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AT&T is getting into the online video search game. They’ve launched VideoCrawler.com, which indexes videos from thousands of video sites. Users can organize videos into collections, which can be shared through social networking widgets.

“We want to do everything possible to connect customers to the content they want, and today more than ever, what they want online is social media,” said Sean O’Leary, vice president, AT&T Business Development. “With thousands of popular video Web sites, it’s become more and more challenging to find, sort and manage all of the best clips that are out there. That’s exactly what we’re working to solve with VideoCrawler by allowing users to search from an index of the most popular media sources from across the Web.”

Related Reading:
Yahoo’s oneSearch Now Default on AT&T’s MEdia Net Mobile Portal
AT&T iPhone Google Deal Pits Apple Against Blackberry
Online Video Advertising to Peak in 2012 Predicts eMarketer Report

On Friday, the YouTube Blog announced that the video sharing site was starting to test full-length programming. Apparently, YouTubers have been asking “to be beamed up with Scotty, to devise a world-saving weapon using only gum and paperclips, and to get your grub on at ‘The Peach Pit’.”

Hey, I’m not making this up. Go to the YouTube Blog and read it yourself.

Through a deal with CBS, YouTube is now offering “Star Trek,” “MacGyver,” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” to the 91 million viewers in the U.S. who watch 5 billion videos a month (54.8 videos per viewer). Yes, yes, comScore Video Metrix reports there are another 19.7 million viewers in the U.K who watch 1.4 billion videos a month on YouTube.com (72.4 videos per viewer). But, I’m sorry, I can’t find out how many there are in Canada.

Nevertheless, the YouTube Blog says, “These shows will be available in the new Theater View style we rolled out earlier this week, which provides optimal experience for watching full-length programming on your computer.”

Yes, yes, but what does this mean to search engine marketers?

The YouTube Blog adds, “As we test this new format, we also want to ensure that our partners have more options when it comes to advertising on their full-length TV shows. You may see in-stream video ads (including pre-, mid- and post-rolls) embedded in some of these episodes; this advertising format will only appear on premium content where you are most comfortable seeing such ads.”

Ah, ha! You knew there was a catch!

Still, in order to make it clear to viewers, YouTube has labeled all full-length videos with a Film Strip symbol so they’ll know what kind of content they’re choosing to watch and what type of ads they might see.

I can’t wait to share this news with Matt Bailey, the founder of SiteLogic. My business partner, Jamie O’Donnell, talked with Matt about Trekkie lore and web analytics at SES San Jose 2008. Matt was the first to analyze “the Red Shirt Phenomenon.” (As any die-hard Trekkie knows, if you are wearing a red shirt and beam down to the planet with Captain Kirk, you’re gonna die.) But, check out the YouTube video below to hear Matt’s analysis for yourself.

Measuring Web 2.0 with Star Trek - & SiteLogic’s Matt Bailey

By the way, Matt Baily will be teaching one of the Search Engine Marketing Training Workshops at SES Chicago 2008. It’s the Search & Analytics Workshop: Using Analytics to Increase Search Effectiveness, which will be held on Friday, Dec. 12, 2008.

To prepare you for Matt’s workshop, here are some basic stats:
The Enterprise had a crew of 430 during its five-year mission (although, the show was only on the air for 3 years). In the 80 episodes that were produced, 59 crewmembers were killed, which represents 13.7% of the crew. So, that’s what Matt uses as the overall “conversion rate.”

Heck, I can’t explain it as well as he does. So, watch the video interview above — read his article over on the ClickTracks site — or prepare to be amazed during his workshop at SES Chicago.

Last week the Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing on online advertising and privacy. Today, the Judiciary Committees of the Senate and House get in on the action as it relates to the recent Yahoo-Google deal.

The Senate hearing began at 10:30 am, but is largely eclipsed by a speech by the President as well as Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s umteenth appearance on Capitol Hill. You can watch it live by clicking on “Live Webcast” here.

The House hearing begins at 1:30pm and the site has links to webcast video, though I personally couldn’t get them to work on my laptop. If you’re in the DC area, head on over to 2141 Rayburn House Office Building to observe the hearing for yourself.

Google Senior VP for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond will be appearing at both hearings and is planning to touch on the following:

• The agreement will be good for Internet users (who will see ads that are better targeted to their interests); advertisers (whose ads will be better matched to users’ interests, allowing them to reach potential customers more efficiently), and website publishers (who will see increased revenue from better-matched ads on their websites).
• Google and Yahoo! will remain vigorous competitors, and that competition will help fuel innovation that is good for users and the economy. Commercial arrangements between competitors are commonplace in many industries. Antitrust regulators in the US have recognized that consumers can benefit form these arrangements, especially when one company has technical expertise that enables another company to improve the quality of its products
• The agreement will not increase Google’s share of search traffic, because Yahoo will continue to run its own search engine and compete in online search.
• Yahoo! will make its instant messaging network interoperable with Google’s. This will mean easier and broader communication among a growing number of IM users, and enable users to choose among competing IM providers based on the merits and features of the services.
• A number of steps have been taken in the Yahoo! agreement to protect user privacy. As Google supplies ads to Yahoo! and its partners, personally identifiable information of individual Internet users will not be shared between the companies. Yahoo! will anonymize the IP address of a searcher’s computer before passing a search request to Google.

Also scheduled to appear are:

• Michael Callahan, General Counsel, Yahoo!
• Brad Smith Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Microsoft
• Matthew Crowley, Chief Marketing Officer, Yellowpages.com
• Tim Carter, President and CEO, Askthebuilder.com

Viacom President and CEO Philippe Daumann joined Kevin Johnson, President of Microsoft, onstage last Wednesday at the Microsoft advance ‘08 client sumnmit to discuss the Future of Search. They didn’t discuss copyright infringement or Viacom’s $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube. Perhaps they should have.

Google, YouTube’s owner, claims the $1 billion copyright infringement lawsuit questioning YouTube’s ability to keep copyrighted material off YouTube.com threatens the free exchange of information on the Internet.

Google’s lawyers filed papers on Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan in response to Viacom’s lawsuit alleging that the Internet has led to “an explosion of copyright infringement” by YouTube and others.

Viacom filed its lawsuit last year, asking for damages for the unauthorized viewing of programming from MTV, Comedy Central and other networks, including such hits as “The Colbert Show” and “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

In papers submitted to a judge late Friday, Google claimed YouTube “goes far beyond its legal obligations in assisting content owners to protect their works.”

By seeking to make carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications, Google said Viacom “threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression.”

Google said YouTube was faithful to the requirements of the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act, saying the federal law was intended to protect companies like YouTube as long as they responded properly to content owners’ claims of infringement.

On that count, Viacom says Google has failed miserably.

The Associated Press reports that in a rewritten lawsuit filed last month, Viacom said YouTube consistently allows unauthorized copies of popular television programming and movies to be posted on its Web site and viewed tens of thousands of times.

Viacom said it had identified more than 150,000 unauthorized clips of copyrighted programming — including “SpongeBob SquarePants,” “South Park” and “MTV Unplugged” episodes and the documentary “An Inconvenient Truth” — that had been viewed “an astounding 1.5 billion times.”

The company said its count of unauthorized clips represents only a fraction of the content on YouTube that violates its copyrights.

It said Google and YouTube had done “little or nothing” to stop infringement.

“To the contrary, the availability on the YouTube site of a vast library of the copyrighted works of plaintiffs and others is the cornerstone of defendants’ business plan,” Viacom said.

Yahoo Flickr launched videos tonight with a press release and a small yellow badge - an asterisk that adds “AND VIDEO” to their tagline: “Share Your Photos.”

Call it the yellow badge of courage: the asterisk serves to warn the flickrverse that only videos that last for a minute-and-a-half or less can be uploaded. Max 150 MB.

After reading in Technology Review (registration) that videos were coming soon to Flickr, we were disappointed to find that Flickr will only host 90 second video clips for Pro members.

The unreleased Microsoft Photosynth app still being tested promises will likely offer a better video experience. We’ll take Photosynth virtual video made from Flickr photos any day of the week.

Until then we can’t wait for the first Flickr video of the dual oven pizza cooking two pies at 790 degrees and more cheesy deliciousness in 90 seconds or less.

If you’ve been wondering how online video can be adequately searched or monetized, then video search company Digitalsmiths has some answers for you. At a luncheon hosted by the Triangle Interactive Marketing Association last week, Digitalsmiths CEO Ben Weinberger gave an impressive demo of his company’s video search technology. VideoSense is an ad-matching and video indexing system that helps advertisers target audiences. The program uses image and speech recognition to facilitate video search and relevant ad-targeting.

To give people an idea of how powerful the ad matching is, Weinberger showed a clip of the popular NBC sitcom, The Office. Steve Carrell’s character was wearing a watch, and the camera zoomed in on his arm. An ad popped up to the side of the video with an ad for a watch. The content was not interrupted and the ad was relevant. As for video indexing, Weinberger said that Digitalsmiths technology can help eliminate redundancies by finding clips that contain the same scenes. Digitalsmiths currently works solely with publishers and ad networks.

With the onset of DVRs and concerns over the slowing ad click rates, companies like Digitalsmiths stand to benefit from providing ads that don’t interrupt the user experience. Expect that trend to expand. Weinberger predicted that advertising in online video will eventually become blended into the content. He said that content creators that learn to do this will have a bright and lucrative future.

Well, that seems to be the case for both Sally Field and Yahoo.

When Sally won her second Oscar, she felt the love and respect of The Academy. All those years of TV acting, training with Actor Studio’s Lee Strasberg, and towing the line had paid off. She had been cast in strong dramatic roles, and won two Oscars. It was not a fluke.

Yahoo recently felt the love and respect of Keynote Academy. They worked hard, and had ups and downs. Then they focused on Search Assist, and jumped to #1 Keynote rankings for “Search Assistance and Suggestions” and “Homepage Appeal.” It was not a fluke.

With the Oscars ahead, I wanted to investigate other similarities between Sally and Yahoo — and there were more than I expected.

Sally: She has delivered some Hollywood hits, including Smokey and the Bandits which drew $59 million (per Box Office Report). That same year, Star Wars was released and earned $271 million.
Yahoo: They also have delivered big numbers, and drew 2.5 billion searches last month (per comScore). That was eclipsed by Google’s 7.7 billion searches.

Sally: She’s quite popular elsewhere, especially on the small screen.
Yahoo: They’re very popular elsewhere, especially through email and overall portal traffic.

Sally: She had a carefree youth, starring as Gidget and then the Flying Nun.
Yahoo: They had a carefree youth, starring as the search directory and then the portal.

Sally: She is currently single.
Yahoo: They are (well, it is) currently single.

Sally: Sally has remained outspoken and quotable. While accepting an Emmy Award, she declared: “If the mothers ruled the war, there would be no @#$& war in the first place.”
Yahoo: We certainly have heard a lot from Yahoo lately, who officially told Redmond to go away.

A total lunar eclipse occurs tonight (Wednesday, February 20, 2008) for skywatchers in the United States. The total eclipse of the moon will also be visible tonight in most of South America and North America. You can find out when and where with Google Earth Sky .

Here in London, as well as all of Western Europe, Africa, and Western Asia, you can see the lunar eclipse Thursday February 21, 2008.

Hundreds of millions of skywatchers are expected to turn out worldwide. During a total lunar eclipse, the moon can appear blood red, an earthy brown or the color of a blood orange.

The (unofficial) Google Earth Blog discovered a free Google Earth Sky downloadable KML file that shows the exact time and place the lunar eclipse will begin in your hometown.

Naturally Google Earth must be installed on your PC. The only drawback: Google Earth will guess your location on the Earth by your IP address. As search marketers and local search experts know, it’s far from GPS-accurate.

For lucky Google Earthlings: you’ll see an animated lunar eclipse. When the virtual moon is in total eclipse on Google Earth Sky, onscreen you’ll see when you can view the real moon eclipse outside.

NASA lunar eclipse Web page, here.

Remember, it’s not a solar eclipse. You can look straight at a moon eclipse.

The last total lunar eclipse was on August 28, 2007 when the Sun, Earth and Moon were in total alignment. The lunar eclipse still held magic before the birth of Google Earth. In 2001, BBC News reported 1,500 white witches would gather in the UK, Sweden, Iceland, France, Canada and Australia during the eclipse to ward off doom.

Kevin Carlyon, high priest of the British White Witches and the Covenant of Earth Magic, said, “In old days the peasant people used to think that it brought gloom and doom.” And now? Not so much.

Still, there’s no word whether witches will cast their spells on Google Earth tonight.

Andrew Lipsman, an analyst at ComScore Media Metrix, recently told the Los Angeles Times that the writers strike drove a record number of restive viewers to the Internet in December. It was the single heaviest month for online video viewing since ComScore started tracking such results back in January 2007. People watched more than 10 billion video streams on their computers, including CrunchGear.com’s hands-on with TI’s prototype Android phone, which had drawn 30,911 views on YouTube as of this morning.

In fact, YouTube has been the biggest beneficiary of this trend, as the number of videos streamed on the site surged 12% from November to December. That’s well above the steady growth rate in online video consumption, Lipsman told the LA Times. The average time visitors spent watching videos online increased seven minutes from 104 to 111 minutes a month.

So, it seems like the perfect time for Search Engine Strategies to launch its own YouTube Channel – the SESConferenceExpo’s Channel – just before SES London gets underway next week.

The Search Engine Strategies (SES) Conference & Expo Channel currently has three video clips – but more will be added during next week’s event, which is being held at the Business Design Centre in London, UK, from February 19-22, 2008. That’s in Islington, mate!

The top video clip, which was added yesterday, features and interview with Rebecca Lieb, Vice President and Editor-in-Chief of the ClickZ Network, about AOL’s prospects in light of Microsoft’s unsolicited bid for Yahoo. The interview originally appeared on CNBC’s Media Money program on February 4, 2008. The video clip was provided by Ann Shannon and the team at PAN Communications.

In fact, the recent possibilities presented with a Microsoft/Yahoo combination will be discussed at Search Engine Strategies London during The Keynote Roundtable: The Changing Search World. Attendees will have front row seats to these industry-shaping events as they unfold.

Following an introduction from Nick Carr, author of The Big Switch, Rewiring the World, From Edison to Google, a group of search experts and analysts will discuss the impact of these changes in an interactive format. Kevin Ryan, Vice President, Global Content Director, Search Engine Strategies and Search Engine Watch, will be the moderator. The speakers include: Mike Grehan, SES London Co-Chair and Founder and CEO, Searchvisible Ltd.; Steven Kaufman, SVP Media Director, Digitas; Bryan Eisenberg, Co-Founder, Future Now Inc.; and Erica Schmidt, Global Director of Search, Isobar.

Also on the SES YouTube Channel is a video clip with Market Motive’s CEO Michael Stebbins and CTO John Marshall, which was added a week ago. They discuss the company’s on-demand video training, Q&A and direct conference calls with six of the top online marketing consultants – several of whom are speaking at SES London. John and Michael also explain their partnership with SES London and the special offer that they’re making to conference attendees: a free month’s subscription to MarketMotive.com.

For those of you who admire the quality of the videography, it was shot and edited by John Zukowski of Azimuth Productions / Video San Francisco.

Finally, the third YouTube video for SES London is my interview with Nick Carr, who will also be a keynote Speaker at SES New York. I chat with Nick about his new book, The Big Switch, which examines the future of computing and its implications for business and society, and about his introduction to The Keynote Roundtable at Search Engine Strategies London.

The video production company that created and produced this video clip is Diginovations, winners of the Platinum VISTA Award for Best Corporate Video from the National Professional Videographers Association for three of the last four years.

Added a week ago, this video clip of my interview with Nick already had more than 780 views as of this morning. Okay, so that not even close to comedian Judson Laipply’s “Evolution of Dance,” which has drawn 74 million views on YouTube. But, while I should disclose that SES London is a client, I have to confess that I only got around to promoting this video clip today.

How did it rack up so many views, then? Well, Jasdev Dhaliwal’s The Web Pitch gave it a plug even before I could get around to publicizing the video clip myself. That’s what I love about social media.

Want a snapshot of the day’s search marketing news? Here we’ve collected today’s top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:

From the SEW Blog:

• Search Engine Market Share: comScore’s December Scorecard
  Google increased its slice of the growing global search pie in just-released search engine market share stats from comScore.
• 1,000 Yahoo Layoffs and 4 Key Yahoo Trends for CEOs
  Improving the quality of traffic with domain controls and ad quality filtering promise to improve lead quality and advertiser ROI over time. The cleanup, though, limited Yahoo’s revenue growth in Q4.
• Microsoft adCenter Partnering With WSJDN
  Microsoft has announced it will provide the advertising for the Wall Street Journal Digital Network (WSJDN), which includes Barrons and marketWatch as well as WSJ.com.
• Who Are The Real Online Influencers?
  The prominent players in our space may not have the impact they think they have.
• Where’s The Online TV Search?
  TV networks have started delivering deep inventories of video clips and longer-form videos online. That sounds great until you want to actually find something.
• SEW Experts: The Day the Agency Model Died
  Endless possibilities might not be the best way to label the latest round of partnership redefining. It will end, just maybe not how the agencies would like.
• SEW Experts: The New Age of Search Marketing
  One of the more misunderstood parts about the Web environment today is just how much the user is in control.
• Hospitality Social Media Marketing: Influence Critical Customer Reviews
  More and more search marketers lay awake at night, in pools of sweat, freaking out about losing brand control in light of user-generated content.

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