Time spent watching up big in ‘09
Online video use has grown by as much as 50 percent in the past year, according to traffic reports for the month of May.
Nielsen’s VideoCensus reports that the Time Per Viewer metric was up 48.9 percent year-over-year for the month of May. The time figures out to 189 minutes of watching video streams in May, or just over three hours.
Total online video streams were up roughly 35% over the 2008 figure.
The all-mighty Unique Viewers stat for online video showed a 12.8 percent increase May-to-May.
The top online video site remained YouTube, followed not-so-closely by Hulu, Yahoo!, Fox Interactive Media and ABC.com.
Nielsen’s online video ratings have come under fire from content providers, who feel the overall numbers are far too low. A recent observational study of media habits funded by Nielsen found the online video numbers are too high, estimating time spent watching online video at something like two minutes a day.
Too high, too low — the only thing that seems right is they have it wrong.
Weird Al YouTube channels Jim Morrison
Weird Al somehow finds a duality between Craigslist and the Doors in his new psychedelic music video. Heavy.
The “Craigslist” single and video were released today, and spread like light-my-wildfire.
What does the Lizard King have to do with Craigslist?
“I thought it would be anachronistically weird to have me as Jim Morrison screaming about Craigslist,” Yankovic said. “That just seemed so completely wrong that I thought I had to do it.”
Tune in, turn on and get stupid. Weird Al details on this psychedelic music website.
‘Home’ video debuts on YouTube
The Luc Besson-produced visual feast “Home” opens Friday in theaters across the U.S. and Europe, in celebration of World Environmental Day.
Best to catch this “stunning visual portrayal of Earth” on the biggest screen you can find, but there’s a quick, easy and free way to see the film as June 5 dawns.
YouTube is set for a one-day-only streaming of “Home,” which was directed by French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. (Update: The movie started streaming on schedule. YouTube’s presentation is in widescreen with the viewer option for what it calls HD.)
The production claims the title of first simultaneous online and offline premiere for a major film. The 90-minute feature is narrated by Glenn Close.
The ambitious and well-executed YouTube channel for “Home” includes the making-of extras we’ll probably see on the Blu-ray and DVD, as well as short videos about shooting locations. There’s also a stash of press conference videos. Google France worked with the producers to create five map “layers” with interactive and dynamic content.
The film is available in English, French, German and Spanish. Some international viewers are reporting messages that the stream is not available in their countries.
Director Arthus-Bertrand’s eco-friendly canned quote says, “The message in this film is incredibly important since it underscores the question of survival. It needs powerful and accessible platforms like YouTube and Google Maps to reach the largest audience.” Besson, of course, is known for visually driven movies such as “The Big Blue” and “The Fifth Element.”
“Home” also will screen in outdoor settings around the planet, such as Central Park, and on some TV networks.
Previous filmmakers debuting their works online include Michael Moore (”Sicko” on BlipTV) and Wayne Wang (”The Princess of Nebraska” on YouTube).
Hulu Labs cooks up Desktop player
Hulu has lifted the curtain on its beta-driven Labs section — and more importantly its new desktop application for home computers.
The Hulu Desktop, billed as “a lean-back viewing experience,” works with robust Macs and PCs (view system requirements). The app is downloaded from the Hulu site. Beyond that no browser is needed. You’ll need a current version of Flash for the thing to work.
The Desktop will feel familiar to fans of Boxee, the open-source media center app that Hulu unplugged from its video stream months ago. Unfortunately, the Hulu Desktop starts playing a video upon launch, a feature that’s drawing complaints from beta testers.
The Desktop takes commands from remotes for the Windows Media Center and Apple devices (as well as keyboards and your mouse). Linking the computer and your TV monitor would bring Hulu to your living room, of course.
Although you don’t need a Hulu account to use the Desktop, it looks like a good thing to link up for those who want access to their queue, histories and playback preferences. “Friends” aren’t welcome, so far.
The beta is very much for real. A lot of people are looking for bugs in the Hulu Desktop, and finding them. There seems to be a pattern of crashing after a few minutes of playing. Interesting comments in the thread.
Other products on the Hulu Labs page include a Video Panel Designer, which produces embeddable widgets. Webmasters can select a design from a fairly robust panel, with six color schemes. The width and size are customizable as well. There are various options such as full-length programs or clips.
Some shows and movies are only available as clips. Hulu says that “generally speaking” all of its content is available via the desktop client, but gives itself an out due to content providers’ wishes. There are ads on the videos (”limited commercial interruption”).
There are persistent reports that Hulu’s iPhone app is on the horizon, but this Flash-dependent client is of no apparent help. (It’s conceivable that the Hulu-iPhone app could be revealed at the Apple Developer Conference next week.)
The Labs page also has tryout versions of a recommendation system and a modest page for “time-based browsing” that allows users to search by date. The recommendation-feature preview, oddly, requires a login to view.
Macworld has a good overview and basic review of the Hulu Desktop.
You may recall that CBS Labs launched a similar page last year, but it hasn’t provided much beyond the preview of the CBS HD player.
System requirements for Mac include “Intel Pentium Core Duo 2.0GHz (or equivalent), Mac OS v10.4 (Tiger) or later, 2 Mbps Internet connection or greater and 2 gigs of RAM. For PC, it’s Intel Pentium Core Duo 1.8GHz (or equivalent) and Windows XP or our old friend Vista.)
