Online Video Habits of Employees A 2011 Study on How Employees Use Online Video at Work

Transcription

1 Online Video Habits of Employees A 2011 Study on How Employees Use Online Video at Work Results based on an independent survey conducted by Harris Interactive on behalf of Blue Coat Systems.

2 Executive Overview More and more people are turning to online video for their information. Video can be used to entertain, engage and educate; it can come from anywhere, be created by anyone, and be accessed using almost anything. Its ubiquity and accessibility has fueled its rapid adoption. Table of Contents Executive Overview 2 Introduction 3 Video Impact on the Corporate Network 4 A quick look at recent stats demonstrates the pervasiveness of video and the level to which it has been integrated into our lives: YouTube s content is more than doubling year over year, with 35 hours of new video added every minute. 1 Businesses are adding media centers Survey Findings The Impact of Online Video to Wide Area Network Effectively Enabling Video on the Corporate Network to their in-house capabilities, using live and on-demand video to foster better employee communication. At the same time, companies are using video for communication to external audiences, with 50% of the Fortune 100 companies having established their own corporate YouTube Channels to disseminate information. Businesses are feeling the strains the rigorous demands of video place on their networks. This report looks at the online video habits of employees at work, and the impact those habits have on corporate networks. The goal is to help companies better understand and plan, so they can effectively meet the video needs of their organization. This report utilizes data from a survey conducted by Harris Interactive in February The survey looked at U.S. employees, who were employed fulltime, working at a desk an average of two hours per day for a company with at least 100 employees. None of these companies were in the television, video or motion picture industries. This report also includes perspectives and observations from Blue Coat Systems, based on experience gathered by working with companies around the world on their video implementations. 2 1 YouTube blog, Morgan Stanley Research Web 2.0 Presentation: The State of the Web, by Mary Meeker, 11/10.

3 Introduction Companies know in this fast-paced world of data overload, video offers a way to cut through the clutter and engage viewers with a real connection. For newer employees of the so-called YouTube Generation, video is simply expected. It s why video is increasingly being used by businesses to disseminate information, provide training and communicate with employees, partners, suppliers and customers. Most businesses are producing their own video content. A recent survey by Gartner, 2 found the main drivers for all this video content spanned training (60%+), executive communications (50%+), collaboration (50%), and corporate messaging and inspiration (50%). In addition to businesses, more and more people, devices, services and applications are using video to find or share information, which means it is originating from a staggering number of sources. For example, many websites automatically start a video window as soon as the page is opened; when breaking news occurs, people often search for videos or live feeds, making online sources the first point of reference for many events (as seen in the correlation between big news/events and large spikes in demand for online video). To complicate matters further, online video is a catchall for different video file types. There are basically three key application protocols that are used by most of the video services encountered on the Web. Those protocols include: HTTP/SSL (including HTML5) YouTube and anything served from SharePoint RTMP Adobe Flash RTSP Microsoft Windows Media Server This video can be served live or on-demand: Live Video: News and event driven video that is delivered in real-time streams. This type of video tends to cause unexpected spikes in network traffic. Companies are also using live video for company events and executive talks. On-Demand Video: This includes YouTube type videos and often ones produced by a company for corporate communications or training. Businesses need to understand what each of these video delivery styles, whether live or on-demand, will do to their network. The trend-lines show no signs of slowing, in fact, all indicators are they will continue to accelerate. It seems inevitable that businesses, as well as the Web 2.0 services we use to run those businesses, will continue to rely on video more and more to connect with viewers and enhance their overall value. The key is to understand the impact of all this video, so you can prepare to effectively support it. 2 User Survey Analysis: Video Content Management and Delivery: Streaming Goes Mainstream, Gartner Group, 17 August 2010 ID:G

4 Video Impact on the Corporate Network Companies typically have two primary concerns when it comes to video on their corporate network: 1) How will it affect employee productivity? 2) What is the impact on mission-critical applications running on the network? While employee productivity is an issue and concern, many companies tend to intervene around video and application usage only when it becomes detrimental to overall performance. Many organizations have adopted a fairly liberal attitude towards the way employees can use the Web at work, allowing access to social networking, online news, video content, personal Web mail, and even shopping. Ultimately, many companies have decided to hold employees accountable for their productivity and let each one decide how to manage their time. The more significant issue is the increasing toll that recreational Web content and applications take on the company network. Online video has become the primary cause of this impact, affecting the delivery and performance of mission-critical applications and disrupting the continuity of business operations. Primary Points of Impact: Branch Office Branch Office Data Center Internet Branch Office Critical Capacity Limits 4

5 Total Internet Traffic Total WAN or Internet Gateway Traffic Video: live and on-demand 20% All other data 80% All other data 49% Video: live and on-demand 51% Impact of Video on Corporate Networks: According to multiple analyst firms, including Telegeography, video accounts for 51% of all Internet traffic. Much of this video is consumerbased, which means it is delivered to homes or mobile handsets. But Blue Coat estimates that, on average, about 20% of the traffic on corporate networks is from online video that originates from the Web or internal company sources. As noted earlier, we expect the consumption of video to grow significantly over the next few years, which means it s reasonable to expect video will make up a far greater percentage of the corporate traffic. Even today, an average of 20% can have devastating effects, particularly since actual load may vary from 0% to 100%, often with very little warning. Online video usage can be highly unpredictable. Breaking news or a major event may drive employee viewership to the point that video consumes all available bandwidth and brings everything else to a halt. This condition is known as a video flood. Even when not tied to a specific event, due to the viral nature of some on-demand videos (receiving millions of viewers in hours), video can cause significant spikes in bandwidth consumption. As a result, companies are faced with two challenges: 1) Preventing video floods Stop floods from overtaking the network and disrupting businesscritical applications, while still allowing sensible use of online video 2) Scaling company-produced video across the distributed enterprise Find ways to embrace and support internally created video as an effective means of employee communication over the existing network, while minimizing or de-prioritizing the use of non-business video In essence, to fully benefit from the effective communications medium, companies need to be able to manage, optimize and scale video on their network. % of Bandwidth 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% Video Flood Time of Day 5

6 Survey Findings Employees while at work... 49% Watch at least 15 minutes of online video per week Watch at least 30 minutes of online video per week 33% The results of the survey show that employees watch a significant amount of online video while at work. This question was intended to determine the total amount of time employees spend watching delivered by the company s network either from the Internet or from internal company sources. It appears that many respondents may have answered in terms of video from the Internet only and not from an internal server. Also, the term online video may have limited the responses by making some think in terms of live video rather than all kinds of video. Therefore, the number of total online video watched per week while at work is probably quite a bit higher, especially, as you will see later in the study, employees spent 17.8 minutes per week watching company-created video while at work. > > 39% admitted that none of the online video they watched served a business purpose > > 61% reported that the online video they watched served a mixed purpose (i.e. some of the video served a business purpose) Reported mixed purpose 61% Admitted non-business purpose 39% 6

7 Of those admitting that none of the online video they watched served a business purpose, younger employees show a significantly higher incidence for this behaviour: 51% of year-olds said that none of the online video they watched served a business purpose, yet 37% of year-olds said that none of the online video they watched served a business purpose, and 24% of year-olds said that none of the online video they watched served a business purpose Most employees report that some of the online video they watch at work is business-related, and some is purely recreational. Sorting out what is business-related and what is purely recreational is not always an easy task. YouTube, for instance, is used by many companies for business-related communication. Some research has shown that 50% of Fortune 100 companies have their own YouTube channel, and 68% of these companies posted an average of 10 videos to YouTube each month. Interestingly, younger employees seem to have a far greater tendency to watch online video at work for nonbusiness purposes than older ones year-olds are over twice as likely to watch for non-business purposed than year-olds. This may highlight a trend towards more common use of video for non-business purposes, as younger employees continue to enter the workforce and become the majority minutes On average, employees spent 17.8 minutes per week watching company-created video while at work. Each employee watching at an average of 18 minutes per week of company-created video while at work, shows that the use of such is becoming prevalent and significant. Companies are already facing challenges of how to deliver important internal video content over the network to employees in branch and remote offices, where its usage is perhaps most important. Employees while at work... 34% have watched a live business-related video event 27% have watched a live streaming newscast (e.g. cable or network news) 13% have watched a TV show streamed from Hulu or a similar site 9% have watched a movie or TV show from a rental service such as Netflix 9% have watched a live video streamed over the Web from someone s mobile phone 7

8 Watching live video or streaming is becoming more popular. While the survey shows some significant usage, it is likely that these things are all under-reported by people not willing to be completely honest about their habits while at work. Note: the number of respondents for this set of questions is lower than for the rest of the survey, so the results should be seen as indicators rather than statistically representative for U.S. employees with fulltime employment by a company of at least 100 employees in a job that has them at their desks for at least two hours a day. Watching live video streamed over the Web from someone s mobile phone is a trend more common with younger age groups: year-olds were 2.7 times as likely to utilize this kind of communication than year-olds year-olds were 5.3 times as likely to utilize this kind of communication than year-olds Use of online video is changing as new generations of employees come to their companies with expectations for and habits with video in the office. One of the newest trends is the use of live video streamed over the Web directly from someone s mobile phone. This takes place within company offices to provide an instant one-to-many video cast of an internal meeting or at public events such as a presentation at a conference. Live video casts from mobile devices is still in an early stage, but it will grow significantly over the next few years. Use of this kind of communication is simple and inexpensive, but it presents significant challenges for corporate networks. Similarly, there were distinct age differences in the behaviours of watching movies and TV shows while at work: year-olds were also 1.7 times as likely to watch a movie or TV show from a rental service while at work than or year-olds year-olds 1.4 times as likely as yearolds to watch a TV show streamed from Hulu or a similar site and 1.8 times as likely as year-olds. With younger generation of employees and new business expectations and realities, the work-life balance blurs for many. Younger employees feel that if they spend more hours in the workplace, they are entitled to have access to various online resources, including TV or movies over the Web, particularly during lunch or in the evening. 8

9 The Impact of Online Video to Wide Area Network A lot of an organization s traffic traverses the wide area network (WAN), as communications flow between remote offices and headquarters or the data center. The impact of video on the performance and capacity of the connections between these sites can be great. Depending on the quality of the video, just one or two feeds can affect everyone s connection: The Demands of Video on the Network based on Various Resolution and Sizes Video Quality level Video Size Frames per second Bitrate range (bandwidth) Average Bitrate High 1920 x / x / x / K 1.2Mb 1 Mbps Medium 640x / K 700K 450 Kbps Low 320 x / Kbps 100K 300K 160 x / Kbps Take a 20 person branch office with a T1 connection 1,544 Kilobits per second (kbps) to the data center. It s safe to assume, everyone in this office relies on this connection to access the resources and applications they need to do their job, from business files (data) to and voice over IP (VoIP). As we can see below, when just a few employees start watching video it can significantly impact the overall connection: Effect of Video on a T1 Connection # of People In Remote Office 20 # of People in remote office using video Impact on T1 Connection Bandwidth Video size Bandwidth Used % of T1 Connection 320x Kbps 13.3% 640x Kbps 30% 854x480 1 Mbps 66% 320x Kbps 27% 640x Kbps 60% 854x480 2 Mbps 100%++ 320x Kbps 40% 640x Kbps 90% 854x480 3 Mbps 100%++ 9

10 Effectively Enabling Video on the Corporate Network For many businesses, video consumes a significant amount their WAN budget today, and much of this is for nonessential content, such as laughing babies or kittens doing clumsy tricks. Another problem is that demand for bandwidth from video is hard to predict, particularly when considering the spikes and floods generated during a captivating news cycle, disaster, or even celebrity drama. It is often impractical and too costly to build out a network capable of meeting these peak demands, which ultimately leaves the network unprepared to deliver a reliably satisfactory video experience for users. These video floods are occurring more frequently and bring missioncritical application traffic to a halt. Traditional WAN optimization technologies are of little or no use against a video flood. Enabling video for business can be very expensive. If you are investigating video initiatives to improve training or communications for your enterprise, it s interesting to note that you might need to spend between $500k and $2 million in incremental operational costs (mostly bandwidth) per year, every year. 3 This level of investment is often not sustainable for a lot of organizations, and illustrates the conflict presented by video it is increasingly important, yet inappropriate recreational video use is making it hard for organizations to afford it. Alternatively, companies can use WAN optimization solutions that feature video delivery solutions for caching on-demand video and stream-splitting live video. To this end, a solution that can truly prepare businesses for the demands of video should enable an organization to: Scale Live Video: Reduce the impact of online video on the WAN to ensure users can effectively access live content without impacting other traffic through the use of stream splitting technology so that a single stream can serve tens or hundreds of viewers in a branch office Optimize On-Demand Video: Take advantage of on-demand caching and other optimization technologies to offload media servers and reduce traffic over the WAN to maximize the user experience; such technologies can radically reduce the impact or cost of video Manage Your WAN to Protect against Video Floods: Optimize traffic to reduce the burden on the WAN and limit traffic when needed to protect against floods that can disrupt the performance of your WAN Support All Video File Types: Utilize application specific technologies to optimize and manage all the video in your environment Ultimately what is needed is a way for businesses to support a predictably satisfactory user experience and effectively manage the demands of video, along with all the demands of business-critical applications and services. Businesses also need a way to offload media servers, reduce the traffic that actually traverses the WAN, and optimize its delivery to ensure a high quality user experience Incremental bandwidth costs How to Deliver Rich Media, Including Live Video, to Your Company Now, by Gartner, 13 October 2009, ID Number: G

11 Blue Coat Systems, Inc BCOAT Direct Fax Copyright 2011 Blue Coat Systems, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. No part of this document may be reproduced by any means nor translated to any electronic medium without the written consent of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Information contained in this document is believed to be accurate and reliable, however, Blue Coat Systems, Inc. assumes no responsibility for its use. Blue Coat, ProxySG, PacketShaper, CacheFlow, IntelligenceCenter and BlueTouch are registered trademarks of Blue Coat Systems, Inc. in the U.S. and worldwide. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. v.bc-online-video-habits-v1-0411