I’ve had several occasions recently to evaluate video upload/player options for clients, and as a result, I am recommending that, budget permitting, they stay away from YouTube, Vimeo and other “free” services due to what I believe is an unnecessary risk to reputation.

Every free video service, and even some of the paid video distribution networks, have what I call “drag.” They pull along a little red wagon full of undesirable content behind them. Positioned alongside this often questionable content, your message could end up sending a viewer to a competitor, or worse still, cause them to be offended.

This tag-along content comes in several forms.

Advertising

Many video upload/viewing sites present advertising messages alongside videos. Revver for example presents subtle Google Ads or banners, such as an ad for Verizon, at the top of the page. I did a search on “women entrepreneurs” and above and alongside serious business videos I was presented with ads for a wacky Martin Lawrence movie, jewelry, and a banner ad promoting a medication for bipolar disorder.

Ads on some sites are extremely inappropriate, offering Viagra and Cialis, or dating services, adding an undesirable sleaze factor to the viewing experience. Perhaps worse is the prospect, quite real, of a viewer being hijacked by an ad for a competitive product or service.

This is not true of all sites. YouTube and Vimeo do not seem to have this problem. I can’t say unequivocally whether this is universal for these sites, but I did not see advertising, other than promotions for other videos, while I was browsing these sites.

Related Videos

Another area of risk is in “related” videos offered by many services that by virtue of a few keywords become informally linked to yours. YouTube, for example, offers a scrolling list of related videos. This offers a multitude of ways for your message to be diluted or connected with something you’d prefer not to have your company associated with.

Delta Airlines ran a contest and identified a real employee to record a safety video, which the company then posted on YouTube. The campaign was a big success, gaining national media attention, and the video has close to one million views (more I would argue than live flight attendants have received in the history of aviation.)

If you visit the YouTube page displaying the video (you get there either by going to YouTube, searching “Delta Flight Safety,” and playing the video, or by seeing the video somewhere else and clicking on the embedded player,) you’ll see YouTube’s list of related videos, which includes one from a disgruntled passenger titled Delta Flight 6499, SEVEN HOURS on the tarmac. Does Delta really want to drive viewers to this?

Comments

Video upload sites that offer viewers the opportunity to comment also pose risks. This is really a problem on YouTube, where it seems there are thousands of people with nothing better to do than leave comments like “this video sucks” and “fail!” Maybe your video IS bad, but a hundred comments confirming this fact don’t help.

There are other ways to upload and play video without exposing your company’s message to these kinds of scenarios. I don’t claim to know everything about either all free video services or paid services, but I do know there are alternatives.

A lot of companies are using Brightcove for example, where you pay by the month based on number of streams viewed. You can “skin” the player with your logo and company colors. It is embeddable, so it can be inserted into a company blog post, social media newsroom page, or on a third-party blog just like a YouTube video. The difference is, you’re now driving traffic to YOUR site instead of YouTube. Sure, more people are visiting YouTube, so if large numbers of views is your goal, I recommend BOTH approaches. Do you own branded embed on your company sites and then upload the same video to YouTube. Brightcove also manages hosting, so you don’t have to worry that demand spikes and bandwidth will be a problem.

There are a number of similar offerings to Brightcove, such as Permission TV, Maven Networks, KIT Digital, The FeedRoom, and VMIX, Twistage, and Move Networks. I have singled out Brightcove not because it is the best of these (though it may be), but because I am familiar with it.

Many of the services I’ve listed above, and many others, also offer streaming video, and this is generally done with an embeddable player, so most of the same concerns apply.

So if you want to upload video as part of your communications strategy, remember you have many options, and things might not be as simple as they seem. Make sure that your company’s message isn’t tarnished by being presented in the wrong context.

Tags: Brightcove, Vimeo, YouTube, Permission TV, Maven Networks, KIT Digital, The FeedRoom, VMIX, Twistage, Move Networks, embeddable video player, enterprise

I posted earlier today on the increasing emphasis placed on physical attractiveness in a world of cheap, universally available video. I was inspired to write that piece when I learned that Sam Lawrence, CMO of Jive Software, is recruiting for a director of communications using video.

He started by posting a video job requisition encouraging candidates to reply by video. Initially, Jive did not get any video responses, but a few were posted, like this one:

Click To Play

For the most part, I like this idea. It is particularly appropriate for recruiting a director of communications. Jive wants someone who is articulate, intelligent, well spoken, creative, and maybe a bit fearless. Jive also did a great job having several Jive employees and agency representatives on the requisition video to give candidates additional perspective on the company.

As for candidates, remember, once you post a video to a public site like Blip.tv, you have now interviewed with perhaps thousands of people. If another employer finds your video through a search, and they will, it will influence their perceptions of you as a candidate. If your video presents you well, great. If not, maybe you should delete it when you know the current search is done.

It’s nothing new in public relations and communications to hire attractive young people. And it’s perfectly acceptable that an employer recruit someone well spoken and articulate, and not unattractive, in a visible role as a company spokesperson.

Nonetheless, the video interview/application presents ethical issues for the employer. The most troublesome of these is that a video tells an employer the age of the applicant, information which has generally been unethical and illegal to collect. I hope employers will use this information fairly. To not do so would be unfair to candidates and might cause an employer to overlook highly qualified candidates who might not be at their best performing on the “small screen.”

Tags: jive software, video requisition, video application, blip.tv

Forget Gen X, Y and Z. If you’re comfortable with producing and posting videos of yourself for all the world to view, you’re a member of a more important group: Generation V.

Cheap (aka free) online video is the hot application. But beyond adding a dimension to informal online communications, the broad availability and adoption of this technology, and the enhanced emphasis on the visual, will bring about profound change, and not all for the better.

We once thought interpersonal video communication would be something delivered by the phone company (remember “the phone company”?). We’d put the baby in front of the phone so grandma could say hello. The original videophone was generally configured in a network of two nodes — the most exclusive, secure, closed network ever designed. The environment was totally non-threatening. Grandma wasn’t going to mock the baby for being “lame” or “not getting it” for posting a poorly produced video.

But with the democratization of the medium, the proliferation of tools for creating and sharing video, like YouTube, Seesmic, Utterz and Flickr Video, and the new ways in which video is being used, everything has changed. Despite protestations that video is just another element of “authentic conversation,” video is actually subject to harsh criticism from technologically sophisticated but often ill-mannered media consumers.

Therein lies the problem. We see video as media, not informal communications, and it is critiqued as such. Video places youth and attractiveness high on the scale of personal attributes. Our concept of a “good communicator” changes.

Consider Inez Sainz, sportscaster for TVazteca. This is the ultimate in superficiality. The story is content free. The storyteller is the story. For some reason, her “credentials” as a reporter are no longer relevant. But she sure is videogenic. (Note the photographer totally disinterested in the athlete, aka “the story,” his camera instead pointed at Sainz.)

I’m not saying that you have to be Inez Sains to compete in the world of online video. I only use this example to illustrate the extremes to which our obsession with attractiveness has already been taken. And if you’re a member of Generation V, you have a career and life advantage. You’re comfortable in front of a camera, reasonably photogenic and well spoken (or simply don’t care that you’re not), and secure enough in your own identity and worth, that the idea of posting a video for thousands to view does not result in a state of paralysis.

And if you’re not a member of Generation V, you should be aware of the implications. Everyone likes young attractive people. The very word “attractive” implies that. Scientific studies have actually defined beauty and our biological tendency toward the beautiful. Symmetry, for example, is a biological indicator of attractiveness. It is natural for us to like attractive people and to like being around them.

I have ventured into online video. Like many (most?) people, particularly in my “age group,” I don’t like the way I look and sound. I can accept that I am not hot. Video is ruled by youth. Those of us who are over 30 need to understand this, but that is not the same as ignoring it. I know I have to become more comfortable with all of this, and honestly, it puts even more pressure on me to be well-informed and to make my points clearly and convincingly. Because I have nothing to distract with.

I believe and hope eventually interpersonal video will be so commonplace, that it will no longer be seen as media, and will be evaluated on the basis of its content and the purpose of the communications, with appearance offering just one of the many dimensions used to evaluate people and their messages.

Tags: generation v, online video, seesmic, utterz, flickr video

This morning, Utterz, a social network that promises to let “anyone post instantly to their blogs, online journals, and social networks with voice, video, picture, and text right from their mobile phone,” launched a new web site, and upgraded its offering with extended functionality including a conversation threading feature designed to let users more easily find and track conversations of interest, and local support in 17 countries for the company’s moblog (blogging by mobile phone) technology.

I had the opportunity to speak Friday with Michael Bayer, the CEO of Utterz, and Sim Margolis, product and community manager for the company, about the update.

Users can already direct Utterz to a particular channel, such as sports or entertainment. On the new site, users will be able to add threading to engage with the community to facilitate group conversation and bring a much “richer conversational experience.”

Michael told me he wants Utterz to be seen as offering the most choice for users. “You can create these mashups of voice, video, pictures and text and turn them into Utterz. And we’re empowering people to choose how and where and when they communicate. We want to make it really easy for them to use the tools they want to use,” he said.

When I first tried Utterz, I was actually overwhelmed by the range of media and device types available, but as I used it, it became clear why this range of choice matters, and amounts to more than “bells and whistles.”

With Utterz, you can post from your desktop or from any mobile phone. Video Utterz can be created from an existing file or, with the new site, using a webcam. Audio Utterz can be created from the PC microphone, an existing audio file or by simply calling the Utterz moblog phone number and recording an Utter through your phone. It can then be auto-posted to Utterz and any of a number of blogging and microblogging environments. One of the key barriers to executive blogging in particular is the time commitment, and I think the Utterz mobile phone integration is a huge advance in this regard.

I recently did a study of a number of microblogging tools including Utterz, Seesmic, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku and Tumblr. I was in a café trying out a few tools. I’m ashamed to admit that I don’t have a webcam for my PowerBook, and if I did, I wouldn’t disturb the other patrons of the café by recording there live. So I stepped outside and called the Utterz moblog number and recorded an Utter. The interface was simple and quick.

As Sim explained it, “Utterz gives you pinpoint control over voice, video, pictures and text in any combination; and where it gets posted. You can decide all that from your phone.”

With the new site, every reply to an Utter becomes an Utter, and threads will include replies. Sim says Utterz’s threading employs a unique interface to let users “navigate into an interesting conversation and zero in on interesting threads” which they can then follow by “highlighting, expanding and collapsing.”

The folks at Utterz gave me some screen shots for an early look at the new site design:

Utterz has also expanded mobile phone support with local numbers in 17 new countries. The conversational video field might be getting a little crowded, with several entries, like Seesmic, jostling for the top spot, but Utterz is definitely a top contender and a company to watch.

Tags: moblog, utterz, threads, threading, video, audio, jaiku, pownce, tumblr, twitter, seesmic, michael bayer, sim margolis