We doubt you need us to tell you that video and photo apps are experiencing a massive surge in popularity, but what is worth noting is just how fast this growth actually is. A new report from mobile app analytics company Flurry Analytics found that photo & video is the fastest growing app category, ahead of music, productivity, social networking and entertainment.
For their report, Flurry took a sample of 8 million active mobile app users across all app categories and looked at their usage over a six to nine month period. After analysing the average number of minutes spent on photo and video app users per month, Flurry found that this figure had grown by 166 per cent in the space of nine months from 87 minutes in July 2011 to 231 minutes in March 2012.
The growth of this figure can be attributed to third-party apps like Viddy, SocialCam, Instagram and Camera+, all of which are still growing in popularity. The fact that smartphone practically act as miniature digital cameras and recording devices means that capturing images and recording videos on the fly is now easier than ever.
While mobile video apps are still behind Youtube in terms of popularity and output, they are beginning to catch up in the level of engagement they generate. Back in March 2011, the average amount of time spent per month on Youtube videos was 276 monthly minutes, while mobile OS devices accounted for 63 monthly minutes.
Fast forward a year later to March 2012 and while Youtube’s figure increased to 276 minutes per active user (after a small drop after December 2011), mobile OS devices increased to 231 minutes. The convenience and growing reliance on smartphones and tablets for completing regular tasks such as checking email and web browsing means that more users are migrating from desktop to mobile. While mobile isn’t threatening Youtube just yet, it is a cause for concern as the gap begins to shorten between the two as mobile slowly begin to dominate.
When people talk about the big social networks, they often neglect Youtube from the list, even though it is the second biggest search engine in the world and one of the most social sites on the web. It might not be as sexy as Facebook or Twitter, but it is a crucial hub for Google in their efforts to get into social and it has been a relative success since they bought it for $1.5 billion.
The videos on the site are, by their very nature, incredibly social and they get shared everywhere from Facebook, blogs, Twitter, news sites though to Linkedin. They also appear in search results and in recent months, Google has been trying to do everything they can to wrap their Google+ efforts into Youtube. There is one major problem on the horizon for Youtube though and as always, that problem is Facebook.
Frictionless Sharing
Just over six months ago, Facebook introduced frictionless sharing where apps share “actions” like what you are listening to and the movies you watch. It’s still very early days, but it is widely seen as a massive succes with over five billion songs shared on Spotify alone. The ticker also helps viral growth and has helped some of the apps on the platform explode in popularity.
Most people share videos on Facebook by copying a link from Youtube and pasting it onto their Facebook wall. That is the old way of sharing and it is starting to feel very cumbersome and slow. Youtube doesn’t have frictionless sharing and isn’t integrated with Facebook in any way. That is going to cause them a huge problem going forward.
The Competition Is Changing
A whole new breed of video services are starting to come along that are stating to leverage Facebook and its massive audience. Look at what Netflix have achieved with their timeline app integration. Also new services like Socialcam and Viddly are starting to appear more and more often on my timeline through frictionless sharing. These services are absolutely tiny when compared to Youtube, but every single time a friend watches a video on one of them, that video is shared on my news feed. That is massively powerful and negates one of Youtube’s biggest issues: Discovery.
How Big Is The Threat To Youtube?
You only have to look at the Youtube fan page on Facebook – the third biggest in the world with 56 million users – to see how the sites are linked. Sharing videos and Facebook go hand in hand. Open your Facebook feed and at the very least, you’ll certainly see a couple of videos that people have shared. The problem for Youtube is that a whole host of new apps and services will share those videos automatically via the ticker and the world is moving to a place where people don’t want to copy and paste links anymore.
Youtube will, of course, remain a huge destination site, but the simple fact is they rely on Facebook massively as a distribution channel. I don’t think their traffic is going to come under pressure overnight or even this year, but in the long run, they’ll need to integrate with the ticker and become an app on Facebook. The big question is whether Facebook and Google allow that to happen?
Google is a fan of data, which is no surprise as that’s what their success is based on. To help flesh out their products, they rely on their users to generate additional data to develop it and improve them for future use. For its maps feature, it unveiled an Android app designed to help improve their GPS tracking system whenever someone is in a building, and now the company is looking for your images so you can geo-tag them on Google Maps, so it can provide further context about a location.
Through their photo uploader tool, Panoramio, users were able to drop their photos to the locations where they were taken, but Google has upgraded it so that you can now snap your photos to a place on the map, making the geo-tagging process easier. What this means is that when you’re searching for your photo location, a list of suggested locations will appear showing where your photo might have been taken. There’s also the option to tag an image as an indoor photo; when all submitted photos are uploaded and tagged, they will appear in both Google Maps and Google Earth.
Also tying in with Google’s updates are further updates for those uploading videos onto Youtube. Recently, Youtube expanded its partner program allowing anyone who uploads content to make money from it, and now they’ve thrown audio editing into the mix, allowing users to add background music to their videos.
AudioSwap allows users to choose from 150,000 different tracks which they can add onto their video, either as soft music playing in the background or have it completely replace any audio in the video. Youtube is promising additional updates and tracks in the near future but you should have more than enough material to work from in the meantime.
To help build up more original content on the site, both through companies and individuals, Youtube’s Partner Program has now opened to the public. Before that, the program was only available to some creators who had created popular videos obtaining a few million views. Now anyone from the partnered countries can get involved in the scheme. The only requirement is to have one piece of suitable content that can be monetized.
The partnership, which aims to provide content creators with resources to build larger audiences and earn more money, is now available in Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the U.S. There are also plans to extend the service out to other countries in the near future.
The service also aims to improve the quality of each creator’s output, as it reflects well on the site if it’s has a track record for producing quality content, by holding different training and services such as creator clubs and production features alongside partner promotion to help build larger and more engaged audiences.
Although when new members join up, they won’t have access to all the features. For example, Youtube acknowledge that custom thumbnails and banners are highly sought after features by many creators and say that they are working to make them more readily available to users over time.
The good news for everybody is that the two characters from that video are back, and Tippex have created a campaign to mark the two year birthday of the original in which they try to save the world with your help.
After clicking through from the original video, you’re given the option of typing in the year you were born. It starts revealing some hilarious little interactive games and videos that will keep you clicking through the ad and engaging with the content for a few minutes.
Not everybody is able to create custom solutions like this on Youtube (it would include a large spend), but it is great to see brands using the platform in an innovative and engaging way. Like all sequels, this one is probably not as good as the original, but they have clearly put a lot of thought into it and have built a mini recognizable brand for their characters which is a hard thing to do. Try it out.
Last September, Youtube launched a beta feature which allows users to convert their videos into 3D through a single click. Since the company claim that hundreds of thousands of videos have been converted into 3D since then and today, they’re expanding the beta to the general public so that anyone can convert their videos into 3D. However, the only catch is that they must be short-form videos (anything under three minutes) and they must be uploaded in 1080p.
Announcing it on the Youtube blog, once those criteria are met, users can select 3D viewing in the Quality settings below (the gear icon) on the Youtube player. After that, just pop on your 3D glasses (assuming you have ones handy) and see Nyan cat and other hits in a new light. Here’s one of the examples Youtube provided on its blog.
Basically how it works is that the video conversion technology used to convert from 2D to 3D notices the different video characteristics used such as colour, spatial layout and motion to estimate a depth map for each frame of a video sequence.
Also through machine learning, they can figure out video depth characteristics and apply them in depth estimation from the number of true 3D videos uploaded onto the site. Ultimately, the generated depth map and the original monoscopic frame creates a stereo 3D left-right pair, that a stereo display system needs to display a video as 3D.
After acquiring this knowledge of 3D conversion, they then apply cloud computing scalability to make the conversion possible across the different videos on Youtube. They achieve this by breaking up the video into tiny chunks of data and processing them in parallel on Google’s cloud infrastructure lets them process these videos.
While it’s not going to set the world alight, (seriously how many people have 3D glasses handy when they’re using a computer), it’s a pretty cool feature and we could see different brands using it for future campaigns. The first campaign that comes to mind is the Skittles Touch campaign which requires you to place your finger on the screen. What other video campaigns could benefit from this feature?
With the promise of new channels and original content, Youtube is testing out different strategies to help generate revenue for the site. The latest strategy sees the company reportedly trying out a new ad model to support its numerous video channels, selling sponsorship instead of TV-style demographics.
Adweek report that the estimated value for the sponsorship – which takes into account display, overlay and pre-roll – would amount to $4 million to $6 million annually, depending on the channel. The pre-roll would also be higher than the industry average, amounting to roughly $20 CPM (Cost per mille).
Targeted marketing has become an important focus for Youtube. For the numerous channels and categories on its site, follow themes like entertainment, science, sport and music. For the sponsorship model, keyword targeting is used instead of demo stats, and they work on a shared-revenue model.
How the revenue is distributed is as follows: Youtube gives an initial grant for production, then splits profits from ad sales with the video creators after that first investment is recouped. The idea is to encourage more people and production companies to start making professional and original content for the site.
By giving the producers funds to develop their own shows, it means that more money is spread across the board, and allows more flexibility for both sides as unless the video is a massive flop, the grant will be recouped.
According to Adweek, Toyota and GM are currently attached to the Moms and Auto categories respectively, while Unilever is on board for its Young Holllywood channel. Youtube believe that it will be the youth market that will play a huge part in this model’s success, and see the channels appealing to this demographic.
Having dominated the online video market for years now, Youtube is beginning to branch out into new and different areas. Their most recent expansion involves the live streaming of major events around the world, the company being very busy in securing global events to broadcast.
Youtube’s Head of global content Robert Kyncl said that the partnership with Dell is “an exciting example of our commitment to music and Youtube is thrilled to join Dell in bringing four incredible festivals to the world’s largest stage and a diversity of music to fans worldwide.”
Non-Profits & Olympics Live Stream
These aren’t the only events that Youtube is planning, the company are allowing non-profits subscribed to its program the ability to live stream from their channels. The program, which is available to registered organisations in the U.S., the UK, Australia and Canada, allows charities to engage with their audiences live and raise awareness about their causes and drive donations in real-time.
They also struck a deal with NBC to help cover the London 2012 Olympics. They will provide the technology behind their NBCOlympics.com video player in the U.S., allowing American viewers to watch up to 3,000 hours of footage and live streaming the majority of events on at least one NBC platfrom (either broadcast, cable or digital).
While it’s not broadcasting the event on Youtube’s actual site, it does set a precedent for the company as they will have a better understanding of the logistics required to cover such a large scale event. The experience may prompt them to try and bid for streaming rights of future events in a bid to stream exclusive content.
While Youtube is massively popular, its one shortcoming is that the average length of time spent on a single video is quite low in comparison to TV streaming sites like Hulu. By streaming these events live, they’ll ensure that people will spend longer on the site and not only will it increase both the average time spent on a video, and on the site.
This can only be a good thing for Youtube who are looking for new ways to monetise the site, and these deals could be the start of a much bigger move for Youtube, from viral video portal to a fully fledged streaming service and online station.
By far one of the most common questions any marketer, brand or a person who just wants to become famous asks, the formula behind a viral videos is very elusive and for good reason, only a tiny percentage become viral and over 48 hours of youtube footage being uploaded every minute.
Kevin Allocca is Youtube’s trends manager, meaning he gets paid to watch videos and determine what going to be popular and what isn’t. Here in this TED talk recorded in New York back in November 2011, he goes through the three qualities that makes any video go viral online: tastemakers, participation and unexpectedness.
Of course, securing those three qualities is very much a case of easier said than done. But it gives a fascinating glimpse into what makes certain videos popular and how becoming viral is very rarely instantaneous. At only seven minutes long, it’s well worth a watch.
If you’ve ever purchased anything from IKEA, you’ll know that the assembly part can sometimes be a frustrating endeavour. You could be assembling a piece of furniture and find some parts of the instructions confusing, or you’re just greeted the assembly kit with a blank look.
If this even vaguely sounds like you, you’d be glad to know that IKEA USA has started up a new Youtube playlist called ‘How To Build‘. As the title suggests, it gives you step-by-step video instructions about putting together a piece of furniture from the store. There’s no dialogue or voiceover, no cheesy intro or ending, just a visual representation of how to assemble an IKEA product.
So far there is only one video in the playlist, the assembly of a MALM bed, but you would imagine that more videos will be added in the future. While its usefulness for the moment is extremely limited because of this, it will begin to develop once they add more videos to the collection.
It will be handy as with more and more people owning smartphones and tablets, they can just refer to the video to gain a better idea about assembling it. Of course, the majority of people won’t really need this as we’re all capable of reading instructions, but for those who get easily frustrated, this (and the other numerous Youtube videos out there dealing with the subject) may do the trick.
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We doubt you need us to tell you that video and photo apps are experiencing a massive surge in popularity, but what is worth noting is just how fast this growth actually is. A new report from mobile app analytics company Flurry Analytics found that photo & video is the fastest growing app category, ahead of music, productivity, social networking and entertainment.
