Hayden Black to Give Key Note at OMMA Video

Hayden Black - The best free videos are right here

Online Comedy Series Creator/Exec Producer/Actor Hayden Black will be giving the Key Note at this year's OMMA Video where he will talk about his online video successes Goodnight Burbank and Abagail's X-Rated Teen Diary.

Jamison Tilsner of Tilzy.TV talks to Hayden Black, creator of GoodnightBurbank.com and AbigailsXRatedTeenDiary.com.

SIDE NOTE: Last night one of the cast members of Goodnight Burbank, David Lawrence showed up in the NBC hit series HEROES.

NewTeeVee Is Building Community Online and in the Real World

Last night online video blog NewTeeVee had a real world meet up in Hollywood as part of their NewTeeVee Pier Screenings series.

Some of online videos biggest celebrities were there including Kent Nichols from Ask A Ninja, Hayden Black from Good Night Burbank / Abigail's Teen Diary doogtoons' Doug Bressler and Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahcha from Galacticast. Also present were new media agents from UTA and ICM as well as Judges: Lydia Antonini from Warner Bros.,Allen DeBevoise of Machinima.com and Aaron Simpson of Cold Hard Flash,

Execs like Angel Gyetvan from UStream and others from College Humor and CBS Interactive were also there.

I had a great time and got a few moments to chat with Liz Gannes about what NewTeeVee is, what they are doing and what they mean to independent content creators.

Different Online Video Monetization Solutions

Last night Liz Gannes and Chris Albrecht from
New Tee Vee (the video blog about online video) threw a party in Hollywood at the Cat and the Fiddle. The bar was filled with online video creators including Kent Nichols from Ask A Ninja, Greg Goodfried and Miles Beckett from Lonely Girl 15 and KateModern, Hayden Black from Goodnight Burbank and Abigail’s Teen Diary, Felicia Day from The Guild, Douglas Cheney and Ryan Wise from Big Fantastic, Alec McNayr from Space Shank and David Nadelberg from Mortified, were there as well as people from companies playing in this space like Jane Hu from Vuguru, Sarah Szalavitz from Veoh, Angela Gyetvan from Revver, Jamie Flam from Independent Comedy Network, Zach Posner from National Lampoon, Philip Hodgetts from Open Television Network and Jeremy McMillan from Soda Entertainment.

What really hit me was that as diverse as the content was from these different creators so were the business models of the different online videos represented by these people.

Ask A Ninja has an online advertising agency selling their ad inventory. The Lonely Girl 15 guys are selling their own product placement deals. Hayden Black is using Revver. The Big fantastic guys are creating content for Michael Eisner and Jane Hu at Vuguru and also doing content in a partnership deal with Brent Weinstein's 60 Frames. Everyone is trying different ways of getting to the advertising dollars. Phil Hodgetts seemed to be the only one at the party who was doing a pay-per-view model although the guy from CBS Interactive who bought Wall Strip for $5 Million was there but I'm not sure you can say that's a pay-per-view model ;)

As I keep reading terms of service agreements from online advertising companies I keep seeing how different media companies are better for different types of content creators. Just because someone has online video ads doesn't mean those ads are right for your content and even if the ads are right for your content doesn't mean the video player or delivery device they have is right for your website and don't get me started on getting ads in your video podcast.

Right now it is truly the Wild West in online video and just because someone is building a fancy train doesn't mean that it will fit on your tracks.

It will all work itself out in time just like the banner ads industry has worked itself out with IAB standards but it takes time.

My advise right now is don't lock yourself into anyone monetization opportunity just yet. Keep your options open and look at what might work best for your content.

Digital Hollywood

I've spent a good portion of the last two days at Digital Hollywood. It's a event that has a ton of six person panels pontificating about anything and everything digital. Creative people are far and few between the suits of tech marketing people trying to launch the next white label do it yourself broadband channel for studios and networks.

Hayden Black of Goodnight Burbank and Abigail's X-rated Teen Diary http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif Paul Kontonis from For Your Imagination and John Evershed from Mondo Media the people that bring you Happy Tree Friends were but a few of the video peeps there.

Victor Harwood puts on a great show that brings in key players that know their stuff. If you are looking to get in to anything in Digital Entertainment Digital Hollywood is the place to start.

Walking around the trade show floor I was hoping to find other companies that are doing what Revver has been doing for the last year or so and that's dumping money in my Paypal account every month for advertising that they place on my videos but unfortunately I didn't find any of those types of companies exhibiting on the floor or having cocktails at the parties. I bet once the whole YouTube Advertising thing takes off other companies will copy what Revver is doing.

I'll be back there today as at the last minute The Daily Reel has asked me to join a panel they have at Digital Hollywood about Viral Videos. I'm looking forward to being on a panel with Judson Laipply, Creator of "Evolution of Dance", Ben Relles the Prodcuer of "Obama Girl", Lisa Donovan the creator and star of "LisaNova", Anthony Padilla and Ian Hecox the Creators of "Smosh and Mark Day the editor of Rooftop Comedy who will be moderating it.

Make Your Content Evergreen and Simple.

If you are an online video content creator who believes in the "Long Tail" then you should really think long and hard about the type of online video content you are producing and stay away from content that will be of no interest to viewers two months from when you post it.

After spending this past weekend at the Podcast and New Media EXPO, Podcast Academy and popping into Podcamp for a few minutes I realized that there are a lot of people producing video content that is "of the moment" and that "of the moment" content has little or no long tail value at all. Sure CNN.com can make money aggregating a daily audience with news but I don’t think independent content producers should create current affair video programming because you need to make money every way and anyway you can. To do that you are going to need long tail search.

(For those of you who haven’t read the book The Long Tail you should at least get your head around it and understand the concept because I’m not the only one who talks about it.)

Hayden Black from Goodnight Burbank has launched a new video series entitled Abigail’s X-Rated Teen Diaries and while I think the title of the series will get him some interesting traffic I also think it will make advertisers pause before placing their brands next to something that has “X-rated Teen Diaries” in the title. I also think there could be some issues with the type of traffic that finds Abigail through search and becomes very disappointed with what Abigail looks like and that they don’t get to see any naked teens having sex. I could be wrong but I do know from first hand experience with French Maid TV that those types of concerns are real. I’ve mentioned this to Hayden and I hope for his sake I’m wrong. Now that said, I do think that Hayden has been very smart in making this content evergreen much like what Sarah Atwood of Nontourage is doing with her new project Dear Addy May. Sara plays Addy May, a white trash character that gives advise to viewers in a trailer park trash kind of way. This is Dear Abby with a new media spin much like what Ask A Ninja has done.

Ask A Ninja, Addy May and Abigail’s X-rated Teen Diaries are all evergreen, simple to produce and emotionally engage viewers with spectacle and story that take place on screen and in the theater of the mind.