Content Update: ComedyCaster

We have three new shows for you on ComedyCaster including this one:


That's right, it stars a dog named Jett. Check out the rest of the series.

Service Report: Revver

On April 10th T-Cast Editors contacted Revver support about inconsistencies in the new reporting system was tallying views and clicks. It is now April 14th and the validity of the reports are still in question. Revver's initial response explained the problem as such:

Couple of things here, all related to one bug that was causing duplicate views on videos over the last 24 hours. To fix the problem, we had to reset our view aggregators. Reset doesn't mean "started over," and you're not going to lose credit for any views. It just means recounted, so you're viewcount will be corrected of any duplicate views and should be back to normal by later tonight. If you haven't seen your viewcounts increased by tomorrow let us know.

The next day the reports where still changing and videos that where earning 1-2 clicks a day were still not reporting any earnings. So we continued our inquiry:

My reports still don't make any sense. The Summary says one clip downloaded more times than the total for the day according to the by month report.

Does this effect clicks for those days?

Revver's Response:

Due to the duplicate view bug, the events aggregator had to be re-run - which means that views and earnings (two different kinds of "events") had to be re-aggregated and displayed on the site. So your earnings were also recounted, which means they would have dropped and slowly built back up. The events aggregator is still catching up, but your earnings will be back to their previous levels by tomorrow.

Are video's are in fact earning again, and the reports are as expected except for April 10 where we had a 40% decline in views only. Completed views where as expected. We plan to follow up on Monday, but what we are seeing when we compare our other reporting tools (Feedburner and Google Analytics) is that no embedded video views have been counted for April 10. 100% of the views on that day came from our rss feed.

There are a number of outstanding issue's within Revver's automated reports. There is still no data that would assist in the syndication of videos for either the producer or the syndicator.

Promotion Strategies: Lessons from Traditional Media

Big or small, if you want your film or video series to be successful you need as many people to see it as possible. The major studios and television networks know this better than anyone, and along with star filled casts, special effects and distributions strategies, proper promotion provides a foundation for blockbuster success.

Take Titanic, for example. Its budget has been estimated at a cool $200 million, approximately $25 million of which went to promotion. ( This Magazine)

Unsuccessful marketing and promotion can kill even the best movies, while movies roundly rejected by audiences can still become box office hits based on strong opening weekend numbers. Sure word-of-mouth audience activities can impact the films overall run, but if the audience doesn't know about a movie in the first place, there is little change that chit-chat can drive people to the theatre.

The same is true for Internet productions. Everyone hope that their video will "go viral" and be seen by millions of viewers. Once again, it needs to start somewhere and without a promotion budget your film or Internet series is likely to be lost in the sea of vlogs and webcam strip teases.

This is not a new problem, take MOWs (movies of the week) for example. These movies rarely have stars or special effects and marketing budgets are small if they exist at all. It is common to see these and other low budget movies band together, providing a broadcasts with a package of shows that can fill various time blocks in their schedule. This strategy provides exposure and revenue to movies that would otherwise never be seen.

With the nature of traditional broadcast and distribution industries changing to adapt to the internet, traditional marketing, promotion and distribution strategies need to adapt but not forget the lessons of the past 50 years. Your internet series will still need a promotions budget, sound and consistent distribution and properly networked packaging. The T-Cast Network Channels ( ComedyCaster, DramaCaster and Sci-FiCaster) can assist with all three of these activities.

By T-Casting, your shows are networked with other productions in the same form and genre instead of connecting similar viewers like YouTube, myspace, and other social network video sites. It provides simple click distribution, no login or search required, and because the content is streamed the producer maintains control of the over all presentation and revenue generation. And lastly the T-Cast Network generates its own promotion budget, that it uses to bring viewers to your content. Quite simply with the T-Cast Network, your videos have a far greater chance of getting the exposure needed to make the show a success.

Featured Series: "Can We Do That?"

In “Can We Do That?“, the trio of Ski-ter, Cory and Charles own a production company that film edgy, extreme and hilarious tv commercials that have viewers scratching their heads asking “Can They Do That?” In real life, ironically, the three enjoy successful acting careers in commercials, television, and film making people ask “Where have I seen them before?”

This is a great show that really finds a place in the digital space. The episodes are short, punchy, and out right hilarious. The production shows good economy, and with only a few audio problems the series really shows how simple ideas can make compelling low cost video. The action and fight sequences are over the top, and the girl at the front of each episode, genius!

We're featuring one of the talky episodes from early in the series, check the rest out on ComedyCaster or visit their website at http://canwedothat.net/

Video Sharing Evaluation: Revver - Part 2

Revver.com is a trail-blazer in terms of advertising supported video syndication, in the first part of this evaluation we explored Revver's Website and syndication services which identified a number weaknesses but over all proved it to be a great syndication service. In this posting we will evaluate the service's monetization and promotion tools.

Monetization
With the release of Revver's new reporting took it is now possible to see which videos are downloading, but more valuable than that you can see which videos are holding viewers to its completion and which videos are converting clicks. This has radically changed our understanding of revenue streams on Revver's service.

When you look at revver's download numbers you will find that they are a fraction of that of other video sharing services, but as it turns out this is because until last week Revver only reported completed views. Now that the details are out we can see that only 10-20% of views started were completed, this is a huge factor in the success of a video clip as there is little chance of converting a view to a click if the viewer doesn't actually the clip long enough to see the advertisement. Conversion rates for completed views are actually quite good (10-50%), with some clips vastly out performing others.

Payment per click averages $0.25 - $0.30 which boils down to $0.03 - $0.12 per view for completed views. Shorter clips had many more completed views than the longer clips, while one of our clips entitled "Blogging" converted almost 50% of completed views into clicks. Metadata was the same for clips in the series, suggesting that file title has a large impact on the quality of advertising presented at the end of the video.

Over all average revenue for all views (completed or otherwise) calculates to less than $0.01, making it comparable to MetaCafe's per impression payment of $0.005. There are factors however that impact Revver's revenue potential including, video file length, title, metadata and relative entertainment value. If a clip is short, well put together, holds the attention of its audience to its completion and is positioned properly with suitable advertising, revenue potential on the service could be much higher.

Promotion
Promotion is the biggest problem facing video producer's large and small. What's the point of earning pennies on your videos if those pennies never add up to the thousands of dollars that are required to producer high quality content. So how does Revver promote your videos?

I already mentioned the problems with Revver's website and the strength of its syndication network, but Revver goes beyond that by promoting your clips on their iTunes channel as well as providing permlinks that can be used in RSS feeds for podcasting. Revver has deals with cellphone carriers, most notably Verizon, that can generate higher revenues than advertising.

Revver also supports syndicators like the T-Cast Network by providing 20% share of click through advertising revenue. No doubt all the video sharing services will eventually institute similar programs as a way of ensuring large amount of consistent traffic to videos.

Video Sharing Evaluation: Revver - Part 1

If you've been reading this blog you'll know that, for all its problems, we believe www.revver.com to be one of the best video syndication/monetization sites out there. In this first posting we will detail the pros and cons of Revver's website and syndication tools.

Website
The website has some real problems. Its ajax interface is sloppy, slow and may be the doom of the service since it isn't really all that enjoyable entertainment experience. The quality of the actual video playback and its transcoding is quite good, but unlike iTunes and Stage6, Revver doesn't have its own codec technology so video quality is only as good as the uploaded file. After uploading your video it will be in flash and quicktime, and your thumbnails are generated automatically.

The flash player is solid and loads quickly, and is used for video playback on the site. The search functions are pretty basic, as the metadata indexing seems to be weak in general. There are channels, most notably Lonelygirl15, Ask a Ninja, and V Cast Videos from Verzion. User uploads seem to be made into channels automatically, but you search by user not channel. Most noticeably absent from the site is the ability to create a content producer profile, at the vary least they could have a place to promote a link to the producer's website.

Syndication
Syndication is generally Revver's strong point. Even when website service was down during Revver's recent growing pains, our syndicated videos continued to play. Your syndication choices are:

- Flash using Javascript
- Quicktime for Myspace (<EMBED>)
- Flash Embed
- Quicktime using Javascript
- Thumbnail link

These simple cut and paste codes provide much more variety than YouTube, AtomFilms, and Veoh. They are easily modified and allow for syndication without having to delve into Revver's API.

Advertising is delivered with your syndicated content. Just as it does on the site, the ad plays at the end of the video only once ending on a still frame advertisement. The advertising is clean, varied and seems to be converting between 10-50% of the time. We will post details of the revenue sharing service in a second posting.

Certainly Revver is more of a syndication service than a social network. Your videos are screened to ensure copyright and content eligibility, and its player, streaming capability and advertising are clean and robust. Really a great video hosting/syndication service for independent producers, but is unlikely to bring you strong viewership. You will be responsible for promoting your videos on services like the T-Cast Network Channels ( www.comedycaster.com , www.dramacaster.com , www.scificaster.com).

Making Money from Internet Video and the T-Cast Network

So as promised, we will detail in this blog how to make money with internet video and the T-Cast Network. To make a real go at producing content for the multiplatform face a producer must understand that revenue streams are small but diverse, and the best way to build financial stability is to take advantage of as many distribution strategies as possible. What are these strategies? What does Multiplatform mean? Don't worry we'll lay everything out for you.



Multiplatform Content


Multiplatform content is any content that is created to be distributed over a variety of networks and devices. A video that is made for Television, cellphones, the internet, iTunes store, and podcasting, to name a few, would be considered Multiplatform. What's important in the idea of multiplatform content is not where or how it will be seen, but whether or not the content is suitable for diverse formats. Large landscape scenes might not play well on a 2 inch screen, while a story without character and plot development may seem empty on 52 inch television. Also you must keep in mind that at present there are many restrictions in terms of video file length, compression and bandwidth. All of these are very important considerations for media of this type.


So how can you monetize multiplatform content? Well that is a far reaching question, but basically the more devices your content is syndicated to, the more money you will make. The major markets today for short-form content are as follows:


Cellphone/Mobile
Mobile content never really achieved much traction in the North American market. There are many reasons for this, but perhaps the most obvious one is related to the billing structure of mobile phone carriers in Canada and the US. In Europe and Asia, where cellphone use has outpaced internet penetration, mobile content has flourished into international successes. We will provide everything you need to know about cellphone content aggregators in future postings, including who you should speak to and where you will make the most money.


Short-form Television Channels
There are a number of television channels attempting to bridge the divide between internet and traditional television. These companies are facing more challenges than they imagined, but are desperate for suitable content. In a future posting we will critique the programming and business strategies of these television channels.


Pay-per-download and Subscription Services
Pay-per-download and subscription services have proven successful in the past but face a major hurdle related to e-commerce, people are simply hesitant to pay for entertainment. The model has proved to be extremely viable for well known productions, including Desperate Housewives and the Ricky Gervis Audio Podcast, were interest in the show is so high that to not charge a fee would make it almost impossible to continue to distribute the content.


iTunes is the big imbracer of pay-per-download and subscription model. Besides the iTunes store, many adult content producers are charging subscription fee to access content via iTunes syndication. There has been rumours for quite a while that iTunes will open its marketplace to independent content producers on a revenue sharing basis, but has not instituted such a program at this time.


Advertising Supported Content Distribution
For an independent production looking to get noticed, advertising supported distribution is the first step toward making money and this is where the T-Cast Network Channels come in.

There are ways of inserting advertising in to your show. You could sell your own advertising, the going rate is $0.05 per-download which was first achieved with great short term success by Rocketboom in 2006. With close to a million downloads a week, the show suddenly had revenues of over $100 000 per month. But selling advertising space is difficult and leads to many problems including self-censorship and audience reaction to overt advertising campaigns.


Another option is to use a video sharing service that supports revenue-sharing like http://www.revver.com/ and http://www.atomfilms.com/ . We will examine these and other programs in another posting, but it deserves to be mentioned that these two services currently offer the best opportunity for independent content revenue generation. No doubt it is only a matter of time before all video sharing sites offer similar revenue sharing programs.


Both Revver and Atomfilms auto-insert context sensitive advertising into your content and offer syndication tools required by the T-Cast Network Channels. Revver generate revenue on a click through bases meaning your viewer needs to click the ad before you get paid. AtomFilms pays on a per view bases as one of the ways they provide revenue to producers.



AtomFilms is a unique case that deserves its own posting, but we have done some tests of Revver that reveal the potential of its model. Click though advertising from Revver generates a decent sum per click, but averaged out over the all your downloads or views, you should not expect to make much more than $0.025 per download. Remember this is a "revenue sharing" service where Revver takes 50% of your revenues in exchange for hosting and syndicating your content before providing you with the rest. This is in line with market forces and the $0.05 per download benchmark. We will provide details of all the services Revver offers in another posting, but for the ease of signing up Revver is your best bet to make money from the T-Cast Network Channel marketing strategy.


Start Making Money by T-Casting

Quite simple if you have fiction based and character driven videos or series, upload them to Revver or AtomFilms then notify us of the link, if we like the show we will post it and start sending viewers your way. If your show has already been found and added to the T-Cast Network, but is being syndicated via YouTube, upload to Revver, inform us of the link and we will switch your show's source to Revver.


Check back to this blog on a regular bases to learn more about how to generate revenue with your content.

Cost vs. Popularity

It might be possible to produce a small cheap video, have it go viral and become the next big talent on SNL or be bought out by Disney for millions, but that's hardly the basis for a business of any kind. So how do you afford to make something worth coming back to again and again, something you can monetize over and over again into a internet savvy business.

Now I should start by saying that we haven't totally succeed in many of our ideas. Some of the pieces aren't quite in place in relation revenue shared syndication, or are on the verge of developing, and we have our own challenges with start up capital for relatively risky production. But we are well on our way to building a sustainable production model.

The problem is one of scale. You need a lot of episodes downloaded a lot times. Lonelygirl15 is an obvious example. With 150 episodes downloaded millions of times, its easy to see why its so successful. It has simple sets and characters, posts regularly, and has just enough production value to make it watchable over a longer period of time.

So like them, you'll have to start producing episodes long before you really make any money, but you also need it to download a lot. This is where the T-Cast Network Channels come in. They are simple link lists of shows, and random clips, syndicated from file sharing sites like YouTube/Google, Revver, and AtomFilms. It will help bring the number of viewers you need to make your show successful, using an adwords/adsence traffic engine. In future postings we will detail how producers can monetize their show with other advertising services.

These service are in the infancy so patience is still needed, but having the content is half the battle so check out some shows already posted, see what others are doing. And let us know if you've seen any shows that aren't on our list, we'll post them, details are on the "Contact us" pages on each channel.