In the second part of his interview with John Shinal, EveryZing CEO Tom Wilde talks about what he’s learned in a decade as an Internet executive and entrepreneur.

A good company starts with a great consumer experience, according to Wilde, a former executive with the search engine and Internet portal Lycos.

“If that’s high quality and a service to the user, the company usually benefits from that,” Wilde says.

Go to vator.tv to watch the interview or catch the previous segment here.

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.

Here in the United States, television has—we hope only temporarily—lost its spark. Back in November, the Writer’s Guild of America went on strike after it was unable to reach an agreement with The Alliance of Motion Pictures and Television Producers. No new shows are being written meaning that many television programs are in danger of going “dark”—some are there already. I know I am certainly getting tired of re-runs and I was already sick of reality shows. How soon will we start signing up for more Netflix deliveries and tuning in online for our primetime entertainment? Pushing advertising dollars online, whether in the form of video or display ads, could provide advertisers with a new user base as they look for ways to reach consumers and tap into the $7 billion online video search and advertising market.

But successful online advertising takes more than a conversion of 30 second TV spots repurposed and redirected onto the Web. This week Burst Media, an online advertising network, released a survey that reiterated the growth in online video viewing across demographics while also highlighting low consumer acceptance of video ads. Numerous studies have charted the growth in video viewing online and research increasingly evinces consumer hesitation about viewing online video ads.

Ads, by their very nature, are disruptive. The good news from the Burst survey is that about 53.6 percent of online video viewers recall seeing in-stream - either pre-, mid-, or post-roll - ads attached to some form of web programming. Unfortunately, more than three-quarters (78.4 percent) of respondents said in-stream ads are intrusive and fully one-half (50.4 percent) say these ads disrupt their Internet experience.

The bad and the worse: the Burst survey found that one-half (50.7%) of respondents stop watching an online video once they encounter an in-stream advertisement. Ominously, 15.3% of respondents report they immediately leave the website once they encounter an in-stream advertisement in an online video. And in-stream advertising does not always make a lasting impression. In fact, two-thirds (69.1%) of survey respondents say they pay about the same or less attention to in-stream video advertisements than they do to standard creative units on the same page.

The Burst study should force advertisers, agencies and publishers to take notice as it juxtaposes the growing consumption of online video with the dissatisfaction consumers feel when content is interrupted by streaming ads.

“Online video is clearly in demand by web viewers,” said Jarvis Coffin, CEO of Burst Media.

“However, marketers need to tread carefully with online video advertising. It’s pretty clear from our research that most online video consumers are not yet willing to sit through advertising to get the content they seek. For online video advertising to be truly effective, advertisers must approach it with a consumer’s mindset, and recognize that what might be right for one segment could fail with another.”

The time for online video ads is now; video ads that respect and target consumer preferences so that users are willing and even eager to view them. Whatever the outcome of the writer’s strike, online video is winning an increasingly central role in consumer engagement with media. Content producers and media companies must make their video content more discoverable and accessible to consumers if they hope to capitalize on this trend. In doing so, they will make the shows and clips more valuable to advertisers, perhaps enticing those advertising budgets away from stalled television series and into the online realm.

The buzz around online video has recently grown to a dull roar in the realm of business and finance. CNBC and The New York Times have said that they will begin contributing financial articles and video to their Web sites and Bloomberg News recently launched CEO Spotlight, a new Web video series of CEO interviews produced in Bloomberg bureaus around the world. This is Bloomberg’s first step towards bringing a vast amount of business news video clips to the public Internet. Bloomberg creates a huge amount of video content across the globe—in multiple languages—and that content is already distributed live, 24 hours a day on cable, satellite and the Internet. So what is changing? Bloomberg News is shifting gears from traditional broadcast efforts bringing quality, Web-purposed video to the forefront. At the core of Bloomberg’s strategy—and the strategy of other business and finance content producers—is the conversion of traditional, linear programming into easily consumable, searchable online video clips.

CNNMoney.com is another site making a major push into online video. As one of the most popular online destinations for financial news, last month CNNMoney had more than 7 million unique visitors, according to Nielsen Online. The site launched a broadband initiative this past Tuesday and will soon go from producing one or two original videos each day to creating about 30 broadcast-quality Web videos daily. CNNMoney’s newly designed homepage includes an embedded video player, allowing users to view video content while they follow breaking business news and streaming financial data online. Executives and editors anticipate the site’s new emphasis on original, fresh business and financial news clips will better serve users and attract lucrative online advertising.

Touting that “The future of business television is online,” CNNMoney.com Editor Chris Peacock explains,

“The audience for business and finance information migrated online very quickly…They’re at their desks. They’re an at-work audience. We have a footprint to reach more people through our distribution than I think the classic cable networks can.”

CNNMoney.com hopes their online video focus will take on financial TV networks such as CNBC and the Fox Business Network. Online video may trump TV during the business day when CNNMoney’s target demographic is at their computers and short video snippets appeal more than long form content, but how much should people worry about competition between TV and the Web for viewers and advertisers? Allen Wastler, the managing editor of CNBC.com argues that the “holy grail” of the industry is finding a complementary relationship between the Internet and TV that best serves the audience/Internet user.

Yet both Bloomberg and CNNMoney’s new video strategies come in the midst of upheaval in the media and advertising industries. While a complementary relationship between TV and the Web may be the ideal, in the current reality companies are focusing on attracting viewers to their content and subsequently gaining a greater share of potential advertising revenue. As Jonathan Shar, CNNMoney.com’s general manager declared,

“The ultimate goal is to start competing with television for those [advertising] budgets.”

While the goals may differ—“We’re not pretending that we’re trying to re-create a television channel here,” CNNMoney’s new executive producer for video, Caleb Silver, explains—media companies all want to guarantee advertising budgets factor their sites, stations, and content in heavily. With so much attention on growing online populations and user interaction with Web video, it appears the challenge will be for TV to hold onto ad dollars. Online video, however eager the business audience may be to consume it, faces distinct obstacles to monetization; content needs to be fresh, engaging, discoverable and easily navigated in order to increase views and prove valuable to advertisers.

John Shinal of vator.tv recently spoke with EveryZing CEO Tom Wilde about video search. As traditional media companies rush to get their content on the Web they face a serious problem—how to help Internet users find their audio files and video clips. EveryZing helps traditional media companies port their offline content onto the Web and put it in a form that can be more easily discovered.

“We’re the inverse of Google video search, Blinkx and Truveo,”

Wilde says, naming just three of the many companies that search Web video.

“We take videos and optimize them for search.”

Go to vator.tv to watch the interview.

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.

Clearly MySpace has been in the news and on people’s minds this year. To provide a snapshot of what people were truly looking to find over the past year, Ask.com unveiled a top 10 list of 2007’s most popular search terms. MySpace garnered the #1 spot, while no other social networking service made the top 10. But in the rapidly developing world of Web 2.0, there is no time for sitting on one’s laurels.

MySpace’s new program Transmissions launched last Tuesday. It will offer exclusive video content from recording artists—hoping to capitalize on the site’s prominence as a promotional platform for music artists and labels. Transmissions will also sell audio tracks, videos of private recording sessions and clips of question and answer sessions with artists. MySpace plans to archive this content and make it available on-demand through MySpace Transmissions and on MySpaceTV.

In spite of their immense popularity, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are still searching for successful ways to turn this prominence into revenue. And the music industry needs any solution it can find to its digital conundrum, wherein everyone wants to get their music online but nobody seems to want to pay for it. Josh Brooks, MySpace vice president of programming and content, said Transmissions represents the first in a series of new revenue models for music that the company plans to introduce. Brooks cited opportunities in the video and mobile arenas for potential expansion by MySpace explaining:

I think a lot of musicians are looking for new ways to forge ahead in the digital space.

Social networking sites provide a way for the ailing music industry to tap into the booming world of online video, bringing popular online music consumption into the legal realm and alluring the music industry with the possibility of profit. The visibility artists gain within social networking communities—and, if they play their cards right, the viral spread of their work—create a buzz across the Web, optimizing their product. In an Internet age ruled by Google, or at the very least by search, such visibility is essential.

In light of this, there may be two possible success stories for Transmissions. For the music industry, triumph will relate directly to people buying artist videos. Individual artists however, may find their happy ending in the site’s potential to raise awareness, spread their music, and ultimately optimize each artist’s brand through an increase in online video content and its visibility.

The Chinese user-generated video site Youku.com (their name even sounds like YouTube!) closed Series C investment of US $25 million on November 19, according to Youku president Victor Koo. The company will use the $25 million to improve video service standards, expand the company’s sales and marketing efforts and increase research and development. While this announcement from Youku demonstrates that online video may be yet another market in China where Google finds some tough competition, the same questions remain for Youku as for YouTube—how can content producers make sure their videos are seen and how can all that seeing translate into profit?

In China, video-sharing sites like Youku face major barriers. Along with higher infrastructure costs associated with video storage, the Chinese government scrutinizes online video as harshly as it does TV programs. However with some strategic partnerships—such as a deal with Baidu, China’s most popular search engine—Youku has gained an early lead on other video sites since its launch last December. This already popular service claims “videos are broadcast more than 70 million times a day.”

With 77 percent of Internet users acknowledging that they have consumed online video and forty-five percent of user’s time online spent consuming content, it is no wonder Youku found firm financial backing. And China now has the fastest-growing online population worldwide. Second only to the U.S., China’s 160 million Web users represent the second-largest global market. A leading monetization model has yet to surface on either side of the Pacific however, with various ad formats vying for primacy but no single form taking the clear lead.

As we move into 2008, media companies will likely continue their ambivalent relationship with 3rd party distribution sites such as YouTube and Youku. Content producers will face similar frustrations, as they too look to spur consumption to levels meaningful enough to build sizeable revenue online. Connecting users to content—and finding the value in that connection—will be more important than ever as this market continues to grow and more and more multimedia floods the Web.

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.