A little action we shot last month. For more see PUMArunning.com or PUMA Running on facebook. coBRANDiT is assisting PUMA Running with social media content development and outreach.

http://deadman.spike.com

coBRANDiT provides video production, distribution and consulting services to brand marketers, agencies, and organizations of all sizes. We develop and execute social media video projects that involve & engage enthusiast communities...locally, and worldwide. Check out our case studies here.

MENU OF SERVICES

1) Video Production. Professional one and two camera HD shoots with clean sound, lighting. Shooting, editing, packaging. Music direction & rights (if req’d). Event coverage, interview series, behind the scenes, how-to’s, product demos, qualitative research, pitch videos with the emphasis on voice and story.

2) Distributed Video Production Teams. Working with Flip-type video content shot by amateurs, street teams. Development, set up, and management of program, "cleaning up" amateur content with edits, titles, transitions, packaging elements. Providing guidance/shooting tips to teams to maximize quality of content.

3) Live Video, Video Chat. Live event streaming, interviews, multi-person video chat with viewer text chat alongside, moderation. Streams can be archived and edited for later use.

4) Distribution.
a) Multi-channel profile creation and uploads with optimization for discovery and SEO. If authorized we can upload to designated brand channels (Facebook, etc.)
b) High visibility placement on targeted video sharing sites and blogs. Guaranteed user-initiated views.
c) PR and outreach, channel management. Monitoring and responding to comments, friend requests, etc. Locating relevant channels and individuals and working to engage them with video content.
d) Full reporting on all of the above.

5) Street Teams, Alternative Media. Need something to happen in a number of markets simultaneously? Parties, events, product intros, street teams, flyers, wild postings, etc. with a video component.

6) Custom Applications and Code.
a) Facebook Gifts: Sharable among friends. Send your pals virtual gifts and vouchers redeemable for real goods and/or exclusive content. Fully integrated with your branded fan page.
b) Facebook Fan Only Offers. Not a fan? Sorry. No love. This sidebar box displays offers to fans only. Non-fans are urged to join and reap the rewards.
c) FaceBooth. A photobooth for events that uploads participant images to Facebook. Custom branded image frames bring your event 135 x the exposure.
d) Cross Platform Video Widgets and White Label Players. Highly customizable. Get your content out to 25+ social networking sites in a player with your branding and links. Guaranteed installs available.

7) Social media ad networks. Drive traffic to your video or fan pages. Deep Experience. Full reporting.

8) Consulting. Take advantage of our experience working on high profile projects for PUMA, GM, Proctor & Gamble, ADA Midwest, Boston Coach, Flying Dog Brewery, Pabst Brewing, Gyro Worldwide, Cutwater, Ogilvy PR, Weber Shandwick, WOMMA and others. Utilize our contacts and our wide network of production partners with deep experience in social media, word-of-mouth, and event marketing.

Monthly retainer for long term project management and consulting. Day rate and hourly fees for short term projects. Final prices depend on length and complexity of project, activation components, number of markets covered, and deliverables. Rush fees may apply.

For more information please contact:

Owen Mack, Strategy & Development
617.823.9286 direct
owen@cobrandit.com

Download our capabilities .pdf or grab our widget (as seen above) & pass it along. Thanks!

Jesse and I will be shooting video at PUMA Running's Street Meet Boston this weekend. Street Meet is what you get if you drop a come-one-come-all track meet into a Jamaican street carnival, and add in international stars like Usain Bolt. Street Meet Boston is stop one on a 6 city international tour.

coBRANDiT is working closely with PUMA Running on video production, social media optimization, and community outreach surrounding Street Meet and other running initiatives.

coBRANDiT | 119 Braintree Street #516 | Boston, MA 02134 USA (map)
We're everywhere. Google us.

Owen Mack, Chief of Strategy & Development | View Owen's profile
617-823-9286 direct | owen@cobrandit.com | facebook | twitter: @cobrandit

Jesse Buckley, Producer. Shooter. Editor. | View Jesse's profile
617-388-8165 direct | jesse@cobrandit.com | facebook | twitter: @jessebuckley

Want to know more about our capabilities? See below.

"Whether they admit it or not every team has a guy who loves to take his clothes off. PUMA's guy just happens to be bowman Casey Smith. When rounding Cape Horn, Casey promised to round in the nude. As you will see, he kept his word..."

coBRANDiT is working with PUMA Ocean Racing for the next 7 months, helping to engage audiences through social media.

Facebook has just re-designed the functionality of branded fan pages. Here's what you need to know, courtesy of Jamie Tedford's Brand Networks, Inc.

Jesse and I launched a new Twitter channel yesterday: http://twitter.com/FlipHowTo. We'll share tips, tricks, and our experiences using these cameras personally and professionally. While they have their faults, these little cameras have revolutionized video production...and make the kind of marketing Jesse and I have always dreamed of possible. If you have questions get in touch, or drop #fliphowto into a tweet and add your 2 cents! For more Flip info and a downloadable tip sheet, see this post.

The Brief:
With the return of legalized absinthe to the US market Austrian distiller Fischer Schnaps began importing Absinthe Mata Hari in late 2008. Partnering up with marketing agency the Brand Action Team, Fischer Schnaps launched a campaign to introduce this "mixable absinthe" to communities of cocktail enthusiasts in key markets. Reaching out to noted cocktail bloggers, the Brand Action Team began sponsoring drink nights at local wi-fi enabled bars: mixologists meet to develop original recipes based on Absinthe Mata Hari, and share the results via live chat. But how to publicize this activity, put faces to names, and get out the word on absinthe's return to the US? And how to give the bloggers valuable content that would highlight their original creations?

coBRANDiT's Role:
Armed with a single Flip Mino HD camera, coBRANDiT documented the January 22 drink night session at Washington DC's Tabard Inn. The resulting video introduced chat room participants, provided links to their blogs, and contextualized Absinthe Mata Hari in the cocktail scene...as well as showcasing the top drink creations. Within a few days of the event we distributed the video on a variety of platforms and sites, with the Brand Action Team handling outreach and commentary. A "basic training" component was built into the project, with the goal of seeing what could be done with simple tools...the ultimate intention is to have reps. in local markets documenting events with Flip cameras and sending raw content to coBRANDiT for editing, distribution, and optimization.

Results: As of this writing the video has been embedded in drink blogs and forums over 800 times.

I've recently been crawling around PermissionTV's site, trying to get a handle on what all their "SmartPlayer" is capable of...and how to make use of it. I gotta talk to these guys (and this is a good opportunity for those of us in Boston). Here's the player capabilities list from their site:

* Smart Playlists: video content presented based on targeting rules that combine viewer information (e.g., demographics, geographic location) and business objectives.
* Video Overlay: additional information may be presented during video playback such as commentary, links to additional content, options to purchase products, etc.
* Integrated Viewer Feedback: viewers may provide feedback during video playback through voting, polls, clickable graphics, etc.
* Branching: facilitates a real-time change in the content path based on previous activity or viewer action to optimize relevancy
* Hotspotting: areas within the video are highlighted for selection to trigger activities such as learning more detail or purchasing a product
* Contextual Viewer Notes: viewers may add notes directly on the video experience, creating personalized messages to share with friends
* Tag-based Viewing: videos may be tagged and re-organized to create new viewing experiences
* Ad Serving: multiple ad servers and formats may be combined within one video experience to give viewers the best - and most content relevant - advertising and presentation
* Syndication: all capabilities travel with the video on distribution to other sites, blogs and social networks including MySpace and Facebook

Thing is when I tried to embed it here the code screwed up my blog formatting...

In 2009 it's all about novice teams shooting Flip videos and sending us their content for editing. Here's something Jesse and I have been working on...
For use by distributed production teams and novice camera operators.

Recommendations for Shooting Video With Flip-type Cameras:

Avoid backlit interviews. Try to have subjects lit from the front or side. Do not have their backs to the sun, windows, or bright lights. Natural light is preferable to other light sources.

Hold camera 18” to 36” from subject so their head and shoulders fill the viewfinder. This will also improve audio quality. Shoot with the camera close to your eye level and face.

Avoid using zoom. Instead move the camera closer or further away.

Be aware of how much ambient noise there is. Sudden loud noises are worse than a steady hum of activity.

Shooting where there is action behind the subject increases the interest of the composition & can enhance the story. Find a spot out of the way but in the subject’s typical environment.

Don't shoot what your subject is describing while they're talking. Rather, shoot them talking, then follow up and take additional descriptive shots.

Get details of the subject’s routine, things they do every day that will illustrate their character, their core values, or both. When shooting this type of content, treat the video camera like you’re taking a photograph. Hold the camera motionless on a scene for 10 seconds and let people/cars/objects move through it.

If you want to follow or track motion, try to start or stop your movement with a still shot.

Get subjects to say/spell their names and titles so they can be positively ID'd later.

Ask some softball questions first to get your subject comfortable. Look for an entry to a deeper discussion.

Have fun with the process and don't worry too much about getting it "right." Getting good content will compensate for technical difficulties (within reason).

Workflow and Media Management:

Flip video cameras require 2 hours to charge. Each charge will last for approx. 1.5 hours of video. Plan ahead. If you have a Flip Ultra, they take 2 AA’s. Swap in some new ones and you’re good to go!

Flip video cameras hold 1 hour of video content before they need to be “emptied”. If shooting for more than an hour either have your second camera ready to go or have your laptop booted up and ready to receive video.

Flip video cameras are similar to accessory hard drives. When you mount the camera to your laptop’s USB the camera will appear as a hard drive. The video files are located in DCIM/100Video. Copy them off to a designated folder and label the files with where they were shot. If using a Flip Mino HD make sure you have LOTS of storage space available. You may want to purchase an accessory hard drive for this purpose.

After transferring video files to your drive, spot check them and make sure the transfer was successful. If so, remove videos from the Flip camera by dragging the contents of “100Video” to the trash and deleting them. Now you’re ready to shoot another hour of video.

If you wish to send video files via the web, zip the files into a folder and send via yousendit.com. Video files are too big to email as an attachment. HD files will take a LONG time to send via web. Cameras may also be sent in for editing via FedEx.

Files can be most readily edited in iMovie or Final Cut Pro. Buy a Mac.

Want a .pdf of this to distribute to your teams? Download here.

Prepared by Jesse Buckley and Owen Mack, coBRANDiT
Video Questions? Call 617.823.9286 or visit www.cobrandit.com. We've also launched a Flip How-To twitter channel that we'll keep updated with new insights. Join in and tell us your tips!

New video released by coBRANDiT today: WOMM-U is a 2-day comprehensive and interactive educational experience from WOMMA. It's built around giving you the real-world knowledge you need to execute exceptional word of mouth marketing programs that are most effective in today's recession economy.

When and where?
May 13-14, 2009 at the Ritz Carlton South Beach Miami.

For more info please visit http://womma.org/wommu/

The Brief:
Narragansett Brewing Company runs an annual Father's Day tie contest wherein consumers are asked to submit tie designs to the Brewery. 15,000 examples of the winning design are given away with the purchase of a case of beer. The contest has been traditionally limited to residents of Providence, RI, but in 2009 Narragansett wished to spread word of the contest to creative communities in Boston as well.

coBRANDiT's Role:
Utilizing existing creative (a poster), coBRANDiT created a cross-platform widget that could be shared (via email or social nets) and embedded in blogs and profiles. The widget contained contest details, links to brand websites, an invitation to the contest wrap party, and a video call-to-action.

coBRANDiT distributed both the widget and the related video, posting to 12+ social media sites and managing blogger outreach and commentary across all channels. All content was optimized for SEO with the secondary goal of improving search results for Narragansett Beer.

Results: Word got around between Boston and Providence, and 'Gansett got many entries. The winning tie was released and spawned at least one fan video...see below.

Text of a recent twitter writing binge I went on, triggered by a Jeremiah tweet and all those recent posts about the sudden glut of "social media experts":

Jeremiah's tweet: reviewing data from a recent Forester survey regarding if brands will increase or decrease social media spend during a recession. stay tuned.

I reply: @jowyang will be interesting to see your report. seems to me like mktg budgets are getting cut overall but SM budgets are going up.

all this talk http://tinyurl.com/458jm5 about the economy creating bogus SM "experts"...but there is a lot of opportunity.

let me riff on this more...economic downturn means people are losing their jobs...some of them are now social media "experts"

i've red a bunch of posts on this...checklists to make sure your social media expert isn't full-o-BS...anyway

with all these "experts" looking for work in social meda...and all the growing budgets for social media...don't you think there's a fit?

let's talk about my sense of social media budgets growing. my partner and i operate a 2 man video production house and SM consultancy.

we work for start-ups, small agencies, very big agencies, beer breweries and international brands. the last few months have been very busy.

2009 is going to be busier. we have more new business now than we ever have...and more existing clients growing programs.

how are social media programs growing? what are the driving factors that we're seeing this new year? video, of course...but also community.

community is one of those tossed around words with lots of different meanings. SEO guys often think community is a numbers game.

for a brand looking to hire someone to manage their youtube and blog comments these out of work "experts" could be perfectly competent.

and that's what needs to happen in 2009: businesses/brands "participating" in social media need to follow thru on the comments, etc.

that, plus shoot a bunch of video. ;-)

THERE! all global economic and social media problems solved.
@cobrandit http://twitter.com/cobrandit

The Brief:
Viximo is a leader in the growing market for virtual gifts, creating platforms for developing and monetizing digital goods worldwide. On January 5th 2009 Viximo released a landmark new development platform called VixML that allows talented designers to create basic iPhone applications with a minimal amount of programming knowledge. With a month to go before launch date Viximo contracted with coBRANDiT to produce an HD video that would explain the basics...and show off some of the cool things developed with VixML.

coBRANDiT's Role:
Viximo had an outline of the information that needed to be delivered...verbal and visual. We worked to streamline the content and develop a script that was then sent out to VO talent. We then shot supporting HD footage at the Viximo offices and in our studio which was edited together to create a 2 minute piece that demonstrates VixML's capabilities...and how the results look on an iPhone. The finished video is posted to YouTube HD.

Results:
Techcrunch wrote up the January 5th launch, giving VixML a great review and embedding the video. As of this writing (January 7th) the video has over 6000 views and is growing daily. The post has been linked to by numerous tech sites (many of whom have embedded the video) and has generated 36+ comments...a strong launch in a targeted community.

"coBRANDiT did an awesome job of understanding what we were trying to accomplish in the video & applying their creative energy to bring cool, innovative ideas to the table. Video they produced was very high quality & they were super responsive to all the feedback & edits that I had."
--Ted Achtem, Product Manager at Viximo, Inc.

There seems to be real push to get branded content out there via social media. But are companies following through on maintaining the community (or even just managing the comments) that then spring up? Are they developing content specifically for these communities? Seems to me that getting companies into social media is a series of incremental steps...and we should be happy with every little step taken. In this video David Armano of Critical Mass and Christine Morrison of Intuit discuss the issue. Presented in a fun little widget (aka white label video player) I put together...also pimping the next womma conference this May...Ritz Carlton South Beach, Miami. Be there.

I spent New Year's Day cruising around town documenting some of the sweet rides found on the streets here...typified by the kind of shabby chic I love. Happy New Year from coBRANDiT!

That's right: Free beer for a year if you win the 2009 Narragansett Beer tie design contest. Send a lo-res image of your design to Intern@NarragansettBeer.com by January 23, 2009 and keep your fingers crossed. Check the widget above for further deets. Click "share" and pass it on. Good luck!

Courtesy Robert Scoble and FastCompany.tv:

"Chris Putnam, software engineer at Facebook who runs the video team, talks about its new HD video feature. He also tells me about how he got his job at Facebook, which is quite interesting because it wasn't with a traditional interview."

We are live streaming sessions from WOMMA's word-of-mouth marketing summit today and tomorrow. You can check out the stream here.
UPDATE: Archived Summit 08 content can be seen here. An example can be seen above.

The Brief:
The Word-of-Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) was founded in 2004, coBRANDiT has attended every conference they have put on. In fall 2005 we approached WOMMA and offered to provide video coverage of their events with the goal of providing short, insightful interviews with key participants that could be viewed and shared by ad and marketing industry professionals. We have been working on WOMMA's behalf ever since.

coBRANDiT's role:
We have covered WOMMA events in a variety of ways including:
1) Shooting interviews with keynote speakers and panelists and rapidly preparing edited pieces for web delivery. Examples can be seen here.
2) Live streaming keynote addresses and general sessions via WOMMA's Ustream channel (archived videos require WOMMA membership, though an example can be seen here).
3) Mobile live streaming and party coverage using a combination of qik-enabled N95's and Flip Video cameras. For a detailed post on this type of coverage, read this.
4) We also produce and distribute overview videos used to pitch specific upcoming WOMMA events, and build cross-platform widgets (white label video players with WOMMA links and other information) to help spread the word.

Results:
Our WOMMA videos have accumulated over 50,000 views and have helped to demonstrate, establish and solidify WOMMA's leadership in a new industry. WOMMA video content has been featured on top marketing blogs and has led to increased online chatter, increased search visibility and improved traffic to womma.org. Here's one of my favorite WOMMA videos, featuring a massive game of Rocks/Paper/Scissors:

I will be broadcasting live from Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba's SWOMfest '08 in Austin, October 30. Using my N95, run thru Qik.com over AT&T's 3G network into Mogulus, as seen here in player above.

Follow-Up: I turned off the live player and have instead embedded the opening minutes of SWOMfest: A Zombie Dance to MJ's Thriller, and Ben McConnell's opening remarks. Be patient...it takes 50 seconds till the zombies come out... More of our SWOMfest video content can be seen here on our qik channel and a revolving selection here on the SWOMfest mogulus channel we built.

The Brief:
In early 2008 PUMA Running began sponsoring up and coming Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt. On May 31 Bolt surprised the running world by setting a new world record in the 100m, and it was decided to create a video “blogumentary” following Bolt as he prepared for and competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. A flash based site and game was built to contain the program, but how to attract online running communities and the wider world of Olympic enthusiasts? What word-of-mouth and social media strategies could be used to involve viewers, improve SEO, and drive traffic to chasingbolt.com?

coBRANDiT’s Role:
In the space of 4 weeks we developed a multi-faceted social media outreach strategy that consisted of distribution to 15+ video sharing and social networking sites, as well as a branded Facebook application with a related cross-platform video widget. We optimized the videos within networks, responded to commentary, reached out to top running and olympic bloggers to gain choice placement, managed ad buys supporting the program, and ran a user-generated photo contest through the Chasing Bolt Facebook app. During the month of August, 12 videos were sent from Beijing to us for distribution and optimization, resulting in over 2 million views, a 64% increase in PUMA-related online chatter, and on August 20th the greatest number of daily uniques for any PUMA web property ever.

UPDATE: On November 14th 2008 this program received an Award of Excellence from the Society for New Communications Research.

“coBRANDiT put together a great social media campaign, the results of which exceeded our expectations. They know the space very well and are very easy to work with. I highly recommend coBRANDiT.”
-–Matt Taylor, Global Manager, PUMA Running

“coBRANDiT has been an incredible help to PUMA in areas from consumer research to digital campaign launches, always bringing fresh ideas and seeing them through to execution. Their passion and energy lifts up our entire team.”
--Ryan Eckel, Group Head, Marketing Strategy and Operations, PUMA AG

**Note: coBRANDiT has also conducted man-on-the street video research for PUMA in top markets such as Paris, London and NY; produced internal sales vids for PUMA Running; and consulted on social media and word-of-mouth programs off and on since 2004.

coBRANDiT is working with Fizz and the ADA Midwest documenting the ADA Midwest's Refuel with Chocolate Milk program. The program aims to spread awareness of chocolate milk's benefits as a recovery beverage at high school football games, track meets, and at health and fitness events throughout Ohio. The video series will be distributed in a custom player late in 2009.

"The coBRANDiT team really knows what they're doing. With work from Sixthman to Chocolate Milk they bring some great creative ideas to the table. They always deliver results and they do it within your time frame and do it with class. I highly recommend their work."
--Tyson Yirak, Director of Operations, Fizz

The Brief:
Athlete’s Performance provides training staff, facilities, and equipment to top athletes in the NFL, NBA, MLB, and many other sports. For the launch of their new consumer focused website coreperformance.com Athlete’s Performance required interview and demonstration videos shot on location with their coaching staff, as well as long-term social media video capabilities and strategic assistance.

coBRANDiT’s Role:
Working with Core Performance’s site editors, coBRANDiT shot interviews in Boston and Phoenix, creating over 40 2-3 minute HD videos in the space of about four weeks. We developed custom compression specs and delivered finished flash video ready to be uploaded to coreperformance.com’s servers ahead of schedule. As an ongoing partner to Athlete’s Performance, coBRANDiT continues to provide regular video content for coreperformance.com, and assists with strategic facilitation of social media video strategy.

“We needed storytellers experienced with video production and coBRANDiT did an excellent job. By helping us translate our needs into video presentations they really helped me sell-in to our organization just how we can use video to help out users out.”
--Sean Bohan, VP Strategy & Production at Athletes' Performance (Read more details here)

The Brief:
DailyGrommet.com is a web retailer hooked in to social media. Daily Grommet is “a place to learn about, and buy, one great product a day. Our promise to you is to offer fresh finds, and true stories, every day.” Launched in mid-October 2008, Daily Grommet emphasizes community, and stays connected to it’s audience with widgets, blog posts, twitter, and numerous social networking sites. Founders Jules Pieri and Joanne Domeniconi knew daily video would be a key storytelling component, but had no video production or distribution experience.

coBRANDiT’s Role:
Every weekday we produce a 2 minute video which features Jules and Joanne (and others) talking about their product offerings; the vids are distributed on 9+ social media video sites as well as on Grommet's homepage. We built a simple studio in the Daily Grommet offices for regular shoots, and work with Jules and Joanne to integrate manufacturer videos and their own Flip Video content. We also produced introductory and “about” videos for the site launch, and continue to offer strategic counsel relating to social media video. Watch Daily Grommet here.

“I hired coBRANDiT to produce our daily videos for www.dailygrommet.com. This was a big decision because our team had no expertise in this area and we really needed pros… coBRANDiT is delivering on all counts. They are highly dedicated, make us sound way better than we should, and really add valuable experience, creativity, and perspective to the whole project. Our video shoot day is becoming a highlight of the week… Great work!” --Jules Pieri, Founder, Daily Grommet

The Brief:
Craft brewer Flying Dog has an ambitious social media program; they aim to be the most web 2.0 savvy brewer online. The goal is to communicate with home brewers, beer drinkers, and aficionados in the environments where they live, and to create and place content in easily sharable formats. Video is a clear part of the mix.

coBRANDiT’s Role:
coBRANDiT traveled to Flying Dog HQ in Denver, CO for 2 week long taping sessions; one in the winter and one in the summer. While in Colorado we documented the brewhouse, interviewing brewery founders, the head brew master, bottlers, and other staff; the brewery Superbowl retreat in Steamboat, a road trip to Flying Dog’s original location in Aspen, and various staff interactions and brewery events. The results were edited into a year’s worth of bi-weekly video which was distributed on various sharing sites, and on a vlog we built and continue to manage. We also developed and distributed a video widget that brought the entire series to embedded locations. In addition we worked with FD marketing on how best to integrate our activities with event, advertising and packaging initiatives, tying it all together with an outreach strategy that incorporated all elements of the program.

SNCR recognized our work with the 2007 Award of Excellence in the Corporate Video category, a full case study can be seen here.

“The guys at coBRANDiT are forward thinkers. They’re constantly analyzing new and current social media technologies to present to clients and integrate into their marketing efforts. They love this stuff.” –Neal Stewart, Prime Minister of Marketing

**Note: Neal was formerly the Brand Manager for Pabst Blue Ribbon, and in that role became coBRANDiT’s first client. We produced a series of PBR neighborhood interviews for him in exchange for beer. The story was written up by Rob Walker in Inc. magazine, August 2004. That’s what put us on the map.

coBRANDiT’s Role:
We shot and delivered finished, edited videos (6-8 per roundtable) within days of the event, and in the case of cancersandcareers.org we developed a cross-platfrom widget containing videos, info pages, and links to relevant urls. Distribution was handled by MS&L.

coBRANDiT’s Role:
We sent a two-man video crew to cover the event, attending blogger dinners, press events, the show floor, and interviewing GM managers and auto industry bloggers about their take on the state of the industry and show announcements. Within two days we released 14 detailed videos on various social media sites, and built a cross-platorm video widget to allow easy sharing and embedding on relevant blogs and social networks. These videos were viewed thousands of times and resulted in increased traffic to Gmnext.

Set up a clipmarks account and easily clip web items (video, pics and text) and post them to your blog. It is so frickin' cool, I love it. It's like the "share on facebook" bookmarklet thingy for firefox. So easy. Clipmarks also provides widgets and cross-platform sharing tools galore. OK, enough.

Here's the video we just put together promoting WOMMA's Summit 2008 in November at the Rio in 'Vegas. Shot the whole thing with Flip Video cameras and my N95.

Jesse and I recently produced a set of 20+ videos for CorePerformance's site launch. We spoke with CorePerformance's professional trainers on location in Boston and Phoenix on topics such as Mindset, Nutrition, and How to do the World's Greatest Stretch. The above vid is about Snacks for the Golf Course.

Watch how the titles and logos work in these videos. I'm pretty proud of the titles and logos.

Yeah yeah, I know every video site has it's version of this...but I just came across DailyMotion's version so I thought I'd embed it. Another tool you can use to show off your social media participation...

As part of PUMA's chasingBOLT video distribution program we have developed the above video widget and a related Facebook app. on Involver's platform. (Click on the Join on Fb logo in the lower right corner of the widget.) Thanks to Rahim and the Involver team for busting ass and getting it out in short order! Involver is an interesting platform for two reasons: 1) They have a number of plug-ins that allow easy function withing the widget: email capture, quizzes, outbound links can all be set up to run within the player, and 2) this player integrates with Facebook like no other i've come across. Involver creates a custom app. with many community sharing and outreach functions that I'm hoping we'll be able to utilize...planning time is tight (we just got the whole assignment 10 days ago) but we do have a few things in store...Watch for special Usain Bolt Olympic gear and info coming through this thing!

PUMA Running has hired coBRANDiT to help distribute video and publicize content from chasingBOLT.com. chasingBOLT is a "blogumentary series" which follows PUMA sponsored 100m world record holder Usain Bolt as he travels to Beijing to compete in the 2008 Olympics. Working with our distribution partners Pandemic Labs and Involver we'll be updating various social media video channels, widgets and apps. with new content regularly for the next month, so stay tuned!

Dipity provides a nice tool for pulling together all your RSS-enabled web activities, above is one we built for ourselves. This could be a useful thing for pulling together all the content produced around an event or theme, there's lots of sharing and embed functions and different nifty ways to view the info: as a text list, a thumbnail flipper, as timeline, or as map (if you've got that kind of data).

OK, I don't quite understand this vidyup thing yet but it seems to allow site owners/managers the ability to allow their viewers/readers/users the ability to upload video to the site via YouTube. How site owners manage incoming video is not clear to me...so I've embedded it and now I'm gonna play with it. Results forthcoming.

**UPDATE 6/25/08** So here's how it works: You embed the widget above on your site and include a call to action separately: "Hey!! Upload your crazy dog videos here!!" When your readers upload a vid to their own personal YouTube channel you receive an email from VidyUp that includes the embed code. From there you just grab the code (if you like the vid) and drop it into your site (as seen below). Pretty basic...but exactly what I could have used 3 years ago when we launched the original coBRANDiT site.

I was interviewed a couple days ago by Adam Zand of Topaz Partners on his call in show Really Big Shoe. We talked a bit about how coBRANDiT got started, the importance of video quality (or lack thereof), and using video to create a feedback loop in a community. Talk Shoe is a pretty cool technology that allows people to conference live by phone, online, and/or via chat. An archive of the conversation is created and dropped into a widget like the one above (which contains my interview). I met Adam at Bryan Person's Social Media Breakfast a few weeks back; we did an impromptu utterz post on the feedback loop topic where I talked about my experience producing video on the Lynyrd Skynyrd Simpleman Cruise. Here's the utter:

Ok folks...a breakdown of the technologies we used to vlog from WOMM-U last week in Miami. We used two cameras: a Nokia N95 8gb and a Flip Video Ultra. The N95 is a multi-functional phone/computer often billed as competition for the iPhone. It's user interface blows by comparison but it shoots very nice video and has a few video apps. available that make it a great vlogging tool. You can shoot video to memory and then send the video (we use Shozu) to many social media video sites at once with one touch of a button. I typically send videos to a couple of youtube channels, a couple of blip.tv channels, and utterz.com though there are 20+ others i could set up. Shozu uploads are limited to a 10mb file size (though direct uploads to individual sites are not). That's why we didn't use Shozu in Miami. Instead, we live streamed via Qik.

We loaded Qik onto the N95 and set up our account online. When you open up Qik on the N95 it takes about 2 seconds to load, then you hit the button labeled "stream" and there you are, live streaming to the web with a few seconds of delay. Viewers can type in chat comments and they appear on the screen of the N95 in real time. This means if I'm talking to Joeseph Jaffe (as I did at the womma party in Miami, see photo above) viewers can ask questions which appear on my screen and I can ask Joe to respond. Joe sent out a tweet to alert his audience and we were off and running. As a side note: Qik videos can be viewed or embedded in two ways: you can embed a player which shows live video whenever you go live, or you can embed and view archived streams as individual clips (like you do on youtube). Here's the archived stream created while Joe was running my N95. I had gone to get beer...



Ok, understand so far? Good. Now it's gonna get more complex...we were also using Mogulus. Mogulus allows you to produce a 24/7 video channel that's always playing a rotation of selected video. Whenever you go live (which you can do via an N95 and qik, or via a web cam like the one built into you laptop) the live stream automatically bumps the rotation and there you are. Live. Mogulus lets you overlay branding and tickers and titles and crawls, so you can apply text and images to your live feeds (and the vids in rotation for that matter). We set up a Mogulus channel for WOMM-U at mogulus.com/womma. Mogulus is set up so that multiple producers can login from remote locations. You could run a live or near live channel from different places around the world. This just in from our team in Dakar! Pretty cool. Mogulus allows chat in the same way Qik does, and offers customized embeddable players. I'm not embedding one here because they're a pain in a blog post. They're always on! They need to be on a standalone page like this one: the coB homepage.

So far so good. But it turns out that live video is hard to produce (surprise!). Easy technically, but in terms of compelling content you've got to have your interviews and situations lined up pretty well. And to get the chat going you've got to do a little pre-publicity and then run the camera for awhile to give people a chance to respond. People aren't used to live web video. The first comments we get are usually something like "Are you really live? Say hello to me if you are." To make live video work well you've got to have pre-determined go live times and you've got to stream for 15-20 minutes minimum. AND you've got to have some good content lined up. A hot interview, a sweet scenario, a crazy event, a compelling demo. Want the easy mobility of an N95 but don't need or want to go live? Want to produce video you can actually edit? Ahhhh....Flip Video Ultra.

These $140 cameras hold an hour of flash video content and produce amazingly crisp 600x480 video with good sound. The file formats can be a little wonky (.avi) but there are easy workarounds available. The converter I use is streamclip, available from apple. Here's the Flip workflow: Put it in your pocket. When you want to shoot, pull it out, turn it on and in 3 seconds you're ready to shoot. Hit the red button and you're recording, hit it again and you stop. There's a basic digital zoom that helps in some situations, but it degrades the video quality. When you've got an hour of content, flip out the built in USB and load it on to your computer. You can load on files directly (the camera functions just like an accessory hard drive) or you can edit and compress videos right on the Flip--all the software is on the camera's drive in a nifty little program that opens up on your computer screen. The way we work is to bring the files into iMovie or Final Cut Pro and edit them down a bit and add titles and music. Then we do our own compression and throw it up on YouTube or Viddler or load it into our Mogulus stream or whatever. Here's a mix we produced this way at WOMM-U. It's not live, but pretty close if you work fast and the content can better because it's edited...but you lose the live chat functionality. Though you can chat about non-live video through Mogulus if you want to.

Part of the question here is quality vs. quantity, and is live really valuable? Depends on the situation. I can certainly think of a lot of applications for live video, but you really need to do the advanced set-up, PR, and pre-production to get it to engage people and work properly. Near live like we did with the Flip worked pretty darn well, though at an event you need to set aside time for editing or be prepared to stay up late. Need more quality? That's why we aren't throwing out our nice Sony HD camera and our wireless mics...yet.

Jesse and I will be live vlogging portions of WOMMA's WOMM-U down in Miami May 7-9. For the next few days you can check out the action on our front page and here at a more permanent site. I'll do a more detailed post on what tools we're using soon. Hint: Mogulus, Qik, Nokia N95's and Flip Video Ultras.

We are taking the opportunity to make a PR announcement: coBRANDiT is teaming up with guerrilla marketing agency Street Attack to offer a full suite of alternative marketing services. We've built out the widget below to help spread the word. Check it out and let me know what you think! (That goes for the live vlogging too...)

From a Scott Monty Facebook post publicizing ooVoo, a video conferencing platform that looks pretty cool:

In February 2008, a group of 20 bloggers and podcasters hosted "My ooVoo Day". The participating bloggers chatted with fans via ooVoo. To thank all the bloggers hosting the chats, ooVoo donated $30,000 to the Frozen Pea Fund, a fund established to support the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer campaign, in honor of blogger and cancer patient Susan Reynolds. Go to http://www.oovoo.com/ to download ooVoo...

Jesse and I attended Bryan Person's Social Media Breakfast in Cambridge MA this morning...fun event. I shot some N95 qik video of the 4 presenters and did a little video show and tell. Topic: getting hired via social media. Guess what? If you want to get hired in the social media jobspace, the paper resume is dead. You can see all the video posts here.

I bought a Flip Video Ultra last week and I just got it. It's pretty cool, very nice build quality, video quality, the software is all included in the camera so when you plug the thing into your usb it's all there. Sweet! Except that if you're running a 2 year old mac with 10.4, you get no audio when you try to view in quicktime. This means you can't view outside of Flip's program...no editing in iMovie or FCP. Flip includes a 3ivx codec to plug into quicktime but it doesn't solve the prob. I tried some third party plug-ins I found online (Perian.org and others) to no avail, then called Flip's help line. They told me to try Perian. I said that no good. They said there was an issue with 10.4 and they were working on a patch. I said when patch ready? They said dunno. I said so....my new toy is trash until then? They said yes, sorry. Hang up. LAME!

I've since found squared5's mpeg streamclip, which is a converter that solved all the probs, 'cept the audio is still really soft. Shame on Flip for not being up front about the problem on their site.

BLF Manifesto

Plan-B

WOM vs. Ads

CGM

Freevlog.org
And Beer.

BLF Manifesto

Plan-B

WOM vs. Ads

CGM

Freevlog.org
And Beer.

WOMMA's next conference is WOMM-U, May 8 and 9 in Miami. Here's a video and widget we put together to help publicize the event. Pass it on! and see you there. It's also here on blip.tv and here on YouTube and a bunch of other places...

Sarah Meyers [of] daily show Pop17, a joint production with Rocketboom...
Like superstar blogger Robert Scoble who has both an edited and a live show at fastcompany.tv, Sarah two as well.

Robert uses QIK. Sarah uses Flixwagon. Both use the Nokia N95.

Beyond the live audience for these video casts, the clips are saved and archived by both services. Earlier this month, YouTube announced an API to allow streams from QIK and Flixwagon to upload directly to YouTube. Robert reported this first on QIK earlier this month. Flixwagon announced the news on it's blog a few days later.

It is the archival use of these video that is the promise of this new technology.

In addition to live uploading, Sarah explains later in this interview how the 3GP files on the Nokia can be downloaded into a editing system.

I finally got around to checking out Kyte. Impressive. I'll be playing with this once i get my N95 back. The above video is too long but sure tells a good story: Video, live video, live text and audio chat, full embedability, app. development tools for facebook etc. This is advanced stuff.

Well, I really do love ShoZu, which allows you to easily upload video from your phone to any number of different locations quick and easy....as long as your file size is less than 10mb. That is a tiny limit! It means that people running decent camera phones can only upload 20-30 seconds of material. Bummer! There's a petition on the ShoZu forums to raise the upload limit, or make it a pay service, but no answer from Shozu yet. ShoZu! Help! I can't use your service enough!

Some years ago we started a site called OBTTV dedicated to cheap uploads. We've resurrected it as a mobile platform, for the moment running on blip.tv. Upload your own mobile vids to obttv.smile@mobile.blip.tv and it'll appear. Fun eh? Here's an official announcement we ran on Qik earlier today.

Who Needs A Movie? is the most recent viral to enter my inbox. A wonderful argument for the power of web video...500k plus people have watched this thing in the last month. I wonder how many have clicked through to their site and PayPalled them a $1 CDN? (For access to more videos...even though they're all up on YouTube) These guys are probably rich now. I could learn a thing or 2 from Fred and Sharon up in Canada.

We're learning to build widgets on sprout's platform, here's an example we mocked up for a theoretical PUMA motorsport campaign. Widgets to me represent the ultimate viral thing for a marketer...a perfect little tranferable package...as long as you recognize that they're worthless as a stand-alone gadget. They should be treated as the interface for a much deeper experience, and an interface that provides some usefulness & utility. Pretend you're an F1 race fan, then play around with the widget above and you'll see some of what I'm talking about. Note: PUMA produces Ferrari's team gear.

More detail from Desperate Housewives stylist Cate Adair...a project we shot for MS&L in NY. We've got it here on Viddler because we can drop url's for the sites Cate mentions right in the vid...nice! From the description:

Cate Adair, stylist for Desperate Housewives, partnered with Febreze for a roundtable discussion on spring style with top fashion and style bloggers. In this video, Cate reveals style tips for new moms, must have brands for spring, and using Febreze to care for your vintage items. This is the second in the series from the Febreze "Breath of Fresh Style" blogger roundtable discussion.

This is cool...all sorts of widgets available from freewebs, built on all sorts of platforms (Gigya, YourMinis, etc.) from the functional send to friend button (try it below) to Space Invaders (above). Yeah, they've got various pre-programmed video widgets too...

Now that I'm finally getting into mobile video I've discovered Veeker.com (though I haven't played with it yet). Veeker's front page lists these capabilities:
* Send videos and pictures from your phone to any phone
* Send videos and webcam messages from your PC to phones
* Store every video and picture you ever send or receive
* Embed a Message Widget that lets others send webcam messages to your phone
That last one's pretty nifty...see an example above. It's monetized with ads, of course. Their blog has some other examples and a video interview with some Veeker poo-bahs.

Vlogger Sarah Meyers of Pop17 on live video apps, including word from YouTube's Steve Chen that 2008 is the year for live vids on YT. Via Mashable.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net put together the above vid with a few of his tips for marketing in social media. Guess what? Spreading your message with social media is a full-time job. Gotta maintain all those sites and profiles...be active and insightful...and have something relevant to say. And note the AdSense ads playing out on revver...when is AdSense gonna run video ads? Anybody know?

VideoEgg continues it's leadership role when it comes to serving video advertising. Their new AdFrames offer is sweet...sweet technology and a sweet new way of charging around engagement rather than CPM. Mashable breaks it down here, here's VideoEgg's page on the offering. And watch the video above, click through to the demos. Cool cool cool!

"...Dailymotion [made an] announcement that all HD content uploaded to the video-sharing site will be automatically re-encoded for 720p HD playback."

I can't emphasize enough what a game changer this is. Introducing our Mogulus channel. Right now it's running youtube vids, better quality vids to follow...See Jeremiah's post on how to run live video through mogulus using a ustream account.

WOW. Check this live video widget broadcasting from CES. (Disabled 'cuz it's now out of date. For an example of the technology, click here.) Courtesy mashable.com and podtech.net.

Then go to this page and watch the great opening video intro'ing mogulus.com. (Too bad I can't embed it here...where are the embed tools??) Sign me up anyway...holy sh*t this site changes the game.

A pretty cool example of widget technology...looks like the video component is built on a brightcove platfrom. Plus I like Daft Punk.

coBRANDiT | 119 Braintree Street #516 | Boston, MA 02134 USA (map)
We're everywhere. Google us.

Owen Mack, Chief of Strategy & Development | View Owen's profile
617-823-9286 direct | owen@cobrandit.com | facebook | twitter: @cobrandit

Jesse Buckley, Producer. Shooter. Editor. | View Jesse's profile
617-388-8165 direct | jesse@cobrandit.com | facebook | twitter: @jessebuckley

Want to know more about our capabilities? See below.

Ahh, New Year's. Better quality trash appears in the snow the next day.

First Christmas Eve flight of S. Claus detected by NORAD satellite. For more info visit NORADSanta.org.

Yeah boooy! In case you were wondering what happened to Flava Flav...he's alive and well and living in China, where he voices animatronic toys like this one found at my local grocery store.

Gonzo Imperial Porter comes off the bottling line from Josh Mishell on Vimeo. Looks pretty good don't it? But it looks better on the Vimeo site... especially if you toggle fullscreen. Hey Vimeo! Why don't your embeds look as good as the video on your site?

Elliot Yamin of American Idol fame sits down in NYC with top bloggers to discuss his role as a global ambassador for Inspired by Diabetes and other topics related to living the dream. Here's the YouTube channel. Video by coBRANDiT, 'natch.

Inspired by Diabetes is a global campaign asking people with diabetes, as well as their family, friends and health care professionals, to express how diabetes has impacted their lives — and share those stories with others around the world.

To share your story, and enter the Creative Expression competition, visit www.inspiredbydiabetes.com. You could win a trip to Italy and backstage passes to an Elliott Yamin show. Lilly will also donate money to the IDF Life for a Child Program, which provides insulin and diabetes supplies to children in developing nations.

Courtesy of I Hate Young People (which I definitely recommend watching).

In this blog entry Josh Bernoff describes the POST framework he has helped develop at Forrester: People, Objectives, Strategy, Technology. This was the big idea at last October's Consumer Forum, it describes a methodology for business to approach consumers through social media. Check it out.

We're pleased to announce that our work on behalf of Flying Dog Brewery has been honored with a Society for New Communications Research Award of Excellence in the Corporate Video category. Here's a link to the case study. You might not think lo-grade video from my cell phone counts as excellence in new communication, but here it is:

Yes, the award is a huge cut glass paperweight.

I've been playing around with PageFlakes, another site generally known for startpages but with the side benefit of a pretty cool widget engine. See below and click on a vid to check out the player. Neat huh? And you can click on the little envelope logo in the upper right corner to email it or get embed codes. (OOps, this only seems to work from the pageflakes page itself...doesn't transport. Bummer.) Here's the coBRANDiT page I'm working on.

I'm playing around with utterz.com, which is a mobile blogging platform. It takes audio, pics and video from your phone and drops it into a web widget like the one above. Seems like I need a new phone though...the video above is all out of synch! I've got a not so fancy one year old LG. Hmmm. Here's Mashable's review of Utterz.

Great post from Forrester web strategist Jeremiah on Google's new OpenSocial API standard, and what it means for widgets, apps, and the continuing "death of the pageview" (Steve Rubel's term).

"Using mini-applications, companies can now efficiently extend their website experience to existing communities on popular social networks."

Read Jerimiah's post here. Read TechCrunch's breakdown here.

MEDIAPOST | Owen Mack

TWO MAJOR THEMES IN ANY discussion of online video are advertising and CGM (consumer-generated content, or whatever you want to call it). Some of the questions we're asking: What kind of ads will work best in short-form content? What should these ads look like? And, how are we as marketers going to produce the many different executions necessary for all the geographic, demographic, and use-based targeting that's just around the corner? CGM campaigns run through managed brand communities provide one coming answer.

Well-known examples of CGM ads are big splashy contests like the Superbowl Doritos spot, or failures like the Chevy Tahoe mix-your-own ad ploy. But many smart marketers today are managing (or having managed for them) communities of citizen marketers and brand loyalists, people who are interested in helping out the brands they love -- and these communities are slowly being empowered with video sharing tools. Some of this activity is behind firewalls, some is in the open, and whether you want to call it "advertising" or not, it's often enthusiastic brand content that communicates well to others.

On platforms like Ning and Kickapps, marketers are building spaces where niche audiences of brand lovers share video content about their lives, their creative endeavors, and their brands. And marketers are sharing back, releasing professionally produced insider video, setting up private events, joining the conversation and creating excitement as well as excuses for community members to post more CGM video. And unlike YouTube, marketers have control over what gets posted; though as with blogging, marketers have to have the right voice and tread lightly when it comes to censorship.

But, wait! you say. Who wants to watch a bunch of crappy home videos? Here's where mixing CGM and pro ad content and packaging comes in. Many managed communities give marketers access to the source CGM material. Are you an auto marketer with a new model on tour? Show it off first to community members in your major markets. Encourage them to shoot video and upload it to your site. Pull out the good stuff and edit it together with a clip from the lead engineer or head designer. Do this in each market, and voila! A number of different, low-budget executions you can place wherever video advertising lives. Play the San Francisco clip in San Francisco. Play the design clip for design audiences, the engineer clip for gear-heads. Maybe you luck out and something funny happened during the tour: there's your YouTube viral. This is do-able now.

I don't own a TV. I couldn't care less about the demise of high-dollar :30 spots. If I'm watching short vids on a site like BeBo or Blip.tv, I want to see relevant ads (brand content) that have a similar look and feel to what I'm watching. I want them to be made by people like me, in my city. I want those ads to be user-activated ("bugs" or "tickers") because I want an experience that I can either skip entirely or that draws me in, shows me something I didn't know about a brand. I want an invitation to go deeper, to hear from my peers, and to join the community myself. And I don't think I'm alone.

Article link (Requires free subscription) or see the Video Insider blog.

That's where the action is for the next couple of days. Stay tuned for a new batch of marketing pro interviews coming out of Chicago courtesy of Forrester and your social media video source: coBRANDiT! We'll put the stuff out on blip.tv, youtube and facebook, which will in turn distribute to all sorts of places via rss, springwidgets, etc. etc. From Chicago we're flying to Buffalo NY to work on a project related to fantasy football...ever heard of My Football Tracker?

coBRANDiT’s Role:
Working with Communispace’s marketing department we developed a series of interview questions focusing on various team member’s role within the company, and how their work positively impacted client business. Our low-impact shooting methodology took the stress out of the interviews, and allowed thoughtful, insightful, and passionate responses to come from staffers not used to being on-camera. The results were carefully edited into a series of pieces for use on Communispace’s website and in sales presentations.

Here's AdBrite's pitch for how to do ads in video...but where are the demo ads? Still don't see how the ads are meant to display. Maybe they've got no inventory...I'm hoping to speak with Philip Kaplan of AdBrite at next week's Forrester Consumer Insights Forum; he'll have the answers. Oh wait! I think it's that little piece of text in the top left corner of the player. Yeah, that IS unobtrusive.

We've launched a new coBRANDiT homepage on Netvibes.com. If you haven't checked out Netvibes, do. It's a desktop web app designed to aggregate RSS feeds, video players, all manner of social media goodies and it does it by giving you customizable widgets (little windows) you can drag and drop around a page. You can nest them all in tabs to create another level of organization as well. It's just what I've been waiting for...why didn't I discover it sooner? (I found it via a Steve Rubel Facebook post. Steve is a big advocate of making content portable...see his post titled "death of the page view") For a while now I've found our blog to be a less than satisfactory solution to the problem of how to show all the social media things coBRANDiT has gotten into. For those of you subscribed through RSS or direct linked to our blog, go see our new homepage and you'll understand. Feel free to lift a widget!

PS: Here's the readwriteweb.com post Steve linked to in Facebook.

Read a story in the newspaper last weekend (yes! a real paper newspaper!) about Commercial Creator. This company has designed a system for building TV commercials out of stock imagery and stock video--though you can upload your own logos and images too. They provide voice overs, cleared music, the works for packages in the $400-$700 range. You build the ad you want online, then they produce it. Hmm. TV ads? Here's their demo video (quicktime, no social media features at all)...You'd think they'd go after the web market.

Brightcove's new pitch video is strangely un-embeddable...they only provide a link. Weird.

Like the title says...as viewed in the new player. Yes, AdAge did a story on Facebook and I joined. See ya in the womma group! I put this vid together in about 45 seconds so I could grab a screen shot of my face in a quicktime player.

I'm contantly re-tooling descriptions of what we do and how we do it. I banged this out in an email yesterday and liked the way it sounded:

To re-cap coBRANDiT's areas of expertise:
1) Video Production. Market research, man-on-the-street, behind the scenes, interviews, branded content for sites, blogs, presentations, pitches.

2) Video Distribution. Now you've got the video, what do you do with it? We build and maintain video blogs and social media tools on various platforms including MT, wordpress, blip.tv, youtube, brightcove, springwidgets, feedburner, ning, etc.

3) Consulting on wom/community/mktg integration. With a particular focus on video CGM and the way offline brand activities migrate online and into adspace.

We are actively seeking projects in the community arena and to that end are working with/speaking to Communispace, Flying Dog Brewery, PUMA, GM, Weber-Shandwick, BzzAgent, Street Attack and others.

From today's MediaPost:

DISCOVERY COMMUNICATIONS HAS ADDED THE environmental news and blogs of TreeHugger.com to its multi-platform Planet Green initiative, which will include a new eco-focused TV cable channel in 2008 and a branded Web site later this year. Terms of the acquisition were not announced but Discovery said it "will not have a material impact on earnings in year one." TreeHugger, founded in 2004, said it now has 1.4 million unique monthly visitors.

We suspected that at a certain point in TreeHugger's life that we would need to
attract significant investment or partner up with a large media organization if we
were to really take our message to the masses and fulfill our mission. Over the last year, we were approached by over 15 large companies interested in playing this role. We had many conversations and concluded that we needed a partner with a sizeable, international audience, a kindred brand and a high level commitment philosophically and financially to green.

Discovery fits these criteria to a T.

Click To Play

From mashable.com comes this pretty damn complete list of online video tools. As they say:

"Online video is a huge trend - so huge that’s it’s proving hard to keep track. From video sharing sites to video mixers, mashups and converters, we’ve brought together more than 150 of our favorite sites in this category. Enjoy."

BzzAgent has launched video reporting tools within it's community of agents. Jono gives some detail in this post on the BzzAgent blog, and describes some do's and don'ts of video reporting in the vid above.

This is going to be huge. BzzAgent has over 300,000 people signed up as agents, people who are excited about marketing on behalf of BzzAgent clients. Besides generating WOM, agents submit reports on their activities, attitudes, and findings to BzzAgent. These reports are full of great research insights and testimonials--clients often ask BzzAgent for quotes they can use in their ad campaigns. Now drop video into the mix, and you can see it's not too far a leap for agent-produced video to appear in ad campaigns. Indeed, BzzAgent has positioned itself perfectly for this. As BzzAgent has morphed into a media channel it has begun working closely with ad agencies to produce integrated campaigns...and BzzAgent owns all the content agents generate. They are going to be the gatekeepers for a wealth of video CGM brand messages, the better of which will be appropriate for pre/post-roll or ticker placement on Revver and VideoEgg etc., as well as TV, brand websites, reccomendation sites, anywhere video lives. As always, transparency will be key; but handled properly we could see BzzAgent truly fuse WOM and CGM advertising in a way never before seen.

And it will be so much better than all those "Make your own adz!!!" websites and contests--contests which only attract ad students and wannabes who reinforce the status quo. It will be the realization of the vision Jesse and I had when we started coBRANDiT: to make advertising about real people in real places using real product. On the ground brand reality, by and about people like you and me. All tied in to some of the smartest marketing (and greatest brand experiences) on the planet.

Jono, call me!

A PodTech.net Marketing Voices interview with David Meerman Scott, author of "The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use News Releases, Blogs, Podcasting, Viral Marketing and Online Media to Reach Buyers Directly". I recommend this book because it's at the top of Amazon's marketing books list, and I'm in it...David interviewed me last winter. Here's some of what he has to say about me and coBRANDiT:

"Owen Mack, cofounder and head of strategy and development for coBRANDiT, a company that does social media video production, is a pioneer in using video for marketing and PR purposes. From the early days of online video Mack has helped companies like PUMA and Pabst Brewing create video strategies.

"Video is an extension of the blogging ethos," Mack says. "Do you have an interesting story to tell? If you don't, can you develop something? You need to see what people are saying about you already and know how you can mesh with that. Transparency and openness is required. Done properly, video is very compelling."

In case you haven't heard...a new milestone in CGM:

AT&T Inc. [has] launched what it said is the first service letting callers share live video between cell phones. Video Share was introduced in three markets -- Atlanta, Dallas and San Antonio -- to start with and will be available elsewhere in late July. New AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson told a telecommunications industry trade show in Chicago that the new service has the potential to expand rapidly beyond wireless-to-wireless.

"You should expect this to quickly reach the other two screens, and that's the PC and the television," he said at NXTcomm.

"Imagine watching television when a notice pops on the screen that a daughter or granddaughter would like to initiate a Video Share call, then immediately switching the television screen to accept the video and audio," Stephenson said. "With our powerful IP-based network and flexible IMS platform, these scenarios will eventually be reality."

From Will Video For Food:

A new startup is paying college kids to simply mention product names to strangers. It’s part of a new viral-marketing wave that capitalizes on the trust of peer-to-peer “buzz marketing. Here’s a video that explains how the system works, and be sure to visit www.CashtoBuzz.com to see some top-notch clients.

Here's what they're up to. Watch how the "ticker" plays out, and be sure to click on "menu" to see how they're functionality plays out.

Update: Lame. For advertisers anyway. The embed code they gave me for this video doesn't serve ads. (It does on the site demo). Is that true of all their embeds?

From the "Old media is where you learn about new media" category comes this: Truveo.com, which I learned about from a radio ad on my drive to work this morning. Funny huh? Truveo is a video search portal owned by AOL, who (I guess) wanted to re-brand itself a bit. Might work, considering that if I'd heard an ad for AOL video search I probably wouldn't have checked it out...

Truveo seems to work OK, it found about half the coBRANDiT vids that are out there, and about half the Flying Dog vids which is strange 'cuz they're only served from two locations. Why wouldn't they all be found? It also lists posting dates incorrectly in a few cases. The order the vids come up in is a bit strange too. I wonder how it works?

There are various ways to search, rankings, etc...also you can set up a Truveo account (thru AOL) and get some extra customizable functions. When you click on a vid to watch, you get bumped out to YouTube, or Blip, or where ever. So what's the big deal? Beats me. I'm sticking with my re-branding guess.

The ads embedded in the Alan Schulman piece stood out. They're banners and embedded boxes that expand and play video, also offering links and deeper experiences (they behave kinda like the "tickers" VideoEgg uses). Served by EyeWonder, the way they work is pretty sweet...but a bit too invasive. The video plays (without volume) automatically. Kinda distracting if you're reading a story. Worse, they expand to twice their size when you roll over them. You end up having to play "dodge the ad" with your cursor. I wish the functionality came with a mouseclick instead. Still, a new way to serve video ads...

Another great piece by Alan Schulman in Video Insider, this one titled "As Web Video Becomes More Lo-Fi, Maybe Your Pre-Rolls Should To." Basically he makes the arguement that placing cut down high-dollar TV spots or other too-slick creative in front of your typical lo-fi web video makes no sense. As usual I'm in full agreement with him! The videoblogging world has a lot to teach marketers. The gritty and immediate style of many lo-fi productions is much more in keeping with the video I watch online, that's for sure, and most especially when it includes real people. I can't stand watching perfect shots of cars on the beach, etc. anymore. I want to feel connected.

One thing I've noticed about myself since starting work on the Flying Dog series is that now, every