In a recent post, Video Nuze looks at the growing number of video-based “how-to” websites. The Video Nuze post highlights the logical popularity of how-to videos, asking:

How many of us would rather watch a video of someone explaining how to do something vs. reading a lengthy and often poorly-written guide?

Such sites have multiplied recently as a rush of well-funded competitors clamber for entry into the space. These companies have varied strategies, business models and content approaches. For the ad-supported sites, some strictly show professional videos while others focus mainly on UGC.

Both types of sites are seeing a good deal of buzz around advertising. One of the main reasons there is a lot of activity on the ad-supported side is that how-to videos sites deliver the highly-targeted and engaged audiences that sponsors crave. Great revenue opportunities exist for those sites able to aggregate enough traffic in a given category to attract advertising sponsors.

But with so many competitor sites crowding the space, how can each site effectively draw-in and engage users? With all of this video being produced, how will the companies ensure that when users search—either through Google or directly on their site—the most relevant content is delivered? Video content is at a fundamental disadvantage to text content in that it is largely invisible to Google and Yahoo. To build its traffic, 5Min plans to pursue widgetization, 3rd party distribution and SEO; this will be a good start, but SEO for video is non-trivial. That said, this category of video content lends itself well to speech to text to enable it to “plug-in” to the Search Economy. To succeed, these how-to sites must enable superior search and discovery of their videos. Solid video SEO and positive user experience through straightforward, accurate site search will be defining factors of the sites that manage to pull ahead of the pack.

As globalization increases, technologies grow more advanced and human knowledge expands, we must adapt on an individual as well as a societal level. Our knowledge continues to mushroom, becoming too great to store in our print libraries and, for each person, in our minds alone. As online networks and social sites become deeply integrated in people’s lives, the virtual becomes inextricable from our “offline” activities, communities, and lives. With greater amounts of personal information moving online, we need ever more powerful and accurate search to keep our contacts, photos, videos etc. accessible. Universal search will become invaluable as people take advantage of the free storage capacity the web has to offer for everything from pictures to videos to calendars and contact lists; as our lives and our memories move online, our need for comprehensive universal search will grow exponentially. Web storage—unlike our attics and basements—must be easily navigable.

Storage Capacity

There are a number of factors that point towards the exciting direction of information storage, particularly as it relates to people’s sense of their real and virtual selves and the steady merger of these concepts into one cohesive identity. As Bhavin Turakhia, Founder & CEO of Directi highlights on his blog, Web 2.0 applications act as extensions of our desktops, storage costs are continually dropping, and people now expect nearly unlimited storage online.

The Implications

Dropping storage costs and free space to store data online—particularly within social networking sites—mean that more and more you can store anything and everything about your life at little to no cost. YouTube, Flickr, Facebook et all are already accumulating multiple facets of people’s lives online. The virtual world has grown so that what we do and how we represent ourselves online are now essential components of our identities. A recent report from accustream entitled, “User Generated Video 2005 - 2008: Mania Meets Mainstream” shows that the market for user generated videos grew by an estimated 70% in 2007, up from a total 13.2 billion views generated in 2006. These are videos average people are making and uploading; these are vignettes, pieces of our lives on YouTube. The same report forecasts that the market will continue to grow by 52% in 2008, reaching 34 billion views.

Social networking sites only want to encourage these trends. In a MediaPost article about the coming launch of the MySpace Developer Platform (an initiative in direct response to the success that rival Facebook has had with its own open developer program), MySpace COO Amit Kapur states: “This is a critical year in the evolution of the Internet” describing his focus for MySpace as creating an increasingly “personal, portable, and collaborative Web.”

The Transactive Web

And what about our own personal storage capacity: our memory? MediaPost’s Search Insider blog had an interesting couple of entries by Gord Hotchkiss recently relating to what he calls “transactive memory” and its place in the digital age. As he illustrates, we have different methods for storing our memories. Hotchkiss explains that as some people are better at remembering certain types of things, we have adapted to extend our memory capabilities collectively by using transactive memory. This neurological plasticity allows our brain to prune itself, getting rid of capacities we no longer need while strengthening those that we do.

Hotchkiss raises the questions: What about computers, and, by extension, the Internet? What about search? New technologies let us dump the details of our life on a hard drive or website somewhere and search for it when we need it. In the place of all this memory digital storage is freeing up, Hotchkiss thinks we may develop greater skills in navigating online spaces. We may improve our navigation skills, but more importantly, we will expect comprehensive, powerful universal search technology to make finding all things virtual as easy as a simple click of your mouse.

Happy New Year!

Undeniably, 2007 was an exciting year for digital media. As we enter 2008, we continue to witness the explosive growth of the next phase of the Internet’s lifecycle – multimedia.

In 2007 YouTube—then later in the year Google by association—stood as the archetype for a new age of user-generated content and viral videos. The number of people engaging with video online soared and virtual communities of every shape and size attracted users and investors as social networking established prominence as an online activity. Presidential candidates, their supporters and detractors jumped on this trend having realized the potential of such networks and social sites to spread their messages, videos, and sway voters—particularly younger constituents. As multimedia content flooded the Internet so too did the advertising dollars, pushing Newspapers and other traditional media to reexamine and reshape their own online presence.

At the end of 2007, users spent forty-five percent of their time online consuming content, and 77 percent of unique users consumed online video.

The revenue opportunities for multimedia online are currently red hot—video advertising is predicted to increase from $700 million in 2007 to $4 billion by 2011, according to eMarketer—as companies continue to look for powerful ways to impact the growing online population. Thus far however, major media companies have struggled to turn their video assets into large revenue streams online. The online “video value chain” will continue to take shape in 2008 as more companies bring creative solutions to questions of content production, delivery, discovery and consumption. This year will bring even greater innovation to the Internet video space as content producers and consumers negotiate the evolving sphere of online multimedia.

It’s that season again, when the weather cools dramatically and along with the heavier coats we suddenly need to bring out the tissue boxes and up our daily does of vitamin C to try to escape catching a cold.

But where some home made chicken soup and a trip to the family doctor were once the obvious answers once the germs finally caught up to you, the Web now plays an increasing role in people’s health management. A recent article on sfgate.com emphasizes how many health-focused websites have begun modeling themselves after YouTube and social-networking sites such as MySpace. This appears to be part of a larger effort to connect patients with each other and help them navigate the overwhelming amounts of medical information available online. From WebMD to various niche support group sites, Internet users have a wealth of medical information available to them and a growing number of people are integrating Web search and health communities into their online experience.

New Web 2.0 Elements

Larger players such as Yahoo host online patient communities, as do health-information sites like WebMD. But the Web 2.0 generation of social networking and specialized health search engines offers patients new tools. From user-generated video, to blogs and health podcasts, to wikis and social networking sites, the ways we can use the Web for health related research and support are expanding rapidly.

Social networking health sites

These sites are among a new wave of social networking services available for patients to share experiences and learn more about their health conditions:

NursesRateDoctors.com: With the motto, “Spread the word; improve the care,” this site recruits nurses to give their candid assessment of doctors so that patients can have better information and make choices to get quality care.

DailyStrength.org: Gives patients and caregivers a place to join a support community, write a journal, share videos, and send virtual support with “hugs” and “flowers.”

ReliefInSite.com: Helps patients record and track their pain and medications and share it with their doctors, nurses, pain specialists, therapists, friends and family members.

OrganizedWisdom.com: The goal of this site is “to provide the best search service in the world for health by hand-crafting search results that physicians and consumers will recommend to their family and friends.” OrganizedWisdom aligns doctor-reviewed and user-generated health content to help people make decisions regarding treatment and care.

PatientsLikeMe.com: A platform for collecting and sharing real world, outcome-based patient data. The creators are working to establish data-sharing partnerships with doctors, pharmaceutical and medical device companies, research organizations, and non-profits. This site offers people battling devastating diseases the ability to discuss and track in great detail the treatment options other patients in their disease group are trying.

ICYou.com: Defines itself as a site dedicated to making it simple for anyone to find, upload, watch and share healthcare videos worldwide. Dubbed the YouTube of health care, ICYou.com allows patients to share their stories through online video clips. The site, which is expected to formally launch late this year or early next, already has about 1,500 posted videos.

Online Video Advertising Opportunity

While using the Web for health research is hardly a new phenomenon, health-related content is becoming increasingly vast and varied as a growing number of people decide to share their own experiences online through health communities, blogs and online video. A Google search for health videos evidences this trend toward online video libraries and user—or patient—testimonials. And advertisers want to be where the video is on the Web.

How to Advertise with Integrity

There is an opportunity here, albeit one rife with challenges. Advertising from the pharmaceutical industry, medical-device manufacturer and health insurers seems a natural revenue stream for these online health communities, but anyone who has ever been subjected to the big pharmaceutical TV ads might realize the potential tension in such a partnership. To successfully take advantage of this market, medical industry advertisers need to get their messages and targeting spot on. As founders of the health-focused Web communities have noted, medical ads often cause patients to question the validity of a site’s information. Health sites and their potential advertisers have an incredible chance to build revenue as more consumers look the Web for health information and support. The question is whether sites will be able to maintain their credibility with the users—who value the conversational, Web 2.0 experience—while letting in the ads that bring health industry dollars.

There is plenty of excitement right now with people talking, blogging, estimating and projecting about the power of online video. Everyone from the kid next door with the video camera uploading content to YouTube, to Presidential candidates, to big shot marketers seems to want in on the Web video action. In a recent report Tubemogul highlighted the impact potential of video asking:

“…when was the last time that a paid search listing or banner ad raised your blood pressure or induced you to forward something to a friend?”

They definitely have a point.

Yet online video raises as many hurdles as it does cheers of elation. Marketers are in search of plausible ways to produce the myriad iterations necessary for the geographic, demographic, and use-based targeting that Web video makes ultimately inevitable and increasingly challenging. Will all the excitement and hype translate into increased budgeting for online video and other social media?

Although speculative answers abound, the most successful form and ultimate direction online video will take remains an unknown. Coremetrics’ second annual Face of the New Marketer survey illustrates that social media marketing tools—including user generated videos and product reviews—are becoming integral to online marketing. A disconnect remains however between the desirability of social marketing and the budget allocated to it; 78% of respondents see social media marketing as a way to gain competitive edge, but only 7.75% of total online marketing spend is devoted to it. John Squire, SVP product strategy, GM marketing services at Coremetrics explains:

“marketers are aware of the impact that social media marketing can have on their overall program, but view it as uncharted territory, not worthy of their budget.”

One of the biggest challenges facing marketers wanting to adopt online video is lack of tools and expertise. Video production costs are hard to stomach—it is a new medium that has some marketers questioning whether returns will justify the cost. One possible answer lies in an increased blurring of the lines between user generated content, commissioned ads and user reviews. Online Video Insider entry Video Ads For People Without TV points to consumer generated content campaigns run through managed brand communities as at least a partial solution to the problems of cost and video proficiency.

When it comes to distribution and targeting, companies must often choose between reach and quality of content. The Online Video Insider post: The Next Video Ad Innovation: Automation of Ad Assembly contends:

“The need to innovate automation tools in the video ad editing space is driven by demand for video ads from every property on the Internet, yet few have discovered how to tackle the problem of mass adoption.”

Some companies are already onto this. If companies opt to automate production of online videos to save on cost and time, will their content still effectively engage consumers? At the moment this looks to be a trade off of artistry and quality for targeting and relevance. If, however, creators accept that they must build their “video templates” around editing techniques that the technology handles well, perhaps such automation could solve for cost and scalability without losing all creativity and viewer engagement.

In their report, “Web Video Marketing - Best Practices”, Tubemogul states that the strength of online video as a marketing medium stems from its engagement potential, SEO value, and measurement opportunities. In its report Tubemogul argues that 50% of creating a great viral video—which is really the ultimate success story for online video—is about content and production. The goal, as they put it, “is to create something remarkable, literally, something that causes people to remark - and in doing so to effectively convey your message.”

In order to grow online video needs conquer issues of cost and scalability while somehow remaining remarkable. How can Web video maintain creativity, specificity and influence while scaling to impact a greater swath of people? Since hoping your videos will “go viral” is not a complete distribution strategy—particularly if companies opt for template videos—video SEO must begin to play a much larger role. As videos flood the Web, getting people to find and watch your videos will only become more challenging though increasingly significant for raising brand awareness and content monetization.

Now that we are almost into November of 2007, the Presidential primaries are just around the corner. A few of the candidates started off big on the “new media” angle, with profiles on social networks, personal and political blogs and online videos. Notably, Obama, Clinton and Giuliani fans and detractors stirred up a great deal of press around viral videos about their candidacies.

The press attention to these new media strategies has died down somewhat. In the NY Times article, “Their Look for Fall 2008,” Stephanie Rosenbloom looks at the candidates efforts to sell their images and messages on t-shirts, tank tops and pins. She notes that:

The race to offer the most extensive, fashion-conscious and youthful gear is being won by Mr. Obama and Rudolph W. Giuliani.

While it is certainly interesting to note that candidates are expanding their branded offerings, this is still simply the diversification of an existing campaign strategy—sell stuff with your name on it to finance and promote your presidential bid. What happened to the new media angle? I wanted to take a look at where these campaigns are now—are they keeping current with their media strategies, or has the new media kick stagnated along with the buzz around it?

I looked around online to see what some of the most talked about candidates were up to and to try to get a sense of their different strategies—or lack thereof—when it comes to new media. What I found was not what I had expected.

Barack Obama is on Twitter—now all those copycat Obama girls can find out what he is up to at any given moment! I was disappointed by the videos on the Barack Obama Impact Channel page however. They were not as current as I would have expected for a candidate with such a strong younger following. Facebook was another story. With well over 500 groups related to Obama and his candidacy, the buzz around this social network is certainly Obama-heavy.

Hillary Clinton also commands quite the presence on Facebook, with myriad positive and negative groups devoted to—or intended to detract from—Clinton’s candidacy. There was a rosier tint to her MySpace page where I found a slew of birthday well wishes from “friends”. If you get tired of reading those you can also catch up on her life story there, each section of which offers a video to complement the text. Most of the other videos I found for Clinton were standard TV ads that had been uploaded to the Web.

Mitt Romney also has a number of relatively recent TV ads online accessible on his site and his social network profiles. His own site has a “Mitt TV” section where viewers can watch news clips, promotional videos and reality TV-esque clips from a series the site calls “24 Hours on the Trail”.

Rudy Giuliani also uses this video tactic but takes it even further. A message on his MySpace page reads:

Hey there! I’m Dan Meyers and welcome to Rudy’s MySpace page. I am the host of “Running with Rudy” and I’m here to give you an insider’s perspective of life on the campaign.

Giuliani (or rather Dan and the team) employ interesting widgets and videos giving the page an up to date and digitally focused feel. Giuliani has fewer overall Facebook groups devoted to his candidacy, but also a higher ratio of supporting groups. Overall Giuliani got top marks for his new media efforts. Having weekly video updates and blog posts along with a young personality managing his online identity makes Giuliani’s presence on MySpace seem natural and current.

Interestingly enough, the fastest growing Facebook group at the moment is devoted to Stephen Colbert’s political aspirations. Within just one week Colbert’s group surpassed its 1 million member goal. This demonstrates the potential power of social networking available to candidates. If done right, such online networking can be an incredible political tool; gathering that number of supporters for so little time and money is truly impressive when compared to traditional campaigning methods.

Just as advertisers and old media must adapt to the new media paradigm, the Presidential candidates have found themselves in largely uncharted territory this election season. Everything about social networks, user-generated content and increasingly user-programmed content is opposed to control; outside of their own sites and Web pages, viral videos, blogs and Facebook groups define candidates in ways beyond their power. In light of this, candidates will increasingly need to shift their politicking to integrate their messages into this radically new environment. This may be the only way to reach a younger audience and maybe, just maybe, get them riled up enough to get out and vote when the time comes.

Advertising.com’s Bi-Annual Online Video Study indicates that the majority of consumers, at 62 percent of respondents, are viewing video online. The study also concludes that the majority of these viewers are aged 35 or older and their preference tends towards news clips as opposed to user generated content.

The report notes that while consumers continue to incorporate streaming video into the online experience, a difference remains based on Internet users age group.

As previous studies have shown, older consumers use streaming video to gain information, which can be seen by their preference for online news clips, while younger consumers are streaming content for entertainment purposes, such as viewing movies, TV shows and user-generated videos online.

My question is: which came first, the viewer preferences or the digital content models and media sites?

As a twenty-something who likes to spend my time online getting information as well as entertainment, I wonder if the differences in viewer preference tell us something deeper than, old people like news, young people watch YouTube.

The MediaPost article, “Times Touts ‘All the News that’s Fit to Click’” highlights the shift in the marketing of New York Times online media offerings. After the fall of TimesSelect, NYTimes.com has launched a multi-channel branding initiative to show non-readers (or should we call them non-clickers?) what they are missing.

While NYTimes.com continues to add blogs to its mix, much of the multimedia content the new initiative underscores isn’t even new. Murray Gaylord, vice president of marketing for NYTimes.com explains,

“Internal research showed us that people think the Web site has what’s in the paper, and that’s it…We needed a campaign to show them what’s online–like video, slide shows, interactive blogs, and reader comments. There’s all this content they don’t know about.”

The two year TimesSelect project was by no means a flop—paid subscriptions generated around $10 million a year in revenue. Still, “projections for growth on that paid subscriber base were low, compared to the growth of online advertising,” Vivian L. Schiller, senior vice president and general manager of NYTimes.com, said upon the announcement earlier this month. Interestingly, while many of my friends enjoy the columnists and other features that were off-limits to non-subscribers, only those in that over 35 bracket seemed willing to pay for TimesSelect. We twenty-somethings came of age with Napster, watch Daily Show clips online when we want, and can now buy the new Radiohead album digitally for whatever price we choose—it is hard to get us to pay for information when we don’t even pay for our digital entertainment.

And what if the majority of online news sites just aren’t hip enough to draw in younger, more digitally aware Internet users? I can barely keep up with all the innovation on sites like Facebook but that is, to a certain extent, what keeps it interesting and engaging. Maybe the Times will get it right for the under 35 set with their destruction of the TimesSelect pay wall and their emphasis on a multimedia, interactive digital news experience.

A new report from the Radio Advertising Bureau highlights the continued growth of non-spot revenue in the industry. Non-spot activity—largely in the form of innovative brand extensions to the Internet and enhanced event sponsorship packages—remains a focal point for Radio. This strength, evidenced by 16% gains in the second quarter of 2007 for non-spot, helped to offset the slight dips in local, national and network revenues.

According to Jeff Haley, CEO of the Radio Advertising Bureau:

The average monthly non-spot revenue growth rate for the last two years has been 10%. At this rate non-spot revenue will be over $1.5B for 2008 and approach $2B by the end of 2009.

Haley acknowledges that radio stations’ online efforts are bringing in the majority of this revenue, and many in the industry expect such efforts to accelerate in the coming years. The question will be, how quickly and gracefully can the radio industry step up online offerings?

Noted for localism and targetability, radio is poised to capitalize on a major share of advertising spending. To draw listeners and therefore advertising dollars online, radio will need to successfully leverage offline multimedia content. Radio offers great brands, great content, and a massive industry, however as it stands today the brands and content are not yet being leveraged to capacity. Radio’s vast and varied content must be made available, accessible and navigable online for the industry to capitalize on their valuable brands, radio names and programs. The success story for radio will be both a reaction to and a continuation of the growth of non-spot revenue and the expansion of stations online.

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.

Neilsen//NetRatings has recently shaken the Web 2.0 world up a bit with the addition of a “Total Minutes” metric to its syndicated Internet audience measurement service. Neilsen contends that the “Total Minutes” measurement delivers greater perspective on total engagement across sites.

Scott Ross, director of product marketing for NetView stated:

“Total Minutes is the best engagement metric in this initial stage of Web 2.0 development, not only because it ensures fair measurement of Web sites using RIA and streaming media, but also of Web environments that have never been well-served by the page view, such as online gaming and Internet applications”

Nielsen explains that while Rich Internet Application (RIA) technologies have enhanced consumer experience, the explosion of such applications poses unique challenges to Internet audience measurement. Visitors to sites that employee RIA technology can access content without fully reloading Web pages, thus making page views a less relevant measurement of the users’ engagement.

This change in focus to “Total Minutes” has shifted the spotlight for a few sites. AOL now ranks first based on the amount of time users spend on a given page whereas it only comes in sixth based on the page view metric. Yahoo moves up in rank as well, while Google falls from third to fifth when gauged by time spent as opposed to page views.