The CEO Game

The video content site continue to entertain millions of visitors from around the world – But Google are far less than pleased: The site simply isn’t making enough money.

YouTube only exists for 5 years, but it seems like it was part of our live since ever. It’s hard to recall what we did before YouTube , when we had the rush to hear some old song or entertain ourselves for few minutes.

Turned 5 years old

Not only , we the consumers, are having hard time to remember how was life before YouTube, the life of Cinema and Television corporations had also  changed. Only that they look back in sorrow. Since YouTube’s breakthrough they had lost most control on the habits of the consumers.

Since the site was first open for the public it had few ups and downs, the most important one was it being bought by Google in 2007 in a deal worth 1.65 milliard dollars. Although YouTube has a financial and marketing support of Google, It been marked as one of the worlds’ most popular sites, and the fact that every minute visitor are uploading 20 hours of video, YouTube is still hardly pays for itself. With costs of over 365 million dollars a year for bandwidth and advertising revenues hardly reaching the 500 million dollar mark. Google has beating itself for over two years about how to produce more revenues that will maximize YouTube’s potential.

YouTube’s main problem is the difficulty to  attach advertisements to 98% of videos it got. Google had made a major step in the last weeks when they added the automatic caption service which will aid in this subject.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.

Google, YouTube’s parent company has announced on its blog that automatic captions will start rolling out across the site. The world’s largest video hosting service will begin automatically add subtitles to videos using Google’s voice recognition program. Thus YouTube, will become far more accessible to speakers of different languages, the hearing impaired and additionally YouTube will make one giant leap towards search engine dominance.

Youtube - Now With Captions

YouTube announced on November 2009, on launching a new automatic caption service. The service was good but limited, it offered English captions but those were found only on 13 of YouTube’s streaming channels. These include National Geographic, Columbia, as well as most Google and YouTube channels. But, from this day and on, all users will be able to use Google’s speech recognition technology, in order to create subtitles for their content.

Google already admitted that the new technology is not perfect, nevertheless it still provides a better solution than manually captioning the content. In a demonstration held the phrase “sim card” became “salmon” in text, but Google also promises that the technology “will continue to improve with time”.

Automatic captioning, will allow the hearing impaired to enjoy video content over the web, without any need for additional help or program. In addition, the service will allow watching content with no need for speakers, that might intrude the surrounding environment. The automatic captioning service, is currently supporting only English soundtracks, but Google says that making it international is its top priority and it is only a matter of time before they will achieve that.

Still, that does not mean you won’t be able to enjoy the clips in your own language. The English subtitles could be translated with one button click to any of the 50 languages supported by Google’s translation service.

How will it work? Upon uploading a video to the site, the user would be able to create an automatic caption of the clip’s soundtrack and then fix it manually, if there is a need. The user then, would be able to download the subtitles file to the personal computer in a SUB or SRT file format. Users who already uploaded content, are expected to find a new button for requesting captions for their existing content. According to Google, processing each video could take some time. Hence, Google promises to add more servers if users will experience a slow service.

One of the big challenges of the video medium is whether it can be made accessible to everyone, and now Google is raising the standard and doing just that. In the web 2.0 age, where “content is king”, Google- the web’s searching giant, will become even bigger by “writing down” and indexing every video we have got.

Omer Shachnai

The CEO Game.

SEO is not a Choice

Actually, it is a choice – the same choice everybody has for doing a bungee jump without the rope.

SEO choosing is not an option

Lets start with defining Search Engine Optimization.
The term SEO refers to the things you can do in order to increase the number of desirable visitors who come to you website, after entering relevant search keywords in the search engine of their choice. In some cases (most of the cases!), this includes changing the website itself, redesigning HTML and content text, adding meta tags and so on. It also includes communicating directly with the seach engine, or gaining traffic by inserting links from other sources (“back-links”), so the search engine increases your page rank.

Before I continue the good work, I must add few important remarks:

• SEO is not accurate science.
• No one really knows Google’s formula. There are a lot of ingredients, and page rank is one of them (an important one, but only one).
• (More about Page Rank in future articles.)
• Your website isn’t meant for everyone.
• The meaning of the phrase ‘desirable visitors’ means the people who wish to find you. Potential users and not, god forbid, spamers, hackers, scanners and other persona non-grata.

OK, Now that we are familiar with the subject, I wish you all the best….

… Of course I wouldn’t abandon you guys! After all we’ve been through.

So, How to Get Started?
There are many books, blogs, articles, dedicate websites, videos, SEO companies and god knows what. But first things first – you must set your business goals! Here are several questions you should ask yourself, in order to define your target:
What is my main business?
What are my business goals? My main goal?
What are my objectives for the next month, 6 months, 1 year?
What function does my website serve (in relation to the business goals)?
How does my website help me achieve my goals?
Who do I want to visit my site?
What do I want my visitors to do with my site?
Which page (on my site) is the top priority, that every visitor must see?

Next – determine your measuring factors!

Why measuring factors?

This isn’t really a question, but because so many fail at this stage, I’ll provide an explanation. Success factors as for number and KPI (Key Performance Indicators) put you in a place of visual, solid target, rather than fluid or feeling based factors. (what does the yellow part mean????)
Those factors give you the direction you’re heading (up or down), set you up with schedule, and let you respond accordingly.
Now – get to work!

Before I say goodbye, I’ll give a great tip for all the future players of The CEO game . These business goals and measuring factors are important and essential, and that SEO is also a part of the game. It is important to position your company well, and in the earliest stage that you can.

I’ll finish with the famous phrase:
“…an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind.” (Shakespeare, ‘Much Ado about Nothing’)
Competition is the best when one wishes to improve, to get the most of it until you reach the top (Nim, ‘the CEO Game blog’)
That will do it for now. Next time we’ll get to a more practical level.

Nimrod Elias.

The CEO game.

The World is Google.

I’m sure I’m not the first one stating this claim.

To SEO or to SEO

Everything we wish to know is there. Professional documentaries, fun videos, official data, freely-posted and unreliable opinions – all just few search words away, and lots of it. If you wear the hat of the business man, you probably already know that you must be indexed by Google in order to be found.

In order to get to the first page – you need to be the conversation of the day.
In order to be the conversation of the day – you need to get to the first page.
So, what came first, the egg or the chicken? In our case it’s easy. You must get to the first page: it’s the to be or not to be of every modern ambitious business.

There is no magic. If you want people to find you, you must make an effort and let the search engine rank you, as high as they can.
Moreover, if you want the right people to find you (your potential customers), you must be very devoted to the business of SEO

What is SEO? Search Engine Optimization.

Yeah, right, but what stands behind the words? That’s the one-million-dollar question.

I’ll dedicate my next articles to discussing this subject. What is SEO, what does it claim, some great success stories, and most of all, how to do it (there are even tools helping you reach the top, only if you know what you are doing, of course).

For now, just get this: in order to succeed in the modern world, you need to represent your production/service/goals as true passion (or at least make others believe that this is your main motive). Trying to be the best of what you’re doing is a key ingredient every search engine wishes to provide its users. Sometimes you need to take a step forward in showing those mighty search engines what you are really like.

The bottom line – SEO is not a choice.
It’s a win-win situation for you, Google, and your potential users.

Nimrod Elias.

The CEO Game.

Facebook. Leading the web 2.0 world

The Beginning of the Revolution

In 2004, Tim O`Reilly said that “Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform”. In the past few years, more and more new platforms have risen to fill the endless need of the public to post its own content. From Wikipedia in 2001, Facebook in 2004, and Twitter and YouTube in 2006, the Internet as we know it has changed. As we witness the “Global warming” of web 2.0 we tend to forget that behind every web 2.0 platforms stands a business.

Converting Popularity to Revenue

The key issue that today’s Business 2.0 struggle with is converting the “Cool” widget and gadget to a profit-making business. There might be thousands of sites offering to keep us in touch with our friends, upload our home made films or post our exact location, but what we don’t have is new ideas of how to make money from it. The main income source for businesses today is advertising, from plain banners to target based ads. The problem with advertising is that it is limited, and we as users are tired of being interrupted while trying to watch a movie or talk to our friends. It’s time for these businesses to stop the evolution and start the revolution. Even today, great sites like MySpace or Flickr lose more revenue with each year, and if a change isn’t made soon, in a few years no one will remember they ever existed.

In my opinion, the solution to this downfall is offering services to the masses. These services need to be as unique as possible and related to the sites theme. These services could range from creating TV shows based on YouTube (each country and its own content) to professional event organization for groups based on social networks. Another solution might be using the wisdom of the crowds to foresee trends.

Ailon.

The CEO Game.