Now that Bing is officially a major player, it’s time to ask some important questions. Are Bing video search results delivering a winning performance? Does Bing match searcher queries with relevant results? For advertisers, what is needed from an optimization standpoint to make your video standout among a search crowd?

Let’s use the popular music group “Black Eyed Peas” as an example. After conducting a series of different searches with the band name being the basis of the query I observed the following:

Query 1: black eyed peas. Images of the band were among the top positions, while the video results were at the bottom of the search results page along with a search volume/popularity graph, which is something new and different to the search world. I’ve yet to determine the full impact/effectiveness of the search popularity graph. If anything, the graph can reveal and/or validate the popularity of a searcher’s query and show other popular musicians Bing users are searching for(e.g., Metallica). However, when clicked through, this option only offers a video link on the sidebar, not a video thumbnail on the main page, which in my opinion is a shortfall, given the online video demand as well as the musical nature of the query. This is another opportunity to connect with the proactive video-seeking audience.

Query 2: videos black eyed peas. The video results were the last listing on the first page of the search engine results page.

Queries 3 and 4: black eyed video peas and black video eyed peas. The first page of results did not deliver any inline Bing video results for either query, though there were text-only links to videos on YouTube and other video sharing sites.

Query 5: black eyed peas video. Inline Bing video results were in the top position.

Now what can we learn from this small example? Also, does this example apply to other types of queries? Well, it appears that Bing delivers top ranking video results based on an intuitive, logical query structure. For example, the keyword “video” delivers high ranking at the end of a query vs. at the beginning or in the middle of a query. I performed similar tests with other types of keywords, not just music-oriented keywords, such as “Chicago Bears” and “Apple iPhone,” and had a similar experience.

However, the logic is only one observation; it also seems that the keyword density of the terms also play a key role in the ranking. In the listing above, all of the MySpace videos include “black eyed peas” and “video” (twice) in their title tags.

Using GoRank, a free SEO tool, you can analyze the keyword density for these terms within the MySpace URLS, and discover that the word “video” has an average density of 3.74% and the phrase “black eyed” has an average density of 3.21%.

These are solid percentages that indicate Bing places a great deal of value on the words appearing on the page. Therefore, advertisers should ensure that they are including valuable content within their title tags, descriptions, etc.

On the other hand, the YouTube page does not contain any instances of the word “video”, but the phrase “black eyed” has a density of 14.17%. This is due to YouTube’s practice of showing links to related videos, and all of these links contain the phrase “black eyed.” Bing may give YouTube default visibility for search queries that contain the word “video” even if the word “video” does not appear on the YouTube page.

Another interesting thing to note about Bing video search results is that once you click on a video thumbnail result you may have a different experience depending on the source. For example, the “Black Eyed Peas” YouTube video opens a pop-up video while the MySpace video is played directly from Bing. By using pop-ups and hosting other videos, Bing encourages the searcher to stay on the Bing site, an attempt to increase retention rate and further interactions with Bing. Additionally, Bing allows a searcher to play video snippets directly from the search results, which is another way to entice searchers and encourage more interaction.

As announced this past July, Bing and Yahoo! are joining forces in the search world. After the deal finalizes, Microsoft’s MSNbot (showing up in referrer logs as either msnbot/1.1 or msnbot/2.0b) will be the crawler for both Yahoo! and Bing. This means it will be doubly important for advertisers to optimize their video assets for the bot and Bing’s search algorithm. According to comScore’s September 2009 U.S. core search engine rankings, Microsoft sites make up 9.4% of search engine share, while Yahoo! makes up 18.8%. Once these search houses consolidate under the same technology, they will make up nearly 30% of the search share, taking on powerhouse Google, (64.9% of search engine share). It’s up to Bing to prove to searchers, specifically the rising pool of video searchers, if it has what it takes to deliver the most relevant, useful results that can stack up against Google.

I want my, I want my, I want my OMV (Online Music Video)… Yes, that’s right! Popular music videos are about to make a comeback, not on the original music TV station per se, but on the most popular online video web site, YouTube. With just a quick query search and a click of the mouse, you will have the opportunity to view and listen to musical legends such as The Eagles or ever-evolving artists such as Coldplay and Madonna.

As of September 29, 2009, Warner Music Group announced that they struck a deal with YouTube to ultimately bring its artists back to YouTube’s massive online video market. In August, YouTube accounted for nearly 10 billion of the 25 billion viewed online videos, according to ComScore. Google sites, primarily YouTube, currently represent 40 percent of all videos viewed online.

This deal is another example of how powerful the internet can be as a distribution medium. Similar to well-established newspapers and television companies, the music industry has been forced to change its business model that has existed for decades. As Warner Music Group quickly discovered, their historical model was not the perfect fit for the internet, nor was it capitalizing on the full benefits.

For example, Warner Music Group’s previously strict copyright laws required approval before allowing any use of its videos or songs in movies or on radio and TV. Last year, they demanded that YouTube pull down its videos based on licensing disagreements. As we all know, the internet makes it very easy to copy and re-distribute information. The public can literally post a copy of a video at any time and under any name. To ensure that the copyrighted Warner Music Group videos were not appearing on YouTube, I would assume both companies had to invest considerable resources to monitor and remove videos as they appear on YouTube’s site.

By allowing YouTube to post Warner Music Group’s videos, not only will it free up time and costs, but it will also open the door to the enormous, growing online video market. In August, comScore reported 161 million U.S. internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded (81.6 percent of the total U.S. internet audience viewed online video). This is not only a large audience but a highly active and engaged audience, watching nearly 10 hours of video in the month of August alone.

Warner Music Group’s partnership with YouTube will enable more innovative ways to market their industry. For example, YouTube offers viewers the ability to buy a song directly from an artist’s music video. The YouTube music videos have a small, unobtrusive pop-up advertisement at the bottom of the screen as shown below.

This simple method of purchasing music on YouTube is a big deal in itself. The question web users may want to consider right now is the true value of this quick and easy purchase– would it be worth it for a user to spend hours searching various sites for a copy of an MP3 to download that could be at risk of being illegal, or would it be easier to just click a button on YouTube and spend $1.29 to immediately obtain a compliant copy of the MP3? This addition should make YouTube even more attractive to music distributors, such as Warner Music Group, as more and more people decide that the choice for immediate and legal music is the best option.

As evident in the increased growth and demand for online videos, the audiences have spoken loud and clear, “they want their online music video (OMV)!” It’s now time for Warner Music Group to turn up the volume and deliver its artists’ music videos to their adoring fans.

eMarketer recently published an article titled The Online Video Advertising Picture Clears Up which forecasts that online video advertising will represent 4.3% of online spend and 1.6% of television advertising spend this year, growing to 11% and 5.5% respectively by 2013. While these figures seem small, to achieve them requires 30% to 40% annual growth, which will be challenging given the current advertising climate.

An interesting statistic in favor of online video is the advertising spend per hour of video watched: for 2009, eMarketer forecasts this as $0.17 for online vs. $0.13 for TV. With US online video penetration at 84%, the key ingredient to growing advertising revenue is through scaling engagement and maximizing the impact $0.17 per hour of video consumed has on market development. Using the online video growth rates from the eMarketer article and holding audience penetration constant, this requires monthly video consumption per viewer to grow from just over 200 minutes today to almost 1,200 minutes per month in 2013. To put this in perspective, the average television viewer watches over 9,000 minutes of TV programming per month today.

While achieving online engagement/consumption growth of this scale is achievable, it is not going to be done by providing the same consumption experience online as offline. The key drivers for encouraging online video consumption are availability of unique premium content, and a differentiated online video experience.

Premium content is critical for advertising dollars as marketers are still shying away from user generated content. While sites like Hulu are experiencing strong audience growth, there are too many alternatives to consuming made-for-TV content online in the form of DVRs, iTunes Season Passes and DVD rentals. Addressing the scarcity of premium online-only content through initiatives such as IAC’s announcement to team with Ben Silverman to start an online entertainment production company, will help drive online consumption; however, the high costs of producing quality content make the success of this approach far from certain.

In the short term, media companies need to focus on driving more consumption and engagement around multiplatform content. Online publishers still have a long way to go drive the discoverability of content through universal/onebox search, contextual inclusion of video on topic and article pages and video SEO. However, these challenges are understood and technology is available to assist with meeting these goals.

What’s missing is a compelling reason for consumers to go online to specifically watch video content that is also available on television. This can be addressed through delivering a more interactive, lean-forward consumption experience. Improving upon the current video model is not that complicated. By tapping into video metadata, web content management platforms and databases, and third party API’s, online video can become a more useful medium. For example, while consuming business media from a site like CNBC or Reuters, stock quotes and company headlines could be presented at the exact moment that a company name or CEO is mentioned. For sports, player stats, team schedules, and other relevant information can be incorporated into the user experience when players, teams and topics are mentioned.

These concepts are not really new—a lot of this overlays is what media companies such as CNBC and FOX Sports have been doing all along through their cable broadcast. The power of introducing these concepts online is that it creates a more interactive experience than television can possibly offer; I can pause the video to research a specific topic in depth before resuming the video, enabling me to consume information or be entertained on my terms, which, after all, is a core value proposition of online media.

Imagine if you could click on a video and instantly watch it play without clicking through the annoying pop-ups that require you to download the latest plug-in, such as Adobe Flash. Even better, what if you could watch this instantaneous video in the palm of your hand without any unforeseen complications? This sounds like a dream come true not only for the user but also for savvy advertisers who are continually trying to entice their target audience.

Fortunately, it’s not a dream: it’s HTML 5. HTML 5 is the proposed next iteration of the prevailing language of web sites. Modern browsers such as Google Chrome and Apple’s Safari—as well as most mobile browsers using webKit—currently understand this language. One of the key purposes of HTML 5 is to promote universality across online web applications, rendering plug-ins like Adobe Flash irrelevant.

HTML 5 opens the door to easier video streaming, particularly on mobile platforms. Most of these platforms have browsers that cannot support video codecs and plug-ins (e.g., iPhone does not support Flash). This inability creates a large roadblock between advertisers and their potential buyers. By simply using <video> and <audio> elements as part of HTML 5, web site designers can embed videos and audio files into web sites without worrying about a particular platform’s video rendering capabilities.

Additionally, the video element of HTML 5 has an extensive API (application programming interface) which creates opportunities for using scripts to design the playback and control interface of the video (e.g., complements the web site’s aesthetics). These enhanced capabilities offer the ideal video experience for mobile users, which will in turn open the floodgate to advertisers who leverage video for their marketing initiatives.

The one challenge advertisers may face with HTML 5 is the fact that, unlike early adopters who will usually browse with the latest releases, the majority of users, particularly desktop users, do not update their browsers in a timely manner. The different adoption rates present a problem for advertisers who are using the new markup language for their video advertisements; thus, they may only be able to connect with the early adopters.

The upside to this problematic situation is that mobile users are more prone to update their mobile devices through mandatory operating system upgrades. For instance, the recent iPhone OS update 3.0 featured a new variant of its Safari webKit browser that supports HTML 5. As a free update initiated through its companion computer software iTunes, the majority of iPhone owners have access to HTML 5 markup language. Leveraging the HTML 5 video element on increasingly popular mobile platforms therefore is more promising in the near future than on desktop platforms.

With the enhanced capabilities of HTML 5, I would expect to see a resurgence of innovative online videos. Advertisers should take advantage of video advertisements, since they will be easier to access by their potential consumers. Additionally, their ever-increasing popularity has not showed any signs of slowing down. As I mentioned in my last column, online video continues to climb in penetration and viewership. In fact, according to recent comScore data, online video experienced a record-breaking month this past July:

• 58 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded.
• 1.4 billion videos were viewed during the month, which reached another all time high.
• The majority (81%) of the US internet audience viewed online videos with an average online video viewership of 8.3 hours.

With this extremely high demand for online video and the new video capabilities supported by HTML 5, the next generation of online video will really make dreams come true for both users and advertisers.

The cable industry’s “TV Anywhere” strategy is much in the news this month, as a response to the rapid adoption by consumers of sites and applications such as Hulu and Boxee. The cable industry is loath to make the mistake the record companies did, which was to misinterpret consumer downloading of music as a desire to steal content instead of simply a desire to have a more useful form factor for their music. Indeed, iTunes emphatically showed the market that consumers are quite willing to pay to have their music, whether in the form of the billions of dollars in hardware they purchase annually (I think there are now a dozen ipod’s in my household) or the download fees iTunes charges with a simple one-click method.

The current state of internet television is one of frustration. Hulu’s growth is in direct proportion to this frustration, and the cable companies and cable networks need to react with a product that meets consumer needs.

TV Anywhere attempts to do just that. Much of the commentary around TV Anywhere are rants about having to pay the cable company for programming online, and risks that the web becomes “channelized” rather than open. ESPN360 is another example of TV Anywhere, which defies the common wisdom that content should be ad-supported and “free,” or that the content providers should rush to have direct relationships with consumers. These approaches miss two fundamental realities. First, not all content can be supported through ads. Premium producers like HBO couldn’t support their business with ads, in that there continues to be relentless downward pressure on ad prices as inventory expands across traditional, mobile and web platforms. Second, it ignores the fact that delivery of the content requires massive infrastructure, primarily in the form of the physical plant of broadband ISPs. If they don’t have a financial incentive to continue to build out their infrastructure, then innovation and deployment will stall.

The challenge, however, is that the real opportunity to drive additional consumption and to create perceived value for the consumer isn’t being addressed. Consumers’ negative reaction to TVAnywhere is primarily that they fear it is a path for the cable companies to charge incremental fees in the future (it is) without an understanding of the incremental value.

On the other hand , the current path of TVAnywhere and IPTV in general poses some risks to the content producers. In the current linear world, a cable channel owns a defined piece of real estate on the cable system “Channel XYZ.” The ability to cross promote other shows, the network and related properties is a powerful aspect of having control over this “linear” piece of real estate. Indeed, this was the justification that Lifetime used recently for paying a 40% premium for Project Runway. If Project Runway can attract a major audience segment, it can be a springboard for success for other Lifetime shows and indeed the whole network. However, IPTV and TVAnywhere pose a real risk to this reliable strategy. Internet television explodes the traditional “linear” real estate into atomic elements in a non-linear experience. As a result, the cross promotion effects of a hit show are substantially undermined. At the same time, this “infinite” shelf space creates frustration for the consumer, as finding relevant content moves from reviewing a linear program guide to understanding non-intuitive and sometimes arbitrary menu structures. This is not unlike the early days of the web. Remember Yahoo or the Open Directory Project’s attempts to neatly classify every website?

In the new world of TVAnywhere, the burden on the cable channels and content producers in general means the mindset needs to shift from that of “programmers” in the traditional TV sense to that of “merchandisers” of content. This means that the content needs to be wrapped with features that will help the end user more deeply experience the content. This would include some of the following:

• Improved search: Not only search across a video catalog, but also search within a video (characters, dialogues, faces, products) and search for related content (profiles, blogs, fansites, etc)
• Show buzz: Mining the web for tweets, Facebook posts, blog comments, etc.
• Content mashups: Allowing viewers to clip, share, comment within, and generally “mashup” the show content as a viral catalyst.

Search in particular becomes an important “tether,” that can connect an atomic piece of content to a large context. A well formed stored-search associated with a particular episode allows all related content to be delivered to the end user dynamically and contextually. This content “merchandising” will convey the added value that interactivity delivers and web users expect. This in turn enhances the perceived value and creates new revenue streams into the future for the content owners.

If you are an online advertiser, there is no better time to take advantage of online video to drive consumers to your website. Online video viewership and penetration continues to grow along with the increasing popularity of social platforms and smart phones.

Based on a recent eMarketer report, the number of US online video viewers will grow to 188 million in 2013, from 144 million in 2009. Additionally, more than half (59%) of the US population will view online videos in 2013.

Video capabilities have shown vast improvements over the past few years, specifically the streaming quality and availability of HD online content as well as the extended video duration. These video enhancements have attracted new audience segments, beyond the typical 18-24 year old segment. While the younger generation is still the largest demographic, several studies have indicated a boost in online video popularity among older adults and seniors.

One of the most popular types of video is Flash video. While Flash is extremely appealing to the consumer eye, it is often overlooked by the search engine crawlers—they have a difficult time recognizing Flash images or video. Therefore, advertisers need to be sure to optimize their videos so that the search engine spiders can find them. If search engine crawlers can’t find your video, neither will your consumers, leading to missed opportunities.

Although search engines are getting better at reading Flash files, the fact still remains that crawlers prefer to read text. There are a few reasons why Flash does not get indexed or ranked for its keywords within the search engine results. The primary reason is when a user navigates throughout a website, many sites dynamically load Flash videos under the same URL. This presents a problem because URLs need to be unique for proper indexation. Advertisers should separate videos into their own URLs and optimize the meta tags and body content (copy) around the videos in order to rank for relevant keywords.

Most Flash videos have very little text around them and often times if there is text it is typically filled with vacuous marketing copy that lacks important keywords. As a result, search engine crawlers have a hard time finding videos and indexing them. Advertisers should include copy around the Flash videos that includes keyword-rich text, relevant to the searchers’ query. For example, a video for an e-commerce site that is selling discount golf clubs should include the keywords “discount golf clubs” around the video. These keywords can also be incorporated in the anchor text that is shown when you hover the mouse over a video.

Online advertisers, particularly brand advertisers, should take advantage of the online video growth opportunity by using videos to connect and engage with the growing and diversifying audience. Advertisers can increase their brand awareness by incorporating videos on their website as well as on video sites, such as YouTube. These videos could be used to promote or demo a product or service or share consumer success stories that further validate the value of a product or service.

Microsoft’s new Bing search engine has its own unique approach to video search which has engendered both praise and pans. Perhaps the most remarked upon feature is the mouse hover over a thumbnail of a video and Bing will play 30 seconds of the clip with sound. It has already been noted that this feature allows kids to view porn videos, and has caused controversy among organizations dedicated to protecting kids online.

Bing displays the source of the video file and its length under the thumbnail. The search engine does not present video search results as a single scrollable page, but requires you to click successive pages.

The sources Microsoft is pulling results from appear to include:

• MSN
• AOL
• MTV
• Hulu
• ESPN
• YouTube
• MySpace
• DailyMotion
• MetaCafe

Trial searches showed some degree of duplication of videos in the results, so the technology may still need a little tweaking.

The fact that the “hover” feature can present porn video to kids has raised the ire of several commentators, most notably CNET columnist Larry Magid. He wrote, “…when I searched for a word that was sure to bring up porn, I was first warned that it ‘may return explicit adult content’ and told that ‘to view these videos, turn off safe search.’ One click later, safe search was off and I was looking a page of naughty thumbnails. And, as advertised, hovering the mouse over a thumbnail started the video and audio. Even when playing in a small thumbnail, it was unmistakably hard core porn.” Magid went on to warn parents that ther only option regarding their kids and porn is to “watch them, educate them or filter them.”

Magid admitted other search engines enable kids to find porn but complained that Bing made it “too easy. He noted that filtering programs built into Vista and Mac OS can block porn sites but it is uncleart how they worked with Bing.

At least one commercial filtering software claimed to block Bing “hover” porn. According to its company blog, Safe Eyes filtering software “blocks all pornographic content on Bing and Google searches out of the box.”

Microsoft responded to the controversy by making changes in Bing’s video search functionality that made it easier for parents to monitor or block what thier kids are viewing on Bing. The first was that “explicit images and video content will now be coming from a separate single domain, explicit.bing.net. This is invisible to the end customer, but allows for filtering of that content by domain, which makes it much easier for customers at all levels to block this content regardless of what the SafeSearch settings might be.” This change enables parents to use filters built into 3rd party software and into Mac OS and Vista.

The second change was that Microsoft will return the “source URL” of videos and images so that a filter that blocks a soecific site will also block images or videos from that site. Magid tested Bing video search with the new changes and expressed satisfaction that the changes worked as intended and made Bing safer for kids. But he cautioned that parents need to remain vigilant about thier children’s internet surfing.

Last month, I gave the keynote presentation at the Data Publishers Association (DPA) meeting in London. The DPA is made-up primarily of directory publishers: Yellow Pages, B2B directories, Classifieds, etc., and the topic for the conference was how video can drive online revenues for Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and other directory sites. Other presenters included spotzer, Brightcove, phorm, and the IAB. As I was preparing my presentation, I found myself struggling to define what the role of video actually should be for a directory site: another form of advertising to yield revenue OR part of a broader content strategy to drive traffic and better engagement with directory sites (or both…)?

Over the past 10 years, I have worked extensively with Yellow Pages publishers and directories globally on a variety of topics ranging from local search to SEO, search best practices to user experience. I have always been impressed with the scale of these businesses. According to Simba Information 2008 US Revenues for Yellow Pages was $16.6B with approximately 20 – 25% coming from the online channel. Serving a target market of the 23MM businesses in the US, directory publishers leverage this scale of business information to organize content into tens-of-thousands of topics and upsell enhanced listings, category inclusion, and detailed company profile pages to local businesses.

All of this content flows through the online product into search optimized landing pages which typically rank well with the crawlers. The directory publishers have convinced local merchants that paying for an enhanced listing drives leads both online and offline, and the reality is that a company profile page on an IYP site probably ranks better than the local merchant site as directory publishers invest heavily in SEO programs and benefit from scale of content.

On the surface, the role of video for a directory publisher seems to be another “enhanced” product that can be sold to the customer for several hundred dollars a year. The content is essentially a commercial for the local business. For companies that cannot produce their own videos, the IYP can create the script and send a small video production crew on-site to produce the video for a fee. This results in more meta-data and scripts which can then be used in the IYP publishing strategy to create additional SEO friendly content and pages, and can also be uploaded to YouTube to drive more leads. Publish a video site map and thumbnails from the video will appear in Google’s search results, driving higher click-throughs. At $300/year, selling this enhancement to 20,000 companies yields $6MM in margin friendly revenue. Great, we’re done.

As I thought more about this, however, I realized that this strategy might not make much sense. Sure, video content pages might generate more SEO referrals, but am I as the customer really going to watch 20 video commercials of local plumbers before deciding who to use? No. If I need a plumber, it’s probably time sensitive and I’m going to call them until I find one that is available at the right price. Furthermore, is there really any way to differentiate between vendors through a 30 second video? Probably not. The local business will likely see this as well and be less inclined to pay for this service. Lastly, for the directory publisher, $6MM in recurring revenue is interesting, but finding a way to grow it $60MM is the real goal. Selling one video to an advertiser every year doesn’t seem to provide this type of scale.

Another approach would be to look at video less as an advertisement and more as content that needs to be created and updated on an ongoing basis to make the directory site more interesting. For example, the directory publisher could license content from or contract with well known subject matter experts to create informational video related to a specific topic. For example, having Bob Vila produce a series of short-form “how to” home improvement videos would completely change the usefulness of the IYP to a consumer.

Each video could be associated with IYP advertisers that provide relevant products and services. Advertisers would likely pay the IYP for premium sponsorship positions against individual videos as the consumer has credibly identified themselves as being interested in the topic. Bob Vila, Martha Stewart, Consumer reports are all brands that come to mind that could produce content relevant to the IYP experience, and I suspect that most IYP advertisers would be willing to pay significantly to be associated with these brands in the right context.

Additionally, IYP’s could learn from sites such as Demand Media and Howcast media that have specialized in producing large volumes of video at low cost by paying netizens to produce good quality video on a variety of topics. Lastly, rather than selling an individual video advertisement to a local merchant, the IYP could sell a package of videos to local merchants with each episode covering different topics, such as product demonstrations, how-to, service differentiators, etc.

Directory publishers have a unique opportunity to incorporate video content into the IYP user experience in a manner that makes the directories more useful and educational, benefiting both consumers and advertisers. Let’s hope that they avoid the “obvious” strategy and don’t end up just selling video advertisements. Otherwise, they will end up missing out on a lucrative opportunity, just as they missed out on the sponsored listings phenomenon.

Yahoo’s Rich Ads in Search (RAIS) combine paid search with rich media to further engage consumers within Yahoo search results. These ads provide an effective and clever approach to cross-channel marketing.

With these new ads, advertisers are given the opportunity to market their business beyond the typical paid search ad copy. Their Yahoo paid search ad is complemented with an image that can be clicked-through to a web site, custom search boxes to refine a search, or a video that can be played directly from the Yahoo results pages.

Depending on an advertiser’s overall objectives, Yahoo’s Rich “video” Ads in Search have the potential to make a substantial impact on the performance of a paid search program. The biggest impact may be for advertisers who want to generate more brand awareness.

Here’s an example of a video RAIS ad from Pedigree:

Consumers who are higher in the conversion funnel—brand awareness, brand interaction, discovery, consideration and selection—are typically in the research mode, actively seeking details about a brand or product. These searchers are the ideal targets for advertisers who use Yahoo’s Rich Video Ads in Search. Consumers can scan the ad copy and then click the video to learn more about the advertiser’s brand and its associated products/services.

Advertisers should incorporate product/service specific videos based on high-volume keywords. They should stimulate video and audio interest and inform and entertain consumers. This will help increase clickthrough to advertiser landing pages, and ultimately lead to more sales and conversions. For consumers lower in the conversion funnel, videos can help strengthen existing brand perception which leads to more consumer loyalty and retention.

One potential drawback from Yahoo’s Rich Video Ads in Search could stem from an advertiser’s failure to link the video back to its actual web site. There needs to be a continuum from the paid search ad to the video and finally back to the advertiser’s web site. Upon completion, the video should include a compelling call-to-action that lures consumers to the advertiser’s site.

The popularity for online videos continues to grow. Based on user penetration and interaction, online videos have proven to be an effective channel. According to April 2009 comScore data:

• U.S. Internet users viewed 16.8 billion online videos, an increase of 16 percent from a month earlier
• The average online video viewer watched 385 minutes or 6.4 hours of video
• The average online video duration was 3.5 minutes

With such an engaged audience, video ads—especially in conjunction with paid search—seem like the ideal way to connect with your consumers. They enable advertisers to ride the wave of video popularity and grab the attention of consumers for longer periods of time, which is quite a feat in the online space.

Additionally, video thumbnails helps advertisers stand out among their competitors in the Yahoo search results. This feature is particularly beneficial during such difficult economic times. Advertisers are trying to stretch their marketing dollars in the most efficient and impactful way; they are looking for new ways to attract and gain consumers while staying afloat among the competition.

With Yahoo’s Rich Video Ads in Search, advertisers can utilize multiple channels in one advertisement to intensify their visibility and interactions with consumers. The verdict is still out on the longevity and effectiveness of these ads. However, in the short term, the video ads appear to have earned its name, Yahoo’s “Rich” Ads in Search, providing a wealth of opportunity.

Is there anything more visually appealing than Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing? The engine greets you with spectacular landscape images, complemented by a wealth of historical information and interesting facts. These compelling bits of information also lead you to other areas within Bing, such as the video results page.

The Bing homepage is a great place to be if you happen to be a video site that is closely aligned with one of these featured destinations. However, what if you are not the video site that is linked to the beautiful architecture of Prague, for example? How can you ensure your videos are included within Bing’s search results?

To start, advertisers may submit their Web sites and sitemaps to the MSNbot through Bing’s Webmaster center. Additionally, webmasters have access to tools that assist them with indexation and optimization, including:

• Robots.txt Validation Tool – Checks for incompatibilities with MSNbot to assist with indexation
• HTTP Compression and HTTP Conditional GET Test Tool – Tests Web pages to see it they support HTTP compression and conditional GET, which reduces bandwidth for browsers

It appears there are many key factors that come into play when optimizing your video site for Bing:

• Video Sources: MSN, AOL, MTV, Hulu, ESPN, YouTube, MySpace, DailyMotion, MetaCafe
• Date of Video
• Keyword Relevancy: Title, URL and Description
• Length: short (< 5 min), medium (5-20 min), long (> 20 min)
• Screen Size: standard and widescreen
• Resolution: low, medium and high

The source page and its associated text, as well as the timeliness of the video, seem to have the highest weight within Bing’s algorithm. For example, when you search on the term “Ronald Reagan,” the majority of the results pertain to Nancy Reagan and the recent unveiling of the Ronald Reagan statue in Washington DC. There are several duplicate versions of this coverage from large publishers such as USA Today and YouTube. There are additional video results related to Ronald Reagan; however, they are not as relevant. For example, there is an old trailer for a movie starring Ronald Reagan, which primarily features Bette Davis. There is also a video for the USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrier. These results are not ideal for the query “Ronald Reagan,” presumably about the man himself.

The same search in Google provides a completely different experience. The majority of videos are directly focused on the former President of the United States. These results are not as recent; however, they are much more relevant to the search. There is also more variety in the available results. Searchers looking for videos on Ronald Reagan would be more likely to benefit from the Google search results vs. the Bing search results.

Not only are the final results different in the two search engines, but so is the way they are visually displayed to searchers. For example, the default Bing results show videos that have very little description; they include the title, publisher, length of time and date when available. The default Google results, however, include all of these attributes as well as a detailed description of the video. On the other hand, Bing offers a feature that enables searchers to hover over the video thumbnail to preview a shortened version of the video without a click (Live Search had this for about a year, but people are rediscovering it as part of the Bing launch).

Advertisers should pay close attention to these key differences between Bing and Google. To ensure videos get optimized in Bing, advertisers should effectively incorporate relevant tags on their video source pages as well as include descriptive text. They should also try to utilize the latest and greatest versions of their videos. Lastly, advertisers should ensure their videos appear on sites that both Bing and Google are crawling for the video results pages. Bing in particular seems to be pulling videos from “trusted” video sources, such as CNN, USA Today, YouTube, etc. If an advertiser’s video is located on a site that is not considered a select Bing video source, then, it is less likely to appear in the video results.

According to comScore, Microsoft Sites increased its average daily penetration among U.S. searchers from 13.8 percent (May 26-30, 2009) to 15.5 percent (June 2-6, 2009). Additionally, Microsoft’s share of search result pages in the U.S. increased from 9.1 percent to 11.1 percent during the same time frame. These are great strides for the new engine; however, only time will tell its real success. Is this spike in growth merely due to the aggressive marketing push behind Bing or will the engine prove to be a legitimate “decision engine” that experiences continued adoption and retention over time?