Google's epiphany: Great video is hard to make

YouTube may be a loss leader for Google, though with some 80 million viewers, that's still one hell of a loss leader.

On the strength of the thousands of short-form content uploaded by members, YouTube has grown exponentially since its 2006 acquisition by Google. But how much of a business is there in dumb cat videos? As always, the challenge for management has been how to make YouTube's $1.65 billion purchase price pay for itself.

(Credit: CNET News)

Now Google is considering a different tack to answer at least part of that question. As my colleague Greg Sandoval reported earlier Thursday, YouTube will begin offering feature films produced by at least one of the biggest Hollywood movie studios, possibly as early as next month.

"For months, Google, YouTube's parent company, has been talking to the major film companies about launching an ad-supported, streaming movie service, two execs with knowledge of the negotiations told CNET News. "It's not imminent," said one of the executives. "But it's going to happen. I would say you can expect to see it, if all goes well, sometime within the next 30 to 90 days."

Among other things, this would put YouTube on a more competitive footing in long-form video versus Hulu, the joint video venture formed by NBC Universal and News Corp. The shift also underscores a recognition that the big spenders increasingly are getting picky. Despite the viral growth in user-generated content, advertisers would much rather spend their money on the professionally created stuff.

That's hardly an epiphany. What's surprising is that it took management so long to reach this conclusion. I'm not going to nitpick but what's more surprising is that even with an improved wide-screen video player, YouTube still lags Hulu in terms of picture quality. Maybe that doesn't matter for wonder-of-me moments shot with my home video recorder. It matters a lot when you're sitting down with prospective advertisers, freaked out by a disastrous economy, about where to put their money.

So it is that MG Siegler of VentureBeat correctly asks whether any of Google's exertions to date are enough to really matter.

Of course, there is still no real proof that Google has figured out an effective way to monetize these or any other videos on YouTube. So a large question would have to be if feature film content would be any different? Another question is if users will be willing to watch feature films in YouTube's often less-than-stellar video quality. It's one thing to watch short clips in low resolution, but sitting through an entire 90-minute to 2-hour feature may be a bit much to ask.

Technically, that doesn't sound like a very tall order. But the longer Google takes to figure out a fix, the more YouTube risks losing its status as a pop culture phenom.

[EricTor1]

Besides not having awesome video quality, another YouTube annoyance is non-support of stereo audio. With difficulty, some have found ways to upload content with stereo audio that doesn't immediately get squashed to mono by YouTube, but usually only at the further expense of video quality. Sigh..

[twowan]

To make money with YouTube, this is what Google has to do...

On the most viewed clips (clips with, let say, at least 1000 views) (doesn't matter who posted them) you implement a 5 seconds overlay ad, that appears over the player and blocks out (darkens) everything else. (It gives a bit of time for the clip to load in the background as well).

This overlay is a 5 seconds spot (can't be longer than that and it doesn't link to a company website if you click on it. It's like a really, really short TV spot. It can be a still picture for outfits with very little budgets...)

Now, people don't like ads... but they like GAMES and they like to COLLECT stuff.

Each overlay ad is a mini 5 seconds GAME. You have three colored dots on the overlay. The viewer clicks on ONE of them. One is a winner, two are duds. If you're lucky to pick the winner (you only have one chance) during the 5 secs, you receive a TOKEN that is automatically added to your YouTube account. (It encourages you to stay registered...)

Now, you COLLECT these tokens. If you win a certain number of similar tokens, you can EXCHANGE them against full-length HD Hollywood Films or TV shows on YouTube. The fun part could be that you have different categorires of tokens. (Some would be for specific film genres or just for one TV show and some could be really hard to find, worth maybe ten tokens, etc.) (Tokens are generated randomly by the system.)

Now, you have the problem of guys posting shows and seeing Google make money off their film. Well, they need to be rewarded too. For a succesful posting (ie lots of viewers) they receive TOKENS as well to be exchanged to watch high-quality HD movies or TV shows...

Now, these HD movies or TV shows can also be sponsored with a longer lead-in spot... That's even more money for Google.

Now, we have the problem of big brand names not wanting to have their spots stuck on "Jimmy and his weird cat"... Well, they could "control" where their 5 Secs. spots go by teaming with content suppliers through YouTube. Example, a Coca-Cola campaign with Viacom clips... Viacom takes all the succesful shows they own like, as an example, "Spongebob". They cut out little "gems", two to three minute clips and they post them on YouTube to watch for free... Viacom via Google sell their 5 second spots to Coca-cola. Everybody is happy. The viewer, who enjoys these mini-clips, can even link to the full episode of Spongebob on YouTube. He can pay by redeeming TOKENS or he can PAY with a CC for the full episode or combine both. (It's all streaming! It's like TV a la carte.)

Now, what about the "Jim and his weird cat" clips. Who pays for these 5 secs ads? Well, it's like Google's Adsense, it's small outfits who purchase so many spots. You can buy a thousand spots or ten thousand spots to be randomly placed on clips or based on the clip's TAGS. The outfit supplies the spot or the still and pays Google directly up front.

A system like this is not that difficult to implement. It's fun for all involved. Everybody is a winner especially Google who makes tons of money from the big guys but also... most importantly...from the long, long tail of all the little guys. Viewers are hooked to YouTube forever!

Here, you have it.

Twowan,

(If Google wants more ideas like this one, they can contact me. I'm the guy behind laboratoryfilms.com)

[cyberDJ-2038765336053745013836]

I will echo the other comments here:

Quality, quality, quality. A poorly recorded video doesn't care what format it's recorded on.
I can see the difference between the new MTV video site and YouTube's videos.

Provide a way for the user to upload higher quality content.
Stereo would be great; NO distortion would be even better.

[jhneely]

Back in March of 2007, I explained that Google could re-revolutionize personal publishing by partnering YouTube with Adobe. In June of 2007, my prediction actually had a partial success: YouTube Remixer was launched, powered by Adobe Premiere Express. That's a step forward, but YouTube's failed to take further steps and provide the tools users need to increase the quality of amateur video production (and thus the interest of advertisers).

Making something like a limited free version of Adobe Premiere (Express is *too* limited) available to users would have a ton of benefits. To quote from my post:

<blockquote>"As more of its users produce their content through the same tool, it promotes more of a dialogue between users due to the added common interest. In addition to discussions(more page views), tutorials(more content), and groups(more community incentive) relating to a common tool, creators using the same tool become more aware of being able to accomplish the same kinds of effects. This is one of the causes of community memes, which are excellent for increasing community participation and gaining attention from users outside your community. Looking at a related media and community content site, Flickr, users of that site are aware of popular memes such as ?transparent screen?, in which photos of a computer screen are manipulated to make it seem as if that screen is transparent."</blockquote>

I've written about other benefits, and more on the reasoning behind why they should go for it, in my post on <a href="http://socialstrategist.com/2007/03/28/a-profitable-partnership-how-youtube-can-re-revolutionize-personal-publishing">A Web Strategy for YouTube - Re-Revolutionizing Personal Publishing</a>.