- Let’s get as many video views as possible.
- Let’s get as much content as possible.
- Let’s run a preroll advert in front of every video on our site.
- Let’s auto play videos so we get even more views.
No, no, no, no.
YouTube have had phenomenal success in terms of generating traffic and video views because they are purely publishers, they are in the business of content delivery, and they know it. They don’t try and put in the mix their own original content. Users return to them again and again because they understand YouTube and know what they are doing.
Content originators who publish video through their own websites seem to be a bit confused about what they have to deliver, what their objective for delivery is and how they should deliver it. This confuses users and means they are less likely to return to the site and form a lasting relationship with it.
Some original content producers want to be editorialised versions of YouTube and are fixated with having as many video views as possible, while ignoring the fact that the content being shoved down people’s throats is not relevant to the brand or of any value to a user, if the site’s brand is based on the original content that is.
If your brand is based on publishing original content then that should be your main objective with video.
- Put your brand values, creativity and ideas on video.
- Put in place sensible, engaging, scalable commercial opportunities.
- Put in place a reliable, high quality delivery mechanic.
Do not try and get as many views as possible from as much content as possible. Aim to publish reliable, sustainable original content with which users can form a lasting relationship. If it’s good enough users will return to view it again and again. Your audience with compound, snowball and you will be successful.
As an original content-based brand it is of the utmost importance to own the content you are distributing.
How do you make an advert more intimate and memorable? Put the viewer in it! The new promotional site for Street Fighter IV becomestreetfighter.com does this brilliantly.
Become Street Fighter allows users to very easily include a picture of their own face on the character in the video. You can then embed the video that is created on a variety of different sites including Facebook and Myspace.
This is a brilliant example of how making commercial media an intimate experience for users and allowing viral distribution through social networks can have a positive impact on the way people form a relationship with a product or brand.
Creating a video like this takes no longer than 1 minute if you already have the pictures. No registration pages or forms to fill out, just upload your pics, get your video and that’s it.
The system is built using technology made by 15secondtv, which renders the face from an uploaded picture on to the video a user has selected to create the final video.
This is an overwhelmingly positive commercial experience, which is infinitely more memorable than a normal game trailer and should therefore have much more of an impact in driving sales of the game.
When watching the new Lilly Allen music video for The Fear on YouTube I was presented with a pop up link across he bottom of the video. I hadn’t seen an ad like this pop up in YouTube before and have to say I really quite liked it.
It’s not too intrusive, doesn’t spoil the video and is of genuine use to users who are watching and enjoying the content. As soon as you click ‘Buy Song’ the video is paused and you are taken directly to the page on iTunes. When you there, if you have an iTunes account, you are only 2 clicks away from completing a transaction for 79 pence which will mean you now own a copy of the single.
It is micropayment transactions like these that will become an increasingly important part of networked business’s revenue stream.
Because of the short form nature of most of the videos on YouTube users won’t react well to preroll because they think of YouTube as providing exactly what they want to watch as soon as they click play.
In-play contextual overlays are a form of advertising that give engaged users a valid opportunity to make a cash transaction with a product related to he content being viewed without having any negative impact on the act of consuming the content.
This is a positive commercial experience.
The Internet is a medium that allows for users to instantly switch between consuming media to a transactional interface. This is a perfect example of the opportunity the Internet offers to utilize that capability to drive a cash transaction, which is of value to the user and publisher.
The recent announcement of Google Latitude doesn’t really come as much if a surprise. It’s a fairly obvious if not slightly scary development for them to make.
Yesterday when I was downloading some new applications for my iPhone I came across a GPS tracker app. I’ve yet to test it out but it sounds like a really interesting application if you want to track a journey and then display the route later on.
In the top review, below the application on the iTunes App Store, this was left.
Although it is amusing and quite possibly a joke, it does bring home the level to which tracking our location can limit our freedoms, even if those freedoms are not completely ethical sometimes.
A couple of weeks ago when Stephen Fry was on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross he mentioned that he had recently sent a tweet detailing which flight he was on and as a result was met by pap photographers when he landed. Some celebs might seek that sort of attention, for them letting everybody know where they are might he a good thing, for the vast majority it isn’t. However Google’s Latitude system is strictly an opt in service which doesn’t have an open API so you just share your location on a closed network with close friends and family you select.
Individually tracking where everybody is, is not the objective of this system. It is to allow there to be a more accessible interface between the physical and digital worlds we live in; one that will aid the sense that the digital social networks we build are grounded in reality.
I'm David Williams, a Digital Product Manager working at Bauer Consumer Media in London on FHM.com and zootoday.com.
This blog is my take on the media and technology issues that matter to me. I am particularly interested in user engagement, brands and social technology.
- Let’s get as many video views as possible.
How do you make an advert more intimate and memorable? Put the viewer in it! The new promotional site for Street Fighter IV 
The recent announcement of 
