If the YouTube version doesn’t load, here it is on blip.tv. This video is public domain- use as you wish.
The swine flu, of course, isn’t funny. But the paranoia, hysteria and panick behavior is fair game.
In the next week, we’ll see non-stop media coverage of the pig virus, and every network will have cool graphics and visually-compelling stories. Then by Friday we’ll be sick of the news, and it will give way to humor (after all, “comedy is tragedy plus time”). I’m just getting a jump start, you see.
But her last 20 videos average just 6,750 views each. If you remove the two most popular, the average is 3,690. That means fewer than 10% of her subscribers are watching her videos.
Her subscription base of 55K was primarily due to a surge when YouTube and her television show promoted the channel… and has grown only moderately since.
What explains Oprah’s grand success in television and publishing, but failure online? For starters, her audience may be moving online but the money isn’t. She likely makes more for a one-page ad in O magazine than she’s made on YouTube to date.
She’s also seemed to delegate her online-video strategy to some poor temp who studied communications undergrad, hoping to be the “next Oprah.” I’m not kidding- Sophomore year I switched majors from communications to psychology because three people said that’s why they chose the major.
We do love our Oprah.Her warm smile, her self-depricating humor, and her knack for tapping the American psyche. But instead of vlogging via her channel (maybe showing us who she is off set) and communicating with her audience, she’s dumping trailers on it… mostly commercials for the show.
But, sorry Oprah. I think the engaged online-video viewer was hoping for more. Until the monetization model works for you, we’ll just have to get used to “flesh eating virus” promos.
A few of last year’s techno April Fool’s Jokes courtesy of NetWorkWorld…
ThinkGeek.com tempted users with such new products as the ZapCam, a combo video camera and tazer so the user could shock someone and film it at the same time. Also included was software for uploading the video directly to the Internet. The product list also included a USB pregnancy test and a new Wii game involving urination.
Google last year unveiled Virgle, in conjunction with the Virgin Group to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. “Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B,” Google said on its Web page.
YouTube Rick Rolled its homepage last year
Twitter faithful got an early April Fool’s jolt last year when a story about charging for tiered service went viral.
What’s in store for today? Someone fool me. Nobody seemed to get my early April Fool’s joke last night, so I yanked the post.
(UPDATED POST as of April 2): Props to Landsend. They found this video featuring my son who accidentally received my brother’s sheets. Gotta praise the company for monitoring social media, and even engaging. They even twittered about the video on landsendchat.
Correction from my earlier revision of this post. Well before the video landed nearly 100K views, my brother and Charlie got letter and an embroidered beach blanket! Thanks, Rhonda! What’s especially cool about the whole thing is that LansEnd didn’t write us and ask for our address. They found them both. Which took a bit of research on their part.
The new shuffle can be controlled via the headphones if you know Morse Code.
I love my Macs, but I don’t care for the companies antiquated marketing style. Hush, hush and then mass marketing. Very 1980s/1990s, and not enough evidence it nurtures or rewards the enthusiastic fan base. Heck, the fact that Mac didn’t embrace HappySlip after her Mac Beautiful song made me think the company lacked basic marketing instincts. For the cost of a computer, Mac could have dazzled her and her audience. A relevant and permanent impression worth more than dozens of ad exposures.
So let’s backup, and see how Mac today became my guinea pig for a social media & marketing experiment: can social media stand between buyers and a new product.
Context: Last night I toiled in my day-job to help improve the way my employer monitors and engages in social-media. This morning I wrote a white paper (proprietary) that addresses the convergence of online-video and social media. And ironically I missed a social-media conference today in NYC. All of this at a time when social media is consuming more of our day than e-mail. (see previous post) That’s a really big deal.
Goal: When the new Mac shuffle came out yesterday, I thought it was time for a test. Our mission: could little old ME rank higher on Google for basic terms related to the new Mac mini iPod Nano shuffle thing with autovoice? Could I possibly outrank Mac, CNet and Mac blogs on search terms people might use to find out of the device sucked or not? Remember Uncle Nalts says Google indexes well-viewed YouTube videos rather high. Certainly easier than buying Google ads perpetually or optimizing a website for 50K.
The Ditched Video Idea: My original plan was to make a skit about the Mac in hopes it would travel like my Mac Air parody (500K views and media pickup)… Alas, none of my ideas struck me as particularly clever. At best, I’d play a frustrated PC designer launching a paperclip size MP3 player with a giant headphone device that allowed people to control it. And he’d be a day late. It just didn’t crack me up, and there was too much to cover and the clock was ticking.
Oh No You Din’t! But my local Mac retailer didn’t even stock the new Shuffle today. Can Mac’s desire for launch secrecy prevent it from trusting distributors with the product immediately? Did Mac’s failure to stock for theimpulse buys actually deprive me of my God-given right to buy more technology I don’t need despite debt?
Results:
In a grumpy mood, I decided to vlog a bad review of the Mac Shuffle, and post it to YouTube. I then pretended to be a consumer searching Google for a review of the new device. Sure enough, below are the top three listings. To be fair, the search parameters are rather specific. But since Mac uses the same brand names (Shuffle, Nano) for each new release/generation, it’s hard to find the BRAND new one without adding a unique phrase like “autovoice.” You’ll otherwise get dated results (I’m talking 2005/2007), and I’m not impressed with Google blog search or anything Google is doing to sort with recency emphasis on basic searches.
Here’s something even more interesting (at least to me). Minutes later I couldn’t replicate the results depicted below, and I wonder if it was because my edits to the video’s keywords set it back temporarily?
Today’s day started with some reading of Louise Hay (my personal Stuart Smalley). Then I started scanning some of YouTube Creator Charles Trippy‘s recent Twitter posts. The posts have become a rather transparent view into Trippy’s recent funk.
I see him as a stable, almost transcendental guy in real life. And maybe I’m seeing bird crap on my own windshield not a dirty scenery… but I’ve interpreted his recent Twitter posts (which are brief 144-character microblogs) as being somewhat sad. Poor guy needs a hug.
Then I started thinking about how cool it would be to have software monitor your e-mails, Twitters, and articles you read, and even videos you watch. It would detect what you’re feeling/thinking as a result of these choices, and serve up automated affirmations. For instance, if you were reading a lot of information about diets, you might receive an automated e-mail that would say “nourish yourself through love and exercise.” If you were searching for information on buying opiods and tranquilizers it might say “I am safe in the universe and it’s okay to express my feelings.”
If you were watching a lot of Nalts videos, it might say “you have discovered spiritual enlightenment like no other human before.”
That’d be cool. Hold on a second. I’m going to go hug my Trippy doll. There I’m back.
I’m going to give you a free social-media makeover here, folks. I may not live in social media Heaven, but I’ve had a few “follow the bright light” moments, and have returned with some important messages from Above.
First- get on Twitter. Microblogging short sentences from the web or your text-enabled phone may seem pointless, but that’s only if you haven’t learned to “follow” anyone who has a cooler life than you. Lie about what you’re doing so people don’t think you’re pathetic. I have more than 1,000 people following me, so that gives my life meaning.
Now up the game with 12secondtv.com. Follow me. I’ve found I can make 12-second videos from my cell phone while driving. No pesky editing.
Start ChaCha’ing instead of Googling remotely. Just text any question to 242242, and you get an instant answer. Sometimes they’re not in the mood to write back, but it’s still fun to say.
Text. Seriously if you don’t text you might as well buy a Brother typewriter and get off the computer. SMS stands for short message um.. something. And then there’s MMS or something. It’s for multimedia. Just text. Or RSS.
Oh, you think you’re better than me because you’ve been texting for ages? Well screw off. I Jott. You heard me. I call a toll-free number and it transcodes my speech to text for free. Jott can send my spoken words as text to wordpress or twitter or to my administrative assistant Sandy.
Get iwantsandy. Have no idea what the hell Sandy does, but she’s an administrative assistant. And my real admin happens to be a woman who works in the union and also is named Sandy. She likes crystals. The electronic Sandy has a retro logo.
Join vloggerheads. You need an invite, and so you’d better contact Nutcheese or someone cool. This is Renetto’s mutiny from YouTube. I showed up yesterday and it was like an insanity floor for disturbed YouTubers. They gave me some orange pills and made me right at home.
Join Amazon Prime. You get free two-day shipping not to mention social status. Just drop on Twitter or Vloggerheads and say “yeah- I’m Amazon Prime.” What are you? Amazon Light? Whatever. Oh by the way- I get 12 dollars if you join from this link, and there’s a 1 month free trial. Just shut up and join.
Join iamintown. Oh sorry- that’s in a special beta release. You’ll have to wait.
Play with FriendFeed. Mine is kinda sparse but you can check out Steve Rubel’s (he’s the vlogger behind micropersuasion). Steve Rubel is on top of new trends even if he doesn’t link to me anymore.
Watch some of the live shows on blogtv.com. I’m on Sunday nights at 9. Here’s my new account (Nalts) but 105 people are subscribed to my RealNalts account, which I had created when I couldn’t get Nalts.
That’s all you can handle right now. From your perspective, Jott will be a game changer. From my perspective, I just want you to join Amazon Prime because I’ve made about $4 in the past three months on my DVD sales, t-shirts, and stupid ads on kevinnalts.com. You don’t think I’m blogging for f’ing fun do you? Shit I need some flashy porn banners on this blog.
Do you know that sickening feeling when you realize something important is happening via social media, and you don’t know where to start? You may call me a Neanderthal, but I like to think I’m a “medium-fast follower.”
So here’s my social media “Keeping Up With the eJones” history (at a Glance):
In 1991 my friend Damon put his e-mail address on his business card, and I laughed.
I can’t remember anything that happened between 1991 and 2005, but they tell me there was a bubble.
In the fall of 2006, the techies in my office suggested I post videos on YouTube. I was like, “whatever. Revver shares advertising revenue.”
I think I discovered Linked-In around then, and have been plagued by former salespeople since. Still can’t decide if I should be Kevin Nalty (marketing guy) or Kevin Nalts (video junkie).
Later in 2007, I felt compelled to catch up with my cooler friends by joining Facebook, MySpace, and other stupid social media sites I can’t even remember.
Heard of Stickam? It’s a live-video website that allows people to gather in rooms and interact via live webcams and text messaging. YouTubers are especially prone to spending their off-YouTube hours congregating, and it’s always puzzled me. They mostly hang out in Nutcheese‘s room.
Then again, I’m not a raving fan of instant messaging, e-mail or other social media applications like Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter.
Here’s my social commentary on what I like to call “antisocial media.“
Just when you thought instant messaging, cell phones and Blackberrys were the ultimate form of making yourself available 24-7… along comes Twitter. You’ll note a Twitter box in the bottom right corner of WillVideoForFood.com. We’ll see how long I decide to text message Twitter with my status (“typing blog post while bored on a conference call”).
I haven’t fact checked these, but here are some testimonials Twitter uses:”
Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app.”
– TIME Magazine
“It’s one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet.”
– New York Times
“Suddenly, it seems as though all the world’s a-twitter.”
– Newsweek
So why in the world would I Twitter? I’m someone who backed into social media via video, and in fact prefers antisocial media. But I had to give it a shot because it’s gaining such notoriety. Kinda like the iPhone I finally returned on Sunday.
What does this have to do with online video? Nothing, really. Except that I think I need to do a video called the Twitter Shitter (“on third wipe”).
Goal: When the new Mac shuffle came out yesterday, I thought it was time for a test. Our mission: could little old ME rank higher on Google for basic terms related to the new Mac mini iPod Nano shuffle thing with autovoice? Could I possibly outrank Mac, CNet and Mac blogs on search terms people might use to find out of the device sucked or not? Remember Uncle Nalts says Google indexes well-viewed YouTube videos rather high. Certainly easier than buying Google ads perpetually or optimizing a website for 50K.
