Video on the web is not a new phenomenon, nor is the hype around the impact that video will have. But we are now starting to see how video can play a role in social media. As my colleagues Kirk and Patrick like to point out, social media is more than just Facebook and Twitter. Social media is information designed to be disseminated by interaction. With that in mind, web-based video players are starting to enter the social arena. Here are some players with social features that I have interacted with recently. This is not meant to be exhaustive but provides an overview of players I know about.
Recently, Adam Singer of The Future Buzz blog dedicated a post to reasons why video blogging hasn’t taken off. It was an excellent piece and I agree with many of the reasons he listed (video pros still do it better, comfort level with text/image blogs, searchability and translation issues).
In particular, two issues stand out to me. Both relate to time. People can skim text in a blog and get to the content they’re interested in whereas that’s harder to do with video blogging (unless they provide a transcript, chapters or subtitles). Second, it takes more effort (and therefore time) to create a video post than it does to write and post copy. The exception to this would be one-take wonders (basically people who speak well extemporaneously) like pundits and comedians. But for everyone else it’s time consuming to record everything in one take and/or to record and edit together the best parts.
However, I agree that video blogging is something worth considering simply because so few people do it. It’s a way to help you distinguish yourself from everyone else. It especially makes sense it you’re comfortable speaking on-camera, you have an engaging on-camera presence and/or you have something visually compelling to show (interesting locations, products, visuals).
There is something to be said for producing high-quality video blog posts. Perhaps that’s my bias since I work at a place with great tools to create video. However, with the advent of smart phone video cameras maybe we’ll get comfortable with the shaky hand-held aesthetic especially if the subject matter is interesting.
Vegas is a city filled with distractions, as evidenced in the movie “The Hangover.” So if you’re trying to promote an event in Las Vegas how do you grab people’s attention?
Our solution? Make a lasting impression.
We created this custom E-Card to promote East Side Entrees at the upcoming School Nutrition Association Conference in Las Vegas.
Enjoy!
For years I’ve been fascinated by how visual effects technology has advanced storytelling in motion pictures. As a kid, I was first introduced to this with Return of the Jedi. I’ve never been the biggest fan of the Star Wars films, but I watched them to see just how someone’s imagination was translated for everyone else to enjoy. The film that changed everything for me was E.T. I was 8 years old, and although I had no career ambitions, I knew I wanted to create things using my own imagination. Fast-forward 26 years, and my work as an editor has allowed me to do just that. Both in my personal and professional work, I’m allowed the freedom to create while earning a living. Not bad. When you have the time, take a look at the Michael Bay website and the “Reels” section of the Digital Domain website. One provides a unique look at one of the most successful Directors, while the other shows examples of how script and imagination are translated to the big screen.
Americans continue to shift their video viewing habits in record numbers. New data from Nielsen report more than a 50% jump in viewer watching video on a mobile phone versus a year ago. Watching videos on a computer from the Internet also grew dramatically, up 13%. While most people still may prefer to watch video on the best device available – the research shows videos have a strong appeal on virtually any platform. The research reinforces that people want this video content at a time and on a device of their choosing. Even for those watching conventional TV – more than a quarter are time shifting using a DVR or other device.
The explosion of video on the web is taking a more central role in web development than simply added an embedded video player with a YouTube Clip. It’s hard to imagine creating a new, dynamic consumer-oriented site that doesn’t involve streaming video content in some way. Video is gaining prominence and importance over text content in many ways.
One of the best examples is the new Montreal tourism site. Montreal is going 100% online with its marketing this year. The tourism agency reports that 87-92% of all visitors are planning and booking their travel online – so it isn’t that hard to let go of traditional marketing.
The success of the Montreal campaign may raise questions for other marketers – to help them develop an e-marketing strategy. The answer may be to make 2009 a learning year for digital and online marketing because this technology is not going to go away.
My job in the past year has changed pretty radically with the invention of P2 media. We rarely shoot anything to tape, and instead we shoot HD video files to a P2 card…basically a hard drive inserted into the camera. This allows a fully tapeless workflow.
Downloading these raw HD video files is a critical process and it must be done with extreme care to insure that no media is lost. But I must download footage wherever the shoot takes me, and that can pose some awkward moments to be on a laptop.
Below are my top 3 most complicated places I have downloaded footage in the last year:
#3: In the sleeper cab of a semi truck.
I was recently filming a driver training video for Navistar in the desert outside of LA. We were shooting so much footage that day and I was constantly downloading to keep up with the fast and furious pace of the production. I was miles away from water, electricity, or even cell phone access. My only option was to download while riding in the sleeper cab of the truck as we made our way through the California desert.
#2: At a West Point, United States Military Academy football game.
The assignment was to create an advertisement for use during the USMA football game. I was there on the night of the first home game of the season. It was one of those crisp fall days perfect for a game. The stands were packed and the fans were showing full support. Me…I was on the front row on my laptop. To the untrained eye it looked like I was squeezing in some extra office work. But I was really hard a work downloading our raw HD footage.
#1: On a golf cart in the middle of a school bus factory, in Tulsa, OK.
I was recently filming a video for IC Buses in their mile-long factory in Tulsa. Here the busses are built entirely from scratch and the production line wraps a total of 3 miles around the facility. Our schedule was packed with no time to loose, so we didn’t have the luxury of returning to an office to download footage. Therefore, I made use of an available golf cart to download in the midst of all the welding, painting, and construction of these lovely yellow school buses.
Videos stand a much better chance than a text page of being shown on the first results page of a Google blended search, according to Nate Elliot with Forrester Research. Their research shows, “…any given video in the index stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page in the index.” Continue Reading →
Newspaper Graveyard
Everyone knows that the internet has really rocked the boat of traditional media outlets. File sharing and iTunes have taken a bite out of the record industry. Newspapers everywhere are in the midst of a death rattle. And it hasn’t been that long since the WGA dared to protest the fact that they were not getting paid for work distributed over the internet.
It’s kind of a free-for-all right now. The technology is so new that no model really exists, and big media distributors are in a panic trying to find ways to squeeze revenue from this new system. But there is a silver lining for aspiring artists. Everyone now has relatively equal access to new distribution channels.
Every once and awhile you get a project that makes you reflect upon the 
impact technology has on our lives. Recently, we interviewed Eugene Polley, a retired mechanical engineer at Zenith (now LG Electronics), who invented the wireless remote control back in 1950. We were hired by LG to tape an acceptance speech by Mr. Polley who was to receive an IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Electronics Award for this work at C.E.S.
During the interview, Mr. Polley commented on being dubbed the “Father of the Couch Potato.” Yet if you think about it, he actually blazed the trail for a more recent wireless device that can hardly be considered passive: the Nintendo Wii Remote Controller.The Wii is getting people off their couches and using their televisions actively and collaboratively in ways unimaginable in 1950.
So who knows where the remote control will take us in the future?