video online

You’re not a Product: But You are Your Presence

2010-07-28T06:09:00.000-07:00

You’re not a Product: But You are Your Presence: "

Here is the article I contributed to the May 2010 issue of Dan Schawbel’s “Personal Branding Magazine” entitled: “You’re not a Product: But You are Your Presence”:

Are people products when it comes to branding? The answer is somewhat complex. When we expect companies to become more “human” we often forget just how inconsistent humans are. We can be overwhelming responsible overall and still act like fools on occasion. Yet, when it comes to a public image – especially online, first impressions do matter. Likewise, our continued online presence has a strong bearing on our business: who we are affects who responds to us – and how they respond. You don’t need to be a walking slogan, but should be aware of perceptions.

The web already includes facets of you: mentions about what you do and images from gatherings, to name just a few. Social Media can you help represent yourself optimally. Take Twitter for example, where you’re able to prove yourself as an expert in your field, while simultaneously conveying the person behind the work. You’re already endearing, right? So leverage that fully.

Firstly, take control of your Twitter background and make it as evocative of your personal/business front. (And unless your business caters to fly-vision don’t tile the background with an image.) Include your url and have your bio describe what you want to be recognized for/as. Know that you can only be seen to be so many things. I know someone whose business card has at least 12 distinct professions including “Pilot”, “Film Director” and “Psychic”. It makes him seem sub-par at all. Such is the case when a bio includes “Doctor, Real Estate Agent, Career Coach”. What are the key things you do? Just like a first date, no one expects (or wants) to know everything right off the bat.

And when you tweet, don’t always be “on message”. Someone who only talks about business – especially his business – is a dull fellow indeed. Who are you after work? Again, you don’t have to be too revealing but do let people in on your interests. You don’t want to give the impression that you wear a tie in your leisure time and mumble “I can increase your sales with just one click “in your sleep.

Of course, you’re there to make friends and influence people, so be sure to answer questions, offer advice, help people and share valuable information. The beauty is that you don’t have to shill yourself: by virtue of participating in these ways, you showcase your expertise.

And always be mindful of what you say. In real life, your interactions have social cues and a greater context, so every comment matters less. It’s worth checking how your Twitter posts (as well as status updates on other sites, post comments etc.) appear when read in succession. Do you frequently complain or use negative phrasing? Looking at the content objectively, what would you surmise about this person?

A person isn’t really a product. But if you optimize your web presence you might find yourself selling yourself – without needing to hard sell.

–

Note: Now online – video of my Northern Voice talk on “Finding Your Online Voice”.

//

Filed under: social media

6 Tips For Experimenting With Web Video

2010-06-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

6 Tips For Experimenting With Web Video

Facebook’s ambition

2010-04-30T15:45:00.000-07:00

Facebook’s ambition: "

Ambition.

It’s the one word that kept coming up in conversations I had around the halls today at Facebook’s F8 event. Whenever I heard that word it was clear we were talking about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Compared to last week’s weak moves by Twitter, where its CEO barely even announced anything, yesterday’s moves by Facebook were huge.

OK, I heard another few words:

“Visionary.”

“Scary.”

“Huge.”

“Unbelieveable.”

“Blown away.”

“Zuck has balls.” or “Facebook has balls.”

“Big moves.”

Heck, listen to David Kirkpatrick, who worked for Fortune for more than 20 years and just finished a book, Facebook Effect, about Facebook. I catch up with him here before the press conference, which happened just after Zuckerberg and team made tons of announcements:

Listen to the words he uses: “This is not just another company, it is a transformational phenomenon.”

“It is really great, but it is really scary in some ways too.”

By the way, after I talk with David I talk with quite a few other movers and shakers in the tech press in that video so you can get a sense of how we all reacted to the news. Then, at about 20 minutes into that video you get to see the full press conference (I have the only video of it on the Web that I’ve seen so far).

Before I explain more about what I mean when I say Facebook wants to own your digital fingerprints, there are a few other reactions I want to get in here. The first is with a couple of guys from the National Hockey League. Listen to how excited they are about the new features they turned on yesterday on NHL.com. You can “like” every player there. Some players already have hundreds of likes in just the first few hours.

Then watch how Pandora’s CTO, Tom Conrad, describes Facebook’s moves and how Pandora is now much more social because of these changes. “Mark is right when he says Web experiences want to be social.”

Finally, head over to Facebook’s official site and watch some of the videos if you haven’t seen them yet.

WHY IS THIS SO AMBITIOUS?

These moves are ambitious for a few reasons:

1. It gets Facebook plastered all over the web. Already Facebook likes are on many many sites and I’d expect to see Facebook’s new social features to show up on at least 30% of the web’s most popular sites within a month.

2. It lets us apply our social graph “fingerprint” to sites we visit. You do this by adding social plugins to your site, which is pretty easy to do.

3. It lets us apply our behavior “fingerprint” to sites we visit. Again, by adding social plugins onto your sites.

4. Facebook gets to study everything we touch now and will bring a much more complete stream back to the mother ship. This lets them build new analytics features for publishers, too, as All Facebook’s Nick O’Neill writes, but now Facebook will have the best data on the web for advertisers to study.

5. Facebook gets us to keep our profile data up to date. Marketer Ed Dale nailed why this is such a big deal.

6. Facebook gets to overlay a commerce system, called Credits, on top of all this. Justin Smith of Inside Facebook writes about that.

7. Facebook has opened up to enable all this stuff to flow back and forth and has removed the 24-hour limitation on storing data gained from its API. This is probably the biggest deal for developers, Inside Facebook writes about that, but they’ve also made their API more granular so that sites can ask for, and get, very specific data instead of getting everything stored on a user. We’ll be talking about this for a while, because it actually has good implications for privacy.

8. All this new data will enable Facebook to build new kinds of search experiences, as All Facebook hints at in a post where they say Facebook is trying to build a version fo the semantic web. Search Engine Land goes further in detail about what these changes will mean.

9. It lets Facebook minimize the need for a “public” fan page, like mine. Inside Facebook explains more in detail why this is true. Mostly because they’ll spit all those bits over onto my blog, if I add the code to my blog (which I’m pretty sure I will).

10. Finally a stream of focused bits for the people who are actually visiting your page can be pushed back out to you, as Inside Facebook demonstrates.

11. They made the API much simpler and shipped a powerful graph API so more developers can build apps for Facebook (this has been one of the advantages of Twitter, for instance, because Twitter’s API was simple to figure out). Heck, you can even hit it from a web browser to see what it returns. Here is what it returns for http://graph.facebook.com/scobleizer (if you want to try it yourself, just include your Facebook name instead of mine).

Is this all a deal with the devil, as RWW asks? Absolutely! Sebastien Provencher has another concern: that Facebook will gather data but not sure the goodies back (like analytics and monetization). GigaOm’s Liz Gannes notes that Facebook now is a single point of failure for the Web. Leo Laporte says he won’t use the new Facebook features on his sites. Dave Winer goes even further and says that the answer to all this must be “no.”

These are legitimate concerns. Let’s explore why:

Let’s key in on #2: your social graph — the people connected to you in various ways — is a fingerprint. My social graph is different than yours. So, when I click “like” on a hockey player on NHL, I’ve applied my fingerprint to that hockey player. Now what if 1,000 other people do that? That site really has a lot of details about the average user that’s visiting: details they never would have had access to before. But that’s not what’s scary. What’s scary is the traffic boost that these sites will get. Why? Because those 1,000 people will drag all their friends over. Actually, no, that’s not scary either.

What we’re really scared about is another very powerful company is forming. One that we don’t yet fully trust. Heck, just a few years ago Facebook erased me from the web for 24 hours. I can’t forget that, even though now I’m good friends with most of the Facebook execs. Let’s say Facebook wanted to kick you off the system, it could, and that could have deep implications for your business, career, etc.

Now go further, we’re all going to be very addicted to Facebook’s new features very quickly. The website that doesn’t have Facebook “likes” on it will seem weird in a few months. In a few years? Almost every site, I predict, will have them, and the other components that you can check out above (and more that will come soon, both from Facebook as well as other developers).

My fears are that Facebook might turn evil and use its position against organizations, the way that Apple locks out organizations from shipping apps (do you have Google Voice app on your iPhone yet? I don’t). Imagine if Facebook wanted to turn off the New York Times, for instance. It could. And that’s a LOT of power to give to one organization, even one that’s earned my trust like Facebook has. This is why I keep hoping Google has a clue (so far it hasn’t).

Tomorrow during the Gillmor Gang I’ll try to talk about the identity fingerprints that Facebook now has under its control. It is a scary world, but one that has huge benefits to all of us.

Today I told someone like I felt like I was at the completion of a major piece of commerce infrastructure that would affect our lives for decades. I likened it to the cross-continental railroad. Remember that? Well it changed the world. It opened the west. Made new careers possible. Let fresh food from California get to Chicago before it spoiled and all that. But it created an organization that had a LOT of power that wasn’t always used well.

Today I told Zuckerberg that he now has the modern-day railroad in his grasp and challenged him to both win our trust and not abuse the major power he’s going to aggregate.

So far I’m hearing all the right things from him and the employees around him. They know that this is a major, ambitious, move and they are going to move carefully and deliberately from here. They better or else we’ll see regulators move into control this business like we’ve never seen in our industry. One CEO, who asked not to be named, told me in the hallways today that Facebook is now a utility that the industry is going to rely on and he noted that utilities usually are heavily regulated to make sure that they don’t abuse the power they have over people and businesses.

The moves Facebook made today ARE that significant. Don’t miss Facebook’s ambition.

Oh, and if you’d like to hear more later today we’ll do a special Gillmor Gang and we’ll have Bret Taylor of Facebook on to fill in more details at noon Pacific Time. Watch building43 live then.

Apple Didn’t Kill Flash, HTML5 Did

2010-04-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

Apple Didn’t Kill Flash, HTML5 Did: "

The battle over Flash and its role (or lack thereof) on the iPhone came to a head today when Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an open letter explaining why his company won’t support Flash on the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen spoke with The Wall Street Journal to deliver his response. Unsurprisingly, the arguments from both parties are self-serving in parts and gloss over some realities.

It’s time to cut through the BS and, in turn, determine what the Apple-Adobe feud means for consumers and developers.

H.264 Rules Web Video, Not Flash

For most end-users, the debate over Flash is largely a debate about web video. Yes, Flash is used in other ways — for web-based games and ever-decreasingly in website design — but thanks in large part to YouTube, Flash is most commonly associated with web video.

In his letter, Steve Jobs highlights a point that I have made myself on many occasions: Web video is overwhelmingly encoded in H.264. Not only is the H.264 codec the default encoding setting for practically every video service online, it is also by and large the default codec for raw video from digital video cameras. That means that if you upload video from your Flip camera directly to YouTube, it doesn’t have to convert that video into a new format, which requires more time and resources.

Adobe started to support H.264 back in 2007, essentially buying Flash time as a video container without forcing video services like YouTube to transcode the native H.264 video into something else that Flash could use.

HTML5 Is the Best Way to Deliver Video on Mobile

The problem for Flash isn’t that it can’t adapt to contain other types of video; it is that software and hardware, particularly on the mobile side, have moved in a direction that natively supports the playback of H.264 content. Why bother using a container if you can play the file natively and get the memory advantages of not having a container plus hardware optimization?

Even on devices that support Flash Lite, the video experience is almost always optimized for H.264. HTML5 just makes the process easier to integrate across multiple platforms. While the proprietary and licensed nature of H.264 has turned some browser makers away from supporting H.264 in the HTML5 video standard (Mozilla and Opera are the most vocal opponents), mobile devices that already have it licensed by hardware vendors are going to use the technology. The quality, player experience and even live stream and ad insertion abilities of HTML5 are expanding all the time as well.

Look at the Sublime Player demo from Jilion for a great example of what can be done with HTML5 and web video. SublimeVideo is working on a solution that will serve HTML5 video by default in mobile browsers, Safari, Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 9, and serve Flash video by default in browsers such as Firefox and Opera.

The fact that so many web video providers are working to embrace HTML5 isn’t because Apple doesn’t support Flash, but because it is the best way to deliver video to all smartphone users. With or without Apple, the shift to native playback is where web video is headed.

Flash Hasn’t Proven Itself on Mobile

Even if you completely disagree with Apple’s position on Flash, the reality is this: Flash has not proven itself on mobile platforms. Specialized systems like Popbox, the new TiVo Premiere and some other embedded iTV systems aside, as a technology Flash has existed almost solely in the desktop browser.

Flash 10.1 is supposed to be the first version of Flash that will actually ship on a number of mobile phones in a way that is more than just Flash Lite. Flash Lite, which is the current implementation that some Windows Mobile and Android phones support, is not a great experience. It doesn’t have hardware acceleration and is limited in terms of what types of content it can support.

Adobe claims that Flash will be shipping on supported devices later this summer, but at this point, I’ll believe it when I see it. It also looks like the minimum requirements are going to be the equivalent of what the Nexus One offers, meaning it will only be available on the high end of the smartphone market, not the mid or low-end. The promise of Flash on mobile devices has been long in the making, but aside from demonstrations, it hasn’t happened.

Flash on Mobile Has Issues

Even on hardware that is supposed to support Flash, Flash is often not included. For instance, when Firefox Mobile was released for the Nokia N900, Flash support was removed at the last minute. Why? Because it wasn’t a good experience.

Even on Intel’s Atom platform, Flash has issues. This is why playing back fullscreen Hulu or HD YouTube clips is often painful on a netbook (even an ION or Tegra netbook). Again, Flash 10.1 is supposed to bring hardware acceleration that will make those types of processors handle video in more robust ways, but frankly, when there are still longstanding issues with Flash on x86 computers, how can we expect the transition to mobile to be problem free?

This isn’t to say Flash couldn’t become a killer, hardware optimized superb mobile platform — but at this stage, everything that Flash is so good at doing on the desktop isn’t happening with Flash on mobile devices. Rather than defend Flash’s performance on mobile devices with words, I’d much rather have Adobe actually release working products that show off why the technology can work well across platforms, including mobile.

One Size Never Fits All

It’s nice to get caught up in the fantasy of building an application that can be deployed on any type of device and work the same way across the board. Sun Microsystems called this “write once, run anywhere,” and it was the defacto slogan for Java. However, as anyone who has ever actually written for Java knows, the differences in Java virtual machines (JVM) means that that in practice, it can often take more time to try to debug a solution and get it working on another platform than it would to just write it natively for that platform.

Web applications are actually the closest example of “write once, run anywhere” actually working. Even then, browsers still need to be optimized for specific platforms in order to run applications built using web languages. This is one reason why native application building for smartphones has become so popular: native applications usually offer a better experience than simply using the web.

It’s fine to aspire for solutions that will work well across a variety of platforms, but users need to continue to be aware of the technological realities that prevent that from happening. If nothing else, the Apple-Adobe debate highlights that computer software — web based or otherwise — is not one size fits all.

For more technology coverage, follow Mashable Tech on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook

Reviews: Android, Facebook, Firefox, Google Chrome, Hulu, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari, Twitter, YouTube

Tags: adobe, apple, Flash, HTML5, trending, web standards

Y,000,000,000uTube

2009-10-15T01:59:00.000-07:00

Y,000,000,000uTube: "Three years ago today, Steve and I stood out in front of our offices and jokingly crowned ourselves the burger kings of media. We'd just made headlines by joining with Google in our shared goal of organizing the world's information (in our case, video) and making it easily and quickly accessible to anyone, anywhere. Today, I'm proud to say that we have been serving well over a billion views a day on YouTube. This is great moment in our short history and we owe it all to you.

Looking back at those early days, we were committed to some basic principles that have since become fundamental tenets in the world of online video:

Speed matters: Videos should load and play back quickly.
Clip culture is here to stay: Short clips are voraciously consumed and perfect for watching a wide variety of content.
Open platforms open up possibility: Content creation isn't our business; it's yours. We wanted to create a place where anyone with a video camera, a computer, and an Internet connection could share their life, art, and voice with the world, and in many cases make a living from doing so.

Three years after the acquisition, our platform and our business continue to grow and evolve. We are still committed to the same principles that informed the site early on, but we know things have changed. As bandwidth has increased, so has our video quality. As we've started to see demand for longer, full-length content, we've brought more shows and movies to the site. There are now more ways than ever to make and consume content, and more of you are looking to turn your hobby into a real business. We're working hard to keep up with the fast pace of technology to bring you everything you would expect from the world's largest video site: better quality; a full spectrum of choices and tools for users, partners and advertisers; and ways to make the YouTube experience your own anywhere, anytime.

Chad Hurley, CEO and Co-founder

The Future of Television & TV Ratings - BusinessWeek

2009-10-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

The Future of Television & TV Ratings - BusinessWeek

How Do I Get Paid to Speak About Online-Video Marketing?

2009-10-14T02:05:00.000-07:00

How Do I Get Paid to Speak About Online-Video Marketing?: "

Hey, readers. I like to share on this blog, and not ask you for help. But I’ll be damned if I’m not stuck.

I’ve been speaking at industry conferences and corporations, but haven’t figured out how to get paid. Now that I have a book contract with Wiley (tentatively named “Beyond Viral Video: Online Marketing Strategies and Tactics”), I believe I can fetch $5-$15K to speak at companies or events. Heck- I’ve seen my former employers pay $50K for some dopey book author who gave a generic powerpoint for an hour. I’ve got unique knowledge as a marketer and most-viewed YouTube guy, and I love informing, engaging and entertaining audiences.

Here’s my credentials page I just wrote up (it’s pretty compelling so click here and memorize it). Would appreciate any tips on how to have someone else market or represent me… ideally someone that’s the “go to” firm for corporations needing specialized marketing skills.

I’m not right for a motivational-speaking firm, but maybe one that companies go to when they need to experts on specific topics like mine (emerging media, video marketing, social media, etc.). For that matter, I’d like to start charging conferences (which I know is tough unless you’re a former CEO or celebrity). Conferences are a nice chance to network and build street credibility, but I’m doing 4 conferences in the next week from Nevada to Canada, and giving away free tips about online-video marketing… Would be nice to get some cash for the time it takes. The free airfare and hotel are nice, but they don’t cover the mortgage.

And just look at that face? Don’t you just want to pay this guy to get your company jazzed and informed about emerging media, online video, social media, and marketing!?

Killer Emerging-Media Marketing Speaker & Evangalist

Most Popular YouTube Stars: Rankings, Stats and Trends

2009-10-08T05:19:00.000-07:00

My last post about TheStation made me revisit the most-subscribed YouTube “stars” and channels to see what’s changed.

Who are the most-viewed, most-subscribed and most popular people on YouTube? Here are some trends, stats and sources for additional information.

First some trends:

We’re still seeing YouTube’s “most subscribed” list (more important than “most viewed” because it eliminates one-hit wonders) largely dominated not by professionals but individuals. In the top ten list are only 3 “professional” channels (machinima, Jonas Brothers and Universal). The rest are people like Fred, Nigahiga, ShaneDawsonTV, KevJumba, WhatTheBuckShow and VenetianPrincess. These are amateurs with recurring audiences, but only some have agents.

The packaged content (CollegeHumor) is not as popular as individual creators because people continue to become active on YouTube from a social context… picking their favorites as “virtual friends” as opposed to gravitating to the best content (TheOnion). I did not think this would continue to be the case in 2009, as online-video viewing moves mainstream.

The channels that move rapidly up this “most subscribed” list are typically spawned from already-popular channels. TheStation almost immediately reached the top 20 because the collective “web stars” promoted it. Likewise, when a popular YouTuber like ShaneDawson creates a second account (ShaneDawsonTV2) it rises quickly up the ranks. The easiest way to get noticed on YouTube quickly is by appearing in a popular creator’s video, as the top creators rarely voluntarily “shout out” (advertise) someone else’s channel.

As a result of the above trend, some widely known creators like Chocolate Rain singer TayZonday are falling off the top 100 list even as his views and subscribers continues to grow. Others slip because they lose touch with their fan base, or create videos less frequently. As an example, I’m happy to get about 250,000 views per day (as Nalts)… but not happy I’m always teetering at the bottom of the top 100 list.

The mix of most-popular is primarily “vloggers” (individuals talking to the camera), followed by musicians and comedians. Broadly speaking, your chances are higher of being a most-subscribed YouTuber if you’re Asian, sexy, funny, or gay. Toss in a few curse words and some raucous content and you’re golden.

Some resources for tracking trends and stats:

YouTube allows you to rank some of the top YouTube creators in various ways. To see the 100 most subscribed, click here. To see “most viewed 100“, click here. Note that many of the “most viewed” are professionals, while the most-subscribed are often individuals (or amateurs). The difference between the two is that the latter have a regular following, while the “most viewed” are often mainstream entertainers or one-hit wonders. As an example of the difference, LisaNova (okay I have a momentary crush on her) has 260,000 subscribers, while I have 141,000. But I have more views than her (as of this writing) with 93 million to date. Which means she should really be jealous of me. Hee.

Looking for the Most Popular YouTube Videos of All Time? Here they are. Evolution of Dance at 125 million views and Avril Lavigne are neck & neck, followed by “Charlie Bit My Finger.” Since views beget views, videos have a way of lodging here permanently. My most-popular video (at nearly 10 million views) is the insufferable “Scary Maze” (I almost didn’t post it). “i are cute kitten” is also doing well… these prove that most-viewed does not mean the best.

TubeMogul is the definitive site for online-video views across the web. It ranks the top-40 online-video stars that use Tubemogul, but tracks views in aggregate (whether submitted via Tubemogul or not). I like Tubemogul’s methodology mainly because I rank #11 to iJustine’s #27. Of course that won’t last long.

iStardom allows you to track online “weblebrities” on YouTube and other sites. For instance, I’m #51 on iStardom. Most of the top iStardom stars are also YouTube’s most popular… the iStardom top-1o list is almost identical to that of YouTube.

YouTubeStars.com is a blog that reports on trends. The blog published intermittently, and has a sister website that ranks the top 100 most-subscribed (with recent trends). I like that it maintains a list of my subscriber numbers by week, and shows up/downs on the list.

YouTube allows you to rank videos in a variety of way. For instance you can choose a category (music, comedy, entertainment) and select the most-viewed, most-popular of the day, week, month or all time.

WillofDC is a YouTube creator who does a weekly report on trends (W&L, or “winners and losers”). He fawns over iJustine (and her recent jolt on YouTube), and has been tracking the rise of ShayCarl and CommunityChannel. (a belated thanks to Will for his shout-out when I quit my job).

The YouTube Blog has some interesting information, but doesn’t provide as many trends and stats as we’d like.

URLesque provides an introduction to the top 10 (at that point) most subscribed YouTube stars… for you noobs.

Anyone have any other sites I should add? Frankly I’m surprised there aren’t easier-to-find websites that collect and share data (WillofDC uses a website to report winners and losers, but I don’t know what it is.

Online-Video Junkies on Twitter

2009-10-08T05:16:00.000-07:00

Online-Video Junkies on Twitter: "

It’s amazing how quickly Twitter has turned from an early-adopter groupies party (mostly YouTube peeps) to a viable tool to facilitate dialogue related to industry verticals and special interests.

TweepML allows you to share a group of people you follow. And in a nice example of TweepPM’s utility, Steve Garfield (a trend setter who was vlogging before your mama heard of YouTube) created an instant “follow top online video peeps” tool.

I’m now following some people I’ve tracked in other forums (video, RSS), but never thought to stalk on Twitter. For example, the Scobleizer (Robert Scoble), who needed the plug given his paltry 100K followers.

Not sure how I landed on the top of a list that includes Ryan Seacrest, but I’m flattered nonetheless. Who’s gonna tell Steve that he missed Daisy Whitney?

Best Resources for Online Video ‘n Marketing, Farty

2009-10-08T05:15:00.000-07:00

Best Resources for Online Video ‘n Marketing, Farty: "

What’s on your RSS or what sites do you visit related to online-video and marketing? Please comment below, especially in the likely event I missed something. I’ll update this, and you and I can find this post again by searching the word “FARTY,” which unlikely appears elsewhere here. I could be wrong.

Yes it’s time again for a round-up of some must-read blogs & peeps related to online video, marketing social media, and the shizzle.

Here’s the problem about finding good websites and blogs about online video. If you add “online video” to a search query, you’ll get a lot of videos about marketing. And the social-media space is just too damned cluttered. Any idiot can write an article about that. I like the writers that touch on the intersection of online-video and marketing, and don’t stray too far into the self-indulgent world of traditional entertainment and advertising, the desperate starving filmmakers overproducing episodic content, and boring crap about technology providers.

Most of these peeps are smarter than me, but I actually spend most of my day marketing and making videos… not a journalist or professional speaker (although I’m doing more and more… someone help me figure out how to charge to speak please). So although my content will give you great secret or bore you to death, at least it’s mostly practical.

Kelly Samardak covers MediaPost’s Just an Online Minute

Daisy Whitney does New Media Minute and This Week in Media (I was on it Monday and will be on again next week). She has good hair.

Shira Lazar brings us CBS’s new “On the Scene” bringing CBS from 2002 to 2010.

WillVideoForFood (this blog) is written by career marketer and most-viewed YouTube kid Nalts. It’s for marketers and creators, and people that don’t take themselves too seriously. Oh did I tell you I finally got a book deal with Wiley & Sons so I can’t procrastinate the book I’ve been promising for 3 years?

ReelSEO is a killer blog about SEO, online video, and marketing.

Steve Garfield is to vlogging what Adam Curry was to podcasting. He’s got a book coming out, but sadly I got axed from the cover.

David Meerman Scott is to digital marketing what The Secret is to self help, and he’s got a blog.

Liz Gannes and the NewTeeVee peeps run the definitive new-media site, which fills the void left by The Daily Reel. Remember Felicia Williams?

Need to know what videos are hawt right now? See Viral Video Chart (select 7 day).

TubeFilter tracks series and episodic content.

TilzyTV does the TVGuide thing for the web. The bro’s know the biz.

Pete Wylie left, but FierceOnlineVideo goes on.

Metacafe’s former content lead writes EyeView (and since he’s a WVFF commenter he gets a gold star)

eMarketer has nice public stats and charts that are eye-candy for people trying to change the world.

Jack Myers is a TV guy with a close eye on new media. The dude is the Trump of the space.

Tim Street is all about marketing & video with a background doing promos for shows.

Ford’s social media guru Scott Monty runs his own blog about social media.

Steve Hall’s AdRants is always good for a laugh and criticism of advertising.

YouTube has a business blog you probably didn’t know exists.

Advertising Week has some nice coverage in its digital section. Abbey Klaassen reports well, and does a nice 3-minute show I TiVo, and Bob Garfield doesn’t hold punches.

If I missed you, take a cue from Uncle Nalts. Shamelessly self promote below. Unless your blog is about cats.

Online-Video Stats August 2009

2009-10-08T05:14:00.000-07:00

Online-Video Stats August 2009: "

Here are some more stats about online video via ComScore and MediaBuyerPlanner.

Basically 161 million people watched online video in the U.S, and YouTube maintains a 40% share (followed distantly by Microsoft with 2.2%, and Hulu with even less). So when I use YouTube to refer to online video, it’s like saying “Coke” to refer to soda or “Scotch tape” to refer to adhesive transparent tape.

If you’re a stupid media buyer, here are the ad networks that can help you interupt people during their video-viewing experience:

Tremor Media ranked as the #1 video ad network with a potential reach of 68 million viewers, or 42.2% of the total viewing audience. YuMe Video Network ranked #2 with a potential reach of 59.1 million viewers (36.7% penetration) followed by ScanScout Network with 57.6 million viewers (35.7%).

Or you could try baking your brand message into content that people actually watch… product placement, sponsoring YouTube stars via Hitviews, or creating serialized content and praying someone will watch. It’s a tough call I know.

Hey, no offense Tremor. I know you guys do more than serve video ads… tell us about some of the stuff that works!

Zaštitni Znak Kao Element Korporativnog Identiteta-PR

2009-06-30T02:53:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Zaštitni Znak Kao Element Korporativnog Identiteta-PR

View more documents from epo6208.

All about Google

2009-04-14T10:34:00.001-07:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

All about Google

View more presentations from Ouriel Ohayon.

2008-12-12T11:33:00.000-08:00

Image via WikipediaWhat The Bucks? $200K a Year Making Videos?
from Will Video for Food by Nalts

California YouTube star Cory Williams, who is also known as Mr. Safety, reported to the New York Times that he is earning more than $200,000 annually by creating videos on YouTube (he said $17-$20K per month, so I took an average times 12).

“Half of the profits come from YouTube’s advertisements, and the other half come from sponsorships and product placements within his videos, a model that he has borrowed from traditional media,” Williams said.

Williams, who is known as Mr. Safety at his YouTube channel SMPFilms, said the income was a combination of YouTube Partner income and money he makes for sponsored videos. See “YouTube Videos Pull in Real Money” at the The New York Times (thanks Marilyn).

Michael Buckley, WhattheBuck, declines massive amounts of money that now go to Cory Williams (SMPFilms)Michael Buckley, who posts on YouTube as WhatTheBuck, won’t confide his earnings. But he said his hobby has changed his financial life…

The article quotes: “Mr. Buckley quit his day job in September after his online profits had greatly surpassed his salary as an administrative assistant for a music promotion company. His thrice-a-week online show “is silly,” he said, but it has helped him escape his credit-card debt.”

I feel so weird writing this post, because both of these guys are, like, BFFs. Well- they’d probably say acquaintances. But now instead of calling Cory “crazy,” I have to call him “eccentric” (which means crazy and rich). Buckley, however, hasn’t let the money go to his head. Occasionally he berates his minimim-wage assistant, Mason, but that’s fair. He’s under a lot of pressure.

Most of my 3-plus years watching this industry has been dedicated to helping video creators live off their work. And that can’t happen until marketers realize that, uh, these cats know how to “draw a crowd.” And crowds buy stuff. But this particular piece isn’t focused on the marketing whores.

Rather, this post is to warn aspiring video creators of a few things that may be missleading about this news. I don’t want people to have an unrealistic sense that they can quit their day jobs quite yet.

1. First, these are video creators that are in the top single-digit percent of popularity. Almost any industry has a sharp pyramid, and online video is shaping up similarly. That means for every Buckley there are thousands maybe millions of people that are earning enough to cover maybe a few Starbucks coffees.
2. These people have been at it for a while. Buckley’s success was “overnight” (less than a year), but Mr Safety has been doing this since his Jackass days and before he invented Post-It Notes.
3. Remember ZeFrank? He’s working the late shift at Wendy’s now. Creators can DaxFlame out as fast as they can Fred. The audience can be cruel and shifty.
4. $17-$20K a month is a lot of damned money. I’m trying to decide whether to rob Cory’s house or assume it’s a “white lie.” I still think the whole “I turned down SNL” is a white lie (like when you tell Grandma her creamed spinach is delicious), but then again… I’d think Cory was lying if he told me that Mean Kitty was about to have more subscribers than I. But check for yourself (I totally just vomited a little in my throat). Naturally, I gave Cory total crap when his “$20K a month ”slipped out” on the Tyra Banks interview (see his “who told you?” quote). But his explanation was fair… A friend helped broker the interview, Cory told the friend stuff about recent earnings “off the record,” and that information turned up on the interview. Now it’s “out there” and I shant have a conversation with him without reminding him he should have voted for McCain for tax reasons alone.
5. I do sponsored videos and I’m a YouTube Partner, and I’m not making anywhere near $17K a month. That day may come, but I feel like I’m worth more (and better differentiated) helping marketers tap this medium.
6. There is no six. Piss off with your desperate need for a 6th on a list.
7. Finally, remember “The Secret.” Money will come, but only if you affirm that you’re worth it and don’t get jealous of other people’s success. Even if they are making more than you are as a marketing director because they have a stupid cat that’s popular. ;)

vixy.net : Online FLV Converter : Download online videos direct to PC / iPod / PSP. It's free!

2008-08-11T07:15:00.000-07:00

vixy.net : Online FLV Converter : Download online videos direct to PC / iPod / PSP. It's free!

The FeedRoom | The Leader in Enterprise Video Solutions

2008-08-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

The FeedRoom | The Leader in Enterprise Video Solutions

Webcast: How to Earn Money Producing Video for the Internet

2008-08-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Webcast: How to Earn Money Producing Video for the Internet

Adverblog - interactive marketing and other great advertising ideas

2008-08-05T08:33:00.000-07:00

Adverblog - interactive marketing and other great advertising ideas

Will Video for Food

2008-08-04T15:13:00.000-07:00

Will Video for Food