Player Review: Blip.tv

Blip.tv has so many great features and vision for internet video, we at the T-Cast want so much to love them. But they aren't making it easy.

The user profile dashboard seems simple enough until you try to navigate, menu items come and go, and loop you around. On some screens you have two menus one in blue one in grey with the title "Express Goodness". Its all really not intuitive.

But our main complaint is with the Playlist/Showpage organization of the videos. Your show page plays most recent to oldest, which isn't great for most shows. If you use the syndicate feature at the top right, you can get embed code that reverses the order. But you better have uploaded them in order because there isn't any way to change it later. You'd think this would be where a playlist system would step in, but no. And that isn't its only shortcoming. To load the playlist with videos you have to go to each video and add it to the playlist. Once you have them all in there , you can adjust numbers to order them. But doing so doesn't effect the RSS syndication options at the bottom right of the playlist page.

Still their player is nice. Check out the embedded syndication tools like "Tell-a-Friend" "video series embed code" and "preset RSS syndication, including iTunes".



You also get a "pop-in" of the show data and other episodes (showpage order). The full screen looks great and their are a wide array of ad options you can control. The post-roll ads appear between each video in your channel are high quality television ads, and your view can choose to skip to the next video at any time.

The views and ad revenue seems to be comparable to the new Revver scheme where earnings are made on impressions. There are stats for clicks, but they didn't seem to earn. We have tried driving traffic to these videos yet, so we can't say if the earnings are better or worse on syndication.

All in all, a nice player. The site has great potential but needs a total overhaul, as does the playlist/showpage controls. The Analytics is good compared to Blip's competitors, but it would be better if the views and revenue charts and graphs were on the same page so you could compare them. Definitely a site to watch.

Comming Soon! Reworking of the Caster sites

So the three simple click fiction video directories are just costing to much and as Canadian operators we don't have access to YouTube's video advertising network, so we are reworking the three sites into blogs that will catalog and promote fiction based comedy, drama and science fiction.

Each posting will provide links to the series collections and websites, and include a sample video. If you would like your fiction based or character driven comedy, sci-fi, or drama. Please email - contact @ comedycaster.com -

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly of Internet Video

YouTube - www.youtube.com

The Good - YouTube is the king of traffic and community. It has basic syndication tool with a strong viral player that can be embedded and syndicated.

The Bad - YouTube still doesn't have a revenue vehicle that every content producers can tap into. There is the beginnings of such a development, but its focused on syndicators, not producers. Only US syndicators can access the program by linking their Adsense account to there YouTube accounts. A small number of premium producers have access to the other side of the YouTube ad network as a beta pilot that has continued for over a year.

The Ugly - Pirated content galore, and piles of poorly organized videos makes the whole site a mess. Even with Google's "King of Search" muscle, you can't find anything specific and end up floating around hoping to find stuff.


Revver - www.revver.com

The Good - Revver has the best syndication tools on the market. You can distribute in flash and quicktime over open API generated feeds, javascript and embed code. The ad network does an bottom margin overlay ad and a post slate of ads. This is currently the only open-for-all, 100% legal video and advertising delivery network.

The Bad - Revver's site itself doesn't have much traffic so you'll have to get out there and promote your shows. They have recently added a basic set of social networking features to a newly designed more powerful site, but the site still lacks in the traffic generation department.

The Ugly - Ad revenues have been falling and they have changed the way the revenue is calculated. Now CPM and CPC ads are calculated out across the genre into a eCPM, so everyone shares in less in relation to the number of ad impressions their videos get. You'll need huge numbers to be able to earn a living from the Revver ad network.

Metacafe - www.metacafe.com

The Good - This site had solid community and your videos will get traffic right from the start. You'll get 100 views before the submission process is over. There is no pirated content here, everything is reviewed by real people.

The Bad - Acceptance to the revenue program is based on a user rating system that is tough to crack. You need a rating of 3.0 and 20 000 views.

The Ugly - The community is very aggressive and competitive. Expect to get at least one of your video attacked by way of a nasty comment. The site is also very conservative and racy content gets rejected by the reviewers.

Veoh - www.veoh.com

The Good - If each company had to choose one aspect of the business to focus on, Veoh chose relationship building. They have signed deals with most of mainstream Hollywood and 6 months ago looked like the leader of the "Non-YouTube" contenders in the online video market. They also managed to avoid the kind of law suites that a network with as much pirated content as they have should face.

The Bad - Although Veoh has a decent embedable player, their main business model is a downloaded application player. This is a loosing model pretty much everywhere it's tried. Not only that, Veoh's application player is poorly coded without the courtesy features one would expect like control over the program's use of the Window's Taskbar. Three month's ago, much to the displeasure of pirated video viewers, Voeh switched their embedded players to a five minute preview, that would lead you to a download of that file.

The Ugly - As a result of this major change, the site's traffic has dropped significantly. The site hasn't even begun an advertising supported strategy having put all their money into the "Rent" or "Buy" to watch models.

Stage6 - www.stage6.com

The Good - Stage6 and Divx have the best player on the market. In fact when you upload to YouTube, your best option is to use the DivxHDi format. Its small file size and stable playback makes it a pack leader, but what makes it a star is the thousands of devices (mainly DVD players) that support Divx.

The Bad - The site is weak. Although it looks good it's often slow. On the syndication side it's quite good, so link sites have used it as a backbone for the distribution of pirated television and movies. In recent month's Stage6 has moved against the pirates and copyrighted content is pulled down quickly.

The Ugly - Stage6 has a secret. If you notice at the end of the video they have a clickable post slate with an ad for Divx. The company has not created their own ad network because their main business is licensing Divx to third part hardware manufacturers. Their site claims to be working toward a "Rent" or "Buy" to watch model that won't be successful. When asked if they will release that ad spot for content creators to insert their own advertising, they rejected that as never being an option. They want the sweet spot at the end of the video for themselves but aren't to sure what to do with it.

Producer's behind the T-Cast Network Launch New show!

See it here first, then watch the rest of the series in the coming weeks at www.tightsandfights.com

Captain Euchre is Fighting Crime... without a Full Deck!

Tights and Fights, An Innovative New Canadian
Comedy Series, Launches October 26!

(Toronto, ON) Soon to be airing on Movieola—The Short Film Channel (www.movieola.ca), the short form, multi-platform comedy Tights and Fights will be available for viewing online starting Friday October 26, 2007, at www.tightsandfights.com.

Tights and Fights is a fictional video diary of the ups and downs (and sideways) of a Canadian super-hero, Captain Euchre (played by writer/producer Scott Albert). Once a highly ranked player on the professional Euchre circuit, Captain Euchre now fights crime using a Euchre card deck which was exposed to mysterious cosmic radiation! Using his webcam, Captain Euchre keeps us updated about his daily life – whether he’s bogged down in meetings with Ronin Force, fighting Librarian Marm or the Salad King, or dating Dynagal, each hilarious episode contrasts the comic book clichés of being a super-hero with the frustrations of modern life.

Created expressly for the demands of multi-platform distribution, Tights and Fights is simultaneously distributed online, on mobile, and traditional broadcast. Each episode is less than five minutes long, making it ideal for viewers looking for a “content snack” on the go or just a quick break, while the ongoing storyline is also perfect for someone to sit back on the couch and watch a number of episodes in a row. The current storyline of 52 episodes will last until March 2008, with plans for a new batch of episodes to begin soon after.

With this ongoing series, GopherX.net is building on the run-away success of our previous multi-platform series, the animated six episode limited series The Retired Porn Producer’s Guide To... which has received over 100,000 views across the internet since its launch last year. It is currently airing on Movieola—The Short Film Channel and is distributed on mobile by Big Bang Pictures. A second 12 episode limited series, Team Leader, is currently in post-production, with a launch expected by the end of the year.

GopherX.net is a partnership between Christopher Guest and Scott Albert. Gopher X and The Retired Porn Producer’s Guide To... has been featured on G4 Tech TV’s Torrent TV, and has been covered by C21 Media and Playback Magazine. Tights and Fights can currently be seen on Movieola—The Short Film Channel and after October 26, 2007 at www.tightsandfights.com.

For More Information, please email contact@gopherx.net

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Check them out on ComedyCaster in the near future.

Results on Binkx Adhoc Network

So the results are in on how the Blinkx Adhoc network operates. Although the process for adding the ads and posting the ad enabled video is simple and easy, there is a major problem with the amount of communication from that goes on between the network and the site while the page is loading, causing a major load time delays.

As for payout, you'll get somewhere between 3 and 4 cents per click. Not bad considering the starting price for advertisers on the network is 5 cents.

Another issue is that some of the video posting sites will actually strip out the ads before displaying the video on their site making it a lot less "viral" than other networks.

All in all, its a interesting development that may be suitable for sites with only one video per page, but is not viable for video centric blogs that will display a number of videos at once.

Blinkx AdHoc a Strong Alternative to Video Ad Insertion

Looking to squeeze a bit more advertising into your shared video offerings. Blinkx has a new easy solution, but does it work?

Blinkx is taking a different approach to their video advertising network. They are auto inserting contextual advertising into the shared embedded video from other hosting sites like YouTube, Revver, and Veoh. The process is so simple. You sign up for an account, which only requires your email address, a password and your paypal email. Then copy and paste the embed code from your favorite video hosting site and presto, Blinkx gives you a new embed code that will drive their advertising. You can choose to have the ads float over the top of the video or above video all together.

Blinkx states that the ads come from a variety of third party advertising networks providing CPM, CPC and CPA advertising, as well as Blinkx's own advertiser network which offers cost-per-click starting at $0.05. They don't say how much of that will end up with the publisher, but we'll find out and let you know in a future post.

On testing, no advertising was presented and it seemed to really slow down the video serving. Of the hosting sites tested only Stage6's embed code failed to sync with Blinkx's processes. Below are examples of the same video hosted on different sites displaying Blinkx advertising.

YouTube:

Revver:

Veoh:

If you notice any bugs when these videos stream, please leave a comment.