How to Ride the Video Trend with Ads “Navigating the Social Landscape" Offers Clues, Guidance Panel Suggests Key is To Follow "SPUGs" How will video grow in the future on the Web? How can ad campaigns ride its expansion? These two fundamental questions were the topic of a fast talking panel last night mounted by Miller PR's energetic Mark Lindsey and lively Nicole Rodriguez for TechCrumch in the 17th Floor Penthouse of 80 Fifth, their office building. The session table of four men in dark suits starred Matt Heindl (Director of Social Media on the East Coast for Razorfish) on far left, in black and white open neck gingham shirt, Gavin McGarry (Founder of Jumpwire Media) in white shirt and thin blue tie, David Lucatch (CEO of Ortsbo) in open collar red tartan shirt, and Roland Hamilton (Managing Director of Dailymotion USA), with TechCrunch's Managing Editor Peter Ha as interlocutor. With both panel and audience filled with the kind of presentably semishaven, highly strung, razor sharp ectomorphs and bright eyed beauties who inhabit the cutting edge of Silicon Alley, the session was an introductory highlight of Dailymotion USA's Internet Week. A well stocked bar serving beer and other relaxing stimulants and snacks (including sizable prawns) before as well as after guaranteed a free and lively exchange, laced with humor and a constant flow of tidbits such as Ortsbo's success at gaining a global audience of some 12,000 simultaneous viewers and a total of 150,000 for a live streaming broadcast of BAFTA's (British Academy of Film and Television Actors) award ceremony of many hours with interaction between viewers and actors. Lucatch is keen on expanding the use of live video and Dailymotion's Hamilton said that live music was working well on Virgin Mobile. Meanwhile posted video's rate of expansion is currently over the top with 72 hours now being uploaded to YouTube every minute, so most of it is not gaining an audience unless a piece goes viral. Thus as McGarry remarked making one's own video is probably a waste of time. "We tell our clients, don’t make video, go and find what’s out there and embed it on your page." Follow the leading users strategy Diplomatically (given the context) David Lucatch remarked that it was important to realize that YouTube is not the best partner for streaming on other continents. He also emphasized the power of viral - one of Ortsbo's pages suddenly accumulated 40,000 "Likes" from Lithuania in just two weeks. "It was a language thing". Other pointers came from Roland Hamilton of YouTube's French owned competitor Dailymotion USA who mounted the panel. He said that long form video was proving more popular than expected, probably because it plays well on tablets - he is experimenting with a pay wall. He like Matt Heindl saw much video expansion coming on mobile especially movie trailers which drive huge traffic. He advised that campaigns can ride on the shoulders on popular filmmakers. McGarry said that "at the end of the day video is driving social media". Users were "consuming video a lot like books. It's not just the short 1/2 hour TV show they are viewing on the train. You're happy to leave it and come back and pick it up again. Take a few moments watching wherever you are." He also emphasized the importance of word-of-mouth especially on YouTube which is the Google of the young and ruled by their search, and "tweens influence 80% of decisions in a household." All in all, the key right now seemed to be to follow rather than lead the non-professionals who were generating longer high quality content. In fact, Heindl emphasized that what in a moment of inspiration he called SPUG - semi-professional user generated video - and its sharability was the horse to ride. "Video is a most sharable media" Hamilton agreed. So although things were evolving so fast that the shape of the final outcome is still difficult to discern, the current solution seems to be that longer form user-creators are in the saddle creating sharability and admakers should follow their lead. Stay tuned. (From New Technology Review)