In the era of social networking and democratization of the web, connecting with ones customers and audience on an emotional level is becoming ever so important and crucial for businesses.

Using video for digital storytelling has shown to be effective, but it has been, and still is, a bit of a mystery land and non-option to many companies due to high prizing and technically advanced solutions, combined with the requirements on high video quality.

23 Video from Denmark, Europe, or as Robert Scoble puts it,” the country that nobody visits!”, has just finished its international launch tour with a mission to make own videosites accessible to everyone. Everyone should have one, and everyone should be able to afford one. With over 200 running websites and paying customers, 23 Video is now going global offering 100 partners in 15 different countries.

23 Video has already been called for the WordPress for video by the tech savvy media, allowing one to get started by swiping a credit card, choosing a design and a domain name. With a self funded team of ten, 23 Video is taking up the fight against competitors like Brightcove and Ooyala, who combined are good for $145 Million in funding.

Case Study in Building Product and Launching Internationally

Moreover, 23 Video is a great case study on how to build a product and launch internationally in a very competitive landscape.

1. Solving real problems: Listen and Learn

Get early adopters and customers and work together with them to get feedback. Go hunting for feedback. Show your product to everyone you think might benefit from it. Listen, digest, and focus.

When I first met with the co-founders Steffen Tiedemann Christensen and Thomas Madsen-Mygdal for a year ago, they were doing a feedback demo tour in Stockholm. I remember writing:

“23 Video is determined to kill that mumbo jumbo and difficulties surrounding setting up ones own web-tv channel”

One quick look at the feature list tells that it’s exactly what the team’s been busy with during the past year.

The team have been breaking down every possible barrier to entry there is for a small business to get started with online video. How about features like one price and no limitations, or as to quote Thomas:

“Why have limits, we believe in empowering instead of limiting users”.

The list continues with all the goodies like HTML5, API, distribution across all platforms, SEO friendly, own ad serving (partnership with Videoplaza), and access control in case you’d be into paywall solutions, to name a few.

2. Build your fanbase

I can not stress this enough: Involve people early on in your product. You will need ambassadors to help with feedback on the product development, spreading the word and making those important connections and recommendations. For example, do a feedback tour like 23 Video did.

3. Educate

To disrupt an industry and behavioral habits is normally a long process and never simply done just by introducing a new technology. Sure, both luck, timing and a great product is needed, but foremost, it’s about hard work educating and enabling both the customers, and their customers.

23 Video has been working with tutorials, workshops, as securing and educating partners to fully utilize the product. How easy the platform and tools might be, one still needs help and inspiration to produce the content.

4. 100% Human

23 Video is all about the people, for the people.

“23 Video is just a tool: it takes humans to make the most of it. Instead of automated responses, you will have your very own contact person to help you out.”

Many companies today are struggling to humanize their brands to be able to meet the increasing customer demands regarding transparency in customer service and company communication.

5. Launch with help from your fans

Everyone can throw a launch party: hire the works, invite “important” industry people, potential customers and press (no guarantee for show up), but as at most of the times, it’ll end up being yet another launch party soon to be forgotten, without having created none whatsoever connection or relationship with the brand itself.

Or, you can launch in smaller scale, inviting few special people recommended by your fans and trusted peers to create something that sticks. Instead of spending lots of money on eyeballs, spend time with people. 23 Video did that by having team of four doing informal launch dinners in San Francisco, London, Hamburg and Stockholm, finishing back at home in Copenhagen. Be creative. Be a person and socialize.

Watch Robert Scoble’s in depth interview with co-founders Thomas and Steffen of  23 Video.

More reading on digital storytelling on Bub.blicio.us.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She is also a mentor for startups at Seedcamp. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Connect with her on Twitter, LinkedIn,
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

YouTube is testing the waters for a self-service rental model that allows moviemakers to upload content and get it in front of paying viewers. With online video consumption on the continual rise, this can be quite an opportunity for independent studios and cash-strapped directors to get their content in front of a paying audience. YouTube’s Hunter Walk shared the news with MediaPost but did not provide too many details on who will be eligible and when we can expect to see this in action.

YouTube is continuing to add ways to monetize content, recently announcing expanding movie and TV rentals on the site and the selective YouTube Partnership Program launched last year. It will be interesting to follow along to see how the market dictates an acceptable pricing model for content as well as any revenue sharing with the site. According to recent comScore data quoted on MediaPost, YouTube delivered video to more than 135 million viewers in March, reaching three of every four online video viewers at an average of 96 videos per person.

Flickr CC: The Rocketeer

You think you can’t make your videos and photos look astonishing? Yes, You can.

Sweden is not only a playground for savvy online music innovators, but a place that also hearts for online creativity, making advanced online video and image editing super simple to use. In Flash. In the cloud. Bye bye heavy downloads and installations.

Jaycut, online video editor, and Pixlr, online image editor, are two Swedish startups bringing cutting egde video and image editing easily accessible to everyone with a browser and Internet connection. One is surprised how fast these editors load in the browser considering their feature rich libraries. Especially Pixlr has been dedicating to offer the fastest loading image editor. I have been testing, and it sure beats its online competitors FotoFlexer, Photoshop.com, Picnik, acquired by Google in March, and Sumo Paint. For those small image quick fixes, Pixlr also offers Pixlr Express, a light version of the editor.

Both Jaycut and Pixlr are B2B white label solutions, yet offering their respective editors free to individuals. Being super focused on delivering the best editing experience, they were early on to acknowledge the importance of fans and a user community for feedback. Pixlr has a very active user community with 60% recurring visitors, which also has helped translate the service to 23 different languages and create user tutorials. Working closely with its users, Pixlr’s has released many appreciated features such as image grabbers for various browsers and a recent neat social sharing feature immo.io.

Video editing and collaboration regardless place or device

With JayCut’s online video editor one can create a movie or a slideshow by adding text, sound effects and smooth transitions. Its newly relaunched community has also focused on the one click social sharing features. Besides from storing, collaborating, and sharing, all content is easily published to YouTube, blogs, or downloaded to iPhone (available in H.264/Mpeg-4, Avi and Flv formats). After having announced its support for Moblin-based ultra-portable devices like netbooks and mobile internet devices (MIDs) last fall, it has also just released an open API to work on.

The one thing I’m currently missing on both JayCut and Pixlr, is the ability to access and upload my content from other services, for example like Animoto does with SmugMug. Pixlr, although, allows image upload directly from URL, making editing my Flickr pictures easy.

Editing as a tool to increase user engagement

Online video is a powerful tool for creating user engagement, and not just in terms of consuming video content. As JayCut’s editor is being used in various brand campaigns (e.g. by Procter & Gamble), it has been able to gather statistics regarding user engagement. On average, a user spends 5 minutes on creating and editing a video. That is a very high number compared to the time spent on regular banner ads, campaign or landing pages. Of course, there’s no magic sauce to create user engagement, but encouraging people’s creativity and allowing them to interact with one’s brand can be very fruitful in building brand awareness and relationships.

So, if you just wish to plug and play, yet have an itch to express your creativity, go and polish up your holidays pictures on Pixlr, upload together with your videos to Jaycut, give your story its own voice – and share it with the rest of the world.

Warning: Don’t try this on your iPad

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

Flickr cc: Jösé

Bambuser, Swedish live video streaming service, keeps climbing the online social video ladder by announcing Facebook Fan Page integration. Fan Page integration has been one of the most requested features on Bambuser since enabling broadcasting live directly on Facebook Wall feed for three months ago.

The fact that the service, including Facebook Fan Page integration, is free to consumers and non profit organisations as well as ad free, makes this launch very interesting, thus challenging giants like Justin.tv and Ustream. It was only recently UStream launched its Facebook integration, for time being offered free in an add supported version only to brands, artists and partners – on request. To my knowledge no other service supports live broadcasting including commenting directly on Facebook Wall or Fan Page feed.

What’s neat about Bambuser’s solution is that the broadcast is pushed directly on the Wall and Fan Page feed, no additional clicking on tabs or boxes needed. The Facebook integration is easily done in Bambuser Settings via Facebook Connect by just filling in the Page URL.

The service has today users in over 150 countries supporting live broadcasting from over 200 different mobile devices, as well as from desktop browsers. The Facebook Wall integration in October significantly increased the number of channels created per week, having Facebook now counting for approx. 30% of all the videos viewed on Bambuser. In a tight iPhone race with UStream and Qik Bambuser managed to get their iPhone application approved just before Christmas. The iPhone app immediately made it to top ten downloads in the Swedish App Store, iPhone the most used mobile device for Bambuser, and doubbled the number of channels created per week to 6 000.

Enabling easy sharing across social networks is very powerful, which Justin.tv has also come to experience. It reported 68 percent increase of traffic and doubble the number of links shared since it started using the Meebo tool bar last summer.

With Fan Page integration Bambuser is now able to expand its offer to 1.6 million active Facebook Pages, of which 700,000 are active Pages for local businesses. This will not only going to play an important part for the future growth of Bambuser, but also for the use of social online video as a communication tool for businesses and brands, as Facebook is becoming the premier destination for marketers both in the U.S. and many worldwide markets with its 350 million users.

Facebook reaches currently one third of the population, over 3 million people, in Sweden, establishing it as an important communication channel. With the upcoming Swedish general election this fall, I’m curious to see how the political parties are to utilize online video and Bambuser in Facebook.

Thus, stating the obvious, social media truly is making online video going mainstream.

Paula is online strategist and startup evangelist. She blogs at paulamarttila.com and here at Bub.blicio.us.
Follow her on Twitter: @paulamarttila
Drop her email at paula.marttila[at]gmail[dot]com

Football is back! With the second week of the 2009 NFL season wrapping up there aren’t a lot of legitimate choices out there for catching a game on online. Sure you can do a quick internet search and find plenty of sites proclaiming live streaming of NFL games but these sites are sketchy at best with most games going “offline” rather quickly (have to think the NFL is out in force on game day). I do have to give kudos to NBC for bringing their Sunday Night Football games to the online world for free.

With cable and satellite TV costs skyrocketing and many people opting to cut this luxury from their dwindling budgets, the average fan looking to get their NFL fix is stuck. Last season NBC started airing their Sunday night games and continued the trend this season. I just wish the NFL would add to the mix some more games. Granted, it would be incredible to catch every single game online for free, but I understand this could definitely undermine the potential revenue stream of the league.

This is where NBC is the real winner. With one prime-time game a week, NBC is creating a great opportunity to brand itself and create a solid fan base. Heck, throw commercials my way! Give me a game for free and I’ll watch a two-minute video, I’ll even pay attention to the commercials you air on the broadcast network! You are giving me the opportunity to watch an exciting game, offer an HD experience with DVR-type controls (major plays are even tagged along the video time line, if you miss one with a simple click you are taken to that key play and with a click of a button can return to the live action!), plus as a bonus the opportunity to view the game from other camera angles during the action.

Television networks are coming along slowly but surely with the online experience. Just looking at the success of sites like Hulu will show there is a hungry audience online. We aren’t rogue “kill your television” consumer out here. For whatever reason we have made the choice to consume content online and still have great loyalty to our favorite shows, maybe even more than the average couch-bound channel surfer.

It seems that the typical way to give consumers online content is either in a delay-based, on-demand format or making it a premium. I don’t think this approach will necessarily work well in the long term. Advertising is the major way TV stations make their money and having the ability for local affiliates to sell advertising locally is key. How about having to enter in your ZIP code when you watch online content? This way you can feed localized advertising into the mix of your national advertisers making all parties happy.

I think the NFL would go a long way and find they are including more people by giving some things away. You don’t have to have every game on but by giving away an early and later game on each Sunday, you are exposing your brands and teams to a wider audience. NBC gets it and has proven this with its Sunday night games. More exposure brings more fans and more fans equates to more people coming through the gates, buying branded merchandise and giving your advertisers a captive audience. Hopefully more leagues will see the value in this and is just not “giving it away” with nothing in return.

I think it’s pretty clear that we here at bub.blicio.us like online video, but TurnHere is proving that video can do more for you (and your business) than you may know. Although, it is useful for covering topics like office style.

In just a year and a half, TurnHere has produced a whopping 20,000 videos for businesses in a range of industries including travel, publishing, local, and real estate. The company leverages its growing network of more than 8,000 professional filmmakers across more than 70 countries to create affordable Internet videos.

Many small businesses are turning to online video to stand out with customers. With its measurable ability to build trust and create consumer action, video is one of the best (and most affordable) ways to meaningfully engage with potential and current customers.

In fact, Kelsey Group research shows of people who viewed a video online:
•55% visited the company’s web site
•30% visited the physical store
•24% made a purchase

So, to celebrate their milestone, TurnHere has launched the “Fall in Love With Video” sweepstakes. If you have a small business – pay attention!

Here’s how it works:

• The campaign started August 31 and runs until September 25. Each week, TurnHere randomly selects 100 winners to receive a free custom video profile of their business shot onsite and produced by one of TurnHere’s professional filmmakers.

• Additionally, one winner each week will receive a $1,000 “Stimulus Package” giftcard to a leading retailer such as Costco, Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart.

Check out the video below for details and go here to enter: www.FallinLoveWithVideo.com

Good luck!

Disclosure: In addition to being a contributor to bub.blicio.us, I also work at FutureWorks where one of my clients is TurnHere, but that doesn’t make this contest any less cool.

Taking a page from Google’s playbook, Hulu today launched Hulu Labs. According to Hulu, the Labs are “a place to try out experimental projects … and share your feedback while they’re still in development.”

It’s a great idea, and they started big.

Hulu Desktop: Hulu has taken video viewing out of the browser and onto the desktop. With native applications built for Mac and for PC, you can now use Windows Media Center remote controls or Apple remote controls, allowing you to navigate Hulu’s entire library with just six buttons.  It’s also handy without the remote controls. I’ve had various episodes of Kitchen Confidential playing in the background on my machine all day. Download

Video Panel Designer: Now when you embed a Hulu clip into your site, you can customize its appearance.

Recommendations: Hulu has now added recommendations based on shows you’ve watched and rated. You need to have a Hulu account to have recommendations, but they’re pretty accurate. Based on my love of quirky sitcoms, Hulu recommended 30 Rock.

Time-Based Browsing: I think this is the best of the new experimental features. You can now quickly scan videos grouped by original air date. As Hulu puts it, “whether you’re a TV junkie who remembers shows by the day of week they air, a budding media anthropologist curious to study TV’s evolution across the decades, or just a user in search of timely news clips, time-based browsing is another way to easily find more videos on Hulu.”

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

Hulu, home of NBC and Fox shows, has a new partner. Disney has joined the online video service, and brought ABC along with it. The Big 3 now each own 27% of Hulu, according to TechCrunch.

While I’m thrilled that Hannah Montana and Kim Possible will soon find their way to Hulu, I have to wonder – where is CBS? When I want to watch two of my favorite shows online – CSI and How I met Your Mother – I still have to do it through the limited and annoying CBS.com site. I have to wonder what is keeping them? After all, everyone is finding a way to put their content online in an easily accessible manner. Last week, Sony announced a partnership with YouTube to distribute limited, ad-supported content. So, come on CBS!

Hulu is the #3 video site right now, although it is quickly gaining on #2 Fox Video and #1 YouTube. Many writers are calling for YouTube to either get some real content or get out of the way.  Meanwhile, I’d rather speculate on the future of Hulu. With its star rising fast and content seeking out the site, I have to wonder if a premium or subscription model isn’t in the future. What about pay-cable shows? Would you pay a fee to see premium content from channels like HBO or Showtime? You can take that further and ask, what would that do to cable TV?

I don’t how far in the future we’ll be using our laptops for televised entertainment all the time instead of the behemoth monitors in our living rooms. I do know that the time people spent watching TV online jumped 40% in one year and stands to grow even faster as more content becomes available. What do you think?

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Contact Michelle with news, stories, events, and more.
Email: michelle[at]writetech[dot]net
Twitter: @writetechnology, Friendfeed: michellel
Sites: Write Technology, Wine-Girl.net

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