Well, some commissioners have now understood the power of online video. Just check out this weekly video from the EU Commissioner Viviane Reding. Click the picture to go to the video site.

“I want all Europeans to be able to switch their phone operator ““ whether mobile or fixed ““ within one single day” A worthy cause indeed!

Here you see a very human EU Commissioner and you feel her enthusiasm and drive for the issue she is presenting. The video is simple, but professionally done, she is reading well from a teleprompter.

What a difference compared to just reading her press release!
Why are not more leaders using online video like this?

So I think this way of communication is exemplary, but there are some  things that can be improved:

1. The video player should have an indication on how long the video is. This is essential, I want to know if I have the time or not available.
2. The video player should have an embed-button, so that it is easy to embed the video in blogs and other web sites. This creates viral spreading.
3. The text of her speech is downloadable as a PDF with a link next to the video. It would have been better to be able to read the text beside the video. Ideally the text should be navigable so that you can click on it to make the video jump to that part, like New York Times is doing.
4. There should be an RSS feed so that I can subscribe to these videos in my RSS reader.
5. It would have been nice to enable some form of viewer interaction. For example, have a poll about the issue mentioned, or allow comments to the video.

What do you think? Please comment!

Update April 3: I just received an email from an assistant to Ms Reding, thanking me for my email where I praised her for using video like this. I had not expected any reply, except maybe a short standard email response. So I was surprised to see that the email contained this image of a scanned letter:

Elegant and polite, but perhaps not the most time efficient way of responding. Could it be an EU  regulation that all emails have to be replied to on the official stationery?

1. An intro with the company logo, picture of the headquarter and elevator music in the background.
2. Panning shots over all the products of the company.
3. A deep, male voice-over that sprinkles corporate bullshit terms.
4. The CEO in a suit and tie stumbling through an awkward sales pitch.
5. Happy customers holding the products and smiling into the camera.

Unfortunately both video production companies and their corporate clients are used to doing this kind of corporate video. But some clients and video producers realize that video can be much more effective by using storytelling and using the power of internet.

Cre8it, a Stockholm-based video production company interviewed me and some of their corporate clients:

The impact of corporate video

Using the web for corporate videos

But there are interesting developments happening! Here is a very good example:

MSNBC launching a very smart “video explorer” player

MSNBC has developed a smart way to navigate and share this video from Obama’s inauguration. The speech is transcribed so you can read it and use it as a quicker way of navigating through the video by clicking on the text where you find it interesting. This also done by other, forward-looking media sites such as New York Times, who acutally has a better design for the transcribed text.

But MSNBC takes this one important step further: you can select any part of the text, (such as the green part in the screen shot above) and then click on the “Clip & Embed” button. This gives you the code for easy embedding just the selected part of the video on you blog or web site!

This is a very powerful viral catalyst tool since it enables people to comment on just a part of a video clip. For example, you can write a blog post about the recession and include your selected clip on what Obama said about the recession in his speech. Everyone can be editors and help to spread videos, which also adds value to all sorts of media publishers.

When I see smart new features like this my brain starts to spin and produce follow-up ideas:

Idea #1: add a “Clip & Link” button

Select a part of the text as above, but instead of the embed code you get an URL that you can enter into a comment or blog post. When you click on this URL you see just the selected part of the video. This makes it easy to use also in microblog posts and discussion forums where you cannot put embed code.

Idea #2: Create a smart video dialogue editor

This feature could also be turned into a useful video tool: Combine the “Clip & Embed” feature with another upcoming video technology, automatic voice-to-text transcription and you get a very powerful video editing tool!

Imagine uploading your video and let Flash transcribe the text of everything said in the video and display the text beside the video, like MSNBC does. Then you can use this player as a very convenient video editor, perfect for editing all kinds of video with speaking people!

Here are 26 examples organized according to production costs and how complex they are to produce. There is a twist to the green ones, see the end of this post!

Most people associate corporate video with rather boring 20 minute company presentations where the proud CEO is presented along with all the products and the nice offices, accompanied by a rambling voice-over and some elevator music. Or perhaps “talking heads”, tie-clad managers boasting about the company.

But now video has been revolutionized at both ends:

1. The production is much faster and cheaper due to all the new, smaller digital techology.
2. The distribution is now enormously more flexible and cheaper. Instead of mailing out DVDs or arranging screenings all kinds of video can now be streamed on corporate web sites, in video blogs, emailed etc. All at very low costs.

Nobody has the time or patience anymore to watch those 20-minute corporate all-in-one presentations, and they become outdated quickly anyway. So instead, go for short, niche videos, for example:

1. Press release videos. Show how the new product is used by real customers, thus creating better stories for the journalists.

2. Product launches. Do like everybody else and make campaign sites with slick video commercials etc. But the smarter companies also produces more viral videos that are spread via YouTube and other video communities, blogs and media sites. Before the launch, make a video about your product development challenges where you build hype around the problem that your product solves. When you launch it, post a video that does not look like a commercial but shows the product in a documentary way when it is used by real people

3. FAQ-videos and support screen casts. Use the pedagogicial superiority of video to give answers to frequently asked questions and explain how your software work. Put them on your support web site and email them to customers that call in with problems.

4. Staff presentations. Notice how most consultancy firms proudly states that “our staff is our most valuable asset”? Yet they present them with just a name, title and department. Imagine instead 45-second personal video presentations where the staff describe their background and experience, how they work now and what makes them tick! Far better for boosting relations and the corporate brand.

5. Testimonials from happy customers and employees. A real customer describing how his life was improved by product X is a lot more credible than a slick ad with studio shots of beautiful models holding the product. Here is a good example.

6. Instruction videos. Why have not companies noticed the explosion of “How to” video sites with short video tutorials about everything under the sun? Such as Videojug.  Realise that this is a very good way of both decreasing your support costs and building brands. See also my blog post about this.

7. Video blogs and mobile videos. Let your executives speak in person to the whole world, here is why this is good. And encourage your employees to use their mobiles to document things that customers or other employees could benefit from seeing and post it on video blogs. Reports from business trips, development labs, attended conferences etc.

8. UGC campaigns. User Generated Content, where customers upload videos on how they use the products. Creates marketing ambassadors and an image of acompany that listens to its customers. IKEA does it, why not your company?

9. Recruitment videos. How do you entice people to apply for work at your company? Especially the younger generation don’t read endless texts or brochures. Create short, up to date videos where HR shows what it is like to work here, and interview some of the employees. Here’s how Google did it and a good blog post about it.

10. Internal communication. Replace some of the streams of internal email communications with video. For example, the sales manager’s weekly follow-up of the sales reps is more effective if they can hear and see the sales manager.

11. Company policies. Use video to explain all those rules and policies about security, vacation, sick leave, travel etc. Interview those that are responsible and show how they should be used and the benefits. This motivates the employees better than those Word-documents with bulleted rules on the company intranet!

12. Lectures and seminars. Increase the audience for your speeches, conferences etc by live-casting them on your web site and post edited versions afterwards to prolong the value. Also use short videos to promote the event in advance, interviewing the organizer and make people want to go there or follow it on internet.

13. Talk shows. Think value for your target group. Invite an interesting person for a relaxed chat about a current issue. Do this weekly or bi-weekly for almost no cost and build valuable relations and position yourselves as authorities in your business area.

14. Crisis communication. Prepare before it happens: a disgruntled customer posts a video showing a weakness in your product, such as this Assa Abloy video. But don’t respond like Assa Abloy did, instead fight fire with fire: make your own video response and post it in the same channels, as well as on your web site.

15. Knowledge bank & internal training. Interview your experts on how they solved various problems, post it into an internal knowledge data base on your intranet and make it easy to search. This creates valuable assets out of your organisations skills.

Video = expensive and lots of work?

Many companies have realised that video is an effective form of communication but they still think it is expensive and labour-intensive to produce good videos. Also, they have not realised that you build relations better by producing content regularly, so it is much better to make one short video per week than a long video every 6 months.

Program formats

The way to do this cost-effectively is to create program formats. In the TV business formats are big business. Think “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, “Survivor” etc. It is much easier, cheaper and safer for a local TV station to produce shows according to these formats than trying to come up with their own program ideas. So I help companies do the same thing.

All the green types of video in the matrix are suitable for making program formats. I start with a base template and then analyse the company needs and write an adapted production plan. Then a pilot program is produced with a professional team while I make detailed notes. The result is a template that enables the company to produce multiple programs at a high and even quality level and at a low cost per program. The production can be done inhouse with some employee training,  or the format can be used as excellent documentation for outsourcing to local video producers.

Please send me tips on more types of corporate video and links to good examples!

Video is a superior tool for explaining how to do things. A good illustration of this is the explosion of all the new “How to” internet sites that have appeared over the last 18 months.  They are aimed at private individuals and explains all kinds of subjects, from how to behave during a date to how to train your dog to how to apply make-up. Some, like HowtoTV and Videojug have raised millions of dollars from venture capital companies. Others, like the Swedish TeachMeTV are self-financed.

Why have how to sites become so popular?
It is easy to learn new things with video clips.
You can see clearly what to do and what the result will be.
It is easy to find videos on whatever you want to learn by text searching or select a category.
It only takes 1-2 minutes to watch each clip. Try resisting watching several!
It is easy to spread these clips virally to your friends or embed them om your blog.

The video clips are easy to produce and many users want the attention it gives them to publish videos that they have made about something they are good at.

Why have so few corporations understood this new phenomenon?
All companies, at all sizes, can produce these simple video clips about their products and services. These videos can then be spread via the company home page and virally through these “how to” sites as well as on YouTube etc.

Another excellent idea is to use “How to ” video clips for customer service on the corporate web site, post them in the FAQ-section and let the customer service reps email them to customers that have problems using the products. Don’t forget internal training either. You can also use video clips to explain and motivate the employees about your different policies etc!

Here is an example of how easily it can be done, a 42 sec experimental video clip.
In my office we all help each other brewing the coffee, with very varying results…
So I whipped up this little video clip to help my office mates make better coffe:
(the titles are in Swedish, but I think you will get the message…)

Note that this is an extreme low budget video: The whole video took me 20 minutes to shoot with a tiny $750 handycam. I then edited the video in a very simple editing program that came for free with my laptop. After publishing the video for free on the hosting site Blip.tv it only took a minute to embed it on our office intranet. We now have much better coffee at the office!

By the way, the actor in the movie is my colleague Mattias Vahlne. We run the Internet Video Advisory Group where we offer strategic advice to corporations on how to benefit from online video solutions. We also help companies organise mass production of “how to” videos by helping them to create cost efficient program formats and check lists and finding or training videographers to do the production.

Simple video tutorials are a very much superior way of learning how to do things compared to still imges and written instruction manuals.  For example, try to write an instruction on how to cut up a chicken, a very useful skill to have in your household. Then compare it with this simple but professionally made video from the excellent Canadian food web site Rouxbe:

This video is spreading around the world and has already been viewed millions of times. Click the image to see it yourself, it is well worth the 20 minutes!

I recommend viewing it for several reasons:

1. It presents the topic in a very engaging way. The presenter, Annie Leonard, is giving a highly passionate, fast-paced overview that is greatly enhanced with simple but very effective animated visuals.
2. The video has smart interactivity, you can mouse over the images above Annie’s head to see links to each of the five categories.
3. The video is perfectly integrated in a web site that effectively quenches all your thirst for more information that the video has caused.
4. It demonstrates how a well produced video creates both understanding and deep feelings in viewers. It is also a good example of how effective it is to use simplistic cartoons to explain complex issues. (For another example of this, check out this explanation of the microblogging tool Twitter.)

This video was first published in December 2007 and it is now being translated into multiple languages. It will have a long life! More info in Wikipedia.

An anthropological introduction to YouTube

This video is produced by Michael Wesch, a professor of anthropology at Kansas State University. It is long (55minutes) and unfortunately it does not have any interactive navigation tools. But it is worth seeing if you are interested in social media, Web 2.0, videoblogging and why video is such a powerful form of personal communication. The video contains numerous very interesting examples of the YouTube culture and its social, collaborative and creative successes since the launch in April 2005.

Quotes from the video:
“You are not going to convert passive consumers into active trollers on the internet.”
- Stephen Weiswasser, ABC Television, 1989

“We are moving from place-to-place connectivity to a person-to-person connectivity.”

Some interesting numbers:
The three national US TV networks (ABC, NBC, CBS)  were founded around 1948, 30 years ago.
3 networks * 60 years * 365 day/year * 24 hours per day= they have so far produced up to 1.5 million hours of programming in total during the last 30 years!
But the users of YouTube uploaded more video than that in the last 6 months only!
YouTube uploads are now around 9232 hours every day! This is equivalent to 6.5 hours of video being uploade every minute,  24 hours per day!
around 200 000 3-minute videos per day!

One major difference is of course that a vast majority of the YouTube videos are addressed at less than 100 people.

Michael Wesch is most famous for his video “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.”, as stated on wikipedia:

“Wesch created a short video, “Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us.” Released on YouTube on January 31, 2007, it quickly became the most popular video in the blogosphere and was viewed over 6 million times. Wesch has won several awards for his work with video, including a Wired Magazine Rave Award and the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Media Praxis from the Media Ecology Association.”

Google is in high-speed pursuit now of new functionality for YouTube.  Google has acquired one of my favourites: Omnisio, a US company offering a very smart and nicely designed video service. Omnisio allows you to share compilations of different videos in a simple way, but their most interesting service is a video player with embedded user comments, tagging and a very nice synchronized slide timeline.

See this example, a speech by Paul Graham, entrepreneur and founder of the US incubator Y Combinator, (who backed Omnisio):

I really like the divided video window with the slides to the left and the live video to the right, with the slide timeline at the bottom, it is intuitive that you can navigate by clicking in the time line. This is the best user interface I have seen for speeches!

The Omnisio founders say this about being integrated with YouTube/Google:
“We believe we’ve only scratched the surface in terms of what’s possible with online video, and we are really looking forward to taking the video viewing — and creating — experience to the next level.”

YouTube says this about acquiring Omnisio:
“…having this kind of talent at YouTube should help us further explore ways to enhance your YouTube experience.”

Indeed! As I have said before: we are only at the beginning of a marvellous online video development!

Henrik

PS. Google and I seem to have the same nose for interesting internet-based applications

• In the summer of  2005 I tested the brand new YouTube video service and thought that it was going to become a big hit since it was so easy to use. YouTube was acquired by Google in Nov 2006.
• I started using an online word processor app called Writely in august 2005, they were acquired by Google in March 2006 and turned into Google Documents, which I have been using heavily ever since.
• Jaiku is a Finnish microblogging system that I am fond of since meeting the brilliant co-founder, Jyri Engeström at a conference in Stockholm in Nov 2006. Jaiku was acquired by Google in Oct 2007.
• In May 2008 Omnisio launched their app for synching slides with video presentations, I loved it immediately for its beautiful and intuitive interface and smart annotation tools. Well, Google acquired them on July 30, 2008…

The transcribed text can be shown in the video window or be used to search for the part of the video where something of particular interest is said. This is of course very powerful for videos from speeches and seminars etc, but there are many more possibilities such as automatic translation.

I have said for some time that this will become the 2008 killer application for online video.
So I’m not  surprised that Google just started adopting it on YouTube. They start now in a moderate way with US presidential campaign videos:

Try it: search the election videos  here. Your search term is highlighted in yellow lines in the video timeline, point your mouse to the lines to see snippets of the transcript. See also an interview with Steve Grove, head of news and politics at YouTube.

I am convinced that Google and YouTube will go full ahead with voice-to-text services, for several reasons:

Video has many advantages but two major drawbacks:
1. It is hard to search video content. Most videos can only be searched by their titles or meta tags.

2. It is time consuming to watch. A 5 minute video takes 5 minutes to watch, but a text that takes 5 minutes to read normally can first be glanced through in 15 seconds to give you an idea of what it is about and let you decide to read it, all or not.

.

.

Voice-to-text solves both these problems effectively! Search engines can search for anything said in a video and it is easy to create video controls that lets the user jump directly to the interesting parts in the video, for example by clicking on a word in the text transcript or in a word cloud.

Monetization!

Exact information of the media content is a key factor for all kinds of monetization. Voice-to-text enables targeted video ads in a much more effective way. This is undoubtedly a key factor for Google’s interest in this technology. The obvious start is to integrate it with Google’s Adsense and include video commercials in search results. But it will be much easier for all the new online video sites to create valu-adding business models with this technology.

Another giant step for voice-to-text technology will be taken later this year when Adobe reportedly will integrate it into their Flash technology, thereby enabling it to a vast majority of all internet users.

So, 2008 will indeed be a breakthrough year for a more powerful and interactive online video!

1. Video is more personal than texts and stills, it affects us and our feelings much more.
2. Video is very efficient for learning, explaining how things work.

But internet video as it is mainly used today also has several drawbacks:

1. It is linear: 5 minutes of video takes 5 minutes to watch
2. It is hard to search videos, to find keywords about its content
3. You do not get an overview of what the video clip is about before you start watching
4. The controls are usually not very flexible; you cannot play the video at higher speeds, like with a DVD
5. There is no index, you cannot jump directly to the most interesting part of the video

When was the last time you watched a 15-minute clip of someone talking?
For many types of video clips or TV shows etc, these drawbacks are not too important. But for example a long video lecture or interview often feels too time-consuming to watch for the above reasons.

Happily, there are solutions available today that begs to be used more:

1. Indexing: inside the video frame and outside
2. In-video comments
3. In-video tags
4. Automatic voice-to-text

So here are some examples of ways to improve internet video:

Viddler is a video service that offers both tags and user comments in the video player. Point to the white dots to see the comments and the black dots to see the tags. The tags are also automatically gathered in a separate tag cloud, so that you can search inside all the videos that contain a certain tag, very smart!

MIT’s lecture browser is a web interface to video recordings of lectures that have been indexed using automatic speech recognition technology. You can search for topics and play the video starting at the relevant point and see the synchronized transcript. As you can see, the transcript is not perfect yet, but it is certainly good enough to get an overall impression of what the lecture is about and search for the most interesting part of it.

These are just two examples of new, smart functions that empowers internet video. There are many more already, the future of internet video has just begun, so stay tuned!