Brightcove Blog - At Your Global Service

Back by popular demand: Video Jumpstart webinar series, now in more languages!

Sara Watson — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 21:50:10 +0000

Back by popular demand! Our recent ‘Jumpstart 2011’ webinars had over 5,000 registrants, so we're offering the most requested webinars from the series AGAIN!

Don't miss out this time! Join us for a series designed to help shape your online video strategy for 2011. These expert-led sessions are full of best practices to ensure the success of your organization's online video strategy.

And special this time around, we're also offering sessions in local time zones and languages for our friends in Europe and around the globe!

Jumpstart Your Online Video Strategy for 2011 in English
Ponga en marcha su estrategia de vídeo en línea para el 2011 in Spanish
Démarrez votre stratégie vidéo en ligne sur les chapeaux de roue in French
Schnelleinsteig zu Ihrer Onlinevideostrategie 2011 in German

The Brightcove LUG (formerly the BC Developer Group) is BACK!

Cameron Church — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 10:10:10 +0000

The Brightcove LUG is BACK for a new season of meetups to stimulate, educate and tantalise you and your teams with all things Brightcove and Online Video.

Coming back in style we have:

A new and improved mission:
- To bring together Brightcove Users from Developers to Strategists, Editors to Researchers, Hobbyist to Professional into a forum to push the betterment of all in both the Online Video Industry and the platform that powers it.
A new home:
- Brightcove London HQ right smack in Covent Garden
Great speakers:
- Learn from those that are already doing! Experience is the best learning tool. Thought leadership, deep dives, showcase topics, debates are all on the cards.
Plus Much More!

Kicking of the 2010/2011 Season we have have a corker

Deep Dive on Brightcove 5!

Come learn from 5 great sessions around how to use the new features of Brightcove 6 to accelerate your video initiative to the Next Level.

The pizza and drink will be waiting for you when you arrive!

Not in the country? We have you covered - register to let us know you need a Live Stream (with DVR functionality of course!) and we'll get it sorted.

-- Cameron Church

A Word about Live Streaming from the Experts

Cameron Church — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 16:55:32 +0000

Getting Live Streaming done right will give a massive boost to your online video initiative.

Learning how to do it right from the experts can save you at lot of time and headaches as you try to navigate this new form's many pitfalls.

Having used Jackshoot many times in the past for our events and being well impressed with their work I asked their co-founder Ken Coppel for some tips and tricks on how to bring Live Streaming into your video arsenal. With over 20 years cummilative experience between him and his business partner Simon it would pay to give him a listen:

[Brightcove]: Why Live Stream at all?

[Ken Coppel]: Whether you recognize it as such or not you already have a ʻdigital channelʼ which is not constrained in its reach by country borders or satellite footprints. Your website is your bespoke channel of information to your visitors - worldwide. It makes sense therefore that you engage and interact as directly with them as possible - clearly a scheduled live broadcast is the most effective and quantiﬁable means of achieving this interactivity. In addition when promoting or inviting your audience ahead of the broadcast you can collect demographic data to assist in your programming decisions, further enhancing the demonstration of your creativity to your visitors. If you get it right this promotional circle will drive trafﬁc and build your channel proﬁle, and ultimately help you achieve your goals.

[BC]: What are the top pitfalls a newcomer to live streaming can make?

[KC]: Having been involved with live events on the internet since 1999 I can say without hesitation that the top pitfall is forgetting to tell anyone that you are going to be broadcasting live! Seriously Iʼd be very wealthy if I took a pound for every viewer clients thought they would be getting and didn't because they didn't tell them about it! Just telling people on your website that you are broadcasting is NOT enough - no matter how big you think your reach is - donʼt be scared of integrating an ofﬂine campaign with online to drive the audience. All the eyeballs are going to be yours so its worth a spend to get their attention!

Secondly think hard about your content - there is merit in the old adage that ʻcontent is kingʼ and you need to be fresh, new and exciting.....it all reﬂects on your brand in the end. Donʼt forget to consider your audience - another old adage ʻtiming is everythingʼ - simple but true if you are looking to maximize the potential audience.

Lastly the internet is not a ʻperfectʼ broadcast medium - donʼt get me wrong it is damn good these days, but the ʻlast mileʼ to the end viewer is still a little uncontrollable so not everybody's experience is going to be perfect....the majority will be happy but there will be some complaints; plan for them!

[BC]: What are the top 5 tips and tricks to get the best live streaming experience?

[KC]: When thinking about these they became pretty much a list of how to select a supplier for any service!

Streaming has complex and technical elements and the reality is that you donʼt really need to know all about it - in the same way you donʼt need to understand how your laptop works, but your purchasing decision for that laptop was based on price/trust/recommendation etc..

So - obviously start with a leading video platform like Brightcove to help you get the reach and capacity that your event deserves; and use a professional streaming service partner like Jackshoot, ideally one that comes highly recommended! You'll need to trust this provider, look for evidence of planning and back up plans and listen to their advice. Hereʼs the crunch - if you have briefed them fully i.e. explain the rational for the event, your aims and objectives and your key success factors they will be fully armed to meet your expectations and the demands of your broadcast, and it will be a success.

Remember that there is always more than one way to ʻskin a catʼ so be wary of the salesman offering something for nothing! It never fails to astonish me that people will consider risking their brand on a ʻfreeʼ service. Donʼt get me wrong, Iʼm all for saving on unnecessary costs but Iʼm not into risking everything....and sometimes this is what is on offer for free!
[BC]: What are your most memorable live streaming events?

[KC]: We were approached by an Agency client to help them deliver a large global music event, for one of the worlds largest IT Companies, to span several continents simultaneously. The brief was to stage four music events in Athens, Istanbul, Dubai and Johannesburg, with simultaneous broadcast communications between the 4 shows. This enabled a section of each local show to be broadcast and included into the other three locations shows ..... LIVE! In addition to this four-way live satellite link up, we provided individual live video webcasts in each location, running in parallel with the four music events.

We were able to control the entire broadcast remotely, during the ʻLiveʼ period from a temporary Broadcast Operations Centre, which we created at a Westminster studio facility. From here we could manage the four webcast transmissions and all the feeds out to the stage screens, that we had positioned in each country. This 3 month project stretched us both technically and logistically and was very satisfying to deliver successfully!

The only other one to mention was a little music session for AOL with The Stereophonics. It was just the band and me in a little music recording studio - and I wasnʼt a fan, it was just another job. When Kelly had ﬁnished belting out Maybe Tomorrow I was converted.....now a massive fan!!

[BC]: What equipment do you use?

[KC]: Without being pedantic - we use whatever the most effective broadcast equipment is thatʼs appropriate to the brief and budget! We donʼt use webcams and dial up or 3G internet connections - what we do reﬂects on our clients brands and we do not entertain any risks with those!

[BC]: What was your worst experience and why?

[KC]: I do this because I love the buzz associated with going live. Weʼve always taken the schedule very seriously as the traditional TV broadcasters do - this does leave me sometimes with a ʻcold turkeyʼ effect post event as all the planning and broadcast is over and a void is left! Otherwise I love it!!

Ken Coppel is co-founder of Jackshoot, a Brightcove Technology Alliance member. If you're on the lookout for someone who can help make your next live event a success, or just have some questions around how Live Streaming can make your online video offering even better then head over to Jackshoot.tv to contact Ken.

-- Cameron Church

Why Do You Need Clickable Video? Because the Numbers Say So!

Cameron Church — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 15:14:43 +0000

Sometimes we're all guilty of pontificating the value of all this wonderful stuff we call online video. At the end of the day it's just easier to spread the word than to prove it. One of the main challenges for proving an idea is that you need hard data to back up your claims. And that, folks, is like gold dust these days. Data, real meaningful data, can mean all the difference to a competitive edge of a company. So you can imagine my excitement when I got my hands on some really interesting real world data around the opportunity in Interactive Video.

Its been some time since we first started seeing the emergence of Hotspotting technology. This is the ability to use Adobe Flash's core layering framework to mask on a layer of interactivity over a video stream. As a concept this is a really powerful story, and many have latched on to the task of solving the problem of doing this effectively - many of our Technology Alliance Program members are looking at this day in and day out.

But for me its always been more a technologist-lead problem then a user-lead problem. Geeks all around the place saw this layering feature underused and so started to code a solution. Unfortunately for some it was just a problem to be solved and that problem really wasn't bothering anyone. Or so I thought...

Now, thanks to our good friends at WireWAX, we have some fresh real data that is basically giving your video a voice saying: HEY YOU, tart me up with some that interactivity would ya? We can make some cash out this!

For the last 6 months WireWAX has been working with some top brands to bring interactivity to some of their videos - the results that follow are pretty outstanding:

The Campaign: The Kooks / EMI - week long in Jan 2010 - demo
Results: 60,000 views (32,000 unique) - 74, 000 clicks
Click to View Ratio: 1.23

The Campaign: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo / Momentum - 2 months (Jan - Feb 2010) - demo
Results: 74,500 views (51,000 unique) - 500,000+ clicks
Click to View Ratio: 6.71+

The Campaign: Laura Marling / EMI - 3 months ongoing (May 2010 to now) - demo
Results: 26,500 views (17,803 unique) - 55,000 clicks
Click to View Ratio: 2.07

The Campaign: Gallo Wines / Hearst Digital - 2 months (June to July 2010) - demo
Results: 2,600 avg views (avg over 6 videos) - 1,433 clicks
Click to View Ratio: 0.55

WOW is the only word that comes to mind. When you sit this side by side of a typical advertising CPM model where 2 - 4 PERCENT clickthru is acceptable, more likely deemed successful, even the lowest Click to View Ratio above of 0.55 (or 55%) is a ridiculous improvement. Let's not even start on the 671% of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo event!

But hey what about a shake of more data for you?

For WireWAX:

The average viewer clicks 8.3 times in one viewing
58% were after the first 30 seconds
33% were between 15-30 seconds
6% were in the first 15 seconds

Now I'll admit these results are somewhat subjective to where in the timeline the user can actually click but still it's interesting to see that engagement goes UP the longer the video is playing. That's pretty impressive when today it's all about engagement and stickiness of the user.

No matter which way you slice the pie it's a pretty pervasive argument to bring clickable video into your monetisation strategy.

Unfortunately it's not all sugar and rainbows. There are serious challenges all the way up the video production line to create video that works well with Interactivity. Thankfully though there are people like WireWAX and their sister company WiseGuy who greatly simplify this and make the Total Cost of Deployment per video a fraction of the cost it used to be.

And you Express customers out there? Yup this will work for you as well.

Really hard to see a reason why you SHOULDN'T deploy Clickable Video...

-- Cameron Church
@cameronchurch

It was a draw!

Cameron Church — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 12:32:22 +0000

The Great Debate ended in a draw. The very entertaining session between 2 industry heavyweights ended in a bit of a love-in where they ended up educating the crowd more about how the sport will evovle then tearing into each other.

I must say I'm (not so) secretly pleased with this outcome. This is the Summer of Video after all. Tim Hussain (of Sky Digital Media) and Oli Newton (of Starcom MediaVest) put on an excellent show. And with help from our friends at Live Talkback and Jackshoot we were able to bring mass participation to the crowd.

Next month we're running a creative workshop from pitch right through to realisation of the assets and all the bells and whistles of interactivity you can shake a light saber at.

Here's the video recap:

-- Cameron Church
@cameronchurch

The Green Megaman - or - the Long and Winding Road of HTML5 Video

Cameron Church — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:30:17 +0000

A few days ago I was sitting in a meeting between a Brightcove strategic broadcaster account and an Apple HTML5 expert to discuss bringing their content to the iPad via the mobile web (read: HTML5 Video). During this chat no stone was left unturned when trying to get content onto the iDevice platform. At the end of the meeting I came away with an image of the difficulty for HTML5 video's acceptance is akin to an early Southpark episode where Cartman has his birthday party and the guests are given invitations with prescriptive gift giving instructions. Kyle, Stan and Kenny are all told to bring Red, Green and Yellow Megaman so Cartman can create the Ultra Megaman. In reward they'll get access to Cartman Mom's "cake, pie and ice cream".

Very quickly the boys are faced with the dilemma of principle over guaranteed reward. An excerpt of the script spells it out nicely [note I cleaned up the language a little!]:

Cartman:	Look, it's very simple guys. Green Mega Man goes with Red Mega Man and Yellow Mega Man to make the Ultra Mega Mega Man. You have to have all three or it doesn't work, see?
Stan:	Stuff that. Cartman. I'll get you whatever the heck I want. [crumples up the invitation and throws it away]
Cartman:	Oooh. So maybe you don't want to have any of my mom's cake, pie, and ice cream, then.
Stan:	Oh great, Green Mega Man it is. [food wins out over principle]

Here I equate the principle of getting to choose, as the guest, what to give the birthday boy as a present to the ability to build on HTML5 with all its promises of ubiquity, standards, consistency and choice. Assigning the Cartman side (perhaps unfairly) I see the AppStore Model - where it's their party and if you want access to the "cake, pie and ice cream" you need to get an invite and that invite will most likely be very prescriptive!

In this face of control and effective business greed the principle very often gets rolled over by the guaranteed reward. And that poses a great barrier to the growth and acceptance of HTML5.

Today there are some key limitations of HTML5:

Lack of maturity in both technology and adoption: different rates of adoption and interpretation by the browsers.
Lack of ecosystem acceptance: limited ability to monetise and report on via the framework.
Lack of meaningful content protection: probably the biggest shortcoming for HTML5 at this stage.

For sure these challenges are surmountable and indeed providers like Brightcove are targeting this exactly - but software vendors can only go so far before they have to bow to what the device manufacturers implement in their product range.

And that's where the road lengthens and starts to twist and turn like some World Rally Car race course.

A very careful and calculated game is being played by device makers such that they will not want to cannibalize their secured revenue streams whilst showing they are open and respectful of the greater good. Will Apple prioritise HTML5 development and support over iApp support? Will the carrot be dangled in front of developers (who need eat) to build HTML5 experiences over native AppStore models?

I'll leave those questions unanswered as I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions that are most likely inline with mine.

I will say that this is by no-means an obituary for HTML5 Video. It will come, if only to bring to replace one Flash-alternative for another Flash-alternative, its just has a ways to go and the road will indeed be long and bumpy.

As long as the App Stores can build their UltraMegamen then the developers of their desired components will be rewarded with "cake, pie and ice cream". For the others? They'll have to work hard to push the device manufactures to keep the pedal on supporting and growing HTML5 as a viable alternative for the mobile web consumption on their devices.

Brightcove has certainly worked hard to get that momentum going and today you can experience Brightcove video on any device (be it the iFamily, the Androids or others) that supports even the most preliminary of HTML5 video specification. That will only get better.

But it's about all parts of the value chain lobbying and working with the device manufacturers to make sure that their HTML5 Video support goes past the lip service and political polish that exists today.

-- Cameron Church
@cameronchurch

Join the Great Debate - Live from the IABUK

Cameron Church — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 14:04:51 +0000

Today from the ring at the IAB UK we're streaming LIVE the Great Debate: Buyer vs Seller. Thanks to Live Talkback you can be part of the action. Answer the questions below retime to help frame the current mindset. Then throughout the debate change your answers and help figure out if you were swayed by the debaters!

The bell rings and the fighters get it on at 3pm BST (GMT+1) - London Time!

--Cameron Church
@cameronchurch

Get Ready to Ring the Bell

Cameron Church — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 16:19:57 +0000

So I just had word from our friends at the IAB UK that tomorrow's event is almost sold out! That's a capacity of 90 people coming to get ring side seats for the showdown between the Media Buyer and Media Seller.

Tomorrow we'll be live streaming the event from this blog so come back at 3pm BST (British Summer Time) for kick off. We're also going to be deploying some cool interactivity tools from our friends at Live TalkBack that let the audience be part of the fun!

As reminder - in the Seller's corner we have Tim Hussain:

Tim joined Sky as Head of Mobile Advertising in October 2008 to develop and drive Sky’s mobile advertising sales strategy. He has over eight years of commercial and product experience within digital companies across European and global markets. Previously, he was Head of Mobile Monetisation for AOL Europe and Head of Mobile for AOL in the UK, roles which saw him design and execute the European mobile strategy, including the creation of AOL’s European Mobile team. After AOL’s acquisition of Third Screen Media in 2007, Tim took the leading role in integrating the newly acquired mobile offering into AOL Europe and established AOL’s 3rd party mobile ad sales business. Before this, Tim had risen rapidly through the ranks at AOL UK since 2000, holding positions including Commercial Manager for Paid Services and Retail Sales Manager for ecommerce. Tim currently sits on the IAB Mobile council.

And in the Buyer's corner we have Oli Newton:

Oliver is head of emerging platforms at SMV group where he is responsible for pushing the agency offering beyond the traditional. He is also a member of the IAB’s Video and Mobile steering committees helping to evolve those markets. During his time working online he has been responsible for campaigns as diverse as turning the lights off in Habbo Hotel across 30 countries for WWF’s Earth Hour to helping reduce the demand on AA patrols by empowering members to do basic car maintenance themselves through AA Patrolman in your pocket. A series of step-by-step videos to be downloaded on to your phone (changing a tire, checking oil and other tasks the AA were routinely called out for).

The gloves are being laced up, the coaching staff giving last minute tactics and the hotdogs being defrosted. See you all there!

-- Cameron Church
@cameronchurch

The gloves are coming off at the Great Debate

Cameron Church — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:53:26 +0000

In the red corner, weighing in at 98.2KG, 56 wins, 5 loses and 37 knockouts, wearing the Buyer shorts:
Oliver "Float like a Butterfly, Sting like a Bee" Newton!

In the blue corner, weighing in at 100.2KG, 32 wins, 4 loses and 27 knockours, wearing the Sellers shorts:
Tim "Smokin' Joe" Hussain!

The IAB UK, in association with Brightcove, is proud to present this championship bout between two industry titans. It'll be big, rough, tough and hard hitting. Get your ring side seat to see who will take home the crown in the Great Buyer vs Seller debate.

July 28th, 3pm to 4pm London Time, IAB UK. We'll give you the whole seat but you'll only need the edge!

(This event will also be live streamed via the blog).

Randicoot - PPV Series Guest Post 3

Cameron Church — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 14:41:01 +0000

In the last of our series on PPV, Nigel Regan, CEO of Randicoot, has an animated and colour look at one of the key challenges facing Pay Per View strategies: that of earning and honouring a consumer's trust. You can find out more about Randicoot here: http://www.brightcove.com/en/partners/randicoot

Reward, reward, reward!

Last week I visited a restaurant, I had an hour for lunch, no more. I had heard about a new pizza restaurant in Covent Garden and decided to check it out. The restaurant has a new payment policy. At the door I was greeted by a charming waitress who gave me a menu then asked for my name, address, date of birth and mother's maiden name, I thought this unusual but seeing as I was hungry, short on time and committed to my decision I gave her my details. She then asked me to pay in advance for my meal, drinks and tip. Odd, but hungry I obliged. I sat at my table and waited. 70 minutes later my food arrived by which time I was late for work so I asked for take-out and promptly walked out wondering when I would get a chance to eat my pizza.

Clearly this scenarios is quite ridiculous, would kill the business and thankfully didn't happen. So why do we expect our highly valued online customers to do this for digital media. Under what circumstances am I going to trust a website with my full personal details, credit card and other private data? The reality is that we don't, unless there is one or multiple very good incentives, a necessity or where very high demand has been created such as Facebook or online banking. My business partner suggests this is like suggesting sex to the better looking gender on the first encounter, pretty unlikely and likely to result in the lengths of the relationship being measured in nano seconds. The point is that imparting with personal information and billing details requires enormous trust. The online video brand needs to earn trust through the development of a deep and lasting relationship with the customer. Ask any major brand manager and they will reinforce this and probably go on to tell you that it is a direct factor in the profitability of the brand.

I think everyone in the industry is signed up to the reality that to distribute the really valuable digital content that we see exchange hands at MIPTV, MIPCOM and NAPTE both consumer payment and content protection needs to occur. I believe the real question is not if or how to charge for video or digital content online but how to build the relationship with the customer to imbue the trust that will provide the foundation for them to have the desire to provide you with these deeply personal details. This is classic relationship dynamic and has to begin by offering something the customer values and is willing to give up some small personal details in order to acquire.

Let's assume that the ultimate goal is having permission from the customer to bill their credit card each month with a variable amount dictated by their level of use of the service off a rate card that is publicly displayed. This level of relationship for me embodies the ultimate level of trust between customer and service provider as the service provider both stores the customer billing information and determines the amount to be billed each month. Now let's assume that this is 10 steps away at least.

What is the first thing you want the customer to want to give you? Their email address or phone number perhaps, remember the first date analogy? With a little encouragement (some flattery perhaps) and a stated reward (dinner at that hip new restaurant) you can persuade them to provide their first name and email address. Wasn't so hard was it now? Moving on from the analogy, give your customers a credit or even a 'freebie' towards their first premium, hi-def, full screen video. Show them what you've got, show them you have a quality product worth paying for and show them that you are rewarding their generous first gift of personal data with a valuable experience.

Great, good start, now you have a small amount of personal data. Don't abuse it, but use it to offer an incentive or reward to encourage another positive encounter. Let's offer to match their first purchase with a free credit and let's deliver this on a coupon to their mobile phone or email with a link to a related video and let them pay without committing any further data by using a simple £1 premium SMS, you know, the same type that millions of people use to vote for Big Brother and X Factor.

Now your customer has given you their email address, mobile phone number and with just 10 characters contributed £1 of revenue and got a £1 credit to use again, terrific. Now they are happy, enjoying your brand and thinking about how to spend the £1 on this or the next encounter.

This is a critical stage in the relationship. The customer has paid and you are now faced with the requirement to provide another incentive to move them from a one off payment to a regular or a credit payment for consumption of multiple items of content. There are two options here: 1. to provide further discounts or 2. to deduct the previous payments against the next big payment, perhaps for a weeks unlimited access or a bundle of related content. So a weeks access is £5, they have paid £1 and have a credit of £1 so for an additional £3 offer the upgrade. Sounds like a good incentive? Of course! This payment can be taken by SMS again or why not suggest paying by credit card. Well, that's a big step so offer another incentive. How about accumulating Nectar, Tesco clubcard or Airmiles points against any payment made with a credit card.

I could go on to talk about double accounting (allowing the customer to receive cash incentive for particular activity as well as make purchases) or multi-tiered affiliate models, micro or nano-billing, multiple-currencies, local merchant accounts for higher conversion rates and of course local languages. Each of these improves conversion rate, builds a deeper relationship and improves your bottom line without any real additional cost to your business and allows the customer to pay on terms that suit them.

I think I have exhausted the point here, but to recap, it is our belief at Randicoot that 'paywalls' present huge challenges for relationship development. The gentle development of a relationship with your customer starting with a reward in return for an email address and ending with recurring billing in their local currency with local language with developing incentives at every step of the way is the single most efficient way of generating revenue.

The key is rewarding customers for imparting with their information at every stage.

Brightcove Blog - At Your Global Service

Back by popular demand: Video Jumpstart webinar series, now in more languages!

Jumpstart Your Online Video Strategy for 2011 in English

Ponga en marcha su estrategia de vídeo en línea para el 2011 in Spanish

Démarrez votre stratégie vidéo en ligne sur les chapeaux de roue in French

Schnelleinsteig zu Ihrer Onlinevideostrategie 2011 in German

The Brightcove LUG (formerly the BC Developer Group) is BACK!

A Word about Live Streaming from the Experts

Why Do You Need Clickable Video? Because the Numbers Say So!

It was a draw!

The Green Megaman - or - the Long and Winding Road of HTML5 Video

Join the Great Debate - Live from the IABUK

Get Ready to Ring the Bell

The gloves are coming off at the Great Debate

Randicoot - PPV Series Guest Post 3