YouTube has just added 3,000 new movie titles for rent in the U.S. At the same time, YouTube is also bolstering its investment in the content that’s already being viewed by hundred of millions of people on YouTube. The 20,000+ YouTube partners — folks like Machinima, Annoying Orange and Ryan Higa — are producing original content for the web and commanding TV-size audiences for their own brand of programming.
This trend started back in October 2008, when the video sharing site starting to test full-length programming. As Search Engine Watch reported in “Beam Me Up, YouTube!,” the video sharing site started by offering “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” and “Beverly Hills, 90210″ through a deal with CBS.
The General Election in Canada on Monday, May 2, 2001, could turn out to be a real nail biter, but Canadians who tweet or post local results from the national election online before polling stations close in all six time zones face fines. So, while waiting patiently to discover the outcome, there will be plenty of time to watch the “Top YouTube videos of Canada Election 2011.”
First, check out “RMR: Rick’s Rant – Vote” from the Rick Mercer Report.
I’ve started to gather examples of contagious viral videos being shared on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs in preparation for the Next Gen YouTube Marketing session at SES Toronto 2011. And here are three candidates that could be included in my presentation.
First, there “The T-Mobile Royal Wedding.” Yes, I know that the video was made in the United Kingdom. But Canada is a federal state that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. Plus, the video was the #27 most viewed this week in Canada.
One of the sessions at SES Toronto 2011, Next Gen YouTube Marketing, will address questions like: “Do you really have to blend an iPhone or sit on a horse backwards pitching shower gel to have a successful video marketing campaign?” Well, June 14 is still a long ways off, but I’ve started to gather new examples of contagious viral videos that are being shared on Facebook, Twitter, and blogs.
Now, what I really hope to find are some successful video marketing case studies that can help Canadian marketers to boost their next video marketing projects to the next level. In the meantime, I’ve found five fabulous global viral ads that are worth sharing.
ComScore Video Metrix has just released the March 2011 U.S. Online Video Rankings and the big news is that AOL Inc. now ranks #2 in total unique visitors behind Google Sites, which continue to rank #1. As Vice President Joe Biden would say, “This is a big … deal.”
First, let’s look at the numbers: According to comScore Video Metrix, 174 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content in March for an average of 14.8 hours per viewer.
This is up from 170 million U.S. Internet users who watched an average of 13.6 hours per viewer in February. But February is a short month. Move along, nothing to see here.
Amber MacArthur will be the opening keynote speaker at SES Toronto 2011. Better known as Amber Mac, the Canadian television and netcasting personality will be sharing social media tips and tactics on Monday, June 13, which is Day 1 of the event.
MacArthur is a technology host, journalist, and strategist who writes a regular column for The Globe and Mail, Yahoo!Tech, American Express Open Forum, and other outlets.
She hosts a live TV show called Webnation on Toronto’s number one news station. And she has worked as a technology TV host on the popular how-to call-in show G4TechTV with tech guru Leo Laporte, who was a colleague of mine at Ziff-Davis in the 1990s.
According to data from Experian Hitwise, The New York Times paywall has caused a decrease in the overall visits to NYTimes.com of 5 to 15 percent.
To understand the initial impact, Hitwise compared the total visits to NYTimes.com for a 12 day period before the launch of the paywall to the 12 days following the launch.
For the majority of the days, there was a decrease in the overall visits between 5 and 15 percent. The one exception was Saturday, April 9, 2011 where there was a 7 percent increase.
The Google Panda update set off fireworks on February 24. But an even bigger change to YouTube search results has slipped under the radar despite the fact that YouTube is the second largest search engine.
Now, Google is constantly tuning its algorithms, but many of the changes it makes are so subtle that few people notice them. However, the Panda update was “a pretty big algorithmic improvement to our ranking — a change that noticeably impacts 11.8% of our queries,” according to The Official Google Blog, so the company let people know what was going on.
SES Toronto was held for the first time in May 2004. I was a speaker at the session on “Balancing Paid & Organic Listings.” Flash forward 8 years and SES Toronto 2011 will feature dramatically different content. As Melanie Shatner once said, “I guess some things were just meant for the next generation.”
In fact, if you go to the conference overview, you’ll see that 9 out of the 21 sessions are “new to the Toronto agenda.” And this is a conservative estimate, because there’s one more session being “Reserved for Late-Breaking Topic.”
YouTube has a tradition of celebrating April Fools Day as only the the largest worldwide video-sharing community can. Today, YouTube is highlighting the “Top 5 Viral Pictures of 1911.”
The YouTube Blog adds, “Today’s homepage is a reproduction of how you might have viewed it 100 years ago. Check out some of the most popular videos of the time and be sure to try out our new upload mode which summons a horse-drawn carriage to pick up your video submission from your home.”
