Pacific papers beware: YouTube is coming

GOOGLE is going to get bigger and more aggressive in the Pacific markets in the next 12 months. No surprises there, especially at Fairfax Media in Sydney where staff are watching the web firm’s new offices being built brick by metaphorical brick, writes Mark Hollands.

One of Google’s prized processions is YouTube. It should be. It cost them enough. $US1.65 billion in fact. And you’d be crazy if you did not think YouTube will be yet another media property in your market place, trying to cut your lunch, before 2009 is finished – recession or no recession.

But YouTube’s got some image problems with the big and medium-sized brands right now. Principally, who wants to have their product advertised alongside an illegal download of The OC or South Park? No, thank you. Not a good look if the client company takes the value of its own IP seriously.

It could be worse. A multi-million-dollar investment to bring a new car to market could pop up next to some street kid doing donuts in a hot car. Potential career suicide for a marketer. And let’s not get into the porn and kinky stuff.

All this is a hassle for YouTube right now.

But it’s an internet company – management don’t sit around all day trying to synchronise calendars to talk endlessly about the problem. They take action.

One of my favourite tech sites, TechRepublic, is going to get into how YouTube is responding to the challenge. Why should newspaper people care? Because YouTube will soon be a very real competitor. If you cannot conceive them being in your neighborhood, get your head out of the sand.

TechRepublic is about to webcast about what YouTube is doing to resolve the issue of illegal videos and better alignment of ads to appropriate videos. This should be great competitive information for you.

Here’s how TechRepublic spins it:

Two years ago, illegal use of professionally created video was rampant on the web, particularly on video sharing sites such as YouTube. Among those most visibly undercut were NBC Universal and Viacom, which filed a $1 billion suit against YouTube parent Google to stop illicit publishing of their content.

Now, a year after YouTube introduced its Video Identification tool to stem misuse, you can hear from and talk directly with Rick Cotton, the general counsel for NBC, on how automated systems for identifying and protecting professionally produced content are working, particularly at YouTube.

Click here to register for the live webcast next week.

Deja video: different media, same storytelling

Some golden nuggets about online video that would be of value to any editor or journalist involved with their newspaper’s website came out of a Telstra Business event in Sydney last night, writes Brett Taylor.

Social networkers, broadcasters and businesses told how they are using online video in innovative ways at the Net Generation: The Future is Video event.

There were lessons for news publishers about how to best utilise this medium – with a strong focus on ‘audience first’ – amid the talk of monetising UBs and the usual technical hiccups with video (how ironic!).

SBS has leveraged its TV content to grow online video views by 223 percent, up to 500,000 views per week, the Australian broadcaster’s director commercial affairs, Richard Finlayson, revealed.

His advice was:

Newspaper-produced video: quality vs. quantity?

The redoubtable Rob Curley formerly of the Lawrence World Journal, Washingtonpost.com and now of the Las Vegas Sun has a typically informative post about the balance between quality and quantity in newspaper produced web video.

It’s not strictly a digital business topic, but relevant nevertheless to the economics of online news publishing …

At the Sun, Curley says:

“We’ve hired skilled video shooters and editors with professional backgrounds. Our videos look great — as good, if not better than a lot of local television stations around the country, and probably better than almost any other newspaper out there … with the exception of The Washington Post and NY Times, who have basically gone with a pretty-dang polished documentary look.

One likely big difference between shooters at The Post and The Times is that all of our videographers here at Greenspun Interactive are basically expected to produce a piece a day. Everyday.”

Volume is critical, and the cost of doing original video is high. Is it paying off?

Free TV news up for grabs

TV reporters are like policemen – they seem to get younger every day. Queensland University of Technology is unashamed about this, launching a student-run TV news bulletin three nights a week for the Brisbane area.