INTRODUCTION TO ONLINE VIDEO ANALYTICS

If you have even one video project hosted online, chances are you'd like to know who's watching, when, for how long, and a multitude of other information. Your video host likely provides basic data like how many views a video has had each day and cumulatively, but to effectively market your videos and monetize them, you need extended metrics. That's where online video analytics, also known as web video analytics and/or e-video analytics, come in.

E-video analytics measures what viewers do when they watch online video. Analytic tools enable the capture and analysis of each action a viewer makes while watching an online video. By combining data from multiple users over time, one can glean average viewing time, most popular referring sites, ad conversions, etc.

What the Nielsens do for TV, a number of companies do for online video. E-video analytic companies offer a comprehensive platform of data tools enabling producers and/or hosts to understand how users interact with video content. Some companies distribute videos, then provide analysis about which sites are most effective in gathering viewers, while others let the video producer enter URL host(s) information for videos hosted off site, then assimilate data on the video's performance at each host. A small, but growing market of companies offer e-video analytic services, including: divinity Metrics, Glance Guide, Nedstat, and TubeMogul.

• divinity Metrics manages and tracks video distribution on the Web and peer-to-peer networks via its Scope 3 software platform. An on-demand subscription service, its reports aggregate and analyze information related to audience insight with an emphasis on targeting. The company also offers related services such as Mimic Video SEO for keyword research and search term optimization and video promotion on Web sites and blogs.

• Glance Guide tracks more than 20 events during playback via its API one integrates with their host's media player. The event translates to a plethora of reports, such as average viewing times, audience loss, segment analysis, referring sites, geography, and ad conversions. All reports are available for video, ads, and for the interaction between video and ads with both in-depth and real-time report options. The company offers a free 30 day demo subscription.

• Stream Sense, a Nedstat product, provides real-time reports on visitor behavior during video or audio streams whether they're on demand, progressive download or live, and regardless of the video's host. It also focuses on providing detailed insight into how visitors interact with online video advertisements. It supports Windows Media Player and RealPlayer, and via an open API, any other player. Unlike many companies, Nedstat provides real people for support. The company headquarters in Amsterdam with offices in Antwerp, Frankfurt, London, Madrid and Paris, staffed by "local people" as Nedstat puts it, and it offers all products, documentation and training in those local languages (Dutch, German, English, Spanish, and French). It offers a free white paper for download, Measuring Multimedia Content in a Web 2.0 World, co-authored by Eric T. Peterson of Web Analytics Demystified and Michiel Berger, Chief Innovations at Nedstat, to help newcomers to online video get up to speed on Web video analytics.

• TubeMogul offers InPlay to integrate with a Flash video player to track rich viewership metrics such as audience engagement, attention span and site performance -- all in real-time, automated upload to the Web's top video sharing sites, aggregates video-viewing data from multiple sources to give publishers improved understanding of when, where and how often videos are watched, track and compare what's hot and what's not, measure the impact of marketing campaigns, gather competitive intelligence, and share the data with colleagues or friends.

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This post blogged by Carlie Lawson. She is a hazards consultant, freelance writer, and weather nerd living in Norman, OK, also known as the weather capital of the United States.

Comments

[Roy Peterkofsky]

Skytide has some very cool video analytics functionality, too ... like measuring whether higher bitrates and fewer stalls actually lead to increased viewer engagement.