Chronotope’s avatarChronotope’s Twitter Archive—№ 78,737

    1. I was working on code to serve & track videos last night so this is a little late, but rise of video has little to do w/reader behavior...
  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
    Digital media is doing more video for a number of reasons, some forced, some illogical, some that make sense, some that are nonsense.
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      The rise of video on Facebook and that platforms demand for video has a lot to do with it, but FB pushed video b/c it was seeking quality.
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        It's harder to make a fake news video than a fake news article. There's also the idea that FB wants people sitting in the feed, but
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          at the end of the day FB has failed to deliver promptly on the tools that would make video work for its UX: midroll and pre-downloading.
          1. …in reply to @Chronotope
            Facebook isn't the only reason digital media pivoted to do more video. Though, there are a lot of forces at work.
            1. …in reply to @Chronotope
              Another big one is that leadership sees larger CPMs for video over text, but doesn't account for larger production costs.
              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                Making video is expensive and part of the reason preroll was set higher than display pre-programmatic was b/c of that...
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                  But in the programmatic world executives didn't account for that and have to either drive down costs thru bad quality or underpaying crew.
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                    This is pretty awful because it means that, like all programmatic driven content, video is in a speedy race to the bottom.
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                      This is more disastrous than display b/c video has harder to minimize costs than writing does, but no one plans ahead so *shrug*
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                        Right now it is easier to make money on video, but it won't be. & it usually isn't, because publishers don't see production costs vs profits
                        1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                          So much of the "success" of media's digital video is built on inaccurate metrics (like the Facebook debacle) or budgetary incompetence
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                            PS: Facebook prob wasn't lying on purpose. That gets us to the other reason why video is pushed so hard: it's hard to track properly.
                            1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                              Unlike display, no one has decided on what the 'important' metric on video is or the standard to track it. So over-reporting is very common.
                              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                In the same way selling on pageviews is about perpetuating the untruth that pageviews are engagement, the same with most video metrics.
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                                  Finally, marketing agencies love video and push video ads on clients and publishers like crazy for a pretty simple reason: VPAID
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                                    After years of attempting to create secure display, VPAID is basically loading a JS file into your site and letting it do whatever it wants.
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                                      VPAID is the backbone of video monetization & it's incredibly slow, it's terrifyingly insecure, it's awful for UX. Agencies love it.
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                                        In the programmatic world, ad agencies are increasingly useless, so they create profit & role for themselves by reselling tons of analytics
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                                          That's why these ads have 20 different tracking pixels that all do the same thing. And you can put more tracking tools on VPAID than display
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                                            So publishers create more video to satisfy the demand for additional places to put VPAID tags but that benefits no one but the middleman
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                                              Video preroll is often broken, enrage consumers, are easier to ignore than display. Mostly because VPAID is an inherently unstable standard
                                              1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                (Thanks IAB!)
                                                1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                  Most video preroll is bad for advertisers & publishers. But its great for agencies to keep their useless carcasses afloat.
                                                  1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                    There are situations in which pivoting to video *does* make sense but they have little to do w/length of articles people are willing to read
                                                    1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                      But even those situations, good video pivots, are hampered by the fact that VPAID is bad for web video and people are forced to use it.
                                                      1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                        Ending on a fun fact: most of the code we use to serve preroll today is derived from an open source project built by The Onion
                                                        1. …in reply to @Chronotope
                                                          (and by we, I mean almost everyone. Most video players on the web branch from videojs, which The Onion wrote a plugin for)


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