The saying used to be, "good, fast, cheap - pick any two."
In creating content for the web, it has to be all three.
"Good" means good stories, well told. Or good, well produced coverage of events. Or an interesting, well researched documentary. Does it have to have the same level of production value, as, say a Hollywood feature or a prime time television show? Of course not. But the people who are producing the web content should know what they're doing - be experienced and professional and able to wring the last ounce of production value from a relatively tiny budget.
A friend of mine was recently producing a web video and the client wanted the "edgy look where the camera waves around" and insisted that as much of the footage as possible be shot from his cell phone. My friend patiently explained that getting that "spontaneous" look takes a lot of time and planning. Those shots aren't made by amateurs waving cameras around. And he suggested that the client was welcome to cover the shoot simultaneously with his cell phone while my friend shot the more "traditional" way. Needless to say, they used the traditional footage.
That's not to say that there's not a place for the "shaky cam" approach. It just needs careful planning to get the appearance of spontaneity while still creating something watchable.
"Fast" just means getting it done quickly so you can move on to the next one. In the immortal words of William Goldman, "no one knows anything." None of us know what's going to be a web hit and what isn't. If you spend too much time obsessing over something that falls flat on it's face, it's going to take a while to get back on your feet and on to the next project. Remember, your audience is not going to be as critical as a cinema or television audience will be. So work quickly. Make it good - just not obsessively good.
"Cheap" is just the reality of web content. Most web shows are just not going to have the kind of giant bucks behind them that film or television have - at least not for now. This is another reason why volume is important. And while we now have all kinds of great, relatively inexpensive professional tools at our disposal, the realities of production are still the same. So it is vitally important that we use our ingenuity to produce quality content without spending a ton of money.
Ways of doing this include keeping costs in mind at the concept stage, minimizing the number of locations, keeping the number of actors limited, etc. Also, if you are creating for a specific sponsor, don't be afraid to ask them for whatever they can offer in the way of locations, employees as background actors, props or anything else that comes to mind. It's amazing how much you can save in production dollars this way.
I think that production dollars will start to increase as time goes on and people figure out ways of effectively monetizing web content. Until then, producers need to walk the fine line between losing money by over-producing and creating worthless junk in an effort to make money. Neither approach serves anyone for long.
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Monday, December 3, 2007
User Generated Content
A lot of web content models have been based on seemingly infinite supplies of user generated content (UGC). While I'm sure that seems like a good idea in the abstract conference room environment, one only has to spend a few minutes surfing through YouTube to realize that the gems in this morass of mind-numbingly bad material are few and far between.
Which is why I created Vibert's First Law of Cheap Technology:
"Just because the technology for creating something suddenly got cheaper doesn't mean everyone will be good at using it."
It reminds me of the time in the late '80s when page layout apps suddenly became common. Every CEO thought about firing their ad agency and having their secretaries create the ads (remember secretaries?). After a few weeks they found that most of their secretaries weren't very good at creating ads, even though they had the software.
It turns out that there is more to creating compelling video content than having a DV camera and an editing application. Some will be lucky enough to be holding a video camera when, for example, their best friend decides to launch a bottle rocket from his ass, creating an instant YouTube hit. But, scorched colon aside, how often is that going to happen? Multiply it by a few hundred million users and you'll get more, of course, but after awhile it all begins to look like "America's Funniest Home Videos... Uncensored!" You can only take so many 20 second clips like this before boredom and ennui set in.
So what differentiates UGC from other, more sophisticated kinds of web content? The same thing that differentiates Uncle Fred's home movies from what you see at the cineplex:
Professionalism.
What does that mean? Working to a consistently high standard, both in terms of concepts and execution. Being able to do these things on an established timeline, within an established budget.
As the web audience continues to grow more enlightened and seeks superior content, the need for material designed for the unique requirements of the web audience will steadily increase. The challenge for anyone hoping to make money at this will be to create this quality content without spending the kind of money that Hollywood and Madison Avenue do.
The good news is that advertisers and sponsors are starting to realize that associating themselves with superior content means they will attract more viewers - and that makes good business sense.
More about that in upcoming posts.
Which is why I created Vibert's First Law of Cheap Technology:
"Just because the technology for creating something suddenly got cheaper doesn't mean everyone will be good at using it."
It reminds me of the time in the late '80s when page layout apps suddenly became common. Every CEO thought about firing their ad agency and having their secretaries create the ads (remember secretaries?). After a few weeks they found that most of their secretaries weren't very good at creating ads, even though they had the software.
It turns out that there is more to creating compelling video content than having a DV camera and an editing application. Some will be lucky enough to be holding a video camera when, for example, their best friend decides to launch a bottle rocket from his ass, creating an instant YouTube hit. But, scorched colon aside, how often is that going to happen? Multiply it by a few hundred million users and you'll get more, of course, but after awhile it all begins to look like "America's Funniest Home Videos... Uncensored!" You can only take so many 20 second clips like this before boredom and ennui set in.
So what differentiates UGC from other, more sophisticated kinds of web content? The same thing that differentiates Uncle Fred's home movies from what you see at the cineplex:
Professionalism.
What does that mean? Working to a consistently high standard, both in terms of concepts and execution. Being able to do these things on an established timeline, within an established budget.
As the web audience continues to grow more enlightened and seeks superior content, the need for material designed for the unique requirements of the web audience will steadily increase. The challenge for anyone hoping to make money at this will be to create this quality content without spending the kind of money that Hollywood and Madison Avenue do.
The good news is that advertisers and sponsors are starting to realize that associating themselves with superior content means they will attract more viewers - and that makes good business sense.
More about that in upcoming posts.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Visual Space
For some reason there are still people who are convinced that no one is going to watch anything longer than about 10 seconds on their cell phones. Typically, the reason given is that the screen is too small.
That complaint makes no sense. You don't sit a foot away from your television screen and you don't watch your cell phone from across the room. In fact, if you sit in front of your television where you typically watch from and then hold your cell phone up at the distance you normally look at it from you'll find that both screens fill roughly the same amount of your visual field.
The cell phone screen will probably appear slightly smaller, but not dramatically so. Probably the difference between, say, a 35" screen and a 27" screen viewed at the same distance.
I do think that mobile content should be kept under two minutes in length, but my reason for that has more to do with viewing habits than with screen size. Mobile viewing typically happens during what I call "interstitial time" which I define as a period too short to get anything meaningful done but too long to do nothing. Like when you're standing in a line waiting for a sandwich, or waiting for your kid to get out of school, or sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office.
These are perfect situations for viewing short videos on a cell phone or video iPod. And people typically have many short periods like this in the course of a day.
Strong, compelling content designed to fit into this sort of situation will get watched.
That complaint makes no sense. You don't sit a foot away from your television screen and you don't watch your cell phone from across the room. In fact, if you sit in front of your television where you typically watch from and then hold your cell phone up at the distance you normally look at it from you'll find that both screens fill roughly the same amount of your visual field.
The cell phone screen will probably appear slightly smaller, but not dramatically so. Probably the difference between, say, a 35" screen and a 27" screen viewed at the same distance.
I do think that mobile content should be kept under two minutes in length, but my reason for that has more to do with viewing habits than with screen size. Mobile viewing typically happens during what I call "interstitial time" which I define as a period too short to get anything meaningful done but too long to do nothing. Like when you're standing in a line waiting for a sandwich, or waiting for your kid to get out of school, or sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office.
These are perfect situations for viewing short videos on a cell phone or video iPod. And people typically have many short periods like this in the course of a day.
Strong, compelling content designed to fit into this sort of situation will get watched.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Creating Corporate Content for the Web
I recently pitched some concepts to a corporate client who wanted to create a series of web videos that featured their products. To help them understand the difference between the demands of the web versus what a television audience might expect I created this "framework" to help them along. I'll be expanding on the points in this outline in future posts.
Doing web video is not like doing commercials. The reason is that (pre TiVo, anyway) a television audience is a relatively captive audience, whereas a web audience will quickly move on to something else if they are bored or feel manipulated by whatever content they’re watching.
With that in mind here are some rules:
1) Don’t try to sell anything in the video. It’s okay to feature the products in use and they can be important components of the narrative, but don’t sell. That’s what the web site is for. The video gets them to come, and once they are there they’re more likely to browse and explore.
The video helps the consumer to form an understanding of and build a relationship with the brand. It generates an aura of personality for the brand that tech specs cannot.
2) Keep the videos short. People don’t have time to watch a ten minute video. Rather than doing one long video it’s much better to do many short ones. If you end each video with a cliff-hanger it keeps the audience interested and coming back for more.
3) Keep the videos interesting. The only people who are fascinated by tech specs are engineers. Unfortunately engineers think everyone is fascinated by these details. It’s especially problematic when the company making the product is run by engineers. To see why this is wrong look at Apple’s success with the iPod. Does it play music? Yes. Does it have adequate storage? Yes. Is it simple to use? Yes. Is it cool? Yes. End of story.
If it were all about features and specs then the iPod would be one of the least successful mp3 players. An important fact to keep in mind.
4) Keep the videos coming. You can’t just do two or three. Twenty or thirty is more realistic. Give people a reason to come back to your site again and again.
5) Keep the site dynamic. If consumers are coming back to the site on a regular basis to see the new video, make sure the site changes each time they come so they’ll be inspired to look at the site again to see what they’ve missed.
6) Make sure the consumer can find you. The videos should always have a home URL so that if consumers find them on YouTube or somewhere else (as they surely will, and this is to be encouraged) they can find their way back to your site to see more.
Doing web video is not like doing commercials. The reason is that (pre TiVo, anyway) a television audience is a relatively captive audience, whereas a web audience will quickly move on to something else if they are bored or feel manipulated by whatever content they’re watching.
With that in mind here are some rules:
1) Don’t try to sell anything in the video. It’s okay to feature the products in use and they can be important components of the narrative, but don’t sell. That’s what the web site is for. The video gets them to come, and once they are there they’re more likely to browse and explore.
The video helps the consumer to form an understanding of and build a relationship with the brand. It generates an aura of personality for the brand that tech specs cannot.
2) Keep the videos short. People don’t have time to watch a ten minute video. Rather than doing one long video it’s much better to do many short ones. If you end each video with a cliff-hanger it keeps the audience interested and coming back for more.
3) Keep the videos interesting. The only people who are fascinated by tech specs are engineers. Unfortunately engineers think everyone is fascinated by these details. It’s especially problematic when the company making the product is run by engineers. To see why this is wrong look at Apple’s success with the iPod. Does it play music? Yes. Does it have adequate storage? Yes. Is it simple to use? Yes. Is it cool? Yes. End of story.
If it were all about features and specs then the iPod would be one of the least successful mp3 players. An important fact to keep in mind.
4) Keep the videos coming. You can’t just do two or three. Twenty or thirty is more realistic. Give people a reason to come back to your site again and again.
5) Keep the site dynamic. If consumers are coming back to the site on a regular basis to see the new video, make sure the site changes each time they come so they’ll be inspired to look at the site again to see what they’ve missed.
6) Make sure the consumer can find you. The videos should always have a home URL so that if consumers find them on YouTube or somewhere else (as they surely will, and this is to be encouraged) they can find their way back to your site to see more.
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