Video Articles

YouTube was originally designed to be user-generated-content-driven. But since it has become the second largest search engine (2008) on the planet, marketers, advertisers and broadcasters have flocked to it. Have the E-tailers followed suit or are they lagging behind? The potential for E-tailers to get their name out in the general consciousness has never been [...]

For those in the NYC area, OVA will be hosting an informational meeting next Tuesday, August 10th from 7-8pm . We’ll share details on conference volunteer opportunities, take t-shirt sizes, and chat with NYU net scholar Gabriella Coleman. Plus, free pizza.

For more information, get in touch using our volunteer sign-up form. We’ll send exact details to everyone who signs up.

Jamie Wilkinson, internet culture researcher & software engineer, is joining the speaker lineup for this year’s Open Video Conference. While working at Rocketboom, Jamie co-created the Know Your Meme video series & Internet meme database, selected as one of TIME Magazine’s Top 50 websites of 2009. He is also a founding member of the Free Art & Technology (FAT) Lab, an open-source research & development group. In 2007 & 2008 Wilkinson taught the “Internet Famous” class in Parsons graduate design & technology program, where students’ grades depended on how much Internet traffic they can generate. His work has been featured on NBC, TIME, NYTimes, CNN, CurrentTV, MAKE, ArtNews and more.

Jamie and his friends at FAT and Graffiti Research Labs are pushing the boundaries of pop-culture and open technology with projects like Laser TAG , LED Throwies, and Grafitti Markup Language (GML). GML (“The new digital standard for tomorrow’s vandals”) is a file format for archiving motion-captured graffiti tags. In other words, a specific piece of graffiti can be captured in real time, stored as a file, and played back as a video visualization or even reproduced physically (with the help of a robot arm holding a marker). GML is an open format, so graffiti writers are invited to capture and share their own tags, and computer programmers are invited to create new applications and visualizations of the resulting data. The project aims to bring together two seemingly disparate communities that share an interest hacking systems, whether found in code or in the city.

Recent GRL projects are listed here. Check out Open Video Conference, this October 1-2, for a look into some cool new video projects.

Remember some time back when Mark talked about the expectation that mobile video consumption would see some 500% growth by 2013? That should be roughly 56 exabytes per month, can you put a price on that Twinkie? We can! eMarketer predicts that we’ll see a 30% growth in mobile video viewers this year and while [...]

ReelSEO.com's Grant Crowell interview HSN.com’s (Home Shopping Network’s) Director of Digital Content Emery Skolfied, following his presentation at the Video Commerce Summit in Seattle titled, “How HSN advances its video commerce leadership.” Emery talks about HSN’s own patented technology for online video in retail e-commerce, tips based on their own experiences using video with customers, and challenges they ha overcome with better understanding customer behavior.

At 22 years old, Amelia Andersdotter is the youngest member of the European Parliament, representing a new Swedish political party. That’s interesting in its own right.

What’s perhaps more interesting is that she represents Piratpartiet, a political movement for freedom of information, transparent government, and intellectual property reform. Piratpartiet (“Pirate Party”) has a full legislative platform, but to many concerned copyright holders it’s just a platform to legitimize file sharing. Perhaps that’s because Piratpartiet recently announced its intent to host the Pirate Bay servers from inside the Swedish parliament, invoking parliamentary immunity.

Boosters of the Pirate Party insist that it’s not simply a political stunt. Instead, it’s a fork in the road: “New technology has brought us to a crossroads,” reads the party platform. Either we find new ways of compensating artists, and ask the market to adapt—they say—or we embrace ever more extensive government control and surveillance of what citizens do on the internet.

Copying and sharing are essential parts of the success formula for the web. And though the web has long been a wild west, with frontier zones of varying danger, it’s now an essential part of everyone’s lives.

There are fundamental questions we must be asking: how deeply should governments be involved in policing and protecting information? What expectation of privacy should web users expect? And how will creators be compensated in a thoroughly media saturated world?

Piratpartiet is the third largest political party in Sweden, and Amelia is its leading spokeswoman. Whether you agree with her or think she is destroying the creative economy, her perspective is pressingly relevant and interesting.

Join us this October 1-2 and join the conversation with Amelia—and many others—about the future of video on the web.

Everyone’s embracing YouTube these days, from Tennessee gubernatorial candidates to accidental local news stars to car companies.  And now even 80’s action star Sylvester Stallone has embraced YouTube, by destroying it. I love clever twists on YouTube marketing like this—particular this kind where the player isn’t a real YouTube player, and the entire page is [...]

I found this to be rather interesting, PlayOn if offering a free software update to its Premium subscribers that will work on the iPhone and iPod touch via Safari. That means video from places like Hulu, Netflix, Comedy Central and more can be had on them.It seems like a perfect situation for the content providers [...]

When it comes to emerging media one of the hottest new areas for marketer is augmented reality. It’s a digital venue that marketers such as Audi and Ben & Jerry’s are all dabbling in and offers some promising retention plays for consumers and brands. For more details on how this marriage of virtual and real [...]

Communications scholar Barbara van Schewick, of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society, has joined the speaker lineup for this year’s Open Video Conference. Barbara will share insights on video innovation and the architecture of the web, based on her recent book Internet Architecture and Innovation. The book has earned widespread acclaim (including praise from figures like Lawrence Lessig, who called it “the very best” analysis of its kind).

Barbara’s research focuses on the economic, regulatory, and strategic implications of communication networks. In particular, she explores how changes in the architecture of computer networks affect the economic environment for innovation and competition on the Internet, and how the law should react to these changes. This work has made her a leading expert on the issue of network neutrality.

Professor van Schewick is the Faculty Director of Stanford Law School’s Center for Internet and Society and an assistant professor of electrical engineering (by courtesy) at Stanford’s Department of Electrical Engineering.

Join us this October 1-2 in New York City to hear from Barbara and many others about innovation and the web.

We’ve seen a lot of research pointing to how effectively video helps increase conversion, sales and revenue for online retailers. But just how well are the online retailers doing from a search engine optimization viewpoint for that same video? Not well according to some recent research and that spells opportunity. The Opportunity For E-Commerce Video [...]

It’s very nearly time for SES San Francisco, which runs August 16-20.  The Early Bird rate expired over the weekend, but most of you already know that SES is a bargain at any price.  The four days will be packed with the usual phenomenal speaker lineup, expo floor, and even something new they’re calling “Labs,” [...]

Lance Weiler, story architect and culture hacker, is giving a talk at this year’s Open Video Conference about data-driven storytelling.

Lance is internationally recognized as a pioneer in indie film production and distribution. WIRED magazine named him one of twenty-five people helping re-invent entertainment and change the face of Hollywood.

In addition to his work as a writer and director, Lance is behind some downright amazing transmedia storytelling, incorporating augmented reality, social interaction, and gaming elements.

In 2006, Lance founded the WorkBook Project, an open creative network that connects filmmakers, musicians, game designers and software developers. Lance is definitely a resource, and we look forward to his talk at this year’s Open Video Conference.

Early bird registration has been extended through August 4th, so register today for discounted rates!

Photo: Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara, CC-BY-SA

Last month, I told you that Google is putting additional efforts into instructing publishers of the benefits of  Google’s video sitemaps.  It is nice to see that Google is also running some PPC ads to promote Video SEO.  Since the start of ReelSEO, I’ve been a proponent of video sitemaps and I have always felt [...]

It’s the weekend and so we here at ReelSEO want to wind down and take it easy. Something came across our desk late Friday that talked about 5min.com and Answers.com teaming up. The deal is that 1,000 questions on Answers.com have been done up as videos. So I thought, what better way to relax than [...]

Last week, we held our second ReelSEO webinar event titled, “Dive Into HTML5 Video – Learn From The Masters.” The webinar was a great success and we had more than 1100 attendees join us for the first hour with more than 500 remaining online past the hour as we extended the Q&A session an additional [...]

It’s Friday, and that means it’s time for another Viral Video Marketing Round Up. This week we saw some truly exceptional viral stories, and I’m looking forward to discussing them and breaking down what helped them get so popular. Without further ado, let’s begin: Viral Wedding Last year, around this time, we saw the JK [...]

I interview Justin Foster, host of the 2010 Video Commerce Summit held in Seattle this past week. Justin talks with me about the reasons for the growth of video in e-commerce, the challenges to overcome, some key issues of discussion and debate, and projections for where the technology and human behavior around video will lead [...]

Mark and I are still putting the finishing touches on a video interview we hope to share very soon, and he noticed something interesting when uploading a test version to YouTube:  The time limit has been increased.  He was able to easily upload a 13-minute edit without any problems.  A quick check of Google News [...]

Last week there were reports that the Old Spice viral marketing campaign was a failure because sales had dropped 7%.  I called shenanigans on that conclusion in a post you can read here. Now this week there’s a rash of stories about how the Old Spice campaign is a success because it has increased sales.  [...]