The Web is incredibly social. Social media has provided a platform for anyone to have a voice on anything. We now have the ability to express our every thought on any topic we can wildly imagine. The reality is that there are people out there that will not only listen, they will interact.
Viddler provides a really easy platform for people to interact with videos. Transforming the video watching experience into an interactive experience for users is what sparks conversation and ultimately engages interest. Viddler provides a couple tagging tools to make this a reality:
Time Tags – label specific points with comments, keywords, or a link on the time line in relation to the content being played at that moment. You can even use a video in the tag! Showing a product in your video? Have a link to the product landing page appear in the time line.
User Comments – viewers have ability to create comments tags within the video, also displayed on the time line. Viewers can spark conversation within your video based on your content. Video owner has the choice to allow user comments or not.
Tags are represented by dots on the video time line. White dots stand for comments, and black dots stand for tags. Comments are also cataloged below the video for easy access and tracking. Survey the conversation and than jump right in!
Interaction is Key
In-video tags are a perfect tool for sparking conversation and interaction within a video. With Viddler, video has now become social. A meeting place for people to not only view content, but to discuss content. An experience for potential customers to not only be informed on your content, but given easy access to the place of action. The ability to interact with the video and navigate based on keywords. Create a video tag to let your viewers know a little extra information on that exact topic. Whether it is for personal or professional use, tagging is a versatile feature. Tagging creates dimensions in the video experience and open’s the floor for discussion. This interaction is what ultimately will engage an audience.
Charlie Sheen has taken to the social web to build a loyal following that is impossible to ignore. Celebrities in the past have been able to push their message via social networking but no one has had the immediate success like Sheen. By making the transition from Twitter to digital video his manic message has fully exploded and the public cannot look away. It is important to take notice how digital video has allowed Sheen to escalate his following and create a deeper connection with his audience. How can we extract these basic principles and apply them to your own small business model? Let’s set aside the catch phrases and comedic value for a minute and look at what Sheen has been able to accomplish with the social web.
Sheen took to Twitter like a mad man, gaining 1 million, yes million, followers within a 24-hour timeframe. He now has over 2 million followers! When Ustream.com approached Sheen to do a live video cast from the “Sober Valley Ranch”, Sheen jumped on the opportunity faster than his need to drop a #tigerblood hash tag. “Sheen’s Korner” was then created and to no surprise was wildly popular from the get go. 600,000 viewers on night 1 followed by 2 million, yes million, viewers on the following episodes. Now let’s pretend for a second that Sheen is selling a product/service or even promoting a charity. Ok stop laughing now. By using the vehicle of digital video Sheen has been able to spread his message like wildfire. Sheen has invited us into his home, his life, and his wonderfully manic mind. Now when Sheen was primarily using Twitter to spread his message we all knew this was something “special”. When Sheen started to appear on national talk shows though this experience came to life. It became more of a reality. We were able to connect with what was going on with Sheen in a different way. That wall between text and visual was broken down and the experience was taken to an entirely different level. Yes his tweets painted the picture but when I saw it on video a whole different dimension unfolded and I was immediately engrossed in everything that is Charlie Sheen. Like any train wreck, you just can’t look away.
Now let’s revisit the crazy idea of Sheen promoting something of actual value, besides comedic. Stop laughing. If we take out the basic principle of how Sheen used digital video to connect with his audience, we can apply it to all small businesses. I say small because Sheen is a one-man operation himself. Digital video let’s us connect with our audience. It allows us to break down that wall, look our potential customer in the eye, and spread our vision in a more personal fashion. Sheen has done an unprecedented job of marketing himself through the social web and even though “crazy”, we must not ignore his accomplishments. We all must look at the principles of Sheens success and apply that to our own business model. Digital Video has allowed Sheen to engage his audience and build a loyal following. That is the exact intention of any company looking to grow their customer base. Potential customers want to feel comfortable and what better way than looking them in the eye and expressing your message. Why not use the same methods to engage your own audience?
If you’re like me, you’ve always wondered why the undead have such little prominence in the web development world. Thankfully, Envy Labs has put together Rails for Zombies, the perfect way for both the living and non-living to learn Ruby on Rails (a popular web framework) together. Best of all, they’re using Viddler to do it! Thanks to our Javascript API, you can easily fast forward to the parts of the tutorials that you want to watch, skipping the stuff you already know. Once you finish watching the videos, you can even write code directly in your browser—no installation necessary!
So, even though Halloween may have already come and gone, if you’re looking for a great way to get into web development, definitely give Rails for Zombies a try.
I hope you’re excited for this glorious Monday! We have some phat beats heading down you’re intertubes to get you groovin’. If you’re at work, then “groovin’” equates to productivity, right? Right!
Radar Music Videos (subscribe) has provided a grimey music video from R.I.O. That’s R.I.O with two periods, not three. And, yes, grime is actually one of the genres R.I.O falls under — along with hip hop and electro.
Here’s the music video to R.I.O’s second single “Mr. Unpredictable”. Find out more about R.I.O below the video.
The heads-up on R.I.O
His birth name is Rio Nelson and he was born as in Manchester, U.K, but spent some of his teenage years on the island of St. Vincent in the Caribbean, and Chicago in the USA. In fact, he represented the St. Vincent in youth international level in a World Cup Qualifier.
When he was 18 he dropped his football career to focus on making music. He began making wildly successful mix-tapes and collaborating with other well-known rap teams. The urban music scene well and truly took a liking to his beats.
Now, at 24-years-old, he’s dreaming big — and it all the right ways. Rather than doing all the typical celebrity appearances on television and shows, he’s interested in being a big role model for teenagers by touring around to secondary schools. He hopes to have then understand that if he can get to where he is, then they can too. If that isn’t being an awesome role model, then I don’t know what is!
Here at Viddler, we have traditionally known that it is almost NFL time when traffic to our office is swamped with Escalades and high profile cars driving to Eagles training camp here in Bethlehem (we are 2 minutes away from Eagles preseason training facilities).
Now we have something else to remind us that NFL is coming, that being Joe Nameth’s new video blog, BroadwayJoe.tv:
I know that many of you are infected with Garyvee’s NJ Jet passion so make sure to get your additional fix on his new daily show:
I hope you’re all enjoying your summers (and winters; for those Down Under). I’ve been on a road trip to visit the wonderful U.S. state of Michigan. It’s been a great experience, and I feel today’s MVM carries a tune that will lift you all up on this glorious Monday morning.
This song by Elsa Chapman was held at The Crypt Sessions (subscribe).
If you’d like to find out more about Elsa, then visit her website and follow her on Twitter.
Here is a quick video that Engadget’s Editor-in-Chief Joshua Topolsky has put together showing an overview of the new phone and a few of the new features in iOS 4.
He also created this video using the iPhone 4 with built-in iMovie (meaning that he recorded, edited, and published this video from the iPhone 4) and shared it on Viddler.
Something fun for Friday. Viddler member nonelikejoshua puts together some really great remixes that he raps to. This one, which features a track from Ronald Jenkees (who is also a Viddler), is particularly great.
Thanks to nonelikejoshua for sharing his remixes with us. We’ve put one up on the frontpage for the day.
Soon five Viddler team members will have iPads (with more to come I’m sure). We’re all very much looking forward to the future of magazines on the iPad, Kindle, Nook and other reading devices that make reading fun, interactive, and social.
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