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.

The world of online video has come a long way in the last couple of years. Google’s YouTube might still be the page views leader when it comes to online video viewing, but sites like Hulu, iTunes, and Netflix have embraced a different business model that YouTube is finally trying to catch up with.

This week, YouTube acquired Next New Networks, a company that produces original programming and helps people and entities that create video find distribution and make money. Like Hulu and Netflix, the cash cow for YouTube that will come from the Next New Networks acquisition won’t come from YouTube producing its own original content but rather from YouTube partners who create long-form original content for YouTube publishing and distribution. In other words, YouTube will provide the platform but others will provide the content.

As The New York Times reports, YouTube is “creating a new program called YouTube Next that will help the video makers with whom YouTube shares ad revenue to produce more professional content by giving them grants and training.”

There is no doubt that online video consumption is growing and more people are turning to the web to consume long-form video content every day. YouTube reportedly paid less than $50 million for Next New Networks, and key players are being hired to jump start YouTube Next and content acquisition, including a former executive from Paramount.

Bottom-line, it’s great to see YouTube making an effort to differentiate authoritative online video content from less professional user generated content. We’ll have to wait and see how successful YouTube ultimately is with the Next New Networks acquisition.

What do you think? Was acquiring Next New Networks a good investment or a poor investment for YouTube and Google? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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In a recent video from Daisy Whitney’s New Media Minute (which is syndicated through Newstex), Daisy reveals 3 steps you can take to increase the number of views your online videos get. Daisy spoke to Taboola CEO Adam Singolda to put together these three steps:

1. Visibility

As Daisy explains in her video shown below, far more people read online content than view online videos. You need to do everything you can to increase the visibility of your online video content making it as easy as possible for people to view it. For example, promote your video content across your website and blog — on your home page, category pages, article pages, and so on.

2. Personalized Recommendations

Daisy explains that per Taboola’s data, offering personalized video recommendations with your video content generates 3-times more video views than non-personalized video recommendations. That means you need to take time identifying what content your audience is likely to want to view next and deliver relevant recommendations.

3. Syndication

It’s essential that you pursue opportunities to gain additional exposure for your online video content. Therefore, look for syndication opportunities with companies like Newstex as well as partnerships with sites that offer limited video content so you get in front of those audiences and site owners get free video content to enhance their sites.

You can view Daisy’s video below.

The success of your online video content comes in part from the manner in which you upload your videos.  If you upload your videos to YouTube, the most popular online video site, then you’re in luck because Mark Robertson of Reel SEO put together an excellent presentation filled with tips to help you optimize your YouTube videos.

Much of your YouTube success comes from making sure people can find your videos.  Mark offers the following tips for uploading your video content to YouTube, so you start out on the right foot:

• HD-quality
• 16:9 aspect ratio recommended (4:3) letterboxed
• Resolution: HD = 1280×720 or 1080p; Other = 640×360 (16:9) or 480X360 (4:3)
• MP4 file format
• .h264 video compression
• AAC or MP3 audio compression
• Frames per second: 30
• Maximum length: 10:59 (recommend 2-3 minutes)
• Maximum file size: 2 GB

Mark also warns that YouTube success encompasses far more than just titles, keywords, and metadata.  Check out his complete presentation below to learn more.

If you’re not already using the tips Mark offers in his presentation, then start using them now to maximize your online video content success going forward.

A new study released by Elastic Path (as reported by Reel SEO) reveals that 75% of the online video-viewing audience is willing to pay to see the video content they want.

The Elastic Path study surveyed adults over 18 who have watched online video content in the prior 12 months.  86% of respondents reported that they watched online video at least once a month or more with 53% watching or downloading online video content at least once per week.

While online video viewing continues to rise in popularity, most people still want to watch online video content for free.  Only 40% of survey respondents reported having paid for online video content during the prior 12 months (including Netflix and Hulu Plus subscriptions).  However, 75% of respondents reported they would be willing to pay for the online video content they want to see.  The number of people who have actually paid for online video content is much lower than that 75%, but the willingness to pay is there.  The chart below from the Elastic Path report shows the breakdown in greater detail.

The writing is on the wall as far as the future of online video content is concerned.  As more video content is available to more people through more devices, it’s inevitable that the paid viewing model will continue to grow.  The trick for video publishers is finding the sweet spot between the type of video people are willing to pay for and how much they’re willing to pay for it.

If you publish Authoritative Content on a YouTube channel, and you want to increase the number of subscribers your channel has, then this is the post for you.

In the latter half of 2010, YouTube launched a subscription widget that you might not have heard about.  By copying and pasting some HTML code into your blog or website, you can add a subscription widget like the one shown above.  Visitors to your site can simply click on the Subscribe button in the widget to subscribe to your YouTube channel.  They need to be signed into their YouTube account (or they’ll be prompted to do so) and then click a confirmation button to confirm their subscription.

If a widget isn’t right for your blog or website, you can use a secret URL to boost subscriptions.  According to Nalts from willvideoforfood, you can use the following URL instead of a plain link to your YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=YouTubeChannelUsername

Simply replace “YouTubeChannelUsername” in the above URL with your own YouTube username.  You can use any anchor text that you want for the link.  When people click on the link, They’ll go to a page to confirm their subscription to your YouTube channel (if they’re logged into their YouTube accounts) or they’ll be prompted to log into YouTube.  For example, check out the Newstex YouTube channel.

Anytime you can reduce the number of clicks to accomplish a task, your results should improve.  Try out the YouTube subscription widget and URL and see if your subscriber numbers increase.

According to a new report by Brightcove and TubeMogul, Facebook has passed Yahoo! to be the second largest driver of traffic to online video content.  Google tops the list of online video referrers with a significant margin — more than half of video traffic comes from Google sites (which is down from over 60% during the first quarter of 2010).

Other interesting highlights from the study include:

• Most online video content is viewed on Wednesdays and Tuesdays.
• People watch longer videos on weekends.
• The average number of minutes of video content consumed is highest on Fridays.
• The longest videos are typically watched on game consoles rather than on computers or mobile devices.
• The average length of videos watched on a computer is 2:27 minutes per view, and the average length of videos watched using game consoles is 2:45 minutes per view.

During the third quarter of 2010, the study showed that 9.5% of video traffic came from links posted on Facebook profiles, pages and groups.  That’s more than double the combined traffic that Bing and Twitter refer to online video content.

If you’re not targeting Facebook to promote your online video content, you should be.  Facebook users have clearly demonstrated that they expect to find links to video content posted on Facebook profiles, pages and groups, and according to this study, they actively click on the video links they find on Facebook.  Your video content can benefit from that acceptance and interest, too.

Image: Facebook

Last month, I wrote a post here on the Newstex blog about the “Tips for Partners” series that has appeared on the YouTube blog.  You can follow the link to read that post along with video marketing tips.

Since I wrote that post, more video marketing tips have been published on the YouTube blog, and if you publish video content online, then you should definitely check out these tips.  You can check out 5 of those tips below:

1. Make your videos embeddable.

“A huge amount of view counts come from embedded playbacks.”

2. Make sure your videos hold viewers’ attention and analyze what makes them click away.

“See where viewers are leaving your video, and determine why (and consider using annotations to keep users engaged).”

3. Determine if people find your videos from keyword searches, related videos, or other referrals.

“Use Insight to figure out how people are finding your content.  To find out, go to ‘My Videos’ and click on ‘Insight’ for one video. Then click on ‘Discovery’ and under ‘Links Followed to this video,’ you’ll see top referrals. You can click on ‘YouTube Search’ to find tags viewers queried to get to your video, and then add these tags to your video to boost your ranking in the search index.”

4. Consider advertising your best videos.

“Run Promoted Videos to get more eyeballs on your videos and drive community engagement.”

5. Ask your YouTube subscribers to help you.

“Post a bulletin to your subscribers letting them know you’d love for them to share your video with one new person.”

You can get all the details and more marketing suggestions by reading the Finding Your Niche and Using Insights post and the Using Community post on the YouTube blog.  And to learn about using annotations, metadata, and playlists to boost your online video success, check out this post on the Newstex blog.

What is your top online video marketing tip?  Leave a comment and share your secrets to online video success.

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Apple TV, Google TV, Hulu, Netflix — the world of digital television and movie viewing is growing, but the complete shift from broadcast and cable television to digital video still appears to be years away.  Will it happen soon and who is slowing the shift down?

Paul Verna of eMarketer published his take on the shift last week, which is an interesting read.  As you’d expect, the root of the delay is money.  Revenues generated through ads and subscriptions in the online space simply can’t compare to the same in traditional broadcast and cable television.

But Verna goes a step deeper based on comments by former NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker, which he made during a speech at Wharton School of Business on September 29, 2010.  Zucker suggested that another problem slowing the shift is the high salaries of actors and personnel that make television programming, including content owners, producers, writers, broadcasters, cable channels, and more (all of which are paid for by consumers and advertisers, notes Verna).  Zucker explained, “There’s a lot of mansions in Hollywood built on preserving the old system.”

Undoubtedly, consumers demand will force the shift to online video with consumption occurring online and on mobile devices, but it will take time.  However, the shift from broadcast and cable television to online video isn’t the first time in history that an industry has completely changed due to technological advancements and consumer demand.  The print publishing industry finds itself in the same position.  In the past, the telecommunications industry changed dramatically as mobile phone usage grew.  Remember when people thought Bill Gates was crazy when he envisioned a day when everyone would have a computer on his or her desk?  Could you imagine not having a computer today?  The list goes on and on.  The bottom-line is — you can’t stop progress.

What do you think?  Will online video change the economics behind the television and movie industry in time?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

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YouTube is by far the most popular video site on the web both for uploading and consuming video content.  In fact, YouTube refers to itself as the second largest search engine.  How can you help drive traffic to your online video content on YouTube when the site is already so crowded?

YouTube wants to make it easier for you to get more views of your videos (and of course, more views on YouTube overall) by offering a Tips for Partners series on the YouTube blog.  So far, two posts have been published since the series kicked off in September, which provide immediately actionable tips for video publishers.  Each tips post has been followed by a video interview with an actual YouTube video publisher who has found success implementing those tips into their own activities.  In other words, the tips YouTube is offering really work.

So far, the YouTube Tips for Partners series, which will only run for a few weeks, has covered metadata, annotations and playlists.  Following are some of the key tips offered so far.

Annotations

• Don’t overdo it.  Use 3-5 annotations per video.
• Annotations are great for guiding viewers to an action that you want them to take after watching your video.  For example, include an annotation telling them which video they should watch next, asking them to leave a comment or feedback, or asking them to add your video to their favorites or share that video with their own audiences.

Playlists

• Playlists are indexed separately from individual videos.  That means when you create a playlist you add another way for YouTube users to find your video content.  Use them!
• Playlists work best when they are theme-based rather than a group of random videos.
• Use playlists to guide viewers through your video content in the order you want them to view those videos.
• If you have a video that isn”t getting enough views, add it to a related playlist to give it another chance to be seen.
• You can embed playlists into your blog or another website to increase views and engagement.

Metadata

• YouTube allows you to enter up to 5,000 characters in your video description and up to 120 characters in your tags.  YouTube suggests that you set a goal to use every single one of those characters for each of your videos.  YouTube explains in the Tips for Partners series, “the more words you include in your description, the higher your chances of being discovered by searchers.”
• Update your tags regularly to optimize them for current search patterns.
• If you have a transcript of your video content, YouTube suggests that you upload it and turn captions on in your video to make your video more discoverable and to give YouTube more points to index your video.

Remember, YouTube can’t index the actual content of a video.  Instead, the site relies on your metadata to do that.  By implementing the suggestions above, you’ll increase the discoverability of your videos as well as the number of videos viewers watch from you.  However, YouTube also offers some warnings related to the above tips, which are highlighted below.

Warnings

• Don’t use spammy tags in your metadata.  YouTube will find out and punish you.
• Don’t repeat the same words in your description and tag over and over in an attempt to boost traffic to your videos.  YouTube clearly states in the Tips for Partners series, “this will not help you.”  Instead, YouTube suggests that you, “use different words and variations that users might search on to find your video.”
• Make sure that the links to additional videos on YouTube or off-site content that you provide in your videos actually take people to the place or content your link suggests.  In other words, don’t tell users that a link will take them to the next video in a series you created but instead take them to a commercial.  YouTube considers this a spam tactic, and you will be punished.

I’m looking forward to reading the next post in the YouTube Tips for Partners series.  It’s great to see a popular brand offer truly useful information through its blog rather than corporate rhetoric and noise.

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