SEO for videos: the new challenge

Google launched an automatic video captioning service for YouTube videos in an effort to make the visual clips more accessible to deaf people or anyone searching for videos online, but some see advantages for search engine optimization, too.

The machine-generated service will generate English-only captions initially on 13 partner channels. The service combines Google's automatic speech recognition (ASR) technology with the YouTube caption system to offer automatic captions.

The idea of video captioning is not new at YouTube, but the automatic feature could help to further optimize videos for people searching for content across engines and on YouTube. In theory, video scripts should become more optimized by the keywords in the captions. And while it's a great feature to make content more accessible for the deaf, other benefits exist for marketers.

Source: www.mediapost.com

The strange numbers of ad clicking!

While looking around for a report on ad clicking and the habits of clickers, I came across one demonstrating some spectacular results! Basically, all of the clicks for all the ads online come from only 16% of the surfers, and most of them come from just 4% of all internet users.

Take a look at this report.

So, looking at it from a negative perspective, optimizing your content and ads for clicks you would actually be ignoring almost 84% of the population.

You might want to reconsider your ad politics...

Augmented Reality on iPhone

French app developmer PresseLite have built the first Augmented Reality (AR) supporting iPhone app live in the iTunes store. It's called Metro Paris Subway, and while the app isn't new, it released a new version that added an AR overlay that displays information about Paris businesses when you look at the city through your iPhone's camera.

Internet of things

Just found a new buzz-word and thought i 'd might share it!

Quoting from wikipedia:

"In computing, the Internet of Things refers to a network of objects, such as household appliances. It is often a self-configuring wireless network. The concept of the internet of things is attributed to the original Auto-ID Center, founded in 1999 and based at the time in MIT^[1].

The idea is as simple as its application is difficult. If all cans, books, shoes or parts of cars are equipped with minuscule identifying devices, daily life on our planet will undergo a transformation. Things like running out of stock or wasted products will no longer exist as we will know exactly what is being consumed on the other side of the globe. Theft will be a thing of the past as we will know where a product is at all times. The same applies to parcels lost in the post.

If all objects of daily life, from yogurt to an airplane, are equipped with radio tags, they can be identified and managed by computers in the same way humans can.^[2] The next generation of Internet applications (IPv6 protocol) would be able to identify more objects than IPv4, which is currently in use. This system would therefore be able to instantaneously identify any kind of object.^[3]"

Online advertising is down

According to research done by the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), total online advertising revenues in Q1 2009 fell to $5.48 billion, down 10% from the previous quarter and down 5% from Q1 2008.

This is the first negative year-over-year rate since 2002.

David Silverman of PwC said, “Current economic conditions are clearly challenging.”

Online advertising had been relatively unaffected by the downturn, partly because it used to be considered experimental, but it is now an essential part of the media mix for many advertisers.

“In some ways the decline further reinforces how online ad spending is a central part of the mainstream,” said David Hallerman, eMarketer senior analyst. “As other media are experiencing even greater ad spending declines, the Internet cannot resist larger economic forces.”

source: emarketer.com

In dark days, is e-commerce the answer?

We are in the middle of the most extensive crisis of the lasst decades! Most US economic indicators have suffered severely in Q1 2009. With one exception!

According to a survey by Forrester Research and Shop.org, US online retail sales rose an average of 11% in the first three months of 2009.

Of the 80 companies studied, 58% saw online sales increases compared with the same quarter last year.

Looking further into the findings, 44% of the e-tailers reported increases of over 10%, 14% showed increases up to 10% and 13% reported flat sales.

In the survey, about 70% of both consumer brand manufacturers and multichannel retailers reported online sales increases. However, Web-only merchants had a different situation. About six in 10 reported Web sales declines.

“It seems that consumer confidence is getting better,” Sucharita Mulpuru, a Forrester analyst, told Bloomberg News. “Hopefully the worst is behind us.”

Looking ahead, Citi Investment Research projects that US retail e-commerce sales will grow 4.4% in 2009 to $141 billion—and jump to 16.5% growth in 2010.

source: emarketer.com

Design matters

Latest research in the UK showed that 93 % of iPhone owners accessed mobile media in January 2009. What does this show? That if you give users a beautiful phone and a handy interface design they will access media and they will be more willing to learn how to use technology!

According to the first data to describe iPhone usage in the UK, from comScore, 93% of iPhone owners in the UK accessed mobile media in January 2009.

Comparing iPhone users to smartphone users to mobile phone users, comScore found that the iPhone users did almost everything more on their phones than their counterparts.

Nearly 80% of iPhone users accessed news on their phones, compared with 48% and 20% of smartphone and mobile phone users, respectively. And so on down the line.

www.outalot.gr

Like everybody else, we wanted to create a social network that everybody would love and would spread viraly . We decided to take a different approach. We decided to create a tool, an engine rather than a social network. On the way things got different. Everybody wanted to be able to add new events and meet new people and make friends. So we changed the concept and came up with a mixture of things. The concept is "Socialize more in the real world" rather than spending your whole day over your keyboard. It's a way of making real friends, people that you will actually meet. People that share one thing. They love to go out, have a drink or a bite and love to meet new people.

Take a look and try it out: outalot.gr! For the moment it's only in greek but you will get the idea.

Interesting numbers for marketers

According to Nielsen Online, more people in the US and other leading digital countries worldwide are using social networks and blogs than e-mail.

While search and destination sites remain the most popular online activities, social network and blog use exceeded that of e-mail, increasing their reach by 5.4%.

In addition, time spent on social networks and blogging sites is growing at over three times the rate of overall Internet growth.

Source: emarketer

Late GSMA

It's been a while...
Done some traveling, a couple of conferences and now I am back for good.
So, what we have seen so far. Budget cuttings are visible all over.
Take for example GSMA (Mobile World Congress). Empty exhibiting spaces, a lot less giveaways (almost none except for some rubber ducks from my friend Janis) and a lot less visitors! I mean the first day was a major disappointment. Walking around the GSMA was like walking around a park, or a not so crowded street. Second and third days were back to normal (companies not paying for the full Monty?).

So, what was the conclusion from this year's GSMA? As a friend quoted "At last, technology is stable!" No new super technology was presented and some of the major technologies of the past missing. As a result it seems safer to invest on the technology currently on the market and start making some real money out of it. It has been a race towards technological excellence in the past years with most innovations not finding their proper market share due to companies and investors being sucked in an opportunistic hype.

Let's see for example WIMAX. In the previous two years I can remember at least 20 exhibitors focused on WIMAX technology and hardware while this year only one came to my attention!
It was supposedly a major technological leap which didn't make it to the market as it is clear from the fact most deployments are still in trials, that it is largely used by start-up carriers and is supported by “second-tier vendors”. In comparison, HSPA with 154 commercial networks already in operation (at the end of 2008) and support from top tier vendors has taken over the market.