HIGHLIGHTS FROM MAGAZINES 24/7: VIDEO

A standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 magazine executives and editors attended “Magazines 24/7: Video,” the world’s first video conference for the magazine industry.  The June 10 confab was held in the Luce Room at the Time Life Building in New York City.

Click on the above thumbnail to watch
a highlights reel of the conference.

CONFERENCE WELCOME

Paul Speaker, President, Time Inc. Studios, and Conference Chairperson: “I’ve spent my entire adult life looking for stories,” said Speaker, who produced the Academy Award-nominated films Sling Blade and You Can Count on Me.  “The publishing industry is filled with great story tellers.  Our goal is to move to other platforms.”

Nina Link, President & CEO, MPA: "Our industry has fully embraced the medium of motion, sound and pancake make-up.  Stories are increasingly being measured by minutes and seconds, not inches or columns. Our writers and editors are mastering camcorders and lavaliere mikes.  It’s rumored that some have even learned to unlock the mysteries of Final Cut Pro."

EXPLOITING THE ONLINE VIDEO BOOM: TRENDS, STATS AND STRATEGIES

David Hallerman, Senior Analyst, eMarketer: Hallerman said that in 2008, the ad spend in online video will be $925 million.  By 2012, it will soar to $5.5 billion.  “That means one in ten advertising dollars is going to online video. It’s the biggest growth area.”

VIDEO: WHAT WORKS FOR YOUR BRAND...AND POCKETBOOK

(l-r) Moderator Eric Gonon, Executive Producer, BusinessWeek Television, Radio & Digital Media, with panelists: Richard Glosser, Executive Director of Emerging Media, CondéNet; Vanessa Kaneshiro, Video Producer and Editor, TIME.com; Jennifer Mirsky, Editor-in-Chief, Women’s Lifestyle, Meredith Interactive; and Marci Weisler, Digital Business Director, Time Out New York

Gonon: “Video does not have to be TV.  It does not have to be polished.”

Weisler: “We’re very scrappy with video and it’s very much in the Time Out New York spirit.”

Mirsky: On what type of video is working on her sites:  “Informational, how to, and service like ‘How to diaper your baby’ or ‘Baby CPR.’  Fitness videos are the only video behind the registration wall, but it did not depress views.”  On posting videos to YouTube:  “It’s always successful.  We get hundreds of thousands of views.  Our mantra:  Try a little.  Learn a lot.”

Kaneshiro: “I’m the only video producer at Time magazine and I’m very busy.  I’m always shooting and editing…Most of my videos are under three minutes.”

Glosser: "If you feature a video contextually or in a homepage environment, people will sample it. What doesn't work is video SEO."

WHAT I LEARNED IN 25 YEARS OF NETWORK NEWS
...AND HOW I APPLIED IT TO MAGAZINE VIDEO

Tammy Haddad, President and Founder, Haddad Media: On the good old days of network news:  “When I started out in news, grumpy old men used to decide what was news.  Not anymore.”  On viral video:  “I would have a new department at magazines:  the viral department.  They would put video in every place they could.” 

FEEDING YOUR AUDIENCE VIDEO FOR LUNCH

Will Coghlan and Rob Millis, Producers and Hosts, PoliticalLunch.com

Coghlan:  “(Political Lunch is)… a five-minute, daily news program covering the 2008 presidential race. Our episodes are concise, engaging and straightforward--we’re the anti-Chris Matthews. You don’t have to sit through an hour of bloviating to get to the day’s news.  It’s a straightforward concept, that, amazingly, no one else was doing. Rob and I cornered the market on this one in April of 2007 with the first ever episode of Political Lunch.”

Millis:  "The lunchtime target works so well for obvious reasons. There are millions of people each day who sit there with a screen and a high-speed Internet connection, their hands are occupied with a sandwich or a bowl of soup…and they are looking for something to fill that void.  For a short period in the early afternoon, you have a captive audience that isn’t watching television, they’re usually not listening to the radio.”

BEYOND YOUTUBE

Moderator Caroline McCarthy, Staff Writer, CNETNews.com, with panelists: Erick Hachenburg, CEO, Metacafe, and Max Haot, CEO, Mogulus

Hachenburg: On USG:  “The success of user-generated video is its authenticity.  The youth audience relates to that.”  On YouTube:  “YouTube is so big you’ll probably never be discovered.” 

Haot: “We are growing by 500 producers a day.  We have 200 million unique visitors a month.”