Looks like video site Revver is going up for sale at a bargain price: somewhere between $300,000 to $500,000.

CNet is reporting that Revver has cut staff and is looking to sell despite raising about $12.7 in financing. I bet investors aren’t happy about that. The buyer would also have to take on about $1 million in debt as well, say sources.

Revver was pretty well-known for trying to pay video producers, unlike YouTube. But somehow the company has ended up on hard times. Is this bad news for all YouTube wannabees? I don’t think so. I remember reading that there were at least a hundred companies/sites that were trying to emulate YouTube. But not everyone can make it. I’m betting someone will come along and buy up Revver.

It’s a bargain.

Technorati Tags: Revver, Cnet, YouTube

Popularity: 12% [?]

According to comScore, Google’s video sites grew 31 percent in November 2007 from the previous month. That makes Google’s sites including YouTube and Google Video the number one video site on the Internet with almost 3 billion videos viewed (31.3 percent share of all videos viewed).

Overall, U.S. Internet users viewed nearly 9.5 billion online videos in November. In fact 75% of Americans viewed online video in November.

Other fun facts:

• Over 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched a video online averaging 3.25 hours of video per person during the month.
• Viewers watched an average of 3.25 hours (195 minutes) of online videos. That’s a 29% gain from the 2.52 hours (151 minutes) watched in January 2007.
• The average online video duration was 2.8 minutes.
• The average online video viewer consumed 69 videos.

Bonus: See ComScore’s press release with more figures and the list of the top 10 video properties.

Technorati Tags: comScore, Google, YouTube, streaming, research, Google video

Popularity: 36% [?]

2007 was a big year for Internet video. There were the huge Internet video celebrities, like Tay Zonday (Chocolate Rain), Chris Cocker (Leave Britney Alone), Miss Teen South Carolina and the Dramatic Prairie Dog (sometimes known as Dramatic Chipmunk).

Well a new study from Pew Internet found that 48% of Internet users said they have visited a video-sharing site such as YouTube in 2007. In December 2006, 33% of internet users said they had ever visited such sites–which represents growth of more than 45%.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had used a video-sharing site “yesterday”. Last year, just 8% said they had visited a site “yesterday.”

Bonus: Link to the PDF of the full report.

Popularity: 69% [?]

Over at TechCrunch, a guest post written by Dan Ackerman Greenberg is stirring up some animosity over YouTube spamming. Greenberg wrote a story called “The Secret Strategies Behind Many ‘Viral’ Videos”, where he talks about how his viral video marketing company, The Comotion Group, helps makes YouTube videos viral.

Greenberg starts out the piece:

Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine.

And then he details some secrets like:

1. Not all viral videos are what they seem
2. Content is NOT King
3. Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page
4. Title Optimization
5. Thumbnail Optimization
6. Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself
7. Releasing all videos simultaneously
8. Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole
9. Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness

Commenters were hating on this post saying how this is just spamming. Even Michael Arrington said he was “disgusted” by this post.

Technorati Tags: YouTube, TechCrunch, viral videos,

Bonus: Read the follow-up article by Greenberg where he says that some of the original flavor of the post was lost due to TechCrunch’s editing of the story.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Mediaweek (and others) are reporting that Microsoft is revamping its MSN Video site and limiting the number of pre-roll video ads it delivers.

Using a new algorithm, MSN’s video ads will be based on the time users spend on the site, not on the number of clips viewed.

Per MediaWeek:

According to Rob Bennett, MSN’s general manager, video, entertainment and sports, the previous ad model often resulted in the less than ideal scenario of users seeing a 30-second spot followed by a 15-second piece of content and then another 30-second spot. “That’s not a good experience for users,” he said.

A better experience, they hope, will mean increased stickiness. I’ve written about this terrible ad to video ratio a while back, and am glad that MSN is doing something about it.

This comes after YouTube announced it was starting to use video ads.

MSN said it is also combining its Soapbox user generated video site with MSN’s more mainstream news, sports and entertainment video.

Technorati Tags: Soapbox, MSN Video, MSN, Microsoft, YouTube, advertising, Internet video

Popularity: 22% [?]