Posted by Patrick Donovan on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 @ 01:46 PM
Following up on the huge online success of the 2010 PGA Championship, Turner Sports is using Gotuit metadata in the live broadcast of their next golf event – The Barclays, going on right now at the Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, New Jersey.
As seen in the live video player on pgatour.com, Gotuit metadata markers are on display to help the viewer get to a key moment in the live broadcast. Our time-based video metadata provides the precise start time (and stop time) of the key golf shots of the tournament, along with a unique thumbnail, title, description and other information. Viewers can mouse over a marker to see the information, then click to see that shot.
There is also the option to play through all the key moments defined by Gotuit video metadata by clicking the Play Key Moments button on the left hand side of the progress bar.
The Barclays is the first of four tournaments to determine the winner of the FedEx Cup. This year, some of the notable players include Tiger Woods, Vijay Singh, Davis Love III, Ernie Els, K.J. Choi, and last year’s winner Heath Slocum. The tournament runs for the next four days, and Gotuit metadata will be available throughout.
This is another excellent example of allowing the viewer to better customize their viewing experience by providing accurate, relevant, and timely information about what is happening in the live video stream. With more live events coming up, check back here for updates…
The Currency of Internet Video
Learn more about how Gotuit's metadata can unleash your video's full potential.
Download this free whitepaper.
Posted by Patrick Donovan on Thu, Jul 29, 2010 @ 04:17 PM
Congratulations to our customer ABC for their historic achievement of having the first daytime talk show to host a sitting President, when President Barack Obama appeared today on The View! The full video of his appearance is available within the Gotuit-powered VIEWer's Choice.
Using Gotuit's time-based video metadata, each individual question and answer that President Obama gave can be instantly accessed, shared via direct URLs, and embedded in blogs like this one. For example, click the links below to see some of the key topics they discussed, such as:
Gotuit's ability to delineate each logic scene within an original source video drives significant benefits to the viewer and the publisher. There is more metadata to describe the overall video to drive search traffic back to the site. The scenes are arranged in more interesting playlists that convert visitors to viewers and better engage those viewers. Finally, there are more natural advertising insertion points to help the publisher monetize their content.
Here is the entire playlist of President Barack Obama's appearance today, with each topic defined by metadata:
If you are a big supporter of President Obama, Gotuit's time-based video metadata lets you easily find his answers that you agree most with and share them with your friends.
If you are not a big supporter of President Obama, our metadata just as easily lets you find the answers you disagree with most, and share them with your friends.
Either way, Gotuit's time-based video metadata makes the video more useful and engaging.
Be sure to check out the other great celebrity appearances within VIEWer's Choice, including 50 Cent, Martha Stewart, Stephen A. Smith, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Lee DeWyze, and more!
Content Is King, But Metadata Rules
Learn more about how Gotuit's metadata can unleash your video's full potential.
Download this free whitepaper.
Posted by Patrick Donovan on Thu, Jul 08, 2010 @ 04:37 PM
Have you checked out “Sliced and Diced” yet? This is the Gotuit-powered video portal for Hell’s Kitchen that FOX launched last month. It is the latest and greatest site we have done to date.
The first slice to notice is that this site takes advantage of our integration with Brightcove. FOX uses Brightcove as its content management system and is able to keep its existing video workflow intact for Sliced and Diced. The destination site uses the Gotuit Plugin to access and display the Gotuit metadata describing the playlists and scenes. Then when the viewer chooses the scene they want to watch, the Plugin commands the Brightcove chromeless player to play the original source asset at the specific time offset that was saved within the metadata for that scene.
The beauty is that even though the site is titled “Sliced and Diced” there is no actual video editing, or physical clips being made. So, these scenes like Things Get A Little Hot, The Big Guy’s Hungry, and VIPs in Hell’s Kitchen Tonight, look like discrete clips since they have their own title, description, thumbnail, direct URL, and tags, but they are actually defined by time offsets against the original source asset(s). The result for Fox is much less video to have to manage while still allowing the user to watch and share the parts of the show they like the best.
The second slice to notice how differently this video archive is presented from others. Because each individual scene is identified, they can be grouped into different playlists to better convert visitors to the site into viewers. For example, FOX decided the following playlists made the most sense for the top level navigation choices:
- Full Episodes – to watch the shows in linear order
- Ramsay’s Rampages – showing the master chef notorious temper
- Challenges – for watching great cooking attempts
- Dish Disasters – everyone likes watching when things go bad
- By Chef – everyone has their favorite
- Red Team / Blue Team – the best moments from each team
- Meltdowns – see when the pressure is too much
- Showdowns – unforgettable confrontations
- Punishments – relive every team punishment
- Rewards – the fruits of a job well done
- Eliminations – Ramsay’s elimination moments
This is in addition to the Latest, Best Of, Most Watched, and Highest Rated paths offered in the middle of the page. Obviously, each scene probably shows up in at least two and as many as five or six playlists. This creates the ability to better package and present the video library, and offer different navigation choices to the viewer so they can better personalize their viewing experience.
The third slice is advertising. As with every Gotuit-powered site, the temporal metadata defines the advertising inventory available for the publisher to sell. Typically, the result is a much larger amount of advertising available, as the scene boundaries are more frequent than the ad breaks that occurred during the TV broadcast. In Sliced and Diced, FOX is serving ads through the DoubleClick ad module that works within Brightcove. This is another advantage of the integration between Gotuit and Brightcove - the increased inventory created by Gotuit metadata with the ad serving options available through Brightcove and the members of the Brightcove Alliance.
For your last slice, here is the embedded player, showing some of Ramsay's Rampages. As you watch, think about how FOX is using Gotuit to meet its goals of more traffic to the site, that stay longer, and watch more video. If you have the same goals, contact us to see if we can unleash the value of your video too.
Enjoy, and look for more FOX sites going live later this summer.
The Currency of Internet Video
Learn more about how Gotuit's metadata can unleash your video's full potential.
Download this free whitepaper.
Posted by Patrick Donovan on Tue, May 04, 2010 @ 03:43 PM
Friday, we went live with our latest customer - ABC, powering VIEWer's Choice, the new video portal for The View.
Rather than describe it myself, here is ABC's blog post announcing their new feature:
Watch All You Want with VIEWer's Choice
May 03, 2010 | Posted at 2:21 PM
Ever wanted to go back and watch a segment of The View again? Or see what's been said about a particular Hot Topic across the last few months? Or, heaven forbid, if you missed an episode somewhere along the line? We've got the goods to solve all those problems with The VIEWer's Choice!
The VIEWer's Choice makes every single topic, co-host, guest, and segment available via online video clips -- and it's also completely searchable! Want to see every time the co-hosts discussed Tiger Woods? Or politics? Or had laugh-out-loud funny moments? Or gave out Mom tips? Every bit of show content is available with just a couple of keystrokes.
Check out the VIEWer's Choice page on The View's website right here. Click around, relive some of the great moments on the show, and never have to miss a minute of The View again!
Enjoy this quick sample, where Melissa Etheridge talks about meeting the American Idol finalist Crystal Bowersox.
Will Richmond, founder of VideoNuze, also posted about this today. Here is an excerpt:
"Almost 2 years ago I wrote a post "Non-Linear Presentation + Long-form Premium Video = Big Opportunity," in which I explained how deconstructing full-length programs into searchable clips offers big opportunities to drive fan engagement and new ad inventory. With the explosion of social media like Twitter and Facebook since, the opportunity to leverage clips to promote specific moments in programs is even higher now. Looking around the web though, I'm still surprised at how many full-length programs don't take advantage of this. As "The VIEWer's Choice" demonstrates, talk shows, news and sports programming are probably the most natural fit."
Check out his full posting here.
We are thrilled that ABC has chosen the Gotuit Video Metadata Management System to unleash their video, and hope that the fans of The View love their new, more engaging viewing experience.
Content Is King, But Metadata Rules
Learn more about how Gotuit's metadata can unleash your video's full potential.
Download this free whitepaper.
Posted by Patrick Donovan on Mon, Mar 08, 2010 @ 03:09 PM
Last week, I read Will Richmond's blog post "ABC.com is now Achieving DVR Economics for Its Programs" and was struck by this section talking about his discussion with Albert Cheng, EVP of Digital Media for Disney-ABC Television:
"Further, Albert said that there's plenty of room for improving online's economics. One key focus is increasing the ad load, possibly to as much as double the current 5 ads per program. ABC.com has experimented with this and its research shows that neither the viewer nor the advertiser experience is diminished. As a result, ABC is inclined to increase the ad load to continue improving online economics further, but is somewhat constrained by advertisers' desire to minimize clutter and their own desire to remain consistent with non-ABC sites' ad loads."
There are two main choices for increasing the advertising load in a broadband video. First, the publisher could serve back-to-back ads in the existing advertising breaks. Or, the publisher could define new advertising breaks that occur more frequently in the video and only serve one ad per break.
On TV, viewers are used to 2-3 minute ad breaks with multiple ads per ad block every 7-8 minutes. As we wrote about in our whitepaper, Content is King, But Metadata Rules, translating this to the web has some challenges. The broadband viewer has a shorter attention span, with many more available choices. There is also an expectation of an ad countdown timer in broadband that does not exist on TV. If you saw "Your show will continue in 1:30..." while watching your favorite web video because of multiple ads, aren't you more likely to switch to an IM window, check out Twitter, Facebook or some other site?
Instead of showing two ads per break every 8 minutes, publishers could show a single ad every 4 minutes. For the viewer, they get back to the content more quickly. For the advertiser, they are not bundled with other ads so ad recall should be greater. For the publisher, the viewer is more likely to stay on their site watching video - driving user engagement and session time. The graphic below taken from our whitepaper shows this transformation in advertising inventory.
The challenge then becomes - when can an advertisement be called with the least impact to the viewing experience? Where are there logical insertion points that do not interrupt dialog or disrupt the flow of the current scene of the video? How can these points be identified quickly, reliably, and cost-effectively?
This is precisely what the Gotuit Video Metadata Management System does. Our metadata defines each logical scene within the original source video, with the ability to serve ads at those boundaries. Publishers now have more monetization options and controls. No longer limited to the original ad breaks, they can serve an ad (or multiple ads) after a specified number of scenes watched, or after a specific duration of video watched. The more precise ad insertion points and larger advertising inventory give publishers the ability to optimize their user experience with their content monetization goals.
So, is it better to show multiple ads per block, or have more advertising insertion points in the content? The good news is we support both and make it easy for publishers to try different approaches to see what is best for their content and audience.
Content Is King, But Metadata Rules
Learn more about how Gotuit's metadata can unleash your video's full potential.
Download this free whitepaper.
Posted by Patrick Donovan on Mon, Feb 15, 2010 @ 04:45 PM
Last week, we were thrilled to announce our latest customer - Turner Sports. For those of you not aware of the scope of Turner's reach, according to the latest ComScore press release, U.S. visitors to Turner properties watched over 366 million videos in Dec 2009, putting them #7 overall.
Similar to our work with ESPN, WWE and others, Turner is using Gotuit's patented Video Metadata Management System to unleash their original source video. They chose to start with Inside the NBA, the Emmy winning program hosted by Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, and the incomparable Charles Barkley. The Gotuit-powered site can be seen at http://www.nba.com/insidethenba/.
To show you a sample, here is the scene where EJ, Kenny, and Charles told the audience about the site:
As a huge NBA and Charles Barkley fan, this is my personal favorite out of all of the sites we have ever powered. Note how each scene with the original broadcasts are broken out with its own Title, Description and Attributes so they can be easily navigated to and watched. They look like separate clips, but in fact are accessed within the source content using Gotuit metadata.
The entire archive is organized in compelling playlists, to help convert visitors to viewers. Love the Celtics (like me)? There is a playlist for just Celtics' related scenes (along with one for each other NBA team). Want to just see the Game Highlights? Each game is broken out including this weekend's NBA All Star Game. How about you coaches out there who want to hear what NBA coaches say in the huddle to their players? Check out Inside Trax. (I am happy to hear that they often say the same things I say to the 4th and 5th graders I coach.)
Or, how about just Charles' Best Moments? To make it easy for you to watch it, here is an embedded player of just that playlist:
The point is that no matter what the source content, it can be better presented, navigated, searched, monetized, and enjoyed if there is an understanding of each individual scene. This Inside The NBA implementation with Turner is a terrific example of that, and we are looking forward to other announcements with Turner in the future.
P.S. Like many of the other sites we power, the metadata is generated live, while the shows are being aired, so it is published to nba.com and available within minutes after each show's conclusion, without any video editing. Is that true for your content?