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What’s New in Interactive Video – 08/03/10

• Hell Pizza Launches Choose Your Own Adventure Interactive Zombie Movie
• YouTube Star to Put His Life in Your Hands for a Year [VIDEO]
• Snuggie Hopes to Recruit YouTube Parodymakers to Make its Next Viral Ad
• Five Questions With…Howcast CEO Jason Liebman
• Video: A Gamer Takes a Look at Xbox Kinect
• The NewTeeVee Guide to Playing WebM Video
• Kinect Doesn’t Like It When Models Stand Too Close To Each Other
• How 12 CEOs & Founders are Leveraging Web Video
• 6 Online Tools for Expanding Your Video Strategy
• Will Logitech’s Google TV Device Be a Loss Leader?
• HOW TO: Enhance Your Online Presence with Video
• YouTube to increase upload limit from 10 to 15 minutes
• Internet TV More Popular Than 3-D TV
• TiVo & Apple: There’s an App for That
• Answers.com Gets 200,000 Video Answers From 5Min
• YouTube Extends CitizenTube Concept With Local News Channel Deal

YouTube Show & Tell – Great Examples Of Interactive Videos, Brand Channels and More…

I’ve been meaning to post this for awhile, but slipped my mind.  We’ve posted in the past on how to create effective YouTube Contests (and eventual contests winners) and how to make your video more interactive through Choose Your Own Adventure type functionality.  YouTube finally came out with a section on its site called YouTube Show & Tell where you can see for yourself some of the best in breed for different areas like Branded Channels, Home Pages and Interactive Video.  Missing are best practices and videos from effective branded YouTube contests but I imagine this might be in part to brands not wanting to release information on their campaigns.  Hopefully, it’s something that will be updated soon…otherwise you can always check out previous branded YouTube contests here.

*Note – I didn’t mention the ‘Viral Hits’ section b/c I basically don’t think it should be included here.  Viral Hits/Videos aren’t something you can create and are very hit or miss (99% more miss than hits.)  I think this continues to confuse unsuspecting brands who think someone can create a video that will definitely go viral…

Funny Holiday Mashup Videos

Mashup Videos continue to gain traction on the web and the holiday season usually bring out the best of them.  The most recent Holiday mashup video? Santa vs. Jack Bauer which you can view below:

SANTA VS. JACK BAUER

Last year, we created a few Santa Mashup Videos to show how to create a Choose Your Own Adventure video using Annotations on YouTube.  I’ve listed the 3 most popular videos from that CYOA below:

SANTA & INDIANA JONES VS. THE CLUELESS SWORDSMAN

SANTA VS. CHUCK NORRIS

SANTA VS. AGENT SMITH FROM THE MATRIX

Though Santa and Elves are always popular Mashup material, the reigning Holiday Mashup champ (in our eyes at least) is still this hilarious video featuring the Easter Bunny kicking ass!

THE EASTER BUNNY HATES YOU!

Know of any other great Holiday Mashup Videos? If so, let us know in the comments and we’ll post ‘em! Happy Holidays!!!

Recent Examples Of Brands Using Annotated Interactive Video On YouTube

As we’ve discussed in the past, YouTube’s Annotation feature allows you to turn normal YouTube videos Interactive to create Choose Your Own Adventure Stories (CYOA), Trivia Games, and so on.  Over the last few months, we’ve seen major brands starting to embrace the CYOA format so we felt it might be worth listing a few recent efforts that are using annotated interactive video to great effect.  We’ve also listed one effort that needs some work.

In no particular order…

The U.K. Knife Adventure

Created as a PSA to educated youths on the dangers of knife crime in the U.K., this CYOA campaign uses Annotations to create an interactive experience showing the results of different paths you choose.  The key to this campaign working is the well done production values that make the experience very life-like.

Sony Ericsson – W995 Interactive Product Demonstration

This interactive CYOA product demonstration for the W995 is in German but it’s well produced and it’s very clear that it was created specifically for YouTube and Annotation interactivity.

Universal – Don’t Miss A Beat II Music Trivia Challenge

Using annotations on videos allows for interactive programs like Music Trivia Challenges and Universal has done a great job promoting their artists’ videos using this particular method.  You can view the Don’t Miss A Beat II Music Video Challenge on Universal / Interscope’s Main YouTube Page.

Norton Antivirus

I’m including this example in the hopes of pointing out a few things that you need to be careful of when producing Annotated Interactive Video.  For starters, you should allow enough time for the YouTube consumer to realize that they are in fact being asked to click on the video to choose a path.  It’s critical that you highlight your annotations and keep the annotations present for at least 12-15 seconds.  This will give your end viewer enough time (hopefully) to figure out that they should click on the video.  The other thing I wanted to point out about this video is that it feels as if it was shot for broadcast and then as an afterthought, put on YouTube with annotations.  It doesn’t have the feel of an actual CYOA video but at least the effort is there.  You can view the CYOA videos on Norton’s YouTube Page.

So You Want To Create A Choose Your Own Adventure Interactive Video…

CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) Interactive Videos are continuing to become the go-to execution when brands and agencies are trying to create more consumer engagement for their online video executions and/or campaigns.  There was a great recent effort out of the U.K. called Knife Crime where it was used as an educational vehicle to show the result of making a wrong (and life altering) decision.  You can also check out many other great examples of CYOA video on a blog post we did a few months ago called The Best Examples Of Choose Your Own Adventure Interactive Video.

We’ve been discussing doing a very in-depth blog post on our experience to date with multiple CYOA executions and I think that post will be very soon.  However, I did want to jump start things by including a pretty cool article and graphic from Flowingdata.  As you can see from the flowchart below, it’s critical in any CYOA video that you’re flowcharting out all the possible directions and results at the start of your video.  Granted most CYOA executions so far are much more simplified and often only branch out into 3-4 overall directions, but as this area of Interactive Video matures, I do think you’ll start to see much more in-depth Interactive Adventures that stay true to their current “Choose Your Own Adventure” name…

What’s New in Interactive Video – 08/04/09

• Best Buy using Aumgented Reality with their weekly mailers
• Augmented Reality being used at The Society of Nuclear Medicine Annual Meeting 2009
• 12 Seconds – Sending Video To Twitter made easy
• 5 Ways Traditional Media Companies are using Online Video
• 118 million online video viewers in 2013 – that’s a lot of digital eyeballs
• JibJab Lets You Star In Weird Al’s Latest Music Video
• YouTube Choose Your Own Adventure Interactive Video on U.K. Knife Crime

What’s New in Interactive Video – 07/28/09

• Adweek asks “Is Augmented Reality The Next Big Thing?”
• Augmented Reality – Beyond Eye Candy
• 5 Video Apps that Play Nicely With Twitter
• An Online Game Show on YouTube
• Internet Video Threatens TV
• Lost Super-Fans Polled: How Many Actually Watch the Webisodes?
• Justin.tv Releases Live Streaming API’s
• Very cool looking Choose Your Own Adventure Video / Facebook Connect Advergame for Doritos
• The “Aquarium” Video
• Blip.tv Brings Programs To YouTube – TV Network of the Future?