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:
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. (As of 7/2010 the widget is no longer supported. The video component can be seen here.)

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.

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! (Widget no longer supported as of 7/2010)

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.

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.

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!

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:

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...)

WOMMA's next conference is WOMM-U, May 8 and 9 in Miami. Here's a video 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...

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.

We're learning to build widgets on sprout's platform, here's an example we mocked up for a theoretical PUMA motorsport campaign. (Note: Widget no longer supported as of 7/2010) 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.

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.

Part playing with Veeker, part introducing Schlitzuation.com. Love Schlitz? Check it out.

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

Jesse Buckley, Director of Production | View Jesse's profile
617-388-8165 direct | jesse@cobrandit.com | facebook | twitter: @jessebuckley

Want to know more about our capabilities? Click here.

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.