Friday, November 28, 2008

The Presidential YouTube Channel: Coming Soon!

Obama intends to carry over his campaign's high-touch web presence style once in office. Learn more in this BBC article. Or watch the BBC video about the impact of digital communications on governing - "the Internet president."

Monday, November 24, 2008

Common Craft - Videos ANYONE Can Make!

I can't believe I didn't know about this site already. It is SO COOL. You don't have to fork out 25k for a happening Flash animation. You can just do like the people at Common Craft do. Make your own paper animation video - for pennies!












See more here.

You can license videos from them, too, but making your own is pretty darn cool.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

StoryTlr: The All in One Place Place

Do you have a twitter comment, a few photos, and a video about the same day or event or topic? And yet all these pieces are in separate places on the web...unless you have storytlr.com, a nice place to pull them altogether. See here:



Or just go to www.storytlr.com. Kinda nifty.

Friday, November 21, 2008

More on the New Mino HD

Dec. 16: Speaking at SBA Entrepreneur Meeting

I will be giving a talk Dec. 16 from 6 to 8:30 pm "YouTube 101: Web Video Marketing for Small Business and Startups." This is part of the SBA's monthly meeting series at its SBA Entrepreneur Center on Market St. in SF.

It will be more in-depth than the 20 minute presentation at BizTechDay in October, and there will be more time for show and tell - i.e. looking at some of the better marketing videos small businesses have used in successful web video campaigns.

Get the details here.

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Flip - Now in HD!!!



And, in case you want to read more about the company and its origins, there's an informative article from BusinessWeek here.

Want to know more about Kaplan? Here's a video from 2007 with the guy who started Pure Digital, makers of the Flip:

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Video Email

Well, I'm not sure how Connect Mail will do, now that Google's announced support for video in gmail.com as well as video chat and audio chat services (new, too). Check it out in this Washington Post story.

Vuclip - Send ANY video to ANY cell phone


Could VuClip be the next YouTube?

Read about them in ReadWriteWeb or just go to their web site and see what it's all about.

The only thing I don't like (and it's small) is that they don't have a viral video I could post here for you to learn more right here.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Would You Like Video in That Email?


I received my first video email yesterday - an unexpected surprise and a very effective communication.

It's from a company called ConnectNote. ConnectNote, for a fee, will let you record your video and presentation to present to anyone anywhere. Think of those sales calls where you're trying to sell something, whether it's your company or a product, where the personal touch would be helpful.

The best part about ConnectNote is that it's set up to encourage a conversation, which is different than having a standard sales pitch you send out across the board. The email is private. You can also see when the recipient has viewed the video.

Of course, you could use YouTube or other video platforms to send a video, but it's not the same. YouTube isn't private (nonsearchable doesn't make most people feel private, even though it's pretty close, it's not 100%) and the YouTube wrapper doesn't provide a professionally neutral presence online. ConnectNote also includes your presentation bullets to go along with your presentation, and lets you underline things with a digital pen.

I would recommend this service to any small business person. Especially since it comes with a 7-day free trial period (I think they should make it longer, but...). Check it out.

Monday, November 3, 2008

After BizTech Day...A Real Viral Video Guru

A week later, reflecting on the BizTechDay.com conference and the speech by Blendtec's director of marketing George Wright...in which he told the audience about his $50 video. (What he really means is he spent $50 on props - and probably closer to at least $50,000, having the help of the company's in-house video producer.) Since that's of dubious value to your typical small business person, who lacks an in-house video producer to come to their aid when they're feeling creative, perhaps we should look further afield for more viral video gurus.

Of course, that might lead one to the man who has carefully cultivated his reputation as the most famous Viral Video Guru, who has actually repeated the act, as one of YouTube's top ten comedians and marketing genius. Meet Kevin Nalts (in his own spoof video):



Need more? Visit his site at KevinNalts.com.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

15 Minutes Becomes 12 Seconds


In this time-challenged world, fame has become more prevalent - but more fleeting, witness the new web site 12seconds.tv, where your 12 seconds of video makes or breaks you.

Of course, everyone remembers the Andy Warhol line about everyone getting their 15 minutes of fame. But even on YouTube, four minute videos generally only get 2 minutes of viewing at best.

Time shrinks to 12 second clips only on 12seconds.tv. Which makes it easy to make them on oyur cell phone.

To kick off the site's debut, 12Seconds.tv is featuring an election day special with Current.tv, asking people to upload a 12 second clip of a song for either Presidential nominee.

See it here.