Clikthrough recently attended the TV of Tomorrow conference hosted in San Francisco.  It was a phenomenal event that brought together all the great thought leaders who are pushing interactive video forward online and through TV.  Clikthrough was honored to be featured at the event and on an exciting panel all about “interactive video”  

Below is a link to a video interview with Abe McCallum on the future of Interactive Video!

http://thetvoftomorrowshow.com/video/abe-mccallum-clikthrough-tvot-2010

Recently, Clikthrough launched a new interactive and custom video player solution for EuroRSCG and their client, Sony, that supported the launch of Sony’s new Playstation game, MAG. The original project scope included a customized video player with support of 12 interactive videos.  Once we got into the project, we were asked to also support 15 languages and closed-captioning.  We are proud to say that Clikthrough now supports over 20 different languages, and our player is the only one on the market that supports interactivity in this many languages. For other companies and web development professionals interested in this subject, we have provided the knowledge we gained as we worked through this project.

What is Internationalization?
Internationalization (shortened to 18n for most people that don’t want to type) is a work in progress for a lot of web technology companies.  Very few sites have a formal approach to supporting internationalization.

Key Terms:
I18n – internationalization – covers the changing of languages to match that of the user.  Keep in mind to overhaul an existing system you’ll need to replace navigation, error messages, tooltips or other helpers, and the big one… filter or translate all content.

L18n – localization – identifies the exact language and cultural settings for a user.  Each locale includes that region’s formatting of:
•    Dates
•    Times
•    Numbers
•    Currency (both value and representation/format)

Locale – A locale is best thought of as a region (usually within a country).  For instance, in Switzerland there are different regions within the country where German, French and Italian are the commonly spoken “local” languages.

ISO – The ISO (International Organization for Standards) is the world’s largest developer and publisher of International Standards.  Throughout this blog, we make heavy reference to the ISO and the standards that it has put out there regarding internationalization.

Confusion in the Implementation of ISO Codes:
As web user’s we see many internationalized websites with language/locale codes in their urls.  In some cases they’re added to the urls (url path or sub domain), and in other cases stored in session.  Some examples are:
-http://translate.google.com/translate_t?ie=UTF-8&text=test&sl=en&tl=zh-TW – uses correct ISO code format w/ a dash
-http://www.mag.com/ja_JP/mag.html - correct capitalization, using _ (underscore)
-http://de.wikipedia.org/ - they’ve included language code as a sub domain (de – Deutsch, German)
-http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/ this is actually wrong as it should be ch-ZH (Chinese – Simplified)

Confusion in the Definition of ISO Codes:
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locale) defines the correct format as [language[_territory][.codeset][@modifier]].  For example, Australian English using the UTF-8 encoding is en_AU.UTF-8.

IBM (http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/zos/v1r9/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.zos.r9.cbcpx01/locnamc.htm) defines convention as “<Language>-<Territory>.<Codeset>” yet the language/territory separator in all examples is an underscore (_).  Also, it lists language codes with the first character capitalized (which is against standards) and there is also an error in the documentation in the language_territory separator, they list it as  “Li-LT” (using a dash).

W3C  (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/struct/dirlang.html#langcodes) states that the language attribute’s value is a language code that identifies a natural language spoken, written, or otherwise used for the communication of information among people. Computer languages are explicitly excluded from language codes.  RFC1766 (published in March 1995) defines and explains the language codes that must be used in HTML documents.  Briefly, language codes consist of a primary code and a possibly empty series of sub codes.  For example:
language-code = primary-code ( “-” subcode )*

Here are some sample language codes: “en”is English and “en-US”: the U.S. version of English.

The Actual ISO/RFC Standards:
The original language code standard was RFC 1766.  That standard was superseded in January 2001 by RFC 3066 (http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3066).  RFC 3066 was superseded in September 2006 by RFC 4646 & 4647.

Popular vs Standards-Based Implementations:
Here in 2010, you would think that this issue would be resolved given the standards have been in place for over 10 years. Yet, there still seems to be confusion over the standard of coding localization/language codes.  In all the ISO specs dating from the 1990’s, everything was done with a “-“ (dash) separating the language and the territory (country) code.  However, in many modern implementations seen on the web, people are using a “_” (underscore) to separate the language and country codes.  The simple fix for us was to accept either separator in all externally facing interfaces/API’s (Application Protocol Interface).

Setting Things Straight:
Written in ISO code RFC1766, and subsequent amendments 4646& 4647 define the ISO code as follows:

[language[-territory][.codeset][@modifiers]]

In this example above, the language is in two lowercase characters as described in ISO639.  For example, en for English, ja for Japanese, and zh for Chinese.

Further, territory (country) is two uppercase characters as described in ISO3166.  For example, GB for United Kingdom (Great Britain), KR for Republic of Korea (South Korea), CN for China.

As you can see, there are a lot of ways to go wrong with internationalization and the language and locales are just the first part.  Stay tuned for more posts on internationalization here in the future.  To see an example of the internationalization work we have done, check out the Clikthrough player deployed on the www.MAG.com site.  Clikthrough is the only interactive video player in the market that supports over 20 languages.

Avex, one of Japan’s biggest music company’s has made video’s more exciting by enabling users to click throughout the video on any of it’s content. They partnered with Clikthrough to enhance media engagement, making fashion and music video’s. They recently came out with an interactive tutorial that airs in Japan, showing how to use Clikthrough’s platform on the encoded video’s. This user friendly video is a great addition to what Avex has done in the past year and everyone is so excited to see what video’s come out next! Interactive media is spreading like wildfire throughout the world, enabling viewers to click and be informed without the hassle of searching through endless websites.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_DExL3UBrQ

In order to achieve the best video SEO, Clikthrough has taken multiple approaches in making sure that all our clients’ content is both indexable and highly valuable to the search robots.  Clikthrough continues to push the limits on video search by enabling you to pull out all the pertinent information in video to drive your videos to the top of search engine rankings.  Today, we have outlined just a few pieces of our secret sauce as to what helps drive videos to the top of the rankings.

1.    Sitemap.xml

A sitemap.xml gives search engine crawlers a map into where the content is located on your site, and also identifies what is the newest content, allowing them to quickly index this content for future searches.  Clikthrough’s sitemap covers all the video pages, and all products, people, places, brands, etc featured in the video. By partnering with Clikthrough and using our sitemap.xml feature, your site will be more indexable and the fresh content will be easily picked up by the search robots therefore your video will be more likely to show up in the search results when someone is searching for something  that is featured in one of your Clikthrough-enabled videos.

2.    Video mrss feed

A video mrss feed is another way to let search crawlers know what content is contained in the videos on your site.  This technique emphasizes the media by calling out key information to the search crawlers.  The Clikthrough mrss feeds include information on copyright holders, all people and their roles in the video (musician, artist, actors, directors, etc), lyrics/subtitles (if available), and community/social features (ratings, favorites, comments, etc if hosted through Clikthrough).  This adds additional value and deeper insight to the search engines and allows a deeper level of indexing of the video files themselves (which is impossible for search engines to do).  Video mrss feeds will likely also be picked up by forward looking search engines as a way to find and eventually display media search results (videos, images, games, etc).

3.    Flash alt content

Search crawlers today can’t look into your pictures and videos and identify what they’re looking at.  Though it’s been discussed on some forums back in late 2008, real world evidence shows that search crawlers are barely able to index the content inside of flash files.  That means that all your data you’ve collected and painstakingly edited and placed into your banners, your flash apps, or ads go unnoticed by the search engines.

By placing “alternative” content for non flash supporting clients (text based browsers for the blind and search crawlers) on the same page as your flash application, you can still give insight to these viewers as to what is contained in the flash app.  Do to our process of collecting and encoding all the P3 (Products, People and Places) in your videos, we’re able to pull out much more information and detail than you ever could without that detail.  

Conclusion:

Clikthrough servers can recognize the different Google, Bing, Ask, Yahoo search crawlers and provide them unique content that is catered for their indexing systems.  This information can be cached on our client’s servers and placed into the hidden content embedded on the client’s website.  We use a proprietary mix of our in-video stream hotspots and other meta information to give the search engines higher value and more accurate times and placements of the objects in the videos.  This results in better placements in the natural search results of the top search engines.

Below are a few key examples of highly relevant search queries in video that drive organic search results to Clikthrough.com everyday.

tinchy stryder barbour

tinchy stryder barbour coat

kelsey button

asher roth I love college sigma

silver domed girly coat

al wilson taylor swift

firetrap admiral coat

kelsey button all american rejects

whelans pub in ireland

schmoove lead grey

angelo frentzos

dezsosara.com

pixie lott fun facts

star in the hood ghana

tre cool buys leedy drums

Today’s post was written by our CTO, Jeff Beaman and he leaves you with this:  “If a picture is worth a thousand words” what can your videos be worth?

Clikthrough is a company delivering fans exactly what they want and providing advertisers quantifiable results on how consumers engage with videos.  We did some research to prove our theory and back up why the world is about on-demand information.  Below are 3 sites (one being YouTube), where fans are directly talking about music videos and wanting to know more; of course this is without knowing about Clikthrough.  So why not give them exactly what they want?

If you are in the music industry or any other media company reading this and looking to monetize content, we are your answer.  Clikthrough delivers exactly what fans want and we are monetizing these videos in a whole new way.  No longer will Silicon Valley VC’s dump money into startups that license your content for streaming/playback services.  That game is over and let’s face it, how are you going to drive further value out of videos now that CPM’s are falling?  You have to look past the model of shoving ads in their face and give them what they want; which is exactly what we do.  Our engagement numbers don’t lie and when you scale the model with your content; which is the most viewed in the world, there is new money to be made now.  The cost of content is not coming down, ad rates are, so what are you going to do if you don’t Clikthrough?

We here at Clikthrough take pride in changing the way the world interacts with their video screen.  During our first few months of launch we have received some incredible feedback from the press.  Thank you specifically to Evie Nagy at Billboard, Jan Battles from the Sunday Times and 5TV in London, you have done some incredible features on us.  With all positive press (and our new friends on Twitter) there is certainly going to be some negative feedback as well. Certain people have criticized Clikthrough & The Script by stating that we are damaging the art of the music video. They fail to realize that interactive video not only promotes products, but also the places and people within the video. Fans can not only purchase items from each video, but they can see the exact location where the video was shot. This is an entirely refreshing way to watch your favorite videos. There is nothing new about fans seeking what their favorite artist is wearing or doing, we at Clikthrough are only making this information more accessible. To clarify our message and defend why interactive video is the future, I provide this message to all of you:

Clikthrough stands on the premise that videos of all kind, be it music, TV, film and UGC, should be produced with the same quality as always, only we are now aspiring to deliver more information about the content of the video.  Video is about entertainment, we are about engagement. 

When we partnered with The Script & Phonogenic, they realized that the Clikthrough platform was a new and exciting approach to engage their fans like no artist has ever done.  Everyone strives for their business to be lucrative and the benefit of providing this new level of interactivity provides many new revenue streams.  This service will only continue to make the current advertising environment more efficient.  The reality is, and always has been, that the entertainment business cannot survive without consumerism.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

You are tuning into CSI for the first time and see this new character Lawrence Fishburne and wonder what the back-story on him is and why Grissom isn’t on the show anymore, well now just clik on him and find out.

What about if you are watching the newest Justin Timberlake video and you really like his new hair style and want to know who did his hair, well now it’s time to Clik and we can tell you exactly what you wanted to know. 

Remember the hit show on Fox New York Undercover or what about the Michael Jackson Beat It video?  Well if you do then you just realized that the same person is in both of those and here is a great way to click on Michael DeLorenzo and see what else he has been in. 

These few scenarios have nothing to do with purchasing anything, but simply to do with information you, the viewer, are seeking. This is only the beginning in explaining how and why Clikthrough makes sense; it delivers the information you want with just one clik.  No more searching Google aimlessly, scouring countless blogs or leaving your video to get the information you want, we have brought it to you in the cleanest interface possible. 

For all those that don’t remember what change is about and making things easier, just look back at Facebook and remember that their “news feeds” were attacked by the press and users and well, what can we say now it’s one of their biggest features.  We are changing the world and building a business that delivers on what we promise:  the best interactive experience, period.

Think of a future that is commercial-free, because the consumer value is encoded and readily available “inside “the video. The one difference is you, as the consumer, have the choice of what information you need, or simply want. Not much to complain about that, is there?

The moving picture has captured the imagination since film first appeared as an entertainment medium in the late 19^th century. You only need to look at films like Citizen Kane or ET, television hits like Seinfeld or American Idol, or a music video by P. Diddy, Madonna or Britney Spears to understand the colossal cultural impact video has on almost everyone, every single day.

The market research company comScore reported on December 9^th that in October 2008 alone, the U.S. watched more than 13.5 billion videos online. That’s a 45% increase over 2007. It also begs the question: How is online video going to advance as the demand for innovation increases?

We know you’ve watched a video before and wondered,

“I like that. Where can I find it?” or “Who is that? I dig her top,” or “Kanye has sweet shades.”

Long ago, Clikthrough hatched a plan to take video where no one had taken it before: Interactive.

What does that mean? Well, if you own or produce content, it means one thing: Monetization. Your content library is now a trackable product placement revenue stream. As an advertiser, it means no more wrestling matches for viewer eyeballs. If the viewer sees your product, they can Clik it and find out everything they want about it, including how to buy it, without being interrupted by it.

Together with our exclusive partner Phonogenic Records, Clikthrough is debuting our encoding technology to “hotspot” a video for the single, Breakeven, by Irish chart-toppers The Script. The 255-second video for Breakeven contains a total of 242 product hotspots, with a total product exposure value of $170,219. That equals $667 of merchandise per second of video, and it only begins to hint at the opportunities Clikthrough is bringing to market for the entire video industry.

Studios and advertisers should be able to quantify every object in a video and measure its impact and performance down to the frame, and consumers should be able to Clik the things they see and like in a video. It is the innovation the market has been waiting for.

The technology is here. The audience is waiting. It’s time you Clikthrough.

Twas the night before Clikthrough, when all through the office

Every person was stirring, even the local mouse;

The code was being developed with care,

In hopes that that the customers would be there.

The servers were all snuggled in their colo,

While visions of millions of customers hitting them danced in their heads;

And Abe, Jeff, Harsh, & Ture had just settled down for a short dinner chat (no time for a nap),

When out from the boiler room there arose such a chatter;

We sprang from the office to see what was the matter,

To find our marketing star putting up the last star (rating) on the site

We tore him from his chair and threw up our arms with flair,

When, what to our wondering eyes should appear but in all its glory Clikthrough.com

Twas was the night before Clikthrough and a Happy Holidays to all!!!

As we are nearing the launch of our baby dubbed “The Clik,” I decided to take some pictures on this Thanksgiving Eve (its very quiet in SF today, btw). 

Notice what keeps us going through our daily lives: Many Thanks to Microsoft, DELL, Lenovo, Apple, Zune, Kombucha, Fresh Juices, Starbucks, The Bay Club and the occasional RedBull. 

People want to know what kind of things it takes to run a startup and what kind of hours you log.  Here are some quick stats over the past year that have kept us going. 

Cell Minutes:  38,992 (thank you ATT/Verizon)

Skype Minutes:  24,350 minutes (Skype rocks!)

Computer Run Time:  13,000+ hours of laptop fun.

Lunch:  Probably less than 8 minutes J  somehow we don’t get off our nice ergonomic chairs much.