Whetting the appetites of marketers, consumers are watching more online video advertising than ever. Breaking all previous records, Americans viewed more than 8.3 billion video ads in March, according to new data from comScore. Delivering another record month, Hulu recorded more than 1.7 billion video ad views in March, while Google Sites -- i.e., YouTube, ranked second with more than 1.2 billion video ads. The BrightRoll video network came in third with 953 million, followed by Adap.tv with 892 million, and Specific Media with more than 775 million. Time spent watching video ads totaled 3.5 billion minutes, with Hulu delivering the highest duration of video ads at 690 million minutes, according to comScore. Video ads reached 51% of the total U.S. population, an average of 53 times during the month, while Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 51, followed by ESPN, which delivered an average of 26 ads per viewer. Overall, 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in March, while video ads topped 8 billion for the first time on record. Google Sites, driven by YouTube.com, ranked as the top online video content property in March with 146.1 million unique viewers, followed by Yahoo Sites with 60.6 million; VEVO with 51.3 million; Facebook.com with 45.1 million; and Viacom Digital with 44.3 million. Nearly 37 billion video views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 15.7 billion, followed by Hulu with 1 billion and Yahoo Sites with 815 million. ComScore’s March 2012 YouTube partner data revealed that video music channels VEVO -- 49.1 million viewers -- and Warner Music -- 30.3 million viewers -- maintained the top two positions. Gaming channel Machinima ranked third with 22.9 million viewers, followed by Maker Studios with 14.6 million, FullScreen with 12 million and BroadbandTV with 8.5 million. Among the top 10 YouTube partners, Machinima demonstrated the highest engagement -- 69 minutes per viewer -- followed by VEVO at 62.5 minutes per viewer. VEVO streamed the most videos -- 670 million -- followed by Machinima at 379 million. Also of note during March, 83.5 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video, while the duration of the average online content video was 6.4 minutes, and the average online video ad was 0.4 minutes. Video ads accounted for 18.5% of all videos viewed, and 1.5% of all minutes spent viewing video online.
YouTube is launching a series of tools and services, among them Traffic Estimator, Conversion Tracking, and several other features and services to support advertising on Google's video site. In Traffic Estimator, a budget, a bid and an audience target allows the tool to estimate views and impressions for the video, according toLane Shakleton, product manager at YouTube. Marketers will find the feature in the campaign management creation tool. The Conversion Tracking for Video tool will allow marketers to compare their budgets to video views, and identify the number of subscribers generated from a TrueView video advertisement. Additional graph options have been added, too making it easier to see and visualize the data, while hoping to provide a more consistent experience with AdWords online, such as filtering and segmenting. Shakleton said YouTube will make sure TrueView scales across devices and platforms. "It makes sense as we continue to see viewership shift to mobile, YouTube on the Xbox and TV," he said. YouTube also will give away $50 million in free Google AdWords advertising to support 500,000 businesses so thet can get into video. Aside from the $75 credit available to new AdWords users, the tool -- Google AdWords for Video -- becomes available to all. In the AdWords for Video suite, advertisers will find TrueView -- a tool that only requires brands to pay for advertisements when viewers choose to watch the ad for more than 30 seconds, not just when an impression gets served. Marketers aren’t charged when viewers skip it. The cost structure aligns with research from Vindico. Highlighted by eMarketer in a recent research note, the Vindico study suggests marketers place too much emphasis on click-through rates. Ad completion rates can become a much more useful metric than CTRs, which are often misinterpreted as a sign of success. Viewers committed to watching a long-form video are more willing to sit through ads, especially midroll. Ads served in long-form video had a higher completion rate -- 88% -- compared with 76% for ads placed in short-form content. Google found on average that YouTube video ads increase traffic to Web sites by 20%m and searches 5% -- but Undercover Tourist, featuring an entertainment analytics tool for travelers and theme park lovers, generates better percentages. The company posts raw footage of partner theme parks, sells discount tickets, and through technology, can estimate the most crowded rides and areas in the theme park for any specific day and week. Forecasts are based on 12 years of data. For Undercover Tourist, initial YouTube investments began at a few hundred monthly and gradually increased to several thousand, according to Undercover Tourist CEO Ian Ford. "People click, watch, comment and subscribe," he said. "From some videos, we have seen between 20% and 50% increase in traffic, when considering daily views." It's not just the ads, Ford said, but rather the ability to track traffic from the nearly 400 YouTube videos to the company's Web site. Its YouTube channel has more than 5 million views and 5,000 subscribers. About 30% of its customers come to the U.S. from the U.K., Australia and Germany after seeing the videos. Ford plans to add theme parks in California soon, which will increase the number of videos and those promoted on YouTube. Some 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in March, while video ads topped 8 billion for the first time on record, according to comScore. The research firm reported Google sites, driven primarily by video viewing at YouTube.com, ranked the No. 1 property in March with 146.1 million unique viewers. Overall, viewers watched nearly 37 billion video in March, with Google sites generating the highest number at 15.7 billion, followed by Hulu with 1 billion, and Yahoo with 815 million. The average viewer watched 21.7 hours of online video content. Google took 7.1 hours; and Hulu, 4.6 hours.
Discovery Communications is touting its own online video and mobile initiatives during upfront season. Leading that effort is Jean-Briac (JB) Perrette, who joined Discovery last fall as chief digital officer from NBC Universal, where he headed digital and affiliate distribution. Discovery has steadily expanded its online presence over the years, from homegrown companion sites such as Discovery.com and TLC.com to acquisitions like Petfinder.com, TreeHugger.com and HowStuffWorks.com, to iPad and other apps for its core brands. The aim is to lure marketers with a 360-degree media experience for their ad dollars. “We want to take the range of sites and products in our portfolio -- roughly at 24 million uniques overall--and make it work for advertisers,” said Perrette in a recent interview. A particular focus is continuing to build up its online video inventory. With video streaming on its owned-and-operated Web properties up 70% in 2011, Discovery wants to capitalize on the growing demand for its online programming. A foundation for extending TV shows to the Web has been its “after-shows” for popular series like “Mythbusters” “American Chopper” and “Gold Rush,” in which show participants discuss the most recently aired episode each week. In the case of "Gold Rush," Discovery in December aired a one-hour version of re-edited aftershows for the program that became the highest-rated show among men on the Friday before New Year’s Day, according to Perrette. “It was a cool sort of integration," he said. Discovery wants to create similar Web extensions and integrations for more of its shows. In that vein, TLC’s new competition series “Craft Wars,” produced and hosted by Tori Spelling, will include a series of after-shows in which she gives her take on the latest episode and tries her hand at some of the tasks that contestants face. Beyond the desktop screen, Discovery is also trying to tap into the two-screen viewing phenomenon, using tablets while watching TV. Last year, it debuted apps for the iPad and iPhone dedicated to its long-running “Shark Week” franchise. This summer, it will launch an updated version of the app that lets people interact with added content and features including a live “Shark Cam.” Likewise, TLC plans to introduce a new social TV app later this year to foster co-viewing on mobile devices. Perrette said Discovery wants to focus on creating its own two-screen products rather than relying on various social TV vendors, like Viggle, Shazam or Miso. “We’re trying to simplify all that and have it on a native TLC experience and make it seamless from a consumer standpoint,” said Perrette. Overall, about 15% of Discovery's digital content is now consumed through a mobile device, with mobile page views tripling in 2011. Perrette promises that more is on the way. “We’re only scratching the surface of fully mobile-enabling all of our brands,” he said. The company is still creating the technical and sales infrastructure to monetize its mobile usage. “We’ll have more ability to offer rich media across our mobile sites by this summer,” said Perrette. Digital still makes up about only 2% of Discovery Communications' total ad sales. The company is quick to note, however, that digital is the fastest-growing segment of sales, increasing 40% last year. New data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed that online ad spending overall grew 22% to $31.7 billion last year, with mobile and online video among the fastest-growing areas -- at 149% and 29%, respectively. Together, they accounted for almost 11% of overall online ad dollars in 2011. The $31.7 billion total edged out IAB's estimate of $31 billion in cable TV ad spending last year.
Answers, a network of Q&A sites, will build out social, personalized and ad services on desktop and mobile, based partly on a minority investment made by TA Associates, a global growth private equity firm. Terms of the investment were not disclosed. Answers previously raised capital from Summit Partners, which maintains a minority stake as well. The product road map transitions Answers into a platform rather than a Web site, turning the home page into a personalized destination based on the visitor through user-generated content, vertical search and social media, and a targeted ad strategy with a dedicated sales staff. The platform will sit at the intersection between search and social. Integrating Answers with Facebook and personalizing the home page when site visitors log in will be the next step to building out the platform. The integration will allow users to post questions and answers, tying it back to their Facebook account. Personalization means that users, when logged in, will receive information from categories that were previously viewed. Turning Answers into a platform means having a dedicated sales staff to bring in direct advertisers. Today, the ad-supported model relies on advertising networks. David Karandish, CEO of Answers, envisions any brand or advertising agency having the ability to come directly to the company through a dedicated sales staff. Karandish estimates about 100 million unique visitors monthly. On Answers.com, approximately 60% come from the U.S., and the remainder are international, he said. A suite of Facebook apps get about 35 million active users. There are about 150 million registered users across all the company's properties. A dedicated ad sales team will require the ability to segment ad units by verticals, so Answers will begin to slice up the content by category. "It was difficult to tell how much traffic ran through the site in any one specific category until we analyzed the data and found 12% of 100 million unique visitors are the auto category," Karandish said. "It shows we didn't do a good job telling agencies and media buyers about the strengths of the sites, so we're working on making it easy to do category buys." Aside from targeting and retargeting ad services, Answers will also launch a sponsored Q&A section, calling it a clearly labeled "answertorial" service. As an example, GEICO might sponsor a set of auto insurance questions, where it provides an "engaging message" in something other than a banner display unit. Answers, founded in 1998, emerged as a plug-in for Internet Explorer. The business morphed into a reference answers site, combining more than 250 data sources to help users find information on reference topics, including nondigitized sources. Then Wiki Answers emerged, growing to about 100 million unique monthly visitors.
PrivacyChoice is unveiling a new tool that grades Facebook apps based on how they treat users' data. The company, founded by tech entrepreneur Jim Brock, recently offered a similar feature for Web sites. As with the broader tool, the new Facebook-specific product assigns apps a number grade between 1 and 100. Half of that grade comes from the apps' own privacy policies, while the other half is based on the privacy practices of the tracking companies the apps work with. Apps earn points based on various factors, such as whether their privacy policies promise not to share users' personal data with marketers. Apps also earn points for working with tracking companies that have privacy-friendly practices, such as allowing people to opt out of online behavioral advertising. For instance, the popular game Words with Friends got a grade of 79 out of 100. The company scored 40 out of 50 for its own privacy policies. The app lost 10 points for two reasons. The first is that it doesn't promise to tell users about government requests for their data. The second is that its privacy policy says it doesn't share personal data "for marketing purposes," as opposed to making the broader promise that it won't share personal data with third parties. Words with Friends also scored 39 out of 50 -- a figure that is based on the privacy policies of the 55 tracking companies found on the app's pages. PrivacyChoice says it studied 212 apps total, which had an average of 4.66 trackers her page. The apps' average privacy score was 78 -- which Brock characterizes as a "C-plus."
Streaming video company Justin.tv has quietly settled a copyright lawsuit brought by Zuffa's Ultimate Fighting Championships, according to court records. The companies filed papers last week stating that they had reached a deal and asking for the lawsuit to be dismissed. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed. The settlement resolves a legal dispute that began last January, when UFC sued Justin.tv in federal court in Nevada. UFC argued that Justin.tv was liable for infringement by users on the theory that it didn't take proactive steps to prevent people from uploading pirated streams. Web companies typically defend themselves against these types of allegations by arguing that they are protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's safe harbor provisions. It says Web sites are immune from liability for infringing material uploaded by users as long as the sites remove material upon request. But UFC, which offers paid broadcasts of wrestling matches and kickboxing competitions, alleged in its lawsuit that Justin.tv didn't have adequate mechanisms for responding to takedown notices. Justin.tv allegedly provided an online tool for takedowns, UFC said in its lawsuit that the tool didn't always work properly. UFC also said that Justin.tv should take steps like assigning employees to monitor the site and remove unauthorized streams. Representatives for Justin.tv and UFC did not respond to Online Media Daily's requests for more information at press time.
Android and Apple’s iOS platform both gained share of the North American smartphone market at the expense of BlackBerry, according to the latest data from mobile ad network InMobi. iOS maintained its narrow lead over Android in the first quarter, with as 36.8% share, up from 33.1% in the fourth quarter of 2011. Android came in at 34.1%, up from 32.5% in the prior quarter. By contrast, Research in Motion’s BlackBerry OS dropped from a nearly 12% share in the fourth quarter to 7.3% in the first three months of 2012. The quarterly drop-off signals the troubled handset maker’s continuing decline as a result of Apple and Google’s growing dominance of smartphone operating systems. RIM last month reported sales plummeted 25% in the fourth quarter. Globally, Android was the top smartphone platform in Q1, however, with 22.2% of impressions compared to 18.2% for iOS. The iPhone, iPad and iPod alone accounted for 37% of impressions on InMobi’s network in North America, with the BlackBerry 8520 a distant third among individual devices, generating almost 2% of impressions. Among phone manufacturers, Nokia was second behind Apple, with 14% share of impressions, followed by Samsung and HTC (both 9%), RIM (7%), LG (6%) and Motorola (5%). "Apple maintained its lead over Android and further increased its share of impressions and handset dominance; the new iPad certainly helped its overall position,” said Ann Frisbie, vice president and managing director, North America, at InMobi “However, we know that fierce competition is created across the operating systems when new devices enter the market and this time last year Android surpassed iOS globally.” Apple should provide figures for iPad and iPhone sales in the quarter when it reports its latest financial results April 24. But sales of the Apple tablet won’t reflect the full impact of the new iPad model, which was only launched last month. Frisbie suggested Apple could see heightened challenges in the U.S. market later this year with a rumored launch of an Android-based smartphone from Amazon and a 7-inch Google-branded tablet. Microsoft is also expected to introduce a much-anticipated Windows 8 during the latter half of 2012. InMobi’s North American network grew impressions 18% in the first quarter to 52.6 million, the vast majority of which (84%) came from smartphones.