How to Make Your OnLine Video Go Viral

Ad Age Digital has an insightful article on making your video viral, especially in terms of big campaigns.

What Are You Good At? (Seth Godin)

A good think piece from Seth Godin, one that helps answer the question, "What makes you guys at VideoStory different?"

When it comes to telling stories, we're the experts at the process. Or as Seth puts it, "Process, on the other hand, refers to the emotional intelligence skills
you have about managing projects, visualizing success, persuading other
people of your point of view, dealing with multiple priorities, etc.
This stuff is insanely valuable and hard to learn."

The domain knowledge– how to shoot, how to edit, how to light– is important too, but it's sort of the first level of entry. At 22 years of age, you know the domain knowledge. The basics.

At 60 years of age, or after a variety of project experience, startups, or life experience, you know how to think, strategize, and win.

That's the process…. an ability to see beyond the technical and look and create for the big picture.

More Online Viewers Watching More Hours

According to Cnet,

“Americans appear to be getting more comfortable watching videos online–and Google is the clear winner.

Internet users in the U.S. watched 12.7 billion online videos in November, an increase of 34 percent versus a year ago, according to numbers released Monday by market researcher ComScore.

Thanks to YouTube, Google Sites retained the crown as the top U.S. video property with nearly 5.1 billion videos viewed–or about 40 percent of all videos viewed online–with the video-sharing site accounting for more than 98 percent of Google’s traffic. Fox Interactive Media was a distant second with 439 million videos watched (or 3.5 percent), followed by Viacom Digital with 325 million videos watched (2.6 percent).

The data also showed that 77 percent of all U.S. Internet users had viewed online videos in 2008, and that the average online video viewer watched 273 minutes of video.”

DSL and Cable modem are becoming the norm for most small businesses, and large businesses have been there for a long time.

Video is more compelling than any text or plain flash presentation.

It just makes sense to use a medium that can be amortized so many different ways.

It’s the pure minimum in a web 2.0 world.

Malcolm Gladwell on Late Blooming Creativity

An excellent read, from the New Yorker, in which early achievers and late bloomers are contrasted and compared. The point: youth is not a prerequisite for creativity.

Two Sides to The Same Story (30 second spot division)

from Adrants, a commentary on two different video interps of the Tiger Woods 16th hole "Nike Moment"… now that Nike has finally crafted a spot taking advantage of the killer shot.

The Candidates and Web Video– Some Amazing Revelations

Here’s a great article from Ad Age about the effort the campaigns have put into their YouTube "Channels".

The most amazing thing I found buried within was the fact that early on, Obama hired FIFTY (5-oh) video people to document, edit, upload, rinse, repeat, on a virtually constant basis.

And your company doesn’t have a video strategy yet…. why?

Time Elapse for a Timeless Bridge

The 100+ year old Northampton Street Bridge over the Delaware River unites Phillipsburg, NJ and Easton, Pa. It’s incredible traffic is due to the fact that the convenient more direct, newer alternative over route 22 costs 75 cents. As a result, thousands of cars divert from Route 22, wind through Phillipsburg’s Union Square, drive into Easton and then wind their way back onto Route 22 for points west.

Adding to the movement is a gas station on Union Square (gas is 30 cents cheaper in New Jersey) and a frieght train line that crosses Main Street, hosting 3-5  freight trains a day.

And yet, if you look at it right (and I look at it everyday) it’s very poetic.

This is a time elapse view of four hours in the life of that bridge.

Union Square, Phillipsburg, NJ, 4:30 pm from brienlee on Vimeo.

Shot and edited by Brien Lee

Microsoft Says No to TV, Yes to Video, to Sell Office 2007

From Advertising Age:

"Traditionally you would do TV for a campaign this big," said Rob
Bagot, exec VP-executive creative director, McCann WorldGroup. "And to
say there is no TV is technically true. But to say there’s no
broadcast, that’s not true at all."

The broadcast he is referring to includes a series of
two-minute web films, online demonstrations, test drives and
downloadable interactive videos. Each of the five films is built around
a customer "pain point," or dissatisfaction.

The longer web-film format allows for better storytelling and more engagement with consumers, the creative directors said."

Powered by ScribeFire.

Life is Dead Again

Almost as a testimonial to the Bob Garfield article cited in the last entry, Time, Inc. announced it will shutter its Life Magazine weekly newspaper insert (see the Milwaukee Business Journal for details.)

Was a weekly 18-24 page Life ever going to work? We have USA Today‘s weekly, the venerable Parade weekly, and of course real magazines (though some seem to be sputtering and shuttering as well.)

The first time it closed, in 1972, Life was a newsweekly that had gone lifestyle to compete with and differentiate itself from the immediacy of television news. It’s second incarnation was in the 1990′s as a monthly glossy. That died in 2000.

You can’t blame them for trying, but the few times I did see the Life newspaper insert, I thought to myself, "This is Life magazine?" I felt sorry– even embarrassed– for the nameplate.

But still images and slideshows work well on the web, and Life has tons of beautiful content in its backlog. Time says the name will remain on the magazine’s website. This is a no-brainer: put as much effort into the website as Slate, Something Awful, or almost any decent industry portal site, and Life might survive the third strike. Find a niche– photography of the highest order– even video that transcends the crap that is on most web sites– and there might be life in the old girl yet.

Powered by ScribeFire.

The Suprising Truth and Beauty of Boston Legal

Business Partner Diane and I were having lunch with Amy Hansmann to discuss an upcoming project (some neat commercials) when the subject turned to television and what we’re watching these days. Turns out we all agree on two programs: 30 Rock, for pure, unadulterated hilarity in both overall writing and comic timing, and Boston Legal, for being… well, Boston Legal.

We were watching Boston Legal last night (we’re halfway through the second season) when we arrived at the same thought at the same time: this show actually LIKES old people. Okay, Mature People. Seasoned Citizens. Baby Boomers. You get the idea.

First of all, consider the principals: The founder of the firm with perhaps emerging Alzheimer’s, played with utter wackiness, abandon and self parody by William Shatner, Jame’s Spader’s brilliant turn as the aging "bad boy" who could just be an older, wiser version of himself from "Pretty in Pink", and Candace Bergen, who defines aging beautifully and gracefully, and matches the bad boys move for move. Then of course, there’s  Rene Auberjonois , Artie Johnson, Shelley Berman and– my God– Betty White.

Not that there aren’t pretty young people in the show– but they almost always reveal their youth, inexperience, and undeserved bravado, then get in trouble, and turn to their elders for solutions and support. Maybe not the real world, but it reminds us of a time when (perhaps) it was.

Yes, today’s world is moving faster and faster. But is everything attributable to change, or was that last "change" just the death of what we used to call a "fad?" Only time, age and perspective can tell.

There’s a lot to be said for experience.