The basic programming for this is VERY simple – the key thing is the user experience and the content that the TV station is putting out to carry the advertisements.
We build it using the existing liferay CMS, most of the functionality is already there. The initial version is built up inside the VOTV project as this provided a ethical “walled garden” with out closing the finished system to larger markets.
For good info on the API and social networking side of CMS http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/394991
WORKING BETA
Stage one – basic free advertising
Simple liferay webform that creates a HTML webpage.
- picture
- title
- 2 lines txt
- link
A tag chooser – via tag cloud or user created
This then is rendered by an existing webpage thumbnail code into a JPG (or PNG) <>
We create an API to make the jpg available in combination with the tags to our playlist generator.
*** The separately developed play list generator deals with ad placement/tag video matching ***
Stage two – basic pay advertising
Paypal payment gateway for tags – try use existing liferay shopping cart to do this as all the secure payment is built already. Cost of tags are based on demand – every time someone buys one its price goes up, the price is reduced with lack of buying/time.
Need to write the code to make this happen.
Finish API to talk to VOTV player and embed media player.
We implement a simple quota of plays for an ad in a time piread – by default if no ad is available a channel promo – insert is played so the isn’t a problem of empty ad space on the channel – we don’t have to make money for the first year, though it would be nice to.
Use Google analytics to get user stats.
Stage three – basic geo-location
Use the google location API to allow the purchase of geo-tags, which are simply tags that name regions/cities. This is built into liferay.
Geo-tags reduce the cost of subject tags as they restrict advertising to that geo-region – thus this opens up again the availability of “free tags”.
Build user moderation which is more complex, but agen this is largely built into liferay CMS.
LAUNCH
Open up system to use on blogs and other video projects. Make it available either GPL or creative commons
Start work on VERSION 2
This version starts to address the language and techniques of old-fashioned advertisements and is launched as an open source advertising application – if we use creative commons –non commercial then we can licence it for CASH to commercial companies while allowing free non-commercial/small-scale use and open source development.
MODERATION - Our ad network – info-verts?
For the first 3-6 months all advert providers are checked by our core team. After this we have open adversting to small selected groups and trusted advertising to the main VOTV audience.
After this user moderation kicks in:
For moderation of the ethical advertisement we use - a user group - which agrees to a anything goes policy on ads – they can then moderate adverts through to the larger main user group. Have to be over 18 and sign a contract similar to a porn site – as it will be open publishing so likely to receive porn. This subgroup will get ads from people/organisations that have not been allowed through to the main ad space. Their job is to flag down inappropriate ads and flag up ethical ads. Say 3 flags and you are out/through.
Moderation levels
1) Small group of Ad moderators (open publishing)
2) small-medium over 18 (almost all ads will be ethical)
3) Ad mainstream (all will be trusted ethical)
Advertisers
1) New customers – go to our volunteer moderators who can pass it through to
2) Trial customers - go to our over 18 customers who can flag for core team.
3) Trusted customers –go to everyone, core team moderated.
All our content has a report option on it – flag. If this is clicked a set amount of times by trusted people then it will be brought to the attention of one of our paid admins.
Ad buyers can have their account suspended or removed if they abuse the system – this is decided by core team.
Would you buy an info-vert?
You use the system to get announcements out to people who are likely to be interested in the subjects you are announcing about.
Sell something
Promote an event
Raise awareness
Public education
Get new members for a club or society
Sell your organic vegetables
Local jumble sale
Build a brand
These announcements will be geo-located and matched with subject connected video and stories – via the tags on the content they are next to.
Tags are priced depending on demand (we could start at free or $1 - needs thinking about) there are a number of ways we can do this. Current thinking is that prices will rise every time some one buys them and decay with time if nobody buys.
To encourage buying of multiple tags – all cheaper tags ½ price after first tag.
Users pay by paypal via web interface – the whole ad-serving system is automatic – only moderation is human-mediated.
How it works
Embedded in our VOTV player
Added to our flash embedded player
Running as a javascript banner widget on participating blogs
There is a simple web interface that sells tags for a price depending on demand for that tag. Users can buy any number of tags – area tags will geo-locate the advert. They can then plus (+) or (-) them to mean this is selected or deselected that area or subject.
The info-vert is made up of:
Still image 640x 480 PNG or JPG
Title and body txt (15-20 words)
An active web link
For the video this is rendered into a 640x480 image and played for 3-4 sec in-between videos using the play list generator. For blogs the image is re-sized to 160x120 or so and placed in the side bar of the article.
Subjects on my talk about list
Budget – $6000 for ad engine and CMS
Advertising - ethical
CMS – liferay.com
We have 1.2 million views on youtube 200K a month
100K on vuze
More than 300K on blip.tv
This is without launching the project as it has taken more than a year to do the fundraising.
After launch within a year:
Get over 10 million streams on youtube
And over 1 million full rez downloads on blip/torrent
