Chicago Video Production

At this year’s Superbowl, one commercial that caught the attention of the millions who were watching was the “Parisian Love” ad from Google. Of course, at this point in time, Google probably doesn’t need to market itself as the search engine has become THE search engine as people often use the term “Google” as a verb these days.

Still, the commercial, which you can watch at YouTube right now, was funny, clever and heartwarming all at the same time. Quite a feat for a 30 second spot that only included images of Google searches.

Well now YouTube has created a clever little application on their website which allows anyone to create their own search stories. I’m sure some will be pretty interesting despite the information cut off (YouTube limits the stories to seven keyword entries). After writing the story, the user can also add in their own set or pre-selected YouTube music – most of which really captures the “cute” theme Google’s original had.

Want to create your own search story? Head on over to Youtube.com/searchstories and have a go.

We couldn’t resist making one of our own, so check it out below:

Reelseo.com has some excellent figures from comScore on online video viewership from February 2010.

The biggest news is that Hulu viewers watched 2.4 hours of online video and the site grabbed 3.2% of all videos watched (up .4% from January 2010). Still, the leader in online video viewership is Google who leads the pack with 42.5% of all videos watched, which is up three percent from January 2010.

The Reelseo article also reported more interesting facts, which you can read below:

The top video ad networks in terms of their actual reach delivered were: Joost Video Network (by Adconion Media Group) with 38.3 percent penetration of online video viewers, BBE with 18.3 percent, and BrightRoll Video Network with 18.1 percent.

83.1 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.

132.4 million viewers watched 11.9 billion videos on YouTube.com (89.5 videos per viewer).

The average Hulu viewer watched 23.3 videos, totaling 2.4 hours of video per viewer.

The duration of the average online video was 4.3 minutes.

You can read the full article, which also includes some great numbers on online advertising networks and their potential reach from comScore, at ReelSeo.com right now.

Late last week, Google completed a deal to purchase Episodic, according to a report from Reelseo.com.

Episodic is a platform for broadcasting live and on-demand video on the web, but has most recently been focusing on delivering video to mobile devices. Reelseo reports that sources indicate the deal was worth $25 million.

Additionally, the Reelseo article states, “…Episodic differentiates itself as an all-under-one-roof platform rather than having a network of partners like its competitors in the space.” And that Cable networks, web publishers and businesses, “use Episodic, for content management, delivery and monetization.”

It will be interesting to see how Google utilizes the Episodic for their current business model. The only major foray Google has taken into video has been Google Video.

Finally, here’s a clip of Episodic founder and CEO discussing the future of the Internet video industry from the Streaming Media West conference in November 2009: