Poker online - Yahoo Video
By: MORGAN COLLINS

Yahoo recently released its poker games site and caused much speculation in the online poker market. Rumours were rife that Yahoo (an American company) had somehow done a deal and was looking to be the first to release a poker site in America, once the gambling act had been overturned.

Of course this is “balderdash” as they say in America. Although there is talk of a review into the online gambling in America, no deal had been done and the US was not about to overturn a prohibition order that has caused chaos and wiped out an industry worth billions of dollars!

With all the rumours floating around, some say they were started by Yahoo themselves in an attempt to draw attention to their poker release. Certainly many gaming and news sites have taken up the subject of Yahoo’s release and there are many articles that can be read about the launch.

One thing Yahoo Poker has done for sure, and that is to draw attention to the use of video introductions on online poker sites. Yahoo are not the first to do this however. In fact a Swedish Bingo site had done it before. Lassekroner Bingo is an ultra modern looking bingo site, and targets the technology savvy Swedish market. Their site looks like something a web design agency has spent a lot of time designing. Interestingly, the Lassekroner Bingo release has something in common with Yahoo Poker too. They were both developed and are managed by St Minver Ltd. Yahoo undertook the collaboration with St Minver and Boss Media it seems because of their presence in Europe and their experience in operating gaming sites.

So has St Minver seen something that other online poker sites have not? Are St Minver about to cause a revolution in the online poker and bingo markets? Well, only time will tell if they utilise video introductions on any of their other sites. But rumour has it that Juega Poker Ya and Juega Bingo (two other sites managed by St Minver) are about to get an overhaul with the use of video to help their players to understand how to sign up, deposit money and play the games.

So what does video do for a site and how can it improve conversions and players depositing cash?

Well, we have all heard of the Virtual Employee, whereby sites can purchase software to add a virtual employee to their site. These are usually managed by an independent company and they allow you to create a virtual employee to your design, to help direct and navigate users through complicated sites, usually shopping sites. Sites likes SitePal, for example, offer virtual employees for around 10 USD per month. Case studies with SitePal show increase in sales by up to 40% and increase in traffic by up to 150%.

It is obvious therefore that use the next step in virtual employees will be in utilising real video as a way of communicating complicated issues on a site or getting a sales message across to customers.

Poker, to some is a complicated game. It does require some level of knowledge and it is far easier and much more attractive to a potential player, to teach them how to play poker via a video message. Using a female on the video on the site, also offers the majority of male players a further attraction to joining up and playing poker.

The video introduction on Yahoo Poker site allows them to offer a method of enticing players to join up and start spending their money. People much prefer the human voice to written text or a graphic, and the female used on the Yahoo site provides a way of building a level of familiarity and trust with the brand.

The use of videos as a way of communicating has seen a massive increase recently with sites like You Tube and Google Video allowing users to post video clips. The phenomenon seems set to continue with the use of videos for site introductions and perhaps one day there will come a time when text on a website will give way to video clips and perhaps complete videos, in order to get a company message across.

Certainly, the trend has begun with video poker introductions and Yahoo in conjunction with St Minver seem to have laid their cards on the table!

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