VideoVoo: Online Video Marketing

Just as you have guessed: the top popular search terms related to online video are either to do with sex or with downloading, ripping, saving, etc.

But beyond these two major themes, there seems to be an emerging trend showing what various online communities, fan groups are frequenting specific video sites for - at least based on the partial data (!) of Google searches expressed in the AdWords Keyword Tool (which excludes many other valuable sources, like Yahoo video searches, national search engines, direct traffic and other referring sites). My guess would have been that ‘funny’ is absolutely king in video searches - not so.

So if you want to know what are the most typical Google video searches in some well-known video sites either as a user or as an advertiser, I guess the following partial stats could be useful or just odd.

YouTube
After some generic terms like ‘you tube music,’ ‘youtube broadcast’, ‘best of youtube’ - would you have guessed? Anime comes as the most popular video search term (strictly after some adult searches).
Naruto

Naruto is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto with an anime adaptation. The main character, Naruto Uzumaki, is a loud, hyperactive, unpredictable adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become a Hokage, the ninja in the village acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of all.

CNN again, the elections and the political debate stirring nationwide interest
debate the elections are generating a great demand for debates hosted on YouTube
girlfriend I guess it must be Avril Lavigne’s videoclip getting 65,273,784 views, favorited 109,027 times, and getting 155148 ratings! But of course, it also might be lots of other terms overlapping.

Akon He is a great hit with his music clips. Akon is “a Senegalese-American hip hop and R&B singer, songwriter,” and his full name could be in any quiz shows or the dream of speech therapists: Aliaune Damala Bouga Time Puru Nacka Lu Lu Lu Badara Akon Thiam. Full stop.
Beyonce another R&B singer & songwriter
Bleach

is an ongoing manga series written and illustrated by manga artist Tite Kubo that has appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since August 2001. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki, a high school student with the ability to see ghosts, and Rukia Kuchiki, a shinigami (Soul Reaper or, literally, “death god”). The early parts of the story focus mainly on the characters. As events unfold, the story begins to delve deeper into the world of these gods of death.

Family Guy

an American adult animated TV series about a dysfunctional family in the fictional town of Quahog, Rhode Island.

The list could go on and on, with ‘funny’ ‘guitar’ ‘hannah montana’ ’sesame street’ etc.
Top competition search terms are: ‘youtube clone’ ’sites like youtube’

Veoh
The top demand is for anime films:
Naruto / Shippuden / Shippuuden, the anime (see above at YouTube)
Inuyasha

Inuyasha, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. The story centers around a time-traveling middle school student, a half-demon, a lecherous monk, a young fox demon, a demon slayer, and a nekomata during the Sengoku period who seek to find all the fragments of the Jewel of Four Souls (Shikon no Tama) and to keep them out of the hands of evil doers, especially Naraku

Bleach, the anime (see above at YouTube)
Further Veoh searches include the 24 TV series, Superbad, Transformers, Charmed, Claymore, Death Note etc.
Competition research is also considerable: ‘veoh youtube’ and ‘veoh daily motion’ ’sites like veoh’

Daily Motion
The top demand is for adult content on video (with very varied terms). There only two top exceptions: naruto, the anime series as seen in YouTube & Veoh, and Alice.

Alice
“dailymotion alice” comes up in the top searched Daily Motion terms in Google but I cannot interpret it accurately: if you helped me out with what and why people are searching on/in/with alice, I’d be grateful. It could be the manga series, TV series, the Japanese band (no, I don’t think it’s Lewis Carroll’s Alice).
Based on the top search results given to other phrase I think it might be
1, Indochine: Alice (Indochine is a French new wave/rock band and Daily Motion is a French video social networking site)
2, the Italian pirate radio show called Alice, but it is just a guess (top results in Google)
3, I Am Legend: the film with Will Smith and Alice Braga etc.
Or maybe just all combined. But it’s quite telling that even one of the most popular terms is most viewed about 500 times.
(then again comes a big lorry of adult searches)

The Office: yep, that funny TV series - at a mid search range

Competition research is also considerable: ‘youtube dailymotion’ ‘metacafe dailymotion’ ‘youtube daily motion’

Blinkx
‘autonomy blinkx’ i.e. news about Autonomy taking over Blinkx in 2007 (but there’s an interesting remark from a user called Richard on paidContent.org: “There has been lots of evidence that Autonomy and Blinkx were effectively the same company; working from the same offices, using the same staff. Autonomy have always disguised this by saying that as an OEM customer Blnkx would of course need access to Autonomy development team and staff. It will be interesting to see exactly who are the shareholders of Blinkx.”)

‘blinkx adhoc’ which is basically about the revenue sharing scheme of Blinkx termed AdHoc.

‘blinkx ipo’ similarly to Autonomy & Blinkx, it is about the stock market.

In short, Blinkx is not really used as a video search engine - at least based on Google search engine trends as shown in the KeyWord Tool. There are several meta-searches that show interest in the engine: like wiki, wikipedia, search engine, or business & PR searches (e.g. IPO, Suranga, London, stock, San Francisco, etc.) But apart from the limited adult searches, nothing shows that it is a site in use as a video search site. There is some hype, where is the search?

Joost, its major competitor (with more search volume and more versatile terms) reflects the same: brand searches (or other technical searches like how to get a joost invitation) are high while brand and generic term searches (i.e. mixed searches like “joost 24 series”) are not detected, which could show the active use of joost.

Revver
‘lonelygirl15,’ ‘diet coke’ and ‘mentos’ are shown as Google searches with higher volume (besides a lot of terms related to making money on Revver). There is a decent search volume for ‘one revver’, which I do not know the explanation for, so if you can reveal it, let me know.

PS: I would have liked to include Blip.TV Google search result, but the search volume does not go beyond the brand name (in various typos). Here’s a pic (click to enlarge):

And finally, the general search volume for the term ‘online video’ in a screenshot: