Dave Morris NewsOK.com Blogging Community

CNet has a good look at how and why YouTube is changing its approach towards advertising, and towards user-submitted content.

In the past week YouTube has announced it will auction off search terms as part of an ad program, called Sponsored Videos, designed to enable anyone to expand the viewership of their videos. YouTube also said last week it obtained rights to post full-length movies produced by a large film studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. What this means is that YouTube has given up on the idea that user-generated content can be a successful standalone business. It’s about time.

YouTube and AOL are both deciding that people eating crickets is not the path to gold. The novelty of the absurd has its place, but it’s not what you should hang your video views and ultimately bank accounts on.

The truth is the ability of user-generated content to generate lots of cash has been in doubt for a long time. Most of the video-sharing companies that challenged YouTube two years ago have been restructured or switched business models. The most recent evidence came Saturday when TechCrunch reported that AOL will shutter the company’s lightly trafficked video-sharing service, AOL Video Uploads.

Last night, browsing through TechCrunch, I read about Google releasing a video chat feature.

I installed it this morning. Works well, of course your friends have to have cams and Gmail and be in Gchat (pretty much like with AIM or iChat), but many of my contacts don’t use Google’s features in this way.

The real advantage of this is simple: it comes from Google. Which usually means more reliability and common sense functionality. Also, it allows those using Gmail for their email to use one application instead of multiple.

One roadblock I encountered was even by detaching the chat, when I closed (not quit) my Safari browser my conversation died too. No doubt user error and lack of time getting used to it.

Was just watching a video interview with the NY Times’ digital director last night. Today, she’s leaving the Times for NPR. A second big name player in the industry going to NPR.

From paidContent.org:

Vivian Schiller, the longtime head of NYTimes.com’s digital efforts, has left the company, and has joined National Public Radio as its new CEO. She succeeds Dennis Haarsager, who has served as interim CEO since March, after Ken Stern left abruptly after internal discord. Also recently, Kinsey Wilson, the executive editor of USA Today and previously the editor of USAToday.com, left the paper and joined NPR as its digital head.

Schiller oversaw the Times’ great video content. They focus more on documentary-style videos instead of chasing breaking news. And they do a great job. They recently shifted to Brightcove, the same company that hosts NewsOK.com’s videos.

Saw this on Vimeo’s HD channel today…

Some afternoons are random in our studios…

As previously mentioned, Andrew Rice led off our video efforts today. The US Senate candidate came in for a 9 am interview with The Oklahoman’s Michael McNutt.

Five sports videos came in succession. Jenni Carlson’s commentary, “Sorry Seattle, Move On,” was taped at 10 am and ranked as the most viewed video on NewsOK today. Closely followed by the latest webisode of the Thunder Girls, our wildly popular series. We’ve posted seven or so webisodes. They always rank as the top one or two videos each day.

Press Row is a show we tape every Thursday at 11:30 am and we stream it live at the same time with a live chat. Since Press Row lasts about a half hour, it takes a while to export, encode, upload and post on NewsOK. Usually it’s online by 1 pm or so.

John Rohde taped his commentary after the Press Row, which featured Rohde, Carlson, Mike Sherman and Mike Baldwin.

I taped the Energy segment at 2 pm. This is another segment that is streamed live and taped for on demand viewing later. Energy usually is a top five to top ten video. It streams live on CleanSkies.tv, an energy only niche channel based in Washington DC.

Ok, after energy we taped entertainment with George Lang and Heather Warlick. This week they provided commentary on the election coverage, a bit of a break from their usual rants about Hollywood and the local music scene.

Sen. Jim Inhofe stopped by for a 3 pm taping with McNutt. Inhofe answered the same three questions we asked Rice, Murphy and Roth earlier this week. Those election videos will be posted Friday morning.

Lang taped his first Static show at 3:30 pm, featuring local talent KC Clifford. She did an interview on cam with Lang, then recorded a couple songs in our smaller studio. We used a projector to illuminate a white board with static, placed in front of a black curtain with blue-gelled lights. Strange, but it accomplished a different look for us.

Meanwhile, Bob Rader, Executive Vice President at Capital West Securities, stopped by to tape with Ed Kelley, Editor of The Oklahoman. This was for a segment that will air during our live election coverage Tuesday night. Rader has been in our studios four or five times now. Very smart, obviously, and very gracious. Big ups to our friends at Saxum Communications for their efforts and help with our election coverage.

We taped two more sports segments at 4 pm: One on One Thundermadness with Sherman, Baldwin and Darnell Mayberry. It’s a weekly look at the Thunder, this mostly recapping last night’s season opener and debating the backcourt. Also we taped the Ford Center promo we call The Oklahoman’s 3-Pointer, Three Things You Need to Know About Tonight’s Game. Look for it on the jumbotron before each home game.

While taping around ten studio shows, we also had Tim Money and Angi Bruss in the field. Angi asked peeps in Bricktown their impressions of opening night for the Thunder. She also interviewed Bricktown merchants about their Halloween specials tomorrow night.

Tanner Herriott, meanwhile, shot today’s Thunder practice, then dropped by a Mesta Park house decorated out the wazoo with Halloween decor. He decided after speaking with the resident to return tonight to get the full effect.

I did a drive-by myself tonight. Saw someone dressed up as a butler in the front yard - complete with flying witches - talking with a family that had stopped by.

One final video - Tanner and Angi shot a wine tasting video at Gaillardia around 4 pm.

You can watch all of these videos on NewsOK.com and on NewsOK.tv, our video-exclusive site.

Videos like this are a combination of the reporting and resources OPUBCO has available. The words from the reporters who have filed stories for NewsOK and The Oklahoman. The images come from the talented photographers at OPUBCO.

The videography of the studio comes from sitting down and discussing a quick set up.

This morning, I wrote a quick script, pulled some graphics using screen caps of The Oklahoman's electronic edition, downloaded photos from the archives, created some full screen Photoshop graphics for the quotes, and downloaded the video Sarah Phipps shot this summer of the troops deployment. Tanner Herriott and I discussed the look for the set. Tanner set up the black curtain with blue uplighting. We brought in a soft box for the fill and overheads for a general key.

I used Final Cut Pro, as we do most of our videos, to put all of the elements together. This happened before, during and after three other shoots were being produced in our studios this morning: a commercial for The Oklahoman, voice-over for another commercial and an interview with the 42nd richest American, Harold Hamm from Oklahoma.

Tanner Herriott forwarded me this video earlier today. It’s a church vid promoting a series, this one called “Moments.”

What’s interesting, at least to me, is how it was shot. The subjects appear on screen and on the screen behind them. And it appears to be projected against a flowing curtain, which creates a cool effect.

Tanner is editing our next Cold Case Oklahoma video - read more from Ken Raymond’s blog on our Cold Case stuff, it’s really good. Ken and Tanner and Paige do a great job with the Cold Case series, tying the video to the print while each telling the story in its own manner. Tanner is using a reverse image to illustrate the timeline in this case. He lit a piece of paper then reversed the image creating a film effect that’s far more compelling than the typical Final Cut Pro lower third.

Moments Intro HD from Port City Community Church on Vimeo.

And yes, this post somehow went from church to murder.

We managed to crank out 13 videos today from the OPUBCO Studios crew, including nine in the studio. Topics ranged from sports (go figure) to politics to energy. Our energy segment is doing very well in video traffic. That surprises me. Perhaps it’s a demo that’s been untapped. It routinely ranks in our top five or top ten of videos each day. Usually that’s reserved for sports and breaking news.

And bull elk fights.

Seriously, the bull elk video that was submitted by someone back in January ranked among our highest viewed video for months.

Tomorrow we’ll tackle wake boarding at the Oklahoma River. Tanner has already conquered this once. And we’ll cover the NBA team name being unveiled, announced and promoted. That’s a pretty big deal. I think Angi is getting a hair cut too. And somewhere in there we’ll interview former mayor Kirk Humphreys for an upcoming video/print piece.

Check out this video. Found it over on Vimeo’s HD channel. Fireworks set to Sigur Ros.

The Fourth from Michael Brodner (AIM: Upstate14) on Vimeo.