MediaPost | VidBlog

Digital Expanding 'Video Universe,' The Question Is How Much

Fri, 02 Jun 2017 14:41:01 -0400

Well, if you read PJ Bednarksi's "VidBlog" Wednesday, you already know this publication is in transition. In fact, this is the last edition of "VidBlog" -- and Online Video Daily, for that matter -- before MediaPost integrates its video coverage into a new daily omnibus covering all digital media and platforms: Digital News Daily. What makes video different than the rest of that mix, is it isn't a medium or a platform, but a media content format or experience. As a result, it's also been one that's been hard for the industry to categorize or define. A good example of that is two reports I received over the past couple of days -- Kleiner Perkins' Mary Meeker's most updated deck, and Magna Global's 2017 Programmatic Report.

OTT Takes Share From Online, Mobile: Could Be 20% Of Every Video Ad Dollar Served

Thu, 01 Jun 2017 11:51:22 -0400

In what could be a case of digital video ad marketplace role reversal, TV is taking share from digital, albeit over-the-top. That's the conclusion of equities researchers at BMO Capital Markets. It reports that OTT ad spending is on track to rise 300% this year.

Great Visionaries And Bad Players

Wed, 31 May 2017 12:27:59 -0400

I'm fairly certain streaming video will do well without me. But it has a trust issue it better resolve, for viewers and advertisers.

The Silent, Monetizable World Of GIFs

Tue, 30 May 2017 13:59:13 -0400

Tenor will use its Emotional Graph to show advertisers that its GIFs keyboard can grab a customer exactly when they're hooked on a feeling.

Do GenZ Viewers Find Commercials A Novelty?

Fri, 26 May 2017 13:51:23 -0400

Hulu and Tremor Video surveyed GenZ viewers and findings suggest to them them that these younger viewers look at ads differently--because they don't see as many when they're streaming.

Overkill On Hold: Facebook's Delayed Video Plans

Thu, 25 May 2017 13:34:31 -0400

Later than sooner, Facebook will become yet another content provider, veering into a business that at the moment seems pretty overfilled.

Terrorism Is Fair Game For Trollers

Wed, 24 May 2017 15:59:29 -0400

Pranks after the Manchester terrorist attack are a new sad low. Balancing the good and bad of social media and video shouldn't be a close call.

The Big AT&T Plan Includes Short 'Thrones'

Tue, 23 May 2017 12:02:30 -0400

At the annual J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference this week, AT&T's CEO ruminated on a future in which it will offer viewers short--maybe 20 minute long--versions of "Game of Thrones" and other big series.

Facebook Deals With Massive Revenge Porn, Sextortion Allegations

Mon, 22 May 2017 11:36:32 -0400

Every month, Facebook considers nearly 54,0000 cases of suspected revenge porn or sexual extortion, says a new story from the Guardian.com.

Reactive Advertising Creates Social Splash (Or Ugly Puddles)

Fri, 19 May 2017 13:44:21 -0400

If a brand chooses a reactive commercial scheme it better know what it's talking about. Online chatter can make or break you.

Hulu's Big Hope: TV That Doesn't Act Like TV

Thu, 18 May 2017 14:02:24 -0400

Consuming content on a digital device is not like getting it through cable or satellite. Hulu hopes to convince the channels on its new streaming service.

Malicious Fake News On Facebook? Thanks For The Tip!

Wed, 17 May 2017 12:58:17 -0400

Facebook's efforts to flag users that the "news" they are about to look at is possibly BS propels many users to rush to see it - then spread it further.

Pluto TV Tries To Fill The OTT Commercial Void

Tue, 16 May 2017 13:47:04 -0400

Pluto TV, a commercially-supported streamer, is adding an on-demand TV and movie service. It's not Netflix, which, of course, is an opportunity for advertisers.

Buyers Survey Suggests The Ad 'Experience' Needs A Fix

Mon, 15 May 2017 14:08:20 -0400

A survey from Advertiser Perceptions says things like decluttering Websites, better targeting of ads and creating ads expressly for digital all help the ad experience for consumers.

Group Nine Make No Small Plans

Fri, 12 May 2017 13:27:46 -0400

Group NIne includes brands like Thrillist and NowThis and at its NewFront it just kept cranking out news of more new productions.

Does Streaming Have a 'Commercial' Star?

Thu, 11 May 2017 14:54:37 -0400

As television's Upfronts await, those big budget, commercially-supported network shows compete largely with a gigantic bunch of talented and broadly unknown streaming stars.

How TV Watching Is Changing, Fast

Wed, 10 May 2017 13:00:00 -0400

A report from Hub Research points out: Yes, people are still watching TV on TV. A new report from the IAB says they're also streaming like never before.

BBC, Newsy: 2 Sizes To Every Story

Tue, 09 May 2017 14:37:09 -0400

The vast and venerable BBC, the scrappy Newsy -- both carve out a place for themselves in digital news.

Trusted Media Brands Is Safe At Home

Mon, 08 May 2017 16:43:53 -0400

As advertisers fret over brand safety Trusted Media Brands tells NewFronts buyers they've got their backs with well-done, not crazy offerings that deal with home, family and cooking. It appears audiences are responding.

Newsy Gets The Big Picture, In The Living Room

Fri, 05 May 2017 15:23:04 -0400

For a place like Newsy, the Scripps-owned video news outlet that presents on Monday at NewFronts, the up cycle in news comes as viewers are also discovering OTT delivery services.

UPDATE: Refinery29; A NewFront Presentation, A Manifesto

Thu, 04 May 2017 09:42:08 -0400

More than the other NewFront presenters I've seen so far, Refinery29 seems to have an agenda beyond the common goal of getting rich.

On YouTube, NBC Rules, New Zefr Study Says

Wed, 03 May 2017 09:50:39 -0400

Comparing the broadcast networks on engagements from YouTube clips, NBC is tops, with 106.9 million. ABC is not that far away, with 91.4 million.

NewFronts Diary: Three For The Crowd

Tue, 02 May 2017 12:32:06 -0400

Conde Nast jumped big time into online video and now it's paying off; Will Twitter make us proud?; M-A-K-E-R met M-I-C-K-E-Y

IAB Study (Surprise!) Is Bullish On NewFronts

Mon, 01 May 2017 12:03:04 -0400

At NewFronts begins today in New York City, the IAB releases research that says real business gets done at these events. The show-and-tell sells a lot of advertisers

Is This Bud For You? Cannabis Grows Online

Fri, 28 Apr 2017 15:34:54 -0400

This being a weekend and all, you might be ready to chill. And for a long time now, that’s meant marijuana. As you have noticed, even if you are stoned half the time, marijuana is turning into quite a hot, legitimate business.

For a while now it has had Kindland, a surprisingly very good site that neatly straddles the fun part of marijuana with the medical part and the countercultural part with the legislative part. “We’re a little bit about what’s inside the joint, and a lot about the person behind it,” it announces on its Website.

A line graph of my marijuana consumption over the years would look exactly like the graph charting Blackberry stock. These days, I’m not the first or last word on reefer.

But according to NewsWhip, the company that monitors what’s hot news on the Internet, “cannabis is the next frontier for content.”

On its blog, NewsWhip’s Gabriele Boland recently noted that some existing content creators, namely NowThis and Vice, recently launched their own separate marijuana-tinged verticals.

More interesting is that NewsWhip’s analytic analysis of “content containing cannabis keywords” across Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Twitter shows a huge spike, from two million engagements in March 2016 to around 17 million in March of this year.

Graphed out, you can see those engagements spiked in November and then really began skyrocketing since January. That’s possibly because nine states had some form of marijuana reform on their ballots last November (and all but one passed). The Website Governing says 29 states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana, or are about to.

“The year of 2016 may go down as a watershed for weed, the election when legalization shifted from being an experiment in the American West to something primed for the mainstream,” Time magazine wrote.

NewsWhip’s Boland interviewed Kindland’s founder and CEO Mike France, who said that for some mainstream publishers, a touch of pot talk would probably work. But for a publisher who’s taking a broad approach, different judgments are needed to sustain itself.

“This difference significantly shapes editorial strategy and coverage, positioning, and voice,” he disclosed. “One small, funny example of that is we make far fewer weed puns. . .

"Within cannabis, there’s a health and wellness audience, a science audience, a policy audience that cares about things including legislation, social justice and civil liberties, and cannabis culture and lifestyle audiences that are very different from each other.”

So, in a way, describing Kindland as a more sober side of pot probably is true, compared to, say, Herb.co, that is more what France euphemistically refers to as “really engagement based.”

He touts Weedmaps and Leafly as the two pot sites that are making most of the money, mainly centered on the medical and legal side. Way the reverse is High Times which has been around since 1974. It still publishes a magazine and its Website just seems as frenetic as the print version. (Even there, most of the stories about about legislation, but in a more New York Post graphic style.)

Kindland looks cleaner, slicker, and most significantly, while most cannabis content aims for male viewers and readers, Kindland really pushes a lot of its content toward women with items like “Colorado Funds Study To Examine THC in Mama’s Breast Milk” to a profile of Cassandra Maffey, a “master grower.”

Most surprising was a video, “How to Make THC-A Crystalline Hash at Home” featuring a mother who makes it for her daughter who suffers from seizures. Forty percent of Kindland’s audience are women. They rate a tab up top, to the right of “wellness” and to the left of “culture.”

While there’s growth potential, there are also obstacles. Marijuana is widely accepted but also not widely-enough accepted.

“We have to really kind of construct thoughtfully what will be high intent for people interested in cannabis, that will also be engaging,” France explains, “but maybe a little more safe, universal, or ‘bright and shiny’ for the average Facebook user to share with their friend base.”

pj@mediapost.com

We Watch What Somebody Tells Us To Watch

Thu, 27 Apr 2017 14:13:23 -0400

The IAB's new study of how we discover content says our content choices most of all, come via word of mouth, or just exploring. For TV, those on-air promos do the trick.

Mobile Ads Record Big Boost, Video Helps

Wed, 26 Apr 2017 13:45:00 -0400

On all kinds of devices, digital video garnered $9.1 billion last year, 53% higher than the year before. But mobile ad revenue topped 50% of the total for the first time.

When It Comes To Viewer Habits, Ad Folks Are The Stranger Things

Tue, 25 Apr 2017 11:13:47 -0400

The Video Advertising Bureau queried ad buyers and marketers about their viewing habits and how they'd guess those match up to average American viewers.' It's two worlds.

VideoBlocks Takes On The Stock Photo Biz

Mon, 24 Apr 2017 14:11:37 -0400

VideoBlocks helped reinvent stock video acquisition with its one-price membership. Now it's expanding to still photos.

Streaming Still Brings A 'Load' Of Problems

Fri, 21 Apr 2017 14:24:50 -0400

You’ve heard the line--the food’s not good, but the portions are large.

A report from the growing San Francisco performance analytics firm Mux that charted viewer attitudes about video streaming comes up with a similar finding: Viewers are not so very critical of the quality of the video they receive. But they hate to be kept waiting or be buffered to death.

Mux quizzed over 1,000 consumers from 18 to 44, and determined that the quality of the video is the least likely reason they’ll quit watching. I should quickly point out more than half (57.3%) will still go away if the picture quality is miserable, but by comparison, that’s pretty good.

Far more of a buzzkill is everything else that can happen: 47% are “frustrated” by videos that stall or rebuffer and 85% have quit watching because of it; 19.9% are driven up a wall by videos that fail on playback or show an error message; and 18.8% are irked by videos that are slow to load and start--and 85% have quit trying when it happens, too.

Only 14.3% are actually frustrated by a bad picture-- as long as there is some kind of picture, apparently.

Altogether nearly 93% have abandoned a video because of some hassle actually playing it/seeing it.

Moving from what bugs them to how often it does, video stalls and rebuffers is the most frequent problem they encounter, (41.4%). Slow loads get second place on the frequency list at 26%. Playback that fails or flashes an error message is the most frequent problem for 17.5%

These are problems that drive me mad and generally I won’t put up with the bad stuff. (That’s what I tell myself, anyway.)

According to the Mux survey, I’m not alone, but I’m sort of impressed that by measure, video viewers are, on balance, a rather forgiving bunch.

Yes it is true nearly 5% stop trying the moment a video malfunctions and 15.6% will give just one more chance. Then cooler heads begin to prevail: 52.3% will try “two or three” times; 20.5% will give four to six chances; and the Mother Theresa contingent (6.5%) will keep plugging away even after video gives them trouble seven or more times. They must have perfect blood pressure.

Actually OTT streamers live a relatively charmed existence. The largest percentage of those surveyed blame their Internet supplier or their own Wi-Fi for slow loading or rebuffering hassles, not the content supplier, though the content app publisher gets knocked for playback failures and lousy picture and a share of everything else. The smart TV or streaming provider (like Roku or Apple) gets little blame for anything.

A current report on the stalling/buffering/swearing at your device issue gets the attention of eMarketer, where I first heard of the Mux report. It doesn’t offer a lot of advice, but offers some sympathy: “The challenge for media and advertising executives seeking to prevent such issues is that there is no single cause for video streaming quality problems, and that some of these problems are out of their control.”

That’s also what cable companies used to say when the repairman was late.

pj@mediapost.com