Streaming Media East 2005 Wrap-Up: Part II

Ad Insertion Tools
For quite awhile, the "Using Streaming & Rich Media Ad Insertion Tools" panel strayed from the topic of ad insertion tools to discuss the individual businesses of panelists. Once everyone got down to the topic at hand, however, the panelists offered a great deal of insight as to what is working and what is not when it comes to inserted advertising.

Steven Haimowitz, MD, president and CEO of Healthology, noted that when visitors are very motivated to see specific content, they are willing to sit through an ad beforehand. Scot McLernon, SVP of advertising sales at CBS Digital Media, explained that at MarketWatch, the company includes a 15-second ad before content. All the panelists agreed that 15 seconds is the sweet spot for ad length; it’s short enough that viewers will sit through it but long enough for advertisers to tell their stories. Benjamin Reid, VP of sales operations at About.com, agreed that a 15-second ad is most desirable, but noted that About.com will occasionally use a 30-second spot, especially from a bi-name advertiser.

The challenge, according to panelists, is that many companies still don't have 15-second creative. Also, many advertisers require extensive metrics, some of which are difficult to track. Panelists questioned whether it is really the publisher's responsibility to track and offer such information, which it is not in any other medium. There is also the question of the quality of material affecting response; "to be held accountable for (advertisers’) crappy creative seems unfair," notes Reid.

Video Search Goes Mainstream
In what was certainly the only session to show footage of monkeys doing karate, panelists at the "Video Search Goes Mainstream" session discussed how video search has become a more viable service of late. Sam Gustman, CTO of Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, discussed the Foundation's use of an extensive indexing interface to facilitate search. Because the Shoah Foundation includes interviews with survivors and witnesses to the Holocaust in 56 countries, the languages, dialects, and accents vary tremendously. So the Foundation decided that automatic indices were not going to work for them and decided to use manual indexing. Regardless of the indexing system of choice, Gustman emphasized the importance of planning, as an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure—even digitally.

"Video search is not a technology problem per se, but a business problem," explained Bradley Horowitz, director of media and desktop search for Yahoo!, during his presentation. The technology is here; it is now a matter of making it usable and valuable to users. Horowitz included an amusing example showing the power and "value" of video search: he showed a clip of a 14-year-old boy from New Jersey lip-syncing to a Bulgarian disco song. Although the boy likely never intended the world to view his enthusiastic rendition (perhaps the distribution work of an mischievous older brother?), when the clip hit the Internet it quickly became one of the top three video search queries on Yahoo!. Fifteen minutes of fame brought to you by video search.