Going Long-form with Video

YouTube is doing away with it’s 10-minute posting limit, allowing a new maximum file size of 1 GB. Silicon Alley Insider has the story, noting this test applies only to “content partners,” but this has important medium-term implications for public media, and it signals (I hope) a more nuanced view of online video than the “people only want short clips” mantra.

There are two great pieces on this: Mark Cuban goes at this story from a business angle, arguing that Hulu is kicking YouTube’s butt because it has better content, controls the content, and therefore can monetize it effectively. Very interesting argument.

Robert Scoble looks at it from the view of a content producer. He writes that YouTube’s decision is smart because long-form content draws fewer viewers at present, but far more engaged viewers, and that means an audience that’s arguably more receptive to an advertiser’s message. “Longform wins and wins big.”

Public Media takeaways:

• *If you have a content partner relationship with YouTube, you may now have, or might soon have, the option to offer more long-form content on YouTube. That’s a good thing because we have a lot of that stuff – more long than short – in our archives.
• *There is an audience for long-form video. Yes, it’s a smaller audience than the millions who might view a 2-minute clip of a cat playing the piano. But, the audience is more engaged… cares more about that content… has likely sought it out… and wants to see it all.
• *The widespread availability of the “full-screen toggle” and the media center systems that marry the TV with the computer are making for a much different online viewing experience – one that’s closer to TV, and one that’s likely to result in longer average viewing times for online video.
• *Better broadband in the home and on the go is creating the possibility of two very different kinds of video consumption experiences. Video viewed on mobile devices is often short-form; even with EVDO and HSDPA, it’s still easier to download and manage shorter clips on mobile devices (although this is changing). At home, there are a small but growing number of users (myself included) that get almost all their video from online sources like Hulu and iTunes. The two minute clip is cute, but we’re searching for the real thing, not a tiny slice.

There is a market for the long-form stuff your station or network is producing, and although it’s small, these folks are your core – your members (or should-be-members) – and the audience for long-form will only grow.

Here’s the online video I’ve watched in the past three days:

• The Cook and the Chef (ABC Australia) 26 minutes
• Check Please Bay Area (KQED) 26 minutes
• ScobleizerTV: Bluepulse (FastCompany.tv) 30 minutes
• WineLibraryTV (WineLibrary) 20 minutes
• TED Talks: Chris Jordan (TED) (in HD) 12 minutes

Last week, I watched Top Chef online (60 minutes) and I have an hour-long video lecture sitting on iTunes, waiting for this weekend.

I’m not going to try to pass myself off as the mainstream of society, but I want to make this point:

We should be prepared to recognize that it’s quite likely the 5-minute video podcast of our hour-long show is reaching people who either don’t really care that much about our content, or it’s angering our core audience who have accessed it hoping to see all of it, and who are willing to engage with our content on a deep level, and derive deep benefit from it.

We’ve gone through this already with audio podcasts. Some stuff is just made to be short – Story of the Day, alt.npr’s Groove Salad Pick of the Week, etc. Some pieces of long-form shows are discreet elements – perfect for excerpting. But most of the time, if we package 5 minutes out of an hour long show and upload, all we do is make people mad.

Public media, in aggregate, has the deepest, richest, most important content archive in the world. People want to hear and see this stuff like you wouldn’t believe. That’s why initiatives like the BBC’s, to make it’s ENTIRE archive (kind of mind-boggling) available online are so important, or PBS’s agreement with Hulu to put several shows online. And have you seen all the stuff on iTunesU? Tons of video, including lots from public media, much of it long-form.

I don’t want to downplay short-form content; but I want to emphasize that there’s an audience for both – and when it comes to the kind of people we want to reach, as public media entities, there’s tremendous opportunity in long-form content that we’ve not tapped.

That’s what I think… but, more important, what do you think? Please comment!