serves up “well over a billion views a day,” a quite astounding figure that even outdoes most estimates. There are few sites on the Web with these sorts of numbers, and it’s amazing that YouTube is now one of them.

YouTube now carries a new logo (as above) celebrating the one billion views a day. As Mashable points out, that figure equates to “at least 11,574 views per second, 694,444 views per minute, and 41,666,667 views per hour.”

Which shows why Google needed to get involved in the first place because it’s one of the few companies that could handle delivering that amount of data.

Revenue Vs. Viewers

There is, of course, one thing left out of these celebratory announcements, and that is any talk of revenue. Hurley and Chen are now focused on making YouTube as good a site as it possibly can be. But Google has to be more focused on turning it into a moneymaking business.

And that still isn’t yet the case, although Google has been making progress in clawing back some of its investment. Whether it’ll ever actually make its $1.65 billion back is another matter.

YouTube Is Go

In February of 2005, a site popped up on the Internet that would cause a massive shift in how video is served on the Web. It would ease the process, and provide a platform for video of all kinds, mostly user-generated content.

Its name, if you hadn’t already guessed, was YouTube. And it has grown in the last four years to become one of the biggest and most popular sites on the Web, with millions of people from all corners of the world visiting and using the site on a daily basis.

Google Come Sniffing

In November 2006 when Google decided to buy the site, it was only a relatively small success, and it had a bunch of problems. The main one, of course, was the amount of copyrighted material turning up on the site. Viacom got so annoyed with this that it’s suing for $1 billion.

Google paid $1.65 billion for YouTube, a figure which made most people do a double take. Many thought the sale would start the Web 2.0 bubble, and it kind of did, but no site has sold for quite that amount since, especially one which was still in its infancy.

Schmidt Comes Clean

Now it has emerged that even Google CEO Eric Schmidt thought YouTube was overpriced at $1.65 billion. In fact, he considered the site to be worth in the region of between $600 million and $700 million. Meaning Google paid around $1 billion more than it should have.

According to CNET, Schmidt revealed his thoughts on the matter in May during a deposition he gave as part of the Viacom lawsuit. He said:

“I believe YouTube was worth somewhere around $600 million to $700 million.”

“This is a company with very little revenue, growing quickly with user adoption, growing much faster than Google Video, which was the product that Google had. And they had indicated to us that they would be sold, and we believed that there would be a competing offer–because of who Google was–paying much more than they were worth.”

“In the deal dynamics, the price, remember, is not set by my judgment or by financial model or discounted cash flow. It’s set by what people are willing to pay. And we ultimately concluded that $1.65 billion included a premium for moving quickly and making sure that we could participate in the user success in YouTube.”

Conclusions

Clearly Google wanted YouTube and didn’t want anyone else getting hold of it. And they were willing to pay a premium for the site. Which they definitely did. But has that price now justified itself?

In terms of revenue, no, although Google is still experimenting with options for making money from YouTube, and so it could end up paying out. But in terms of getting millions of people visiting a Google branded site every day, yes, very much so.

Online Video Wild West

In 2006, before Google had bought YouTube, Google Video was its entry into the online video market. Looking back now, both Google Video and YouTube were pretty lawless back then, with few of the checks and balances on content being uploaded to the sites.

This lawlessness lead to Viacom suing YouTube for $1 billion over the copyrighted clips it claims were allowed on the site. But it also lead to another lawsuit, smaller, and less publicized, but still important.

Down’s Syndrome Bully Video

During 2006, a video was uploaded to Google Video which showed four students bullying a teenager with Down Syndrome’s in front of several other students. Not a nice video, I’m sure everyone would agree, but offensive enough to mean Google are culpable?

The 191-second video made it on the site and stayed on there for months until complaints were received. At which time, Google removed the video. But that fact wasn’t enough for Italian investigators who spent two years building a case against Google.

The Legal Obligation

Italian prosecutors claim that the search giant should have had filters in place to prevent the video finding its way online in the first place or human eyes watching for that sort of content. Furthermore, the fact that all parties shown in the video hadn’t given permission amounts to invasion of privacy.

According to BBC News, the trial began yesterday, with four Google employees, “David Carl Drummond, head of Google Italy’s managing board; George De Los Reyes, a board member; Peter Fleitcher, in charge of privacy protection in Europe; and Arvind Desikan, who worked in marketing for Google Video” in the dock.

The Bigger Question

Personally, speaking as a layman, I can’t see how Google or its employees can be held accountable for this video. Maybe more steps should have been taken to prevent it appearing on the site, but the fact Google removed it as soon as it was informed of its existence is surely a key point.

If this case does end with convictions for the four Google employees then it could have implications for other Web sites which rely on UGC, YouTube and other video sites included. The trial is set to last until December and the verdict will prove very interesting.

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YouTube and Warner Music Group have now forged a new deal which will see WMG having its own branded player and able to sell its own advertising inventory.

Warner Walks Away

It was late December 2008 when Warners decided to pull all its music videos from YouTube. It happened due to a breakdown in communications while the two parties were trying to thrash out a new licensing deal. The ones that had been in place for years were coming to an end.

As always, it came down to money. The Warner Music Group wanted a bigger slice of the revenue pie and YouTube was unwilling to deliver. Regardless of who was right and wrong, the incident helped no one in the end.

The Vevo Factor

Talks have continued on since then, and a deal has been rumored for a few months. In the meantime, YouTube has inked new deals with the other three major record labels, Sony, Universal, and EMI.

The last nine months has also brought news of a new venture called Vevo, which is best described as a Hulu for music videos. Vevo will see many music videos disappear from YouTube only to reappear on a separate, YouTube-backed site.

Warner Welcomed Back

Yesterday saw YouTube finally confirm it had settled the argument and signed a new deal with WMG. All the record label’s many music videos, including by artists such as Green Day, REM, Madonna, U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Kid Rock will make their way back on to the Google-owned site.

Warner has managed to secure an arguably better deal than the other record labels by holding out for better terms. Details are still a little sketchy at this point but there will be a Warner Music Group branded player and the company will be able to sell its own advertising inventory.

YouTube will still take a cut but the margins are clearly going to be in Warners’ favor.

Conclusions

This is good news for all parties, as YouTube gets those all-important music videos back and WMG gets another revenue stream back. Viewers, of course, also benefit as they are no longer denied the chance to watch their favorite music videos.

The only question left is where Vevo sits in all this. While the other labels are moving away from YouTube to the new site, Warner now looks to be entrenched on it.