Category Archives: book

Buy and Stream TV Shows on… YouTube?

Some speculation that Google/YouTube may be entering the pay-per-download or pay-per-stream… allowing people to watch advertising-free shows on their computer or web-enabled television the day after they air. Apple, as we discussed in this rather fabulous post, is also believed to be entering this space.

What’s not clear is how the networks will behave… torn between a desire to follow their audiences online, but a fear of pissing off cable. A timeless challenge. Do I play nice with those who have power and control in the value-chain? Or do I declare my independence and do what my customers want? Tough trade-offs with huge dollars at stake long-term implications.

My two cents… there’s always going to be some intermediaries between viewers and content creators. So why not cut short-term, non-exclusive deals with technology providers on your terms?

Online-Video Experts Share 2009 Highlights and 2010 Predictions

First of all… the snow. Does it stay or go? I kinda like it, but when a vlogbrother says it’s “gotta go” it gives you pause.

I just invited a few of my favorite thought-leaders in online video to write a guest blog post about 2009 highlights and 2010 predictions. If you’re steeped in online video (as a creator, industry expert, marketer, journalist) and can write goodly, please feel free to e-mail me your own short guest post.

As 2009 wraps up, I am going to review my annual predictions (nailed some, but been quite wrong on others) and put some serious thought into where 2010 is headed.

I’m still surprised at how fast AND slow this online-video space is maturing.

Some amazing things have occurred in 2009 (we’re seeing networks, cable companies, marketers and technology firms getting quite serious about online-video distribution). But a few of my long-standing predictions have not yet proven accurate.

  1. I thought we’d see a popularity shift from amateur vloggers to professional creators (that still doesn’t appear to be happening). The most-viewed video creators are still individual “web stars” with minimal costs and largely 0ne-man bands.
  2. We still haven’t have broken down the gaping chasm between “lean forward” computer-driven online video consumption and “lean backward” viewing on that giant monitor we call still call a television set. Sure some of us are using some band-aid approaches (Roku, Boxee, AppleTV, Netflix, web-enabled televisions, and home-grown tricks). But I’m truly surprised we don’t yet have a broadly marketeted, low-cost ($200 or less) hardware device that allows us to surf web video from our television using a simple processor, wireless receiver and wireless keyboard/mouse. Then again, it was 1998 when I almost purchased a Dell “media” device to enable this. Unlike mobile, this area seems to be caught in a Catch22, and some fierce protectionism by big-stake players.
  3. Most importantly, I remain perplexed at how cautious media buyers have been. We’ve seen tremendous shifts from other mediums to online-video, but the advertising inventory remains widely available. I believe this is due to buyers using banner metrics to assess a different medium. I’m trying to echo my mantra that “an impression isn’t an impression unless it makes one,” and show advertisers that they’re underestimating the persuasive impact of online-video advertising because they’re obsessed with CPMs (cost per million impressions) and click-thru rates. If we had held television to those criteria, we’d probably still have 3 television networks and perhaps be viewing black & white programming.

As most of you WillVideoForFood readers know, I’m writing a book with Wiley publishing (tentatively called “Beyond Viral Video”). So I am hoping these guest posts awaken me (and you) to dimensions I don’t see as a marketer & YouTube personality.

Stay tuned for what I hope will be some interesting insights!

Can The Mutant-Child of Cable & Web Video Survive? Seven Magic Tricks.

shark that wants to eat daisy whitney's poodle violet

Television networks have had no more luck spawning, popularizing, or learning from online-video content than newspapers have had increasing circulation in recent years. But Fox 15 Gig has caught some online-video gurus’ attention, and UncleNalts has 7 magic tricks for you television and cable mavens who dare enter the shark-infested viral online-video watery… thing.

The people have chosen. We are magnetically polarized to opposite ends of the content-duration spectrum: short-form content by amateur solo-acts or a lucky few over-produced television series. The mutated child of this man-beast marriage is not socializing well at school. But I’m here to help.

Seems Daisy Whitney (in this week’s New Media Minute) thinks Fox’s 15 Gigs (which launched quietly in the summer) has a fighting chance. Watch her video to find out why. Or trust me for a summary. Or just shut-up and watch last week’s episode because she had a totally hawt guest).

Daisy Whitney's Killer French Poodle

  1. She digs Black20, the creators of “Easter Bunny Hates You” (which I shamelessly plagiarized in my Mad Turkey, but resisted rerunning this season).
  2. She believes 15 Gigs is “learning from the mistakes” and has an advantage of not being a first-mover like ABC and HBO’s failed attempts.
  3. Most importantly, she likes the concept of testing low-cost production online (sometimes less expensive than a script) before investing in television.
  4. She loves violet her French poodle Violet and is uncomfortable with its photo so close to that shark.

Adam Right of TubeFilter.tv has some additional positive thoughts on 15 Giga (the studio was named, perhaps, with either homage or dis to the phrase “15 minutes of fame”). 15 Giga is spawned from Fox’s cable production arm, Fox Television Studios, which is best known for The Shield and Burn Notice (which I purchased in its entirety on iTunes). Adam Right, like Whitney and her poodle, sees this as a “different approach to creating a new media branch with 15 Gigs.” The difference, says Adam, is:

  • going edgier than television (see puppets using cocaine and smoking)
  • giving producers room
  • looking at ways to leverage interactivity of web
  • focusing on moving web series to television (which seems somewhat in conflict to point one)
  • keeping production costs down ($5-$20K per series)

Thank you, Daisy and Adam. You’ve tasted the Kool-aid and I’ll watch to see if you die before I have a sip. Now it’s UncleNalts’ turn… Web series aren’t working yet. Maybe 15 Gigs will crack the code, but it’s a dry market, girlfriend. Do you mind if I call you that? It doesn’t sound gay does it?

monkey and manAs I’ve said: In something that’s perhaps counter intuitive, people magnetically shift to opposite ends of the content-duration spectrum. The hybrid mutation is neither as satisfying as a 30-60 minute show or as personalized as a virtual-BFF (best friend forever) on YouTube. (Man I should get paid to blog… this is poetry). I loved The Guild but I forget about it during gaps… and for reasons I can’t explain I haven’t caught up. I watch maybe 6-12 shows television shows weekly and countless online-videos… but almost no web series. You can’t argue that they’re not part of our media-consumption habit yet (but in the tips below, I’ll tell you when that will change… so stay alert despite the snow falling over my words).

So here’s some free advice — step right up and taste the magic potion — for those cable/network peeps brave enough to dare to tap into serialized web shows. These magical seven tips will help you with your mutant content or your money back the next time I pass through Passamaquati.

  1. Speed up your editing cadence to border-line mania. Those music-laden dramatic television transitions and rack focuses of NYC cabs are begging the audience to ditch when they’re “leaning forward” watching web content. Think Fawlty Towers, Basil-like speed. Take a 10 minute script and force it into 5 minutes. Then the pregnant pauses will have ball-busting impact. The first 10 seconds must grab them, and suck them in. Hold onto their attention like they’re an over-caffeinated Chihuahua with ADHD. Because we, I mean “they,” are.
  2. Hedge your bets and hyper-niche. Go for volume… lots of shows so many can fail. Fail, fail, fail. I’ve done it 800 times. A few stuck. More importantly, instead of marketing them widely appeal to audiences, focus on really niche audiences who will share them. For instance, a well-produced show about a restaurant staff will probably travel among those who are working (or have worked) at a restaurant… Go super narrow. You’ll need a rabid inner circle of fans to survive the next tip.
  3. BFF the ardent fans. Web series simply lack the personal interaction that is felt when someone watches a favorite vlogger talk to them, pull a stunt or even do a skit. The characters in web series often talk at each other, and forget me. Hey- I’m watching… are you an actor or a real person? So please add some interactivity via technology, but more importantly break the wall down between the actors and the hardcore fans. No I’m not talking about a f’ing scripted character Twitter profile. I’m not talking about interactive “chose your own adventure.” I’m talking about the actual actors (sorry- not the writers) engaging with the fans directly in comments. I promise you this: one personal touch between a creator/actor and a single audience member and you’ve got a loyal fan who will tell 21.2-52.7 people about the show. I promise.
  4. snake oil naltsSuffer through Routinely Popular Online-Video Personalities or YouTube Partners. I know it makes you insane to see amateurs gain huge audiences for videos that are significantly worse than yours. But endure it and learn from it. Watch the most popular people and daily videos and rather than groan, ask “what is this clown doing that we can replicate.” Be selective about what you mimic, of course, because most of my crap has no business on television. But a lot can be learned from watching what’s gathering a crowd today. Don’t get distracted by one-hit wonders… watch the people that keep an active fan base over time.
  5. Collaborate. Get the characters of a web series into other popular shows (and give prominent web personalities cameos). That’s how YouTube stars are discovered, and it’s how many classic television shows were spawned. iChannel did this with me, and The Retarded Policeman exploded when it started giving cameos to the most-subscribed talent on YouTube. I want to see someone from Glee show up in The Office… I’ll get chills.
  6. Drink Your Prune Juice. You’ve got to be regular. I’ve fallen recently on YouTube because I’m not posting videos as frequently. People gravitate toward content that has daily uploads… they build it into their day. If you can be predictable as posting at a specific hour, it’s even better. Remember when we’d all wait for ZeFrank to post? Yeah neither do I. Sorry but a week is simply too long for web series… daily is ideal and not more than 2 days.
  7. Persist. This is going to get a whole lot easier when we can conveniently stream web content from our televisions, and that’s happening as we speak. I believe this transition will remove the biggest barrier to serialized web content — because we have fundamentally different expectations of storytelling in various mediums. Soon our nightly ritual might be trading 30 minutes of television-viewing for 5 niche mini-shows. And if the people and stories of each episode cross over into another show… that’s drama, friends.

Now go print this out on your Ink Jet, and Scotch tape it to your wall or someone else’s. Because we both know that everything that happens to you in the next 6 months will make you forget this list.

A Blog Post About Online Video & Biz… So Good I Should Plagiarize It

It’s been a very long time since I’ve discovered an article about online video that made me shout “Amen.” Courtesy of ReelSEO, here’s “Three Types of Online Video for Business.” I especially like this visual below (the chart not the head shot, mkay). It helps simplify the relationship between the location of a video and its intent  — whether it’s on a brand’s website to drive trial or increase purchase, or whether designed to drive awareness, trial or website visits.

daniel_sevitt sevitt sevvitOnly after I was done reading did I realize it was written by Daniel Sevitt — a WVFF reader/commenter who “discovered” me when he oversaw content at Metacafe, long before I had more than 100 YouTube subscribers. He liked my hippo and “annoy my son” videos there.

Sevitt is now with EyeView (check the blog) discovering that there was more to life than “unmanageable UGC, unimpressive CPM and unaccountable ROI.” Zoing!

I think when I plagiarize his article for my book I’ll turn this image into a funnel, where the “viral” content’s goal is to get someone to a website, and the video on the website is designed to convert them to a measurable action. Of course now that I’ve joked about this, Daniel, I’m going to have to spend five hours getting permission from you to satisfy Wiley requirements. 🙂

Online Video for Business: three types (Daniel Sevitt)Simply put, you want a lot of content on YouTube and other video-sharing sites to hedge your bets on search. Then ideally you’ve got a user path…

  1. We captivate them with a funny or engaging video (or via a known weblebrity).
  2. We invite them to take an action (usually a site visit unless the ad is dynamic). Maybe 1-5 percent will do so.
  3. We convert some portion from grazers to customers (on website or with some lead-generation CRM tool).
  4. I’m not sure I’d invest much into loyalty, but I’m a jaded product director who found that (despite conventional wisdom) it’s sometimes easier to find new customers than bend the loyalty curve of the tiny base of customers that would be prone to loyalty-inducing video content. We could debate this over a beer or five.

I’d provide two additional thoughts I don’t think Daniel would dispute.

  1. I might even suggest that many sales can be consummated without dragging someone to a bloated product.com website. How many products are in your house? Good- have you been to any of the products’ websites?
  2. Although it’s ideal for businesses to create custom video content for various audiences and locations (online-video websites, blogs, product.com, or internal use), it’s a bigger crime to NOT post anything on YouTube or other popular sites.

It makes me crazy that brands have loads of engaging, informative, persuasive content… sitting in file cabinets or agency eRooms. Meh.

While you’re trying to find a way to engage audiences in entertaining ways, at least post your promotional or educational content on YouTube (provided it’s not archaic or horrible). If for no other reason this helps your search-engine performance (yeah, um, don’t sit on your ass hoping Google spiders will find some Quicktime video buried on your website).

Ideally your video is related to the search terms (which will tell you if a customer is exploring a category or ready to buy) or customized to a site’s context. But better something decent than nothing at all. Chances are your video won’t get a lot of “viral” views, but you want your message served upon Google and YouTube search results… not your competitors or a sour customer.

How Curated Video is the New Black: Example eGuiders

This is a disjointed post… but I summarized things at the end. Of course the summary makes no sense unless you read it.

So just read it. Geez- you had all last week off. Really?

Yeah, so I’m chatting with one of the YouTube editors last week. Can’t say which one because that would be name dropping. But my video shows up before his if you search his name on YouTube.

  1. Anyway, data point one: This edgy Scottish former comedian* — who fancies “stand-up” comedy as a higher form of art than improv — uses the term “curated content.”
  2. This odd phrase flashed me back to data point two; a recent article (I now can’t find) which outlined how we increasingly need help finding good videos… I think the piece used that “curated” term too. Jan you’ll know where it is because we e-mailed about WVFF helping curate. I suppose that’s what I was doing with CubeBreak (I haven’t touched this in years). But it sounds more topical and valuable when we use the term “curate,” which meant otherwise to refer to a dusty cicada-like man who knows how to use microfiche.
  3. Then today I see data point three: a Tweet by Daisy Whitney alerting me that my Glee video was featured on eGuiders. Yeah, I hadn’t heard of it either.

You need two data points to draw a line, but three is enough to indicate a trend (and you can use that quote if you credit me, or win a free piece of cheese if you can manipulate Chris Brogan into saying it). Hey, Marquis… let’s make Chris Brogan this blog’s new ZeFrank.

So along comes “curating” again… just like the days when YouTube had 2-3 videos on its homepage a day. Mind you, YouTube is wonderful if you know who to watch or how to search for videos. Remember how you’d check daily to see what’s hot? Not anymore. If you’re logged in, it’s one site. If you’re not logged in (like most) then it’s probably one of 10 people spotlighting through the homepage.  I don’t think anyone considers YouTube a curator anymore.

  • It’s not the kind of place a novice will necessarily browse and find the best content like such sites as TheOnion or CollegeHumor… sites you love but often forget you love and so you stop visiting… kinda like a walk in the woods.
  • The “most popular” section won’t necessarily please the masse,s and I find few people digging into the sub navigation. In my “7 Secrets YouTube Doesn’t Want You To Know,” I joked that editors have been replaced with Google algorithms.
  • The reality is that I live and love online-video but I can’t possibly keep up. I rarely miss a massively popular video, but I rely on friends and family to help me find the best stuff… Is that curated video or mini-viral? Are they different ends of a continuum I just invented based on Brogan’s writings?

So here comes today’s lesson (it’s not that I buried the lead, I just have to get there by writing around it).

I see “curated” video as an essential long-term driver of views. One day when my organic regular audience runs screaming, I’ll hope curators send me some love. But here’s the thing… when my video is featured on a YouTube sub-navigation page (like comedy) it maybe picks up only 10-30K views (contrast that with a YouTube homepage feature that would fetch 100-1 million views). That suggests to me that few go to the various pages… maybe they’re too broad or not human like a curator is supposed to be. Maybe if if it was “Mark’s comedy picks,” we’d be more likely to follow them… if we found Mark’s comedic taste to be similar to ours.

Eventually YouTube will actually be accurate when it shows related videos… it will become as useful as Amazon’s “customers that bought that bling also bought this shizzle.” Until then, the curator serves an important role. But since our tastes all vary, there will be lots of curators at first until each category (music, entertainment, comedy) has a few leading curators.

Let’s summarize:

  1. Nalts knows YouTube editors
  2. Curating is important
  3. YouTube isn’t really curating
  4. WilVideoForFood has found a new ZeFrank: Chris Brogan (there’s really no reason… these decisions are arbitrary and not well thought out, but they do stick).
  5. Lots of people will curate (like videos-sharing sites) until there’s a natural thinning of the herd
  6. This post read like a teenager’s recount of a movie

Continue reading How Curated Video is the New Black: Example eGuiders

Best CyberMonday Online Deals & Websites for 2009

If you’re like me, you bagged Black Friday because it’s a horrible consumer experience. I stopped at BestBuy last night, and found myself stressed by the nervous energy, manic customers, and stacks of electronics jammed into the isles. How am I supposed to know if the hysteria over “power deals” are worth the low prices?

cyber-monday

So I’m researching CyberMonday in hopes that your Monday desktop shopping is convenient and productive. I’m also working on a video that answers the frequent question I get, “which video camera should I buy.” Tips welcome.

First, here are some top online-electronic sites, and the deals they’re offering. Who really believes the LATimes article (citing Neilsen data) that suggests CyberMonday is passe?

Now some price-savings & comparison sites you may or may not know about:

Google Product Search, Shopzilla, Shopping.com, GottaDeal.com, Dealnews.com, YahooShopping.com, PriceGrabber.com, Shoppingg.com, Bizrate.com, Nextag.com, MySimon, Bing.com Shopping, QueenofCheap, Overstock.com 5-star deals, Dealtime.com.

CNET’s Rick Broida has a nice site called “Cheapskate,” that spotlights nice electronic deals all year round. You need to watch frequently, because many of his hidden gems vanish days after he posts.

Again- I welcome any additional sites… comment below! Remember, kiddies, free shipping and deep discounts on crappy electronics isn’t the point.

Viral Video Reports from Grave: Still Dead

nalts media whitney nalty huffington post
Just when I was feeling mortal for falling off the top 100 most-subscribed YouTube partner list (a fact that ZackScott and PeterCoffin felt compelled to remind me via voicemail), I scored placement on Huffington Post via the lovely and talented Daisy Whitney.

Check out this report from iMediaConnection in Vegas (or LA or SanFran, I’m not really sure), and thanks to Jan for alerting me… she’s constantly validating her top listing on the blogroll below!

You’ll see me dart past during her intro, and the camera work was by the cool and passionate Mike Donnelly from Coke. Please keep your comments focused on her hair, and not about the heady items we discuss.

And Zack and Peter you can suck it because I’m back at 99 on the list, beeatches.

Why Your Social-Media Expert Should Be an Improv Comic: 7 Reasons

Would you trust your social-media voice to an improv comic?
Would you trust your social-media voice to an improv comic?

I recently told a few hundred Canadian marketers that their social-media expert should be an improv comic, an insight that hit me during my all-night roadtrip to Toronto. Moments later, one former improv comic (from Freshed Baked Entertainment) confided at lunch that he’s using his improv experience to help brands create entertaining content.

This notion mostly went over well, and I pledged to write about it. I’m beginning here on WillVideoForFood.com and I’ve posted it on Scribd (a good way to distribute and SEO-optimize your writing if you can’t afford PRWeb or PRNewswire). If you’re a blogger or publisher, I invite you to use part or all of this with attribution… and hope to fancy it up for a magazine.

I have four sources of inspiration for this concept:

  • ImprovEverywhere’s Charlie Todd, who I’m connected to in an odd way that falls between friend and fan. It’s a parasocial relationship, but since I’ve met him and he returns my phone calls or e-mails I’m allowing myself to call dub the “Causing a Scene” author a “virtual colleague.” I was struck with how well he does media, and I attribute that to his experience as both an improv comic and advanced teacher of the discipline. Todd, in fact, was who encouraged me to enroll in the wildly heralded UCB Theater in NYC. I’d later, sadly, become an improv-school dropout because I lost my financial excuse to visit NYC weekly and my dad died. But I’ll do it again.
  • I did significant research to prepare for my Improv Comedy course, and learned a tremendous amount in the early classes. My goal was not to become an improv comic, but understand how improvisational skills might translate to my work and life. Like you, perhaps, I often default to “fighting the wind” (arguing the inevitable), which can be empowering but both exhausting and unsustainable. So I hoped to learn new ways to “roll with life” or “go with the flow.” One of my favorite affirmations is “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference” (source). How many of life’s “problems” would vanish if we gave ourselves that rare gift?
  • I’ve also had lengthy conversations with Melissa Katz, a former colleague at Johnson & Johnson who oversaw Centocor’s public relations. She’s a former improv comic, and helped me understand how many of the tenets of improvisational comedy translate to corporate or public-relations.
  • Finally, David Alger is one of many improv-comics that crystalized the basic “rules” of improv comedy, and I hope to help you see how some of these rules apply to your social-media presence. I quote him simply because he ranked high on Google SEOs for “improv comedy rules,” but there’s no shortage of wisdom on improvisational comedy. I’m quite sure there are dozens of other applicable rules I’ve left out (like being honest, a truism in both improv and social-media).

So forgive me for being an improv-comic dropout, but trust that what I learned in my first portion of the class will help you either find a good social-media expert or nurture one who is. I give you “The Seven Reasons Your Social-Media Expert Should Be an Improvisational Comic.”

(oh- you gotta hit “more” to read them).

Continue reading Why Your Social-Media Expert Should Be an Improv Comic: 7 Reasons

“Viral Video is Dead” Echos in Canada & Beyond

Nalts speaking in Toronto

If there’s one thing more fun than speaking to hundreds of marketers before a giant video of yourself like a “Rolling Stones” concert, it’s to read Twitter “tweets” after you speak.

By searching #mweek and @nalts after my talk on Wednesday, I learned what “stuck” with the Toronto “Canadian Marketing Association” audience. Canadians are nice, and apparently quite addicted to Twitter. They surprised me by almost making me sound intelligent in the quotes they shared.

Here are two of the things people most RT’d (aka retweeted, which here means posting on Twitter or sharing someone else’s Twitter post).

  • Viral is dead.
  • An impression isn’t an impression unless it makes one (see TechVibes coverage).

Marketing Magazine led with this article titled “Marketing Week Begins with ‘Viral is Dead’ Declaration.” IT Business was struck that a “viral is dead” statement woud come from “a person who owes his fame and fortune to tons of viewers on YouTube.” Then there’s the Canadian Star, which captured one of the most important points I hoped to make:

But advertisers don’t have to spend millions making YouTube videos, like the Evian Roller Babies, in hopes they go viral, Nalty said. The ad features digitally animated babies rollerskating to rock music. Instead, they can use existing YouTube stars, like Fred Figglehorn, the teenager with the annoying high-pitched voice and the online following bigger than Oprah’s TV audience, Nalty said. Fred makes a six-figure income from advertisers on his YouTube posts, Nalty said.

Certainly there’s a robust future of incredible clips that will gain “viral” fame. But my point was that marketers should not waste time and money investing in clips with hope that they go “viral.” It’s rare for a commercial clip to be shared wildly, although Evian’s babies is a recent exception.

Instead, I encourage marketers to chose the more efficient and guaranteed approach of partnering with online-video weblebrities. These individuals have large, recurring audiences and fans. So their sponsored videos are far more likely to travel the web and be seen by millions. I showed the Hitviews case study on Fox Broadcasting as proof. Two of my Fox videos alone have surpassed 1 million views each, which was half the targeted views of the campaign (for “Fringe” and “Lie to Me”).

I was encouraged to speak with a number of creative directors (or former creator directors) that seemed excited about the prospects. I had feared that they’d feel threatened by an online-video “weblebrity” creating videos that aren’t as easy to control. But they seemed to appreciate the idea of giving a popular creator a creative brief, and some room to tailor the message to his/her audience and style.

Here’s the deck, though most won’t make sense without context. Steal away. Spread the word.

But remember two things above all. US/Canada border guards require passports, and don’t care to be videotaped even if it’s on a Hello Kitty Flipcam. Trust me on those.