Video production is a tricky thing. Even though production cost has plummeted, video as a marketing tool still requires more effort than other marketing material (such as blog posts, newsletters, and ads). And now, when businesses need to spend their marketing budget more wisely, it all boils down to ROI:  How can businesses generate more revenues from their videos?

ViewBix, a client of Pravda Media Group, is releasing a new product that answers the ROI challenge.  It allows everyone to add Call For Action buttons to their videos. In literally 5 minutes users can add links, Skype Click to Call buttons, Twitter and Facebook feeds, and many other capabilities to their video. These buttons, called apps, are then integrated to create a video player that can be embedded in sites, blogs, Facebook feeds, and more.

Some of the real users examples that are presented in their site include a cabin owner that added Google maps to his video player, A band that added links to their tour info and online ticket purchasing site and a non profit that added a donation button on their promotional videos.

These examples show many ways in which the Viewbix product can enrich videos. But the possibilities are pretty much endless. For instance, we are looking into ways to add voting buttons to the video player so it can be used for an international online video competition. Others are using the ViewBix player for affiliate marketing by adding customized links to promotional videos. Also, the ability to add coupons and QR codes opens a whole new array of possibilities for call for action that can be measured in ROI terms.

There is no need to change anything in the video itself. Apps and call for action buttons can be added to videos hosted on YouTube, Facebook and Vimeo, and a clickable link can be configured at the top of the screen that will lead prospects to a chosen site. And as I've mentioned before, the process itself is pretty straight forward, so in 5 minutes or less you can have your video enriched with Viewbix and shared with the world.

ViewBix is offering a simple way to enrich your videos, and it is also a great way to measure the ROI of video production efforts. If your video drives traffic to your site or generates sales, the value is clear and measurable. ViewBix brings this ROI to SMB videos.

If you are at TechCrunch Disrupt, look for Viewbix at the Israeli Startup Pavilion. Jonathan Stefansky, CEO, will be happy to answer your questions, and can be reached at jon AT viewbix DOT com. You can also ping me for questions.

Sometimes, you can just come across a beautiful piece of video, with great storytelling, music, and shots. This is one of them. Done with HV20. Yes. HV20. Ted Chung is the guy behind this one:

A Thousand Words from Ted Chung on Vimeo.

How will video and collaboration technology impact your life and work in 2025?
This is the question we will try to answer on IMTC's annual event, taking place on the 17th and 18th of November, 2009.
With telepresence, online collaboration, social TV, and standardization advancements, our cubicle and living room will never look the same.

In IMTC we practice what we preach. Therefore, we decided to have a full blown virtual event, utilizing commercially available products and technologies.

Are you a thought leader in visual communication, online collaboration, social TV, the future of the living room, or any area that is relevant to collaboration, video or communication? Come and speak at our event - without leaving your office, via video conferencing, chat and remote presentations.

Here are some of the topics we thought about - but please feel free to contact us with additional relevant topics:
1. HTML 5, standard web video delivery and its effect on the value chain
2. Online collaboration status
3. Metadata and what it means for media companies and users
4. HD voice
5. Democratization of video conferencing and Telepresence in the living room
6. Social TV
7. Triple play in the living room - what's next?

As a speaker you will be requested to send us your proposal, and write a short blog post about your topic that will be published in relevant blogs.

Interested? Email us at kfir AT pravdam DOT com with 2025 in the subject line.
Please send us your proposals by September 30th.

In the past two posts I've reviewed important features to check in a sub $1,000 cameras for online video and podcasting. Now it's the time to review the cameras out there. Please leave in the comments below which cameras are you interested in. Remember, it has to cost less than $1,000.  If any of the readers has any of the cameras, please note that as well. In couple of days I will start writing the post, comparing the cameras and their capabilities. So let's get this thing going - Which cameras should I review?

Twitter is, by far, the most engaging online platform today, and represent a huge opportunity for traditional media and brands - read on to see the numbers.

In the last couple of months, Pravda Media was working with Israel's biggest TV News Company, Channel 2 News, on integrating Twitter in their ongoing operation.
We looked at twitter in two ways:
1. Distribution Channel - Channel 2 News website is populated with video news section, both pre-recorded and and live. We wanted to use Twitter to drive more traffic to the site and increase video viewership.
2. Interaction Channel - We chose one TV show, called Meet The Press, and interacted with the audience via Twitter. Viewers were asked to send questions to the host before the live broadcast of the show, and twits were displayed on TV screen during the live show.

Twitter, though still a small network in Israel, proven to be the most engaging online platform today, with highest click through rates , and responses from TV audience

Let's look the the figures:
1.  Users are clicking on links on Twitter  more than on  any other platform: the Average click through rate (CTR) of twitter links is 10% - X70 times more than banners, X10 times more than links in forums and items on Channel 2 website. According to Eyeblaster's research, the average banner CTR of  is 0.14%.  Channel 2 News generate around 1% CTR in their items and in online forums. When considering the fact that twitter is a time based medium, meaning that users see  twits in a specific time window, these numbers are even more significant, as they represent a higher engagement.

2. Level of engagement of TV viewers is much higher in Twitter than in other media channels. Meet The Press offered viewers to ask their weekly guest questions via Twitter, in addition to the show's forum and comments on their site. Twitter generated tens of questions and responses, much more than any other platform.

3. On  June 14th 2009, Israel's prime minister gave an historical speech at Bar Ilan university. The speech was broadcast live on all TV channels, and online in all major news sites. 10% of all traffic reaching channel 2 news site to watch the broadcast originated from Twitter, an amazing number considering that Channel 2 started engaging in twitter only a couple of months before this event.

4. Long term involvement in twitter  provides clear benefits for the company. Channel 2 sees a constant increase in amount of interaction with their Twitter user, while all other interaction channels don't show any growth.

Possible explanation of these figures

The numbers above show that Twitter users are more engaged in conversation and clicking more links than on other mediums. In my opinion, two important factors are causing this behaviour:

1. Twitter is all about instant gratification. 140 charecters and rapid life-streaming encourages users to click on links in order to get additional media. This experience is fundamentally different than forums, blogs and other longer formats.

2. When users connect to twitter, they already intend to engage. While banners are trying to divert reader's attention from the content he or she wanted to consume (the site content itself), Twitter users are there for the interaction.

Would every twitter campaign generate the same CTR? No. One should remember that Channel 2 is a leading news  company, so their content  is relevant to time of the tweet, and well produced. These factors might not exist in other cases.

However, one thing is certain - Twitter, and probably Micro-blogging as a platform, is engaging and interactive. Now it is up to us to find new creative ways to use it.

Related articles by Zemanta

• What Click-Through Rate Can You Expect From Twitter? (mashable.com)

Black Dawn

An apocalyptic end of the world series by Webserials.

Why watch it? Nice special effects, and refreshing theme for a web show

Why not? actors are not as good as the special effects

FilmFellas

Taking a note from Scoresese masterpiece, FilmFellas is trying to capture the indie movie makers spirit.

Why watch it? beautiful images and lighting is crisp HD, interesting conversations, and the young guy is getting bashed all the time.

Why not? if you are not into filmmaking and indie movement, you'll probably get bored

Flying Kebab

A Brazilian indie project, about a young guy flying to Beirut following a letter in Arabic about his past.

Why watch it? great art work, good actors, interesting story, very good editing, great storytelling.

Why not? Episodes are not released frequently, as the project is community supported. Also, episodes are subtitled.

What is your favorite Web Show?

I was sick last week, and that's why I didn't post anything lately. Now I am back to work, and this blog will be updated as usual.

Digitas produced a great event called Digital Content Newfront couple of weeks ago, as a part of NYC Internet Week.

And I was an active participant, even though I was thousands of miles away.

The event covered brand marketing strategies, and was keynoted by Al Gore, who discussed Viewers Generated Ads, a strategy that let viewers create ads for brands. Mr. Gore talked extensively about the need for authenticity in brand marketing, a tricky topic for cigarettes and oil companies.
I was interested to hear Al Gore's take on that - so with a simple twit, I've sent a question to the conference, from my living room in Israel. My friend Jon Burg who was moderating incoming twitter questions, asked the question at the event - and Gore responded simply by saying that they don't work with such companies. I was a part of the whole thing as I watched the live video feed from NYC.
The amazing part of the story is not that I was able to see a video stream of a remote event and ask a question. This was done before with ustream and blog.tv. The important point here is that these technologies are now mature enough:

• The video feed was crisp and almost without any buffering. From urls of the event I believe it is the work of Bitgravity, an affordable HD CDN.
• The room was covered with multiple cameras using Tricaster , a low cost video mixer.
• And Twitter was pretty stable.

So I was in my PJ, at home, talked with one of the brightest minds, Al Gore, all thanks to usable, affordable technologies.

The Physical walls are falling. The only barrier for communication is willingness.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Al Gore wants to save advertising, too (news.cnet.com)
• Al Gore To Aid In Journalists' Release From North Korea? (perezhilton.com)
• For Internet Week, NY's tech elite emerge from bunkers (news.cnet.com)
• Current Network Makes Ad Agencies Tweet For Its Business (paidcontent.org)

How wrong can a YouTube competition get  http://bit.ly/cNKdd

Justin.tv becomes more social   http://bit.ly/1aKVNF

How can I share video on Twitter?   http://bit.ly/Jecii

Concrete news about Hulu's international expansion  http://bit.ly/18u7Aw

In the first post in this series I've reviewed the basic considerations in buying a camera for online video production. This post will cover advanced camera features, for savvy buyers (or latent video geeks like me). Understanding them can help you make better choices when buying your next video camera. Just like the previous post, I will focus on sub $1,000 cameras, as an entry level for most videographers. So let's start:

Interlaced vs. Progressive Formats

Many of the cameras you've seen state that they support 60i or 30p formats (or other combinations of this type). The letters P and I refer to  progressive and interlaced formats. I won't go into too much technical details about what is each format. The important points are the following:

1. Interlaced formats originated in the broadcast world, where basically each frame was chopped to lines that were interlaced with other images. This format is aimed at older TV sets.

2. Progressive formats are based on progressive scanning of images - the way that computer screen and flat panel TVs are analyzing images.

Why should you care? Because your videos will be watched, in 99% of cases, on progressive screens. So, if you'd like to get the best video quality, you should output your file in progressive format. Which means, that if you shoot in interlace format, you need to do a process called De-interlacing, before sending your clip to YouTube, Vimeo and such. It is not rocket science - every editing system has this feature as a video filter or encoding option. It just means that you need to spend time and resources to do it.

So, if possible, choose a camera that supports progressive formats - less work for you in post production.

You can find more information about interlacing here.

White Balance

White balance is a simple feature - the camera automatically identifies white objects, and correlates its image parameters to that definition of white. All cameras do it automatically, but there are cases you'd like to do it on your own. In some cases because you'd like to give the image an artistic look, or because you believe that the camera doesn't calibrate automatically well enough, or because you want to fool it to think that there is more or less light than its sensors indicate. Most sub $1,000 cameras do not support manual white balance but some do. If you can, choose one of those. This flexibility is important for your production value, and is not complicated to manually white balance your camera if it supports it.

Zebra Stripes

We all love Zebras. They are cool animals, with funny stripes. But in the video world they have another important role - they tell us when our video is over exposed. Video, just like film, can be "burned" by too much light. Every camera has its own sensitivity to light, and you will see many videos where the skies are white, or bright elements look completely white. These elements are over exposed. Some cameras have a function called Zebra, that shows you in the camera's viewer which areas are over exposed.

If your camera has manual exposure control, you can reduce the exposure to the right level. In other cases (for example if you'd like to get the Apple ads look of white space) you'd like to do just the opposite - over expose parts of the shot. Zebra lines can help you light and configure your camera properly to get this look.

Frame Rate

in every camera spec you will see parameters such as supports 30p, 60i, etc. We reviewed the difference between the i and p, but frame rate has its own importance. First of all make sure that your camera supports either 30 or 60 fps (the cool way to say frames per second). The reason is that most online video sites reduce video frame rates in multiples of 15. This way, if your video is for example in 50 fps, it would look choppy a bit when uploaded to YouTube.

Now, there is a holy grail of frame rates, the El Dorado of video makers, the most coveted frame rate ever (you got the picture) - 24fps. Why people are so hot for that frame rate? Because many videographers really want their video to look like film (what the cool kids call cinematic look). I am one of those guys. And film frame rate is 24 frames per second.

But things get a bit more complicated. Most cameras in the $1,000 price range don't support 24fps at all, but not all of those who claim they do, do it in the same way. Some are supporting it natively, meaning, they really shoot in 24p. But some require an additional step in the way before this 24p material could be edited, that is called Pulldown. We won't go into to many details on why this process is needed, but it is important to remember that if your camera requires this step in 24p formats, it means you need to do another encoding process, that takes time.

Digital and Optical zoom

You know those cameras that have X40 digital zoom, and tons of people buy cause this number is huge? Well, don't be one of them. Digital zoom is just a manipulation of the captured images, which, in short, sucks. Optical zoom is king. Most cameras have X10 optical zoom - which is great for most use cases.

Shoe

A shoe is a slot on the external body of the camera, used to attach accessories to it, such as external lights, microphone and so on.

Like in any industry, some of the camera companies have their own shoe, while other use a standard shoe. If you are planing to use accessories, especially external mike as I've recommended in my previous post, make sure your camera has either a standard shoe, or buy a mike that fits it.

Manual Controls

The more manual control you have, the better. However, most sub $1,000 cameras don't have a lot of those, and they are not as easy to reach and use as in pro cameras. Look for the following manual controls: Focus, Zoom, Exposure, Shutter, and Aperture.

Sensors

Digital camera sensors are capturing images, instead of the traditional film. There are two sensor technologies - CCD and CMOS. Comparing sensors between cameras is not that straight forward, but the following thumb rules can help:

1. The bigger the sensor is, the better low light performance the camera will have.

2. CCD cameras with one sensor are inferior to cameras with 3 sensors (labeled as 3CCD in the specs)

3. Some say the CMOS sensor is less battery intensive, though I take this fact with a grain of salt.

Note that bigger sensor doesn't mean that the image would look better. . Each company has its own image analysis algorithm, that improves the overall video look,

What isn't important

All camera vendors cram their low end cameras with tons of features that look great on paper but are either useless, or the same effect can be achieved easily in post production. These are the features I couldn't care less about when evaluating a camera:

1. Digital zoom

2. Digital transition effects

3. Digital image effects such as Sepia and black and white

4. Quality or features of onboard microphone

Summary

This way too long post provided a bit more in depth view on camera features, and adds some more insight to the first post in this series. In the next post we will review some of the popular cameras today.

After long negotiations, ABC are becoming a stake holder in Hulu, the Internet TV company funded by NBC, Fox and Providence Equity Partners. This deal further strengthens Hulu's position as the leading premium online TV provider, with 27 partners, and newly extended 2 years exclusivity of the main players' content.

Hulu is proving that great content is king. The site, that was launched a little more than a year ago, has shown meteoric growth and is the third largest online video site in the US. However, as Jeff Zucker, NBC's President,  mentioned in his NYC Media Summit interview, the site is still not profitable.

This deal has a profound effect on YouTube, the queen of video UGC. The site, which is losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually, is facing a huge challenge, that puts it in a collision course with the TV networks' prodigy.

UGC videos are less attractive to advertisers, as many of them do not wish to associate themselves with acts of stupidity caught on video. This leads to lower CPM in these sites. However, video streaming is still an expensive operation. This is why I believe that UGC is not a viable business model in the video world, and this equation is the biggest challenge to YouTube today.

YouTube is trying to change the equation, by introducing premium content on its platform. Some of the first moves in this direction was the introduction of HD player, and hosting videos longer than 10 minutes. The company also announced a deal with MGM, a major move in this direction.

After creating the online video revolution, and empowering users across the globe to broadcast themselves, YouTube has to play the big media game.

And in this game it is facing the biggest challenge of all - beating the TV networks in the online market.

Would they succeed to leverage their huge user base? Time would tell...