Earlier this spring, YouTube began testing a feature that embeds links to external sites within videos and advertisements. Right now, the feature forces the video to pause when you click on the links, which is disruptive and similar to using a Walkman versus an iPod.
“This is the Sony Walkman of ecommerce and video,” says Darrell Whitelaw, executive creative director at IPG Media Lab. “The thinking is spot-on, but the execution is just awful.”
YouTube recently teamed up with Juicy Couture for a fashion ad that links directly to the product pages of the clothes seen in the video. Juicy Couture says the technology shows strong ROI potential.
Other brands like Gucci have created similar shoppable videos for YouTube with third-party technology, “but this is the first time an advertising platform the size of YouTube has enabled shoppable videos and video ads,” Fast Company writes. “Advertising creatives say it’s a move that hints at — but doesn’t quite encompass — the future.”
In the coming years, media experts envision shoppable ads that enable consumers to purchase within videos by clicking any product in the video and buying it.
“Every evolution starts with something like this,” Whitelaw says. “I’m not taking away from the quality of it. It’s amazing that someone actually did it and got a client to say yes, let’s jump in and do this new thing. But you still have to look at the fact the next one — that perfect, beautiful experience — that’s going to be the one that gets people to buy.”
Tablets are no longer just a second screen, according to the recently released Q3 Global Video Index report from video analytics group Ooyala.
“Tablets are redefining the way we watch TV, and are often used as the ‘first screen’ people turn to when streaming TV shows, movies and sporting events,” indicates the report.
Ooyala studied 200 million unique viewers from more than 130 countries. The post includes an infographic of the findings, which VentureBeat summarizes:
“Tablet owners spent 71 percent of their total tablet video viewing time watching videos 10 minutes or longer,” while “30 percent of total tablet viewing time was spent watching content over an hour long.”
“The overall share of tablet video viewing grew 90 percent in the past two quarters,” notes the report. “The amount of time users spent watching live video on gaming consoles more than doubled in Q3,” and “Desktop viewers tuned into live video for an average of 40 minutes.”
Additionally, the report found the share of tablet viewing jumped 26 percent after the iPad 3 was released in March. Currently, 29 percent of U.S. adults own a tablet or e-reader compared to the mere 2 percent in 2009.
These numbers are not surprising in light of the many affordable tablets recently launched, such as Google’s updated line of Nexus tablets, Amazon’s new Kindle HD, Barnes & Noble’s Nook HD and the new iPad mini.
“With more tablets hitting the market every day, video publishing and monetization strategies must adapt to this new reality of Tablet TV,” suggests Ooyala.
The Verge writer Dan Seifert spent a few weeks simulating the life of a cord-cutter, ignoring cable television and other forms of entertainment while using Amazon as his only source of entertainment.
He concluded that while Amazon has an extensive array of entertainment options, the offerings are not enough to convince him to permanently switch from cable.
Furthermore, he said that the cost difference actually ends up not being very different from paying for a full slate of cable channels.
Amazon claims to offer 22 million books, movies, TV shows, songs, apps and games, but Seifert notes that options are often limited and Amazon does not offer live events (he missed watching sporting events and presidential debates).
Amazon offers free streaming video for its Prime customers, but “the movies and TV shows available or free to Prime members generally aren’t the latest and greatest blockbusters,” writes Seifert.
He adds that at $79.99 for a yearly subscription or $7.99 monthly Prime is not cheap, but does provide value for frequent Amazon customers.
Internet television is similar to the early days of cable television, according to Dawn Ostroff, head of Conde Nast’s new Entertainment Group.
Current Internet television is largely low budget and caters to niche markets, much like cable television before people fully figured out how to fill the new channels with content.
Ostroff likes the YouTube channels WIGS and AwesomenessTV, which have 17 million and 43 million views respectively, but notes that the production quality is not on par with traditional television.
Internet television could grow as online video advertising is projected to rise from $3 billion to $9 billion by 2017, reports The Verge. As this happens, the length and production quality could rise, according to Ostroff.
“I think ultimately, you will see a lot of this digital content become full-length content,” said Ostroff. “It’s going to stay short for a while, but I think the production quality is going to get better.”
Internet television will need to shift away from niche markets if it wishes to grow, argues Ostroff.
“There will be more focus on more niche shows in order to carve up the audience even further, but I think there will continue to need to be big events,” she said. “You’re never going to be able to get a big audience, a wide audience, by doing niche content.”
Researchers at Norman Security discovered a cyberespionage campaign that targeted Israeli and Palestinian organizations for more than a year, suggesting “cyberspying is a global phenomenon and no longer mostly the domain of massive nation-states like China,” reports Dark Reading.
“The discovery of this latest operation highlights just how popular and easy it has become to execute cyberspying. Thanks to ease of access and use of remote access Trojan (RAT) tools and reliability of social engineering, you don’t need nation-state backing to conduct these types of targeted attacks.”
“RATs traditionally had been associated with Chinese-based attackers, but that conventional wisdom is shifting as other nations and politically motivated attackers move to cyberspying via these tools to more efficiently gather intelligence on their marks,” the article continues.
Norman’s report did not draw conclusions on who was behind the attacks, but confirmed it was the same hacker for both.
“We’re just seeing the tip of the iceberg,” says Einar Oftedal, deputy CTO at Norman, referring to the global potential of cyberspying. Oftedal says the attack was not “too advanced.”
“I believe that next year we’ll see more actors from different nations” conducting cyberespionage, says Aviv Raff, CTO of Seculert. “I think such efforts are already in place, and [we] saw that with last year’s attacks. The way I see this is that next year, more of such attacks will be discovered — meaning they are taking place as we speak but go under the radar.”
A new report from BI Intelligence analyzes consumer spending trends on tablets, noting that people purchase items more frequently on tablets than on smartphones.
Bank of America predicts people will spend $67.1 billion through mobile transactions in 2015, according to the report.
Tablets account for seven percent of ecommerce traffic, while smartphones account for only five percent.
Tablet shoppers “spent 50 percent more per order on retail websites than smartphone shoppers — and more unexpectedly, 20 percent more than shoppers on PCs,” notes the report.
“With lower prices, more device options, and emerging market opportunities, tablet sales are set to explode to 450 million annually by 2016. Increased tablet commerce volume will likely come along with it.”
People often use tablets to compare prices, says the report. More than “half of tablet owners used their devices to compare price, product, and store information.” Twenty percent of tablet users say they use their tablets to compare prices every day.
As MP3s became ubiquitous, the music industry failed to “distinguish between average fans and professional pirates, and embittering a whole generation of users,” reports paidContent.
Now with increased popularity of photo-sharing sites, the copyright problem has surfaced in the photo world and one image owner is taking a new tactic to enforce copyrights.
Major image owners like Getty have mimicked the music industry, attacking violators with lawsuits that have become a significant source of revenue.
“The problem is that, in most cases, there’s little connection between the harm and the damages,” the article notes. “When a blog or a small business or a Tumblr user posts a picture, they don’t deprive the owner of thousands of dollars but are simply using an image that could, in most cases, be replaced with many others.”
The Getty argues that simply using the DCMA copyright takedown process does not adequately compensate photographers for the use of their images, but the article suggests it is likely “most of the money Getty collects goes to the company and lawyers, not to the photographers.”
Micro-stock agency Dreamstime has come up with a different approach to dealing with copyright infringements, which is “much more sensible,” the article notes.
“Unlike other image owners, Dreamstime does not sic lawyers on people who like its photos. Instead the company, which claims to have more than 5 million users, responds by sending them a notice to take the image down or else to buy a license at the going rate which can be as low as $8.”
“We want to respond to copyrighted images but we want to do it in a different, non-heavy-handed way,” says CEO Serban Enache. “This is very successful way of turning unauthorized users into customers. Once they learn of the license, they often obtain larger licenses.”
Cloud-gaming services are poised to create a new segment of gaming by allowing gamers to play high-tech games using a simple computer or tablet connected to broadband Internet, writes the Wall Street Journal.
OnLive.com runs the most successful streaming service for gaming. The site has more than 200 titles, some of which are available for free.
People can also buy games that they can have access to for life, or they can rent games for three or five days. Users can also pay $10 a month for unlimited access to select titles.
Other companies are set to break into the industry, including Playcast Media Systems, which hopes to bring games to satellite and cable companies.
Sony bought cloud-gaming company Gaikai to help bolster Sony’s cloud-gaming strategy. Even GamesStop, a video-game retailer, plans to launch a service by the summer, according to WSJ.
The article offers interesting overviews of four titles for cloud gaming: “Sleeping Dogs,” “Civilization V,” “L.A. Noire” and “Limbo.”
“Call of Duty: Black Ops 2” allows players to live-stream their gameplay to YouTube, a feature that could spark a rise in spectator gaming, reports paidContent.
The market for consumer viewed gaming has not been filled since the television show “GamesMaster” went off the air in 1998. But YouTube live streaming could help fill this void.
It is true that “YouTube is chock-full of gamer commentaries,” but “there has long been a technical hurdle — while PC gaming can more easily be screencast, console gamers have needed to route their video output to a PC,” explains the article.
Ustream, Own3d.tv, and eSports Live have supplied some avenues for better live video game viewing, but YouTube has distinct advantages over the other entities.
While hardcore gamers have found ways to make live viewing work, the direct integration into the new “Call of Duty” opens up the opportunity to millions more.
The feature even allows players to play the role of director, “changing camera angles and mic levels and presenting pieces to camera via webcam,” according to paidContent.
Also, by tying video game content directly into YouTube, “Call of Duty” establishes itself on the largest video service on the Internet. There is a good chance YouTube will be on many televisions soon, meaning video game viewing could migrate from computers to televisions as well.
Often overshadowed by Samsung and Apple, HTC is teaming up with Verizon Wireless to offer the Droid DNA, which will be sold for $199 this holiday season.
“The 5-inch phone, which will run Android 4.1, stands out because of its 1080p Super LCD 3 display, which shows 440 pixels per inch, more than any other smartphone in the U.S. market,” writes GigaOM.
“The display also features a wide 80-degree viewing area, can handle blurry action better and is reportedly 50 percent brighter than the Samsung Galaxy S III.”
The Droid DNA will undoubtedly draw attention with its impressive display and quad-core 1.5 GHz Snapdragon processor. However, there is some question regarding whether consumers will notice the added clarity and whether the screen will drain the battery.
The Droid DNA will provide 2GB RAM and 16GB of storage, but it will be difficult “to explain why every day consumers will need all that power,” suggests the post.
Other features include wireless charging, an ultra-wide lens for the front-facing 720p camera, Beats Audio profile, two amplifiers for headphones and speakers.
Whether this powerful phone can signal a shift for HTC remains to be seen, but “the phone is beautiful, very sleek and elegant,” GigaOM writes. “It’s a phone that looks good coming out of your pocket and feels good in your hand.”
Samsung has been developing flexible plastic displays for mobile devices, and according to a person familiar with the project, the technology will be released in the first half of next year, although it may be sometime before they are commercially available.
“The key reason for Samsung to use plastic rather than conventional glass is to produce displays that aren’t breakable,” says Shinyoung Securities analyst Lee Seung-chul.
“The technology could also help lower manufacturing costs and help differentiate its products from other rivals,” he adds.
It is uncertain how much Samsung has invested in the venture, but the company can afford investment, the Wall Street Journal suggests. Samsung’s display business profits have soared, rising 91 percent from a year ago.
The new displays incorporate OLED technology; using plastic instead of glass will make displays more durable and light.
Many companies have developed flexible OLED prototypes, but “manufacturers haven’t been able to commercialize them or use them in devices due to technological barriers in mass production,” notes the article. “Samsung hopes it will be first to bring the product to the market.”
According to analyst Julius Kim at Woori Investment & Securities, “Samsung is still busy making the original glass-type displays for its latest Galaxy S III smartphones and Galaxy Note II devices, so profit-wise the new displays don’t seem to be that attractive.”
As a precursor to Vimeo’s launch of a pay-per-view platform early next year, the site is offering six paid-streaming titles, some of which will be available for up to two months.
“The movies, which include ‘We Are Legion: The Story of Hacktivists’ as well as the LCD Soundsystem concert movie ‘Shut Up and Play the Hits’ are meant to preview different features that will be available to all content producers once Vimeo rolls out pay-per-view in earnest early next year,” GigaOM writes.
Some of the titles include access to exclusive extra content. Vimeo allows content producers to set regional restrictions and pricing.
Viewers can access the titles on PCs, iPads, mobile phones and select over-the-top devices such as Apple TV, Boxee and Roku, notes the post.
“Vimeo first announced pay-per-view as an additional monetization option in September, when it also rolled out tip jars for content producers,” explains GigaOM. “It’s not the only video site offering pay-per-view: YouTube has been offering select partners the option to charge for their streams for some time.”
The $70/month gigabit home Internet service Google Fiber has been highly anticipated, and after the service finally went live in Kansas City Tuesday, the verdict is in: “It’s unbelievable,” one user remarked.
Mike Demarais is the founder of Threedee and has been staying in Kansas City’s Startup Village, “an informal group of entrepreneurs who have clustered around homes immediately eligible for Google Fiber,” Ars Technica explains.
“We just got it today and I’ve been stuck in front of my laptop for the last few hours,” Demarais said. “I’m probably not going to leave the house.”
“Demarais said that on an Ethernet connection, he’s seen consistent Google Fiber speeds of 600 to 700Mbps, with Wi-Fi topping out around 200Mbps,” the article states. “Even at the slower wireless speeds, that’s more than an order of magnitude faster than what most Americans have at home.”
The entrepreneur, whose company aims to add to the growing 3D printing industry, said he was partly driven to Kansas City by Google Fiber’s offering. “Wherever I go after this, my Internet speed is going to be ruined.”
Demarais’ other draw was being able to live for free in the “Homes For Hackers” in the Startup Village. Web developer Ben Barreth bought the house to nourish Kansas City’s tech community, offering free housing for three months to entrepreneurs.
“People are too quick to discredit the value of a free-rent environment with like-minded people. KC needs to separate itself from the other scenes,” Demarais said. “Why here? Fiber is not enough. I think you need to have a dense startup community, and if young people are not moving here and trying to start startups, you need to artificially create that flow.”
Artificial intelligence startup Toy Talk, which is targeted toward kids and entertainment, has raised a total of $16 million in funding after recently collecting $12 million in a Series A funding round.
Former Pixar CTO Oren Jacob is leading the venture. “Jacob worked for Pixar on ‘Toy Story,’ ‘A Bug’s Life,’ ‘Toy Story 2’ and ‘Finding Nemo,’ and fellow co-founder Martin Reddy, who worked on artificial intelligence at SRI International, also worked at Pixar on films including ‘Finding Nemo,’ ‘The Incredibles,’ ‘Cars,’ ‘Ratatouille,’ and ‘WALL-E,'” GigaOM reports.
As of now, Toy Talk remains in “stealth mode,” the post states. The company released a teaser video to demonstrate the concept, which has been described as “Teddy Ruxpin meets Siri.”
“Toy Talk is the name of the company — I think it should be pretty obvious what we’re trying to do,” Jacob said at GigaOM‘s RoadMap conference.
Investors include Charles River Ventures, Greylock Partners, First Round Capital, True Ventures and multiple angel investors. Toy Talk will launch in 2013.
Three innovative thinkers from Palo Alto, California want to block all Internet ads — meaning no more website banners, no commercials in video streams, and no pop-ups in mobile apps.
To do so, the team created AdTrap, a $120 box that sits between a cable modem and wireless router.
“AdTrap is basically a small computer running the Linux operating system, programmed to recognize and block every sort of ad its creators could identify,” Quartz explains. “Many people already have ad blockers on our web browsers, but AdTrap’s combination of simplicity and comprehensiveness are reasons it could take off.”
Right now, the project has collected $20,000 in funding on Kickstarter, but the device won’t ship unless it gains $150,000 worth of pledges by December 8th.
There are Internet purists who would be very attracted to AdTrap, but Quartz suggests the average consumer might not be willing to pay $120 to remove what has simply become background noise.
If the project is successful, however, it could spell trouble for some websites.
“AdTrap is ‘open and very hackable,’ which means that it could be updated to block new kinds of advertisements,” notes the article. “It also promises to block the user tracking that many Internet advertisements engage in. Advertisers will hate that, of course, and so will the websites that depend on them.”