web video thunderdome: the presentation

23 Mar, 2010 • posts i've written • 2 comments

If you remember anything from this deck, remember these two things:

• The web wasn’t built for advertisers. It’s your internet, not theirs. But they, of course, can earn a place on your internet if you choose to let them. And we choose with our clicks. Every click is a vote to let a brand interact with you or not. Thus the whole voting thing – we want people, especially marketers, to be more conscious of the fact that people choose to interact with brands on the internet.
• Stop saying viral videos. Please. Viral assumes the mechanism for distribution is built right in. It’s not. People choose whether or not to spread your content. Viral puts hype ahead of people. For my full thoughts on the blight that is viral, read this full post.

A hearty thanks to everyone that attended our SXSW Interactive panel and participated in voting. A special thanks to the whole Made By Many crew for their support as well. And of course, a big thanks to Mike Arauz for being such an awesome co-presenter.

When SXSW makes our podcast available, we’ll re-upload this presentation so you get the full effect of being there. It was pretty rowdy for 11am on the rainy final morning of the conference.

Be sure to visit WebVideoThunderdome.com to watch all of the popular videos we collected and visit our Delicious page for more background research.

Oh, and the fonts we used were: Public Gothic (free) and Din (not so free). Din was used for all number values and Public Square for all text.

Here’s a full list of the videos presented:

Best Song Parody
Two kings of candy corn, The Muppets and CollegeHumor.com, mash up their unique sensibilities with a pop music classic.

Best Cute Kid Tricks
Whether they’re computer-animated or not, people around the world can’t tear themselves away from these adorable kids doing amazing things.

Best Web Video Antidepressent (or The Happy Happy Joy Joy Prize)
Which is more stimulating to our brain’s pleasure center: mind-blowing physical computing or kittens!?

Best Actor
Two videos with amazing, heart-felt, riveting performances; one wants you to buy soap, the other wants you to treat “gingers” with more respect.

and finally…

Best Web Video of the Year (or The Grampa, You’re Scaring Me! Award)
Two very odd older gentleman go off their rockers, and the internet was there to capture it on video for our LOL-ing and OMG-ing pleasure.

auction ends today for keyboard cat, the painting

16 Jun, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments

Good news: today’s the last day you’ll see me update you on my eBay auction for the keyboard cat painting

Bad news: today’s the last day to place your bid on this rare and majestic piece of pop-art (hey, did you know 10% of the winning bid goes directly to the Humane Society?)

Auction ends today a few minutes shy of 4pm PST.

If you’re still my friend, I could really use some help spreading the word before the auction ends. If you do tweet, blog, shout, coerce, threaten, etc. others about the auction, please let me know, because I want to show you my appreciation. (suggestive eye movement)

keyboard cat, acrylic on canvas

04 Jun, 2009 • posts i've written • 12 comments

First in a series on memes, culture, and pop art, I present to you Keyboard Cat, acrylic on canvas. I thought you might enjoy seeing my finished product here first.

click pic to see full size image

click pic to see full size image

The work as it progressed: One & Two.

If you enjoyed this post, please share it.

If you’d like to suggest my next subject, leave a comment.

UPDATE: Keyboard Cat, Acrylic on Canvas is now up for auction at eBay.

twitmatic

19 May, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments

Twitmatic is the right mix of leveraging existing communities, conversations, platforms, and behaviors to build something fun and useful. From the folks behind ffwd, Twitmatic serves as a search tool for videos being shared back and forth via Twitter. Try typing in ‘kittens,’ then click the video view from the top left and sit back and enjoy clip after clip of kitten goodness.

Brands should be thinking like this. If you want to build something, build it on the back of existing technology with a robust user base and create value for that community.

Mashable pointed out that this site could be double sick if you could get video metrics from it, too. (like how many times it had been tweeted)

mad men: fan made promos

16 May, 2009 • posts i've written • 1 comment

Lyle sent me these video promos he put together for Mad Men. I think they’re phenomenal (and they make me excited for season three, soon). These are as good or better than AMC’s promos and since it came from a fan, I’m apt to watch these over and over. By the way, someone hire Lyle.

measuring the pace of spread

03 May, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments

Faris has written a great observation piece on the pace of cultural latency.

Diminished cultural latency means that the propagation of information is so fast that the spread itself becomes the defining aspect of the system: the rate-of-spread becomes as important as the information itself.

That rate of spread has consumed me for the better part of the last two years. I’m a measurement addict. I crave knowing the deep, dark secrets of the data universe. And what’s more, I crave every bit of competition, and knowing where you and your opponent stand (not too even mention how well I alone am doing). We often work with clients that release content into the web, and I have been tense with not knowing how well that information has spread.

So many factors go into releasing that content: what communities we choose to tap, how well they’re connected, how much social currency is baked into the content for that community, the novelty factor, which platforms we choose, what account we release from, how we title it, what tags we use, what time of day, what day of the week, what other information is spreading within the network, etc. etc. Ultimately though, for this mountain of criteria, our feedback mechanism is lousy. It’s like swimming in the Olympics and being given a time, without rank, without seeing the other swimmers, without the start gun, and without any knowledge of how to swim.

I’ve been obsessing about this, obviously. What I’ve been looking for is a way of understanding the ‘speed of light’ for YouTube, specifically. (admittedly, not the greatest metaphor) What’s the asymptotic curve of how quickly content is spreading in that platform alone, say for the last 2 years? What are we approaching in terms of time between views, or looking outside of that platform alone, time between sharing? Perhaps every bad decision we make in creating, courting, and releasing that information can be likened to friction, and we can begin to measure and better understand that effect in what we do.

If I could choose at random, 150 new videos per day, to track their pace from upload to six months in, what could we learn about the speed of information spread? This question is certainly more vexing when you open it up to events in the world (how quickly swine flu information spread online for example), as well. But YouTube provides a perfect petri dish for discovery (and YouTube study and findings could prove somewhat lucrative as well).

So, is anyone up for the challenge? And can I help?

wall-e & watchmen trailer mashup

23 Mar, 2009

the science of cute

23 Feb, 2009

promoting the beast

06 Jan, 2009 • posts i've written • No comments

Here’s a free idea. I just saw a billboard for the new Swayze vehicle, The Beast. Swayze is an iconic actor. Good or bad, his performances are pretty memorable. And if my memory of him on SNL playing a Chippendale’s dancer along side Chris Farley serves correctly, he knows how to have a chuckle at himself.

I think it’s time for Swayze to take over the internets. I want to see PointBreakSwayze, DirtyDancingSwayze,  WongFooSwayze, GhostSwayze, and RoadHouseSwayze interact with each other and everyone else in places like Twitter and Tumblr. I want to see mashed up trailers for The Beast featuring those Swayzes. I want to see Swayze himself cut some new clips for YouTube of those characters. Swayze’s recovery from cancer is a great story, and I think people would find Swayzes popping up across the web pretty hilarious and fun. And it might just get them interested in his new series, which besides Swayze, sounds like a pretty familar conceit.

Strewth! YouTube’s Monty Python channel gets official

20 Nov, 2008

Filed under: Fun, Internet, Video, Google

Apparently fed up with horrid, low-quality ripoffs of their work being posted to YouTube, Monty Python has decided it’s time to act. They’re fighting back by uploading high-quality videos straight from their private vault.

Though there are currently only two dozen clips available, many have been uploaded recently. It’s likely only a matter of time before favorites like the Cheese Shop, Fish Slapping Dance, and Nudge Nudge surface on the channel.

Don’t fret – they quintessential Python clips are already there: the Black Knight, the Lumberjack Song, and even Pilate talking about his “vewwy good fweind in Wome,” who shall remain nameless. Better yet, they’ve promised to upload HQ versions of the most popular clips.

Just what are they up to? The welcome message is honest enough: “None of your driveling, mindless comments. Instead, we want you to click on the links, buy our movies & TV shows and soften our pain and disgust at being ripped off all these years.”

Works for me, I’ve been a supporter for ages (I think I still have my copy of the old Complete Waste of Time “game”).

Official HQ Python on YouTube: the videos have been posted, and there was much rejoicing.
[ via gHacks ]

Strewth! YouTube’s Monty Python channel gets official originally appeared on Download Squad on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Read|Permalink|Email this|Comments