Lisa Mitchell, Author at Oovvuu

Congratulations to Oovvuu partner PBS NewsHour for 7 Emmy nominations

PBS NewsHour has been nominated for seven categories in the News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

It’s a fantastic tribute to the journalists and editors at America’s public service broadcasters.

Oovvuu has been long-term partners of the team at NewsHour, taking the digital versions of the stories in PBS’s flagship show and sharing them with new audiences around the world.

This gripping report by special correspondent Jane Ferguson from inside the Taliban command in Afghanistan.

Jane’s reporting picked up a nod in the Outstanding Hard news Feature Story in a Newscast category.

PBS NewsHour’s latest reports streaming on Oovvuu include interviews with Bill Gates, Hillary Clinton and Dr Anthony Fauci, stories from India’s polluted holiest river, refugee camps in Greece and this, on the impact of closure of the Mexico-US border on helpless migrants.

Overall, PBS programmes lead this year’s news and documentaries section of the Emmys with 48 nominations.

Read the full list of PBS’s Emmy nominations here.

Oovvuu in WordPress – a publisher gets off to a flying start

Advertising, Content, Customers, Insights

A leading Australian publisher has become the first news site in the world to deploy WordPress’ groundbreaking Oovvuu plugin for video.

The New Daily coverage included video from reporters at the scene

The New Daily in Melbourne, has deployed the plugin to its news site and trained its newsroom staff to use it to find relevant videos as news breaks.

When a blast devastated Beirut, the Oovvuu plugin gave the team instant access to breaking news video from the world’s top video sources who were on the scene including Reuters, The Associated Press and The Canadian Press.

Carley Olley, the company’s PM Editor said: “The plugin is a super easy way to get video into our stories, and we can do it without leaving our editing screen. This means more videos are used, which is a win for us and for readers.

450
Oovvuu’s real-time analytics reveal which videos resonate

“I’ve also found the analytics extremely useful, both as a way to measure how well particular stories are doing, but also to help me decide which stories to go after, as I can see which are resonating with our readers.

Hundreds of thousands of Australian readers were exposed to the latest video on the world’s biggest news event of the day right in the articles they read and trust.

“It’s an instant way to see the success or otherwise of a particular story and video.”
Carley Olley, PM Editor

And in the newsroom, they were able to track the story with real-time video analytics for the first time.

The deployment was the first for the Oovvuu plugin since the Australian company was selected by WordPress as its video technology partner.

Oovvuu provides nearly 400 distinct news feeds and is now working with WordPress and others to deploy its news video plugin to publishers worldwide, reaching billions more viewers.

The plugin is built directly into all versions of WordPress and WordPress VIP and delivers video recommendations directly into the editing screens for both the classic and Gutenberg editors.

Since launching the Oovvuu WordPress plugin a month ago, The New Daily has doubled video views and created a lucrative new advertising opportunity.

Miles Finlay, product and programmatic ad lead, said: “Oovvuu video has improved our offering in the open exchanges and enabled us to complete high value programmatic and direct deals.

“The premium nature of the video means we exceed agencies’ expectations with a high 90 per cent viewability rate and strong completions and conversions.”
Miles Finlay, programmatic ad lead

Before Oovvuu, video was relatively new to the Melbourne-based commercial team.

Oovvuu’s head of ad quality and operations Jimmy Fisher noticed they were able to quickly scale video ad solutions across multiple verticals, including entertainment, lifestyle, sport, travel and finance.

And the results have been terrific, with viewability rates of 90 per cent a third higher than global benchmarks and healthy ad yields and sellthrough.

“It’s been great to see The New Daily scale up video use. It provides advertisers with options,” he said.

The plugin was deployed directly into The New Daily’s WordPress account by their internal development team.

The entire project was deployed in less than an hour and was live after two days of testing.

They also became the first publisher in the world to go live after the Oovvuu WordPress plugin announcement in July.

Oovvuu provides video from 400 trusted sources, covering major news as it happens

If you are a WordPress publisher and you are looking for video to enhance your articles, contact us.

Women leaders better at fighting Covid-19, scientists say

Content, Customers

There has been praise during the path of the coronavirus pandemic for women leaders and their apparently successful approach to dealing with it.

Now scientists have concluded they DID handle it better and the World Economic Forum looks at why that might have been.

More than 400 broadcast partners now sharing their content

Content, Customers, Insights, News

We’ve always had a fantastic variety of content sources at Oovvuu and hundreds of videos coming in on feeds every day.

Now we’ve teamed up with many more broadcasters and for the first time, thousands of new videos are on our feeds for publishers to choose from daily.

Our list of more than 400 partner broadcasters now includes the South China Morning Post, Al Jazeera, CBC, France 24, Fox News and many more.

It means an opportunity for Oovvuu publishers to offer unparalleled coverage of what’s going on the world.

Take Al Jazeera. Its 80 international bureaux and reputation for finding fresh voices for its reports, it can bring a new perspective to an issue.

Based in Paris, France 24’s mission is to “defend freedom, independence and pluralism of information”. This is a great example of them covering an international story at the top of everyone’s news agenda.

The National is the nightly news and current affairs programme from Canada’s public broadcaster, CBC. In this story, they look at the overwhelmingly older and white leaders in sport.

Fox News has 200 local stations across the US producing digital video. This report on body cam footage from the death of George Floyd is from the Fox 9 channel in Minneapolis.

Based in Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post focuses on reporting “credible news and authoritative insights from Hong Kong, China and the world”. This moving long-form film follows the life of transgender dancer Piano.

Oovvuu is now WordPress VIP’s official video technology partner

Advertising, Content, News, Technology

Two years ago, Oovvuu co-founder Ricky Sutton was listening to a Recode Decode podcast with Matt Mullenweg, one of the founders of WordPress.

They talked about how they wanted to support publishing and Ricky realised the two companies’ missions had a lot in common.

So he tracked down a mobile number and just called them.

Like WordPress, we recognise publishers and broadcasters have public trust and a burning passion to report the news
Ricky Sutton, Oovvuu founder and CEO

They talked about working together and now we can share that those plans have finally come together.

Oovvuu has been selected as the global video technology partner of WordPress VIP, which means every publisher on WordPress will have access to our proprietary AI video matching technology.

Are you a WordPress publisher and want to try it out? Just drop us a line

start here

WordPress, under its parent Automattic, is an astonishing publishing success story. It is the fifth largest digital company in America by audience, and publishes 37% of the web’s content – great content that attracts 36 billion page views.

Major publishers on the platform include The New York Post and Wall Street Journal, Quartz, TechCrunch, USA Today Sports Media, Medias News Group, Penske (publisher of Rolling Stone, Variety and The Robb Report), TV network Nexstar.

With Oovvuu, they will now be able to match video to their articles and increase their revenue from online adverts by 13 times what they could do with article adverts alone.

Co-founders of Oovvuu Ricky Sutton (right), Ross McCreath, and Greg Moore (left) at their city office. Photo: James Alcock.

Getting billions of dollars of advertising spend back from the tech giants and into newsrooms is our priority.

Co-founders Ricky, Ross McCreath and Greg Moore developed the plug-in for WordPress to make finding and adding relevant video to articles seamless.

Ricky said: “We track news consumption habits daily and it shows us the future of news-telling will be video-led, but given recent scandals, it’s unlikely that will be built by Facebook or Google.

“Like WordPress, we recognise publishers and broadcasters have public trust and a burning passion to report the news. Now we are focused on building the tech to bind them together.”

We’re excited to partner with Oovvuu to bring powerful video syndication tools to our customers
Nick Gernert, WordPress VIP CEO

WordPress vets every partner to identify companies with a proven track record of successful and forward thinking implementations of WordPress integration at scale.

WordPress VIP CEO Nick Gernert said key criteria for technology partners included clear product expertise and innovative go-to-market strategies.

“WordPress VIP is experiencing significant growth and we’re poised to deliver transformational results for brands who require best-in-class digital experiences,” he said.

“We’re excited to partner with Oovvuu to bring powerful video syndication tools to our customers.”

It puts Oovvuu in some serious company.

This is an outstanding opportunity for growth for Oovvuu – and for news publishers.

Ricky said: “The future is bright for video and publishing. The video market is already $52 billion, but just seven per cent of articles feature video. We aim to get that to as close to 100 per cent as we can and flow the money back to trusted publishers and broadcasters.”

For more information about Oovvuu’s partnership with WordPress VIP visit https://wpvip.com/partner/oovvuu and https://oovvuu.com/news/

And enjoy the podcast that started it all…

How to add depth to Black Lives Matter movement coverage

Content, Insights, News

The Black Lives Matter movement and the reverberations of George Floyd’s killing continue to dominate the news agenda in many countries.

There’s a real wealth of video available which can enrich and help explain the story to readers.

Take this look at how one unique feature of the street protests were them taking place at the height of a pandemic.

Taking the knee, a protest better known to football benches, was adopted by protesters and supportive police officers in some countries. This explainer usefully reminds the reader of its origins.

The impact of the movement has been widespread, as this report from Reuters shows. It includes a personal explanation from the founder of Reddit Alexis Ohanian on giving up his seat to a black businessman to make the board more representative.

The movement has compelled states and institutions to confront their past. Lloyds of London, founded in 1686, issued an apology for its part in the slave trade.

Sometimes we can assume the reader has more knowledge than they actually have. This is exactly one of those useful explainers which can help them understand the background.

Or it can stop a reader in their tracks. That someone uses Siri in this way shows what an every day occurrence police harassment can be.

This lighter story also serves to illustrate what an impact the protests have had on our lives.

And finally, the reason George Floyd’s death wasn’t just another statistic was because his agonising death was captured on video, all 8 minutes 46 seconds of it. We have the video and while it’s disturbing to watch, it is a strong part of the narrative. The first one from the ABC comes with a warning, the second from the Associated Press doesn’t.