Pay Per Click Advertising and SEOYoutube - Pay Per Click Advertising and SEO

YouTube channels receive Google Moderator update

Andy Russell — Mon, 31 May 2010 09:43:48 +0000

Google has decided to release a full version of its Moderator service for all YouTube users, this will allow channel owners and viewers to talk about videos and other relevant topics (or completely irrelevant ones as is often the case) on channel pages, as a more structured alternative to the standard video comments.

The YouTube blog said: “Starting today, we’ve integrated the ability to use Google Moderator into every single YouTube channel.

“Moderator is a versatile, social platform that allows you to solicit ideas or questions on any topic, and have the community vote the best ones up to the top in real-time.”

By giving channel owners the power to police offensive content, which can also be voted down by users, the Google/YouTube Moderator aims to bring some much needed order to the always chaotic and sometimes offensive world of YouTube comments.

Google Moderator was originally developed by the company’s engineer Taliver Heath as a way to prioritise questions asked during company meetings and lectures, it really came to the boil in December 2008 when it was used by the transition team of US President-Elect Barack Obama to help him respond to questions from the general public.

Generating 5.7 million votes from the public on 86,000 questions in just over a week of operation, Google Moderator was a key catalyst in the President’s appointment of Google’s project manager Katie Jacobs Stanton to the new position of Director of Citizen Participation.

As well as being a useful social tool, the Moderator feature can also be helpful for corporate YouTube channels as a way to receive and respond to user feedback. Organisations such as the New York Times are already asking users to submit their questions on the dynamic channel.

YouTube release new ‘unlisted’ video option

James Oliver — Fri, 14 May 2010 09:00:27 +0000

YouTube announced this week that they would now be offering a third level of privacy for users to implement on the videos that they upload to the site.

The new feature will make it easier for users to share clips online without actually have to set the video to private as was the case in the past.

The new ‘unlisted video’ option will allow anyone that has a physical link to the video to watch it but it will not show up in YouTube search results, users profiles or channel pages.

Unlike the current ‘private video’ option the user who has created the unlisted video will not need to set up permissions for who is able to watch that video and the watcher will not need to be registered with the site in order to watch it, the user will simply require the URL.

The feature is aimed primarily at those users that wish to share videos with people but are not signed up members of the YouTube community.

The new unlisted option, however, will not give the owner of the video the same options as the current private setting function which allows you to cut someone off from having access to the video if they abuse it. There is no way to do this with the new unlisted option as possession of the URL will allow viewing of the video by whoever has it.

When asked whether the new unlisted option will change how YouTube scans uploaded videos for content that does not comply with their terms, YouTube spokesperson Chris Dale has this to say:

“Unlisted videos are treated just like any other YouTube video on YouTube and are subject to the same Community Guidelines and DMCA complaint procedures. Users can flag videos that they believe violate our Community Guidelines. The YouTube team reviews flagged videos 24 hours a day 7 days a week and removes those videos which violate our Guidelines. Users can also file DMCA complaints against unlisted videos that they believe violate their copyrights. We do not allow users with any Community Guidelines or copyright strikes against their accounts to upload unlisted videos.

So the new option will not have any effect on what is going on behind the scenes of a user’s uploads.

Another acquisition for Google as they buy Episodic

Andre — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 13:29:15 +0000

Google seem to be setting somewhat of a trend in 2010 as they have recently announced their 5th acquisition of the last four months. It was confirmed last week (Friday) that Google have purchased Video Service Episodic.

This is the first company of its type that Google have purchased; it is highly likely that the acquisition was made to help out with Google owned video hosting service YouTube which is currently undergoing a slight face lift.

Episodic is an upstart US based web suite and video hosting service that offers a host of different service’s to its users including the ability to publish live streams and on-demand content.

The Episodic service actually offers quite a few things that YouTube does not, highlighting Google’s reasons for buying the company. Users of Episodic have the luxury of control over advertisements and ad breaks in their videos whilst being able to benefit from an in-depth analytics tool that gives its users handy real-time information on the experiences of viewers.

Episodic is a more profit based service than YouTube as it allows users to make money of their video channels by charging to view content or by advertisements.

At the moment the new users sign up feature has been disabled until the deal is 100% done which should be at some point this week.

Rumours suggest that the Episodic service as a whole will be folded into YouTube as they try to integrate the two, whilst the two sets of staff will join forces as of next week.

Makeover trend continues as YouTube gets a facelift

Andre — Sun, 04 Apr 2010 11:00:50 +0000

2010 has been a year of major change so far, many of the internet’s most well known and well used sites have undergone some sort of re-design, Google owned video streaming site YouTube has picked up the baton and continued the trend this week.

After entering the beta stage more than 2 months ago YouTube have finally made the revamp live and available to all its users. The new look video hosting site appears to be a lot more minimalist and streamlined, it comes after more than a year of planning and deliberation to get it right.

Google, owners of YouTube, have stated that the all new site serves 2 main purposes: The first was to provide a much cleaner user interface that, according to YouTube, is more subdued and a lot simpler than before. Secondly, it was designed to improve the ‘stickiness’ of the site, offering more video suggestions on a single page with the view of users staying on the site for lengthier periods.

The changes do appear to be quite subtle, none of them severely disrupt the user, but anyone that is a YouTube diehard is likely to notice them straight away.

Other, less significant changes include better search integration that will allow users to perform a video search whilst watching another video, a great change for any multitasking YouTube users out there.

A new ratings system has also been deployed, instead of the old 1-5 star rating, YouTube have gone with the Facebookesque like or dislike buttons which seems like an overall metaphor for how users will feel about these new changes.

Is YouTube about to finally make some Money?

Jenny Sanderson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:44:16 +0000

You might expect a video streaming site that recently revealed that it is getting one billion video views a week to be making money hand over fist though it hasn’t quite been that simple for video streaming leader, YouTube. The site has struggled to make a return appropriate to its size for years now, actually, it’s failed to make any profit at all.

However, it would seem that’s set to change now that YouTube is finally about to make some real money – the company has announced that it has tripled the amount of views it is able to monetise with adverts since this time last year.

This is largely due to the introduction of the YouTube ‘Content ID’ system, the fingerprinting system that allows rights holders to either block or make money from unauthorised use of their content. This has not only allowed YouTube to monetise more of the ‘semi-legal’ offerings with ads on the site but also, it has saved YouTube a lot of the time and expense that legal actions against them were taking up.

YouTube reaches 1 Billion hits per day

James Oliver — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:00:27 +0000

According to a video blog post from Chad Hurley, one of YouTube’s founders, the world’s most popular streaming video website currently enjoys more than a billion hits per day. The announcement marks the third anniversary of the site’s $1.65 buyout by Google, a price those within the search engine giant have since described as ‘a premium’.

The announcement comes at the end of a year that has seen no shortage of controversy for YouTube, after the site was criticised for the royalties it paid for hosting music videos. The crisis led to a standoff that resulted in music videos being taken off YouTube. YouTube averted catastrophe by paying an undisclosed fee to PRS, (the performing rights society) though it neatly highlights the dangers inherent in being the streaming video leader.

As part of the vlog, Hurley reflected on the original aims of the site. “We wanted to create a place where anyone with a video camera, a computer, and an internet connection can share their life, art, and voice with the world, and in many cases they can make a living from doing so.”

Feature Films on YouTube

James Oliver — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 11:09:14 +0000

These days it seems YouTube gets more professional by the day. The site has been moving away from its amateur, homemade roots for a while now, though the pace has accelerated over the last six months or so, which have seen legitimate music content hit its channels, HD content, even a downloadable speech from President Obama. Now it seems that another frontier is about to be broken by YouTube, full length feature films.

YouTube are currently rumoured to be in talks with Sony Pictures regarding a contract that would make feature films available on the site. The details of any potential deal are not known, though if YouTube really have decided to make this jump, it’s unlikely to surprise too many people, the site badly needs to find some kind of response to the growing number of Hulu-style sites that are licensed to show premium content.

YouTube has thus far been a dirty word in the film and TV industry. They’ve become something of a scapegoat for the decline in viewing figures as the way people enjoy film and TV has adapted over the last few years. However, since being bought out by Google the site has been working to repair its image and become more of a corporate entity.

China’s YouTube decision criticised by Advocacy Group

Matt Thomas — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 11:10:08 +0000

The Centre for democracy and Technology, an advocacy group promoting constitutional liberties in the modern age has criticised China’s decision to block its citizens from viewing YouTube claiming that the country’s actions ‘fail to live up to international norms.’

YouTube has been inaccessible to Chinese citizens since Monday when China cut access to the site. The BBC reported that the decision was taken after the site showed video footage of Chinese soldiers beating Tibetan Monks. However, YouTube claims not to know the reason that YouTube has been summarily denied access to such a huge user base, “We don’t know the reason for the block and are working to restore access to users in China as quickly as possible,” – Scott Rubin, YouTube spokesman.

China represents by far the biggest national population on the planet, and though many of them have no access to a computer average income is rising fast. For this reason, poor relations between Google (YouTube’s parent company) and the Chinese government could prove to be very bad news indeed.

At this stage it is impossible to tell when the Chinese population will be back on YouTube, if ever.

YouTube drops most of its Music Videos

James Oliver — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 15:39:29 +0000

The guys at YouTube must be wondering whether they’ll ever resolve the issues with music on their site. Not only are they still trying to resolve issues with record companies relating to the showing of music videos on their site, yesterday they lost most of their most popular videos as a result of a separate battle with the Performing Rights Society (PRS), the body responsible for collecting royalties for musicians.

The issue, from YouTube’s point of view anyway, is that after the expiry of the deal they had in place with PRS expired, they imposed new terms which would have made it financially prohibitive for the site. In fact YouTube claim that PRS wanted more to show the videos than YouTube actually make from the adverts next to them.

Another sticking point was that PRS were refusing to let YouTube know which songs and performers were covered by which license which is integral to YouTube’s content ID system, the system which reimburses rights holders every time a song is viewed.

The real losers in all this are the musicians, most of whom are far from wealthy and will not be happy about losing a revenue stream like this. In an attempt to head off this wave of bad publicity PRS rushed to point out that it did not advise YouTube to remove the videos and in fact counselled them against it

YouTube viewers break the 100 million barrier

Matt Thomas — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 09:00:20 +0000

According to comScore, 14.8 billion online video were watched in January. The principal was, obviously, the Google controlled, YouTube, whose users exceeded 100 million for the first time in the opening month of 2009. Startling as the web viewing figures are, they are part of a longstanding trend and actually represent only a four percent increase on December’s figures.

It has been hypothesised by analysts that the recession has had a huge effect on the viewership of online content, with people hesitant to go out. Preferring instead, to save their money and view one of the millions of videos available with a click of a mouse from their computer. Combine this with the fact that everyone is broke anyway in January and the European January weather and you have an online content, perfect storm.

During January, YouTube, who control 43 percent of the online video market, logged more than 100 million unique visitors. Even more impressively, the average YouTube user watches around 62 videos a month, each one lasting for an average of 3.5 minutes. That’s a phenomenal amount of people’s time spent on a website.

Streaming Video more popular than ever

James Oliver — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 09:46:50 +0000

Whilst most businesses struggle against the biggest economic crisis since the great depression, a few are making a killing. One of those companies is movies-by-mail provider Netflix. The booming company gave most of the credit for its success to their new streaming video service, which provides near instant entertainment to anyone with an Internet connection, an Xbox 360 or a net-enabled Blu Ray player, TV or set-top box.

According to financial experts, in times of economic crisis the need to be entertained does not go away, we just look for ways to do it more cheaply. Ergo, if, pre-crisis, we’d go to the cinema in a Friday night, we might now settle for a Netflix download and a bottle of wine. Take away food is booming, whilst restaurants go out of business for the same reason.

The trend with streaming video has been more pronounced however, due to the fact that we are still getting used to the technology. The number of us watching streaming movies would have been growing year on year anyway as more of us become introduced to the concept through YouTube, Hulu, etc. The recession has simply kicked its growth into another gear.

Just how big is Youtube?

Matt Thomas — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 10:47:20 +0000

US Internet users appear to be becoming more and more used to watching video content online. According to ComScore, a US market researcher, in November of last year Americans watched 12.7 billion online videos. This figure shows an increase of 34 percent on the figures for the same time in 2007.

ComScore also revealed that, surprise, surprise, its Google sites that provide far more of these viewing opportunities than anyone else. In fact, around 40 percent of all videos viewed online originated on Google sites. Obviously, YouTube in a major factor in that figure – in fact, the site accounts for 98 per cent that 40 percent figure. Significantly, that means that more than a third of all the video content viewed online comes either from the site itself, or is viewed through embedded YouTube players on third party websites. Really puts YouTube’s phenomenal dominance into perspective, doesn’t it?

The closest ‘competitor,’ if you can really call it that, is Fox Interactive media, though seeing as they account for only about 3.5 percent of the total videos watched I doubt the YouTube team are losing much sleep.

Not that Fox won’t make money – the market for online video ads is expected to grow 45 percent this year. A rising tide lifts all ships, as they say.

YouTube gets into the Search Advertising game

Matt Thomas — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:00:15 +0000

YouTube has revealed a new system to auction advertising on the site. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s very similar to the one used by Google. Just like Google, it will promote ‘sponsored video clips’ on the same page as organic search results.

This is merely the latest in a long line of advertising formats road tested by Google in an effort to finally make some money out of what remains a very popular website. In fact, YouTube actually goes far beyond popular, it’s hugely influential as well, recently passing Yahoo to become the second biggest web search provider in the world, in terms of actual searches conducted, beaten only by parent company Google.

It can only be a matter of time until this site makes a huge amount of cash for itself and, of course, Google. However, they are keen to get the profit model right first time which is why they’ve been trying out all these advertising formats.

They may well have hit paydirt with this deceptively simple auction based format. After all, it works okay for Google…

Google receives Royal Seal of Approval

Matt Thomas — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 10:00:10 +0000

Did you wonder what the Queen’s head was doing on the Google logo when you logged on last Thursday? Apparently it was in honour of a visit to Google’s UK headquarters, where the Queen personally uploaded archive video of a 1969 Buckingham Palace reception to her own YouTube channel, ‘the Royal Channel.’ The channel was launched last December and currently boasts 54 individual videos.

During the visit, the Queen and Prince Phillip, who is said to be an avid internet user, were also invited to play with Google Earth. There was however, a slight moment of embarrassment for the search engine giant when Prince Phillip was unable to find the palace staff’s offices on Buckingham Palace road – the photograph of the area that area Google are using predates the building’s construction.

The couple also met Peter Oakley a.k.a “Geriatric 1927”, an 81-year-old man whose YouTube videos garnered a nomination for a YouTube award in 2006.

For Queen Elizabeth this is just the latest chapter in a longstanding relationship with internet technology. She was apparently the first Queen to send an email and has her very own website, as well as obviously, a strong presence on YouTube.