New York — AOL, in its quest to reclaim its yesteryear’s glory, is hoping to make it easier to include high-quality online video on digital publishers’ websites, today announced the launch of “Editors Room” an innovative platform for the embed video market that allows editors the opportunity to add premium, brand safe–monetizeable video to every page and the opportunity to generate additional revenue on those videos.
The company, which has seen is stock plunged 50-plus percent in the past year, hopes that the numerous initiatives in the latter half of this year are creating curated, syndicated premium video content feeds that can give publishers added video content as well as new monetization options, and AOL has just announced theirs as: The AOL Editors Room.
The major complication with online video is that producing the high-quality stuff at large scale is expensive and difficult. But what if there was a place online that licensed decent videos and made it available to other sites? That is the idea behind Editors Room strategy, a new service from AOL’s 5min. “We want to be the AP for video,” says Ran Harnevo, Senior Vice President of AOL Video, and former head of 5min, which AOL bought in 2011.
However, this is an all win approach as it delivers premium content out to the masses and generates revenues for the content creators and online publishers as well as putting a bit of coin in the pockets of those who are facilitating the syndication.
The Editors’ Room is particularly conceived for online news editors who are in need of video and enables them to insert single videos in stories or create their own custom channels of content as well as choosing from curated channels for their online news and articles. The platform offers Web editors and publishers access to more than 250,000 well organized premium online videos via 5Min’s program library, including videos from BBC News, Hearst, Meredith, GigaOM, blip.tv, Scripps, Revision3, Next New Networks, IGN, Reuters and Bonnier, and was beta tested by the Huffington Post Media Group.
Harnevo added, “We are thrilled to partner with top media companies to increase our already robust library of videos. Our curated approach, easy interface and monetization should set the Editors Room apart in the embed marketplace, benefiting editors, publishers and ultimately the consumer experience.”
There are numerous benefits to the system. From a monetization standpoint the video embeds can be shown with pre-roll and overlay ads. Some recent surveys have also exhibited that video in news makes the pages more sticky and increases the perception of value in the content. Essentially, it seems, video imparts perceived legitimacy to the news pieces.
Moreover, the video platform was created with editorial staff in mind and offers an intuitive ad-free search interface that makes it easier for selecting and embedding video. From current events and breaking news to seasonal content, the Editors Room streamlines searching for related video content and offers publishers the ability to immediately monetize their video embeds with pre-roll and overlay ads.
“We know one of the top pain points (publishers) encounter is increasing revenue on video,” said Harnevo. The Editors Room offers publishers the ability to immediately monetize their video embeds with pre-roll and overlay ads. Publishers can apply to sign up as a publishing partner with AOL, he said.
“If you do not have a deal with us,” Harnevo said, “we would not stream ads until someone goes and vets your site. It is the opposite of Google AdSense.”
AOL property Huffington Post Media Group used the Editors Room in beta and reported that a limited test showed readers spent 86 percent more time on a page with embedded video than on a similar page without video. Editors Room is launching in the U.S.; for more information, visit editorsroom.5minmedia.com.
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