Video Articles

Here at ReelSEO, we’re interested in pretty much anything to do with video:  video production, video equipment, video marketing, or even video conversion rates for e-commerce.  We’re kind of obsessed with video.  And it seems like maybe IBM is starting to get obsessed with video too. Today IBM released some pretty interesting case study data [...]

Engadget is reporting that the upcoming version of the Apple TV will not have 1080p playback included, but will have apps making it just a really large version of the iPad it seems. Apparently, Apple doesn’t think that you want really high-definition, but do want to connect to Facebook through your TV.Alright, reading an eBook [...]

At this year’s OVC, pop culture hacker and video artist Jonathan McIntosh demonstrates how video remixing can be used as a critical media literacy tool for school kids.

Embedded in the 25,000 TV commercials children are subjected to every year are a set of specific social norms and values about gender roles. Behind the colorful pieces of plastic and sugar coated cereal on sale are deeply restricting attitudes about gender. Gradually, they teach kids of all genders what is expected, what is desirable and what is possible in their lives as adults.

So how can kids be empowered to not only understand their media spaces, but also talk back—responding to a hundred million dollar marketing machine in audiovisual terms? In his presentation, Jonathan will show how simple remix video tools can be used in classroom settings to deconstruct and creatively re-frame gendered TV commercials. Jonathan has been running educational remix workshops for students for several months. He’ll share how his students learned new media technology, video editing, fair-use rights and critical media literacy.

At last year’s OVC, Jonathan McIntosh premiered his video remix, Buffy vs. Edward, to a filled auditorium at NYU. Minutes after his 15 minute session finished, the remix went viral on YouTube and hasn’t let up since. It’s been viewed 3 million times, featured on NPR, Jezebel, Slate, the LA Times, Vanity Fair and the NY Post. The remix quickly reached cult status and was subtitled into 30 languages by fans from all over the world.

To celebrate the one-year anniversary of the first Open Video Conference, the Webby nominated remix is being re-released in a special BitTorrent edition that includes all 30 subs, higher res video, better sound quality and deleted scenes that did not make the final cut. Here’s the torrent link and come to this year’s OVC (October 1-2) for the world-premiere of Jonathan’s next remix!

I interviewed Zappos.com’s Video Product Manager, Laurie Williams, who shares with me how her company Zappos is harnessing their “quirky” company culture to feature both staff and fans in online videos; and using personal engagement to sell their products, their brand, and their culture – for a groovy holistic video e-commerce experience. Zappos Product Videos [...]

Grant Crowell interviews digital media and television guru, Shelly Palmer, about YouTube's recent move to expand their upload limit to 15 minutes for non-partner users (from the previous 10-minute time limit). Shelly and I discuss what effect this may have on the quality of videos posted on YouTube, YouTube’s 15 minutes of fame contest, and how YouTube has helped to create “a world now where people are trying to be famous full-time.”

Grant Crowell interviews REI’s Video Art Director, Jason Lohr-Johnson, about how his company is learning to balance their new automated video production tool with both product videos and personalized videos, balancing SEO benefits with expertise, and tips for how you can be more productive and produce better-quality video for e-commerce.

Vincent Moon is an guerrilla filmmaker from Paris whose obsessive love for music takes him around the world in pursuit of new sounds and images. He’s worked with many notable mainstream artists like Tom Jones, R.E.M. and Arcade Fire, and is best known for his Takeaway Shows—single-take field recordings of indie rock musicians for the French music community La Blogotheque. The direct and honest simplicity of these videos has since been imitated by a legion of copycats, but Moon’s style remains his own.

Moon has long been a believer in artistic freedom and sharing, and has employed Creative Commons licensing on his works for years. He’s also an expert at skipping the middle men—record labels, producers, and others who get between an artist and his art. At OVC, we’ll explore with Moon how far artists should go for “openness”—when can openness actually compromise artistic integrity? How can artists balance a respect for open technologies with a desire to present the best possible work? What challenges do filmmakers and others have in embracing open video?

Besides making music videos, Moon also makes experimental films and documentaries. He’ll share some of his work with us at the event. For a beautiful example, see Moon’s takeaway show with the Seattle folk quintet Fleet Foxes.

Join OVC this October 1-2 in New York City to engage in conversations about openness, sharing, and the connected artist.

mDialog recently announced their ability to deliver both streaming video as well as advertising to the Apple platforms (iPad and iPhone specifically). So I sat down with them for a long chat about how they are doing that and to check it out for myself. As I told Mark Lindsey from Social Radius, sometimes you [...]

I’ve wanted to interview Merton ever since his first Piano Improv Chatroulette video went supernova.  Of course, everyone else wants to interview the viral star as well.  The guy’s probably had a hundred media requests a month since then. Question:  How do you get Merton’s attention so that your interview request stands out from the [...]

Having video viewers tell you which video ads they want to see, and don’t want to see is the new thing. Facebook has been using it for sometime with their own ads and now Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Hulu planning to do the same. Next month, the group of websites will begin to let viewers choose [...]

Marketing through virtual goods and worlds can increase purchase intent by three times and brand awareness by ten times, according to a recently released study by social media services firm App Savvy. The news comes as marketers continue to pour money into virtual goods, a medium that drew $1 billion in ad spend last year [...]

Qlipso has announced that it has integrated its multiuser content-sharing platform into Veoh.com. This has seemed to work on the video front as the duration of viewing has doubled. Qlipso purchased Veoh in Spring 2010. Since then, Veoh continues to draw strong usage among core and new users, with more than 12 million unique monthly [...]

Rumors have been swirling for ages that Google is secretly building their own social networking service.  Even before that Tweet from Digg’s Kevin Rose got tongues wagging, many industry insiders had long suspected Google was looking to get more social. And their recent behavior sure points in that direction.  For starters, they own Orkut, Brazil’s [...]

Sometimes a video goes viral for all the wrong reasons. Maybe it was intended for a smaller audience. And sometimes a video goes viral because the audience thinks it's bad while trying to be good.

E-book readers are all the rage this year with probably dozens of new ones being unveiled by the end of the year. But e-books themselves have gone past the capabilities of even some of the most popular readers, they’re now incorporating video in enhanced versions.It’s an interesting use of video to say the least. This [...]

Grant Crowell inteviews Jason Arend, PFI Western’s VP of Media and Global Marketing, E-Commerce, and Creative Services. Jason shares his experiences with managing multiple companies’ multi-channel video properties, what he recommends for anyone who is looking to be successful with video in e-commerce today, and his secret for how PFI is doing it for no money. (That's right, NO MONEY.)

It’s Friday, which means I’ve got another batch of viral success stories to share with you from the week. As usual, there are far more great videos to learn from than I have room for in this column. But we’ve chosen some gems, and hopefully we can break them apart and analyze them to find the catalyst ingredients that helped propel these videos to popularity.

I read a fantastic article over at Visible Gains called Tuning Website Video For Higher Conversion – Part 1.  It has some really great insight into how webmasters can help nudge users toward certain desired behaviors through different choices in video placement and style.  The author points out that audience behaviors are varied, but offers [...]

The YouTube Life In A Day experiment appears to have gone very well, at least in terms of participation.  You might remember the project, in which the video site partnered with Hollywood directors Ridley Scott and Kevin Macdonald to create a documentary film out of user-generated footage from YouTube. They specifically asked people to film [...]

Grant Crowell covers the panel, "Integrating Video into Your Email Marketing Strategy," at the 2010 Video Commerce Summit in Seattle, sponsored by Liveclicker. Learn from the industry experts on best practices for doing video in email marketing and integration of video into retail e-mails, and I tackle the big question: Is video in most email marketing programs really "video?"