Jack Thorogood (& Projects)

Interdressage.

http://www.interdressage.com/

On the face of it, this is a website about horses. Well, that's what it is actually. The clever bit is that you can email in a video of you doing dressage on a horse and they then judge them to competition quality standards. You can even compete 'for fabulous rosettes and prize money'.

Great use of video in a sector not exactly reknowned for being particuarly 'new media'.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/12/videoegg-doubled-revenues-25-million-online-ads/

Interesting results from VideoEgg. Perhaps their CPA (well, cost-per-engagement they call it) is going to work out well.

http://www.tremormedia.com/online-video-the-work-is-just-beginning/

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15207305 Definitely going to be a big deal this year when companies want cash.

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15207305 Definitely going to be a big deal this year when companies want cash.

2010 projection

I've never been particularly prone to soothsaying; at least not in front of people who might remember (hence wild predictions made in a pub don't count due to alcoholic amnesia).  I attribute this lack of claimed clairvoyance to predicting - successfully - that the Rednex version of 'Cotton-Eyed Joe' would make it to the top of the charts in 1994.  This early success has been jealously protected by limiting any other future gazing to a minimum.

The prediction I will make though - and it's just starting to gather steam - is that pay walls for video will be big this year.  We've been working on this for a little while, but our initial stand in this sector seems to have been vindicated by Ooyala trailing a pay-to-play system for their player, and also Justin.tv announcing such a service.

The costs of producing quality video make such a pay-for offering a sensible step, and users seem to show a greater disposition to pay for online video more than other content offerings.

Here's to hoping right place, right time!

Quote: "We've seen a 97 percent increase year-over-year in our online retail sales since we started using online video on our site eight months ago," Jason Arend, Director of Ecommerce, Online Marketing and Creative Services at PFI Western Store, told me on the phone last week. "And we've seen a 133 percent increase in our web traffic during the same period. Video has put us to the top of Google video search results"



Read more: http://www.fierceonlinevideo.com/story/mystery-solved-how-make-money-online-video/2009-12-21?utm_medium=rss&utm_source=rss&cmp-id=OTC-RSS-FOV0#ixzz0azjnzmPw

http://blog.streamingmedia.com/the_business_of_online_vi/2009/12/zappos-sells-630-more-merchandise-when-accompanied-by-video-demos.html

Zappos sells 6-30% more product when said product accompanied by a video.

New features at invideous.com: pt.2

We've also added the ability to have an image or video (via thumbnail) next to the text ad which appears on hover over prior to a click on a hotspot.

These can be added at campaign creation, or during a campaign edit.

It's too early to tell what this will do to CTR, but it certainly makes the ads stick out from the regular text ads. 

New features at invideous.com

New feature for this week (on the heels of self-serve CPM last week) is 'LinkLock'.  This lets advertisers take 'ownership' of all links emanating from a specific video.  This can be booked via sales (use our contact form) or reserved straight from the landing page you get to if you click on a favicon from one of our videos.

The LinkLocks can be customised to look however the advertiser wishes.  Default is just a straightforward block in the corner of the hotspot.