A number of articles and blogs have noted AOL’s recent launch of Truveo. The new destination site proclaims, “Truveo’s mission is to improve the quality of video search so that you can always find the right video to watch.” Why launch a new, destination site? Truveo founder and CEO Tim Tuttle contends,

“Video on the Web is no longer about user-generated content on sites like YouTube. There are now a lot of quality sites with other videos.”

Tuttle explains that Truveo is trying to bring that quality content to consumers.

Truveo was founded in 2004 to power search on other web sites. AOL purchased the search engine in 2006. The decision to launch Truveo.com outside of the AOL brand has people wondering about AOL’s goals and strategy for the site.

Much like Google, Truveo utilizes the metadata text linked with video clips to search across the Web. Truveo distinguishes itself with its use of multiple searching techniques, including a “page inspection” that looks at the Web page by page to identify videos.

While the site is well designed, it still seems to be an incremental improvement rather than revolutionary, as Truveo still indexes essentially only titles and tags. The analogy would be to imagine someone building a web search engine today that indexed only document titles and not the page content. The other peculiar part of AOL’s strategy here is the fact that the rest of the search market is moving towards a universal search experience rather than a vertical search experience, mainly because users don’t do vertical search in any large numbers. They expect the “web search” box to deliver them all the relevant content, regardless of format, in response to their query. Nonetheless the online video market continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

Content owners grapple with many questions when it comes to managing, monetizing and distributing their content via the Internet. Among these questions the issue of what impact online content will have on the success of a company’s traditional form of media–be it radio, TV, print etc.–ranks high. But what happens when the Web paradigm complicates things even further; when subscriptions and straight up advertising go head to head and users prefer that certain content categories are free for their online consumption? A number of recent happenings have created a stir over the question: who is willing to pay for online content and for how much longer?

While Web users are happy to pay for certain types of content such as online games and adult entertainment, in a 2007 study by Frank N. Magid Associates a mere 4% of adults surveyed said they had paid a separate fee to read news online. Entertainment faired better than news, with 16% of respondents stating they had paid to view it online. But as more people turn to the Web for their daily headlines, to catch up on a favorite TV show and watch online videos, media companies must continually adapt to keep revenue streams coming in.

MediaPost’s article on Blockbuster’s buyout of MovieLink speculates:

The future of the movie distribution business will quite possibly involve the release of a film not only in theaters, but on cable, online, via your iPod or your cell phone, all at the same time. The movie distribution system will undoubtedly evolve and change from what it is today.

In order for the simultaneous distribution described above to be profitable companies need to find a balance between paid subscription services—those that only 16% of adults claim to have used for entertainment—and ad supported media delivery solutions. While a complete transition may still be years away, many believe the question of such a change is not a matter of if, but when. And such a shift would have quite an impact on the advertising industry.

Ad Age looks at the potential impact in this article. With the likes of The Economist and CNN removing pay barriers between consumers and their top tier news content the pressure is on for other news providers such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Rupert Murdoch has recently stated to the press that “going free is very much on the table” for The Wall Street Journal.

In a few years time, what place, if any, will paid content have online? Ken Doctor, president of the Content Bridges media consultancy argues that “the content world is becoming almost entirely ad-monetized.” However the next generation of digital-content models take shape, a few things are already evident: people like to get a variety of media content online; for the most part, they don’t want to pay for it; monetization by ad model looks most promising for the majority of content types. As such, search will play an increasingly pivotal role, connecting people to content and targeted ads that will drive revenue back to media companies.

In their new report, Online Video: Making Content Pay eMarketer declares: “Video images are flooding across the Internet.” What is more, they believe that online video will continue to expand; in the US alone, eMarketer projects an increase from 114 million viewers in 2006 to 183 million viewers in 2011.

The report also estimates the top three leading types of video content viewers consume online are news (14%), movie and TV trailers (12%), and music videos (11%).

It seems the buzz around online video is likely to increase as more Internet users make Web video a regular component of their online experience—particularly for news and entertainment as evidenced above. However, not everyone is ready to embrace these projections. Senior Analyst Paul Verna explains:

“Some of the major players in the industry are fearful that the widespread availability of video content on the Internet will threaten traditional TV and film distribution models…others see the potential to increase revenues through a variety of new business models, including ad-supported streaming, pay-to-own downloads, subscription services and online rentals.”

What is clear is that video advertising specifically—and media revenue models more generally—will need to grow and shift as consumers move towards less traditional ways of interacting with media.

In addition to increasingly varied revenue opportunities, the explosion of online video content also raises questions of accessibility and navigation. As more video hits the Internet and users scramble to find specific clips, content providers will face the inadequacies of the current video search models head on. Search is the online modus operandi and Web video should not be the exception. If video content viewers increase at the rates eMarketer projects, video search capabilities will need to ramp up to meet viewer demand. Making video content navigable should help towards that “Making Content Pay” goal as well.

Paris-based advertising group Publicis is stirring things up with its recent acquisitions and digital marketing plans. China’s leading independent digital marketing agency, Communication Central Group (CCG) became a part of Publicis Groupe for an undisclosed amount on July 30^th, 2007. Last month Publicis purchased the French agency Business Interactif for $182 million and this past December Publicis bought Digitas for $1.3 billion. The aim, according to Publicis, is to increase revenue from digital marketing to 25 percent by 2010.

“It is only a matter of time until nearly all advertisements around the world are digital” contends chairman and chief executive of Digitas David W. Kenny.

This belief drives Publicis Groupe’s plan to build a powerful, global digital ad network. This network will create thousands of versions of each ad, using data about consumers and computer algorithms to decide which advertising message to display to each potential consumer as they navigate through content on their computer, cell phone and, eventually, even their TV. As a result, ads will be relevant and new each time a potential customer sees them. Utilizing myriad iterations of advertising creative fits into the Internet paradigm where finely targeted advertising is becoming the norm. Video advertising, for example, can target consumers with far greater specificity on the Web than offline.

The challenge here lies in the shift. Moving from mass video advertising campaigns to the personalized, thousand iterations strategy entails a dramatic transformation in the breadth and scope of advertising creative production. Publicis Groupe’s acquisitions have, in part, broadened the company’s access to countries with low-cost labor markets to fill the need for greater production capacity.

Will Publicis Groupe’s digital advertising angle meet its 2010 projection, drive up digital revenue and enhance the consumer’s experience? Whether or not they succeed, their goals will certainly have interesting implications for others in the digital advertising and media space.

In a controversial move, Market News First has brought O.J. Simpson to the world of viral video this week. Kate Delaney speaks with Simpson in what MN1.com describes as a “no holds barred interview.” The video airs on www.MN1.com at 5pm CDT through Friday, August 3rd and promises rebroadcast and a podcast as well as a presence on YouTube. The decision to air an interview with such a polarizing cultural figure is a bold one, and Market News First created this FAQ in an attempt to demonstrate their neutrality.

The interview has already outraged some, as evident in the question one caller asked Simpson regarding whether it was “a bigger feat to break 2,000 yards in one season or slice two necks in one night.” The intrigue remains however, and Simpson’s book “If I Did It” and blog attest to his willingness to remain in the spotlight. It seems the controversy surrounding O.J. Simpson will not subside any time soon; at least not as long as the story remains marketable.

There are tons of your favorite Youtube videos on EveryZing and even better, you can search on the spoken words within these videos anytime you want! Check out our Youtube video channel and take a look at some of our current favorites:

Cube Girl: The Origin
Human Tetris
Planet Unicorn
Obama Girl vs. Giuliani Girl