Every week we provide a look at how companies are using video to communicate more effectively with customers, employees and investors.
VIDEO PROFILE IN YOUR COMMUNITY:
Investor Relations
Baytex Energy showcases how an organization can use video to connect with their investors. This past quarter, Baytex executive Anthony Marino provided a quick quarterly update. This video helps to strengthen the Baytex brand by putting their most credible source in front of the camera. Investor’s no longer have to spend time to read through pages of information.
SUCCESSFUL VIDEOS FROM AROUND THE WORLD:
Move
One of three short films focused on the concepts of movement, eating and learning, gained exposure for STA Travel Australia who commissioned the project.
Battle at F Stop Ridge
This video produced by The Camera Store went viral in a matter of days. Simple and entertaining concept. The question of course, did it generate sales?
GoPro HD: Cliff Jump
An amazing video that shows extreme skiing at an interesting angle, but also shows off the shooting capabilities and functionality of the GoPro HD Camera.
Twitpic has recently announced that you can now upload videos directly to your Twitpic account and share a video URL over Twitter. Until now, Twitter users have had to provide links to various websites, like YouTube in order to share video via Twitter.
Having a central location for media uploads on Twitter makes sense, as Twitter has fast become one of the most popular platforms for sharing information in real time. Although not a revolutionary concept, this advancement will certainly spark more innovation for more mobile video applications.
Here’s a list of some popular mobile video applications:
Air Video
Air Video is a great app for watching any kind of video format on your iPhone, a Mac or Windows PC as a server. This way, you can store video files on your computer at home and watch them from your iPhone while you’re out and about. Air Video allows you to watch any kind of video file (mp4, m4v, mov, avi, wmv, asf, mpg, mpeg, mkv, 3gp, dmf, divx, flv) because it transcodes them live, as they’re being sent to your phone. Here’s a demonstration on how the app works:
TScinema
Similar to Air Video, this app allows you to stream videos to your phone from another source. In this case, you must create a free TeraStore.com account to store your video files in the cloud, instead of serving them from your computer.
yxflash
This video file player allows iPhone users to view AVI and Flash video files on their phones. And, according to the makers of yxflash, it’s also the first and only video player that can play Mpeg1/2/4, Flash, DivX, Xvid, WMV and iPod format videos on Android phones.
Qik
Qik allows users to host two-way live video calls, as well as record and upload video to the ‘Net via e-mail, SMS, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and a number of other platforms. All of your videos will also be saved in an archive so you can view them online whenever you want.
2011 is going to be another big year for online video, as viewership will continue to expand on many fronts; from mobile video to branded entertainment and corporate video.
Mobile Video Advertising will Increase
The number of Americans watching mobile video in 2010 increased more than 43% from 2009, while the amount of time spent doing so was up almost 7% (Source). Everyone expects these numbers to increase once again in 2011, as more consumers will be using larger-screen tablet devices, like the iPad. So expect to see a lot more video ads in mobile apps, especially those designed to serve up Twitter.
Expanded, Branded Entertainment
It’s not quite enough for advertisers to serve up a 30 second pre-roll video ad anymore, because that strategy doesn’t take advantage of the ‘Net’s interactivity. In 2011, advertisers will move more towards engaging viewers through Branded Entertainment. This is still a new and loosely defined term, but it’s basically centered on advertisers creating entertaining video content that’s tied directly into the appeal of their products and services. It’s not about “hit them over the head” messaging; it’s about creating an experience for viewers, and continuing to offer that experience on a regular basis. Advertisers should say “I’m not happy interrupting an addictive TV show like 24 or LOST with a 30 second snippet of my brand, hoping that viewers will associate it with their favorite show. I want my brand to BE their favorite show.”
YouTube will lose its tight grip on audience share.
Now that online video is no longer a novelty, and viewers are expecting it to meet their everyday entertainment needs, content is going to be just as important as it is on traditional TV. This is where YouTube is falling short, because it contains mostly user-generated content and unlicensed versions of third party content. True content providers like Hulu, Google TV, NetFlix and even the websites of traditional broadcasters will start making a more serious dent in YouTube’s online video dominance, while Facebook will continue to chip away at the audience for user-generated content.
Online Video will become a new corporate communications standard.
As of December 2010, there is a shockingly high percentage of medium- to large-sized businesses that are not using video as a regular medium for communicating to employees, investors and the general public. It’s too bad, because the marketplace is favoring those companies that understand that online video is the easiest and most affordable way to engage audiences. The good news is that the companies who aren’t using online video yet will feel a greater urgency to do so in 2011. Surprisingly, a lot of the push will be coming from the C-Suite executive level, where 55-year-old CEO’s and CFO’s are already viewing online video every day. According to Forbes Magazine, 65% of executives have visited a vendor’s website after viewing their video and 54% have conducted a search to find more information after watching a vendor’s video (Source). 54% of executives also said they share business related videos with colleagues.
If anyone has seen the previews for Flash 10.1 it is very exciting. One medium for playing videos, games, animations, ads, navigators, … working across all platforms, except Apple.
Using Flash can bring down the cost of developing mobile apps. There are currently 5 major app stores for mobile devices; Palm, Microsoft, Google, Apple and Blackberry. As things are right now you would have to make an app in each market (using different languages and technology) to reach the entire mobile audience, but Flash 10.1 will change this.
Flash 10.1 is set to run on everything; netbooks, tablets, computers and smartphones. So every site that works on your computer will also work on any internet connected device if it supports Flash 10.1. Flash 10.1 is also GPU (hardware) accelerated, so animations and video will run extremely fast even on lower priced hardware. This also brings me to question if Adobe CS5 will also have 3d rendering with openGL or DirectX. Flash 10.1: Full Flash for Everyone But iPhone, Actually Playable HD Vids
The exception will be any of Apple’s mobile devices which are unfortunately becoming the IE6 of mobile devices. They hold just enough market share to have to support them, but don’t play nice with everything else out there. Some companies are falling back to HTML5 when encountering a devices from Apple, others are turning to apps. This is a major inconvenience to have to spend extra time and money to develop something specifically for 24% of the smartphone market.
HTML5 is nice for video, but if you support HTML5 with h.264 video then you choose to not support anyone using Firefox (50% of internet users). Also features that can be done on Flash; multi-bitrate streaming, full screen, embeddable video, video ads, overlays, hotspots and interactions are not available. So HTML5 can not be used alone, but only in combination with another technology. If you want to see more about HTML5 you can view my other post for more information.
Fortunately for everyone Adobe has an answer that will save time and money. If you created a mobile application in Flash 10.1 it will not run on Apple, or will it? With the new Adobe CS5 Suite you can now export Flash to an iPhone app. So you will be able to build an app to run on everything with one technology.
There is an example below of Flash application that was built by the New York Times for a mobile site. It can also be exported as an iPhone app, submitted to the store where it will undergo a 2-6 week approval process, hopefully be accepted then can be used as a fallback for the mobile site. The development costs will be lower and the user experience will be consistent across all platforms.
A PADD (Personal Access Display Device – coined from Star Trek) is a hand held touch screen device that displays information and preforms various tasks. The devices available to consumers will not be able to open doors, read oxygen levels or complete transactions with a finger print reading, but they are excellent for a quick update on news, checking your email, watching videos or playing a casual game.
Many companies have released or will be releasing their version of a PADD this year. Each one has different features and price ranges, so if this interests you I would recommend taking the time to find the one in your price range that will fill your needs.
