Here’s a link to a channel I set up in Brightcove as I explore various video syndication services. Let’s see how it works.
Technorati: Brightcove, Video, Syndication
Category: Internet
People don’t get RSS
At least not the way they understand email. That’s why a service like Rmail (which was bought last month by NBC Universal) will be important, particularly until the browsers that incorporate RSS become ubiquitous.
Instead of requiring an RSS aggregator, this site lets people get feeds delivered straight to their email inboxes.
I tested this in my Blogger blog, because for some reason WordPress.com doesn’t let you paste in JavaScript routines. If you check out my sidebar in Blogger, it’s a really nice interface.
I like WordPress a lot, and I’ll bet that if I purchased the CSS customization I could get Rmail to work, but one of the ideas behind this blog is that everything you see here is free…just to emphasize how free and easy it is to use these new media and social media tools.
Technorati: RSS, Web Feeds, Blog, Rmail
Blogs DO Get Higher Search Rankings
One reason people give for companies starting a blog is SEO (search engine optimization). They say BLOG stands for Better Listings On Google. I have a personal example that leads me to see that’s right.
Last November I did a post on John Kotter’s 8 Steps to Successful Change, reviewing his book, “Our Iceberg is Melting.” As I occasionally review my blog stats at wordpress.com, I’ve seen that consistently show up among my higher-ranking posts. As I looked further, I saw that “John Kotter 8 steps” and variants appear as search terms used to reach my blog.
I thought maybe it was through Technorati, so I tried a Google search with the term John Kotter 8 steps, and was surpised to find:
My surpise was that my post showed up on the first page of search results, and that it was above the Wikipedia entry on John Kotter.
I previously did a post about how for almost any proper noun you enter in Google, Wikipedia will be among the first 10 results. The traffic on my blog isn’t huge, and I don’t have tons of incoming links. So that’s why it seemed odd that my little ol’ blog post would rank higher than Wikipedia, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble.com.
Blogs really do get Google juice.
Technorati: John Kotter, SEO, Blog, 8 Steps, Google
American Idol it’s not…
…but a Mayo Clinic physician, Janet Vittone, M.D., has been named one of five finalists in an ABCNewsNow.com/Prevention magazine contest called “Picture of Health” for women over age 40 who have overcome an illness or otherwise inspired members of their community to make healthy choices. See the ABCNewsNow interview here.
Voting is on-line, and as of this moment there have been a total of 1,978 votes cast, which is probably about 8 seconds worth of voting in American Idol.
Dr. Vittone had previously been featured on Mayo Clinic’s web site. The Rochester Post-Bulletin also did a story today on the contest and her participation.
This contest demonstrates several trends shaping media:
User-generated content, as each contestant uploaded a one-minute video during the first two months of 2007. Reportedly several hundred women entered or were entered by their loved ones. All of that content was free to ABC and to Prevention, and they used it to sell advertising.
Audience involvement, with people voting for their favorites. This is a little different from other contests like American Idol, because in essence you have five women who have either beaten a disease or engaged a community in health behaviors. There’s no Sanjaya in the bunch. Which saintly woman do you choose?
Partnerships for cross-promotion. Prevention and ABCNewsNow.com are building traffic and interest for each other, and with the announcement of finalists on Good Morning America, they got a nice additional cross-promotion.
Lots of web video that wouldn’t make air. When you go to the contest site you have options to see at least three videos of each contestant (each of which has a SlimFast ad). The whole Good Morning America introduction segment was about three minutes. But because you don’t need to appeal to a mass audience on the web, you can provide more in-depth video for those who are interested. (I would suggest, though, that ABC might want to reconsider whether playing the same ad before each video is a good idea. I would watch more of them if I didn’t have to see the “Hippy Hippy Shake” ad for a full 30 seconds each time. I likely would be more favorably disposed toward the advertiser, too, if every one-minute video wasn’t preceded by a 30-second ad.)
It will be interesting to follow this and see how many people are participating.
Technorati: American Idol, ABC News, Contests, Web Video
What is a cool viral branding experience?
Thanks to my colleague Elizabeth R. for passing this tip along from one of her former co-workers at the Weber Shandwick agency. Odwalla has a Flash-based Soy Smart spelling contest featuring an animated Ken Jennings of Jeopardy! fame that’s pretty fun and maybe even addicting. It’s got some viral potential with a send-to-a-friend feature, and the top score each day gets a free T-shirt.
I tried it earlier today and got a 21, and just now did it a second time to reach 25, which put me tops on the list at this moment. I think it’s probably a really new contest, so it’s my best chance to get a T-shirt before the virus spreads too far.
The first time I played I was checking the high scores while I was playing, between words. This time when I checked the list of high scores didn’t show. I wonder whether they changed the application. The ability to do that, if it’s what they did, is another cool thing about Web 2.0 applications; they can be tweakedif necessary to increase engagement.
I’m a real milk guy (a descendant of dairy farmers), so I’m probably not their target market for soy milk, but the application does create an extended experience with the Odwalla brand.
Technorati: Viral, Games, Branding, On-Line