Meanwhile, online video has become a career for thousands of video creators, with some making hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

As online video viewership has grown – YouTube draws 500 million unique visitors each month – marketers hope to take advantage of the dedicated audiences and low barriers to entry.

Video creators in turn are making money from hosting sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion and Blip.tv, which share a portion of the profits derived from video and banner advertisements.

YouTube, for one, has distributed millions of dollars in advertising revenue to its 20,000 most popular amateur producers since 2007.

A still from an episode of Annoying Orange on Blip.tv Blip.tv, which hosts the Annoying Orange comedy show describes its content as “the best in original web series”

“We share millions of dollars with our partners every year,” said Tom Sly, the site’s head of strategic partner development.

The amount advertisers pay varies with the popularity and quality of the videos, with creators receiving as much as $20 (£12.70) per thousand views.

“Across the board we’re seeing those numbers increase as we see higher quality content and the ability to target users so that advertisers have more fine-grained control,” Mr Sly said.

In 2010, the number of YouTube partners making over $1,000 (£600) per month from advertising revenue went up 300%, the company said.

The company declined to release specific figures, but Mr Sly said “hundreds” of video creators make more than $100,000 a year and “thousands” make more than $10,000 a year.

The top performing web shows on Blip.tv are on target to take in more than $1m in advert revenue each, said Eric Mortensen, senior director of programming.

“There are certain class of people, and it’s not that they are rejecting TV, they never even thought to be like TV in the first place,” he said. “And because of that they are doing new and different things and that’s how they end up making money.”

Industry analysts say that online video audiences are loyal and attentive and feel a connection to the creators.

In addition to advert revenue sharing, some video creators make as much as $150,000 a year by cutting sponsorship deals with major companies, said former YouTube executive George Strompolos, founder of Fullscreen, a start-up that aims to facilitate connections between corporate sponsors and video creators.

Aware of the power of recommendations from such seemingly personal relationships, companies like Ford, GE, and Lancome are directly reaching out to video makers to hawk their products.

Online video creators work without the need for teams of agents, managers, markets and developers, Mr Strompolos said.

“Online video tends to be a one-stop shop solution,” Mr Strompolos said.  “You get not only the creative development and the authenticity of voice you’re looking for, but you also get distribution and reach.”

As the online video advertising and merchandising infrastructures become more sophisticated, analysts say more and more people are likely to strike out on their own in web video.

This is becoming the new television- a place where the average person has a much better chance of getting noticed and making money than if they were to go the traditional route via Hollywood.

Alan Lastufka, author of YouTube: An Insider’s Guide to Climbing the Charts, said: “The money may not always be headline-worthy, but it’s enough to quit your day job, stay in the basement on your computer and spend your time connecting with fans.”

A quarter of UK Smartphone users see mobile advertising and nearly two thirds see online video ads according to new research.

In June 2011, 63.1 percent (or nearly 2 out of 3 online video viewers in the UK) were exposed to video ads.

Among the total number of smartphone users in the same time period, 25.4 percent recalled seeing an ad while browsing the Internet or using an application on their devices. In comparison, 95.3 percent of fixed line Internet users were exposed to online display advertising.

Advertising Expands Reach among UK Mobile and Video Populations

Over the past two quarters, mobile advertising has seen a steady increase in reach. 5.4 million UK smartphone subscribers (25 percent overall) recalled having seen ads through a mobile browser or app in the quarter ending June 2011, representing a 28-percent increase from three months prior. In addition, nearly 8 percent of smartphone users recalled seeing ads at least once a week (up 28 percent), and 7.5 percent recalled seeing them almost every day (up 52 percent).

Of the 33.7 million online video viewers in June, 21.2 million (63.1 percent) were exposed to ad videos. While the total number of online video viewers remained constant from quarter-to-quarter, the number of unique viewers exposed to video ads rose 15 percent. Meanwhile, the online display market continued to show a high rate of penetration in the UK, with 40.0 million unique visitors exposed to online display ads in June 2011, accounting for 95.3 percent of the total UK online audience.

15-24 year olds most likely to be exposed to online video ads and smartphone Ads
A demographic analysis of people exposed to online advertising revealed that 15- 24 year olds were the most heavily exposed to online ad videos. Nearly 70 percent of 15-24 year olds were exposed to at least one online ad video in June 2011 – approximately 7 percentage points higher than the total Internet audience.

15-24 year olds were also 10 percent more likely than the average video viewer to be exposed to video ads, while 25-34 year olds have the second highest penetration and were 4 percent more likely than average to be exposed.

*An index of 100 indicates average representation relative to the base audience.

15-24 year olds see an even more pronounced relative skew when it comes to exposure to mobile advertising. In June 2011, 31.6 percent of UK smartphone users age 15-24 recalled having seen ads on an app or browser, the highest penetration among age groups. With an index of 125, 15-24 year olds were 25 percent more likely than the average smartphone user to recall exposure to mobile advertising. Meanwhile, 45-54 year olds and those 55 and older showed a significantly lower likelihood than average of recalling mobile ad exposure.

*An index of 100 indicates average representation relative to the base audience.

The research can be found at: http://www.comscore.com/Mobile_and_Video_Emerge_As_Significant_Online_Ad_Platforms_in_the_UK

Facebook and Skype have teamed up before – they already share some instant messaging tools.

Skype is in the process of being bought by Microsoft- which is a major shareholder in Facebook.

The new video-call service was launched by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who also revealed that the site now had more than 750 million users.

However, he contradicted himself by saying that the total number of active users was no longer a useful measure of the site’s success.

Instead, the amount of sharing – of photographs, videos and web links – was a better indication of how people engaged with the site, explained Mr Zuckerberg.

Coming hard on the heels of Google+, Facebook’s Skype offering is likely to be compared to its rival’s Hangout feature. That product allows up to ten people to chat at any one time, while the Facebook/Skype video chat feature facilitates just one-on-one video chatting.

Skype did hint that there will be added features in future, but Google has stolen the lion’s share of the headlines and Facebook will not enjoy being seen as following in its footsteps.

At the launch in California, Mark Zuckerberg was reluctant to get involved in a tit for tat comparison but he did say that he saw such products as part of the narrative that in future companies which have not traditionally looked at social networking will be layering it on top of all their products.

Mr Zuckerberg said that it was likely that other “premium” Skype functions would be added in future.

He also appeared to offer a back-handed compliment to Google+, saying that its creation was a vindication of Facebook’s vision for the social web.

Just eight months ago in March YouTube announced that 24 hours of video were being uploaded per hour. The YouTube official blog post announcing this record also comes out with some interesting statistics.

As you can see from the above chart, the number of uploads to YouTube have more than doubled in the last two years. How come? Here are some of the factors contributing to the growth:

* The time limit for videos uploaded by users increased by 50% from 10 to 15 minutes.
* The upload file size increased over the last few years by more than 10x to 2GB via our standard uploader.
* Mobile phones have improved dramatically in how quickly and easily they upload videos to YouTube.
* More companies integrating our APIs to support upload from outside of YouTube.com (Activision’s Call of Duty Black Ops. as one very cool example where you can record and share video footage from within the game).

“If we were to measure that in movie terms (assuming the average Hollywood film is around 120 minutes long), 35 hours a minute is the equivalent of over 176,000 full-length Hollywood releases every week.  Another way to think about it is: if three of the major US networks were broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year for the last 60 years, they still wouldn’t have broadcast as much content as is uploaded to YouTube every 30 days.”

With 35 hours of video being uploaded each minute, it’s becoming more and more clear that you can watch basically anything on YouTube. Which is why Google owned YouTube has such trouble deleting off Al Qaeda incitement to terrorism videos.

Dr Search reminds you that YouTube is a great, free channel for you and your business to promote your services- with a rapidly growing audience.

This video explains how to maximise your Pay Per Click (PPC) ROI with examples of Google’s AdWords PPC matching requirements to target your budget effectively- broad, exact and negative keyword bidding phrases are the key to saving your wallet from taking a battering. I have saved one client 93% of his Adwords budget- and he’s still getting the same amount of traffic. The only loser is Google.

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

This video shows you Google’s quality score req

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Not too long ago it was okay for the founding business person to hide behind their business brand and not be known to the public.

This was the old way of doing business and as sad as it is, some businesses are still operating under this cold shady theory.

However, today there is a new way to do business, one where the business owner of a company is in the front lines to find out what the customers want, interacting with them and providing something more than just a product or service.

This is the person that a customer wants to buy from, a real person who lets them know that they care, and they acknowledge us as more of a friend then just a number who puts money in their pocket every time they buy something!

This is why if you are the Owner, Director or Founder, etc… of your business you need to find a way to become the face of your business!

Here are three reasons why customers want you to become the face of the business.

1. The customer wants to buy from someone they know
It’s a fact that most consumers would rather buy for someone they know because it provides security of the purchase. So having real face to a business will help individuals trust you and your business. They will feel like they already know you and that they are dealing with a real person, that has the power to do something and someone who cares about them!

2. The customer wants to be able to hold someone accountable
Your customers want to be able to track you down if there is a problem. The customer wants to be able to communicate within multiple ways through the reach of email, twitter, Facebook, Skype so they can get what they want now.

3. The customer likes to deal with the boss
Since the customer wants answers now and is able to get them now, the person in charge better be using the social platforms to get the customers a response now, otherwise they will go somewhere else because I bet your competitor will be able to please your customer misfortunes to deliver answers they want and make themselves available.

Here is why you, the entrepreneur, needs to be so connected and interactive because you are the person a consumer wants the answer from because the answer you provide should be the right one.

Two simple ways to begin being the face of your business

• The power of images
Find a way to place your face anywhere you can that is business appropriate. Start with your website. Don’t just be on the about us page of your site, be on the home page. That is where viewers of your website want to be able to find you and know who is running the show.

Have pictures of your interactions with co-workers and customers from events than share the spotlight and use social media to tag and show those individuals in the pictures, this is a great way to connect.

• Use the power of video
Video is quickly becoming more and more popular for businesses to use because it shows the real you. Within a couple of seconds of watching a video of you, we can see if you are passionate, knowledgeable, and caring or if you are someone who is putting on a show and is not being genuine.

Please, if you are going to do video don’t fake who you are and if video is not your thing then don’t do it. Be the face of your business through pictures and image, do what best suits you!

This post was inspired by a post from Online Marketing Today- become the face of your business to succeed.

comScore, Inc.  has released May 2010 data showing that 183 million U.S. Internet users watched online videos during the month.

YouTube accounted for the vast majority of videos viewed at the property. Hulu ranked second with 1.2 billion videos, or 3.5 percent of all online videos viewed.

Microsoft Sites ranked third with 642 million (1.9 percent), followed by Vevo with 430 million (1.3 percent) and Viacom Digital with 347 million (1.0 percent).

The research reinforces the need to be on YouTube.

Tomorrow’s blog post by Dr Search will give you more reasons to raise your personal profile to increase your online sales.

comscores’s youtube delivers 14.6 billion videos in May research by click here.

This video series was made from the lecture Simon Dye Dr Search the Principal Consultant at the Search Clinic’s made at the University of Gloucestershire on online marketing to to businesses, professionals including Members of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Chartered Managers and the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and students at the 5th annual Gloucestershire Professionals conference in June 2009.

More than 300 people attended the conference with over 60 attending Dr Search’s lecture on Online Marketing Tips, Strategies and how to use the most cost effective tools for your online marketing business.

Of the 12 seminars during the day Dr Search received the top rating with 93% of the attendees saying that he was relevant to their needs and 86% of attendees rated the content as highly rated.

Please have a look at the other videos as they become live on the Search Clinic YouTube Channel

Please let me know what you think of the video. Have you found it useful? Was there anything else that you would like to learn about? Please contact Dr Search by clicking here now.

Early figures suggest the total number of ‘concurrent streams’ peaked at 800,000 although the total number of viewers will be many times higher.

The BBC said this was a viewing record.

Concurrent streams is the peak number of people who were watching or listening at any given point during the game. It is not the same at the total number of unique users, which is considerably higher.

A spokesman for the BBC said the figure was a very early estimate, a more accurate figure would be released in the next 24 hours.

ITV came in for recent criticism when its servers struggled to cope with demand during the opening game between Mexico and South Africa.

Early reports suggest that the BBC servers managed to cope with the massive rise in demand.

A spokesman for the BBC said that they had “set aside as much capacity on our servers as we reasonably can” but warned that users’ own connection speeds could still have an adverse effect on the quality of the stream,

“The open internet isn’t an end-to-end managed network, so people’s experiences vary depending on their internet connection,” read the statement.

The surge in demand may well have been triggered by the fact many firms had made little, if any provision for their staff to watch the game in a more traditional way.

A survey of 1,500 small businesses by the software developer Sage found that only 20% of firms had taken steps to prevent staff absenteeism during England’s games, with measures such as introducing a TV to the office during the tournament.

The World Cup 2010 has already broken several records for internet traffic.

Findings by Akamai suggest that global web traffic on the first day of the World Cup exceeded the limit set when Barack Obama won the US presidential election.

One the first day of the competition, traffic for news sites reached nearly 12.1 million visitors per minute, compared to 8.5 million visitors per minute during the night of the US presidential vote.

England play their next game on Sunday 27 June 3pm against the old enemy Germany.