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OTT BEST PRACTICES

bsp-admin-1 on December 7, 2018

As time has gone on, over-the-top (OTT) content has continued to change the media landscape. And in order to thrive in this increasingly crowded marketplace, you need to produce immersive digital experiences at scale. Here are some OTT best practices to keep in mind as you stake your claim in this space.

COMPARE DIFFERENT VENDORS STRATEGICALLY

Finding a vendor that meets your needs is crucial to the success of your OTT content. When choosing a provider, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Do you have the required resources and skill sets in-house to create, and more importantly, manage your service and keep it current?

  • Do you have a large enough content library to attract viewers and keep them interested over time?

  • Do you plan to serve ads?

  • Do you plan to offer subscriptions?

  • Is your content best suited for a lean-forward or lean-back user experience?

CHOOSE THE RIGHT MONETIZATION MODEL

When choosing a monetization model, two significant factors to keep in mind are your audience size and addressable market. Ask yourself: Will you have enough viewers to justify a subscription service at the onset? If not, it may be better to start off with an AVOD model to attract viewers — and transition to a subscription model over time.

PROVIDE A HIGH-QUALITY STREAM

When creating your OTT model, your end goal shouldn’t simply be to present a powerful, engaging experience across native platforms — or to have your apps in the app store. While those are obviously important gains, your overall objective should be to acquire, engage, and minimize your churn. And this all begins with providing a high-quality stream.

A recent study by our friends over at Mux confirmed the importance of a solid playback experience. They found that U.S. viewers will stop watching a video when they encounter the following:

  • Slow load time (85.1 percent)

  • Stalling and rebuffering (85 percent)

  • Poor picture quality (57.3 percent)

  • Repeated playback errors (67.5 percent)

It’s clear that viewers have a low tolerance for poor video experiences, which can lead to dramatically high abandonment rates. While these could be isolated incidents that only affect a single viewing experience, in aggregate they will lead to churn.

So, how can you avoid this scenario and provide the type of top-quality streams your audience is looking for? Work with proven streaming solutions that offer rich, high-performing players at scale.

GET THE WORD OUT

Once you’ve got all the technology in place to provide a top-notch OTT experience, you need to start thinking about how you can get your programming in front of the right audience. Here, it’s crucial to create content that piques your target viewer’s interest:

  • Build up your social media presence — and post regularly to keep your audience engaged and talking about your brand.

  • Think about what lingering questions your audience may have about OTT and create captivating blog posts to fill in the gaps.

  • Update your site landing pages on a frequent basis to ensure you’re giving the latest information about your programming.

Are you ready to capture a piece of the OTT market? By following the OTT best practices above, you can take your digital experiences to the next level.

LIVE STREAMS GONE WRONG

bsp-admin-1 on November 30, 2018

The world of live streaming is a little bit like the Wild West—an unpredictable frontier where the only law is Murphy’s Law. We’ve had our fair share of live streaming mistakes, but if you learn from our experience, maybe things can go a little more smoothly for you. Below, find our tales from the front, along with ways that you can avoid meeting the same fate.

WHEN THE ANTI-CATASTROPHE MACHINE FAILS…CATASTROPHICALLY

We like to think we’re a pretty prepared bunch. We know the rules of live streaming, and we prepare accordingly. So when we live streamed an event from Las Vegas using three different internet providers and a load balancer to ensure the connection would never fail, it came as a surprise when it did just that and the stream went down. Turns out, a backbone issue had taken down the internet across the entire state of Nevada. We got back online eventually, but the mobile hotspot we used was barely powerful enough for our purposes.

The solution: With a bonded cellular backup unit like LiveU or Dejero, our stream could have gone on without a hitch. The backpack-style units combine multiple cellular and satellite sources to create one reliable connection without relying on wired internet.

EVER WONDERED WHAT “TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES” REALLY MEANS?

Another event, another live stream gone wrong—this time at Harvard Business School. In the middle of a panel called “TV, Disrupted” we got a bigger disruption than we bargained for—in the form of a fire alarm. Without a “technical difficulties” slate cued up and ready to go for just this situation, our stream showed utter pandemonium for a full minute: people panicking, fire alarm blaring, you get the picture. In the midst of the chaos, our live stream operator quickly typed up a slate in a Word doc and inserted it as a slide in the panel presentation.

technical-difficulties-screen

The solution: Even on a single-camera shoot, use a video switcher like Wirecast or OBS. That way, you can immediately cut to a technical difficulty slate or pre-recorded video as needed.

BABY’S FIRST LIVE STREAM—WHAT COULD GO WRONG?!

Ah, a company’s first live stream: what should be a blissful foray into the world of live is actually a situation rife with the potential for error. On this occasion, testing surfaced one weak spot. Presenters needed to switch slides, which were located on a computer in the control room, too far away for the clickers to reach. The solution is easy, right? Just move the computer controlling the presentation closer to the stage. Well, everything was going smoothly until that computer stopped working and all the live stream operators were holed up in the control room, too far away to do anything about it. While some poor soul ran over to troubleshoot, critical video and audio cues were missed.

The solution: Keep your hardware close enough to troubleshoot at all times. If you need to separate hardware across multiple locations, make sure every station is manned so that one issue doesn’t derail the entire production.

-Ian Servin, Video Production Manager

BOOM GOES THE AUDIO…OR NOT

Streaming with multiple cameras? Look at you, hot stuff…just make sure you’re taking the right audio. During a recent webinar, we had our boom mic positioned just so, out of frame right over our presenters’ heads. But when we went live, the audio came out surprisingly weak. Turns out, we were taking audio from the B Cam’s internal mic, rather than the A cam which was hooked up to the boom mic.

Solution: Test, re-test, and test again…and then triple-check that you’re taking the right audio source. Plus, make sure your boom mic is set to stereo, rather than mono (the traditional setting for capturing audio on-set).

-Jason Oliveira, Video Producer

A COMMON NEAR-MISS: GOING FOR THAT NO-FILTER LOOK

Usually, video pros shoot in a “flat” profile which gives them the most information to work with in post-production color grading. Since a live stream is *live* (no post-production needed), make sure your camera is set to a broadcast-safe, or standard, profile.  Otherwise, your picture runs the risk of looking washed-out—a good look for Instagram, maybe, but not for your live stream.

-Jason Oliveira, Video Producer

Ready to go forth and live stream confidently? Make sure you’re using the right platform. Brightcove’s live solution is the gold standard, and our industry-leading support team will help your next live stream go off without a hitch.

E-LEARNING BRANDS CAN TRANSFORM THEIR BUSINESSES WITH VIDEO

bsp-admin-1 on November 22, 2018

Video is modernizing the way e-learning businesses deliver their core product offerings.

Driven by high speed broadband internet access, high mobile penetration rate, and the average consumers’ hunger for video content, educational organizations are capitalizing on video to attract, engage and monetise their customer base.

Here are the top five tips on how e-learning businesses can transform the way they deliver their product.

1. THE STUDENT EXPERIENCE MATTERS

User experience is critical for e-learning students, because if students are paying for online content they expect content to be served seamlessly, with a fast video playback and no buffering. Even in rural areas where the bandwidth tends to be low, an online video platform platform like Brightcove supports adaptive bitrate streaming to stream the best quality online video every time. Adaptive bitrate streaming creates multiple renditions for each video uploaded, automatically detects user bandwidth, and dynamically switches between renditions mid-stream to ensure smooth playback at the highest quality possible.

Once the basics of user experience are nailed down, it’s time to bring features into play. If you use a  fully customizable HTML5 player, incorporate interactivity elements like content chapters, quizzes, polls, surveys and feedback forms to engage student during their learning experience.

2. LIVESTREAMING OR ON DEMAND? OFFER BOTH

For busy students, organizations can choose to offer the option of live streaming the content as well as offering on demand options once the stream is over. Live assets can be clipped and turned into a series quickly, using a feature-rich live streaming platform like Brightcove Live.

3. KEEP A LID ON COSTS

By using Context Aware Encoding, Brightcove’s award winning video compression technology, organisations lower the cost of storing and streaming videos. CAE takes into account the broader context of the video experience by creating a custom encoding profile tailored to the combination of each individual video’s content complexity and predicted viewing environment. The result: higher quality video that starts up faster and buffers less – a critical factor for students who want get the most of out of their studying hours.

4. SECURE AND PROTECT YOUR CONTENT

Content security and piracy are the topmost concern for e-learning businesses, given that the content is the actual premium product. Content security and piracy can be managed with two of the most widely used industry technologies, such as Encrypted HTTP Live Streaming (also known as encrypted HLS and Digital Rights Management). With these two technologies built into the Brightcove video platform, educational organizations can easily secure their content with watermarks, token protection, restrict access by geography, domain, IP address or publication date, so that  content is accessible only from within approved networks and meets specific security obligations for distribution.

5. CREATE ENGAGING, IMMERSIVE AND INTERACTIVE E-LEARNING EXPERIENCES

At a time where just delivering a video is no longer enough, how can savvy e-learning organizations stand apart and utilize video to surprise and delight prospective and existing students? Video at its core is about personal, human connections. Providing an experience that engages audiences matters, and motivates them to take that next step. Both Brightcove Gallery and In-Page can allow businesses to create customized live and on-demand video experiences—within minutes—to encourage deeper and more meaningful levels of engagement. Layouts like carousels, grids, and playlists, plus interactive elements both inside and outside the video player, encourage students to interact, mention, share, recommend or refer.

THE NEW E-LEARNING LANDSCAPE

From livestreaming to on demand, educational institutions are capitalizing on the power of video technology to reach and engage with students. The once highly manual process of uploading slideware with no live commentary can now be replaced with lecturers uploading and publishing their lessons in video format in just a few clicks—then streamed across various devices and browsers. The advances in video streaming technologies can help educational institutions to go to market quickly, launch and scale as they grow their business, and streamline their processes.

THE FUTURE OF SSAI

bsp-admin-1 on November 16, 2018

Earlier this week, I had the privilege of speaking at Streaming Media West in beautiful Huntington Beach, California. Throughout the engaging two-day conference, much of the conversation revolved around the ongoing convergence of the digital and linear worlds. In particular, my panel, The Future Of Server-Side Ad Insertion, addressed how this trend is projected to affect SSAI today and into the future. Intrigued? Read on for an overview of the major themes we discussed during the session.

SSAI 101

Before we dove into the future of SSAI, we opened the conversation with an overview of the technology. Server side ad insertion is a mechanism that dynamically stitches targeted ads into your content on the server — allowing you to deliver one continuous stream.

SSAI has three main value propositions: improved user experience, ad blocker prevention, and increased device reach. By leveraging this technology, you can prevent ad blockers from detecting your ads and eliminate undesirable buffering. In turn, you can deliver a better viewing experience to your audience and preserve your revenue. SSAI also gives you improved reach to connected devices like set top boxes and game consoles, where the concept of a client may not exist.

MONETIZATION AND MEASUREMENT

As panelist Michelle Abraham (senior research analyst, media & communications, S&P Global) explained, current industry data supports the notion that audiences like choice. In this way, presenting tiered business models can be crucial to your success. During the panel, Abraham shared her belief that advertising will take a more native form within the content itself (as more content-driven creatives take hold of the marketplace).

Well, what about measurement? Amit Shetty (senior director, video & audio products, IAB Tech Lab) discussed the newly released VAST 4.1 and some key highlights of the new spec including standardization of the ad request, the SSAI spec — and splitting VPAID into verification and interactivity. He also expressed enthusiasm for expanding the Open Measurement SDK beyond mobile and into CTV down the line. Stay tuned for more major advancements in this area!

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD FOR SSAI?

There was agreement amongst all panelists that in order for the advancements in measurement and targeting to be successful, the OTT marketplace needs to expand and catch up. Without the appropriate buyers in place, these advanced targeting and measurement standards and technologies are worthless. Once buyers are more comfortable driving their decisions based on these new metrics, the possibilities will be endless. This industry shift will pave the way for exciting innovations like interactive creatives and in-content or in-app purchasing.

DEPRECATION OF TWITTER @MENTIONS IN BRIGHTCOVE SOCIAL

bsp-admin-1 on November 8, 2018

In an effort to control the bad behavior of some Twitter users — particularly those who use social media applications to spam and bully — Twitter has instituted new policies, and deployed automated systems to detect and enforce these policies.

One policy states that an application will be terminated if the monitoring system detects the use of @mentions that are not replied to by the mentioned party within an unspecified time period. In a sample use case we saw, the players mentioned during coverage of a high school football game did not respond to tweets while they were on the field. A network bot that was monitoring the feed misinterpreted this as bullying behavior, and automatically blocked the application’s access to the Twitter platform. Reinstatement required filing an appeal through the support team, and the outage lasted for several hours.

The situation that caused the outage was innocent, accidental, and in compliance with the spirit of Twitter’s policies. But Twitter is dealing with these issues on an enormous scale and is forced to automate their processes. Over 143,000 applications were suspended in Q118 alone.

To address this policy change, Brightcove Social will not allow @mentions when publishing tweets. The Brightcove Social user interface will detect the condition and issue an error with recommendations and an explanation. @mentions will be converted to #mentions for tweets published using Autosync. The impact for the users is that the tweets will not automatically appear in the feed of the mentioned party. This will go into effect on 11/19/18.

While not ideal, this change protects all Brightcove Social users from inadvertent and unplanned shutdowns. If you have any concerns, please contact your account manager.

For more information about the Twitter policies, please read The Twitter Rules.

HDE’s Mizutani talks about how to triple your sales appointment rate with video.

bsp-admin-1 on November 1, 2018

On Thursday, October 18, 2018, we held an event titled “A Must-See for B2B Companies! The Key Points of Video Marketing and the Latest Case Studies” in collaboration with Human Centrics, a video production company. In the first part of the event, Mr. Okazawa from Human Centrics gave a talk on “The Latest Video Utilization in Companies and Future Video Production”.

PITFALLS OF THE REVENUE SHARE MODEL FOR ONLINE BUSINESSES

bsp-admin-1 on October 23, 2018

Traditional publishers who embark on an online video strategy tend to quickly realize that they are wading into unfamiliar territory. Operating from a traditional print standpoint is an entirely different ball game than running an online digital business.

When publishers think about monetizing their online properties, revenue sharing is often a quick-fix solution to a complex revenue decision. Here are the top three reasons why revenue sharing is one of the worst business strategies for publishers looking to build a sustainable business online.

LOW EFFORT, LOW RETURN

The old adage goes that if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Video content is an important strategy for digital publishers as a means to drive audience engagement and monetization. With the likes of YouTube, DailyMotion, and Vimeo all offering revenue share options, publishers may not realize the extent to which they are relinquishing a certain level of control of their businesses to these companies — leaving their business and revenue outcomes at the whim of any changes these companies make to their platforms, publishing technologies, or policies.

When publishers adopt a revenue share model, they often come to a decision that an in-house sales team is redundant. Without an in-house sales team, the publisher relies solely on the revenue share platforms to fulfill its sales targets. Any illusion of true partnership is lost when the platform partner fails to sell enough inventory or does not meet sales targets. The only revenue streams available on these platforms are through programmatic sales. In the current Asian market, programmatic-sourced revenues form only a fraction of the total available advertiser revenue.

Even though many of these platforms offer content owners the opportunity to sell against their own content, there is a pain and risk associated with this scenario. Pain, as in often-taxing reporting responsibilities, or risk, as in owing a fixed CPM to a platform that permits the publisher to sell inventory.

WHO OWNS THE DATA?

Publishers are beginning to understand that in addition to their content, their user data is one of their most valuable assets. User data drives content, distribution, and monetization strategies and more granular user data drives more personalized, targeted ads, which lead to higher CPMs and performance. When using a video platform with a revenue share model, such as those offered by Youtube, DailyMotion, Vimeo, and Verizon, publishers are often handing over ALL of their valuable user data. With Brightcove, user data remains solely with the publisher — and this can be monetized throughout each user’s life cycle.

LOW INCENTIVE FOR INNOVATION

When publishers are served by revenue share-centric video platforms (RSPs) which focus on serving the masses, any publisher is one of many. These platforms are unlikely to create any custom experiences for a single publisher, because their focus is to only invest in innovation if it benefits all of their customers. By definition, publishers will not be able to differentiate. There is no incentive for the RSPs to further their roadmap as a means to evolve a publisher’s business.

So how does a publisher gain a competitive edge? There is no edge. Developing a publisher’s own unique user experience is not aligned with the RSP’s product strategy.

Brightcove actively maintains integrations with a number of hand-picked technology platforms that our customers can leverage (in many cases free of charge) to enhance their business offerings. For example, Brightcove has integrations with third-party ad tech companies, recommendation engines, interactivity tools, and analytics platforms. Brightcove offers a stronger partner ecosystem for publishers to integrate with than provided by RSPs.

Because RSPs operate on the basis of a one-size-fits-all approach, the ability to differentiate as a media brand is significantly compromised for the publisher. If a publisher wants to differentiate — be it by changing the UI, or adding regional-specific payment gateways like AliPay or WeChatPay, or adding regionally relevant social integrations like Line or WeChat — then that would be a change request which would prove to be costly.

For RSPs, improving the UI or adding new features will inevitably become a sticking point between the vendor and publisher if significant revenues are not being generated.  And it is not a priority nor part of the RSP’s roadmap to productize such features.

PERMANENT TAX ON SUCCESS

The more YOU earn from ads, the more RSPs earn as well. In other words, publishers are ceding control of their revenues to third parties. With Brightcove, as your video streaming volumes increase, the per unit delivery costs come down so the percentage you pay (the overall revenue vs. the Brightcove cost) is not tied into ad revenue, nor is the percentage fixed as it would be for those revenue share models. It’s worth noting that a revenue share strategy often leads to a significant amount of unsold inventory, leading to disappointing revenue outcomes.

Revenue share models often will lock a publisher into utilizing a limited set of features that the RSP offers (i.e. mainly integrations with their own platforms) with little ability to influence their roadmap. Publishers also need to be cautious that RSPs do not have the ability to glean additional insights into their audience through these platforms.

BE YOUR OWN BRAND

BE SMART: As ad dollars shift online, premium online video offers a new revenue stream for online publishers. This means that publishers who are embracing digital need to retain complete control of their platforms in order to maximize their revenues.

BE BOLD: There is absolutely no doubt that premium video content is attracting an increasing amount of advertising spend. Now is NOT the time for publishers to be afraid of this exciting new world. They should find partners to help them grow, not partners whose brand goals are misaligned or may actually be competitive with their own.

OWN YOUR BRAND: Content is the product that viewers seek and publishers should continue to invest in. They should present their content in an environment that strengthens their own publishing brand, and not be at the mercy of global corporations who tend to be indifferent about local market requirements.

USING TRAINING VIDEOS TO TRANSFORM CORPORATE LEARNING

bsp-admin-1 on October 10, 2018

The reality of today’s workforce is that most people have only 1% of a typical work week to focus on training and development. With fragmented working hours and increased flexibility, maximizing the time employees have for learning and training by making these programs more engaging and efficient is critical.

Video is all about engaging audiences and creating content that makes a lasting impression, so it’s no wonder more and more organizations are turning towards communication videos for corporate learning.

So, where should you start?

THE HUMAN TOUCH

There’s a common misconception that using video removes the ‘human element’ that comes with onboarding or trainings. This is not true. In fact, video creates a more personalized training experience, as well as informs a two-way dialogue.

Think about how you’d typically introduce a new tool within a company. An all-hands in-person training session would usually take place to upskill the team. But this is something that can be quickly substituted with training videos for employees. You can set up a dedicated video destination using Brightcove Gallery that allows users to easily search and browse for related content in one place. That way employees can participate at their own pace, when it best suits their schedule, and refer back to lessons with ease.

There’s also the option to introduce interactive elements into this video content like quizzes to test participants’ knowledge, or chapterization so it’s easy to flip through to relevant sections based on personal needs. This approach encourages employees to be more active within the training and assists in retaining information.

Plus, you can also use live streaming for trainings, connecting employees together from across the company. Live stream video can be easily powered by Brightcove Live, allowing for cross-country training sessions or company town halls that are enjoyable to watch and participate in.

MEASURE YOUR SUCCESS

Measurement is critical in order  to track and improve engagement with customers, so it makes sense to place the same emphasis on tracking this with employees as well. A video-centric platform lets you analyze the way employees interact throughout a video by tracking which employees watch which videos, total views per video, viewed minutes, and the percentage of content viewed. This data can then be used to inform future video content based on individual and employee needs, which can range from shifting content in trainings to tracking how employees are actually implementing new skills.

MAKE TIME FOR TRANSFORMATION

If you need help visualizing what implementing these changes could be like, look at Wendy’s. One of the world’s largest franchise organizations, Wendy’s uses video to drive its internal communications and training programs for all constituencies. By creating its own intranet portal, the company can remain connected through video communications announcing news, updates, and vital corporate information. Plus, it also utilizes livestream video, delivering real-time footage of meetings and conventions to be viewed across the company.

When employees have minimal hours dedicated to training, it’s important to make the most of that time. Bringing in video enables a holistic, consistent, personalized, and engaging training experience that traditional methods can’t. It removes physical and time barriers while personalizing touch points throughout the training process.