YouTube Shifts Strategy, Tries Long-Form Video
YouTube (GOOG), known for short clips of dogs on skateboards, cats on treadmills, is trying something new: Showing video that is much longer than its previous 10-minute limit. It's something of a test right now, limited to YouTube's "content partners", but it has potentially big implications.
The company outlined the new policy in a memo emailed to content partners last week:
Long Form Content
You now will be able to upload and monetize videos in your account that are longer than 10 minutes. This feature is exclusively for partners. Independent Film makers that partner with us will now be able to upload their feature films on our site. Please note that for long form content, the maximum file size is 1GB.
How much is a one gig? A lot: Almost enough space for a full-length, standard definition movie. Most full-length films on iTunes, for example, are 1.1GB to 2GB. A standard-def copy of "Semi-Pro" runs an hour and 38 minutes and consumes 1.1GB.
YouTube's 10-minute limit has served a couple of purposes to date: It keeps bandwidth costs down, and it makes it harder for copyright owners to complain about unauthorized streams: Technically, you could cut up "300" into 10-minute chunks and distribute it through the site (reader Big Al points out that you can do this right now with News Corp.'s (NWS) "Idiocracy", if you have the patience). But who wants to watch that? And short clips also work for YouTube because, well, it's the Web, and there's a limited appetite for anything that lingers for more than a couple of minutes.
So what's Google thinking about here? One obvious answer: Advertising. YouTube sells ads against videos uploaded by its content partners, but there are only so many ads you can sell against a short, under clip. Presumably YouTube wants to figure out if it can sell more of them against longer clips.
That will depend largely on the quality of the video it can aggregate, so YouTube is actively soliciting good stuff. Fortune reports YouTube execs have been recruiting indie filmmakers at at the Los Angeles Film Festival to upload their work. Spokesperson Julie Supan told the magazine that YouTube fundamentally sees itself as a forum for short-form. "But as we test full-length content, we are starting to see that the audience is potentially there."
But is the money there? We'll look at the costs involved in streaming a 1GB clip and how much advertising would be needed to make that pay in a future post. UPDATE: Short answer: We think this won't cost YouTube much, and might even help them eke out a few more dollars.
See Also:
YouTube Unveils 'Screening Room' For Free Indie Movies
Will Indie Movies Crush YouTube? No.
Study: Videos Live Fast, Die Young On Web
Why ISPs Want To Charge Bandwidth Hogs More Now: Web Video Traffic About To Explode
A: Film Nerds.
Q: Do Film Nerds care about the film their watching being in Hi-Def, ad-free and with no Youtube bug in the corner?
A: Absolutely.
I'm not too knowledgeable on how much incremental cost there would be for one 1gb video versus ten 100mb videos, but isn't an important issue to consider here what the incremental ad dollars would be in the former vs the latter. They're not monetizing the little random clips, but if they could get this to work, at least it's a start.
By defining the audience as people who watch independent films, they've eliminated the people who'd sacrifice quality for cost. This audience will pay for no-ads, no bug, and many will pay for HD.
Ferinstance: My Comcast cable service offers new moves on-demand in standard or HD, but HD is a few dollars more. I rented 300 in HD, and Even Almighty in standard.
I'm not saying this model will work (because, well, I don't think that at all) - but I think it would have a much better chance of working with more mainstream selections - which will be hard to acquire.
Idiocracy has been on YouTube for months.
I'll stick with Veoh.
c007km, I don't believe it's accurate to say that only film nerds will watch indie films. Having a film for free online and, most importantly, linkable and embeddable, allows a film to find an audience beyond regular film festival attendees. There are other niches/categories/genres other than just "indie film" that can be used to describe a film and target the audience, and they can be very effective.
Even if your first point were true, the second is irrelevant. These feature films are not ONLY available on YouTube. YT allows someone to discover a film without incurring high monetary or time costs. If they like it well enough and quality is important to them, they can go buy the DVD or high-quality download.
A number of filmmakers have used a free stream to build an audience and increase actual revenues on other platforms. See "The Tribe," "Four Eyed Monsters" and "Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning."
You misunderstood: I'm not arguing against the value of this for the filmmakers. I'm arguing against the value of offering this service FOR YOUTUBE.
Like you said, these films are available elsewhere, at higher quality, and that is where I believe the majority of the audience for Indie films will watch them - elsewhere.
I see a YouTube (or other streaming service) play as a replacement for seeing a film on TV. Television deals for independent filmmakers are TERRIBLE. If a filmmaker can even get a deal in the first place, they get very little money, and the contracts can eat up a filmmaker's rights on download platforms with aggressive exclusivity clauses and nasty fine print. And there's no guarantee of air time. Having your film on YouTube, while sacrificing some quality, does give a filmmaker quite a bit more control than TV.
Therefore, it gives audiences a chance to watch those films that would otherwise never make it on to TV. Plus, they can watch them whenever, wherever they want, without having to pay for premium channels, etc.
And, of course, all these views turn into revenue for YouTube, assuming they can get more ad value (# of impressions or duration) out of the longer videos.
A note on quality: This is a matter of incremental innovation. When "Four Eyed Monsters" went on YT, it was uploaded as a 300MB file. After YouTube recompressed it, the FLV file was about half that. It was far from perfect, but not bad, considering. 1GB is a lot more. And I believe YT is improving that recompression process.
So either they're finally letting people use a bit more quality in the videos, or the 1 GB limit is for the uploaded video which they will re-encode to the familiar crappy quality.
Oh and could someone explain how this thing differs from director accounts?
http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=4KWKYZN7znU
Well, except that's from April 10 2006
http://www.FireMe.To/udi
That's a lot of people and a lot of money!
in many ways, it's the instant messenger of the video generation.
the debate over long form/short form misses the point - which is really about on demand and free - hulu has done a nice job of limiting advertising and providing long(er) form content at a reasonable level of quality.
Seeking a more ethical and corporate friendly demeanor; the overall nature of the companies business has changed substantially since it was first started.
Since bandwidth is dirt cheap, and content is key for all internet businesses, I would consider this a great innovation tactic by YouTube (if executed right).
Remember NetFlix also streams live full length videos via the net, and is not the only one. The competition is here now; Google only must try to keep up. What if NetFlix starts a service to allow users to stream to all the NetFlix customers with profit sharing? This is more common than you would think; remember T-Mobile’s T-Zones has on demand applications that are coded and designed by normal people, then the money is shared when downloaded through subscribers. It’s been working for years – and it’s a great idea.
Really good news for pros, now will be easier to produce longer video and with much more quality.
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