Many of you have no doubt seen one of Matt Hardings videos, here’s an update from his more recent travels around the world.. this time in beautiful wide screen in “high quality” on YouTube..

What is so fascinating about Matt’s story and strategy is how allowed large number of people to participate in small ways, enriching the quality of the video (go ahead, tell me you don’t feel something when the other people rush in!), and enriching the quality of his marketing.. Each one of the people who are in the video most likely sent the video to all of their friends, who sent it to all of their friends, and so on… which makes the video register on the most viewed videos of the day.. which ensures that Matt’s video gets millions of views instead of thousands..

He coordinated the production and distribution of his videos through social networks, empowering people to be the creators and the medium upon which the video rides..

November 25th, 2008 | internet people, online video, social networks, ugc, youtube | View Comments

Hulu challenges the tv biz to become a pervasive force on the Internet

HULU, HULU, HULU.. that’s all you are going to hear about in the next year, and a large part of the reason for that is the enormity of their video views. The networks are obviously going to take the credit, claiming that Hulu’s success is a direct result of their professional content. That is in part why Hulu is successful.. they are a reliable source for guilt-free, unpirated network content, but if that was the sole reason, then why do the network’s own websites struggle to find an audience?

Pervasiveness, decentralized distribution, without it Hulu would be just another video site. Instead they dragged network content into the 21st century by allowing some 60,000 site to embed their content without contracts, licenses, or agreements.

The question that boggles most advertisers (or people who don’t enjoy the Internet for entertainment) is how are people finding all of these sites??? This WSJ story found a few I didn’t know about.. but this story is missing two of the bigggest giants..

Last year TV-Links.co.uk was brought down with a high profile lawsuit. The site was known as a directory of pirated content, and for more than a few years it was a hub of the burgeoning online video underground. Once TV-Links was beheaded, more hydrae sprouted from the wound. The two leading sites to take over the mantle were Alluc.org and Sidereel. While Alluc was essentially a clone of TV-Links, Sidereel took an alternative path that I’m confident will ensure their longevity for years to come. Sure they set up a directory to link to pirated content, but they opened their pages up Wikipedia style for fans of television shows and movies. Within a few months, the depth of their content began to rival the IMDB.

In addition to the pirated links Sidereel also linked to iTunes, Amazon, Netflix, network sites, and ultimately to Hulu. Their pages ranked links to authorized content higher than the pirated links, in effect converting the piracy behavior into commerce. By including the pirated links they became a resource to the “pirates” who were simply fans that wanted to have their content time shifted to their online experience. Still to this day movie studios and television networks spend more time on enforcement rather than enabling commerce. The effect of their strategy simply stifles demand.. and that worked out soooo well for the music industry, now didn’t it?

The future of media viewing and commerce is decentralized. Discovery will happen contextually, on the edges, from personalized searches and community referrals. Go to the eyeballs and stop expecting them to come to you..

November 25th, 2008 | embedding, hulu, newteevee, online video | View Comments