Seeing is believing… but what if it’s not. We’ve known about “Photoshopping” for a long time — you can manipulate photos. But this manipulation is going to become much more accessible. Have a look at what some Israeli academics have cooked up:
Thanks to TechCrunch for the link.
You might think that YouTube has all but won the online video game. Just as Google seems to have search locked up, so too YouTube would seem to be the only destination you need for online video. But just as Google has a batch of new competitors for search, YouTube has some competition on the video front. (One of these is our very own DoGooderTV – the home to nonprofit video.) The game is far from over.
While YouTube may always be the best place for America’s Funnies Home Videos, it seems doubtful that they will win the battle for IPTV — streaming professionally produced content through the web to your computer and eventually to your TV. On one side of that battle is Joost – from the people who brought us Skype. They have a really cool interface and are doing deals for all kinds of content. This is like cable TV — Joost has channels and if you want your content on Joost you have to do a deal with them.
I tend to think the Joost approach is bad. Why recreate cable TV online? Why have a limited number of Joost channels when you can have an unlimited number of channels in the open web? The approach I find to make more sense is that of Veoh. They are saying “we will give you a single player and aggregate content from all over the web for you.” There was an article in the Sunday Business section of the Times about their launch of VeohTV.
Once the software is downloaded to a computer, it offers an easy-to-navigate directory of 114 video channels, including listings for CBS, NBC, Fox and YouTube. On the NBC channel, there are dozens of episodes of “Heroes,” “30 Rock” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.” On the Fox channel, there are several full-length episodes of the dramas “Bones” and “24.”
Those shows are free and available for streaming on the NBC and Fox sites. The VeohTV player, Mr. Shapiro said, is just giving them a new audience.
“There are full-length episodes at Fox.com, but many customers don’t know how to find them,” he said. “The Web browser is fine for short clips. But if you just want to sit back and watch video on the Web, this is what you will want to use.”
The content providers are nervous about this approach because while VeohTV will include whatever video ad the content provider has in the stream, the content provider no longer gets the benefit of the page view — and the non-video advertising there. We will see how it plays out.
Just remember, YouTube isn’t the only game in town. Here’s a sample from Veoh which is pretty good quality.
We had conversations with several organizations about doing some video work on July 4th. The idea being that July 4th is the perfect patriotic backdrop and a great time to do “man on the street” interviews. Whether the issue was global warming or human rights, July 4th parades offer lots of compelling imagery and lots of people to talk to.
This year was my third or fourth year actually participating in July 4th parades. My mother-in-law owns a 1931 Model A Ford. She is the only women in the Ford Authentic Restorers Technical Society, aka the F.A.R.T.S. She organizes the group to attend three parades in northern Illinois. For two of those parades — Skokie and Evanston — we participate, putting the kids in the rumble seat and marching along side the car.
As you can see from my pictures below, there is great imagery and lots of diversity in these parades. The first half of the photos are from Skokie, the second from Evanston. The Evanston parade is much more a political affair, as you will also see in the pictures. For the organizations that participate, the parade gives good visibility and a chance for volunteers to actually do something other than click on a site or send an email to their member of Congress.
I have been reporting here about the trend of getting your consumers, or activists/donors, to participate in user generated content contests. The idea is simple — “make an ad for us and you could win something.” The something might be $25,000, $2,000 or recognition from your peers. The goal is to get people engaged, and get some “free” content out of it. MoveOn did this in 2004 when they got people to make anti-Bush commercials. In addition to having the videos online, they put together a DVD called Bush in 30 Seconds.
But contests are harder than they look.
We saw that for Heinz, the product wasn’t so great. And in today’s Times was the headline:
Outcome of an Ad Contest Starts an Uproar on YouTube
Some YouTube users cried foul this week when they saw the winning video in a Malibu Caribbean Rum user-generated advertising contest.
The contest, which began in early May, solicited videos about Malibu Banana Rum set to the tune of “Banana Boat Song,” also known as “Day-O.” It offered a prize of $25,000 or, if the winner preferred, a banana grove in a tropical location.
The Malibu brand, owned by Pernod Ricard, stated that it would consider the votes of YouTube users when it selected the winner. Malibu also said the actor Efren Ramirez of “Napoleon Dynamite” would help judge. The winner would be announced, the company said, by June 30.
The winner, however, was posted Monday, and finalists were not publicly named. Some consumers who lost the contest were quick to start a rumbling on YouTube message boards that the contest had been rigged — a charge that Malibu denied.
One YouTube user even made a six-minute conspiracy theory video that compared images from a professional Malibu commercial promoting the contest with the winner’s video, saying in part: “Wow, the same nose!? The same guy? You be the judge!”
“It just looks like, wow, they rigged the contest,” said Debbie Lusignan, 35, of Adams, Mass. “I am furious. I spent 60 hours on this freaking contest.”
Ron Klineschmidt, the winner of the contest, who has been peppered with negative comments from his upset competitors, said they were being sore losers…
Contests can work well. But don’t go into it thinking it will be cheap or easy.
There is a lot of talk in the nonprofit world about a social networking strategy. More recently the talk is about a Facebook strategy. I stumbled upon an essay about the emerging class divisions between users of Facebook and MySpace. On the surface it seems Facebook would certainly be a better place for nonprofits looking to find future donor prospects.
Here’s a relevant quote:
The goodie two shoes, jocks, athletes, or other “good” kids are now going to Facebook. These kids tend to come from families who emphasize education and going to college. They are part of what we’d call hegemonic society. They are primarily white, but not exclusively. They are in honors classes, looking forward to the prom, and live in a world dictated by after school activities.
MySpace is still home for Latino/Hispanic teens, immigrant teens, “burnouts,” “alternative kids,” “art fags,” punks, emos, goths, gangstas, queer kids, and other kids who didn’t play into the dominant high school popularity paradigm. These are kids whose parents didn’t go to college, who are expected to get a job when they finish high school. These are the teens who plan to go into the military immediately after schools. Teens who are really into music or in a band are also on MySpace. MySpace has most of the kids who are socially ostracized at school because they are geeks, freaks, or queers.
Here’s a link to the lively discussion about this essay on Slashdot.
User generated content, or UGC, is all the rage. It is fueled by easy-to-use blog software, social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, and the online video phenomenon of YouTube, and a thousand other video sharing sites. The line between “consumers of information” and “publishers of information” continue to blur.
Companies and nonprofits are trying to harness UGC so that supporters and customers can carry positive marketing messages to their friends and their friends friends in a way that is more effective than traditional top-down advertising. In this way, UGC is connected to the idea of permission marketing. Don’t force me to watch your commercial by interrupting me with a marketing message. Instead, send me information on things I am interested in and allow my community to tell me about the products and causes they care about while I tell them about my own interests. The fact that traditional advertising is as expensive as ever and less effective than ever has pushed many marketers to experiment in this direction.
One way to get people to create content for you is through contests. A common form of contest among companies is the “create a commercial” contest. The ones that got the most publicity recently were the NFL’s user-generated Super Bowl ad contest, Doritos Super Bowl ad contest, and now Heinz’s contest, widely promoted, asking folks to create their own 30-second ketchup spot.
In the nonprofit world we also have contests and at See3 we have become “the contest people” helping organizations conceive of and execute user generated content contests. Among organizations, contests may seem like a short-cut to get compelling content, and cheaply. While it can work out that way, a successful contest requires some investment of both time and money. First, a contest has to be conceived in a way that it will attract enough entries to make it worthwhile. The prize has to be significant, or seem significant to the target audience. (It might not be money. The right kind of acknowledgment can go a long way.) It also has to have the right venue, an easy way for people to participate, legal rules and enough promotion so the target audience knows it exists.
We have also found that if you are asking someone to create a public service announcement, it’s a good idea to give them some examples. If the contest is too open and lacks any creative direction people will often stay away because they can’t imagine what the “right” kind of entry would look like. We also know that seeding the contest with some folks likely to create a decent product is a good idea as well. YouTube is full of folks who do a nice job with video. We reach out to those people and maybe give them a little extra incentive to participate.
One question being asked by corporate marketers today is whether the publicity around a contest is as much of a benefit as the contest itself. The current Heinz contest is a great example. On YouTube you can see a lot of very inappropriate ketchup ads. Heinz says they will put the top 5 on the air, but they might not get 5 that they like. On the other hand, when the New York Times writes an article about you — albeit about the challenges you are having with your contest — is that considered a PR victory? The article is a nice look into the challenges of user generated content contests.
But if people are talking about Heinz Ketchup, and showing dozens of videos on YouTube about it, and writing about it in blogs like this one, is that enough? Most of these videos are really really bad. And if you can imagine people making ads about your organization or cause, ads that might not be the way you talk about your issues, ads that might get their facts wrong or seem to compromise your brand in some way, is that OK if it creates awareness? These are the issues we are helping organizations navigate at See3.
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