Hulu, Veoh Among Companies Following Feedback on Microblogging Site

By Daisy Whitney

When a Hulu user posted a message on Twitter earlier this month about “terrible performance problems” on the Fox-NBC online video site, a Hulu executive replied with an e-mail address and an offer to fix the problem.

That’s because Hulu’s employees conduct daily Internet searches to learn what’s being said about Hulu on Twitter, the popular microblogging service.

Twitter is quickly emerging as an important social media channel that lets companies listen to and interact with users. A handful of television networks and shows have experimented with the service, and online video destinations such as Veoh and Hulu are actively leaning on Twitter to communicate with their viewers. Other sites, including Crackle, say they plan to devote more resources to monitoring Twitter “chatter” in the coming year.

As social media becomes a more powerful communication vehicle for consumers, savvy brands are tracking online buzz to learn what they’re doing right and wrong. For online video sites, the practice is crucial—they live and die by the Internet and need to know whether their sites are working well or not.

“If anyone has an issue with latency or streaming and they talk out to the Twitter universe, we will reach out to them,” said Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu. “Someone said recently they were getting ready to watch Hulu and they had some trouble, so I e-mailed them [and] said, ‘I’d love to hear more about it,’ and connected them to our chief technology officer. That’s something you couldn’t do without Twitter.”

Hulu also uses the microblogging service to post occasional updates on new features and content. In addition, Mr. Kilar tracks Hulu mentions on Twitter via the Twitter search service Summize.com. He said Hulu now generates about 30 mentions on Twitter every hour compared to 30 per day earlier this year.

That sort of heady word-of-mouth uptick is one of the reasons Hulu usage shot up in October, when the site delivered 206 million streams of video to 9 million unique users, up from 142 million streams to 6.3 million unique users in September, according to Nielsen Online.

Veoh executives also chat with users via Twitter, blogs and forums. Earlier this month the site’s founder, Dmitry Shapiro, posted a Twitter update asking for feedback on the redesigned site.

“Our executives and employees frequently follow the conversations about Veoh on social media services like Twitter,” said Gaude Paez, a spokeswoman for the company. “We encourage all Veoh employees to share new Veoh content and features with their friends through their Facebook and MySpace networks.”

Advertising executive Scott Lackey has informally tracked the Twitter usage of several TV network and online video sites, such as CBS News, HBO, NBC, Hulu and Web-to-TV software service Boxee, and found that Hulu and Boxee were among the most interactive of the group. “What impresses me is how they are tracking comments and they pick stuff up and message you back with practical, pragmatic, helpful advice. It’s great customer service, it’s proactive and it builds tremendous trust and goodwill,” said Mr. Lackey, co-founder and strategic director of Jugular Advertising.

Traditional TV networks haven’t harnessed the back-and-forth of Twitter, with a few exceptions, he said. Some shows, such as Showtime’s “Californication,” have created Twitter accounts for characters, and the host of MSNBC’s popular prime-time news show “The Rachel Maddow Show” interacts with followers via Twitter, posting updates about the show and her personal life.

Other industries are increasingly monitoring discussions that take place on Twitter, said Andy Beal, founder of Trackur.com, a social media monitoring service. “Comcast, Dell and Zappos are all examples of businesses that are actively listening to conversations on Twitter and using corporate-branded Twitter accounts to interact with their target audience,” he said.

Twitter allows brands to talk directly to customers, which is why it should be part of a social media monitoring strategy, said Raquel Krouse, practice lead for social media for the IPG Emerging Media Lab. “Monitoring social media allows marketers to determine how positively or negatively people are currently talking about a brand, and to identify issues and opportunities,” she said.

It seems Google is starting to realize that any attempt to keep secrets is pretty futile in today’s era of transparency.

The latest proof of this wake-up call is its announcement that it will eliminate 100 jobs from its recruiting department.

Our first step to address this was to wind down almost all our contracts with external contractors and vendors providing recruiting services for Google. However, after much consideration, we have with great regret decided that we need to go further and reduce the overall size of our recruiting organization by approximately 100 positions.

Which makes me wonder; just how big is Google’s recruiting organization anyway? 100 positions is a lot, so how many do they have left in that department?

In addition, Google is closing many engineering locations and those folks my be also be without a job.

This seems like the kind of news that Google wouldn’t have previously announced, but when you consider that rumors are still circulating that Microsoft might layoff  as many as 15,000 people, it seems Google would prefer we all know the actual number, than let speculation run wild.

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I doubt that anyone (aside from maybe Sue Decker, the Yahoo President who announced her resignation in the official announcement of the new CEO) envies Yahoo’s new CEO, Carol Bartz. It’s going to take more than just business acumen to turn around the company’s failing fortunes—but does Bartz have what it takes?

Popular opinion is divided so far. Henry Blodget is pretty excited about her take-charge attitude and her track record of turning a failing company around.

The more we learn about Carol, the less she seems like the safe choice and the more she seems like the smart choice. We LOVED her attitude on yesterday’s short introductory conference call:

In Yahoo’s conference call this afternoon, she lectured everyone sternly to give Yahoo some “friggin’ breathing room” and also noted that the company “frankly, could use a little management.” (Swisher)

You go, girl.

John Paczkowski of All Things Digital calls Bartz “The ALL CAPS CEO” (as opposed to Jerry Yang, the “ceo”), but notes that some feel she doesn’t have enough experience with consumers or advertising.

Reuters says she lacks Web and deal-making experience.

Bartz, however, does not have an established reputation as a deal-maker and Yahoo investors regarded her appointment skeptically, with shares of the Internet search and advertising company dropping more than 3 percent during the trading day. . .

She is credited with increasing Autodesk’s revenue from $285 million to $1.5 billion during her 14-year tenure, as well as diversifying its business. Bartz, 60, built the company by buying small and medium-sized businesses, including a $444 million buyout of Discreet Logic in 1999.

“She seems to me to be more of a builder than a buyer-and-flipper,” Davis said. “I’m sure that plenty of people wanted to buy Autodesk over the years.”

Analysts lauded her for being a dextrous, capable and committed executive, but said that without any experience in the Internet sector, she would likely find it daunting to turn around Yahoo, which is a distant second to Google Inc in the search advertising market.

Reuters appears to look at her appointment as a sign that Yahoo will not be selling to Microsoft, instead opting to try to turn the company around on its own (and there seems to be some implication that this is a bad thing).

Now, none of us can predict the future, but from what we know about Carol Bartz, what do you think the new CEO means for Yahoo’s future?

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(Hat-tip)

Pilgrim’s Partners: Is a blogger attacking your company without you knowing? Monitor your online reputation with Andy Beal’s Trackur–try it for free!

As internet marketers we tend to concentrate on Google and its product set. Makes perfect sense considering Google is the undisputed King of the Online World.

What’s interesting to see is what Google does as a business. The Yahoo! news site ran an Associated Press story that says the AP ‘obtained’ a copy of the regulatory filing that Google filed December 15, 2008 and it revealed some interesting things about the company and what is going on there.

First, it’s  interesting that it was filed in paper form only. This practice avoids the online aggregators of these public records from being able to post the filing through their normal channels. I suspect these folks will have it sooner than later but the intentionality of Google providing the filing this way is curious. Trying to fly under the radar? Who knows.

The area of biggest speculation is what Google is doing to navigate the economic doldrums we find ourselves in. Google’s Sergey Brin noted back in October that the company had roughly 10,000 interns, contractors and temporary workers in its ranks but this filing only talks of 4,300. Some conjecture circles around whether there have been large cuts on this side of Google’s workforce. Google spokeswoman, Jane Penner has said that the 4,300 number is just a subset of the 10,000 so it would be incorrect to see the difference in these two numbers as a trimming of staff and workers. Spin, spin, spin.

One thing that Google has assured everyone is that they will not be cutting back on research and development. In fact some of the document was not made public due to its contents containing trade secrets. That’s good to hear. Unfortunately for the ‘Googlers’ in Mountain View that has come at the expense of many perks that Google has become famous for including company-wide cash bonuses (the poor staffers had to suffer through a free Android phone gift this year) and some food services.

From a pure business perspective the other area that the company is seeking to improve in is what to do with the $14 billion in cash they currently have. Right now, Google is not exempt from using its money in ways that other big players like Microsoft and Yahoo! are. Google is looking for the ability to use their money in ways that can provide greater returns without being considered its own mutual fund.

While Google is the best and the brightest (for the most part due to their tremendous influence) in enabling people to do business and make a living it is still a company. I think it might be to all of our benefits to remember that and watch what they are up to in that role. Maybe we’ll learn something.

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It appears Google needs to take Google Trends attacks more seriously. Just six months ago Trends was displaying a Swastika as one of the top searches for the day. Yesterday’s trend showed a plane flying into the Twin Towers:

Google’s statement on such attacks is as follows:

The Hot Trends list is automatically generated by machines and algorithms that detect hot or breaking queries. In this case, it appears that the html code for this query was posted on a popular internet bulletin board, which led to quite a few people searching to find out more about this symbol. The Hot Trends list reflected that surge due to people searching with this query.

Perhaps its time to allocate a few more resources to prevent these types of messages from being spread.

via TechCrunch

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Yahoo is finally doing what so many of us have been begging them to do: something Google hasn’t already done. According to BusinessWeek, Yahoo is working with Intel and television makers to bring TV widgets to home viewing.

Yahoo made the announcement last week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Yahoo and Intel announced a range of televisions and related products that would be loaded with the software, in addition to hardware partners and TV-friendly sites.

So what type of widgets can you expect? Have you ever found yourself sitting in front of your TV, your laptop on your lap as you attempt to watch LOST while answering emails and twittering about the latest twist? Imagine the ease of doing all of those things right at your TV.

Yahoo anticipates the TV widgets will go live later this year, complete with about 20 different widgets. Outside developers, including Twitter, the New York Times and MySpace, will be featuring widgets, in addition to the standard Yahoo applications (i.e. weather and stock tracking). Yahoo says that widgets will not be limited to the big brands, and invites any content creators to develop their own widgets.

What can marketers do in anticipation of this release? John Ellett of nFusion offers this advice on his blog, Marketing Has Changed:

How will this affect marketers? For one thing it will open the doors for video content to be produced, sponsored and delivered directly. Think beyond YouTube and more Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom without the network. Consumers love to be entertained and informed. If you can offer this to them in a way that builds affinity for your brand, and do it cost-effectively, you have a chance to separate your brand from the pack of slow movers.

Do you think Internet TV will finally take off? How long do you think it will take Google and MSN to release their own Internet TV platforms?

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