Here are a collection of stats and quotes pulled from the white paper that have to do with the evolving media industry. The white paper also includes a brief reference to viral videos and essentially comments on their illusive behaviour.

It’s NOT a Revolution BUT an Evolution!

What we are witnessing isn’t competition between TV and the web; it’s the merging of interactive video and TV.

Major stumbling block for web video is the inability of the biggest TV advertisers to make a direct comparison between the effectiveness of TV and the effectiveness of an equivalent buy online

Media Companies…[are] ready to distribute on the web and offer web video to marketers but they’re not ready for that to replace what’s happening on TV

Viewers in the US spent an average of 12.2 hours watching online video (November)

The average length of the videos they watched more than doubled

Advertising

Internet advertising represents $699 million of the $24 billion U.S online ad business

TV is 66 billion dollar industry (US)

Where’s the Cred Online?

The two leading metrics companies differ substantially in their reporting – Comscore and Neilsen’s videocensus

Comscore – YT owns 40% of US video market
Neilsen – YT owns 60% of US video market

The “Cool” Demographic on Television is Melting

TV’s median age reached over 50 years in 2008

The Pirate Dilemma Still Exists in Full Force

20% of 18-24 years olds said it is acceptable to download tv shows free and without ads

Does YouTube have a Viable Business Model?

10 million [is the] monthly rate at which YouTube is now monetizing its homepage – has ability to pull in 400 K a day

YouTube has indicated that it is selling ads against more than 10% of its video streams in the US” – Up 6%

YouTube serves about 1.3 billion videos per day (worldwide)

YT estimated to turn a profit in 2010 if not already

*(reason of speculation is based on the their unknown operating cost)

YouTube and Pro Content

Hulu’s relationship with pro content providers (exclusive deals) make it difficult for YT to get access to pro content.

Hulu serves up over 900 million views a month in the US (November 2009)

Total video views in the US are over 30 billion (November 2009)

Online Video CPM’s in a Nut Shell

YouTube – $15
Espn – $22
Vevo – $25-35
Hulu – $35- plus
ABC.com- $45 – Plus
CBS March Madness ON-demand – $70
Wall street Journal video – $75-100

Cheers!

Well that depends on who is asking the question.  I can tell you that the strategic move of all their music video content from the main YouTube platform into another has shaken up the charts and reworked their business model.

First off, The avid user will now notice that the YouTube chart consisting of the most viewed music videos of all time has lost some of its leading content.   Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend was the most viewed music video of all time on YouTube and stayed on the top of the chart through 2009.  Now it no longer appears on YouTube…What happened when they flicked the switch?

Well YouTube’s All Time chart started to look like it did back in early 2009.  Original viral videos like Connie, Paul Potts and guitar made it back on to the first page as the music juggernauts transfered their music to Vevo.  It also gave music videos not associated to  Sony, Universal or EMI the chance to climb to the front page as well.  Miley Cyrus being one of those artists now has 3 songs on the front page.  Pitbull took his song and ran with it too.

So how have the songs like Girlfriend under Sony, Universal and EMI fared on Vevo.  Well, the magic of the Vevo platform being run by YouTube allowed for the songs to keep their view count and carry on their online legacy.  The Vevo All Time chart now looks very similar to the charts we put together when we were separating the content on YouTube’s chart, only now Lady Gaga has completely taken over.  For the first time in over a year Lady Gaga may surpass Avril to claim the title of the most views on a single video.   In a  few months Lady Gaga accomplished what it took Avril almost 2 years to obtain.

This  begs the questions of whether it is simply that Lady Gaga is  the next Madonna or whether video consumption patterns are changing.  Maybe both…

So that was how the charts got mashed up but what do they accomplish by switching platforms.  Well there’s a slightly more engaging interface, it’s more focused on the visual aspect, it’s easily compatible with other Google run accounts and has easy buttons to favorite and create playlists.   Is that enough?  The ads meshed into the business plan are played between videos and are easily skipped plus the annoying factor that the site is limited to Sony, EMI and Universal content rather than a consumers on demand search of all content may inhibit the adoption their looking for.

What puzzles this cat is that YouTube Partners get paid per view so why would they not create customized channels within YouTube and attach ads to all Sony, EMI and Universal content rather than splitting the traffic between two platforms?  The functionality of Vevo can easily be inserted in to YouTube suggesting some kind of new functionality would come with the release of a new platform.  Not so much.  You still can’t do a search on Vevo without interrupting your music experience which tells me they still haven’t got a grip on the total in-browser music experience online.

Cheers

PS. Vevo currenttly has an Alexa rank of 4078  (Websitegrader.com Feb 26th)

Update Feb 27th:  Ads also flash up in the lower part of the videos frame similar to YT.

So who got the axe?

After Chris Brown’s public image fiasco his Kiss Kiss video soon lost appeal.  The Jonas Brothers join Chris as both their top videos SOS and Burnin Up dropped off to make way for the ladies.  Lady Gaga, Katy Perry and Venessa Hudgens have since taken the spot light.

*Growth calculated from May 15th

The interesting thing about the three latest editions to chart is that Vanessa’s video was added 2 years ago while Lady Gaga and Katy Perry have only been on YouTube for a year. 

Pay close attention to Hollywood Records and their strategy with Vanessa as they choose not disable the embedding feature.  A strategy that has allowed Miley’s 7 things video to amass over 30 million views since last March.  Now capping 100 million views on one video alone the strategy seems to be paying off.    

Cheers!

Avril Lavigne is the reigning queen when it comes to having the most viewed video of all time on YouTube. As of February 17th her Girlfriend video has been viewed over 115 500 000 times. That’s a lot of views.

What gives Avril the title (once belonging to a video called The Evolution of Dance not to long ago) is the variable that is central to 78% of video on Youtube’s Top 100 list of all time: Music.

Breaking it down quickly 70% of the all timers are music videos. 8% are videos that use music to launch the video to its stardom. Finally, 22% don’t use music as their central feature but may contain a little here and there for tone.

If those numbers seem like a foreign concept to you then understanding the power music has is something you should read up on. Music videos are slowly creeping into the ultimate limelight and for good reasons too. YouTube playlists allow users to store their favorite songs and listen wih their YouTube account directly from a computer. This generates huge amounts of views as users come running back to hear their new favorite song, rather than waiting for the radio to overplay it. In any other video category it is likely that a video once seen and shared to a few friends retains little reason to return on a regular. This is where music gets its longevity.

Soon the Virals from outside the music category will be shoved into the middle of YouTube’s all time database.  An assortment of creativity, humour and weirdness will be cast into the saturation of the 6th and 7th pages of YouTube’s all timers.  It’s happening fast too.

Take a look at two videos; Katie Perry’s Hot‘n’Cold (38 200 000) and Beyonce’s Single Ladies (40 700 000). These videos are only 4 months old yet they still make the top 50. The drive and repeatability of music videos along with the offline promotion wheel help catapult these clips to the forefront.

Other videos in the prestigious top 100 have their reasons for being there but they have good right to be worried about how many hit singles it will take to knock them out.

Free Hugs Campaign is genuinely moving and received huge publicity from the Oprah Effect.

Extreme funny is good entertainment however, their ability to land the key words “extreme funny” must have played a role in keeping their exposure high in common searches.

Oral has obvious sex appeal for men and was added a year ago but still gets constantly shoved back as new music hits the scene.

Introducing a video outside the music category and reaching the ultimate goal of the top 100 is slowly becoming a momentous challenge as music proves to be a key variable in Viralism and take over the top of YouTube.

Cheers

The San Francisco company has launched a new viral effort it hopes will attract young men to pass along videos of customized “beasts” emerging from the button-fly of Levi’s jeans. At Unbuttonyourbeast.com, visitors can choose from nine different animated characters with names like Trout Troutman, Paul the Pincher and Sock Nasty, then customize the beast’s message by calling a toll-free number. The effort, unsurprisingly, is geared to young men just out of college.
 
The e-mail arrives with the subject “Do you dare to unbutton my beast?” Users can customize the message to friends. The default borders on the risque, reading, “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you, but I don’t want to freak you out. That’s why I’m sending my beast to do my dirty work.” Senders receive a confirmation e-mail that their message was sent — along with a 15 percent off coupon for jeans.
Source: Adweek

While the creativity and technical savy is definately there the interaction has some disturbing elements to it.  With a couple creatures appearing from the crotch of Levi’s 501 jeans looking like they just stepped out of B horror movie, it is unclear whether the young male target will really relate to this.  I bet some guys will get a kick out of it, but I would hazard a guess that most guys don’t relate their male member to a honkey tonk pig or a jewel wearing crab claw.

No one doubts that sex sells.  The ability for users to personalize the message by calling a toll free number has some appeal, but I’m not sure if girlfriends and boyfriends alike will appreciate the inivitable love note from the “Cookie The Cougar” character which looks like something out of Alien vs. Predator.

Time will only tell if Unbuttonyourbeast.com sees some viral success, but the saving grace for the site and the messaging is that this latest initiative is part of a broader itegrated campaign.  Would be players in social media take note.   

Levi’s has already seen some admittedly surprising results with the release of “Jumpin’ In” on YouTube with over 4.4 million views thus far.  “['Jumpin' In'] was supposed to be a small seeding activity,” said Robert Cameron, VP of Marketing, Levi Strauss, San Francisco. “We didn’t know it was going to blow up.”

The video is part of a series produced by Cutwater, the same people who produced the Ray-Ban “Catch” videos.  While no one at either the agency or Levi’s could have predicted its success the video has a universally appealing theme.  Backflips it seems resonate with young males and probably more so than crotch humor.

The positive take on these efforts is the willingness of Levi’s to jump in (no pun intented) to the new social media space as they try to reinvent a brand for their younger male target.  After all it is stories like these that inspired AboutViral.

Listening to the radio recently you will have no doubt noticed M.I.A. has reached the top spots on popular count downs with her single Paper Planes. The catchy beat, gangster style, and provocative lyrics appeal to a large audience as the song has climbed to number 18 on the American Top 40 (September 25th, 2008). But why did Paper Planes get popular now? M.I.A. released the song in 2007 on the album Kala, but it’s only reaching number one on local stations today? Last year she played Virgin Fest in Toronto, Canada, worked with Timbaland, and had her music in the season four finale of Entourage. She’s out there, her music is out there so why the gap and what happened in the summer of 2008?

The only plausible factor to M.I.A.’s success had to be the release of Pineapple Express by Apatow and company. The song was dubbed over the trailer which saw national and international play during the release. This was the big leap M.I.A. needed as 14 million YouTube views came between August 7th and August 30th. Coincidentaly the same three weeks Pineapple Express trailers were in full circulation. Idolator.com reports 434 000 digital copies of Paper Planes had been sold as of the end of August, one 10th of those in just a week. Looking at those numbers it seems M.I.A. hit the jackpot as the trailer seemed to launch the song to new heights and is the reason why your hearing it on the top 40 chart today.

Music as you might know is the most popular category on YouTube. Recently the ever reigning Evolution of Dance was beat out as the all time most watched video on YouTube by the Canadian singer Avril Lavign. Avril became the first person in history with a video to crack 100 million views with her song Girlfriend.

100 million, That’s insane!! It redefines the classic idea of fame being based on record sales. Fame in the music business is no longer tracked by the number of albums on the shelf anymore. We started looking at the YouTube.com indicators for Paper Planes around the beginning of August and have been amazed at the results since.

The movie itself didn’t do so bad either. At last check box office receipts totalled $93 million. Some could argue that Paper Planes was a big part of that success. Maybe Apatow should be sending M.I.A. the thank you card?

This type of marketing relationship is not easy to identify. What is certain however, is that in 2007 and early 2008 Paper Planes wasn’t on the popularity map, but it is now. For a stakeholder in either M.I.A’s music career or the Apatow house they were probably not looking at YouTube videos as an indication of success, but watching their fame blow up on YouTube like it did in August could arguably be considered a legitimate rating tool.

In the next few years as the rules of the Web 2.0 game continue to evolve and turn the entertainment industry on its head, marketers are no doubt evolving as well. This revolution is opening an opportunity for some to jump in and associate their brand with popular music. The agency that can harness that power and see the same rise in viral success for one of their big brand clients will set the bar for all others to follow.

In the mean time, keep watching Paper Planes… we’ll be interested to see how high it flys because its not done yet.