AccuStream Research: UGV Metadata Establishes Video Advertising Benchmarks for Viral CPMs.

MONTEREY, Calif. -- User Generated Video (UGV) contains abundant metadata about each video that when graded leads to a set of performance benchmarks across sites that can be evaluated, and effectively bought and sold on a CPM basis.

User Generated Video Advertising 2007: Metadata Metrics and Viral CPM Valuations, a new report published by AccuStream iMedia Research, analyzes UGV metadata (including comments, number of ratings, most discussed, linked to and top rated) extracted from hundreds of thousands of videos, incorporating them into both traditional and viral CPM models.

For example, the average number of user comments (recommendations) per video across top UGV sites is 19.5 (including YouTube 19.9, MySpace 12, NBC Channel on YouTube 23, CBS Channel on YouTube 19, Metacafe 29 and LiveDigital 14).

This report also analyzes specific content categories inside each site, determines average performance of videos per category based on relevant metadata, and converts those metrics into a CPM. The area between average videos and top performing videos yields a viral CPM opportunity for advertisers.

"Metadata establishes a relationship between views and types of user engagement," commented Paul A. Palumbo, research director with AccuStream. "Nothing is more important to advertisers than consumption and recommendation; conversation about a video ad multiplies its value."

For example, the top 100 videos across Metacafe's library generate an average of 133 comments. The top 200 capture 121 comments. The top 500 generate 102 comments.

"Research indicates the number of views is directly proportional to the number of comments and ratings a video receives, not the other way around," he said.

With clearly defined metadata performance ratios for sites and individual videos, advertising can be customized to solicit specific user reactions when run across sites or content categories. Media planners and sites can use metadata performance to better shape campaign uniqueness that builds value into viral CPMs.

"This segment is a circular media environment, compared to a top down or a one way model. Users are in multiple points inside the experience. They can start the conversation and they can react to it. Social currency is attached to the CPM," Palumbo noted.

AccuStream iMedia Research (http://www.accustreamresearch.com) publishes research on streaming media, advertising, subscriptions, UGV, download media and CDN telecom.