feb 03

Where to watch the 2012 Super Bowl live online

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Super Bowl weekend is upon us, and this year, the big game is going to be streamed live online for the very first time. Who wants to see the game between the Giants and the Patriots on a tiny laptop screen, you might ask? Cord cutters and other folks without cable or even a TV set for one, but the live stream also comes with some extra perks that the TV broadcast won’t offer: Viewers will be able to select from different camera angles, pause the game and other fun stuff.

Are you one of those people who just watch the game to catch a glimpse of the ads? No worries, you’ll find all of those online as well. There is also a bunch of second-screen action going on this year to deliver tweets and other extra content to your cell phone or iPad while you watch TV. And speaking of mobile: You’ll even be able to watch the entire game on your handset. You know, in case that laptop screen is to big, or you happen to be away from both Internet and TV.

Here’s our growing list of online resources for Super Bowl XLVI on Sunday 02/05:

  • NBCSports.com will show the entire game online starting with some of the preagme action at 2pm ET (11am PT). The kickoff is at 6:30pm ET (3:30pm PT), and the game will feature HD-quality streams from multiple camera angles, DVR-like functionality to pause and replay the action and a number of social features.
  • Verizon subscribers will also be able to stream the game on their phones through the NFL Mobile app, which is available for both iOS and Android. More info on the app here.
  • Twitter has aggregated all the relevant accounts and hash tags to follow in this blog post.
  • Hulu has once again aggregated Super Bowl ads in its Adzone.
  • YouTube has Super Bowl ads, recipes and more in its AdBlitz channel.
  • At least five of the ads shown during the game will use Shazam to offer free downloads, sweepstakes and other stuff meant to entice you to join the second-screen action. More about this on Shazam’s blog.

We’re gonna update this list with additional links in the coming days. Stay tuned!

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feb 02

Showyou’s latest update adds more ways to discover videos

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Currently most online video services have a sort of hunt-and-peck approach to finding things you might want to watch. You pick a video, watch it and then when it’s done you have to hunt down something else that might be of interest. But the latest version of Remixation’s Showyou app attempts to simplify the discovery process by making discovering new videos easier and more enjoyable.

The newest version of Showyou includes new ways to navigate content by category or by the social network that they’re pulled in from. There’s also a way for users to search and see all content curated by hashtag on Showyou and via Twitter. Finally, the update provides more information about others that you follow and gives you the ability to see what they’ve been sharing b clicking on a user’s avatar.

The trick to what makes Showyou work is that videos play in-line, without users having to exit the app. That reduces the amount of time it takes between finding videos, and there’s always something interesting being shared in the grid. Showyou displays videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Break Media, some Viacom shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, as well as videos from The Verge, TED and other Internet publishers. Altogether, the Showyou app pulls in about 5 million videos a day, according to Remixation CEO Mark Hall, or about 150 to 200 each second during peak times.

That’s led to huge amounts of user engagement for its users. While session times on most video sites typically run less than ten minutes, Showyou users watch about 35 to 40 minutes of video whenever they open the app, or about eight videos per session on average. Online video needs a better discovery mechanisms for users, and apps like Showyou are helping to increase viewership and keep users tuned in.

(Disclosure: Remixation is backed by True Ventures, a venture capital firm that is an investor in the parent company of this blog, Giga Omni Media. Om Malik, founder of Giga Omni Media, is also a venture partner at True.)

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feb 02

YouTube & its content discovery paradox

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For years, YouTube has worked to shake the perception that it is all about amateurish user-generated content. It’s hardly just the home of dogs on skateboards and stupid human tricks anymore, as the amount of professional and semi-professional content being produced and uploaded increases. But now that it’s got the content, it needs to get better about helping viewers find it.

YouTube is betting big on original programming, reportedly spending more than $100 million on 100 channels of professional content. Those channels are mostly being focused on various verticals: action sports, for instance, or food or fashion. But while it’s investing in quality, Kamangar told the audience at the D:Dive Into Media conference this week that it’s still too hard to find the stuff people want to watch.

To fix this, YouTube also redesigned its website to highlight content that is relevant to its users. The idea behind the redesign, according to Kamangar, is that once users have selected channels that interest them, they will be shown the newest videos of interest to them. In the same way that viewers typically pick between a handful of favorite TV stations, allowing users to self-select channels could potentially keep them coming back.

It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not perfect. As I’ve noted before, the biggest issue is one of discovery: Once users have chosen the channels that they’d like to subscribe to, it’s difficult to find new content that might be relevant to their interests. Suggested channels — including its featured new channels — are hidden off to the side and below the fold.

Kamangar admitted Tuesday that discovery is still a problem for YouTube. “Google historically has been a search company, so for us to get the discovery and recommendations right, it’s a big challenge. But it’s the kind of challenge that the engineers at Google absolutely love,” Kamagar said.

YouTube is the second-biggest search engine in the world, behind parent Google. But it’s one thing to serve up the right video when a viewer searches for it. It’s a whole other thing to anticipate what a viewer wants to see and help them find it. That’s something YouTube will need to get better at, especially as it tries to increase the average session time that users are staying online for.

The site has a massive number of users stopping by the site every day, but few of them stick around for very long. That’s something the company has been struggling with since its inception. If it’s going to become a bigger competitive threat to traditional programmers, it’ll need to step beyond the hunt-and-peck process of video search and provide better discovery tools.

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feb 01

Cool for school: Education is a big hit on YouTube

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Dancing babies, cute kittens and… quantum physics? Science may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you’re thinking about YouTube, but the video site has seen a boom of educational content. YouTube is expected to announce Wednesday that views of educational videos have doubled on its site in 2011, with close to 80 percent of these views coming from outside of the U.S.

A significant part of this has been driven by the smashing success of the Khan Academy. Salman Khan’s no-frills biology, calculus and physics lessons have clocked close to 120 million views on YouTube ever since he started uploading them in 2006. However, there’s a growing movement towards more entertaining and visually appealing lessons that speak the language of the YouTube generation.

The most recent examples for this type of programming include some projects launched in January as part of YouTube’s new channel initiative: Crash Course, for example, combines lessons about biology and world history with smart humor, a YouTube-typical in-your-face style of narration and professionally animated graphics.

Crash Course is a co-production of Hank and John Green of Vlogbrothers fame. The channel launched just days ago, and the duo have already managed to get around 275,000 views with little more than two lessons posted. John Green told me during a phone conversation this week that he’s been very excited about this initial success: “It really stabs in the heart the lie that YouTube is about cat videos,” he said.

The Vlogbrothers are among dozens of content makers that have been receiving sizable advances from YouTube to professionally produce content. Reports put the total spent by Google for this kind of content north of $100 million. That money buys YouTube participation from stars like Rainn Wilson and Tony Hawk, but the initiative also includes around a dozen channels with news and educational content.

Many of these channels are part of YouTube for Schools, a program launched last month that offers educational institutions access to a controlled YouTube environment to ensure that students don’t goof off watching the latest music videos. Green told me that he has already received “dozens of emails” from students who were introduced to his new show by their teacher. “People are already watching Crash Course in classrooms,” he said.

But with great power comes great responsibility; in this case, there’s a duty to get the facts right. Green has been using a real-life educator to make sure that he doesn’t get his history dates mixed up. Fact-checking is absolutely necessary for this kind of content, he told me, admitting: “I don’t trust myself.”

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