Video can’t do everything, but for specific things, it outshines any other medium on the web (text, pictures, audio, interactivity). Here are my top five:

1. Tutorials. There’s nothing better than an online how-to video. One of my favorite places to go for video tutorials is the DIY site Curbly.
2. Virtual Tours. We have a bunch of these over at Wonderfile that help a new user take a peek at what the product can do even before signing up. Within a minute, a visitor can usually tell how useful and easy to use a product is.
3. Interviews. Video the only way to capture the personalities of the interviewee and interviewer. Transcripts can’t capture pregnant silences or boisterous outbursts. Podcasts can’t capture gestures and facial expressions. Video wins for interviews, hands-down.
4. Product demonstrations. Think Guthy-Renker infomercials you see on early AM television. Apple does a great job of showing off products and what they can do in a short amount of time.
5. Viral Marketing. Nothing spreads faster than viral videos, particularly those that are funny. Check out the Will-It-Blend series and just try to NOT send it on to someone else.

Today, Brian Clark from Copyblogger posted on a video where NPR’s Ira Glass talks about the building blocks of storytelling in broadcasting. (Video embedded below.) Like any Monday morning, I had plenty of email to slog through, but I had to watch this video. For those of you who are fans of Ira, you know what I mean -– that something in his voice and manner of speaking that compels you to stop everything you’re doing and listen.

In the video, Ira talks about how to take traditional story structure that we learned in school and turn it on its head. That is — forget the topic sentence followed by a set of supporting facts — it isn’t effective for TV and radio. Instead, Ira’s got two key building blocks of storytelling:

1. The Anecdote
2. The Moment of Reflection

Brian’s right, Ira’s approach isn’t just for TV and radio. (more…)

In my ongoing series on on-line advertising faux pas, anomalies, and general weirdness, I have come across quite a few examples of what I call “competeverts”. Competeverts are ads placed in a page where the content of the page expunges about a company in direct competition with the advertiser.

One of, if not the finest, example of this was on Gizmodo today. As you can see from the screen capture above, Blackberry took advantage of some prime advertising real-estate on a iPhone article to advertise its competing device.

With opportunities like this, it’s no wonder ad dollars are transitioning from print to the web.

Finally. The New York Times Online will no longer require readers to subscribe to most of its content.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve googled for some news story and clicked on a promising result from the NYT Online, only to have to have my way barred by “you must be registered to view this article” or some such similar nonsense.

Under the old system, readers had to pay roughly 50 bucks a year to get their dose of the NYT online. Now they will only charge for a selection of archives between 1923 and 1986.

(more…)

Pirates have long plundered Hollywood’s vast entertainment riches for fun and profit. With new HD formats on the horizon, media makers felt confident that they had learned from past mistakes, and took the necessary steps to protect their new, high-res digital assets.

Well they were wrong, very wrong. All it took was a determined hacker, a few gallons of coffee, and 8 days to put the first chink in HD’s armor.

Now that the super secret code, the keys to the proverbial kingdom, has been leaked, it’s all down hill from here. All that is left for Hollywood to do is futilely fight pirates on the high seas, with a big gaping hole already in their boat.