Best Practices for Producing and Distributing Video

Rebecca Osborne, India Kee, Patrice Myers
MIST 7500: Internet Technology
G2 – Video Best Practices

Even though the capability to embed videos in web pages has been around since the inception of Macromedia Flash (now Adobe Flash) in 1996, the widespread use of video online has only become truly mainstream during the past few years. Therefore, the guidelines and best practices for Internet videos have still not been completely codified yet. However, in 2005, Adobe posted some best practices for delivering video content:

Stream. There are three ways to deliver video content: downloading, progressive downloading, and streaming. If a user has to download a video file to play, he or she has to wait until the entire file downloads in order to watch it. In the case of large files (TV shows or movies, for example), this can take over an hour. Progressive downloading stores the meta information necessary for playback at the front of the file instead of the back, allowing the user to start playing the file before it finishes downloading. Streaming does not download the file to the user's computer at all. Not only does this let users view live events, it also protects the creator's copyright, since the data is never stored anywhere but the server.
Pause. If the video loads with the first frame displayed and the video paused, the user can a) get a cursory idea of the video's content and b) decide if and when they want the video to start. YouTube is a high-profile offender: if you search for a video, then open multiple videos in new windows or tabs in your browser, all of them start playing at once and you have to manually pause each one.
Preview. This does not seem to be widely implemented, but Adobe suggests playing a five-second clip on mouseover. This would give a better impression of the video's content than just showing the first frame.
Detect. Some users simply do not have Internet connections that can handle large downloads. If at all possible, a lower-quality version of the video should be available. If working with Flash Media Interactive Server, the Server auto-detects the user's connection speed and serves up the video with the optimal quality for that connection.
Standardize. There are common naming conventions to be observed. If a movie called "filename" is encoded at 600 Kbps, the Flash movie file should be named "filename_600". This allows the Flash Media Interactive Server to more easily deliver the proper file according to the connection speed it detected.
Trace. Trace statements aid in identifying server side errors by following the application access activity on the server. It allows you to debug before the page even reaches the user.
Optimize. The most annoying facet of streaming video is rebuffering. Make sure that you calculate the buffer time accurately. Adobe provides a tutorial on how to calculate this.
Define. Who are you trying to reach? What are their connection limitations? Is the majority of your audience on dial-up? Answering these questions will help you determine what video content you can provide.
Encode. The only way to distribute high-quality video is if it is encoded properly.

Other sites add a few more things to think about:

• Arun Chaudhary suggests that when shooting video initially, you should find a location that will enable you to get good sound. Visuals are not nearly as informative if there are no discernible sounds to accompany them. Also, choose descriptive video titles to aid in searching.
• Eric Carlsen suggests that companies should invest in hiring a video professional instead of displaying "user-generated" content. This avoids the amateur feel that pervades many YouTube videos.

In short, the basic underpinnings of video distribution best practices are similar to those of search engine optimization: Create good-quality content that is relevant and easy to find and view, and the visitors will come.

Midterm

Ok - So I feel like a bit of a doof.  I just took a quick look at a couple of other midterms out there and realized that papers written for classes typically are not single spaced.  Oops.  It has been a few years since I was a student.  So I would like to publicly apologize to Dr. Peircy for the extra reading.  While I truly enjoyed this assignment, it occured to me last night when I had no interest in re-reading what I had written.  Well, Dr. Peircy has to read about, what?, 30 or so of these.  And then I have the nerve to go all single space on everybody.  Not cool.  Not cool.

7500 Midterm Exam RO

Software as a Service

If I have something that works well I don’t really have any interest in learning something new. It is not that I don’t like to learn. It is just that it took me years to become an efficient user of Word and Excel. I am that person that knows all of their obscure features and uses them. In a business plan that some friends and I just wrote up, I put together the spreadsheets for the financial plan. It was full of detailed formulas that allowed us to change the retail or wholesale price of our product in one place and have the information propagate through the entire five year mock up. It allowed us to adjust our assumptions for the amount of product sold in January while the spreadsheet formulas automatically amended the production hours worked, cost of raw materials, and income made. It was pretty nifty, if I do say so myself.


The point of this is that I come into this wanting everything I have had in the past with the additional capability of sharing these documents more efficiently and any cool new toys that they want to throw in. While I am excited about great new ways of doing things, I am realistic about what it takes to make me a true convert.

Using the tools that I know
After playing with Google Docs and Zoho, the majority of things match up with Excel and Word. One notable exception for me is both are missing the formula feature that uses color to match cells up to the formulas. It is not something that I am willing to be without if I am seriously putting together a spreadsheet.

But then there are some things that are more convenient than my ol’ MS Office Suite 2003. In Zoho, there is very little searching for capabilities like center align or date formatting. Everything is there and super easy to use. In Google Docs, they provide the ability to sort your columns at the column headers without having to add in the capability. Also, they have a section called “gadgets” which seems fun…there isn’t anything in there that looks immediately essential…but there is entertaining stuff like an image that is linked to a field that shows an image of a stack of money associated with the field or gauges that show the red, yellow, and green zones along with a needle pointing to the appropriate value. There is also a Form feature that I think has the potential to be very handy.

Sharing these tools with others
So, I haven’t tested this as much as I would like…..but I do like that my friends, one of which has a Mac can look at the spreadsheet. Also, if I had thought of this a little earlier it would have saved on copies galore of the business plan floating around.

Cool new stuff
I’d like to go into this more…but I have already been entirely too wordy (as usual). So, I am just going to point out that I may be a convert to the day planner and task lists on Google. They link to my iPhone and I don’t have to populate my iPhone with all of the contacts and Outlook items associated with work as that would just be too much. . I love lists. I love my iPhone. I do believe that this is a match made in heaven.

Interactive TV, linking consumers to advertisers

Last night Ron Swift asked us how we could track actual advertisements with consumer consumption. Did the consumer get lured into the store by walking by it? Or did they see something online and come in to try it on and then purchase? E-mail and online coupons allow the store to link their online marketing to actual sales. Yet, television advertising is still a mystery. Who knows how many sales can be associated with those ads?

Over the next year, TV watchers in the NY area will have a new way of interacting with some of their commercials. Optimum Select is launching a new advertising service that will give TV viewers the power to snag coupons, have free samples delivered or learn more about products in commercials by clicking their remote.

Of course we know that this also means that those advertisers will be learning a lot more about you as well. That coupon will be printed or placed on your iPhone and link your purchase online or in the store to your TV watching habits. As with so many things today – fascinating, cool, and creepy all at the same time….

All of this is looking to a future in which every TV show can be a virtual store in which we can laugh at Tina Fey’s joke and then use our remotes to buy her shoes (or her typewriter). I know that product placement is already everywhere…but it will be interesting to see how this will change TV even more.

the Hulu Chain

After playing with Hulu, pondering Hulu, and then reading an assortment of articles about Hulu, I am swimming in Hulu tidbits that seem to all link together…

• Hulu is free and consequently spreading like wildfire (ok – it might be that Alec Baldwin commercial too)
• Right now Hulu is losing money…about 9 million in the last year
• Speaking of…how do they make money?  With advertising just like major network TV
• Through the thumbs up thumbs down option, advertisers are getting feedback from users on the ads created for Hulu
• Watchers, in turn, are getting ads tailored to their interests (although not necessarily products that match up – I like ads for things I have no interest in buying)
• Why are NBC, CBS, etc providing their shows to Hulu?  What are they getting?  Well, I read that Hulu shares about 70% of their income with their content partners. 
• Broadband networks are now reacting to the impact of streaming video with download-oriented protocols. 
• Google now appears to be looking into figuring out how to adapt to all of our crazy streaming by working with service providers to cache some of its content for more rapid delivery.
• Hulu made me buy  a new TV - Well, ok it might have been the combo of my converter box having its final hurrah, my disinterest in another monthly financial commitment of cable when I get 20 some channels for free, and, now, the availability of Hulu.  Yesterday, I bought a TV that I can connect to my computer. 

So, what is on the horizon?

• Well, there are likely to significantly fewer dorm rooms with actual TVs
• With such a large following all ready, it is likely that Hulu will be able to make money through tweaks to their advertising and circulation strategies. 
• Rumor has it that Hulu has already hinted at the possibility of making itself a charged site
• Small independent shows without the backing of network or cable television have more of a chance to get on a site like Hulu and gain an audience
• TV shows will compete more on the merits of the individual show than based on the timeslot that it is given.  For instance, while a show might not be able to stand up against a timeslot that has it paired against The Office, it may be in the top 10 shows available via video stream
• Network and cable television will need to adapt to a revenue stream that is split between traditional advertising and advertising through sources such as Hulu and any other stream that is on the horizon

Twitter Aps

It isn’t super original, but I am going to cover the top 5 most popular Twitter applications. I figure you gotta know the basics first, right?

• Twitpic lets you share photos on Twitter. You can post from your phone, the Twitter site, or their API
• Tweetdeck apparently keeps you in contact across Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and “more” all at once. From one page, you can update your social networking sites, send your Twitter Pictures, manage multiple Twitter accounts, and organize groups.
• With a similar concept to the Tweetdeck, Disgby allows you to see e-mail, IM and social networking.
• Twitterfeed links your blog to Twitter. It automatically turns your blog entry into a tweet.
• Twitterholic is a Twitter ranking site in which the most popular Twitter-ers are tracked and ranked.

So, most of these, Twitterdeck, Digsby and Twitterfeed are essentially about multitasking. This makes sense to me. I don’t have time to social network…not even one network….much less use the wealth of tools that I am learning are out there. Having to repost to all of the various networks, blog and then follow it up with a tweet…well, I’d think it would get old.

I have a couple of reasons that I might be looking into (getting over myself and) using these sorts of tools more and more. For one, my husband is an artist. He is a woodworker making mostly furniture and the occasional boat and then other commissions that take him into other mediums than wood. I have started to blog a bit for my husband’s business as we don’t always have nice professional photos to update the website with. We do simple posts that are time consuming enough for me. But I can imagine if we expand his online presence that I will want to consolidate. We are also about to start a small company with our friends (a green coffee roasting business – organic, fair trade, bird friendly, etc). The first draft of the business plan is just about done…so we will see how useful all of this is for us when we get online stage of our business development.

Oh – and a note on the Twitpic….that actually sounds a little addicting and I don’t have time to expound on the uses..but I could see potential. While on the other end of the spectrum, Twitterholic (much like that Google Trend gadget) just seems like a dangerous waste of my time.

Interesting Annoying Legitimate?

So I have broken down the twitter uses that I have found into those that are interesting, those that annoy me and those that might actually have a valid purpose.
Interesting
Twitter as a tool for social change is intriguing.  A (student) journalist was in Egypt and had the idea to report on a protest of the government.  He was promptly arrested at which point he quickly Twittered “ARRESTED” which spread across many countries to the people had the power and the interest in getting him out of jail.  It was quite effective.  Of course, then there are the more publicized exploits of the citizen journalists in repressive China and the role of Twitter as a link to the outside world in Iranian protests.
Annoying
Making new friends – seriously?
Notify customers – Businesses aren’t going to send you a twitter once a month….it is going to be much more often…much more often.  I can’t think of any product I care enough about to interrupt my life full of actual people that I care about and care about me. 
Read News – I find the idea of synopsizing stories into 140 characters insulting.  That is not a legitimate story in which you come away understanding both sides.  It is a tool for spreading only the portions of news you want people to know.  I think that is dangerous.   So I guess this is a headline that links to a story?    Not interested.  I have plenty of sources for that in every format I could want.
Legitimate?
There are all sorts of things here that maybe sorta might be legitimate: find prospects, take notes, set up meetings, etc.  But I have yet to figure out why Twitter is key in any of these things.

But frankly, I might not be the target market.  I have tried to give it a chance.  I mean if Dan Schorr can adapt…I should be able to.  But, I can’t think of anything that I want to know about right away.  My life is so busy and over scheduled that frivolous interruptions annoy me.  If I am interrupted, it had better be by the sweet sounds of my husband, my mom or dad or one of my friends….again those actual human beings that are a part of my life and want to have real interactions with me as an individual and not as part of some silly mass communication tool.