It’s the Jingle Vlog Social Experiment. Join us as we see Jingle Bells… off key and offtime.
Participatory collaboration for the Holiday Season.
Visit the site, and add your version on Revver. This was inspired by Chris Pirillo and Steve Garfield.
Category Archives: vlogging
MediaMoGirl Debuts
MediaMoGirl debuted this weekend with its first news report. The site combines news and comedy with the motto that “first we make you laugh, then we make you think.” Read more in the “about” section of MediaMoGirl. So each of the approximately 5-minute videocasts includes some short bits followed by a story on something important. Creator Angela Calman — who has worked in mainstream media for much of her career — cast me as the weather guy when we met via Metacafe’s PR team last month. I took the role seriously and got coaching from a real weather guy (see video). Rest assured Angela won’t let me near any of the programming that “makes you think.”
This week’s edition:
- A cellphone get’s stuck in a woman’s throat
- Meet the new weatherman
- Starbucks & Hugo Chavez
- Feature: Justin Dillon- lead singer of the band Tremolo leads an online effort to change the world.
He “Wrote the Book” on Viral Video
I’ve decided to write a book on viral video — aimed primarily at marketers and advertisers since amateur videographers and film makers don’t have enough money to buy books. Naturally I haven’t written a book before, but I sometimes read them. So I figure I’m pretty qualified.
The working title is: “The Profit (Prophet) of Viral Video,” and it comes with access to an extranet that hosts updates and links to case-study videos.
To you, dear readers, I pose the following question:
- Can I write a book despite having a full-time job that occupies no less than 12 hours a day? And without compromising my wife and kids? I’m willing to sleep less.
- Any better ideas on the title? It’s a double entendre.
- How do I find a publisher? Of the 1,000 of you that read this I have to believe someone knows a friggin’ publisher that focuses in mainstream marketing books. I don’t feel like self publishing. How about forwarding this post to your buddy at a publishing company and help him discover his next New York Times best seller?
- I want to follow the lead of Hemingway (pictured here), but I will be using shorter sentences and not killing myself when I’m done.
Here’s the synopsis of “The Profit (Prophet) of Viral Video”:
The online video market is exploding, with incredible surges of consumer-generated online video, and dramatic jumps in the videos viewed on such sites as YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo Video, AOL Video, Revver and Metacafe. Online video has surpassed cable television as a medium and will soon merge with traditional television viewing in ways we can hardly anticipate.
It’s the end of the 60-second spot. Marketers can no longer rely on creative advertisements that are thrust on consumers “interruption style.” Advertisements have to do more than hold attention, they must create a viral effect in which the video is so good the viewer will share it with friends. As we consumers take control our viewing habits through online video and time-shifted viewing (TiVo), the only videos we’ll elect to watch (when we have an option) are those that inform and entertain us.
(Here’s the part where I toot my own horn): Viral video creator Kevin Nalty has shared more than 200 short videos online that have been viewed my millions online and featured on prominent sites like Yahoo and Google. His videos have appeared on ABC Nightline, Good Morning America, CBS News, CNN and BBC. Nalty shares his learning from creating videos and maintaining the most popular blog on the subject of online video profiting. His background in television and marketing – including participation in some of the most viral video campaigns – gives him unique insight into what works and doesn’t in the new age of short-form, demand driven video. He also makes a side income by producing videos for Revver and Metacafe, which share their advertising revenue with creators.
In “The Profit (Prophet) of Viral Videos,” Nalty provides the tips you’ll need to:- Understand the impact of online video to advertisers, marketers and brands
- Create appealing viral videos that get forwarded and shared
- Market your promotional and entertainment videos through prominent online video channels
- Develop ways to measure the views and impact of your videos
- Profit from vehicles that that share advertising revenue with video creators (like Revver and Metacafe)
- Build your own video site without any technical expertise
- Stay on top of the rapidly changing online-video landscape
Target Audiences:
- Advertisers looking for ways to create viral videos for their clients
- Marketers wanting to understand how to play in the new world where the consumer can be your best marketing channel
- Amateur video creators looking to make a side income doing what they love
- Filmmakers who are not sure how to approach the online space
P.S. Don’t steal the idea please. I’m trusting you. I’ve already got about 10 chapters outlined with sub bullets, but I thought I’d better not give the whole thing away or you won’t buy the book.
P.P.S. Post comments or contact me via the e-mails listed in the “about me” section of this blog.
A History of Online Video
Wowza. I thought I was on top of online video. I’m hanging my head in humility. Check out this post featuring a timeline of online video by Steve Bryant in his new blog, “ReelPopBlog.”
Included is this dreamy graphic. Click to see it up close.
Viral Video Popularizing Far Faster Than Blogging
Blogging has been all the rage for a few years — with cover stories on major magazines, blogs about blogs, and some bloggers literally becoming credible media sources that rival legacy print and television brands.
Interestingly, there’s a trend that appears to have accelerated far faster and more dramatically than blogs. Online video. Take for example this report (via Google analytics) for the search volume on the term “blogs” vs. “viral video.” Don’t do an absolute comparison because these graphs don’t include actual volume details and they visually scale differently. But look at the trends. You’ll see that viral video (a term only recently part of our venacular) has grown exponentially since last year with a dip in the summer – potentially seasonality. And the acceleration has occured far more rapidly than the term blog. In the first quarter of the year, searches for “viral video” exploded.
It’s hard to compare in a fair way the growth of major blog sites (like WordPress and Blogger) to the growth of online video sites (like YouTube). But I’m guessing the unprecedented growth of YouTube alone further substantiates this hypothesis
I’m going to see if we can get a point of view from Steve Rubel (the Blog expert called by BusinessWeek the “all knowing thumper in a forrest of Bambis”). Stay tuned.
Chart 1: Pet-Rock Like Growth:
Searches on the term “Viral Video” since 2004 (Google Trends)
Chart 2: Slow Boil:
Searches on the term “blogs” since 2004 (Google Trends)
Al Gore’s Penguin? You Have a Right to Manipulate Me. As Long as You Tell Me You Are.
One of my wife’s tabloids featured an ad for Vitamin Water featuring American Idol star Kelly Clarkson (I guess she lost enough weight that the campaign is live). The ad is made to look like the cover of the tabloid and uses its masthead. Since it appears upsidedown and is marketed by tiny 10-point type as being an advertisement… it looks like the magazine is doing a cover story on Clarkson and Vitamin Water.
Deceptive? I thought so. And I had the same feeling about Friday’s Wall Street Journal article titled “Where Did That Video Spoofing Gore’s Film Come From?” Here’s the video.
Highlights of the WSJ article (written by Antonio Regalado and Dionne Searcey):
- “Al Gore’s Penguin Army,” is a two-minute video now playing on YouTube.com. Gore appears as a sinister figure who brainwashes penguins and bores movie audiences by blaming the Mideast crisis and starlet Lindsay Lohan’s shrinking waist size on global warming.
- The video’s maker is listed as “Toutsmith,” a 29-year-old who identifies himself as being from Beverly Hills in an Internet profile. The WSJ busted him in an e-mail exchange in which it was clear that computer routing information contained in an email sent from Toutsmith’s Yahoo account indicate it didn’t come from an amateur working out of his basement. It originated from a computer registered to DCI Group, a Washington, D.C., public relations and lobbying firm whose clients include oil company Exxon Mobil Corp.
- As its popularity has exploded, the public video-sharing site has drawn marketers looking to build buzz for new music releases and summer blockbusters. Now, it’s being tapped by political operatives, public relations experts and ad agencies to sway opinions.
Now it’s me talking. I found the video really funny! It has little to do with my political stance and more about the fact that it was irreverent, absurd, topical and sophomoric. That said, it wins DCI the first monthly “WVFF Viral Penicillin” award for making a series of basic errors:
- First, don’t wear a mask. Tell us who you are. We’ll still laugh and forward it, and you won’t end up on the WSJ as the “poster child for manipulative PR.” Which isn’t a great thing if you’re a PR firm.
- Second, watch that e-mail thread. How in the world did you get busted for that? Or maybe the WSJ had an inside “deep throat” they had to keep anonymous so they blamed it on e-mail since it’s hard to prove that wrong. I didn’t know e-mail carried secrets about the computer from which it originated. I’d better stop e-mailing YouTube and telling them I’m with the WSJ.
- Third, don’t by Google ads to promote your viral flick. It’s a giveaway that it has an agenda. Who can afford paid search to drive visits to a video?
ZeFrank, The 80/20 Rule & Long Tails
Before there was the “long tail” theory, there was the 80/20 rule. Before that there was Murphy’s Law. I haven’t quite understood any of them, but I think this blog entry supports them.
Why? Because 80% of you will not understand why this link is so funny. 20% of you will fall over and do the real LOL (not the kind you type in e-mail when you really barely cracked a smile). I’m going to suggest that the 80% of you are probably more balanced and normal, but let me try to explain… ZeFrank is a insanely popular vlogger that drops 2-minute comedy bits satiring news, the web, and whatever else strikes him as interesting. Sometimes he dresses as a woman and calls himself Amanda Congdon. People are so hooked on him they fight to be the first post when he uploads his daily video on The Show.
A few of us have been blogging about him giving him more publicity… but he never responds. So we’ve taken to provoking him instead. Here’s a blog post by MarquisdeJarvis, one of the most prolific video creators on the web. Hundreds and hundreds of short and insane clips. He’s a former homeless guy… part poet, part new media artist, and barely affording his bandwidth fees.
In this post, Marquis shows us himself… and warns that this is what ZeFrank will look like soon.
P.S. Marquis uses his proceeds for online video to pay for his mom’s washing machine and keep his mean, drunk sister fat (see the frightening www.jamesjarvis.net to make a donation.
Editing, MovieMaker and VideoBlogging
I asked folks on the Yahoo Videoblogging group if they knew of good sites that review online video software. Josh Kinberg suggested FreeVlog.com. On this site, authors Ryan and Michael recently posted an entire chapter on video editing (from their book “Secrets of Videoblogging). The chapter is free and meaty. Here’s the PDF to download it.
Cheryl Colan offers this site for those interested in effects, transitions, etc.: Window Movie Makers.
While we’re on the subject, does anybody read any good video editing magazine? If so, please post the name.
A New Audio Podcast About Vlogging
The irony isn’t missed by the creators, but here’s an audio podcast about online video blogging (aka vlogging). Courtesy of Steve Garfield’s “Off on a Tangent.”
Copyright Law, YouTube and Creative Commons
Nice piece by ZeFrank on copyright law, YouTube, and Creative Commons. It’s not as funny as his normal daily blog, but very informative. Raises some important issues about consumer-generated videos and the implications of profit, copyright law and Adam Curry who steals stuff.
