VideoVoo: Online Video Marketing

Simply streaming a video for your audience, or making a video interactive with relevant links and footnotes - that is not even a question. But what if you know that users are wary of downloading unknown software? What if you don’t want to disturb the visual experience? What if you think such services cost giga-bucks? What if you want to make constant changes - all by yourself? One of the possible answers today - addressing all of your concerns - is Asterpix and its Pro coming out: simple interaction and simple creation. Really cool for any online advertisers thinking of video campaigns.

Asterpix, which has been in engineer hiring mode last March, came into public beta in September 2007, and now is ready to sell its Pro video service for online marketers. If you have not heard from them, here’s some basics about the service. If you know them, skip this part and go directly to the follow-up, which is more marketing-focused.

Video sites used

They base their service on YouTube, MySpace, Daily Motion, Veoh, Google Video, Metacafe, Blip.TV, Brightcove, etc. videos - so you can take anybody’s uploaded video or yours and turn it into an interactive video in less than 5 minutes. Anybody’s on the supported video search or social networking sites. So don’t expect to be able to use GeoBeats, for example. The best is to use your own production (be a bit more sparing with the number of cuts to keep products more in focus - see later why), but why not incorporate user generated videos too? You can also give descriptions, tags, URLs. If you wish to embed your re-make, just go ahead: you can easily do so.

How does it work?

Stop. Look. And listen.

I’ve tested their product and Asterpix interactive videos are neither intrusive (the products are highlighted with small rectangles or dots - you choose) nor cumbersome. You mouse over, the extra info appears, and the video stops. You mouse away and the film continues. Elegant and simple. Here’s what Asterpix hotspots look like on my Budapest Blog. (Alas, Asterpix video downloads slower than the YouTube video below it. So expect some lateness. Besides, the opening static image of the video has changed.)

There are several options to indicate that this shoe or that gadget or that voodoo doll is clickable - I liked the fading rectangle most (feels like the lasso in Photoshop) but you can choose Dotted rectangle, Flashing Circles, or even No Marker where notes are accessible through mouse-over. I think the not so distant future lies in No Markers when we will have become just so accustomed to have every pixel interactive in a video that it’s a default thing to click and click and click (or maybe blink, blow, etc.) - without being warned by hotspots.

You can also link your article to a certain part of a video in 3 steps - then the video starts from that point only! (1, right click the selected object on the video that you have already linked, 2, Select ‘copy embedded link to clipboard’ 3, add the html tag ‹a›)

Strengths: xxxxx

Free service (for non-pro users). No software to download. Easy interface for both makers and users: streamlined setup, instant, simple and on the fly management, total control of hotspots. Easy embed. Ideal for soap opera pieces meet product placement, educational videos, demystifying horror films, celebrities or demystifying films, etc. The CEO is blogging - at least a bit.

Weaknesses: xx
Slower download than usual video streaming (3-8 seconds over the threshold), which may deter users.

Video links may only appear for a few seconds - in a wrong setting, users can only click on an item if they concentrate hard or pause the film. So I asked Nat Kausik, the CEO of Asterpix (through Dave Struzzi):

me: How can I set the number of seconds for a hotspot?
Nat: By default, the hotspot automatically tracks the object (even as the object moves around) for as long as the object remains in the scene. We are also working on an enhancement that will allow the hotspot to continue tracking objects across scenes. In addition, users can edit the hotspot duration via a timeline slider accessible from the note ‘edit’ button.

So what happens is that even though your footnoted or promoted object appears many times in your videoclip, at this point, you need to tag it multiple times if you wish to provide a more visible and clickable info throughout the recording.

May require slight modifications in your video (fewer cuts, different zooming, products more contrasted from background, etc.)

Unsuitable for certain types of films (e.g. interviews, monologues, long sunsets, short sunsets, jazz piano sessions zoomed in, my-head-fills-out-the-monitor vlogs, 10 minute still life paintings, Garfield sleeping in Justin TV style, etc.)

Video Search and Social Media Optimizing

For video search optimizers, the good news is that you can totally re-write the description of the originally uploaded youtube or metacafe or blip.tv, etc. video - keyword optimized. Max. description is 10,000 characters. You can also rewrite the tags (great!) - limit is 70. Clicking on tags will take users to the asterpix database with the same tags. And you can supply a totally new URL and generate clicks for the site you wish to. So this is an amazing and simple tool for those who have found amazing videos on the web (possible CC materials), and would like to embed them in a search engine optimized way. At least, if Google can and is willing to index them the way YouTube videos are in the universal search results… Otherwise you are left with embedding.

Future?

My present worry is that users will be impatient with the relatively slower download time: so I do suggest placing the Asterpix videos in the intro part of your article/ blogpost - let it can gain some time to download by placing it in the third quarter of the text. Lack of co-operation? I don’t expect that video sites currently used, most notably Google, would not be willing to co-operate with Asterpix (BlipTV is already a partner) as both YouTube and Google video can get more exposure, plus Google AdSense could use the new descriptions and tags in Asterpix videos to generate more ad placements (even within the description boxes).

Is Asterpix for Marketers? Definitely. Learn how and what you pay for it in the Asterpix video marketing follow-up.

But there are many questions unanswered: most importantly, when can we expect a faster version? Are these descriptions and tags really search-friendly? What about text ads at the bottom of youtube videos - will they be inherited with an option? What if the original video is taken down: will your interactive version disappear too? etc. etc.

PS: I would put the quicktour tutorial video on the front page not in the help section. Just like the FAQ. And I would make the quicktour very easily and quickly embeddable - added to youtube under the username Asterpix not jcd4413 disabling ratings…