In 9th grade, my social studies teacher taught me that the greatest marketing slogan ever were the words "rinse and repeat " that they put on shampoo bottles. There is absolutely no reason to wash your hair twice, but if anyone does, they are that much closer to buying another bottle.
A simple, and maybe as effective option for video ? Allow for downloads.
I was watching video on a news site and wanted to keep a copy of the video. This was original video to the station, so there were no copyright issues. So there was no reason for them not to allow a download.
The crazy part is that since they were using flash, it was progressive download. The video is there on the hard drive, its just a matter of making it easy for the end user to rewatch the video. Again and again and again..
Many of the major video sites have added this option, but its amazing that newspaper, TV and other sites that have recently added video, for the most part do not.
With online video, maybe adding the word "Save" to Share & Replay might not double viewing, but every additional local view not only can increase revenue, but it can eliminate paying for bandwidth for those users who go back to the original link and stream the video again.
Im just saying..
How to increase video viewership
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(Page 1)2. I think the reason is that if you allow downloads you're letting any person take the footage and edit it into anything they want. Even with watermarks that has to be a little unsettling. Also they proabably want to keep you on their website as long as possible. If you're watching on your windows media player instead of their website there's less chance you'll watch another one of their videos or click on a banner ad.
The problem isn't downloads, it's the interface. I have seen a lot of crummy video players on a lot of local news websites. It's inconceivable that every embedded video player these days be as simple and easy to use as YouTube. The problem is lousy web design.
Posted at 10:09PM on Aug 7th 2008 by HJ
4. I'm just saying...too. Sorry, but that last sentence struck me as funny!
Posted at 10:19PM on Aug 7th 2008 by Brian
5. Funny thing about "rinse and repeat"... I actually thought to bring up the question of why that was supposedly necessary during a bull session one day in college. Not only did my roommates invent an explanation for why it would be necessary (to wash out the shampoo from the first time -- never mind the question of what washes out the second go) but they actually decided the fact that I argued the point reflected badly on my hygiene!
Again, this was at college, where selling the idea of a corporate/marketing conspiracy is one of the easiest things in the world, yet they trusted that bottle absolutely implicitly!
Posted at 10:34PM on Aug 7th 2008 by KJP
6. The idea is there's no real reason to save the video MOST of the time. But, as you say, there's really no reason not to do it. I just wish every video was embeddable. Just saying...
Posted at 10:53PM on Aug 7th 2008 by chris sivori
7. I work for an Internet video company and I agree with HJ (comment 2 above).
There are multiple reasons for not allowing users to download video, including:
1) Rights. It could be a sports story with rights that only last a certain period, and allowing users to download the video would violate those rights.
2) Revenue. By allowing users to watch the video offline, they won't have to spend time on your site and won't click or see your ad banners.
3) Repurposing. There are going to be some people who use video like this for nefarious purposes (remixing into an embarrassing quote, etc). Allowing them to download it just makes it easier.
4) Removing. Say a story airs that includes footage the station decides it doesn't want people to keep viewing (maybe it includes non-factual content or information that was supposed to be confidential). If they allow video sharing, it's too late - the video could be on thousands of computers. If they don't allow sharing, all they have to do is take it down from the website.
Looking back, all four of those start with "R." Weird.
Posted at 9:03AM on Aug 8th 2008 by JoJo
8. I totally agree. Letting others download all your content only increases your market reach. As long as you use a watermark, people will see your brand, even if it was posted up on another website. Besides, who cares if it's re purposed? People need to look at this type of thing as a tool, not a negative.
Take a look at the record industry. They "leak" albums all the time in as part of their marketing plan. In turn, more people hear the album and buy merchandise, go to shows, etc.
Regarding "rinse & repeat" - another legendary advertising trick is the "brush your teeth twice a day" slogan. Toothpaste companies paid dentists to say that.
Posted at 11:21AM on Aug 8th 2008 by Myriad Video
9. You're right on with that, Mark. I work as a part-time speech teacher with the Dallas County Community Colleges. I saw a segment on the generational gap on Sixty Minutes a few months ago and asked the college to obtain a copy of that segment so I and other instructors could learn from it, and play it for our students. The college had to BUY the segment from CBS, and then order it as they do with college textbooks. What short-signtedness!
BOB
Posted at 1:08PM on Aug 8th 2008 by Bob Arnold
10. An extremely intelligent man recently wrote an article "Free is only good if someone else is paying for it". http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/07/10/free-is-only-good-if-someone-else-is-paying-for-it. Where's the money in downloading this free video?
Why what does the station really have to gain? They don't want you viewing the file from you PC multiple times. If it's that compelling they want you to return to the site so they can deliver ads ($$$) on that page.
And, if the video is that compelling they want you forwarding the link, not the actual video to your friends. Again…ad revenue.
They can't attach an ad to the video for you to download because that is copyright.
I'm very doubtful that the very little bit of brand loyalty they build by having archived video out there is greater than the ad revenue of multi-views by you and anyone you might forward the video to you.
11. That's an option I rather like as a consumer... often times because streaming the same video results in choppy playback.
For the sites though, it has to be a drawback. If you let the user download the video, then they don't need to come back to watch it again (increasing the viewership of the site and ultimately advertising money).
One alternative then would be to include short ads at the begining and end of videos, though that might annoy people more. You'd need some kind of watermark too, otherwise your video is gonna end up on someone else's site making them dinero.
12. I hate to disagree with you, Mr. Cuban, but as some of the other comments have pointed out, the problem with this suggestion is that you're letting one of your pet peeves (streaming video clogging up the internet) get in the way of another thing you preach (the need to monetize content on the web).
Presumably the cost of the bandwidth to stream the video is covered by your advertising structure (otherwise you wouldn't have streamed the video the first time - we're talking about news sites, not YouTube). If it's covered the first time, you can cover it each time. Sure, every time you stream it, you're using more bandwidth - but you're also getting more impressions for your ads and generating additional revenue.
Also, whatever happened to this?
"If you think about it, its pretty stupid to have redundant storage in every home. Paying for those ever growing hard drives, even with falling cost per bits, adds up to a lot of money . Moving that storage to a video cloud at the node or even on the backbone would make set top boxes smaller, cheaper and more flexible. The Network DVR , with space for remotely loaded internet video should be the way of the future." - http://www.blogmaverick.com/2008/07/14/the-way-to-save-internet-video/
I think it's a step backwards to advocate redundant user-end storage for our current Internet TV model when the real goal is to throw out this model all together (and to throw out redundant archiving as well).
13. Mark,
It is funny that you raise the idea about video because video is already major but many businesses don't realize it yet. I am just getting into the market of attaching video to my message in the website design and seo industry.
By the way... This is the year! This is it...
Malcom Chakery
Posted at 11:26PM on Aug 9th 2008 by Malcom Chakery
15. I think what you're saying is: just give people the option. I'm a firm believer in making content available in a variety of ways - especially in this day and age, when it's easy to repurpose content - and just let people choose how they'd like to consume it.
The comments above - that refer to someone needing to pay to make videos downloadable - those are a red herring. The content is *already* available; just make it easy to share and consume!! In the end, the audience will come back for more if you give them what they want the first time around.
Posted at 6:39PM on Aug 10th 2008 by Scott Monty
17. Rinse and repeat , its the simple thigs that turn a $
Posted at 7:30AM on Aug 11th 2008 by Daniel Bradley
20. I would put this right up there with individuals sending very large email attachments to many people. I could only imagine how much bandwidth we could save if this was an option. How many times do people visit (put your favorite video site here) to watch the same movies multiple times. Eventually people will think about a “Greener Internet”.
Posted at 2:35PM on Aug 11th 2008 by Silverman
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1. I'm glad you mentioned this as an option that needs to be on more sites. I think many have followed the model of YouTube, not realizing that since they create the content, they have the right to distribute it any way they want. I long ago started saving any video I viewed online that I knew I would want to check out again (including flv's). This has served me well given that many videos are eventually pulled for storage issues, site no longer live, etc. If YT ever figures out how to deal with copyrighted content, it would be interesting to give people the option of allowing others to download their content and seeing how many people would start downloading.
Posted at 9:40PM on Aug 7th 2008 by Shun Smith