Light Circus news and our latest online video & interactive multimedia projects
Ist July 2010: Attended a workshop hosted by Peter Graves for DPN on SEO & Social Media. The event was well attended, mostly by sole traders and micro businesses from West Cornwall. Very interesting to see how video and mulitmedia relate with SEO & Social Networking for new business generation online (especially in respect to a few of the recent articles posted here). I enjoyed meeting some very interesting people during the course of the day. Having been very involved in the creation of the Digital Peninsula Network more than a few years ago, it's good to see DPN still providing a unique and relevent spectrum of services to the local business community. Greg.
25th June 2010: Social Network sites overtake search engines in popularity in UK accounting for 11.88% of all visits in May 2010, with search engines collectively only achieving 11.33%. The biggest player is FaceBook (who recently partnered with the PTA to improve user safety and awareness) which now has 55% of all UK social networking site visits. Online advertising spends are bound to follow the trend. But some argue that YouTube isn't really S.M. and this has distorted the results. See article.
How does it feel to do what you do?
What we do for a living is a big part of who we are. With a lot of 'joy of life', Chip Conley - hotellier and founder of Joir de Vive - asks if it's time to measure success in business - as well as in life - differently... not just looking at tangible outputs but the intangible difference that the people delivering products and services can make.
He quotes Abraham Maslow who became the foster-father of modern advertising when his 'heirarchy of need' was adopted as the cornerstone of the science and the seductive art of 'demand creation' in consumerism. But Conley takes Maslow's work in a different direction, saying that rather than exploiting 'human need', if we approach it sincerely, this can be very good for business.
In our work we've seen time and time again that in the right hands, 'intangibles' powerfully and positively impact on business.
21st June 2010:Video can boost occurance of 1st page rankings by 50%. As far back as January 2009, Forrester Blog contributor Nate Elliott was describing how video, coupled with 'blended search' trends on Google and others meant that web video - optimised, embedded and propagated correctly - makes it 50% more likely to gain a first page ranking on Google for a given keyword/search phrase. Now with Google video site mapping becoming more significant in the lead up to Google TV, video content is becoming more significant than ever as a tool not only for conversion, but also for search engine impressions, rankings and referrals from Social Media.
Do big problems always require big solutions? Rory Sutherland says many flashy, expensive fixes are just obscuring better, simpler answers in this short TEDtalk filled with ponient and often entertaining examples, elegantly proving that simple ideas can have dramatic, disproportionately positive effects.
14th June 2010:Cisco: Video will be 91% of all IP traffic by 2014. The recently released annual Visual Networking Index forecast is a model based on a combination of analyst projections and data collected from Cisco customers. Cisco is forecasting that global IP traffic will increase 4.3 times though 2014 and that video will be the primary driver, accounting for 91% of traffic by 2014. See article.
14th June 2010:iPad-ready video? How much web video already uses HTML5/H.264 encoding to play universally?
The launch of iPad was the latest in the head-to-head fight between Apple and Adobe for playback supremacy and in ancicipation of its launch, the first few months of this year alone the percentage of HTML5 or H.264 encoded video had risen from 10% to 24% including vids with auto-switching/iPad detection. See article.
For more info on the iPads lack of support for Flash for 'Padvertising', 'Tabvertising' or any other 'ising', see article.
It's hoped within the industry that Flash content will be playable on iPads soon because there's so much interactive Flash content & apps out there that users expect to be able to carry on using on their new device, plus HTML5 video delivery is not capable of supporting Flash's levels of interactivity.
11th June 2010: Currently planning shooting a short for our self-authored series entitled 'People, Passion, Place.' which will profile a very accomplished local musical instrument maker and craftsman.
Engaging in a strategic review with a London based corporate apartment client and advising on integrating interactive multimedia and HD video content to enhance their site.
11th June 2010: Used correctly, video establishes trust in online stores & boosts sales. The number 1 step in minimising potentially damaging 'cart abandonment' for online stores is to establish trust - that's according to leading industry sources including Donut's contributor Chris Barling of Actinic.
And what's the number 1 online method of conveying trustworthiness, creating a 'reputation effect' and positively influencing users to feel right about becoming buyers? All together now... Video & multimedia.
Whether it's being used to demo products, reassure potential customers that your site doesn't have hidden costs, high delivery fees, lengthy checkout procedures or login creation (all high scoring no-no's), making compelling propositions that your site IS the expert authority in your field, delivering convincing testimonials, or pointing out ways in which you add value that your competitors can't match... whether on arrival or during the purchase process, video/multimedia can have a dramatic, positive effect on user experience and on conversion/sales (as well as boosting rankings and penetrating Social Media etc).
