webTV
We’ve been working with PRWeek and BrandRepublic to produce a virtual conference of the very best bits of two conferences on PR and social media. Check it now at Socialmediastrategy.tv
Video and slides from presentations by speakers from facebook, Vodafone, Eurostar and more big names are all online for free viewing now. The presentations cover issues such as crisis management, reputation management, the role of content, measurement tactics etc. Hopefully lots of good stuff for your viewing pleasure!
The hastag was #prdigital if you want to post any comments.
Kinura filmed these events and built the site with all it’s rich media elements and social media widgets. Hope you like it. :)
We’re streaming live on Weds 18th May 2010 from the Connected TV Summit in London.
The aforementioned WebTV Group run by Drew Ellis is moving to Facebook as apparently Ning are asking people to pay money for using some of their services thesedays.
This is “a group for people working in online TV who meet up once a quarter to network in London.”
Join it if you wish:
I’m planning on updating my blog with some widgets n stuff in the coming weeks and making a sterling effort to make it more lively and informative! The first such endeavour is to introduce Agit8or – who is actually Richard Gale, a broadcast and webTV afficionado who (if you want to keep abreast of what’s new and hot (or not) in webTV ) you should follow on twitter and add his blog to your RSS reader. I’ve just done it and I feel good about myself for keeping my finger on the button. Or maybe it’s just because it’s Friday :)
I only just located this video from a the panel I chaired at Streaming Media Europe last year. I find there’s often a distinct lack of female representation at digital media conferences, so I did want the panel to be all women, but somehow didn’t manage it. But anyway – Martin, Alex and Andy were great of course and very kindly gave their time, so I’m not complaining. And Caroline added a splash of colour as always :)
The discussion covers all kinds of things – creative approaches to content, audiences as creators, communities and community ‘tv’, extending the online video experience into the ‘real world’, authentic experiences. We went a bit off on a tangent from the official seminar synopsis, but hey, we’re creative so we’re allowed. Have a watch or listen to this anyway. Let me know what you think.
You can get to the rest of the videos from this conference, and others on StreamingMedia.com
I went to tuttle this week and met some new people, one of which was the lovely Penny Jackson who has just produced these fantastic videos for T.M.Lewin. I thought I’d share it here because it’s such a fantastic, effective and simple idea. Instead of going for a boring old glossy promo that doesn’t engage users so much as talk AT them, the London based shirt-makers have adopted social media, setting up a community section on their site and providing these great video tips on ironing shirts and matching colours and patterns. Now I don’t wear shirts and rarely use an iron, but what I love about this concept is that it gives their audience some useful info in a very accessible way. So many companies and brands try so hard to be clever with their video content and forget to keep it simple and engaging, but this really ticks a lot of boxes for me. It almost makes me want to iron a shirt!
Oh – and the T.M.Lewin videos are on YouTube too.
We’re webcasting the Future TV Advertising Forum on 11th December 2009.
“This one day conference, on 11th December in Portland Place, London will bring together broadcast and advertising to analyse and debate the evolution of TV advertising.”
EMI, Unilever, Channel4, itv and Discovery will be in residence (to name just a few). So if you have a vested interested in exploring PayTV, product placement, branded content, interactive ads, etc., then get yourself a ticket, put the webcast in your diary – oh and you can keep informed via the event producers, PointZero, on twitter at http://twitter.com/pointzeromedia
Doing my research for the upcoming panel session at Streaming Media Europe I came across this:
Intelligent Video: The Top Cultural & Educational Video Sites
Some good links! Check it out.
Haymarket’s Event and C&IT magazines have launched a new site, Virtual Venue Visit, showing the first in a series of specially commissioned event venue showreels. Following research which asked corporate conference organisers what they really wanted to see online from venues, they produced a number of short films and interviews which are tailored to meet the key needs of event planners and buyers rather than being just a one-way marketing tool for suppliers.
Paul Twite, publishing director of Event and C&IT said: “The filming is designed to bring out the character of each venue while answering the main questions raised by event buyers and planners in our research. The Virtual Venue Visit has huge potential for future rollouts.”
Kinura filmed and produced the video, developed the flash video site and players, and provides global streaming with detailed user statistics. You can also read a case study about online presentations we have worked on for Haymarket here.
I recently caught up with Radar Music Video’s Caroline Bottomley. I saw she’d teamed up with Rebecca Caroe to solicit some business strategy advice via Rebecca’s excellent blog. We realised we had some issues in common and decided to share our conversation on my blog.
Caroline Bottomley launched Radar Music Videos in March 08. It’s a matchmaking service for indie labels and DIY bands to commission music videos from a worldwide network of music video directors. I started Kinura in February 2007 (Kinura are specialists in live streaming, online events and Flash video applications) so both our companies have been taking off during times of massive growth in video and huge changes to business models and the way we talk to our customers. Both companies are in the online video space; we had a look back at what we were aiming for when we set up our companies, what we’re doing now and where we think we’re headed.
SP: What opportunities did you see for Radar Music Videos when you started?
CB: I’ve always liked business models that are about curating or editorial and I love talent spotting. Previous jobs I liked were in those fields. I was also tuned into the potential for disruption with old models, I like being outside the mainstream :) It seemed very clear that there was opportunity in the music video industry – the old school model was all about gatekeepers at nearly every level and very elitist. I think it helped that my background is in related businesses – promoting clubs & events and in TV production. If I’d have known people in the ‘proper’ music video industry too well I probably would have talked myself out of starting Radar.
I’d spent a year or so running UGC/made-on-spec music video competitions for some major and bigger indie record labels, so I knew it was possible for diverse and outsider director talent to create some great videos. It had been clear for a long time that more and more artist/bands were choosing to work outside the label system and would therefore need to commission videos more directly. However, the matchmaking model I started with wasn’t quite right — it needed changing, partly to become better aligned with directors’ needs and wants (this only works if enough directors value the model) and partly to allow for scale. That’s how Radar Music Videos ‘proper’ got made – a lot of experimentation. It’s still very fluid but the basic building blocks are the right ones now I think. It’s been self-funded from the beginning.
CB: What opportunity did you see with Kinura?
SP: We knew the web video market was about to explode and it would be pretty straightforward to set up a company like Kinura, focusing on a niche in delivering and hosting Flash video. We started with no outside investment – we just put in a lot of our own time and a little bit of our own money to buy bandwidth, and got ourselves out there. We had a bit of a head start I guess, because I was a director of a streaming media company for five years previously, although it’s never easy building up a business from scratch.
SP: What are the opportunities and threats that you see right now?
CB: On balance the current recession is good for us. Our costs are low. We’re not accessing enough of the existing potential demand yet, so anything that keeps the cost of market acquisition down is good. Having said that, we don’t do paid advertising anyway, I’m not confident it would deliver significant ROI. We reach most communities via cross-promotion deals – the relatively low cost of access to new customers via social media is a great opportunity for us. Our biggest threat is new competitors. Hopefully the recession is keeping some new entrants out for the moment. Speed of growth is also an issue – we’re really agile but I generally want things to happen even quicker and that’s a resource issue.
SP: I know exactly what you mean. One of our main challenges is managing growth and making sensible decisions about product development. Our overheads are low, but we need more staff for the work coming in, so it’s balancing success with cash flow. The good news is that we are seeing a major increase in demand for online conferences and live video solutions. People now have faith that webcasting is reliable and they want to find ways of saving costs on travel, reducing their carbon footprint and so on.
We thought one of our biggest challenges would be selling Flash video hosting when there are so many free platforms out there, but many companies still want the reliability and flexibility that comes with using a CDN. The fact that some webTV platforms have file size restrictions has worked in our favour. Plus there are plenty of organisations whose content is sensitive and they want it managed properly, or want live streaming as part of the package, so the service we provide is still massively in demand.
SP: If you could choose investment to access right now, how much would you have and what terms would you want?
CB: I think we’re just coming to the end of a big experimentation curve and there are still some things to put into place before Radar stacks up as a profitable, secure business. I might look for a loan from a strategic partner soon, but it’s not priority at the moment, as the basic business is still being built. I got some great advice to hang on and make the business work profitably before looking for investment – from someone who felt he had invited investors in too early to his (very successful) business. For good or for bad, I usually concentrate on what’s happening in the next couple of weeks. There’s an ambitious aim for Radar, but seeing as a lot of this business is about working things out as we go, most resources go on working out the next step. It seems every week or so there’s news about another large scale music-related business folding or in danger of going under and I’m very happy for us to be playing relatively small right now whilst we get the main things working right.
SP: I don’t think Kinura is currently eligible for VC type funding. Our business model isn’t quite scalable enough. For us, I think the next couple of years will be about building value into our products, continuing to innovate and doing this via a bank loan if necessary. We might consider investment from a known and trusted business associate, but would rather build the business up and sell it all in one go. I think it’s important to think about your exit strategy from the outset, and also not to make yourself indispensable. You have to look at the operations of the business and separate delivery from management and so on. That makes it easier to hand over if it comes to it.
CB: What trends are you taking into account in your business planning?
SP: In the medium term, we’re focused on the trend towards ‘webinars’ and online training: simple ways of making video communications interactive and trackable. Companies want marketing data, and organisations want to make resources easily accessible online. I also definitely think live video is a big growth area. Bandwidth at venues is increasing all the time and serious fibre networks are being set up to link venues. Music industry wise, online gigs are becoming more common. Would you say so?
CB: Yes there’s all sorts of interesting developments in live communications. It’s very exciting and it’s having a positive effect at our end: more live content means bands and artists can feel more relaxed about commissioning a non-performance promo video – great news for a directors worldwide and for consumers too. Unless you know the band already or they are truly astonishing live, there’s very little reason to have the promo video as a performance video.
At a macro level, I’m really interested in what’s happening with video streaming and download sites. All the reports suggest that ad-supported services just don’t cut it, and business models for nearly all streaming services depend fundamentally on ads. I don’t think any of them have successfully substituted subscription models – Imeem tried this recently but with limited success.They are currently getting propped up the major labels to stop them going under and peer to peer taking their place. Crackle - also very big in the US – have very recently stopped accepting ‘general’ uploads. Because more content = higher server costs and all these services depend on fresh content – they’re in a bind.
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We’d be very interested to hear your thoughts about anything discussed here, from setting up and running a business to ideas and predictions for where online video is headed. Post a comment below.
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If you’re thinking about running a webcast or webinar then you should find this guide helpful in thinking through the process from start to finish. It covers pre-event planning, promotion, archiving for on-demand viewing, and a little bit of technical info (but not too much). Basically this document sums up the kinds of issues I would discuss with my clients. Hope you find it useful. If so – let me know – you can post a comment below.
You can download a PDF version of this article here:
9-things-you-need-to-know-about-webcasting-webinars
Licensed for free non commercial distribution
9 Things You Need to Know About Webinars & Webcasting
1. Webcast or ‘webinar’ might mean different things to different people
If you’re thinking about broadcasting an event on the web, be clear about why you are doing it, who you want to watch it, how you will promote it and what needs to be delivered around your web event to make it successful and worthwhile.
A webcast is usually understood to be a live online video broadcast, but it could be audio and slides only. It could be a video message from a remote speaker streamed into a conference you are holding, or even a pre-recorded video delivered ‘as-live’, with a live chat room, slides and downloadable assets.
Beyond the audio or video stream you can now add any number of collaborative or interactive elements so it makes sense to be clear about your goals. If you’re thinking about communicating via a web broadcast, take a step back and think about how you can get the most of it
2. Know your connectivity
For a quality video stream, the place you are streaming from ideally needs a dedicated broadband line with a minimum of 1MB upstream. If this means nothing to you then don’t worry too much as your webcasting supplier should deal with IT issues and handle all the connectivity testing, etc. But at the same time, when scoping out the perfect venue for your event, it’s worthwhile getting written confirmation that they can supply the level of connectivity you need.
A lot of business broadband lines are ‘contended’ which means they are shared by many of the ISP’s customers. They may be advertised as 8MEG but on testing the upstream connectivity, you may find the reality is more like 300kbps, which isn’t great for webcasting. You can (roughly) test the speed of a line using a site like www.speedtest.net
Golden rule: More bandwidth does not necessarily mean a better quality stream! (For the techies out there – in our opinion SDSL 1 meg is far better than ADSL 8 meg or even some advertised 20 meg broadband lines! You have to test it..
One other consideration here is your audience’s bandwidth. Most individual users will be fine receiving a stream at 300k upwards these days, but if many people from one organisation want to view at the same time it’s better to set up a screen or a few computers dedicated to watching the webcast, otherwise the corporate network might creak at the seams!
3. Make an impact – consider your video and graphics sources well in advance.
Attention spans are short. The more lively you can make the message you’re delivering the better. At live events it’s very straightforward to mix in PowerPoint slides, video clips or anything your speakers are showing on screen as part of their presentations. Filming the screen is not the best option, as the quality will suffer, so taking a feed from the speaker’s laptop into a vision mixer is the best bet. You should also think about your branding for within the video window. Pre-roll graphics can be displayed with your logo (or sponsors logos), and you should also think about messages to be displayed during any breaks in the live stream, and a message to be displayed after the event has finished.
4. Get it Watched: Advertise and Promote Your Event
Many people think of webcasting as an add-on to an existing event rather than as an opportunity in its own right for online PR or direct marketing to their end users. Advertising the event in advance via your own mailing lists, intranet and web pages is obvious, but have you thought about asking media partners and bloggers if they want to embed the webcast player on their site? You could also use social networking sites to create a presence for your online event. By doing this, people can create their own profiles, get reminders and continue the conversation. Ning is a good one. And of course there’s Facebook, LinkedIn and a host of other web 2.0 and networking platforms to exploit.
The earlier you can promote your event the better. If your event has a very specific audience, you could consider an advert in a relevant magazine or on a trade website. It’s also worthwhile thinking about any partners with real venues where they could set up a screen for people to watch the event. For example, if you are webcasting a conference about graduate careers, why not ask universities and key HR departments if they want to show it in their offices around the world? Some companies have linked up with big screens in cities or invited arts and community centres to set up screens and participate remotely. Think about the possibilities. It’s pretty exciting!
5. Make it Interactive
As well as thinking about offering options to download further information, email the speaker or send messages via live chat, you should make sure your speakers address the online audience as well as those attending the real event. It’s simple to set up a printer or screen to show questions that are being sent in so that people online have just as much opportunity to contribute as people sitting in the audience. You could even email people to ask if they want to send a question in advance, and then they’re more likely to tune in and see if their question was selected.
Live chat rooms can be moderated if you have any worries about rogue elements posting offensive or irrelevant comments. So go for it –talk to your online audience and get them talking to each other.
6. Track it. Find out who’s watching
Just as with any website, you should get statistics showing how many people tune in to your event. With video streamed from a ‘proper’ streaming server network, you should also get streaming stats for any videos made available to end-users.
If you want to get some marketing data it is straightforward to add an email sign in option before people can view the stream. There’s an argument this could put some people off, but if you have something worthwhile to communicate and are talking to the right audience, it’s likely they won’t mind being kept informed. You can also use RSS to send event reminders or updates.
7. Get Your Web, Video Production And Webcasting Team Talking
If you have a web agency or in-house web team, an external video crew and a webcasting company all involved, it’s essential they all know what the other party needs. Then there is also potentially IT, AV and front-of-house staff at a venue to consider. It’s sensible to get your teams talking to each other as soon as you decide to produce a webcast. Some things can be set up in advance, like pages to hold the archives once the event is over. Think through the process and communicate how you see it all working to everyone involved.
8. Do Your Research. Look at what others are doing (and not doing) well.
You can now choose to search Google for video results only, so it’s worth spending a bit of time exploring what others in your sector are doing. If no one else is webcasting you could have an angle for a press release, and if they are, then you can see what you could do better. There are a few ‘streaming industry’ news and information resources out there, like streamingmedia.com and Chinwag’s webTV list, but just a general Google search will probably turn up some interesting links. And of course, there’s more articles on webcasting on the Kinura blog. We hope you find it useful.
If you are using an external webcasting company, ask them what their other clients have done and if they have any suggestions.
9. Think how you can use the video after the event.
If you have the infrastructure sorted to host your video files after the event then don’t delay in getting your archives online. Even if you choose one session from a whole day of conference programming, it’s wise to make something available for those who tune in late or missed the event but want to see it as soon as possible. If you have a keynote speaker, it makes sense to prioritise big names or what you thought was the most well received presentation.
It also might be worthwhile thinking whether you need any additional edits or formats for webTV platforms. For example, YouTube has a limit of 10 minutes and a file size of 1 GB. If you want to upload clips to YouTube you should ask the video crew to re-encode the video to the optimum resolution and add any extra graphics you want. If your webcasting live using Adobe Flash and capturing Flash files straight off, then Blip.tv is great because you can upload Flash video (flv) files directly, YouTube does accept flv files as uploads but may re-encode them so some quality is lost.
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Thanks for reading!
There’s a checklist below and a list of links that might be useful, which link to more useful links!
CHECKLIST
- Have I defined my webcast goals and communicated them to my team?
- Have I checked my venue has suitable connectivity?
- Does my client have enough bandwidth to watch multiple streams?
- Have I planned my pre-roll graphics, notices for breaks and post event messaging?
- Have we thought about how we can promote the event and planned time for emailing reminders, etc?
- What other elements should be on the web pages around the webcast?
- Do we want to capture email addresses or make this event by password invite only?
- Does everyone working on the webcast, both at the venue and online, know the process for before, during and after the event?
- Have I checked what my peers or competitors are doing?
Don’t take it for granted that webcasting is a day-to-day occurrence. You might find that some of your speakers haven’t been live online before, or that no one else in your sector is communicating with live web events. Webcasting is still quite new and it can be pretty exciting. These days it’s very reliable and shouldn’t even cost you an arm and a leg. So enjoy it, make the most of it. Happy webcasting.
You can download a PDF version of this article here:
9-things-you-need-to-know-about-webcasting-webinars1
Licensed for free non commercial distribution
This document was written by Sarah Platt, UK Director of Kinura Web Video.
www.kinura.com/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahplatt
Kinura Web Video are always happy to answer questions.
You can contact us via our website or email sarah.platt’at’kinura.com
The Times has published a correction to an article it published on 14th Jan about the closure of the last TV factory in Britain. I read the original article with a certain nostalgic sadness and at the same time a little wonderment about how we’ll all end up watching ‘TV’ in the future. It’s a pretty incredible journey we’ve made since the first public demonstration of television in 1925 by John Logie Baird. The Times article has a great timeline of TV history but it does stop short at 2006, failing to mention YouTube or the launch of the iPlayer, which let’s face it have pretty much changed everything in the media sphere.
I was pleased to learn that Toshiba are still making TVs in Plymouth: “Toshiba has asked us to point out that it is still making large-screen televisions at its Plymouth factory. We are happy to set the record straight”, say The Times, giving a nod to the happy fact that some actual ‘things’ are still being manufactured in Blighty, although not many, hence the barrage of comments posted following the publication of this story.
Anyway, I was also pleased to learn that the telly was first called the Televisor, which sounds wonderfully archaic and grand and I think someone should now invent an InteractiveWebTelevisor that does something amazing – but I’m not sure what! Maybe something with smell-o-vision and motion sensors and teleportation. Hmmm.
As previously mentioned I run “Goodbye Old TV ” groups on Facebook + Flickr too if you’re interested (just for fun) in Evil Edna, the Box, the telly and all that. All I know is that I like catching up on Masterchef on my laptop and just got an iPhone so I can now watch telly on that too. Imagine what Logie Baird would have made of all that!
Here at Kinura we’re gearing up for a webcast from the NFT on 22nd October, for Power to the Pixel, a not-for-profit company that put on a sell-out conference over 3 days during The Times bfi London Film Festival. Check out the site for more details about this year’s event.
Power to the Pixel is the brainchild of Liz Rosenthal and Tishna Molla. These two fantastic producers have tons of experience in pioneering projects on digital filmmaking and new distribution models. Liz has recently been appointed as the Digital Distribution Strategy Advisor to the UK Film Council. Check out some content from last year on their Blip Channel if you like.
Speakers this year include folk from YouTube, UK Film Council, Screen International, PlaceVine, NESTA and Tribeca Film Institute.
So. If you need to get the low down on how new opportunities in this field are the transforming digital media landscape, I suggest you get yourself a ticket, or put the live webcast date in your diary if you can’t make it down. All the sessions will be archived on blip and elsewhwere too. How exciting.
I went to i-design a week or so ago, a conference run by Dynamo London as part of Design Week. One of the sessions was entitled “Where’s the Money?” and featured a panel from the world of digital media advertising including Paul Dawson from Conchango, Ann Longley from Mediaedge:CIA and Andy Cameron from Fabrica. There was lots of talk of branded content, brands as publishers and how rich media and social networks are changing the face of advertising, i.e. you can’t lie about your product any more because people will go online and tell the truth. (This was something that Simon Waterfall from Poke also proclaimed in his opening address. He said something like “..there can be no more marketing bulls**t. Game over..” – contentious, but if true, probably good news for us all! :)
Anyway, the reason I wanted to write this post is that I noticed an article by Sarah Hughes in this Monday’s Guardian about how America’s The CW is putting details in the closing credits of shows like Gossip Girl on products and music featured therein, thus driving traffic to its site where, hey presto, you can download tracks and order bags and shoes and other goodies. Now this seems something pretty seismic in the world of advertising. Something people have been talking about for years that is finally starting to happen. It’s clever, and essentially creating seriously new business models – and selling stuff in an online environment where there is also a strong community who interact with the TV network and its shows, so this is opening up brands up even more to the ‘truth engine’ that is the social internet and ultimately, as convergence is happening right now, there will be even more clever strategies emerging between broadcasters, advertisers and audiences. Smaller independent content producers and niche broadcasters will be able tap in to these new opportunities, and advertising hopefully gets more interesting, and more creative. Interesting stuff huh?! If we’re heading for dark times, we all need to get cleverer. And if you’re in the business of webTV you need to get your head round these concepts, so definitely worth reading the article. (I’m trying to get my head round all this anyway, and will be writing more about advertising and revenue and such things in the not too distant future).
Last night at One Alfred Place a small selection of folk gathered for a meeting of minds inspired by recent posts on Chinwag’s webTV list. Platform owners, content producers, journalists and flash geeks among them, this informal gathering was clear evidence that ‘webTV’ means lots of things. It’s not just about delivering streams and pre-roll ads: it’s about a whole new way of engaging with audiences. It’s about participation, communities, mobile and big screens; it’s about communicating to the ‘always-on’ generation.
It was great to see faces from big players like Joost and Brightcove, as well as smaller but no less perfectly formed organisations like Sliced Bread animation, EyetoEye and erm, Ape TV (was he monkeying with me?) They’re also known as CandyContent, and I’m not going to link to them as I checked their site and being occasionally feminist I couldn’t bring myself to link to many blonde ladies in supine poses or pouting in bras, although each to their own so feel free to Google it lads and lasses :)
I met some old friends, and of course made some new ones and I’m really buzzing with the vast possibilities ahead. It’s an amazing time to be in digital media. If you want to keep posted you can sign up for Chinwag’s list and no doubt we’ll keep the Ning Group going too, (which you can also join although it’s hard to see who’s who on there). For anyone who did attend last night and is reading this – I’m not sure who let the pirate in!! But THANKS so much for coming and we’ll find a venue next time where we can stay for longer. There’s a lot to talk about!
Back in 2006 I visited the European Parliament with thirty or so other hopeful representatives whose companies were invited to tender for the enormous and complex EuroParl webTV project, which was then just a twinkle in the eye of the teams at Brussells and Strasbourg HQs. If the tender documentation and requirements were complex, then imagine the technological resources and brain power required to put a project like this together. So now it’s launched, and It’s hats off to my esteemed friend Phil Haggar, Director of TwoFour Digital who has no doubt applied his razor sharp mind to the job with his usual calm integrity; and to Paul Tarplee, MD of TwoFour Digital, who I ate lunch with in Strasbourg back on those site visits, and I imagine has had some sleepless nights since on this one. But hopefully not.
This is a pretty significant moment in webTV world. It demonstrates the all pervasive use of video and how pretty much anything is possible if you have the right team and the right brains on a project. The complexity of streaming video in 20 odd languages – live and on-demand – is mind boggling. But I have no doubt it will be a success.
There will be four channels for four different types of audience: Your Parliament, Your Voice, Young Europe and Parliament Live. The parliament apparently said the project was inspired by the public’s “right to know” about what happens and hopes that it will bring “the life of the institution to its citizens in a modern and creative format.” I don’t want to get into a debate here about politics and EU regulations, the shape of bananas, etc. here, suffice to say it’s a great achievement to get this channel off the ground, and it will be really interesting to know how many people tune in. There’s an essay in all this somewhere I’m sure about the public sphere versus the political media agenda. But I haven’t got time to re-read Noam Chomsky et al just now…
From Wednesday 17th Sept 08, the channel will be online at : www.europarltv.europa.eu
I’ll definitely be watching and may report further on the content of the site, stats and so on, until the next episode of Tudors or Mock the Week on BBC iPlayer distract me that is. :)
For those that don’t already know, Chinwag is one of the UK’s top meeting places for digerati, designers and geeks. They run a number of discussion lists, including their uk netmarketing list which is an endless source of useful information and debate. And this week, their web-tv list has taken off again after a strangely quiet period which no one can quite explain (considering how much is going on in webTV world). Introductions are occurring, discussions are forming. So if you want to keep in the know get yourself signed up. See you there.
Channel 4 Education launched The Insiders yesterday, a new online-only show, in partnership with MySpace. If you’re in the business of webTV you definitely need to check it out and keep an eye on the development of the characters, the content and the feedback. The project is incredibly well put-together and thought out in my opinion (having had a sneak preview from Matt Locke and co. at b.Tween a couple of weeks ago).
The idea is to give careers advice a revamp for the 21st Century, allowing young folk to watch down-to-earth, interesting, funny content about what it’s really like to work in certain professions. And of course, as it’s online there’s blogs and games, friends to be made, questions to ask, comments and clips to post, etc. All that social media offers. As well as MySpace you can find it at: www.insiderjob.co.uk/insiders The programme idea was developed with Twenty Twenty Television and agency Holler. Smart cookies indeed. I’m looking forward to finding out what my 17 year old sister makes of it all. She is most discerning in her media consumption of course.. ahem. But yes, the proof of this project’s success will really be seen in the responses they get from their target audience. I reckon it’ll be a refreshing change from the psychometric testing and strangely archaic careers advice sessions that left most of us uninspired, confused and slightly baffled! Check out more info on Guardian.co.uk too.
When you’ve been in this game as long as I have, it’s sometimes easy to forget that not everyone knows all the things you know. So I decided to share the following links, to inspire and entertain you. It’s by no means an exhaustive directory. Obviously there’s tons of sites out there. But you never know, these might just pique your interest if you’re planning a webTV project, as there are different business models here. sites from a range of sectors and some do regular live webcasts too.
Get yourself a nice cup of tea and check out my little A-Z of web TV:
Atom Films
Baltic Video Podcasts
BBC Film Network
Big Picture Tv
Blinkx
Blip
BT podshow
Campaign TV
Current TV
DailyMotion
Dana Centre Webcasts (Science Museum)
Fabchannel
Friction TV
FutureShorts
Green TV
Jumpcut
Leicester Square TV
Live Video
Meet The Author
MetaCafe
Nature Live Online (Natural History Museum)
PublicTV
Revver
Saatchi – artists’s video showcase
Sevenload
Tate player
Teacher’s TV
TED
videojug.com
Vimeo
Hmmm. If anyone knows of a webTV site beginning with Z let me know! I’ll update this sometime in the future.
Videojug launched in 2006 and is gaining popularity as a prime destination for advice on everything from applying make-up to improving your golf or managing your finances.
The run down of ‘most viewed’ clips perhaps tells us something about the pressures of our society e.g. ‘how to kiss someone passionately’ being at the top fairly often; ‘how to get flat stomach in 9 minutes’ having an obvious pull – and I’m not sure what to make of the slightly worrying ‘how to get a girl to flash you’. Hmmmm. Ignoring the slightly ignoble lower end appeal of some of the content, you can’t deny this site is a winner simply for it’s clear purpose and drive to educate and entertain.
I’m going to try and track down one of the management team and will post again when I get some of my burning questions answered. I’m wondering things like how many viewers they get, whether most of these come from their YouTube Channel, and does the current Google video search situation fair well for returning links to their videos; also how far they go in terms of moderating the content that’s uploaded; how their business model is panning out – and what plans they may have for mobile devices. In the meantime, I’m preparing for my holidays by watching ‘how to have a belly flop competition‘ – useful stuff eh?! Oh – and Martin Shepherdly of WebEpics has something to say about ‘how to’ sites on his video marketing blog too.
