Exclusive! Leaked! How to make Viral Videos!

TechCrunch posted about Viral Video Gamer Dan Ackerman Greenberg again.

Once again I agree with a lot of what Dan has to say in his video but I think that it's hard to build a long term business on gaming the system.

Dan may be getting work from people who pay him to create viral videos but is he getting any residuals for those videos? Does he own the content? Can he license it somewhere else?

I would also love to know if any of his videos got Rick Rolled on April 1.

Dan?

Get Your Own Video Hosting, Video Player and Stats Reporting

Sure YouTube, Revver, Blip and Podango can make you some money and you don't have to pay for hosting but if you want to get the big CPMs for online video advertising you better start looking for your own video player and hosting. Companies like Yume, spotXchange and ValueClick have the advertisers but don't come with video hosting or a video player and for now, this seems to separate the "Pros" from the "Prosumers." Unless you can swing a deal (like Ask A Ninja did) with an advertising company that will pay for your hosting as part of the deal.

Castfire is one of the hosting/player/stats places that I'm talking with. Do you guys know of any other places that offer video hosting, a video player and do tracking/stats for FLASH, QuickTime and Video Podcasting?

A Happy Video Chick

She's cute as a button and a very funny and sexy girl that knows how to show a little skin in a family friendly way.

Her videos are among the most viewed on Revver and Youtube, she has a large fan base of subscribers and she is making money in online video by making fun of her family and friends. Some how this has struck an emotional cord with an international audience.

The name of her show is Happy Slip. That name comes from when she was younger and her Filipino mother was always quick to remind her to wear a half slip with her skirts. Her mother would say “Your hap eslip!! Be sure to wear your hap eslip!!”. So she grew up thinking - the term was always “happy slip”, until she was corrected by classmates who asked her if she had a sad slip as well.

She is her own production team doing everything for the videos from the scripting, directing, acting, and editing. Occasionally she will ask a family member to hold the camera for more complex scenes. She uses GarageBand, her own instruments, and sometimes feature original music from a friend, or else parody someone else’s music.

Now she's been nominated by The Filipino Channel’s “Balitang America” for Newsmaker of 2007!

She is a pioneer in online video.

Navigating Episodic Internet Shows

With the exception of Apple's iTunes Podcast subscription I have yet to find an enjoyable way of watching Episodic Shows on the Internet.

When Prom Queen launched earlier this year it was a pain in the ass to watch the shows in order and catch up if you missed one. Eventually team Vuguru created a weekly recap show but it was hard to figure out where I left off and it still required some work. When the Big Fantastic launched their Summer season of Prom Queen called Summer Heat, Vuguru sent out a daily email and this made it much easier to catch up if I missed an episode. I could just go to my Apple mail and sort my messages from Prom and click on the shows in order.

If you go to Youtube or Revver or Veoh or Metacafe or any other video site and search for your favorite Episodic Show you will find it and it's trailers/promos in some crazy order. If you are at work trying to find that episode that you missed before your boss walks by and busts you for goofing off at work you are going to bail and wait till later to find that episode if you ever get around to it.

So far there are no Episodic shows on the front page of Youtube's Most Viewed (All Time) All: page. This says a lot about how we are still in a time of "spectacle" and have not yet moved into "Story" as far as Internet video goes. Even the Internet's biggest "Hit" story Lonely Girl 15's most popular episode only has had 1,708,683 views and if you want to start from never having seen an episode of LG15 and get all caught up, good luck. There are over 21 pages of search results for "Lonely Girl 15" on Revver and I couldn't find Episode number one so I went to LG15.com. There I found a place to start and a recap video of season one that brought me up to speed but that was work.

We need to speak with our contacts at the video sites and ask them what they can do to help. One viral video could bring a ton of viewers to your show but if that viewer can't find the next episode or the previous ones in a nice neat way that is easy to navigate it will take us all a lot longer to build audiences. The big boys in Hollywood already know how to make a programming dial work. It won't be long before they figure this out too and make it even harder for us little guys to break through the clutter.

Sure there are work-arounds but that involves "work".

Using YouTube and Google Adwords to get your message out.

Google is practicing what it preaches when it comes to Google Adwords.

In the above video you will hear a little bit about a dog daycare and boarding business that gets 90% of its business through Google AdWords. That’a pretty cool in and of itself but the really cool thing was that I found the video while I was watching videos on Youtube.

Yeah, so what?

Well the “So what?” is that you can upload a video to youtube that explains what is it that you are selling, then grab the embed code of that video, place it on your site and drive traffic to your doggie day care and get people to watch your video explaining how your doggie day care works.

Now if you are not a doggie day care I would advise doing a different video ;)