Mr Video

OVERWHELMED
If there is a clinical definition of the word, my picture is next to it!

After an amazing conference in Wash. D. C. I’m just now feeling like my head is starting to poke above the surface. There were so many great speakers, so many great ideas, so many great connections that I have enough ‘to dos’ to last me well into the summer.

What was interesting to me was that video played only a small part of the event. There were only a few short ‘intro’ videos and only one presenter was using video in any significant way.

This tells me that there is still room for savvy marketers to leverage video for massive traffic.

It was fantastic seeing Tim Kerber, Tom Cone, Dr. Niche, Tim Schmidt, Hubert, Jerry Mulligan, and the rest of the ‘membership’ gang - I’m leaving out a bunch.

So, after decompressing for two days I feel better. The best advice given befor the conf. began was to write down ‘action items’ in addition to notes. I am working my way through 4 pages of ‘must implement’ items!

Perry via Treo in Penn Station NYC

Wow, things are happening very fast - I’m just trying to keep up with all the good things. Here are just a few:

First, I’m doing a joint venture on a product that will be truly helpful for video marketers.

Second, the awesome members of AMV are submitting tutorials! Look for these early next week.

Third, members are making great use of the tools on the site to help them market their wares!

Fourth, my head is about to explode from all the contacts and great info I’m getting from Yanik’s Underground III event I’m at in D.C.

Fifth, AMV is international. We are getting members from different countries.

I’m so grateful to the AMV community for all the great feedback. Keep it coming!
Thanks
Perry via Treo

Who would have thought transparent flash effect (transparent flv, aplha flash and the like) would have exploded like it’s doing today. Seems that everyone loves the effect - and why not! Matts, Keys and Chroma/Luma channel effects have been around since shortly after film began.

Film makers have always enjoyed the ability to shoot a actor in a studio and with some ‘magic’ make it look like they were in a tropical jungle, the surface of mars, or the desert of Iran.

Now anyone with a camera, some green paint, and a little patience can do the same thing! Add to this mix modern-day web technologies and you have an amazing video effect.

I’ve been working with chroma key (green screen) technologies for over 20 years. It’s gotten easier, cheeper, faser, and MUCH better in quality.

Remember the first released Star Wars film? Remember the space battle scenes? You could see every key matt! Now, you are hard pressed to see any matt line - even in extreme close ups.

Keying a person over a web page is new (2001) and different.. We have been doing trans flash ads at Ogilvy for a while now but it’s just now taking off. I am eager to see some creative film makers take this “cut out talking head” effect a few steps further. After all, the web is an interactive medium!

Perry via Treo

I had a client ask me to help him post 11 hours of video online. After trying to talk him out of it, I listened to his reasoning.

He wanted to post an online course and charge students.

This would have been unheard of even 2 years ago. Now, with Amazon S3 ready to take whatever you give it (and deliver it back) this approach is now cost efficient.

If you store 11 hours on S3 it will cost you less than $1 per month. To stream, it will cost you less than $1 per student (unless they watch multiple times).

The long tail of the digital world is reaching way on down to distribution. Now it makes economic sense to deliver all those long videos of even longer seminars, sales meetings, and school board hearings over the net for a nominal cost.

Many, many, many business opportunities here.

Perry via Treo

It’s been an absolute blast launching AskMrVideo. I have found some great resources to share with the members and they in turn have shared some amazing tips, tricks and resources. Amazon S3 has proved to be an amazing resource and one that will help members make a ton of money (and save a ton on hosting costs too)!

I started my MySpace Push today and we’ll see how that goes.

Also, I started my super secret “marketing to giants” campaign today as well. I know that if I only get ONE response things will really blow up.

A main switch at HostMySite went down affecting a number of their sites including their own. Should be back up soon.

Things are going very well and the launch has gone very smooth! I have some extra time this weekend so I’ll be able to create some new characters for the PoyP player. Finally! Next up is some loose ends for other clients. I’m eager to spend some quality time with the wife and son. Been workin on the site nonstop so now I need a few days to recharge.

Perry via Treo

Well, the good ladies at Cyberauthorize.com answered yet another “help me my site won’t work because of the payment gateway” call and came through in a BIG BIG way. Anna was a joy to work with and got all the paperwork pushed through in one day! Much thanks to the great Tim Kerber for all the help sortin’ stuff out. So now we are SAILIN’ BABY!

So far, I have 100% conversion! I email the three people who had been knocking the doors off the place and they all joined. Tomorrow the email blast to the list goes out!

All in all I’m spent and feel like Dr Frankenstein must have felt; Proud, but very unsure of where this beast will go. Still, it’s exciting!

Well, AskMrVideo was scheduled to go live today but it wasn’t meant to be. Seems that there are some issues with my merchant account I need to sort out. I’ve had this particular merchant account for over 3 years and I believe - thanks to the help of Tim Kerber at MemberGate - it’s not set up correctly.

I hope it gets sorted out tomorrow - however these gateway things seem to take on a life of their own.

Here are my goals for the site:

• 5,000 members by end of 2008
• “Go To” website for marketing with video
• Framless Flash Video player installed on over 1000 sites by end of 2007
• Launch Network Jan 1, 2009
• Release v. 2.0 of Frameless Flash Video Player July 15, 2007
• One line of code
• click tracking
• 100 Page People Clips available
• Have 200 Royalty Free music tracks by March 2007