The State-of-the-Art of Sponsored Internet Videos?

The world of Internet videos keeps getting richer. Yes, there's more interesting stuff than what's on YouTube (not that's YouTube is bad, there are just more channels on the "Internet TV system" than most people know). For example, this Beet.TV interview with Ziv Navoth, VP Marketing & Business Development at Bebo (which is one of the slickest, high quality internet video sites) offers one of the most passionate and somewhat persuasive pitches I've seen for a monetized opportunity for video producers. What do you think? Is it time for you (or me) to finally do an online video series?

OMG, Twitter is like so totally busted! "Twitter Whore" shows all...

I mentioned below the "In Plain English" Twitter video which actually explains Twitter to the uninitiated or un-techie amongst us. But, on the other hand, if you want to laugh a little, and sorta, kinda experience the frenetic experience of what I believe Twitter to be (and why I'm not a participant... go on, comment below about why I'm missing out!), then OMG! I'm sure you'll enjoy the Twitter parody videos below, produced by and staring one of YouTube's rising stars, Lisa Donovan (screen name LisaNova), a self-described "Twitter Whore" (video is in two parts below). As they used to say on Hill Street Blues, "Be careful out there."

More Very Useful Explanations in Plain English

I'm going to claim this might be the best resource for explaining Web 2.0 communication platforms to newbies ever! See my post below about CommonCraft, and if you're someone who would like a better understanding of stuff like blogs, RSS, social networking, podcasting, Twitter and more, there are easy to understand and remarkably clear and enjoyable CommonCraft videos about each of these subjects on the CommonCraft YouTube channel. Enjoy!

Podcasting (and Twitter) in Plain English

OK. I'm someone who has been doing his best to "span the Grand Canyon Gap between people and technology" for quite a number of years, so when I say this is impressive, I at least have some vague idea of what I'm talking about... ;)

I was trying to explain Twitter to my associate and went to Twitter.com and clicked "Watch a Video" Ta-da! A simple, cleverly animated, and impressively clear (and that's the main thing) explanation. What a concept! No kidding. As I once wrote, "making it look easy is the hard part." The creative production company is CommonCraft.com They say, "Our product is explanation." I love that and I love their work.

I'll let their work speak for them and maybe you'll agree it's impressive. Here's "Podcasting in Plain English":

My First Pocket Camera Video is on YouTube

I mentioned that I got a Flip mini-video camera for Christmas:

My favorite new gizmo is The Flip (Ultra), a pocket-sized, web-ready video digi-cam. No tape, just 60 mins of MPEG-4 video in Flash memory and a flip-up USB port.

This camera is about the size of a pack of cigarettes. It's easy to use and for what it is, it works quite well.

So, I took it out for a drive... my buddy Keith Bailey had a photography show open at a restaurant in San Francisco last week. I shot the following while in attendance, in a very noisy atmosphere, in some instances with virtually no light... and the results are not bad. I edited it in about 1 and 1/2 hours with iMovie and "borrowed" some music from a friend, Gary Malkin (his collaboration with Tito La Rosa will be for sale soon.)

Anyway, here's my quick first effort at pocket-cam event videography. It's about 3 minutes. Please let me know what you think:

Yet Another Stupid (yet entertaining) Web 2.0 Video

Another tech bubble? Who are you kidding?!? Or not...

Seniors Nintendo Wii Bowling Video Scores as Viral Video Marketing

Here's a video that's not only entertaining and about seniors using the innovative Nintendo Wii video game, but it is also a clever form of viral video marketing which subtly promotes a senior assisted living company. Expect to see more of this kind of thing in the future. This one is unusually well done, and they save the low-key pitch for last. Appropriately putting the fun first...

Obama's Grassroots Support Shown in Web Traffic & more

If you use website traffic (rather than polls which are probably more scientific) as an indication of voter interest, then the latest Hitwise statistics show Barack Obama well ahead of his Democratic competition.

Like the rest, he's also using YouTube, among other online grassroots techniques. For example, it's an indication of the word-of-mouth impact that many of his traffic referrals come from email systems (which translates as individuals forwarding links.)

Along those lines, this video clip references his huge crowds as evidence of something more meaningful. Frankly, I'm encouraged. Maybe it really can be different this time? What do you think?

Online Video Monetization Blooming

If you still don't believe that there's money to be made, not to mention good marketing buzz to be generated, with online video clips, then you better check out The New York Times coverage of the competition between video sites to make revenue sharing deals with producers and talent who can develop a following using online video. They call it, New Hot Properties: YouTube Celebrities.

Online Video Explosion Signposts

One nice thing about the online video explosion, revolution, or whatever you want to call it, is that it does have signposts. (FYI, I'm still waiting for some professional publisher to ask me to write more about all this... hello?!).

But meanwhile here are a couple of recent articles and/or posts that I found to be of interest and encouraging re: the re-emergence of my own "video-video" enterprises (videos about video and online communications) which are percolating in the background:

> VideoEgg Hits 3 Million Uploads -- TechCrunch insights on the growth of this online video leader vis a vis GooTube (Google-YouTube) who may have the best ad platform of the moment. I said "may."

> All The World's a Stage (That Includes the Internet) -- NYTimes writer Scott Kirsner offers a nice overview with examples of how user-generated content can and is making money, at least for a few leading edge folks.

New Easy Way to Monetize Your Internet Video Clips

(Sometimes I still feel like I'm covering the "Video Web" the way I did in my "old days" at Videography, yet I know not how many of you readers even know or care.)

I not only think that AdBrite's new InVideo service is useful and practical, but I really like the fact that they're walking their talk with a quick, clean and illustrative video that does a good job (see below) of explaining the advantages of and how this new way to place ads in your internet video clips works (still in invitation-only beta).

Maybe some day I'll get around to producing some online video content? Especially now that I know that I can produce video clips with easily self-embedded video ads that are not offensive and which will travel with an embedded video player to anyone else's website. Nice!

Video & You: Bigger Than Ever

I've been talking about how hot the online video business and content is getting for months, but it's now beyond my comprehension. Not only are the Skype founders testing a new broadband video service and the NY Times is reporting a new online video service being put together by "a handful of giant media companies, like NBC Universal, the News Corporation, Viacom and possibly CBS," but user-generated content a.k.a. "you" is the person on the year and the cover of Time magazine's year end issue. The real story behind this is Web 2.0 and, of course, YouTube. For example, the article explains that last year users were downloading 10 million clips a DAY from YouTube. This year: 100 million video clips a day... read more of Time's perspective... (including the list of related articles.)