In a great year-end series, VideoNuze gathered predictions from tech and media experts about the future of online video in 2012.

So far, over a dozen experts have offered their online video predictions for the new year. You can browse through all of them here.

Following are some highlights from well-known companies and the experts behind their online video strategies.

Suzie Reider, YouTube & Google Display Head of Ad Sales

1. Every day will feel like the Super Bowl. YouTube and video-sharing give anyone a ticket to online video success.
2. People will choose the ads they want to watch. Therefore, relevance and creative should improve.
3. More people will watch video on mobile devices.

Read more about Suzie Reider’s predictions.

Ran Harnevo, AOL Senior Vice President of Video

1. Video ad-networks will drive an artificial race to the bottom and cut CPM rates.
2. Cross platform will be the new king. Mobile, tablet, and connected TV will capture more video views overall.
3. Original online programming will finally create real franchises with more large and small players entering the market.

Read more about Ran Harnevo’s predictions.

Erick Hachenburg, CEO of Metacafe

1. Hulu’s ad load will plateau and greater focus will be placed on delivering both advertiser value and a positive user experience.
2.  We’ll finally learn whether YouTube is a real media company. 2012 will be the year that YouTube has to step-up its game for online advertisers or step-out of the media race.
3. Ad networks will become more publisher-friendly.

Read more about Erick Hachengurg’s predictions.

Dave Otten, CEO of LongTail Video

1. The barriers for entry for monetizing online video will continue to fall.
2. Mid- and small-sized sites will play a big role in driving growth in video advertising.
3. Apple will continue to dominate mobile video.

Read more about Dave Otten’s predictions.

Bill Lederer, CEO of Kantar Video

1. Social video solidifies its place in the media mix.
2. The “video agency of record” or agency “video center of excellence” will emerge in 2012. Marketers need help with all aspects of online video and start-ups will emerge in 2012 to provide that help.
3. Video paid content creators and providers will embrace advertising revenue like never before, and more aggressive monetization will lead to a greater need for analytics.

Read more about Bill Lederer’s predictions.

What do you think of the experts’ online video predictions for 2012? What do you predict will happen with online video in the new year? Leave a comment and share your thoughts on the future of online video.

Image: stock.xchng

It’s that time of year where we’ll start to see lots of articles about trends that affected 2011 and predictions for trends that will define 2012. Often these kinds of posts just recap what was popular during the prior year without really diving any deeper than that.

Today, I stumbled across a great article from Greg Jarboe from Reel SEO that provides a more strategic look at three YouTube trends that defined 2011 that look beyond popularity numbers. In his article, Greg cites three key trends:

1. Video Clips that Drive Citizen Movements

2010 was the year that Twitter became a vital part of real-time citizen movements from political uprisings to efforts to help victims of natural disasters, but in 2011, YouTube brought a new visual dimension to these movements. As Jarboe explains, videos uploaded to YouTube by people on the streets during political uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya have changed the way people get information and ultimately, the way people think and act.

2. Streaming Live Events

Jarboe also cites the launch of YouTube Live, which integrates live streaming of events into the YouTube platform, as another trend that defined 2011. From the British Royal Wedding to concerts and interviews, the addition of live streaming brought a new dimension to YouTube that is likely to grow in use and importance for years to come.

3. Tools to Create Online Videos without a Video Camera

YouTube also launched a new section of its website that highlights partner companies and tools that people can use to create online videos without a video camera or much of the traditional equipment that video publishers require. Suddenly, the ability to create online video content is easier than ever and available to more people than ever!

Bottom-line, Authoritative Content publishers understand that popularity doesn’t always equate to strategic trend analysis. It’s trends like the ones Jarboe referenced in his article that truly defined 2011 and will have an ongoing and significant effect on online video in 2012 and beyond.

What do you think were the YouTube or general online video trends that defined 2011? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: Flickr

In July, YouTube launched the YouTube Creator Playbook — a 70 page document that guides online video content creators in using all the features and functions of YouTube to publish the best videos possible. This document was intended to be a complement to creating great content, because the first step to being a successful online video publisher is always producing consistently high quality videos.

The YouTube Creator Playbook offers real, actionable tips that you can implement immediately. To make things easy, the guide is divided into specific sections, so you can pick and choose the parts you need help with. Following is the table of contents from the guide:

YouTube Creator Playbook Table of Contents

Introduction
Playbook Structure and Overview
Icon and Key Definitions
Programming and Producing

• The First 15 Seconds
• Call-to-Actions (CTAs)
• Regular Schedule and Frequency
• Tent-pole Programming
• Cross-promotion and Collaboration
• Investigate “Peaks and Valleys”
• Producing Checklist

Publishing and Optimization

• Metadata
• Thumbnails
• Annotations
• Playlists and Video Responses
• Channel Page Optimization
• Publishing Checklist

Community and Social Media

• Involve Your Audience
• Blog Outreach
• Other Social Media
• Community Checklist
• Appendix

You can view the complete YouTube Creator Playbook below.

While the YouTube Creator Playbook is a great guide to publishing video content, the YouTube Creator Blog is an excellent companion to keep you up to date on the latest tips, warnings, suggestions, and news from YouTube about video creation and publishing.

For example, did you know that if you publish a video that features people who did not provide permission for you to publish that video online, they can submit a privacy removal request to YouTube, and your video could be deleted. That’s a bit of information shared on the YouTube Creator Blog just last week.

The lesson to learn — it’s a good idea to make sure there aren’t any embarrassing moments captured of people in your videos, because you don’t want to waste time creating and publishing a video that could be deleted.

Last week, YouTube completed its global roll out of some basic video editing capabilities that enable video publishers to log into their YouTube accounts, click the new Edit video button at the top of the video’s page (or through the “My Videos” page in their accounts) and make several basic changes to their videos.

As long as a video has fewer than 1,000 views and doesn’t include third party content, you can edit it and keep the original link, views, comments, and so on. For videos that don’t meet those requirements, a new version has to be saved and published.

Video publishers also have the option to save new versions of their videos after editing them if they’d like, and if the edited version isn’t as good as the original, it’s easy to revert back to that original version. The editing features are very basic, but something is better than nothing, right? Those features allow you to:

• Trim the beginning or end of a video.
• Stabilize handheld footage.
• Rotate videos.
• Change your video to black and white from color.
• Change the contrast and colors thanks to a partnership with Picnik.
• Click the “I’m feeling lucky” link for one-click color correction.
• Change the audio soundtrack for your video.

You can watch a quick video that gives a run down of the YouTube video editing features below.

While the new YouTube video editing features are rudimentary, they do provide a way to make some changes to videos you’ve already published without having to delete the original video (along with all the incoming links to that video, views, and comments) and upload a new version. There are definitely many videos that could use a quick trim, new audio, or better color, and I’m sure people will take advantage of these new tools.

What do you think? Will you use any of the new YouTube video editing features to modify your existing YouTube videos? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: canberkol

In an interesting infographic from Wistia and Column Five, the decline of television viewership is displayed visually as online video streaming continues to rise.

Who are the most avid watchers of streaming online video? Young people (18-24 year olds), men, and light television watchers. On the other end of the spectrum are people in the 50-64 year age bracket who are the most avid television watchers making up 25% of the television viewing population.

Most people (by far) are going to YouTube to watch online video, but Hulu, Vevo, MSN, Yahoo! and other sites are growing, too. And while television viewing has only grown by 0.2% from last year, online video viewing has grown by 35% and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, more and more people are trading in their high, triple-digit monthly cable bills for less expensive Hulu and Netflix accounts.

I think one of the most interesting take-aways from this study is not how much video content people are watching through mobile devices while they’re on the go, but how many are choosing to watch online video over traditional television when they’re at home.

You can click on the infographic below to view it full-size.

What do you think about the shift from traditional television viewing to online video streaming? Are you ready to give up your cable bill yet? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Do you want to increase search traffic to your YouTube videos and channel? If you publish Authoritative Content through online videos, then people should get the chance to view them.

Search Engine Journal offers a great YouTube optimization guide that can help boost the exposure to your content. The guide is broken down into the following sections:

YouTube Channel Optimization

• Channel settings – Title, tags, visibility, email and more is covered here.
• Channel themes and colors – No optimization tips are provided but color choices certainly do affect viewer perceptions and the user experience once they arrive at your YouTube channel.
• Modules – For optimization, the Commenting, Subscriptions, and Friends modules are recommended.
• Videos and playlists – From featured videos to creating playlists, your channel configuration has a big impact on optimization.
• Profile – This section includes tips related to your name, website URL, description, and additional links.

YouTube Video Optimization

• Content – Suggestions related to quality, keywords, and scripts are offered.
• Info and settings – The guide provides recommendations related to your video title and description, including using keywords,  links, and more.
• Tags – This is an extremely important part of video optimization according to Search Engine Journal, so the guide offers tips related to keyword quantity and formatting.
• Thumbnail – The thumbnail image makes your video more interesting and increases the likelihood that people will click on it and watch it.
• Broadcasting and sharing options – Set your video to public, use a standard YouTube license, and allow comments, comment voting, video responses, ratings, embedding, and syndication.
• Captions and subtitles – The guide provides instructions to correctly create transcripts and captions. Since YouTube videos are converted into Java (which cannot be crawled by search engines), adding transcripts and captions is critical.

The Serach Engine Journal YouTube Video Optimization Guide also offers some video promotion tips. For example, you should embed your videos in your blog and website, and you should syndicate them through social networking websites.  Of course, licensed syndication through Newstex is a great way to give your online videos additional exposure and earn some money from the videos you already made.

Be sure to follow the above link to read the entire guide from Search Engine Journal, and for more online video promotion and search tips, check out these posts that have appeared on the Newstex blog over the past year:

• 3 Steps to Increase Online Video Views
• YouTube Video Uploading Tips
• How to Get More YouTube Channel Subscribers with One Click
• YouTube Offers Practical Marketing Tips for Online Video Publishers
• More Video Marketing Tips from YouTube
• Online Video SEO Tips

Do you publish online videos? What’s your top tip for optimization or promotion? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xcnhg

It’s been nine months since I posted online video rankings, so I thought it would be interesting to see how site rankings have changed since the July 2010 online video rankings were reported by comScore.

In April 2011, comScore reports that Google sites still hold the top spot by a landslide (YouTube drives the vast majority of that traffic), but there have been some changes among the other spots in the top 10 online video properties by video content views (ranked by unique video viewers). Check out the chart below for the quick stats:

In April 2011, Google sites still enjoy nearly three times as many viewers as the next leading sites, VEVO and Yahoo!. Interestingly, VEVO has overtaken Yahoo! since the July 2010 report when Yahoo! held the second spot on the list. Other movers on the list include AOL and NBC Universal, which weren’t even in the top ten in July 2010. Falling out of the top ten since July 2010 were Disney Online and Fox Interactive Media.

In April 2011, 81.9% of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video with the duration of the average online video being 5.2 minutes.  In terms of the number of viewing sessions and minutes per viewer, Google holds the top spot for both. However, Hulu continues to show big numbers for long-form online video content. Despite having over 400% fewer unique viewers and over 1,000% fewer viewing sessions than Google sites, Hulu experienced just 39% fewer minutes per viewer than Google sites. It makes sense that Hulu is the top online video property in terms of streaming video ads viewed.

Online video is here to stay. Are you publishing video content yet? Newstex can help you boost exposure for your online video content and earn some money at the same time through its Authoritative Content video syndication. Learn more here.

It’s not a secret that transcribing your online videos can help get them indexed in multiple ways on Google and increase search traffic to them. I’ve written about online video search engine optimization tips here on the Newstex blog before. You can read those posts by following the links below:

• Online Video SEO Tips
• YouTube Offers Practical Marketing Tips for Video Publishers
• More Video Marketing Tips from YouTube

If a new move by PBS is any indication, media organizations are finally figuring it out, too.

This week, Andrew Phelps of Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab published an article about PBS’ initiative to publish online transcripts of its video content using a cloud-based transcription application, MediaCloud. Already, PBS has published transcripts of 2,000 hours of online video with more to come.

The problem with video transcription for most video content publishers is two-fold: it’s expensive and time-consuming. Most media organizations aren’t satisfied with the quality of automated transcription services and manual transcription takes too long and is too costly. PBS is taking the chance that their video transcriptions are good enough to drive some Google search traffic.

No matter how you look at it, transcribing and publishing the transcriptions of your online video content along with your videos is an important part of search engine optimization, and since video sites offer less than helpful search results most of the time, Google search rankings are very important to attract more people to your Authoritative Content on the open Web.

The Newstex team can attest to the fact that good transcriptions can do a lot in terms of gaining exposure for video content. Newstex transcribes all video content that is syndicated as part of our Authoritative Content offerings, and those transcriptions are critical to ensure professionals can find your relevant, trustworthy videos in order to do their jobs.

If you’d like to learn more about online video syndication, check out our free ebook, The Truth about Online Video and Licensed Syndication.

In an effort to stave off copyright lawsuits, YouTube has enhanced the  Copyright Center portion of the site’s Help section, created new video tutorials about copyright law, and launched a new Copyright School.

Many user-generated videos published across the web are in violation of copyright law. Most people don’t even realize they’ve violated the law in their online videos. As announced on the YouTube blog today, if a YouTube user publishes a video that is in violation of copyright law, they won’t just receive a warning anymore. Instead, they won’t be allowed to upload any new videos to their account until they attend Copyright School.

Don’t worry. It’s not as bad as it sounds (unlike the dreaded Traffic School in the U.S.). The YouTube Copyright School is actually quite simple and requires attendees to watch a video about copyright law and then complete a brief online quiz to prove they actually watched the entire video.

You can avoid going to Copyright School by educating yourself about copyright law if you’re not already familiar with how copyrights affect your online video content. Check out the video created by YouTube below to get started.

What do you think about YouTube’s latest effort to reduce copyright violations? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

It looks like YouTube is really serious about improving the quality of video content on its site. First, news that YouTube acquired Next New Networks was released, and now, YouTube has launched the YouTube Creator Institute where students will learn how to create professional videos at either the University of Southern California (USC) School of Cinematic Arts or Columbia College of Chicago (CCC).

As the YouTube Creator Institute website describes:

“Participants benefit from a unique new media curriculum, encapsulating a four-year film or television school experience. This includes everything from story arcing to production, from managing actors to lighting techniques. Moreover, participants will engage in several new media tactics, including how to use social media effectively, how to optimize content for multiple platforms, and how to utilize new monetization strategies. Note that this experience is not a degree program.”

If you’re interested in attending the YouTube Creator Institute course, which includes both online and offline course work, check out the YouTube Creator Institute website and watch the video below.

The good news is that the first class to take part in the YouTube Creator Institute program at both USC and CCC wwill get to go for free. However, you have to apply online and win a competition related to your application (including video submission) to get into that inaugural class. If the YouTube Creator Institute sounds like something you want to do, be sure to read the application FAQs available through a special link on the Application information page and the YouTube Creator Contest Official Rules to make sure you know what you’re getting into and follow all the guidelines before you apply.