Who's watching online video

A few days ago, I was asked about the different age groups and whether they were watching online video. I suppose another ways of putting it is who's your target market and what's the best way of reaching them? It's almost embarrassing to find that my own generation is probably the least computer literate – people from about 35 to 60! When we were working with one client in Edinburgh, the CEO admitted that he was a technophobe. He had to use it but hated the idea. With this generation, the only solution is to use the KISS principle. If you want them to watch a video, you have to send an email with the link embedded in the text. All they have to do is point and click. Don't ask them to find your video on YouTube – they won't even try. Tell them about the wonderful new technology on your website and they'll go blank. In this case, KISS means “Keep It Simple, they're Scared!!!” Tomorrow, the "Silver Surfers"

Final thoughts on DIY Video

There's no doubt in my mind that people and firms should be encouraged to make their own videos -- where appropriate. And that's the key point. There are times where it is definitely not appropriate to do it yourself. Think of what your clients or customers would think if they agreed to let you make a feature on them as a case study -- and you turn up with a handycam palmcorder!!! Think of what might be involved in making a video news release! That kind of material is increasingly going to be needed as the media, especially ITV in the UK, keeping cutting back. And while the head of an SME is likely to be happy being videod by another member of the team (it keeps the cost down), will the same be true of a Footsie 100 or Fortune 500 company? It's all a question of horses for courses and chosing your runner carefully.

Making a DIY Video 2

Making your own video is easy if all you want to do is get your message across straight to the webcam. But what if you want to do something a little more difficult. Here's a video about how to make an online screen-based tutorial. By the way, the "ScreenToaster" software I mention is free. It works online and saves your video into a cloud instead of to your hard-drive.

Making a DIY Video

This video was made in response to questions asked of me several times recently. Should we make videos ourselves to post on our own websites or on YouTube? That set me wondering what tools you would actually need...and came to the conclusion that just about everyone who owns a computer actually already has them. So don't expect this short piece to look as though it meets broadcast standards. That's not the object of the exercise. It's here to show what can be done with the simplest tools available -- and maybe to answer that question at the same time.

Video on Facebook

Until a few days ago, I've tended to upload video to YouTube and then point to them from my Facebook page. There were restrictions on Facebook over file size and length -- you couldn't post anything longer than 2 minutes, for instance. But over the weekend, I decided up upload a short piece about the dozens of sparrows that live in our garden...well, feed here anyway. And lo and behold, the rules have changed. They're now even more flexible than YouTube. The file size is limited to just over 1Gb and each video can be no longer than 20 minutes long. IMHO, anyone who uploads a video that long is either being self-indulgent or lacks any editing skills. No-one apart from very close family is going to watch it. But it does offer much greater flexibility which could also make Facebook just as much a "video for business" tool as YouTube. Now that's certainly worth discussing in greater depth.

Isn't Technology Wonderful

I'm afraid this is going to be something of a rant...but why is it that so much "plug and play" just doesn't? It's expecially frustrating when you put a lot of time and effort into a presentation, turn up at the venue where you're assured that "everything will work fine -- we're doing these all the time!!!" only to find that PC connection at the main stage is knackered and the only other one (at the back of the hall which means someone else has to hit the buttons) won't let you play any sound...and since all of my presentations have to do with online video, sound is kind of important! The IT person clucks his or her tongue and says something like "it should be fine" (or something like that) but doesn't actually have the knowledge to solve it. I can see I'm just going to have to buy all the kit and turn up with a completely self-contained package. However, it just should not be necessary. Rant over.
Now here are links to a couple of entertaining videos. The first's been seen about 2m times on various outlets: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmgLtg1Izw
The second has just made it into the Guardian's Viral Video Charts. Looks like about 750k views in about two weeks. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndYxBQXhNjI&feature=PlayList&p=613F6D2953609BFC&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=2
That's all for the moment

Inform, Educate and Entertain

What kind of videos should you think of making? Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, had a maxim – that everything the BBC made had to inform, educate or entertain. That's what you need to do with online videos as well. So should you make them yourselves? The answer to that is “it depends”. I know of companies that have been tempted to make their own with mixed success, the ones in the US adopting the technology much more successfully than their UK counterparts. One of the early success stories was a simple campaign that didn't even start out as a campaign. Blendtec makes blenders for the commercial market in the US. They wanted to increase their sales. This is what they did http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg1ckCkm8YI That's an example of how a simple idea “Does it Blend?” – the first video hardly cost them anything to make – turned into a something viral.

The value of YouTube

Is YouTube a good business tool? OK there are lots of ways to waste time there but many of the companies who're out there making their own videos at the moment are finding it very useful indeed. But why YouTube when there are other video sharing sites available. It's simple. Look at the figures. Put YouTube and Google Video together and their market share is over 60% (you put the two together because they both part of the same company). A long way back, there's the BBC iPlayer with something like 30% – but then you can't post your own videos there. Yahoo video and MSN video have about 3% each. There are over 20 other video sharing sites. That means that companies like Daily Motion, Metacafe and the rest are fighting over the remaining 3-4%. QED!!!

Slightly worrying that the Scottish Government may be considering a tax on cycling. Look at pg 53 http://ping.fm/wuZk2

And there's more of them http://ping.fm/iuqZa

Interesting to see how many people look at this http://ping.fm/xlxE2

Dramatic Online Changes

There's been massive change in the way we work since the turn of the century. Back in 2000, I was still using a dial-up modem at 56kbs – didn't get broadband until 2003! We did have Google and some other search engines (Alta Vista was probably the best known at the time); but we didn't have so many useful tools. LinkedIn appeared in 2003. Facebook was launched in 2004 and YouTube in 2005. Is it any wonder that so many people in business are still unsure of these services? But they need to get a grasp of them if they're going to exploit their potential. And the best way of exploiting online video is not just to put your videos on your own websites – who's going to find them there. You have to load them up to a service like YouTube and then use the social networks to tell people where to look.

I'm speaking about online video to the Power Lunch Club in Glasgow on Thursday. Details here http://ping.fm/mVdWE

I've been quietly working on a blog for some time which now needs to go public. So here goes. http://ping.fm/xehDK

Video Content

When making online video, companies need to hold in their minds the advice given by Lord Reith for the BBC when he founded it in the 1920s. He thought that everything should be "informative, educational or entertaining." That's more or less been the BBC's maxin ever since. And that's exactly what companies need to do when the put their own videos up either on their own websites or on YouTube. Forget about straight advertising. No-one will look at it!

New Facebook and LinkedIn Group

Who'd have thought it? Until now, no-one seems to have had the bright idea of creating many "Scottish" groups on Facebook or LinkedIn. All I was able to find were "Scottish Politics" and "Scottish Journalism", neither of which had seen any activity in quite a while -- the political one didn't even seem to have attracted any attention during recent by-elections which seems a little odd.

Be that as it may, I've now created one called "Scottish Business" and I'm going to start working on cascading them out to see what happens.

Excellent show on Inchcolm this afternoon. Thank goodness I spoke enough Italian to follow the plot.

Why re-invent the wheel?

The more I think about it, why do I need my own webpage any longer? I have this blog which is linked to other social media. I have my pages on LinkedIN and Facebook. I have just created three new groups on Facebook -- Scottish Business, Scottish Property and Scottish Sport Except Football. I was surprised no-one had thought if these before. Let's see where we go with them.

The Scottish Diaspora

Could there possibly be a market for an online video/social site for the millions of people who either are Scots, claim Scottish descent or have a particular affinity for the country. A lot of them like the haggis and bagpipes type of Scotland -- others come for the golf and the general ambience -- yet more like the food and drink (the Scotch Malt Whisky Society's a great advert for the country).

But can we turn it into a successful business?

This is quite old...but it's a reminder of what people were hoping for earlier this year.