May 21, 2014
By Jan Ozer 特约编辑
专题文章

eBay拥抱企业YouTube

在我写案例研究的路上发生了一件有趣的事 eBay使用他们的企业YouTube. Specifically, 讨论从科技话题过渡到其他话题, 比如识别渠道和调节工作流, to the social forces driving eBay's decision to implement its enterprise YouTube and to surround it with complementary functionality.

正如你将在下面读到的，eBay (Figure 1) didn't implement their enterprise YouTube solely for tactical reasons; it was also a strategic measure to help ensure the long-term competitiveness of their products and services. 用Ryan Burnham的话来说, 谁管理eBay的内部网络广播和流媒体, “the exponential leap in technology has driven a rapid expansion of what the devices in our pockets can do, while social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are shaping how everyone—not just millennials—discover and consume information. 如果我们不为员工提供平等的体验, we’re by default expressing a corporate policy that it’s OK not to keep up, which puts us at risk for producing substandard products and services.”

Figure 1. eBay credits its enterprise YouTube from Qumu with helping foster innovation across the eBay Inc. 产品和服务组合.

Enterprise YouTube as a vehicle for ensuring long-term competitive advantage? 非常令人兴奋的东西. 但我有点超前了. 让我们从基础开始.

关于企业youtube

顾名思义, enterprise (or corporate) YouTubes allow employees and other stakeholders to upload content to a centralized location for internal distribution and, 由组织自行决定, 外部分布. There are multiple vendors that offer enterprise YouTube products, including Qumu, who supplies eBay’s product, traditional online video platform vendors like Kaltura，网络直播供应商喜欢 MediaPlatform，以及专注于企业业务的公司，比如youtube Vidizmo我们将在下一期的杂志中对此进行回顾流媒体 magazine. The list is growing; just this week VBrick announced 它自己的企业YouTube服务.

Figure 2. Qumu supplies enterprise YouTube functionality as a component of its Video Control Center product offering.

At a high level, the features offered by most vendors share many common elements. For example, all products enable organizations to specify which employees can upload content, 使用定义良好的适度工作流. 它们都提供了查看内容的门户, and most can integrate with existing enterprise portals with single sign-on capabilities. All products enable the creation of channels and the ability to control which employees can view content in those channels. 所有这些都可以共享现场活动和点播视频, and most provide detailed analytics that enable system administrators to track who watched which video and for how long.

Beyond this general functionality is a wealth of functions that fewer organizations actually leverage, like the ability to use the system for testing and certification, 或者将内容货币化. 就像谚语所说的大象, enterprise YouTubes look and feel like many things; it all depends upon where you touch. 就像曲木一样, enterprise YouTube functionality is often part of a much broader product, 启用的特定接口或一组规则, 而不是一个独立的产品.

eBay’s Scenario

As an example, 2006年，eBay开始使用Qumu的Media Publisher产品, 但直到2010年才实现企业YouTube功能. At the time, 主要动机不是为了员工上传, but so that their team could manage its increasingly video-related publishing without involving an intermediary. To explain, 大多数视频发布应用程序都是高度集中的, with a few administrators uploading a large number of videos for viewing by many. 通过部署企业YouTube, eBay was able to efficiently and economically empower communications stakeholders to use video to dialog with their constituents.

As Burnham explained, this is critical in an enterprise as large as eBay Inc., 它有三个主要部门:eBay市场, which includes the main eBay Marketplaces site plus eBay Classifieds Group and StubHub; PayPal, which includes Bill Me Later and Braintree; and eBay Enterprise (formerly GSI commerce) which fulfills online orders for brick and mortar companies. 这三个部门都是国际部门, with eBay running in more than 31 countries using countless languages. 当视频传播高度集中的时候, communications around these divisions and geographical locations was very challenging.

When eBay first deployed Qumu, video communications consisted of quarterly CEO announcements. Today, Burnham sees three general types of content in the portal. 首先是副总裁级别的网络直播, 一周发生两到三次, 而且通常有本地和远程观众. 其次是各部门的通讯, 比如一个非常流行的每周“90秒贝宝”视频, which informs PayPal employees of the progress around their business and geographic units and gets thousands of views a week. 根据伯纳姆, this type of video is the “new document” and generates much greater attention and interaction than memos or other text-based documents. 第三类来自普通员工, 也可能是训练视频, a product demo, or other quick-hit videos meant to be relevant to the business unit.

渠道与节制

Each division has its own channel and multiple subchannels tailored to its audience. All employees can upload content to the general channel for uncategorized content, while the ability to upload to specific channels is limited to stakeholders within those channels.

Burnham estimated that around 1,000 employees have uploaded some form of video content. One huge use case are periodic hack-a-thons eBay holds to generate new ideas for a product or process, where employees often use video to describe or demonstrate their concepts. 在任何一周内, 大约有100个视频被上传到系统, though there are special cases like the hack-a-thons that spike that number.