YouTube’s announcement last week that it would begin supporting automated video captioning caused a lot of excitement in the video commerce and video SEO worlds.  Then the balloon popped.

Automating speech-to-text has long been a goal of those seeking to make video more search engine friendly.   Unfortunately, the YouTube technology isn’t ready for prime time.  Google says the technology is in “beta,” but applying that moniker might be going a little far.  The technology is so bad it’s almost embarrassing.  I’d go into details, but in this case, a video’s worth a thousand words.

1.  Click on then hover your …

For some time we’ve touted the merits of video distribution in video commerce.  I believe video distribution is more important now than ever for e-commerce merchants.  Unfortunately, I also think most online retailers misunderstand video distribution and therefore are at risk of implementing poor video distribution strategies.

Why distribute e-commerce video?

Video distribution is important because it enables retailers to multiply the effectiveness of video assets without additional investment in video production.  I often tell e-commerce merchants, “a video on the product page and the product page alone is a terrible waste of revenue potential.”

Over the last year and …

Video in email is a topic we’ve covered recently on the VCC blog.  On February 24, Google made in-email video closer to reality for email recipients who maintain Gmail accounts.

Previously, Gmail users could view Youtube videos in their webmail client, but only when Youtube previews were enabled via the Labs tab available under the Settings menu in Gmail.  In other words, very few Gmail users actually took advantage of this functionality.  Now, Google has rolled Youtube previews out across all Gmail subscribers.  All that is required to view video in Gmail is to include a Youtube link.  There are …

Last year at eTail West the Video Commerce Consortium hosted a small gathering at eTail.  We’re doing the same this year.   For anyone interested in attending, please send an email to justin [at] video [dash] commerce [dot] org so we are able to get an accurate headcount for the event.

When: Tues Feb 23

Where: Oasis Bar and Grille next to the JW Marriott (Palm Springs) pool

Time: 7:00PM (about an hour into the eTail 2010 opening reception)

Info: Call 253-988-3183 for more information

Who: Last year we had VP E-Commerce Borders, Founder eBags, Video Leader @ OnlineShoes.com,
Founder Certona, …

There’s been a lot of buzz going on in the blogosphere and over Twitter about the future of HTML5 recently.  For those who don’t know, HTML5 is the “next” standard for HTML.  The reason you need to care about HTML5 is because HTML5′s success (or failure) is going to have a dramatic impact on the future of web video and video commerce in particular.

HTML5 video is unique because it is delivered directly through the web browser, without a plugin.  Because HTML5 support will be included natively in web browsers, it may become a formidable competitor to Adobe’s Flash technology, …

Enjoy…

FULL VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

Justin Foster: Welcome everybody, thank you for joining us at Video Commerce “The Quiet Revolution in Online Video”.  I see a couple of familiar faces out here in the audience, thanks for making some time for us here.  We’ve really got an all star panel so I am going to try and keep my remarks as brief as I can.

My name is Justin Foster I am the founder of a group called the Video Commerce Consortium,   It is a group of about 500 online retailers, eCommerce people, online advertisers who are dedicated to advancing the …

Interactive video holds a lot of promise for video commerce.  Whether it’s text overlays in YouTube promoted videos, hotspots and “clickable video,” in-video shopping,  integrated product thumbnails, descriptions, ratings, reviews, sharing, and beyond, the potential for interactive video in e-commerce is almost limitless. I’ve spoken at length about interactive video in previous posts, but in this post I wanted to share some high level ideas and examples of ways retailers drive shopping behavior using interactive techniques. Before we get to the good stuff, a word of warning is needed: Interactive video is not a panacea that by itself magically makes …

My apologies to our readers for the scant number of posts over the last several weeks, and to our commenters who have had comments sitting in queue for some time.  I’ve been traveling recently and otherwise just busy with Q4 madness.  I know you all can relate  As promised, below is PFI Western’s Presentation from Streaming Media West:

View more presentations from Justin Foster.

General Takeaways from this presentation:

- PFI Western has proven that it doesn’t take a huge budget to blow out video commerce across marketing channels.  They cover almost all costs with co-op and advertising dollars.  …

It’s been a while since the last VCC TV episode and with the holidays fast approaching it is once again time to kick into high gear.  This go around, we are re-examining an emerging trend in video commerce we’ve touched on before: auto-video.  Auto-video, which I’ve also referred to as “artificial video,” is the practice of taking product metadata displayed on your site (e.g. price, description, ratings & reviews, related products, etc) and featuring this information in a visually appealing slideshow, often with background music and a human or computer-generated voiceover.  We’ve also included a couple of examples of auto-video …

The Video Commerce Consortium has just released a new whitepaper, “Creating E-Commerce Videos That Sell,” downloadable here. Included in the whitepaper:

- Conceptual Framework for Creating Videos that Sell
- Understanding Motivation, Simplicity, and Triggers
- Producing E-Commerce Videos that Get Results
- Conceptual Storyboarding Approaches
- Benefits and Drawbacks of Various Video Production Methods in E-Commerce
- Product Video ROI Calculator
- Selecting the Right Video Production Equipment
- Filming and Post-Production for E-Commerce Video
- Common Video Production Questions Asked and Answered
- Placing Videos on Product Detail Pages for Maximum Results
- Product Detail Page Implementation Results…