I was catching up on one of my favorite bloggers, David Pogue of the New York Times. On his blog, Pogue’s Posts, you’ll see a lot of reviews of gadgets and commentary on tech news. Yesterday, for the first time ever, I watched a video he had up on the site that reviewed free cell phone voice-activated services. The video is funny and useful, and observing his geeky enthusiasm serves to remind you that he’s just a regular guy — like you or me.
It reminded me how often I am surprised to see the real live personality behind a blogger, a radio personality, or anything else where you usually don’t get to see the human on the other end. It’s usually a pleasant surprise.
Web media like blogs, and especially video, give us that human connection we all crave. I think this can be a place where a lot of websites fail miserably. In an attempt to appear professional and creditable, they take the human element out. But sites that do have that human element — say, a how-to video, or a blog with an active comment section — tend to make more of a real and lasting connection with users.
Is your site guilty of being sterile and cold? Here are some signs:
You have no photos with people in them.
Your site colors are all cool in tone.
Your site is static with no interactivity.
Your content focuses on your business and organization rather than your visitors wants and needs.
You have no audio or video media.
If you suspect your site may be too cold, try any of the following:
Add a video message, demo, or interview.
Start weekly or monthly podcasts and make them easy to download from your homepage.
Find professional and appropriate graphics that prominently feature people.
Add an interactive element, such as user ratings or testimonials.
Integrate a blog into part of your marketing strategy and keep the posts personable and down-to-earth.
Incorporate some warmer colors into your site design.
Making your site “human” is easier than ever to do now. Have at it!
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
What do you get when you splice Mary Poppins with some creep-tastic music? One impressively sinister movie plot:
Videos like this are the natural offspring of popular video and social networking sites; you can see mash-up spawn all over the web on YouTube and beyond. You don’t have to be a genius to make one yourself. Here are some examples and websites to whet your appetite:
1. The Trailer Mash: Users create new twists to movie spots by remixing and changing up the soundtrack. Scary Mary, above, is just one example.
2. Terminator vs. Robocop is a mash-up with some of that video annotation that Nick mentioned a few posts ago. It was created by the people at AMDS Films, but I’m guessing most of y’all don’t speak French.
3. Vader Sessions includes Star Wars clips with quotes from James Earl Jones’ various roles spliced in. It gets really good when he starts talking about being a breadwinner (3 minutes in or so).
4. Total Recut has it all — source clips, video editing tools, and contests, with categories from political to education to advertising to trailers.
5. Check out The Recycled Cinema for a history of found video footage and a more academic approach to mash-ups.
6. For the politically bent, Political Remix is a blog-style video mash-up site with some very moving and politically charged messages.
7. Jumpcut is Yahoo’s answer to the video and social networking equation. You can use it to upload source material, edit your clips, and share your remixes. Still in beta (what isn’t these days), but the is design slick, unobtrusive, and very user-friendly.
YouTube has just added a great new feature: video annotations. Video annotations are little text boxes, word bubbles, and spotlights you can add to your videos.
These little information nuggets have some serious potential to make the now common place web video experience a little more engaging. Regrettably, the first wave of annotated videos will likely be comprised of wise-guy comments overlaying groin injury videos.
To see this cool new feature in action click here.
Gizmodo had the privilege of interviewing Mr. Microsoft himself (Bill Gates) at the CES trade show. In this clip Bill discusses the strengths, weaknesses, and general differences between Microsoft and Apple.
Raving fanboys of either company may be taken slightly off guard by the clip. Bill gives props to both his own company and bitter rival Apple.
In truth, both companies are responsible for some amazing products, and any true nerd knows this, including Mr. Gates.
If you’re not already familiar with the infamous scene involving one bro, one John Kerry, and a gang of taser-wielding campus police, check out the video — and listen closely for the quote of the year. (Note: if you’re squeamish, skip it.)
I’m not sure how the Quote Patrol decides which quote is “most memorable,” but no doubt it has something to do with being one of the top quote queries on Google and one of the most popular videos on the web. And now it’s official: “Don’t tase me, bro!” has become the most memorable quote of the year according to the editor of the Yale Book of Quotations.
What makes the video and quote so popular? It’s that special somethin’ — the word “bro.”
These days it’s nearly impossible to go an entire day without being caught on video, whether you’re a celebrity or not. The UK is saturated with cameras, boasting more than four million CCTV connected cameras.
Most people are not even safe from prying eyes at work. I was able to catch a co-worker on video once with a well-placed phone camera, and the results were stunning.
This relatively unknown individual has now been transformed into a YouTube celebrity of sorts, all without his knowledge or consent. I think the moral of the story is clear: if you’re camera shy, it’s best to just stay home under the covers.
There have been a few nerds who have attained prominent positions in politics, but you rarely hear about the flip side of the coin: the nerd vote.
Chris Knight of North Carolina is clearly vying for the nerd vote with his campaign commercial.
It will be interesting to see who, if anyone, tries to capture the nerd vote in the 2008 presidential race. Without Al Gore running I fear this growing and misunderstood voter group will once again be ignored. [Gizmodo]
People are saying the broadcasters are in trouble, that the future consumers of video entertainment will turn to the Internet, and turn the TV off. I don’t buy it, at least not yet. There is a saying: “content is king”.
Right now the quality content is not online; it’s still in the kung-fu grip of traditional broadcasters. Sure you can see hundreds of clips online of people blowing things up, getting hit in the groin, or building epic Slip N’ Slides, but no one would ever waste their time watching if it wasn’t free, and they weren’t at work, bored.
There are, however, a few bright spots in the online video wasteland. These sites tend to be less popular than Youtube, and a lot edgier. Here is a small sampling of the online video underground:
www.heavy.com - Heavy has been around for a while, and features both original and third party content.
www.metacafe.com- They claim to have the very best video content on the web, a claim many would agree with.
www.vbs.tv - This is a site from the people at Vice, and is sure to generate a solid cult following.
