The Long Tail of Video

In "The Long Tail," Chris Anderson outlined the untapped audiences that exist beyond mass media targeting. Waves of consumers who participate in niche media and markets, in aggregate, can be greater in size and more valuable than the traditional "mass media" audience.

The same holds true for video as well. When people think of online video, two  sites come to mind: YouTube and Hulu. Indeed, both of those sites have a huge number of videos viewed per user (96 videos/viewer and 26.7 videos/viewer, respectively). However, a comScore study shows that more than half of the online video minutes viewed are being viewed on video sites ranked #26 and higher. The long tail of video site is garnering more than half the total online video viewing.

The important takeaway is that your online video strategy shouldn't begin and end with YouTube. As my colleague Paul Dyer points out, YouTube should be only one part of your video marketing mix. You need to be wherever people go to view video, and that isn't always YouTube.

Is Twitter Jumping the Shark?

Could The Fonz be donning his skis already? It seems that there's speculation that Twitter may be nearing its peak of interest, now that it's been reported that both Lily Allen and Miley Cyrus have cancelled their accounts. (Lily's still seems to be active yet update-less, however.) Miley did so in a very public fashion by creating a YouTube video explaining her exodus, to the tune of more than 3.6 million views, which is more than 15% of Twitter's monthly traffic alone.

I've noted that Twitter may be leveling off, and I never really thought it was a service that the Internet public at large would embrace. Mind you, I love Twitter. I find it so useful in my life -- both business and personal. I find out half my social media news via Twitter. But I represent a small swath of humanity out there who would really use Twitter, et al. No, my mom will never have a Twitter account.

I've heard that the average life cycle of social media sites/services is around two years. Well, we've hit the 2-year mark, and Twitter has seen its first decline in monthly traffic since its meteoric rise this year. I bet that Twitter will start rolling out new features at a hurried pace to increase its audience and start cashing in on it.

Online Video Viewership

According to a recent comScore finding, the average U.S. online video viewer watched more than 5 hours of video online in February 2009. Of note is the jump in ranking of Hulu as a destination for online video consumption -- and more importantly -- premium content.

In February, Hulu jumped up to the #4 spot among the top online video properties. Google continued to hold the #1 spot with nearly 41% of the share of videos viewed with YouTube accounting for more than 99% of that (no surprise there). In a distant second and third, respectively, are Fox Interactive Media and Yahoo. I found it interesting that apparently so many people still watch videos on MySpace (a Fox Interactive Media property) that it keeps Fox ahead of Hulu (a joint venture between Fox and NBC/U).

Expect to see Hulu continue to rise in the rankings now that Disney is in talks with Hulu to air its content. Disney seems to be taking the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach with this. This means that Hulu will prospectively have 9 of the top 20 rated shows (w/o Mar 22), which is quite a feat, considering CBS alone holds the other 11 shows in that list. In one online destination (with a great user experience, by the way), you'll be able to watch such powerhouses as The Office, 30 Rock, Lost, Desperate Housewives, Grey's Anatomy, House, 24, American Idol, Dancing With the Stars, and the list goes on. Who needs a DVR?

CBS Interactive seems to be struggling with their online video property, TV.com. They currently have 0.9% of the viewing audience. I'm not a fan of the TV.com user experience, which is why I credit Hulu with its success. Long term, I expect CBS to bite the bullet and offer their content on Hulu. Let's wait and see.

YouTube in HD

If you've been following Twitter activity today, you'll know that YouTube quietly and unofficially upgraded their video playback to HD (sort of). The reason I say "sort of" is due to the ambiguity as to what is "HD." Technically, if the video has at 720 (or 1,080) horizontal lines, then yes, it is HD. However, with bit rates at around 1 mbps (1 megabit per second or 1,000 kilobits per second), the quality, in my opinion, would not qualify as true HD. Certainly nothing like the 18 mbps HD content that CBS spits out over the air.

This is a great leap forward, though. And kudos to YouTube. I can only imagine they're waiting for the power users to kick the tires before making a formal announcement.

For a quality comparison, I've shown here still captures of the first frame of this great video done by Derek Truesdale. Below are the three quality options now available: HD, Higher Quality, and Normal. As you can clearly see in the HD still, Derek has a mole on his left cheek, just to the right of his mouth. (Apologies to Derek -- he is quite fetching.) While watching the "Higher Quality" version, you can still make it out, and in the "Normal" version, you can barely tell it's there. This gives a good indication of the quality differences.

HD

HIGHER QUALITY

NORMAL

You'll also notice, along with the lack of fanfare about this, that the user's video playback quality settings have not changed. They remain the same as before the introduction of the HD option:

If you wish to play around with this yourself, click to watch Derek's video. When it's loaded, you can either toggle among the different playback quality settings just below the video to the right or add this text after the video's URL and reload:

• &fmt=9 for Normal quality 
• &fmt=18 for Higher quality
• &fmt=22 for HD

Play around with it, and comment back to let me know what you think.