The office is buzzing over our recent acquisition of Illumenix, an in-depth video metrics startup. Illumenix’s suite of patent-pending measurement tools, which can be set up in any flash player within minutes, are going to be wrapped up into something we are calling TubeMogul InPlay. If you host your own Flash video, here are some of the metrics we now offer:
Viewed-Minutes
Viewer Attention (i.e. when does a viewer click away?)
What else do we gain from the deal? The value of Illumenix’s brain-trust of executives and engineers can’t be overstated, and we are excited to have them working in our Emeryville, California offices. Here’s our first team photo, taken at our Halloween Party last week:
We are proud to announce that Tilzy.TV show reviews will now be included in TubeMogul Marketplace profiles, where available. Any video producer that has been reviewed by Tilzy can now opt to include the review when setting up (or editing) their profile. Tilzy’s reviews are incredibly informative and include helpful details like a show’s network (if applicable), premiere date, actors, producers and more.
Increasingly we find ourselves playing matchmaker between video producers and advertisers, investors and video-sharing sites (i.e., “the money”). Sometimes we are simply helping a friend, and other times we consider this an unofficial service for top content creators. It makes sense that TubeMogul would informally fill this role as we are at the nexus of online video – content creators are our customers, video sites are our partners, and advertisers increasingly rely upon our aggregated analytics.
Today, a well known video producer approached us to see if we could help him get a new project funded – a short web series with committed celebrity talent. The project is not yet public, but suffice to say that the celebrity in question would draw a large and targeted audience. Given this, the proven track record of the producer, and the relative low cost to sponsor the series, is anyone else surprised that the project has been difficult to get funded? Get in touch with us if you are “the money” and want a sneak peak at the project.
According to a survey of viewers published by eMarketer, 44% of people who watched less TV in 2007 did so because they were watching video online instead (and only 9% were streaming TV shows). I am one of these people, which is really Comcast’s fault for not offering channels a la carte and forcing me into a $70 bundle that I don’t want.
TV executives are understandably worried that this chunk of the market will cut into their ad revenue, which topped $76 billion in 2007 in the U.S. according to Podslug. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) referred to TV executives as “Deer caught in klieg lights” by YouTube’s announcement last week of in-video text ads and clickable sponsored videos appearing alongside regular videos (a “klieg,” for those who not familiar with esoteric movie production terms, is a powerful electric lamp used in filming).
Now to be fair, some are calling YouTube’s offering a bit confusing. But clearly there is now the pressure from brands and advertisers to have the dollars follow the audience and content. We’ve all been writing about it for some time – our post is here. Once again, we’re left to speculate about how much and how fast.
Jerry Yang of Yahoo predicts that total online ad revenue will surpass television within five years. That doesn’t sound so sweeping, as current online ad spend is $21B, according to CNET, or 27% of television ad spend. We’re looking for someone to throw down the gauntlet and predict when online video ad spend will top television ad spend, or better yet, when it will be too difficult to distinguish which is which.
