Revver the next Google purchase, or maybe Stage6?

Google has build an empire on buying up the best innovations and integrating them into a vast advertising network. Providing free content and making billions for it. In a lot of ways Revver has what Google wants, a better player, CPC based auto insertion ad technology, and a pile of copy-right responsible content.

At T-Cast, we like the Revver model and wish them success. But there are problems with the things as they are. There is still no analytic reporting for video syndication and the revenue from those clicks is not broken down for either the syndicator or the content producer. Value of clicks are falling, but then are still better than most of the adwords content market with pay-per-click of $0.12 to $0.27.

It would seem to be smarter for the content producer to sell their own advertising, and the T-Cast producers asked Stage6's Divx support team for just such an opportunity only to be disappointed with the response. No question that the Divx authoring software is the best encoding software out there for under $50, and the Stage6.com site has proven that the player is post-roll clickable. Content producers could be running their own advertising campaigns off a wide variety of CPC, CPM and CPA advertising networks, and Divx HD quality video would be everywhere. Stage6 could be Revver for the masses.

Google needs to figure this out or it could get away from them. And there are other divx encoders out there. One of these companies has to put internet video syndication and dynamic advertising together before some hacker does.

Podcasting for Revver Ad Delivery

There is no doubt that podcast and rss distribution can drive a show's viewership, but is it effective ad delivery? RSS tracking from Feedburner.com is a great way to understand your podcast or blog viewership, and revver files are supported by iTunes and most podcast directories which provides a turn key solution to hosting and syndicating video podcasts. But in our experience the powerful distribution combination, does not convert advertising clicks in an effective way.

For our original production, The Retired Porn Producer's Guide to... we have many methods driving viewership.

Podcasting
Our podcasting feed is directed to Episode 5 (the latest episode) of the series, which downloads (or as Revver puts it "views") when the podcast is subscribed to. Roughly 30% of those go on to download another episode and 10% download them all, but in general podcasting drives 30% of our daily viewership. That episode however has performed poorly over the last month with a click through rate of 0.15%.

Adwords Promotion
Our adwords promotion efforts are directed to a landing page where Episode 1 is embedded. This activity drives 40% of our web traffic, which is about 50% of our total embed code traffic. This episode is shorter and designed to bring in viewers in general, and we have already examined episode length in relation to click through rates. The episode converts clicks at 2.5%.

The series averages a click through rate of 1.31%, so you can see podcasting drives traffic but not necessarily advertising revenue.

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.

Money Making and Video Sharing Blogs

We'd like to draw your attention to a couple of other blogs that may help you on the journey to monetize your content.

Embed My Videos is "A blog for Revver users to share and promote their videos" on which there is a great post about various places to promote and syndicate your Revver video( Embed My Video: How to promote your Revver Videos ). This blog is a great resource for people with any kind of content to promote their revver videos.

Dosh Dosh is a great blog to learn about all things money online. Posts include everything from affiliate marketing, to Adsense, to blog, podcast and website promotion. If you want to develop a master plan for a internet business this is a one stop shop and a great place to start.

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.

Service Update: Revver

Revver has finally upgraded its revenue reporting system, and has even more plans in the works according to Sean Boyd (Revver Member Services Coordinator). This upgrade was sorely needed, and will provide producers a more detailed evaluation of their content's advertising potential. If you've been reading our blog you know our estimated earnings off of Revver has thus far been approximately $0.025, but this upgrade changes and elaborates on this calculation.

We will be posting an assessment of Revver's entire service shortly, please check back.

Video Sharing Evaluation: MetaCafe

MetaCafe is another video hosting and syndication service that provides revenue to producers. Like AtomFilm, MetaCafe is a selective content distributor and all submissions must be approved by a selection committee before they are posted. The site doesn't detail exactly the type of content they are looking for, but we've had our animation rejected for its frank sexuality which I guess was to racy for even the adult filter section.

Also like AtomFilms revenues are generated on a per view (instead of a per click) bases. Canadian Press reported on March 29^th that MetaCafe "offers creators $5 for every 1000 views." For those of you who aren't that good at math, I'll break these numbers down for you.

$5/1000 views = $0.005 per view or $0.01 for two views

That's a fair bit behind what the click through service Revver.com that in our experience averages $0.025/view. These royalties are paid on consistent and predictable bases, which makes it very attractive. But does MetaCafe have the traffic to make it worth while?

An examination of the site's most viewed content reveals MetaCafe's revenue potential. The most viewed clip, "Animals vs. Humans" has 11 528 064 views over 17 months, or $57 640; the second most viewed clip, "Freaky Women in an Elevator" has 9 313 248 views over 11 months, or $46 566. Many clips have enjoyed 200 000+ views or $1000.

So MetaCafe could be a great revenue generator for producers and the clips syndicate easily on the T-Cast Network. The video ads are post roll as opposed to AtomFilms pre-roll model, which is nice because viewers aren't really all the patient. Thank you MetaCafe, for creating such an innovative service.

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.