About Tagvid!

What is TagVid?

TagVid is a video product tagging website where users can come and look at as well as buy the products that they come across while watching videos. Users can also create their own accounts to start tagging products and commenting on videos and products.

How does TagVid work?

The website serves as the middle person between users, media producers and product sellers. It provides search function for users to select goods. It also provides opportunities for sellers to advertise their products. This is a reciprocity relationship. On the one hand, the more products users tag, the more opportunities for sellers to advertise based on the tagged products. On the other hand, the more detailed information the sellers provide, the more options users would have.

Moreover, due to the media type the website provided, users have a high investment in both time and emotion. They would spend lots of time on watching video as well as tagging the products they like. Their action is self-motivated. Users voluntarily contribute to the tags and comments on videos. Thus revenue can be tied to contextual advertising that is generated by users themselves.

Besides, the website also acts as an infomediary model. It collects tagging information as well as other information generated by users. The data can be carefully analyzed and used to target marketing campaigns. For example, based on the categories of tagging, we can conclude which kind of accessory is the most popular in a particular season, and then eventually develop an analytical model to predict the next big fad or fashion season. This can be very valuable in predicting the trend of the fashion market.

Hi-fi

To go to our live application click: http://tagvid.heroku.com/

To go to our demo site click: http://694tagvid.appspot.com/

Available functions on our website are —

Available options:

1)   Search for videos/products –
User can enter his/her search query in the search box. Users can search the videos by the video names/tags or they can also search videos by products/items. So suppose I want to check out the sandals that have been tagged recently and are in fashion, I will type a query “sandal” into the search box and the videos in which sandals have been tagged most recently and most often will appear in the search results.

2)   Filter Search results –
User can then filter his/her search results by clicking any of categories present on the left sidebar

3)   Sign-in and Create Account–
User can also create an account and sign into the system. Users are allowed to tag only after they have created an account with Tagvid. The users who do not have an account with Tagvid can explore the videos and see the existing tags and comments.

4)   Upload Videos –
Users who have created an account with Tagvid can also upload videos that they want to tag and share with friends. For this users can click on the Upload link present in the top navigation bar.

5)   Select videos to explore –
After logging in or searching for the desired video or browsing through the list of latest videos presented on the home-page, user can decide which video he/she wants to view. If the users come to our site with an undecided mind we also two options –

1. Browse through the latest or most popular videos presented on the home-page
2. Click on the Stumble option. This presents the user with a random video from the entire database. User can keep stumbling until they find the video that interests them, or are tired exploring!

6)   View tagged videos –
Once the users have decided the video they want to watch, they can click on that particular video thumbnail and then will be taken to the following screen –

Users can see their Facebook friends who have liked this video. The right sidebar displays a scrolling list of the products that have been tagged in the video. The star indicates bookmark icon. If a user does not want to pause a video while watching, they can keep bookmarking the products they like and then later go to My Bookmarks section to view all the bookmarked products and see their details. If a user is not logged in, they will not be able to bookmark the products.

Users also get a list of recommended videos at the bottom. The recommendation is based on their previous search in this search (if they are not logged in), or their past history (products tagged, videos uploaded, products bookmarked, etc.).

7)   View tagged product’s details –
Users can click on the product list scrolling on the right sidebar to view the details of any product. The image below shows the right sidebar refreshed with product details.

Along with seeing the product details, users also can see their Facebook friends who have liked this video. Also users can add a comment about the product on their Facebook walls and also see the comments left by their other friends.

8)   Tagging Product in a video
Users who are logged-in can tag the products in the video they are watching, by clicking on the “Tag it!” button. As soon as users click on this button, an overlay appears with three form fields – Product Name, Product URL and Description. As soon as the user enters the URL, we crawl that page to give user a set of images to choose from and make the thumbnail for that tagged product. Once the users click “Submit”, the Tag gets saved and all other visitors can then see the tagged product information while viewing the video.

9)   My Account
Users who have their account with Tagvid have the option to see their account activity. As soon as the user signs in, the Create Account link converts to My Account. There are 4 sections inside My Account –

1. My profile: This is the basic information that user filled while creating an account
2. b.     My Videos: This displays a list of all the videos that have been uploaded by the user. User can change the information related to these videos, like, video title, description, etc. on this page. User is also allowed to delete the self uploaded videos.
3. c.      My Bookmarks: This displays the list of all the products that have been bookmarked by the user while watching videos. Users cannot edit any information on this page, but they can remove the bookmark from their list.
4. d.     My Tags: Here all the tags that have been created by the user are displayed. User can edit the information related with tag on this page or can delete the tag.

10)   Footer Links
User has been given a bunch of options to explore from in the footer links as well. The available options are – About us, Contact us, Privacy Policy

Mid-fi

With the feedbacks received from our lo-fi presentation we developed a few high resolution photoshop files to refine our ideas and decide on the visual theme as well. Click Here to download the mid-fi report.

To go to our static demo site click: http://694tagvid.appspot.com/

Below are some of the photoshop images that we made before building the static demo site on appspot:

Lo-fi

We brainstormed and created paper prototypes of our idea. Please Click Here to download the lo-fi presentation.

Business Plan report and presentation

Please find attached our Final Business Model presentation here – Business Plan- presentation

Please find attached our Final Business Model final report here – Business Plan report- tagVID

Target Market

We can safely divide the users of this website into four different segments:

1. Buyers
2. Sellers
3. Collaborators
4. Others

Buyers
Buyers are the kind of users who would actually use the website to purchase products. They would be people looking for the latest trends in fashion and what the people of fashion believe in. They could be categorized as:

Fashionistas: These are die-hard fashion believers, always up-to-date with the latest scarves and shoes in styles. They don’t like to settle for anything less than the best and the latest.

Celeb fan Clubs: These are the ones who love to live the reel life. They want to emulate their reel life heroes in real as much as they could. They are always looking for things that their stars use.

Sellers
Sellers are the retailers/brands who would like to leverage this platform to reach out to a broader audience. They could be basically of two types:

Original Retailers: The brands that are originally featured in the videos. For example, if a character in “Gossip Girls” is wearing a pair of Aldo boots, then Aldo might be interested in tagging its product information in the video and feature it on the website.

Imitation Retailers: The brands that do not feature in the video originally but want to showcase their products that are similar to the ones featured in the video.

Collaborators
Collaborators form the crux of this product. They are the real contributors to the content of the website. These people share their knowledge and experience of the products and enrich the website by tagging products on the videos.

Others
Some people might just be interested in observing the popularity trends of fashion amongst the general public. This might consist of designers, market researchers etc. They will be the most passive users of the website.

Proposed Business Models

The website’s business model is a combination of three: brokerage model, community model and infomediary model.

Brokerage Model:

Brokers are market-makers: they bring buyers and sellers together and facilitate transactions. Brokers play a frequent role in business-to-business (B2B), business-to-consumer (B2C), or consumer-to-consumer (C2C) markets. Usually a broker charges a fee or commission for each transaction it enables. The formula for fees can vary.

Community Model:

The viability of the community model is based on user loyalty. Users have a high investment in both time and emotion. Revenue can be based on the sale of ancillary products and services or voluntary contributions; or revenue may be tied to contextual advertising and subscriptions for premium services. The Internet is inherently suited to community business models and today this is one of the more fertile areas of development, as seen in rise of social networking.

Freemium Model

Many websites are now-a-days following the infomediary model where they provide only a portion of their service for free and to avail full services, users are required to pay. This is termed as the Freemium model.

Infomediary Model

Data about consumers and their consumption habits are valuable, especially when that information is carefully analyzed and used to target marketing campaigns. Independently collected data about producers and their products are useful to consumers when considering a purchase. Some firms function as infomediaries (information intermediaries) assisting buyers and/or sellers understand a given market.

Revenue Stream

We have identified three main sources for generating revenue in the website, advertising, selling aggregated user data and product referrals.

1. Advertising

• Allow companies to tag specific videos with their products and promote them by providing links to their respective websites or promotion sites
• These videos will not only help in generation of more tagged content and products but will also generate money for sustaining the website.
• Employ a featured videos section similar to YouTube (optional)

In addition to placing promoted videos in the website, companies can be an additional amount to have their videos featured in the main page of the website. Similar to  youtube the home page will be a mix of promoted videos and top viewed ( popular) videos. For the feature videos section we will charge a per view price from the advertisers.

2. Free Video Uploading Space

We will provide a limited amount of free video uploading space on our website. After a user has exhausted the given space, they will have to purchase the space with us to continue uploading videos. This will be especially beneficial in case of big advertisers and product companies, as they would want to keep pushing their tagged products and videos on our website and after exhausting the provided space they will be required to purchase space with us to continue the service.

3. Product Referrals

For all the products placed in the website through tagging videos we will ensure that a product referral percentage is allotted to the us. This will be ensured either by making deals with product retailer websites or by using existing product referral programs like Amazon Associates.

4. User Aggregated Data

The usage statistics of the website will be a lucrative source of revenue if analyzed and marketed properly. The in demand products can be identified, in a promoted video the product click through and buying statistics will be of great value for the promoter. So building a web analytics interface for the promoters and charging them a subscription fee for this will generate revenue for the website.

Competitive Advantage

In this section we will discuss the competitive advantages and disadvantages that Tagvid will have over the existing similar products:

1.    Brandfame: http://www.brandfame.com/

This is a marketplace connecting brands and producers. They facilitate the connection between video producers and advertisers and provide them a common platform to interact amongst themselves.

Competitive Advantage:

Since the information about the products comes directly from the brand, it is always authentic and accurate in terms of the availability, price and other details.

Competitive Disadvantage:

• They do not have a single platform for video sharing, making it difficult for the users to access all information at a single point.
• They do not allow users to search for all videos that feature a single product or product type. Since all these videos are scattered throughout different websites, the user will have to look through all websites individually in order to find all possible featurings of a particular product.
• All information is produced by the retailers/brand, hence it might be a little biased and fail to provide a 3rd party opinion.

2.    Overlay.tv: http://overlay.tv/

This website aims at helping “online retailers create, manage and deliver interactive video experiences to drive traffice, increase conversion and engage shoppers.”

Competitive Advantage:

They allow clients to have a clickable area on screen, which the users can click to directly buy the product online.

Competitive Disadvantage:

• They only allow the retailers to produce videos, user generated videos can not be used to placing products.
• They do not facilitate comparison of similar products from different brands
• All information being generated by the retailers, a little bias might be introduced, but their is no provision of getting a 3rd party opinion to minimise the bias.

Comparison Matrix

Competitors

From studying the various products in the market, we have understood that product placement through videos is a very common concept. But, there are various unique competitive advantages that we have over them. Two of the major compettitors are discussed below:

1.    Brandfame: http://www.brandfame.com/

This is a marketplace connecting brands and producers. They facilitate the connection between video producers and advertisers and provide them a common platform to interact amongst themselves.

2.    Overlay.tv: http://overlay.tv/

This website aims at helping “online retailers create, manage and deliver interactive video experiences to drive traffice, increase conversion and engage shoppers.”