The Future of Media

This is a very interesting video on the future of media. Some great thought behind it and some catchy graphics make it worth the six minutes of your life. Is it unrealistic? You tell me. Not sure about the logo right at the end though - conspiracy theory anyone?

User generated 'how-to' videos

The number of online how-to's is increasing, and has proven to fill an existing need for those looking online for information, getting good search placement with the major search engines and offering great niche communities for advertisers. Similar to what we’re seeing with the user-generated online video market, those involved with how-to sites are experimenting with a lot of different business models and ways in which to pay content owners.

ExpertVillage operates by presenting “assignments” for experts, which are based on topics that are the most searched on over the web. Experts can create a how-to video and ExpertVillage purchase the rights from the video’s creators. This process will ensure premium content coming through the site, making it of better authority for viewers, though limiting its community capabilities to some extent.

Source credit: Mashable.com

Heavy Geo-targeting adverts

Heavy, the online video site with a distinct focus on the Jackass demographic, announced Tuesday that it will be using the IP Intelligence technology from Digital Element in order to "geotarget" its advertisements, language, and video content based on where a visitor's IP address is located.

This means a couple of different things. One, by knowing where its visitors come from, Heavy can run locally targeted advertisements, which can make it a more appealing buy for advertisers. This, as we've seen with many of Google's locally-oriented applications, can be very lucrative.

And two, imagine the possibilities of geographically relevant Heavy videos: instead of just seeing videos of skateboarders falling off roofs into kiddie pools full of Jell-O, you might be able to see videos of skateboarders falling off roofs into kiddie pools full of Jell-O that were filmed in your home state. That skateboarder falling off the roof might even be your neighbor.

Source credit: Webware.com

Free Entertainment - Part 2

Following on from my earlier mention of live streaming sites such as alluc.org, here is a new and bettered version based on the same principle. Joox.net is in essence the same, providing links of movies and TV shows to name a few.

The reason that it's an improvement is that these are all based on on Stage 6's Divex - so there is hardly a wait for buffering, and all of the links provided are full screen, DVD quality, and are full files - as opposed to full films broken up into pieces.

As said before these sites are legal, as they only provide the link lists and do not hold any of the content uploaded. Depending on your view on copyright infringement - enjoy.

Soft Branding in Viral Videos

Even though viral video's are one of the latest buzz terms when considering digital marketing channels, a lot of brands and companies are still trying to figure it out. Here is an example of great 'soft' branding through a video that is actually viral, as opposed to blatant product pushes.

This example from Ray Ban is considerably effective as it created a buzz in forums and video sharing sites - because people noticed a sneaky insertion of the campaign tag line in the video, and started discussion about who made the video and is it / isn't it Ray Ban

If you watch the video, look at the car window right at the end and you will see the soft branding. It seems that a video which people will actually send on to friends coupled with really subtle branding is proving to be an attractive formula for creating viral videos

Pub Web de Ray Ban
Uploaded by ol-optic

User Generated Advertising

User generated media has yet another angle for monetization, and it seems to be gaining momentum. Zooppa is a new social network created around the idea of user generated advert creation. The Ital-American start up explains the concept as "we give you a brand, you make an advert, you rate the best ones, and the winner gets paid"

Well known brands that have used this so far include Tom Tom, Havianas and Global Warming. Here is the complete list of winners so far

This is an unique advertising business model, for now that is. Businesses supply advertising briefs - what their product is, who they're targeting, any brand-specific design elements, etc. - and users create advertisements for the company, uploading them for Zooppa users to vote on.

This is an attractive model for people to create revenue from user generated content while the You Tube's of the world figure out their revenue sharing models. For brands it's a cost effective way of seeing what consumers think of the brand, and at at the same time giving immediate feedback on what adverts they relate to the most.

Simple. Cheap. Effective

Video Tracking

If you are a serial video seeder, or if like me you use video seeding for work, i'm sure you know how hard it is to keep track of what video's you have loaded onto what site and, how many views they've had and where to find them - then this will save you a lot of time.

Yes youtube might be the McDonalds of online video, but there are lots of alternatives - and depending on what you are using them for, are in a lot of cases much better than youtube. Quick example - Metacafepays you for video's that do well. Enough said

Anyway, Vidmeteris a great application that will track all of your videos, and let you access everything you might need from one page. It shows a total number of views a video had had across all the sharing sites you might have loaded it onto, and will link you to where it is on that site at the click of a button.

Another very useful way to use this is that it tracks the most popular videos across a network of sites. You can browse by category and time frame. Very useful if you want to see what is popular and realize that your options don't stop at McVideo