Online Video: Usage trends

Online Video - Usage trends and changing behavior

Changing behavior

Research firm eMarketer Inc. estimated that 123 million Americans would view online video at least once a month in 2007, according to a January 13, 2007 article in the Wall Street Journal.

On April 7, 2009 the Indianapolis Museum of Art announced the launch of ArtBabble.org, an online community created to showcase art-based video content. The site allows visitors to explore works of art online through a collection of interviews with artists and curators, original documentaries and art installation videos. Incorporating cutting-edge technology, ArtBabble features high-definition video, full text transcription of all the videos on site and interactive features including viewer feedback and video sharing.

Conceived and spearheaded by the IMA, ArtBabble is designed to allow other museums and organizations that produce high-quality, art-focused video content to join the IMA in building the premier online art video destination. As of August 9, 2009 the IMA had partnered with 17 non-profit sources, including 13 museums, each of which had provided video content on ArtBabble; the American Art channel on the site contained 35 videos.

The WGBH/Boston Forum Network is an audio and video streaming web site dedicated to curating and serving live and on-demand lectures, including a number of videos on Art and Architecture. Partners include a number of Boston-area museums, colleges, universities and other cultural organizations.

Long Form Documentary in the Age of Internet Video. (1hour, 13 minutes) from Woods Hole Film Festival. Panel discussion by Les Blank, documentary filmmaker, Cynthia Close, executive director, DER, David Tames, filmmaker & media technologist, Kino-Eye.com, Annie Valva, director, business development, WGBH Interactive. The ecosystem that supports the funding, production, promotion, and distribution of long-form documentary film is changing in many ways. This video explores how the long form documentary will be influenced, challenged, and transformed by video on the web, the funding climate, social networking, and changes in audience behavior. [July 29, 2007]

The YouTube phenomenon is turning on end behavior in watching online video. Founded in February 2005, YouTube is a consumer media company for people to watch and share original videos worldwide through a Web experience. Witness this YouTube-hosted 3 minute 20 second video featuring the European Art wing of the Indianapolis Museum of Art, a 4 minute 45 second video on art at MoMA and a 4 minute 38 second video on the Dahesh Museum of Art with Wanda Mann. A 3 minute 20 second video named South Florida Today: William Crutchfield features the artist explaining his artistic approach in connection with an exhibit at the Boca Museum of Art as seen on WXEL. As of January 2007 the company said on it's website: "YouTube is currently serving 100 million videos per day, with more than 65,000 videos being uploaded daily. According to Hitwise, YouTube videos account for 60 percent of all videos watched online and people are spending an average of 17 minutes per session on the site. According to Nielsen NetRatings, YouTube has nearly 20M unique users per month."

Another distribution site is Current.tv, backed by Al Gore, which introduces itself as fillows "Current is a global television network that gives you the opportunity to create and influence what airs on TV... Anyone who wants to contribute can upload a video. Then, everyone in the Current online community votes for what should be on TV. You can join in at either stage - watch & vote or make video."

An example of streaming audio and video usage

The WGBH/Boston Forum Network web site includes many on-demand videos of lectures, plus an archive of taped radio broadcasts. Many of the lectures cover topics in American art. In the About Us page, Forum Network updates on a monthly basis selected usage statistics. On January 10, 2007, the page's "Forum Facts" stated that:

You've streamed 383,583 lectures so far
You've downloaded 154,596 lectures so far
You've podcast 137,215 lectures so far
We have about 1,500 unique visitors every day
Saturday at 11pm is your most popular streaming time
Wednesday at midnight is your favorite time to download
40% of you are from lands outside of the United States
34% of you listen to than rather view the lectures
50% of you are now using broadband
43% of our traffic was MP3 downloads
70% of you listen to the entire lecture
Your favorite lecture was "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Oil Shock"
Your favorite topics were politics, history, and society & culture
Your favorite series was the Top Twenty series
ou also liked the Podcasts, and African American series
More than 1,200 academic institutions access our content
Our content is mentioned or linked to in 312 blogs
Join our groups in Facebook, Eons, or Zaads by searching on "Civic DNA"
Our podcasts are listed in iTunes and the NPR directory
Our full-screen videos are listed in Google Video and Open Media Network

TFAO finds of special interest from this usage report that 40% of the audience is accessing the lectures from outside the United States, underscoring the world-wide audience for streaming educational content, and that 70% of the audience makes a substantial time commitment to listen to entire lectures, which are typically one hour in length.

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